I see a lot of very successful teams running "slowdown" quite often. Is there a correlation to running this tempo and their success? Obviously I understand if you are running a fast break you are going uptempo, I'm referring to an offense more like motion, flex or triangle. Is it based on how deep your rotation is? Like if you are running with 9 players is it best to slow it down, whereas if you are running with 11 or 12 is it better to speed things up?

I think it depends a lot on your team. I had a team that was strong in most aspects, but my stamina was low. I ran slowdown in just about every game. I ran Motion/Man.

My strategy is if my stamina seems to be lower than the team I'm playing I will run slowdown. I think this helps to minimize the negative effects of my low stamina. I generally checked every game to see if my opponent had a better or worse stamina rating than myself. I usually just looked at the overall average. In some cases I would look to see how deep their rotation was.

The biggest exception was when I was playing a really poor team/sim team. Then I would run normal pace to get more possessions to help minimize the chance of an upset.

Those are just my thoughts, could be way off.

I agree with Bang. I compare stamina and talent when deciding pace.

Basically if I feel like the underdog I'll run slowdown, if I feel like the superior team I'll run normal.

I avoid fast paced unless I have a super deep team.

Posted by fluff_nasty on 5/13/2019 5:20:00 PM (view original):
I agree with Bang. I compare stamina and talent when deciding pace.

Basically if I feel like the underdog I'll run slowdown, if I feel like the superior team I'll run normal.

I avoid fast paced unless I have a super deep team.

I've had success running uptempo against teams that run a thin rotation (7 or 8 players), even when they are noticeably better in talent than me. The thought being to wear them down and get them to commit fouls as they fatigue.

It may seem counter intuitive, as one generally wants to go slow down against far more talented teams in order to minimize number of possessions, but when your opponent typically only plays their top 7-8 guys, going slowdown actually plays into one of their strengths.

Granted, the opportunities to do this are rare. But it's something to look out for.

This is excellent stuff. And weird because the amount of threads we've had here where coaches say they don't even look at stamina. It's a big factor

Posted by tecwrg on 5/13/2019 6:27:00 PM (view original):

Posted by fluff_nasty on 5/13/2019 5:20:00 PM (view original):
I agree with Bang. I compare stamina and talent when deciding pace.

Basically if I feel like the underdog I'll run slowdown, if I feel like the superior team I'll run normal.

I avoid fast paced unless I have a super deep team.

I've had success running uptempo against teams that run a thin rotation (7 or 8 players), even when they are noticeably better in talent than me. The thought being to wear them down and get them to commit fouls as they fatigue.

It may seem counter intuitive, as one generally wants to go slow down against far more talented teams in order to minimize number of possessions, but when your opponent typically only plays their top 7-8 guys, going slowdown actually plays into one of their strengths.

Granted, the opportunities to do this are rare. But it's something to look out for.

this works well, especially against press teams (and to a lesser extend, fb). the penalty for moderate fatigue is not that severe, but the penalty for heavy fatigue is VERY severe.

long story short, uptempo is usually a poor choice, and the vast majority of times i've seen folks playing it in the NT, they shouldn't. however, there is a really significant niche for uptempo that is exactly what tecwrg is talking about, and basically its vastly under-exploited - or at least it was when i was playing (which is kind of funny, because in general, most of the time i see folks run uptempo, they shouldn't, and most of the time they should run uptempo, they don't - in short, its very fertile ground for an ambitious coach to make up some ground on his peers). when you are playing fatigue-prone teams who don't have the rotation to absorb even more fatigue, you can cause some *serious* damage running uptempo into them. zone and man teams should regularly consider running uptempo into press teams, whether they are superior or not.

the short version of why uptempo generally is a poor choice is that it fatigues the team running it more than it fatigues the other team, so in a sort of absolute sense, it is going to cause you more fatigue than them. however, if you are able to spread that fatigue around more easily, the ramification of that fatigue can be a lot less. i would even run uptempo in 10 deep press teams, if i wasn't almost always running press myself. personally, i don't feel good with a press team unless i'm 12 deep and even across the slate (5 guards / 5 bigs / 2 sfs or similar), because even with a 10 deep even balance team, you really take a lot of fatigue, and just a little bit of foul trouble can completely wreck you. just saying, its not like you only run uptempo into an 8 deep press team - that would happen like, never. i wouldn't even rule it out running into a 12 deep press team if 1) i had great ability to absorb fatigue and 2) i drew a lot of fouls.

Posted by topdogggbm on 5/13/2019 10:10:00 PM (view original):
This is excellent stuff. And weird because the amount of threads we've had here where coaches say they don't even look at stamina. It's a big factor

stamina is a core for every player in a press team, and for offensive leads in almost every system. i'm not sure it rises to the level of a 'core' in the other cases, but its always at least medium-important, and from a team perspective it can be really critical. so, totally agree with you!

