OT: University of North Texas wins NIT, Mean Green's coach hired by Texas Tech
- Thread starter TopFrog
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The Artist Formerly Known as PhormerPhrog
Full Member
He said see University of North Texas later.
LVH
Active Member
I think he is a really good coach and is a Tony Bennett disciple - a lot of people will hate the style he plays - University of North Texas ranked dead last, #363 of 363 in tempo this past season, even slower than Virginia. It's not going to be a system that will put butts in seats, but it is a system that will win
With the 30-second shot clock you're pretty limited in how slow you can go.
Besides, I think the "butts in seats" thing depends almost entirely on whether you're winning games or not. Beard's teams at Tech were always pretty slow and deliberate and they didn't seem to have a problem getting fans to enjoy the games. The fun of watching run-and-gun basketball while your team jacks up stupid shots and doesn't win many games wears off pretty quickly.
An-Cap Frog
Member
I C what you did there...
JogginFrog
Active Member
The challenge of the slow-paced, high-efficiency-possession style is less about putting butts in seats but putting talent on your roster (in order to win and get butts in seats). Talented guys want to win, but they also want to play a fun style.
Melding fun with defensive efficiency isn't easy...but fast-break offense is both fun and efficient. There doesn't appear to be a correlation of tempo with efficiency--note the scatterplot in this article, which shows plenty of high-tempo, high-efficiency coaches.
Theoretically, the more efficient you are, the more your advantage grows as possessions increase--which is another reason to focus on offensive efficiency (and possibly a contributor to so many of UVa's tournament losses to double-digit seeds).
Defensive efficiency and an efficient fast-break offense usually go hand in hand. Hard to beat a team down the floor and get a good shot on a fast break when you have to grab the ball after it's come through the net and take it out of bounds first.
If you want to push the ball and get up and down the floor all game (and play quality defense) you better have some depth on your team and kids better get comfortable with the idea of playing less than they normally would.
