The Army coach did a fantastic during the jobs process tho. That shouldn't be overlooked. It's a skill of its own.

And I'm sure rowle will turn things around. HD happens. I don't really consider "juggling freshman" to be a viable excuse. I'm not sure there's many teams out there that aren't faced with that situation in D1. And the regular season isn't a true measuring stick because of that. And I'm sure we'd all agree with that in general.

Yah, Wisconsin has 0 shooting in flex/man. Paquett is completely unstartable. I would probably play both 60 Reb 100 LP SFs some at the 3/4. Wisci just needs the scoring that bad. But 10th best team in country at the best.

Then Brooks/Han should easily be starting at the 4/5.

miss ya cub! hilarious, i always like seeing the raw, distilled, no-bullshit version of my thoughts

probably somebody should link the team
https://www.whatifsports.com/hd/TeamProfile/Ratings.aspx?tid=14069

Posted by gillispie on 1/6/2022 12:18:00 PM (view original):
shoe, i didn't look at army before and basically was ignoring all that, so i cede all army-related points. after taking 1m to look, i generally agree with your sentiment.

the exception i was taking is around hand-waving a 2-5 start to an allegedly top few team as luck. i agree that is a brutal schedule, i didn't go back and look again since the 2-5 but those were really tough teams, not represented by their RPI, and wisconsin's rpi was all jacked too. surely it will go up on its own by game 13-14 as things stabilize. and i am in a conf with rowle too, and agree hes a solid coach and a good guy. but that is irrelevant.

coaching a team early with promised starts and stuff, there is a material skill there (one even top coaches struggle with), and even with some bad luck, there's usually a non-luck explanation to any gap of the size of (top few team starts out 2-5). i am just not a fan of waving things off as luck until exhausting all other options, because that leads to missing real stuff. but its also the friendly thing to do, sometimes, which may be all that was going on there. to me, what jumps out is, that team is very individually talented - probably easily top 5 in such a metric - but offensive efficiency is THE challenge. doesn't seem like the offense was really clicking thus far, and maybe that dude who is starting isn't the problem, but something is. either there is more to be done to get the offense firing, or the team has a fundamental weakness that means they are not quite as good as advertised, or maybe just a little bit above both. zero players above 75 per, and with nobody really heading there by season end it seemed? (at a glance), without great spd/bh on those 70ish per guys to compensate... that's not a slight per deficiency, as you put it. its too high of a caliber team, its more of an achilles heel than a 'slight deficiency'. the team is still so talented otherwise, maybe they can overcome... but if i was in those shoes, all i can say is, no way in hell i would be hand-waving that 2-5 start as luck.

Yeah, the non-luck explanation is that it is, as you admit, a brutal schedule. And even then, most of the losses were close.

No one said there is no skill involved in managing freshman starts. You’re arguing against a point literally no one makes. You’re simply misdiagnosing the problem.

In short, offensive efficiency is not the primary reason Wisconsin is losing. Considering the talent level of the opponents, the offense is doing just fine (including the “unstartable” Paquet, lol). What’s actually happening is they are getting hit with the slowdown ugly stick. Duke did run uptempo against them, but the other 5 losses are all slowdowns. At the risk of branching off into another tangent on this wholesome thread, the slowdown button is basically the mechanism by which less talented teams can compete with superior teams, and it works with varying degrees of effect - and yes a good deal of that effect, as with the doubleteam, which they’re also predictably seeing, is based on luck.

I mean look at the individual games. Against Tennessee, the problem was the absurd efficiency of the opponent. Against Texas, the problem was getting mauled on the boards (despite very comparable rebounding figures). It was a rough shooting night against the Bonnies, but how do you look past 9-19 from the line? Sure Montana is a head scratcher (we all have those) and Duke an Stanford are two of the very few teams in the country who can match Wisconsin talent. But bad sim luck is the difference between 4-6 and 7-3. Giving some other post scorer 5 extra starting minutes per game isn’t that difference - and that idea is especially nonsense if you contend that flex offense rely more on perimeter scoring, and utilize less LP. Like that’s precisely why having 2 excellent post scorers on the floor at once is not an actual win from an efficiency standpoint.

