Pretty sure I know the answer, but figured I'd confirm anyway. Second year at Navy. Young, inexperienced bench. Really slow team (42 speed). I'm playing a cupcake non-conference and should have defensive and athletic advantages in many games. But being so slow, I should probably play slowdown all year, right?

Slowdown has more to do with depth and stamina. If you got the advantage talent wise and want more possessions you play more uptempo. If you are trying to play with 8-9 players you want slowdown.

Basically what I was going to say reinsel. Speed is an important attribute that can determine if you have the advantage but it's not like faster players are better are running uptempo than slower players. Look at myers Dickinson's teams. He runs uptempo exclusively because he has a huge advantage in Ath/def and usually pretty good in depth/stam but speed is at best average.

Another question to ask - are you going to win the foul (free throw) battle. If you're better at forcing opponents into fouling (which superior ath does) then you might also want to go faster.

Posted by Benis on 11/26/2016 3:49:00 PM (view original):
Basically what I was going to say reinsel. Speed is an important attribute that can determine if you have the advantage but it's not like faster players are better are running uptempo than slower players. Look at myers Dickinson's teams. He runs uptempo exclusively because he has a huge advantage in Ath/def and usually pretty good in depth/stam but speed is at best average.

Another question to ask - are you going to win the foul (free throw) battle. If you're better at forcing opponents into fouling (which superior ath does) then you might also want to go faster.

Probably not. Historically, I haven't put a lot of practice time into FTs. I should work on that.

Posted by pallas on 11/26/2016 3:58:00 PM (view original):

Posted by Benis on 11/26/2016 3:49:00 PM (view original):
Basically what I was going to say reinsel. Speed is an important attribute that can determine if you have the advantage but it's not like faster players are better are running uptempo than slower players. Look at myers Dickinson's teams. He runs uptempo exclusively because he has a huge advantage in Ath/def and usually pretty good in depth/stam but speed is at best average.

Another question to ask - are you going to win the foul (free throw) battle. If you're better at forcing opponents into fouling (which superior ath does) then you might also want to go faster.

Probably not. Historically, I haven't put a lot of practice time into FTs. I should work on that.

You misunderstand me a bit.

It's not just about MAKING them. Just getting to the line is huge because it puts the other team in foul trouble. If their starters foul out early, it's great for you. If their backups foul out, their starters need to play tired, great for you. Once players start fouling out, it can just snowball for you. More of their players are playing tired. Tired players foul more. etc etc.

Posted by Benis on 11/26/2016 4:25:00 PM (view original):

Posted by pallas on 11/26/2016 3:58:00 PM (view original):

Posted by Benis on 11/26/2016 3:49:00 PM (view original):
Basically what I was going to say reinsel. Speed is an important attribute that can determine if you have the advantage but it's not like faster players are better are running uptempo than slower players. Look at myers Dickinson's teams. He runs uptempo exclusively because he has a huge advantage in Ath/def and usually pretty good in depth/stam but speed is at best average.

Another question to ask - are you going to win the foul (free throw) battle. If you're better at forcing opponents into fouling (which superior ath does) then you might also want to go faster.

Probably not. Historically, I haven't put a lot of practice time into FTs. I should work on that.

You misunderstand me a bit.

It's not just about MAKING them. Just getting to the line is huge because it puts the other team in foul trouble. If their starters foul out early, it's great for you. If their backups foul out, their starters need to play tired, great for you. Once players start fouling out, it can just snowball for you. More of their players are playing tired. Tired players foul more. etc etc.

Ah, I got now. Yeah, I'm not super athletic, but I should have an advantage in most of my games.

Also, they changed up the SIMAI and for some reason they're not playing their full bench. A lot of sims are now going only 9-10 deep. So you can try to exploit this too if you can.

I just looked at your team. You are definitely young, don't have good st or good reb. The ath/def will probably only take you so far. So yeah, I'd straddle the slow/normal line all season depending on matchups.

As Benis and reinsel said, number of pocessions is normally why you do want to play uptempo. If you have a major advantage with your best 10 over their best 10.

As was also pointed out, if you are playing 8 or 9 instead of 10.. You might slow down.

You might also slow down with a young team if you want to grow your starters more than your bench. You can get significantly more playing time for your starters compared to your bench players if you go slowdown and getting tired for the Starters. Of course that means more growth for the starters and less for the bench. You can also impact this by unchecking "play backups when winning" (or losing) on the team game plan.

Appreciate all the responses, fellas.

For the large part I agree with most of what's been said here, but if you think its even relatively close talent/depth wise then go slowdown, but if you're the clear favorite then run a normal tempo. Of course, you might wanna be more conservative with tempo against human coached teams. Good luck yo.