There is some worry in MU land that the Big 4 are playing way to many minutes and will wear down this year. Looks like we might not be the only ones who have a very short bench where starters play lots of minutes. ND's minutes tonight against Louisville in a game that went into OT:
Harangody 45 minutes
McAlarney 44 minutes
T. Jackson 43 minutes
Ayers 39 minutes
Bench 27 minutes
Also Terrance Williams and Earl CLark for Louisville went 43 minutes each.
ND was completely gassed even before going into overtime. We'll be lucky to have no OT games down the stretch.
based on watching us this year and the few games i've watched of ND, I think we have a much better conditioned team than ND. If we do have any OT games this year, I wouldn't mind if one is against ND.
Last night, ND reminded me of MU in the Tennessee game. They are pretty thin, as we are. Buzz needs to find some way to get some additional minutes off the bench. We need that 7th, 8th and 9th guy, or hard fought physical games - especially against bigger teams, are going to be our undoing. Fortunately, there aren't many of those in the Big East. :D
Keep in mind that more minutes isn't somethign that always leads to bad results. UNLV in the early 90's played a ton of minutes with their started and because of how well conditioned they were it didn't matter. Now I am not saying MU is that good, but titles have been won with teams that have had a thin bench.
Everyone keeps pointing out the minutes played. Big deal! I think minutes played is a horrible way to accurately judge how much rest a player is getting during the game. (and no I don't know a better way to judge it except by looking at the play by play substitutions).
Example: DJ is subbed out at the 13:00 minute mark of the 1st half, he then gets that minute plus the next TV timeout, which we will say is at 11:30. This same scenario happens in the second half but twice at the under 16 timeout and at the under 8 timeout. Then he plays the rest of the game. Under that scenario he has played approximately 35.5 minutes of the game. But has he really? All about strategic breaks.
During each of those breaks he probably ends up with 5 minutes of time on the bench. So 15 total minutes. Is that better or would it be better if he sat out a 4 minute stretch of gametime from say the under 12:00 timeout til the under 8:00 timeout. I'll leave up to your opinions
well said strokin....BTW Brey has played his players like that for about 5 years now and they have seemed to fair pretty well.
I'm still having a hard time understanding why everyone is harping on the minutes played. if you compare the big 4's minutes this year to those last year there isn't a substantial difference.
wes - 28.8 to 31
jerel - 30.2 to 32.1
dom - 30.3 to 30.4 ---- he was averaging 33.2 min/g his soph yr.
lazar - 25.4 to 28.5
if you are telling me that our bench is so thin this year, what was the reason last year for them playing 30+ minutes a game.
Quote from: MU gimp ONE on January 13, 2009, 10:27:32 AM
I'm still having a hard time understanding why everyone is harping on the minutes played. if you compare the big 4's minutes this year to those last year there isn't a substantial difference.
wes - 28.8 to 31
jerel - 30.2 to 32.1
dom - 30.3 to 30.4 ---- he was averaging 33.2 min/g his soph yr.
lazar - 25.4 to 28.5
if you are telling me that our bench is so thin this year, what was the reason last year for them playing 30+ minutes a game.
The problem as I see it is that those numbers (I assume) include the entirety of last season, but only 4 BE games so far this season. Acker, Cubillan, etc. certainly played more against the likes of IPFW than they have/will against the BE -- meaning those spreads are likely to increase somewhat significantly over the course of the next 14 games.
I am not concerned about them wearing down over the course of the season necessarily, as I am within individual games. Minutes played in and of itself may not be a big deal, but it is difficult to conclude that we can consistently hang with big, deep physical teams of the Big East playing 6+ guys. Then again, as was demonstrated againts Rutgers, playing Acker and Cubillan could be an equally dicey proposition.
As Buzz correctly keeps pointing out, we need to defend without fouling. If we get into significant foul trouble, we're more than likely going to lose.
disagree with you NAvin, I beleive what you are seeing and will continue to see across the BE is coaches going with short benches. These games are wars and every one of them has huge implications. Of all the BE games I have seen each team had a very short bench unless necessitated by foul trouble. My guess is you can look around the league at minutes played in BE games and we are not a whole lot different than our peers.
Buzz obviously has the Rutgers game wearing on him, because he's stated it to the press now on at least two occasions. You can't have guys playing 40 minutes a game (McNeal and DJ) and never use the bench. He'll end up losing the interest of his bench entirely if he does. They need to stay sharp, focused, interested. That's half the battle. Yes, the team lost a lead to Rutgers, but that's because of what combination of reserves he had put in there and he waited too long to use timeouts, IMO. He seems so scared by the Rutgers game that he's essentially telling the bench he'll never use them again, or at least so sparingly that I'm afraid he will lose them entirely.
There is going to be a time we have to use these guys, it's a long season, injuries happen and fatigue is a factor. Our guys are capable of playing on the bench, they've proven that the previous few years. The less and less we use them, the more of a liability they become. By no means am I saying put them in for 10 minutes, but on the reverse side, having McNeal and James playing 40 minutes in a game that became a blowout is hard to justify. Guys get hurt when they are fatigued.
Quote from: ChicosBailBonds on January 13, 2009, 12:29:15 PM
Buzz obviously has the Rutgers game wearing on him, because he's stated it to the press now on at least two occasions. You can't have guys playing 40 minutes a game (McNeal and DJ) and never use the bench. He'll end up losing the interest of his bench entirely if he does. They need to stay sharp, focused, interested. That's half the battle. Yes, the team lost a lead to Rutgers, but that's because of what combination of reserves he had put in there and he waited too long to use timeouts, IMO. He seems so scared by the Rutgers game that he's essentially telling the bench he'll never use them again, or at least so sparingly that I'm afraid he will lose them entirely.