The other thing is that yeah, the flex deficiency is slight. It exists, I’ve said here before that trying to win without any perimeter scoring in flex is like Sisyphus in the Himalayas, or something to that effect, but this team has some perimeter scoring. Those guys can hit jump shots, and even 3 point shots, and can even make them at a decent clip, so long as the distribution isn’t pushing the envelop.

The game is about what you can do with what you can get. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could all get a handful of perfect players? You go to war with the team you have. Rowle1js is a good enough coach to manage multiple freshmen on teams that go far into the tournament, including last season’s E8 and a F4 from a few seasons ago, something you’d have noticed I said from the outset if you weren’t focused on contradicting an argument in your head. The same coaches can and do find themselves on both sides of this. They don’t just forget how team composition works. The truth is that it’s more complicated than load up on perimeter for flex. There is a per bonus for flex, and not having any elite perimeter scorers isn’t optimal (hence “slight deficiency”) but treating it like it’s a fatal flaw, or the reason why the preseason #1 team (and yes clearly a Top 5 team) starts 2-5 instead of the expected 5-2 or 6-1, that’s just silly. Because if what you are saying was actually true, then we shouldn’t expect any kind of turnaround from Wisconsin. They can’t import any 90 perimeter players. Suggesting to start Leonard or Brooks would have made a difference is still laughable (look at the actual numbers, Paquet’s efficiency is fine, Leonard is worse and would harm rebounding significantly, and Brooks really isn’t much better, and is utilized less). Fact is, Wisconsin has already started to turn around, as I said they would, without changing anything in the lineup (or magically importing any perimeter players). They might still get slowdown ugly stick smacked out of a couple conference games, and I can hope MSU can give them some other kind of trouble, but they’re still the team to beat in the Big 10, and will be a threat to go deep in the tournament, doing nothing except the normal freshman switcheraroo toward the end of the season.

Posted by shoe3 on 1/7/2022 9:46:00 AM (view original):
The game is about what you can do with what you can get. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could all get a handful of perfect players? You go to war with the team you have. Rowle1js is a good enough coach to manage multiple freshmen on teams that go far into the tournament, including last season’s E8 and a F4 from a few seasons ago, something you’d have noticed I said from the outset if you weren’t focused on contradicting an argument in your head. The same coaches can and do find themselves on both sides of this. They don’t just forget how team composition works. The truth is that it’s more complicated than load up on perimeter for flex. There is a per bonus for flex, and not having any elite perimeter scorers isn’t optimal (hence “slight deficiency”) but treating it like it’s a fatal flaw, or the reason why the preseason #1 team (and yes clearly a Top 5 team) starts 2-5 instead of the expected 5-2 or 6-1, that’s just silly. Because if what you are saying was actually true, then we shouldn’t expect any kind of turnaround from Wisconsin. They can’t import any 90 perimeter players. Suggesting to start Leonard or Brooks would have made a difference is still laughable (look at the actual numbers, Paquet’s efficiency is fine, Leonard is worse and would harm rebounding significantly, and Brooks really isn’t much better, and is utilized less). Fact is, Wisconsin has already started to turn around, as I said they would, without changing anything in the lineup (or magically importing any perimeter players). They might still get slowdown ugly stick smacked out of a couple conference games, and I can hope MSU can give them some other kind of trouble, but they’re still the team to beat in the Big 10, and will be a threat to go deep in the tournament, doing nothing except the normal freshman switcheraroo toward the end of the season.

Rowle is a *beast* of a coach. I have plenty of background seeing him land elite recruiting classes for D1 at pretty much every prestige and experience a lot of success with those guys in the tournament. But I think a lot of people really underestimate the importance of team building in this game, and this Wisci team is a good example. Obviously Wisconsin has a great collection of individual talent, but they lack shooting badly and that's why they are struggling and aren't actual a Top 5 team.

For what it's worth I've had some really solid teams in the past in Mo/Man with absolutely no shooting and elite ath/de and big men. Don't recommend, but they certainly can make the S16 pretty consistently.

That team is going to be tough to beat when they can finally bench Dawson for a scorer which will then allow Herrod to get a much needed bump in minutes. I would probably agree that one of the scoring bigs with higher IQs might be better while Dawson is starting, but Paquet is certainly no slouch.

