Ayo
What up, Bird?
- Joined
- Sep 8, 2012
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Or Wake greatly underachieved last year and overachieved this year, and VT greatly overachieved last year and did about what was expected this year. They also lost one of their 3 best players near the end of the season. Not much of a difference in aggregate in my mind.One went from 2 ACC wins to 9. The other went from 10 to.. 10. Buzz underachieved and Manning overachieved, based on their roster. I don't really think that's arguable based on literally every single pre-season evaluation.
As for the "then do so" comment, that's pretty easy. If benching your best players out of the gate and then making up for the lost minutes later in the game is a better strategy than starting your best 5, please list the successful teams who benched their top 2 players. I can think of a few rare examples where a 6th man was better than his starting counterpart, but I can't think of any team that intentionally started games by putting out 2 non-starters. That's likely a better argument than the simple reality that you are intentionally countering your opponent's best 5 players with only 3 of your best 5 to start the game. Decades of basketball theory say starters matter, but that's boring I guess.
If Manning won 10 ACC games last year and brought back that level of talent, these boards would be ROASTING him for a first round exit and only one ACC tourney win. Hell, some posters are giving him a C rating for THIS year.
As to your 2nd paragraph, I don't have any examples, but I'm really not sure a lack of examples makes an argument. I don't really think there's a significant effect of not starting your best players yet playing them starter-level minutes. Certainly not an "easily a couple wins" difference. But I'd love to see some data on it. Say, VT's scoring margin in the first 5 minutes of games this season vs. their scoring margin in 5-minute intervals the rest of the game.
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