Bench, I know I know

[CU44SE]

its been beaten to death but I just want to say a couple things before I move past it. I understand Boeheim wants to play his best players, yada yada yada. But when you run the players into the ground they get tired, beat up, and are less effective. Also, when you dont develop a bench you are more susceptible to a poor game because you limit the ability of someone coming off the bench and giving you a spark. There have been countless times in the Tournament when a no-name kid plays the game of his life and gives the team just enough to pull out the win. Look at Silent G as an example, the kid was the most productive player on the court the other night. If we developed a bench throughout the season, maybe a guy like Roberson is ready for the big stage and he can also come off the bench and provide a spark, or even a guy like Patterson. If you look at the odds, if you only have 5 guys play the majority of the minutes (which we do), then you have a much higher chance of losing due to players having an off game then you would if you played 7 or 8 guys consistently. You give your self some cover in case some players are ineffective, which several players had a bad game against dayton.

Also, there has been talk about players not getting to loose balls like earlier in the year. That can also be attributed to fatigue. When players are tired they are less likely to dive and get on the floor for loose balls. I understand people say these are 19-20 year old kids and they should be able to handle it, but they are mentally and physically drained. These kids are playing over 30 games a year and getting beat up. I come home from pickup and am sore the next day, I can only imagine what a 30 game season in Div 1 basketball must be like. I just think that if we developed a bench, the players would be fresher, which would lead to more loose ball recoveries and better shooting (legs wont be tired) to name just a few. Idk about you guys, but I would have taken an extra 4 losses this year to develop a bench and still be playing into next weekend. As Boeheim said, the regular season doesnt matter to much if you dont produce in the NCAA tournament and I think sometimes Boeheim gets to caught up in winning regular season games and does not prepare his team for March.

I know people will disagree, but thats just my two cents.

 

[NineOneSeven]

Who says we lose 4 games while developing the bench?

 

[SWC75]

We played 3 games in the last two weeks of the season. Fatigue might have been an issue at the end of the regular season but this team had plenty of rest for the post season.

And they all want to play in the NBA where they will play 82 games.

 

[upperdeck]

these kids might get down emotionally but physically no way

 

[joct]

these kids might get down emotionally but physically no way

That's kind of what I thought too. Other than when things were rolling when they had a couple of runs and got leads against FSU and WMU, their body language looked awful to me. No confidence at all during the entire bad stretch.

 

[TheCusian]

JB believes a player develops best in practice 1st, games second. Not sure why every thread seems to not grasp this.

You can say - I think you're wrong. Players need game time to develop. But you'd be going against the 2nd winningest coach coming off a final four run where his PG developed I'm practice became a star and us probably NBA ROY.

 

[TheCusian]

That's kind of what I thought too. Other than when things were rolling when they had a couple of runs and got leads against FSU and WMU, their body language looked awful to me. No confidence at all during the entire bad stretch.

Agreed. I think it stemmed from JB's outburst at the Duke game. CJ questioned him - out goes the entire teams mental focus. My 2 cents.

 

[capeorange]

We have had some great players coming off the bench the past few years, Dion, MCW, Kris Joseph, James Sutherland, KO, etc.
The bottom line is in the recent past JB knew the bench had capable players and he played them.
Some kids take longer to develop. Remember we lost a lot of depth last year and our bench has 4 freshmen who JB thought were not ready to contribute for one reason or another.