Posted by Basketts on 1/7/2022 1:29:00 PM (view original):
That team is going to be tough to beat when they can finally bench Dawson for a scorer which will then allow Herrod to get a much needed bump in minutes. I would probably agree that one of the scoring bigs with higher IQs might be better while Dawson is starting, but Paquet is certainly no slouch.

Once Leonard is in *at the 3* for Dawson, this team is fire. But for now, subtracting Paquet’s elite rebounding for a (possible) *small* bump in post scoring is not a net positive. Not for a flex team.

“they lack shooting badly and that's why they are struggling and aren't actual a Top 5 team.”

Youre a smart coach, cub, but you and gil are vastly overstating the per bonus for flex. It is not the reason they lost to Tennessee, Texas, or the Bonnies. Those losses are specifically on bad sim luck amplified by opponent slowdown, which showed up in different ways - OFG%, rebounding differential, and FT%, respectively. If Wisconsin is sitting at 8-3 now, with that schedule, starting as the preseason #1, they have a single digit RPI and are still in line for a 1 seed. So your analysis just doesn’t fly.

Posted by shoe3 on 1/7/2022 1:38:00 PM (view original):

Posted by Basketts on 1/7/2022 1:29:00 PM (view original):
That team is going to be tough to beat when they can finally bench Dawson for a scorer which will then allow Herrod to get a much needed bump in minutes. I would probably agree that one of the scoring bigs with higher IQs might be better while Dawson is starting, but Paquet is certainly no slouch.

Once Leonard is in *at the 3* for Dawson, this team is fire. But for now, subtracting Paquet’s elite rebounding for a (possible) *small* bump in post scoring is not a net positive. Not for a flex team.

I'd probably still give the edge to Brooks in rebounding since he's 93 Ath / 100 Reb and crucially, A+ IQ and 90 Stamina. Downside is you'd be giving up quite a bit of SB defense for that edge in LP. Since his team Ath/Def is as elite as they come, I'd probably make that swap. But then again, I agree with you that this is very minor stuff and isn't likely the issue.

Posted by shoe3 on 1/7/2022 2:02:00 PM (view original):
“they lack shooting badly and that's why they are struggling and aren't actual a Top 5 team.”

Youre a smart coach, cub, but you and gil are vastly overstating the per bonus for flex. It is not the reason they lost to Tennessee, Texas, or the Bonnies. Those losses are specifically on bad sim luck amplified by opponent slowdown, which showed up in different ways - OFG%, rebounding differential, and FT%, respectively. If Wisconsin is sitting at 8-3 now, with that schedule, starting as the preseason #1, they have a single digit RPI and are still in line for a 1 seed. So your analysis just doesn’t fly.

our comments have some to do with flex, but that isn't really the thrust of it. the thrust of it is, this is subpar per for high d1 by a lot and that's true in any scheme. fb would be better able to tolerate the setup here but it would be a struggle, and all the 3 other offenses, the magnitude of the per problem is similar, and is large. flex is relevant but its not like this is a flex problem.

'if wisconsin is 8-3 now...' right - but they were 2-5 - hence the conversation. you can't just say, if instead of being 2-5, they were 8-3, everything would be fine, and therefore, everything is fine. 2-5 is about 6 universes over from 8-3. the essence of this is super simple - you want to say everything from 2-5 to 8-3, that's all luck, but i'm willing to hand-wave away up to 2 universes of luck, but not 6, unless i have a damn good reason to rule out literally everything else. and that's just not the case here, after 10 seconds of scrutiny, there's something super tangible and very important to point to (weak per).

i think wisconsin is a good team, but their per weakness makes them more like a top 10 team, not a clearly top 5 team. not a huge difference but a very significant one. the NT impact is actually bigger than the regular season here, because low 3pta and weaker 3pt efficiency is a tactical weakness easily attacked in game planning (with a - defense etc). i agree with cub - these kinds of teams can fairly reliably make the sweet 16. and they can definitely win games from there. but if i am picking a team from that world to go to war with, almost for sure, there are at least several and probably a half dozen teams, with less exceptional defense and stuff, but with a much more pliable offense, which ultimately makes them a better candidate for championship-seeking.

Definition of a beast coach......

Just a good recruiter and that's it?
hardware and that's it?
Both?
more?

tough one... in this context i think it means we all respect and like rowle and are a bit concerned about any of this coming off as negativity towards him in any way! i'd be happy to debate the merits generally in another context ;)