Players tired/short bench

[CU44SE]

There are many reasons why we have faded down the stretch, but I believe one of the biggest reasons is a lack of depth, more importantly Boeheim's lack of faith in the freshman. I think we can all agree that they will never progress riding the bench, they need playing time at some point. We can afford some loses in the regular season as long as we are ready and rested for the stretch run. I went back and looked at the last 6 National Championship teams and the minutes played per game in conference. It was pretty eye opening and I believe this is a main reason why this team has faded.

Here are the takeaways

Cuse
- CJ 39.4 mpg
- Ennis 37.9 mpg
- Cooney 35 mpg
- Grant 34 mpg
- Christmas 25.5 mpg
- Kieta 15.6 mpg
- Silent G 14.2 mpg

- The top player among the 6 Championship teams was Kemba Walker at 38.9 mpg

- Duke was a very interesting team and were the most similar to us with 3 players over 36mpg ranking #2, #3, and #4 respectively. Scheyer-37.6mpg; Singler-37.8mpg; Smith 36.8 mpg.

- The 5th highest mpg was Dieng last year, averaging 34.1 mpg.

-In comparing our players to the other 40 eligible players (players averaging over 16mpg, 40% of the game) from the past 6 championship teams, Grant, which is averaging the fourth most mpg on this team, would rank sixth (.1mpg) behind Dieng.

- CJ AND Ennis would rank #1 and #3 among the 40 eligible players. Not to mention that Ennis is only a freshman.

-Cooney would rank 5th on this list.

- Our top 4 players would all be in the top 10 in mpg among those 40 players eligible. The only team closely resembling these stats is the Duke team from 2009-2010.

-Not to mention we have the least amount of guys eligible for this list. We have only 5 guys that average above 16 mpg. Louisville had 8, Kentucky had 6, Uconn had 6, Duke had 6, UNC had 6, and Kansas had 7. Even one more player receiving more minutes would lessen the burden on everyone else.

-You may argue Kieta is just below that average, but these other teams also have players that are right at the 14 or 15 mpg status as Kieta and Silent G.

I guess my main point is these guys are exhausted, they have played so much and left it all out on the floor and it appears to be finally catching up to them. The first thing that usually goes when people are tired is their jump shot and our shooting percentage has decreased steadily over the past several games.

 

[two3zone]

CJ and Tyler didn't look too tired the other night.

 

[NineOneSeven]

Wow, forgot about Scheyer.

When we won in '03, 8 players played 13+ mins.

 

[BludOrange]

Kids are not tired from playing two games a week. Duke played four games in one week and still beat us in the fourth game.

 

[CU44SE]

CJ and Tyler didn't look too tired the other night.

Its more of a trend then a game by game analysis.

CJ shot 44% over the first 21 games of the year, in the last nine games he is shooting 39.7%.

Ennis had 30 Turnovers (1.4 game) in the first 21 games, he has 20 (2.2 game) over the last 9. Ennis is also shooting 36.2% over the last 9 games where as he shot 42.5 % over the first 21 games.

 

[br801]

Its more of a trend then a game by game analysis.

CJ shot 44% over the first 21 games of the year, in the last nine games he is shooting 39.7%.

Ennis had 30 Turnovers (1.4 game) in the first 21 games, he has 20 (2.2 game) over the last 9. Ennis is also shooting 36.2% over the last 9 games where as he shot 42.5 % over the first 21 games.

While fatigue may be somewhat of a factor, it's not unusual to see offensive efficiency fall off once players get into conference play and the level of competition (and the number of road games) increases.