Originally Posted by
Chicago 1995
...This is summoning a firestorm, but I think there's a real argument that K is less willing to sacrifice wins for growth than he used to be, and that instead of developing youth and depth -- which is where a lot of growth comes from -- K is maximizing the odds of winning each individual game.
This is an interesting thought. It seemed to me in years past that Coach K cared a lot less about any individual game than maybe he does now. It almost seemed like sometimes he left the players on their own to lose the game in order to make an important teaching point that would help them later on (although it's not at all clear that he actually did that; this is only an impression I got watching some games in the past). That used to bug me a lot, because I kind of thought "you play to win the game." But now maybe I can see that there may be times when it is wiser to look at the long goals rather than the short ones.
And I agree completely that Izzo's teams are always better in February and March than they are in November and December.
"We are not provided with wisdom, we must discover it for ourselves, after a journey through the wilderness which no one else can take for us, an effort which no one can spare us, for our wisdom is the point of view from which we come at last to regard the world." --M. Proust