Posted by reddyred on 8/9/2012 7:45:00 AM (view original):
no need to apologize to me rogelio, thats why I spoke on the game. I just think it's unfortunate that people have a desire to make others feel foolish about what they post in the forums when it really isn't warranted. I would like to believe that the coaches who come here are just thirsty for knowledge and are working collectively to either prove or dispel different theories. It's ok to disagree, but is it necessary to be a dick in the process?
and billyg, why should I have lost this game? I would just like to hear your reasoning.
im not sure if the top part is addressed to me, but i definitely felt the other poster had some attitude towards me, and was a little i dont know, insulting maybe? in his post. i didn't feel i had anything in my earlier posts to warrant it, but you never know, its easy to say something that is taken the wrong way. maybe i said something he took differently than intended, or maybe he didnt mean anything negative by his post, and i was just reading into it. it happens, in any form of text messages, at times (unfortunately). regardless, sorry if i offended someone.
anyway, to answer your question, you should have lost for a number of reasons. i TOTALLY disagree with the other poster than i should have run slowdown, thats obvious i think. i had the better team, and no depth problems. i know when you look at the overall ratings like he did, it may seem our teams are evenly matched (which, btw, is a horrible way to look at teams. that was part of what irked me. if you are going to write a post like that towards me, at least have a half way decent analysis, or raise legitimate points against what i said. sigh). im not sure how closely you looked at my team - but if you didnt, you might want to. i think it becomes obvious my team is better. ill explain why... but like i always say, team planning is everything. its the #1 factor in success, above talent. and i just feel my team is better built than yours, in addition to having a slight talent edge. combine that with being better set up - and its easy to see why i expected to win (no offense, i dont think your team is poorly setup, its just a generally safe assumption that my team is better setup than my opponents - and when i look at the way your team is setup, i remain confident in that assumption).
anyway, if you want to break it down simply, you can look at 4 categories. first, defense. we both have alright defensive ratings, nothing great. but you run zone (which IS disadvantaged in top 25 to top 50 d2 play, to both press AND man, equally so IMO). to compensate for not great def ratings, you should have higher ath and good sb in your bigs. you dont have bad ratings, but not enough to really bring up your defense. i run press, with similarly non impressive def ratings. but my guard speed is great, which does have a major impact. between that, and you running the inferior defense, i definitely get the edge.
second, lets look at rebounding. my bigs have yours by a notch, no doubt about it, and that is what brings home the bacon. despite you having 5 extra team overall rebounding (which, again, is a terrible way to look at things), i have the edge here.
next, lets look at - not sure the right thing to call it - its a combination of running the point ability and passing. so like, how well can your guards control the ball, how well can your bigs pass, etc... this is primarily a function of bh/pass/spd for guards, and pass for bigs. your pg is solid, but in general, neither of us have great passing or ball handling. however, my guards are definitely better in their ability to control the ball, although not great - and that is what makes the high impact. your higher ratings at the 3-5 are less valuable, so despite you having 8 extra team passing, 2 extra team bh, and equal team speed, i give myself a *slight* edge. note that against the press, this category is way more important, so you actually might have been significantly behind due to the lack of a strength in that area.
finally, lets look at offense. here is where i have you beat, badly. you have no offensive studs. flannery and reed are both dramatically better than any guard you have, and cook is much better than any big you have (from an offensive standpoint). plus, you can hardly shoot the 3, which makes it really easy to throw a - at you with significant benefits. so, i really have a major advantage on the offensive side of the ball, thats probably more than a 5 point per game advantage *right there alone*.
so, thats just the fundamental strengths and weaknesses of the team. with slight to moderate edges in defense, rebounding, and ball control, and a huge edge in offense, i had a pretty solid advantage. but when you factor in the matchups, i think i was a big favorite. for example, my team thrives on 3 point shooting. you play zone. you did run a 3-2, but at -2, which really was not great. my team just matched up well against yours, and you really had nothing to exploit going the other way. i would expect to win that game at least 80-90% of the time. i know at a glance, things might look close, but they really aren't. dont get me wrong, you don't have a bad team - when i first opened your team up, i went, yikes! i didnt mean to schedule a team that good (i wanted to win all my games for maximum rpi, which i did not do, but i still have the #1 rpi right now). but first glances are deceiving, and team planning trumps raw talent, and when you really look at your team as a package, they could use a lot of beefing up synergy wise. where as my team meshes very well (which is by far the thing i do best).
anyway, hopefully that gives you some ideas for ways to improve your team in the future.
to the other poster's point, he says i got 10 turnovers with no downside. with your team's bh/pass/spd, forcing 16 turnovers is really nothing, not even worthy of raising an eyebrow. zone forces few turnovers. so on hat front, nothing to see, indeed!
and its worth nothing - you held my team to really poor shooting, like 38%, vs your teams 44%. with my aforementioned massive advantage on the offensive side of things, that is a much bigger travesty than anything else that happened, by a factor of 10. with the small sample size, its really a very minimal travesty, but so is everything else. i definitely had lower fatigue that you did, although when you look at things in a handful of snapshots with very poor granularity (fresh, fairly fresh, etc), you might not notice it. its obvious to a coach like me though, and i suspect it would be to a great deal of other coaches too. that absolutely contributed to you winning the fg% battle by a decent margin. also, note that is one of the weaknesses of the press - while forcing more turnovers, the resulting shots that do occur go in at a higher %. so there is definitely a downside.
on a final note, if you have one team with a much better offense, wouldnt you expect that to draw more fouls? so the other posters complaint that we had about equal fouls really holds no water - not just because of 1 game sample size - but because not knowing defensive sets, you should have fouled significantly more.