Reply to thread

Message

[QUOTE="RF2044, post: 140548, member: 40"]
Here's the thing--"coaching" relies upon the execution of the players. Coaches might be brilliant tacticians, but if their players can't execute the strategy, or if the other team simply imposes it's will, then the strategy "doesn't work" even though it might be sound.

Case in point: I watched the 1996 SU / Georgia NCAA tournament game over the holidays with my father. Great game--one of the all time classics of the Boeheim era. At the end of overtime, Georgia hits a three to go up by a point with about 7 seconds to go. Clock stops. We inbound to John Wallace, who can't get it to a guard, takes it coast to coast and hits a long three to win the game.

In postgame replays, they show Boeheim on the sidelines hesitating as he almost calls timeout with his hands, but he decides to let it ride. When he was being interviewed by Al McGuire [RIP] after the game, he actually said something to the effect that he very nearly called timeout, but since JDub was a our best player he didn't. Wallace hits the shot, and Boeheim looks like a genius for not calling TO. But what if he missed? Would that have made him a bad coach, or made his decision to not call TO poor strategy?

Don't get me wrong--I think Boeheim coached well last night. I continue to be impressed by his utilization of the bench--there are a lot of posters who insisted that we will never play more than 7.5 and that you "can't teach an old dog new tricks" who are eating crow. But I think that the majority of the credit goes to the players for being so freaking good, they make Boeheim's job as a game coach relatively easy.
[/QUOTE]

Verification

What is a Syracuse fan's favorite color?