NCAA tournament 2011 — running thread

Frighteningly I agree with some of that.

But teams generally don't press for a couple of reasons. First, it doesn't work that often. Second, they have to make shots to set up an effective press.

The fan boards always have people calling for a full-court press the entire game. They're out of it.

 

Finally watched One Shining Moment on the web. I remember when it used to be good - you'd get the key plays from the key plays and get a sense of what happened during the tourney. Now it's just become a lot of facial expressions and hugs. I'd rather see what happened to cause the reaction shots than the reactions.

 

Adopting the 8-second halfcourt rule would make pressing more attractive stragtegically (by making it easier to force halfcourt violations) and the 8-second/3-pointer rule would amplify that by making the steal-fastbreak-and-basket worth an extra point, if you could pull it off.

Many if not coaches would still press infrequently if ever, but these two rule changes would take the stick out of the ass of the sport and dramatically crank up the pace of the whole game.

 

What would this rule be?

 

Any shot taken in the first 8 seconds of any possession counts 3 points regardless of where it is taken.

 

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/basketball/ncaa/04/09/larry.brown.unlv/

Guess who's interested in the UNLV job. Ok, Starman, do your thing.

 

I think the Larry Brown of a few years ago who still had a coaching mystique would rock at UNLV.

The current Larry Brown? Not so sure.

 

Sounds gimmicky to me.

Is it an actual proposal that's been/being discussed or is this your own idea?

 

Larry won't happen in Vegas, because he won't stay in Vegas.

 

One rule change that would make the game more fun to watch would be no timeouts allowed until the referee recognizes a break in play, such as a foul call. So no timeouts would be allowed when a player is trapped or when he can't get the ball inbounds. Now timeouts lead to good defensive efforts being negated. International has a similar rule. I see no downside.

Actually I would support a rule that abolishes timeouts. Just have the commercial breaks every four minutes and maybe add another break at two minutes to satisfy the TV gods. But control freak coaches will never allow that to happen.

 

Yes, they should do that. They also should make substitutions like baseball. Once you're out, you can't come back in.

Halftime would be 8 minutes long. Then they should shoot all of the FTs at the end of the game. This way, only the people who are in superb condition could ever play.

 

Certainly no more gimmicky than saying a shot from a certain distance counts 2 points and others count 3, or saying you have to shoot within a certain time period, or saying you can't stay in a certain area of the court more than 3 seconds, or saying you can't dunk in warmups but you can in a game, or saying you can't have any numeral on your uniform greater than 5.

As far as whether it's an actual proposal, I've talked to a few coaches about it and about half think it's a good idea.

They agree that the current structure of the game creates huge tactical incentives to do two things:

1) Use as much of the shot clock as possible on every possession;

2) Take shots only if they are layups/dunks or 3-point shots;

... and there is no tactical reason -- none -- to play an uptempo game under the current rules.


Bill James had some good treatments on this in the Abstracts a decade or so ago -- barring rule changes, game tactics in all sports always gravitate toward a greater emphasis on defense.

Coaches always want to devise strategic options which will allow themselves to neutralize opponents with greater raw physical talent, because empirically they know that talent levels are variable and somewhat out of their control at times, so instinctively they want to devise ways to neutralize talent so they can steal games even if they are at a talent disadvantage.

They know if they do not employ these tactics they will be ripped to shreds any time they lose for bucking "conventional wisdom." (That is, not 'playing the right way.')

Over time, the predominant tactics of all sports gravitate toward domination by defense, unless changes in the structure (playing rules) or conditions (equipment, facilities) counteract those changes.