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Message: [QUOTE="billsin01, post: 1223472, member: 837"] Again, these are two separate points: 1) Building depth, playing a deeper rotation and committing to system where you're getting more players involved in meaningful games is sound basketball strategy. JB's reluctance to go deeper into the bench is a legit criticism and a very likely factor in our struggles during the grind of conference play (although, let's be clear that when we talk about Feb. swoons, we're discussing a program that has not won fewer than 27 games since '07-'08, hasn't been lower than a 4-seed in the tourney in that time and the 'worst' regular season in that span yielded a 4 seed and a final four run). Regardless, point is that a deeper bench would be a good thing. 2) This idea: Play freshmen at the expense of winning a game or two in December because the improvements in those freshmen will yield more wins in ACC play in February and make us more dangerous in March. It will also mitigate the disaster of losing key players to academics and/or discipline and/or injury. This second point is ridiculous. Freshmen don't develop into key rotational guys simply because they're playing. Freshmen develop because they get better mentally, they develop physically, they practice their craft with a great coaching staff, etc. Yes, minutes are good -- I agree. But 17-year-old BJ Johnson wasn't going to be averaging double-figures this year because he logged 175 minutes instead of 65 minutes last year. It just doesn't work that way. Would be great if it did, but it doesn't. So my point is -- if you want to criticize JB, do it for the right reason. You can go after his roster management, and/or his player development and/or his recruiting, and/or his strength and conditioning philosophies. I'm fine with that. Don't agree per se, but if you're going to criticize him do it for the right thing. [/QUOTE]

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