Sample size: 3 games.  Smart folks should stop reading now.

My HD team runs zone defense.  That should normally give me an advantage in fatigue.  Stamina matters, but normally the zone team will have the advantage.

I've played three teams against fastbreak/press teams this season.  Two ran the fastbreak at regular temp and one went uptempo against me.  I went uptempo in all three because I thought I would be able to exacerbate the fatigue advantage.

My team does not have good stamina.  It's only 75 and that is less than any my opponents in the 3 games.  But it isn't too much worse and I would think is much less of a disadvantage compared to what you should need to run fastbreak/press

In the uptempo game, against a team with 77 stamina, I appear to have had the slightest of fatigue advantages going by the colors at the 4 minute updates.  Based on minutes played by the starters, it seems like it was a very small advantage at best.

Against regular paced fastbreak offenses, in the first game I was facing an 80 stamina team and the second game was against a 77 stamina team.  In the first game, despite the somewhat sizable stamina difference, I was better rested at the 4 minute marks.  I was able to take a bit of advantage of the post players fatigue.  However, if you look at overall minutes played, the top players for each team were about equal.  The second game really confuses me.  The 77 fatigue isn't much different than my 75.  And the second team starts a frontcourt that is 86 and 70 in stamina and the two backups are 74 and 65.  I would have expected to have an advantage in fatigue over that team, but that didn't  seem to be the case at all.  If anything, looking at the minutes played, my team was more tired than them.

All of this is a long way of saying that I'm pretty surprised that even though I was running an uptempo offense, my zone defense did not give me a superior fatigue advantage against these fastbreak/press teams.  I thought you needed superior stamina to run those successfully and I'm not sure I'd categorize a team rating of 77 as being all that superior.

It is worth noting that while I think I'm a pretty decent player of this game, my three opponents all feature outstanding coaches that are some of the best in the game.    I wouldn't be too shocked to learn that I was outcoached by them.

Any thoughts?  Really, the only thoughts should be: it's three games, get over it.  But I'm bored so I created this thread anyway.

There is a meaningful thought here.  Uptempo wasn't helping you, it was hurting you.  Seble set it up over a year ago now such that your tempo affects only your own team's fatigue, and since that time it does seem that the effect of your offensive tempo on the other team's fatigue is very minimal.  The old logic of "if my bench is better than their bench I'll run uptempo, if my starters are better but his bench looks good I'll run slowdown" doesn't really apply anymore.  It's more to what many used to consider underthinking the problem now: if my team is MUCH better, I'll run uptempo.  If I'm MUCH worse I might run slowdown, but the vast majority of the time since that update I just run normal tempo.  There just isn't enough advantage to changing tempos anymore, and uptempo in particular is taking your starters off the court and not doing the same for the other guy's starters.

Uptempo game: in the last 4 minutes of each half your opponent was significantly more fatigued than you were, especially in the 2nd half, where your opponents pg/sg both played at tired and pf played at tiring, while your starters had 4 at fairly fresh and 1 at tiring. 

Game against Carlton: not as noticeable compared to the uptempo game but still pretty good, considering your opponent's stamina is better than yours by quite a bit.

His starting PF was tired at the 3min mark in the first half. 

Against Castleton State: His team stamina is 77, but starters were 95,88,86,81,78. You didn't get anyone into foul trouble so it's gonna be hard to get people to play tired when the starters are averaging 85 stamina. 

Your stamina edge looks pretty good, considering you live behind the 3 point line do not get anyone into foul trouble.

tianyi -- I didn't do a great job in the original post but I guess I have two thoughts.  (1) That the zone isn't winning more of a stamina battle against a fastbreak/press team.  (2) The fastbreak/press teams are staying much more "green" than I would expect.  I focused more on issue #1 and didn't really touch on issue #2.

Even ignoring the 1st issue about how my zone defense "should" keep me better rested, it seems like if these teams are playing fastbreak/press and are facing an uptempo offense they should be getting more tired.

In the uptempo game against Salem State, I guess I'm surprised that they weren't blood red at the end of each half.  Those players should be running all over the place.  I think my players should also be more tired than they were as well.

And a similar thing in the Castleton State game.  (You got the stamina number wrong for the starting center.)   They were pretty much fresh the entire game.  I suppose I'm ok with that in the backcourt since the four players are rated 95-88-86-76 in stamina.  But the front court of 86-70-74-65-61 seems like it really should be getting tired a lot more than they did.

Castleton does have the 80 stamina so I won't make any comments on that.  That's a decent amount better than the 77 teams.  Plus, I'm pretty sure Rails has cheat codes so he might be gaming the system to prevent his players from getting tired.