Posted by cjok1051 on 5/13/2019 1:46:00 PM (view original):
I see a lot of very successful teams running "slowdown" quite often. Is there a correlation to running this tempo and their success? Obviously I understand if you are running a fast break you are going uptempo, I'm referring to an offense more like motion, flex or triangle. Is it based on how deep your rotation is? Like if you are running with 9 players is it best to slow it down, whereas if you are running with 11 or 12 is it better to speed things up?

kind of, slow down works kind of how one would expect - run it when you are worse to reduce possessions and increase volatility, or when you are lacking in depth to offset those issues (they can be fatigue related, or just simply that you have very few good players and need to get the most of them). that's not a golden rule, there are exceptions, but by and large, you can think of slowdown in that simple way and it will serve you well.

one would logically think of uptempo as the inverse of slowdown, but unfortunately, uptempo is sort of crazy and is poorly understood and poorly utilized. i would basically recommend new coaches consider slowdown and normal but not uptempo. once you are competing for titles, then i'd try to get a feel for uptempo, but not sooner.

Posted by topdogggbm on 5/13/2019 10:10:00 PM (view original):
This is excellent stuff. And weird because the amount of threads we've had here where coaches say they don't even look at stamina. It's a big factor

Stamina is only important when you don't have enough of it. Like light beer.

The one incredibly important thing that hasn't been mentioned in this thread - but in which I'm reasonably confident - is that both uptempo and slowdown reduce your expected points per possession. Obviously this is a balancing act between turnover rates and expected FG%, foul rates, etc. But I think it's fair to say that in virtually all cases you will expect to score fewer points per possession any time you play at a tempo other than normal. The differences may not be enormous, but they do exist.

The point of which is, in my mind, when in doubt always lean towards normal tempo. I need a very convincing reason to move off of normal. I do it sometimes, for reasons such as those outlined here - generally when playing against a team with depth/stamina issues or when I see myself as a significant underdog. But it has to be slap-me-in-the-face obvious, or I won't pull the trigger.

If my subs are substantially better than my opponents I will run normal or fast paced. If not, I will run slowdown.

Posted by Trentonjoe on 5/14/2019 2:16:00 PM (view original):

Posted by topdogggbm on 5/13/2019 10:10:00 PM (view original):
This is excellent stuff. And weird because the amount of threads we've had here where coaches say they don't even look at stamina. It's a big factor

Stamina is only important when you don't have enough of it. Like light beer.

Not really. Having great stamina is a big advantage.

Great stuff guys.

I always run slowdown. I know that logic dictates that if you are the more talented team, you should want more possessions. But, running anything but slowdown leads to strange outcomes. My team is almost always more talented than the teams that I play against in the regular season, and I never get upset by a team that is not near me on a talent level when I run slowdown, but when I run normal I tend to drop 1 or 2 games a season. Slowdown gets all of the strange quirks of the game out of the way and just lets the talent speak for itself.

Check out my CSU Chico team, I decided to try normal tempo this season and I am 11 deep and I have good stamina, and no freshman starters. I dropped 2 games to sims in my conference running normal tempo. My team was a projected 1 seed before those games happened.

I think that for talented teams, running slowdown is the way to go. Are there times that running a different tempo is helpful? Of course. But it is so volatile that the risks outweigh the rewards in my opinion.

It should be noted that I run flex/press with all of my teams besides North Carolina.

I know I am no witty vet when it comes to WIS but I have been around long enough to have tried out all sorts of tempo strategies against about every defensive scenario you can think of. I guess you could say I am a little bit of an over thinker when it comes to game planing, but I enjoy trying to find ways to even the playing field, especially when I am a big underdog, sometimes to my demise.I am a strategy game enthusiast of sorts. All of the strategies I have tried don't work because I get pretty crazy sometimes, but one that I have found that tends to have success is running up-tempo versus FCP teams. That is especially true if my bench is solid. I like to think that no matter what I do versus a FCP team, it is inevitable that I am going to turn the ball over more than average. But by running up-tempo I get more shots up to try and cancel out the increase in turnovers. "Shoot it before you lose it" strategy. In the A10 we call it the #TYPRmethod (long story). I have also noticed that my turnovers versus a FCP team don't differ that much when I run up tempo or normal. If I average 12 turnovers a game versus m2m defense, then I am probably going to turn it over 15-16 times versus a FCP defense whether I run normal tempo or uptempo.

I run normal tempo 90% of the time otherwise unless my bench is super young or super slim. Then I may go with slowdown tempo just to keep my starters on the floor longer so the team I am playing can't take advantage of my bench players.

Kudos on this thread though. This is probably the best thread I have read on tempo since I have been a WIS member! #TYPR (The Young Pat Riley)