44…
What did you think about that ‘Cuse – Dook game last weekend ?
You’re right, at least conceptually, good/great defense is worth 5-10 wins a season by itself.
But the problem is…. that NOBODY in high school coaches or plays good defense anymore….
What Coach Rat, Williams, Boeheim and a few other dinosaurs ( Bennet at UVA, Freeman at FSU too ) do consistently is to take kids with decent athleticism AND who are COACHABLE and over a couple of seasons teach them how to play solid team defense.
But they are starting from scratch with their freshman every season.
AND they keep their kids on campus for 3 or 4 years…. they are not playing the one and done game like Kentucky and some others.
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You are also right when you said
“You just have to be smarter than other coach. It’s a chess match all else equal. “
I said the same thing on another thread back in December. This is even more important when you have a team of “kids”….
Good Coaches ought to win 3-5 games a season simply by out coaching the other Coach.
Gott & Company has a lot of strengths…. but this is an area where they may still have some room for improvement…
That said…. we have not seen anything crazy coming from our bench in the last two minutes of the game for over a month now.
And back to Rick’s comment…. Coach WISH players would / could do what they tell them to do.
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Coach-ing v. Coach-ablity.
That’s the most fundamental question in college basketball today.
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I’m not perverse and I’m not ignorant… but I have enjoyed watching this Team develop a whole lot more than last years….
It IS just like watching your kids grow up.
44 — you got any kids yet ??
