Posted by rednation58 on 9/8/2011 8:43:00 PM (view original):
I'm just wondering because the first CT game I had I lost because one of my star guys gets in foul trouble and it's never happened all season but decided to happen the first game of the CT and cost me a game. I coached the same way I normally do without the same success.
The game-to-game qualify of post-season opponents is going to be better - even if they're your conference rivals, they've had a season to work on IQs and fine tune their game planning. That's part of why the postseason tournaments are tougher.
My Bethany team made it to the PIT final four a couple of seasons ago, and after averaging about 10 more FTs than my opponents all season, suddenly I was up against teams with equal or better speed and ballhandling, and the balloon popped.
To answer the original question, you can't choose the game site so I would just gameplan the best way I know how. Play your higher IQ guys more minutes, maybe go "More Aggressive" on a big man who tends to foul so he'll be in the game at the end, switch positions a little to exploit the opponent's weakness and so forth.