Posted by girt25 on 6/23/2012 10:48:00 PM (view original):
I'm positive that they do not inherently favor or penalize fast or slow players. I've been through this ad nauseum with two different regimes.
As far as the data re: effectiveness, that's a different topic.
you are saying that running uptempo with 50spd average and 70 average, there is no inherent advantage or disadvantage?
i suppose our disagreement may come to the use of the work "inherent". i could concede there is no explicit advantage, but i do think there are indirect advantages that are inherent in uptempo.
i point to fg% as the basis of my argument. the long standing CS claims on tempo (which are historically misleading, so im not sure your going through this with two regimes means a lot, sadly) is that fg% isn't affected. that has been proven false, or as close as you get to proof in this game. i believe that in truth, ON AVERAGE, in CS simulation, their fg% was not affected, and that explains their misleading comments. this doesn't really mean anything though, if you are concerned about play between top 10 teams and WIS is looking at the whole body.
in short, the reason fg% is unaffected on average is because of a balance between two opposing factors. 1, uptempo will lead to more high % shots, fast break opportunities and the like. 2, uptempo will lead to more low % shots, because in the half court, you are clearly penalized for rushing. so on average, these may balance - you get a couple more fast break shots, which may take a 50% shot to 90%, but you get a whole bunch of 50% shots knocked to 45% in the half court (just using the numbers to illustrate the point). however, against a good defense - the fast break opportunities diminish, and the impact on your shooting is increased. and that is where my several year old advice of, never run uptempo against great defense was born.
i would argue that your fast break opportunities are more likely to increase with higher speed. and thus, uptempo inherently (not explicitly, but implicitly) favors teams with higher speed. i suppose you could argue that this speed advantage is inherent in fast break opportunities, not uptempo, but as the fb opportunities are a key part of uptempo, i think its fair to say the speed advantage is inherent in both.
moreover, the lower the quality of your offense, the lower quality of defense it takes to crush uptempo, turning it into a very negative proposition (which it is, generally speaking, at the high levels of play. i would argue teams cut their chance fully in half, and at least a third, when they ran uptempo into my best defensive teams - and i have quite a few data points to base that on). because speed is such a huge factor in guard offense, which dominates the game, speed should be a major factor in your decision to use uptempo or not (and generally, you should not).
so im not sure if its just choice of words, but my point is simple, speed is a major factor in the decision to use uptempo or not. and even though you should rarely, if ever, run uptempo, its more so the case that you should avoid uptempo with lower speed.
to the OP, no surprise you find your team struggling with uptempo. in my prime, tempo is one of the things i spent the most time studying, if not the most, and my conclusion is simply that it has no place in high end play in this day and age. in another day, when d2 and d3 teams could sign players ridiculously higher up, when most coaches didn't know such things were possible, the gap between the #1 and #10 team was dramatically higher than it is today - some of rails's west chester PA teams were probably 98% favorites over #2. in THAT day and age, uptempo was viable in top 10 play. today, not so much. even the teams i fielded who i would bet heavily were well over 50% favorites to win the NT, they weren't enough better than the competition to merit uptempo. simply, most of my advantage came from team planning and game planning, but the talent gaps were dwarfed by those on rails's west chester PA team, in the era of higher pulldown potential and few coaches knowing the trick.
until seble revamps tempo, i still strongly maintain, no more than 1 in 100 and more likely far fewer high end teams should play uptempo by default. i do believe that in the new engine, uptempo became more viable CONDITIONALLY, and thus, slightly more viable in general, but really outside of that 1 condition, its terrible at high end play. and still very suspect. for many many seasons, during the NT, i would just pray to see my opponent run tempo into my defense, and soon as i pulled up the PBP and saw "uptempo", i breathed a sigh of relief. there is simply nothing else, within reason, that comes close to wreaking as much havoc on high end teams. these teams typically run uptempo all season, only playing a few top 25 teams - when you are like 98+ percent to win, it really is a wash, uptempo or not - or else, nobody can really detect going from 98% to 97 nor 99%. and the coaches see bigger win margins against lower teams, and think, this is great! and its almost impossible to draw a conclusion if you have only 3 real opponents all season, about how to play against tough competition. then come NT time, if you are a top team, you likely have to beat a few others to win it all, and uptempo is just going to wreck your chances, utterly. i never play uptempo myself, although i concede its probably sub optimal. really against vastly inferior teams, its probably the way to go, but i scarcely care to optimize my play against the #150 team if i am lucky enough to be #1.
6/24/2012 1:32 PM (edited)