So, when CTG put Micah and Condo in the Arkansas game together tonight, I paid close attention after reading Eric's analysis. Sure enough, the Gator lead quickly ballooned. That may be a combination going forward we can use to make things happen. It just seemed like the floor opened up and Riley took advantage of it. The tricky part will be finding the minutes for everyone. Certainly we can't take Tyrese's minutes away when he's racking up another double double. My feeling is, start Micah and Tyrese, let teams trade punches, then slip Condo in alongside Micah for 5 minutes, then send Tyrese back in to spell Micah.
I was watching the bigs rotation as well. Micah and Condo had two really good rotations during the game. I didn't track point diff but it was clearly a positive difference in the game. I also took note that Haugh only played 4 minutes. I felt that might have limited the negative effect on Samuels. I'm not implying Haugh should not play but its clear our 2 bigs combo approach is best played with Micah, Samuels, and Condo, at least when we play Arkansas. Now Tenn will be a whole other situation and Haugh will have to play better D and step up his game.
Hauch treats the basketball like a hot potato. As soon as he gets it he is looking to pass it to someone else immediately and set a pick for someone. Is like to see him be a little more aggressive offensively, if for no other reason than to at least appear to be some type of threat to score and command some defensive attention. He can certainly shoot the rock. Maybe he would get more minutes, unless he is doing what Golden tells him to do, just run around setting screens, rebounding, and fouling.
We may have played our best, most complete game last night, so we may have identified the rotations and minutes going forward for the best results. I think if Haugh and Denzel come in and are particularly effective in a given game, or if one of the main guys is struggling or in foul trouble, they may get extended minutes. Otherwise, they may be 5-to-10 minute guys the rest of the season. It'll be an 8-man rotation, which I think is CTG's preference (he's said 8 to 9 in the past, IIRC). We went hard and fast, lots of possessions, with mostly 8 guys, with little or no sign of fatigue that I could see. The subbing was equitable so nobody logged Iron Man minutes (35+) and got worn out. Zyon had 33 minutes; everyone else had less than 30. Zyon's stamina reminds me of Lee Humphrey, a dude that NEVER looked winded. What we got last night gives us a chance at actually beating UT in Knoxville. It's usually hard to win on the road against ANY SEC team, and much harder against the top teams, but you to want to be within a couple of possessions in the last five minutes to give yourself a good shot at the win.
A big difference I notice between this year and last year is that I don't see the long dry spells on offense so much this year. 5-minute droughts have been a common Gator thread in recent years.
Good point. It seems more like the other teams' runs come us doing turnovers (especially transition) on consecutive possessions.
I don't have that data handy (intend to parse it out of the play-by-play at some point if I don't find it somewhere first), but this combo will provide a sense of how were doing in this area. We've dramatically increased our tempo without sacrificing points for each of the increased possessions.
Okay, help me to understand that graph. It appears that we're now ranked 7th in tempo and that our CTG Points per possession are a little higher than CMW's best season. Therefore, the greater number of possessions is producing much more points. As long as we play sound defense then, we'll be quite good. Anyway, this brand of hoops is a lot more fun to watch. And probably easier to recruit top players to. Just let 'em know we're THE training ground for a career in the NBA.