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MarkD83
02-11-2010, 08:27 PM
I have been waiting until after the UNC game to ask this question. Many of you have expressed the opinion that you would take a few more losses if the big 3 were rested. So if we were to wave a magic wand and be 16-8 instead of 20-4, which of our 4 wins would you sacrifice?

I will start with the ones I would not give up.

1. UNC
2. UConn
3. ASU (NIT semis)
4 and 5. NIT 1st and 2nd round games.

Cameron
02-11-2010, 08:37 PM
None.

Our players would be no more rested with 8 losses than with 4. Jumbo has covered this ad nauseam, and I'll let him do it again if he pleases. He does a much more adequate job. (Except for the Paulus leadership thing, which he was wrong about). But I can let bygones be bygones:)

Imagine Duke at 20-4, in first place in the ACC regular season race and in a dog fight for a number one seed in the NCAA Tournament.

wilko
02-11-2010, 08:43 PM
I have been waiting until after the UNC game to ask this question. Many of you have expressed the opinion that you would take a few more losses if the big 3 were rested. So if we were to wave a magic wand and be 16-8 instead of 20-4, which of our 4 wins would you sacrifice?

I will start with the ones I would not give up.

1. UNC
2. UConn
3. ASU (NIT semis)
4 and 5. NIT 1st and 2nd round games.

Errr uhmmm.
I'd rather wave the wand the other way and Get the @State game and the @ GTech game back...

We fought tech hard and came up short... and vs State we just didnt show.. Not to take away from State.. they did what they had to and took advantage... but that was definately a mulligan. I'd like a do-over..

MarkD83
02-11-2010, 08:45 PM
I would also not tolerate any home losses.

That leaves me with losses to Gonzaga, Iowa State, at Clemson and at BC.

This would put Duke at 6-4 in the conference with only 1 quality win outside of the conference (UConn), 1 road win at 13-11 UNC and squarely on the bubble.

MarkD83
02-11-2010, 08:50 PM
None.

Our players would be no more rested with 8 losses than with 4. Jumbo has covered this ad nauseam, and I'll let him do it again if he pleases. He does a much more adequate job. (Except for the Paulus leadership thing, which he was wrong about). But I can let bygones be bygones:)

Imagine Duke at 20-4, in first place in the ACC regular season race and in a dog fight for a number one seed in the NCAA Tournament.

This is a hypothetical for those that would trade losses for rest.

I also put it this way because it gets us to think like the coaches. I am in a close game at BC I can't rest the big three because the win is crucial.

I am up by 8-10 at Clemson. A dangerous place against a team that could press Duke out of the building. Hard to think about rest vs winning.

Perhaps vs Gonzaga I can give some rest but this is a key signature win for a high NCAA seed.

The point is when you are in the moment the game you are playing is the key game. Winning is critical not depth vs rest.

dukeimac
02-11-2010, 09:06 PM
Simple answer to this question.

Ask Indy if the rest helped them!

moonpie23
02-12-2010, 12:48 AM
. and vs State we just didnt show.. Not to take away from State.. they did what they had to and took advantage... but that was definately a mulligan. I'd like a do-over..

we're still investigating that NCSU game mister wilco, could you tell us where you were between the hours of 7-9pm that evening..??

and do you have any witnesses?:cool:

-bdbd
02-12-2010, 02:10 AM
Sorry Mark, a fun game to play, but I too simply must reject the premise. It just IS NOT and either-or situation. It might be argued that you put yourself more at-risk in some games by playing the stars less -- that's another premise I reject b/c you can also build a reasonable case that by resting them a few minutes, at some intervals, the stars too become more effective, to say nothing of developing our depth at least a little with in-game experience -- but nobody reasonable argues that you must choose between playing your depth more and losing several (4?!) more games.

Personally, I believe that Scheyer and Singler would benefit in-game with some periodic breathers, and Dawkins and Mason or Ryan could certainly use thoise minutes for more game experience, with potential March payoffs, and it would not have cost us four victories. Not even close.

