Reply to thread

Message: [QUOTE="Sherman20, post: 3226631, member: 6357"] I understand your argument and share your frustration, but I believe it’s worth thinking deeper about JB’s rationale for this tendency he has to play certain guys big minutes and give other guys, with seemingly similar talents or skill sets, very little playing time. Remember in 2016-17 when he chose to go with Gillon over Frank at PG? At the time, he said that Gillon was probably playing better—“just a little bit better”—than Frank. But instead of roughly splitting their minutes or just giving Gillon 25-30 minutes and Frank the leftovers, he said we’re going to go with one guy for the bulk of the time. The idea, I think, is that he wants the chosen player (who he sees as more ready to contribute) to get comfortable faster and relax and not have to worry about being pulled for a mistake. He wants to speed up their development. It’s the flip side of our arguments to get Goodine or Washington more minutes at guard, for example. Any minutes you give to Goodine or Washington takes away from Girard’s time learning the PG position and getting better at it. If you split the game-playing minutes between, say, Girard and Goodine at PG, they’re arguably going to improve at a lesser/slower rate if you’re playing them less time. (As college freshman, especially, the improvement can come exponentially as they get more game experience.) I think the idea is to get Girard as much experience/minutes playing PG before conference play starts in order to get him up to speed and ready to compete in the ACC. Likewise with Buddy, who’s only a sophomore. He has a lot of improvement to make on the defensive end and in learning how to pick his spots getting into the lane, so the staff wants to get him as much game experience as possible... It sort of speaks to that Malcolm Gladwell concept that it takes a certain amount of hours of deliberate practice (10,000) to become an expert in any field. Anyway, it’s food for thought. JB must have several rationales for running certain guys heavy minutes. Part of it, of course, is that even a tired starter is better than an inexperienced bench player. But he’s proven in the past to be fine splitting minutes when it’s warranted and the talent is close to the same or the players offer slightly different skill sets/advantages (Triche and Scoop, for example, at the PG position). [/QUOTE]

Verification: What is a Syracuse fan's favorite color?