There is going to be a time we have to use these guys, it's a long season, injuries happen and fatigue is a factor. Our guys are capable of playing on the bench, they've proven that the previous few years. The less and less we use them, the more of a liability they become. By no means am I saying put them in for 10 minutes, but on the reverse side, having McNeal and James playing 40 minutes in a game that became a blowout is hard to justify. Guys get hurt when they are fatigued.
+1
Sometimes I understand why Crean never said anything of significance to the media. What purpose does Buzz telling reporters that he is afraid to use his bench serve? We suffer a pretty significant drop-off when Butler subs for McNeal/Matthews/Hayward, and an even bigger drop-off when Acker subs for James, but that drop-off is going to keep getting worse if Ackler doesn't get 5 min/game. It is not good for the bench players when TV announcers are mentioning that Buzz is not comfortable playing two bench guys at once.
Quote from: CTWarrior on January 13, 2009, 01:06:34 PM
It is not good for the bench players when TV announcers are mentioning that Buzz is not comfortable playing two bench guys at once.
Why? You seem to be implying they don't know this. I suspect the fact that they don't play is all they need to figure it out. I don't think they need the TV announcers to make the message any more clear.
Quote from: NavinRJohnson on January 13, 2009, 02:36:47 PM
I don't think they need the TV announcers to make the message any more clear.
While I'm sure they can figure it out, putting myself in their shoes I wouldn't be too thrilled that my coach was pointing this out to people who would broadcast it to a national audience.
One thing about a bunch of set plays is that it makes it easier for guys to come off the bench and get right in the flow of things. WIthout that, players need minutes to get in the flow of things. I've never been a fan of Acker's, but I would like to know that we could survive if he had to play extended minutes. The less Acker plays, the less useful he will be if and when we need him. Buzz may just figure we're toast if we do need him so let's go all out with our best, but he doesn't have to broadcast it.
Quote from: ChicosBailBonds on January 13, 2009, 12:29:15 PM
Buzz obviously has the Rutgers game wearing on him, because he's stated it to the press now on at least two occasions. You can't have guys playing 40 minutes a game (McNeal and DJ) and never use the bench. He'll end up losing the interest of his bench entirely if he does. They need to stay sharp, focused, interested. That's half the battle. Yes, the team lost a lead to Rutgers, but that's because of what combination of reserves he had put in there and he waited too long to use timeouts, IMO. He seems so scared by the Rutgers game that he's essentially telling the bench he'll never use them again, or at least so sparingly that I'm afraid he will lose them entirely.
There is going to be a time we have to use these guys, it's a long season, injuries happen and fatigue is a factor. Our guys are capable of playing on the bench, they've proven that the previous few years. The less and less we use them, the more of a liability they become. By no means am I saying put them in for 10 minutes, but on the reverse side, having McNeal and James playing 40 minutes in a game that became a blowout is hard to justify. Guys get hurt when they are fatigued.
You look at it as a negative while I look at it as a positive. Buzz has recognized that he didn't use his bench against WV due to the Rutgers game. He now needs to balance when and how much to use the bench. Also lets not forget that the WV game was close for over 3/4s of that game and with us being the home team we needed that win.
The bench meanwhile can all look at the lack of playing team as a challenge. Have good practices. Get in the game, make an impact or better yet, don't look lost and those individuals will get more minutes.
But getting back to the WV game and the lack of minutes, Buzz has also stated numerous times that he does not feel comfortable playing with less than 3 out of the Big 4 at any one point in time in a meaningful game. Acker ended up not playing due to Lazar being sick and Matthews in foul trouble as Buzz had to rely on DJ and McNeal. Acker is a key contributor to this team. He knows it. The team knows it. Buzz knows it. Under any other circumstance, he would have played some valuable minutes. Same with Butler and Hazel in that they also know that they need to bring it every game. Hopefully Otule and/or Fulce make that big jump to become another contributor.
Does anybody have any insight into what their practices are like? I've never played, and thus I don't know the difference between having 2-3 hour practices and playing 30 min/game vs having 1-2 hr practices and playing 35 minutes a game. I know O'Neill had 3 hour practices early in the season. I was around the team when Deane was coaching, and he maxed out with 2 hour practices (they'd get shorter as the season went on) in part to keep guys fresh all season. I think they generally played better and fresher down the stretch and in the conference tournaments than Crean's teams, who from what I heard had those long 2-3 hour practices, and even had all-out scrums on game days (instead of simple shootarounds to just work up a sweat and maybe go through the scouting report like Deane did), and seemed to fizzle out down the stretch and in the conference tourneys more often than not. Now I'm probably wrong on some of those specifics, but my main question is essentially how big a part is practice time in this whole equation? Zero? A lot? Marginal? If the guys are practicing less, is it ok to play more minutes? Or does practicing less hurt your conditioning?
good question Monster. It will probably have a big effect down the stretch depending on how Buzz is running practices. Anyone have any insight?
Saw in the paper today, that Gody, McAlarney and Jackson have played for 584 out of the available 615 minutes in ND's 5 Beast games. Only 31 minutes of bench time amongst them. That's averaging 38/game.
Syracuse has a short bench, so does GTown
the Ogre and McAlarney have played all but about 2 minutes in the past 5 games. I think our guards are slightly better conditioned.