M-Borg vs. THE Flavortown U Thread, Orig. by Buckeye Paul, absconded w/by talent.

[Rob F]

You bet pace matters, my Grandfather had a pacemaker installed, he's since returned to having "relations".

WAAAAAAY TMI!

[Hannibal]

That makes sense if you are trying to make more posessions to reduce the effect of streaks and runs, but if you take less than optimal shots, your field goal percentage will be lower, and you will commit more turnovers. IMHO an average basketball game already has enough posessions to smooth out the extremes, so focusing on points per poesession is probably a good strategy. I dont' have stats to back up that opinion though.

[iam416]

Michigan has the scorers and players to get quality shots relatively early in the shot clock. They could probably get a quality look running 15-20 seconds of offense. Instead, they generally kill off 10 seconds doing jack shit. For example, Burke pass to the wing, stroll down to the opposite block come back to the opposite wing to get the ball and eventually end up at the top of the key. Where he started.

Michigan picks up roughly 0.15 points per possession (using TO% and effective FG% only). If they can add another 10 possessions to the game, which they could fairly easily, that's an extra 1.5 points to the margin. Most of the time that's insignificant, but in close games those points could be huge.

[Hannibal]

I'm heavily conditioned by the Fab Five years. I have pretty strong memories of watching Indiana and Duke own their asses by patiently waiting to take good shots while Michigan turned it over a bunch of times or took shitty shots. You might say that has prejudiced me in favor of simply making the most out of every posession.

[iam416]

Anyway, Hanni -- just watch what they do for the first 10-15 seconds of a set. It's typically passive.

That said, some very efficient teams plays slow. So, it works. I prefer upping the pace a bit when you have a bunch of good scoring options.

[hack]

Certainly I prefer your logic to my attempt at guessing what Beilein's is. And they do basically fart around for 10-15 seconds. My take is that you don't make your basic assumption that ``it's a game of possessions'' and craft an offensive philosophy around that. It may be logical, but when basketball games become meaningful it's just too hard to create quality shots on a regular basis, so you don't base your strategy on doing it.

[iam416]

Zero way they can win a game officiated like this. 3 minutes in I knew Craft would be sitting soon. Only a matter of time for Thomas.

[The Oracle]

What, correctly?

[The Oracle]

Looks like AZ didn't read a scouting report on DeShaun.

[entropy]

Bad foul by craft... Give them free throws plus you are now worthless on D

[Dr. Strangelove]

Huge game from Ross. Huuuuuge

[The Oracle]

Huge last 10mins for sure.

[hack]

At first it was nice coming out the second half to see a Big Ten team flex its muscle. And then it was annoying to see OSU further destroy my belief in karma.

Good luck in the next round, assholes.

[The Oracle]

Like they'll need it playing a 20 seed.

[hack]

Exactly. There is no god.