Posted by dahsdebater on 8/23/2012 1:49:00 PM (view original):
There is a meaningful thought here.  Uptempo wasn't helping you, it was hurting you.  Seble set it up over a year ago now such that your tempo affects only your own team's fatigue, and since that time it does seem that the effect of your offensive tempo on the other team's fatigue is very minimal.  The old logic of "if my bench is better than their bench I'll run uptempo, if my starters are better but his bench looks good I'll run slowdown" doesn't really apply anymore.  It's more to what many used to consider underthinking the problem now: if my team is MUCH better, I'll run uptempo.  If I'm MUCH worse I might run slowdown, but the vast majority of the time since that update I just run normal tempo.  There just isn't enough advantage to changing tempos anymore, and uptempo in particular is taking your starters off the court and not doing the same for the other guy's starters.

the old logic of "if my bench is better than their bench I'll run uptempo, if my starters are better but his bench looks good I'll run slowdown"  didn't really apply in the first place, either. well, thats my opinion at least :) a couple other very successful coaches basically ignore uptempo as an option. just because an option exists, doesnt mean it is ever worth using. i suspect there is a time and a place, but far, far less often than coaches use it today. im obviously one of the more biased coaches out there against uptempo, so you might want to ignore me, but if anyone (not really referring this to you dahs, just was stealing 1 line from you) is running uptempo based on a theory, without really looking at how it impacts your team, i suggest you look at it. primarily, track your fg% with and without. 

And to be clear, I'm not exactly complaining.  I'm more seeking clarification.  I made light of the 3 game sample size but since I don't see too many fastbreak/press teams I'm just more interested to know if this is how it does work.  Because I'm pretty sure I'm not gameplanning correctly if this is how fatigue works for those teams.

Coach Billy (or anybody else that wants to chime in) --

It's pretty rare to see a team running zone so there isn't a huge sample of games of those teams facing a fastbreak/press team to analyze.

With all things equal -- and I know they are not in my examples -- would you say it makes any sense for the zone team to run uptempo against fastbreak/press?  My assumption is that the answer is yes because ignoring the depth/bench thing (since all is equal) the advantages to playing against more tired players should provide long term benefits, most noticeably in the ends of halves.

Or, to use tinayi's observation, is a moot point if you can't get that fastbreak/press team in foul trouble?  Because otherwise an 11 deep team ain't gonna have problems with stamina.

Posted by kujayhawk on 8/23/2012 2:41:00 PM (view original):
Coach Billy (or anybody else that wants to chime in) --

It's pretty rare to see a team running zone so there isn't a huge sample of games of those teams facing a fastbreak/press team to analyze.

With all things equal -- and I know they are not in my examples -- would you say it makes any sense for the zone team to run uptempo against fastbreak/press?  My assumption is that the answer is yes because ignoring the depth/bench thing (since all is equal) the advantages to playing against more tired players should provide long term benefits, most noticeably in the ends of halves.

Or, to use tinayi's observation, is a moot point if you can't get that fastbreak/press team in foul trouble?  Because otherwise an 11 deep team ain't gonna have problems with stamina.

its correct that seble changed tempo to not impact the other team. im not sure he really made it not impact the other team, or if he tried to make it even out, because sometimes it seems like it still has a small impact - the kind you would see from an imperfect balancing act.

anyway, you CAN push the team into foul trouble some, and i think that is about the only viable reason to play uptempo these days, except against opponents you plan to crush anyway, in which case, it largely doesnt matter what you play. the fouls/posession is decreased when you play uptempo, but i dont believe this outweighs the increase in possessions. so if you are playing uptempo for foul trouble, thats one thing, but if you are playing for fagitue, i think you are sort of beating your head against the wall.

its not clear to me at what point the negatives of uptempo, particularly the decrease in fg%, is outweighed by the small chance increase to foul someone out. i suspect if you are playing a deep team, never. i suspect if its a close game, never. but maybe when you are probably going to lose, and your best chance is to foul the other team out, and you use uptempo sort of as a hail mary, i think that could work...

Posted by kujayhawk on 8/23/2012 2:41:00 PM (view original):
Coach Billy (or anybody else that wants to chime in) --

It's pretty rare to see a team running zone so there isn't a huge sample of games of those teams facing a fastbreak/press team to analyze.

With all things equal -- and I know they are not in my examples -- would you say it makes any sense for the zone team to run uptempo against fastbreak/press?  My assumption is that the answer is yes because ignoring the depth/bench thing (since all is equal) the advantages to playing against more tired players should provide long term benefits, most noticeably in the ends of halves.

