I wouldn't worry to much about the strategy impacting winning margin. What is much more important is just winning when it comes down to the committee.
NET is largely irrelevant in the whole scope of selecting teams. If you get quality W's, road wins, win all the games you should (avoid bad losses) - do good in the things you are supposed to per the committee -- the NET will work itself out, even if impacted a bit by margin -- it will never be the thing that holds you back from getting in.
But getting back to the take the air out of the ball strategy and impact on KP or NET. The hold the ball strategy, could have a slight negative impact on net possession efficiency, but extremely marginal. It represents about 10-12% of the overall possessions in a handful of games... maybe 2-3% of our overall possessions of the year, in a possession efficiency system.
You want to know what hurts our NET several times more - not being able to blowout teams, or much less even execute a slow down strategy, against the likes of Colgate, Bryant, and the worst p5 team in the last 20 years in Louisville. Even worse, being down to all those teams 38 minutes into the game or later.
And what hurts us even more this year is our late game play in close games down the wire against quality teams because that impact's W's directly -- and the committee is much more concerned about W's and L's than NET.
