NCAA tournament 2011 — running thread

I don't believe I've ever set foot in the state of Indiana (could be wrong, traveled a lot as a kid) and certainly have no allegiance to Butler. I did, however, cover them in a regional and was impressed by the way they played and the way they went about what they did. If I sound interested, or curious, it's because I am. Beyond that, it was such an unusual story that I remain fascinated by what they were able to achieve in the last two years. That's all. If there seems to be disproportionate interest in their story from my part, that's why.

 

Are you serious about that second graph? Those are terms with fairly specific meanings.

 

You need only look at the last page of this thread to see an example. Now imagine that across several fan boards.

 

I honestly don't know what you mean about that. Outside of one confused person getting baffled on the difference between saying "there isn't a lot going on away from the ball on most offenses that rely on dribble penetration" and "dribble-penetrating offenses are selfish" there didn't seem to be much confusion of terms.

The only thing I was asking about was the tweaks between what Butler did on offense this year and last year. It seemed a little different, a little more dependent on guards being able to turn the corner off ball screens. That's all.
Howard's shooting 3's now where last year he was strictly up-and-unders, put-backs, lunch-pale stuff. And Hayward was inside-outside.

 

I don't want it to seem like calling you out, but someone offered a good explanation of that Butler play. Your response seemed to go against that explanation.

I am saying I see that a lot on fan boards, usually with 6-7 paragraphs of terminology.

 

I'm still not following. He seems to know what he's talking about, so I asked a question about the difference between this year's team and last year's. I certainly asked as an outsider asking somebody presumably in the know.

Certainly he's not arguing that Howard provides more of a post presence this year than last. He had 20 career 3-point attempts before this season and this year a third of his shot attempts were 3-pointers. So it seems to me that they did more with him this year setting high screens and popping where when I saw him in 2009, he'd screen, then roll, then post and if he scored it was when they threw it to him in the post and he had this array of moves, Kevin McHale like. Now, not so much. He's more of a jump shooter.


What's that have to do with fan boards? I don't follow.

 

On fan boards, people use those terms when they clearly haven't seen the games. It's subjective and vague enough that no one can question it.

Unlike minutes played and other stats, which people can look up and attack with.

 

"Dribble penetration?" "Pick-and-pop?" are subjective and vague? They have very specific meanings. If there is disagreement on what they mean, then one person in the disagreement just flat out doesn't know what the term means. They aren't really that generic.

Dribble penetration is self-explanatory to the point where somebody who doesn't watch the sport can easily figure it out. Pick-and-pop is when somebody sets a ball screen and then instead of "rolling" to the basket like a classic pick-and-roll, he turns to take the pass to shoot a jump shot. I fail to see how there can be disagreement on that on any message board.

 

Adopt the NBA rule of 8 seconds for halfcourt violations.

Make any field goal attempt from any location in the first 8 seconds of a possession count three points.

 

And proceed to watch a parade of poorly-conceived shots thrown up with 17 on the shotclock in hopes of getting that extra point.

 

Continue to doubt that. At the highest levels of the four major sports in championship settings, defense almost always trumps offense, in the end.

 

I've always wondered if that were true or just one of those cliches that people trot out. I could see good reasons for it being either.