Or, to use tinayi's observation, is a moot point if you can't get that fastbreak/press team in foul trouble?  Because otherwise an 11 deep team ain't gonna have problems with stamina.

An 11 deep team won't have fatigue trouble when their starters avg 85 stamina without foul trouble. Castleton's stamina is off the charts for D3 so unless you can get the starters to foul trouble and bench comes in, you are not going to see alot of players playing tired. 

You got the other 2 teams to tire out pretty well, especially the team that went uptempo. 

Again tianyi, you're ignoring the point that your team's tempo has next to no impact on the other team's fatigue.  KU totally ignored my first post to that effect as well, and I'm not quite sure why...  That's really the salient point here, I think, explains the vast majority of his question, and frankly points directly to the mistake in his thinking.

When you run uptempo, that makes you fatigue faster and DOES NOT meaningfully make the other team fatigue faster.  You expected that if you ran uptempo they should be very tired by the end of the game, and you expected a bigger difference in fatigue than you saw.  This thinking is 180 degrees away from correct.  Running uptempo DOESN'T make them more tired, and that's WHY the fatigue is close than you expect.  Against the teams running normal tempo you had a fatigue advantage based on system and a fatigue disadvantage based on tempo.  Works out that system still matters a little more than tempo in terms of fatigue, so you still won that battle.  But you're not exacerbating the fatigue advantage of your system by running uptempo, you're minimizing it.  Maybe two years ago you would have been exhausting them, but that's just not the way it works now.

Posted by dahsdebater on 8/23/2012 3:05:00 PM (view original):
Again tianyi, you're ignoring the point that your team's tempo has next to no impact on the other team's fatigue.  KU totally ignored my first post to that effect as well, and I'm not quite sure why...  That's really the salient point here, I think, explains the vast majority of his question, and frankly points directly to the mistake in his thinking.

When you run uptempo, that makes you fatigue faster and DOES NOT meaningfully make the other team fatigue faster.  You expected that if you ran uptempo they should be very tired by the end of the game, and you expected a bigger difference in fatigue than you saw.  This thinking is 180 degrees away from correct.  Running uptempo DOESN'T make them more tired, and that's WHY the fatigue is close than you expect.  Against the teams running normal tempo you had a fatigue advantage based on system and a fatigue disadvantage based on tempo.  Works out that system still matters a little more than tempo in terms of fatigue, so you still won that battle.  But you're not exacerbating the fatigue advantage of your system by running uptempo, you're minimizing it.  Maybe two years ago you would have been exhausting them, but that's just not the way it works now.

hes right, to be sure

Posted by dahsdebater on 8/23/2012 3:05:00 PM (view original):
Again tianyi, you're ignoring the point that your team's tempo has next to no impact on the other team's fatigue.  KU totally ignored my first post to that effect as well, and I'm not quite sure why...  That's really the salient point here, I think, explains the vast majority of his question, and frankly points directly to the mistake in his thinking.

When you run uptempo, that makes you fatigue faster and DOES NOT meaningfully make the other team fatigue faster.  You expected that if you ran uptempo they should be very tired by the end of the game, and you expected a bigger difference in fatigue than you saw.  This thinking is 180 degrees away from correct.  Running uptempo DOESN'T make them more tired, and that's WHY the fatigue is close than you expect.  Against the teams running normal tempo you had a fatigue advantage based on system and a fatigue disadvantage based on tempo.  Works out that system still matters a little more than tempo in terms of fatigue, so you still won that battle.  But you're not exacerbating the fatigue advantage of your system by running uptempo, you're minimizing it.  Maybe two years ago you would have been exhausting them, but that's just not the way it works now.

It indirectly fatigues the other team in other ways by going uptempo. I'm not going to explain this to detail because I want to maintain my gameplanning edge, but flat out dismissing uptempo like you do is not optimal. 

+1

dahsdebater - I kind of skipped over your point because I had some quibbles about it -- I know seble lessened the imact but I'm not sure to the extent you say -- and also because I was just surprised in general just how fresh the fastbreak/press teams were.  (And again, tianyi has the Castleton lineup wrong.  They don't have anything resembling elite stamina ratings in the frontcourt.)   I do know that by running umptempo, I'm hurting myself more than my opponent.  I just thought -- it appears to be dead wrong -- that the advantage to zone compared to fastbreak/press outweighed that.

I probably shouldn't have skipped over your post but I saw an argument breaking out as we quibble regarding the 3% we disagree on even though we mostly are the same page.

I sorted it by minutes played, which is why I have McNair's 86 in there rather than Ashford's 70. You are right his frontcourt stamina isn't elite.