If you assume that playing those stars several minutes less makes us, say, 15% more likely to lose a given close game (I think I'm being liberal with that figure), and say we've had maybe six "close" wins (maybe ASU, UCONN, St. J, @ Clemson, @BC, @UNC), which were close enough to be potentially impacted... then probability tells you that, in aggregate, you would expect to lose 0.56 more games. (BTW, this also leaves out the possibility that the youngsters COULD have actually helped us to WIN one of those games that we acually lost closely.)

Sorry to throw a bunch of silly stats around, but my point is simply that there's just NO WAY such a strategy could have cost us four more losses.

If you want to say playing Scheyer and Singler 5 (?) less minutes in all of our games, and playing the youngsters equally more with those added minutes available, would give us a "coin toss" of losing ONE more game, then I could buy it. That's closer to the real choice here at least. Then, to answer your question, I'd choose one of those early-season 'close wins' (such as UCONN), since they would impact our NCAA expectations/seeding less.

What's worth more, risking that one win, or a more experienced bench and better rested stars come March?
Hmmmmmm.


:confused::confused::confused::p

91_92_01_10_15
02-12-2010, 11:18 AM
Personally, I believe that Scheyer and Singler would benefit in-game with some periodic breathers,

The minutes didn't seem to hurt the team while they were going 6-7 down the stretch in the Carolina game.



If you assume that playing those stars several minutes less makes us, say, 15% more likely to lose a given close game (I think I'm being liberal with that figure),

I don't think that figure is liberal at all. In fact, I think it could be much more likely than that that we would have lost our 'close' games if the big three had played five or so fewer minutes.

91_92_01_10_15
02-12-2010, 04:06 PM
I like this thread.

Where are the 1a-ers?

MarkD83
02-12-2010, 10:39 PM
Sorry to throw a bunch of silly stats around, but my point is simply that there's just NO WAY such a strategy could have cost us four more losses.

Then, to answer your question, I'd choose one of those early-season 'close wins' (such as UCONN), since they would impact our NCAA expectations/seeding less.



Ok, I picked 4 out of the hat to start the conversation. You have now conceded UConn as a loss that could be traded. How much would this impact our seeding. Right now UConn might be considered to be a bad loss. We are hanging in there for a 2-3 seed. My guess is a loss to UConn and one other loss early on would translate to a 4-5 seed.

Using the ESPN poll, this means in the Sweet 16 we would have to play Ky, Syr, Villanova or Kansas. As a 2-3 seed we would have to play K State, Mich. St. Tenn. or Wisc. I like the second four.

My feeling is every game counts in college ball and seedings are what give you the best chance to move forward come tournament time. What appears like a meaningless loss is not.

I will concede I wish the big 3 would get some more rest in blowout games, but trading any loss for rest is not a good option and when a coach is in the middle of a game he is thinking about how to win, not whether rest is needed for the next game.

-bdbd
02-12-2010, 11:18 PM
You have now conceded UConn as a loss that could be traded. How much would this impact our seeding. Right now UConn might be considered to be a bad loss. We are hanging in there for a 2-3 seed. My guess is a loss to UConn and one other loss early on would translate to a 4-5 seed.

Using the ESPN poll, this means in the Sweet 16 we would have to play Ky, Syr, Villanova or Kansas. As a 2-3 seed we would have to play K State, Mich. St. Tenn. or Wisc. I like the second four.

My feeling is every game counts in college ball and seedings are what give you the best chance to move forward come tournament time. What appears like a meaningless loss is not.

I will concede I wish the big 3 would get some more rest in blowout games, but trading any loss for rest is not a good option and when a coach is in the middle of a game he is thinking about how to win, not whether rest is needed for the next game.
================================================== ====
Good discussion Mark. But that's not at all what I "conceded." The math showed that, given those assumptions, you would "expect" another 1/2 loss (a coin toss of that UCONN win, for example). I also argued that having those stars rested some during those close games could possibly improve the historical outcome in some of those close LOSSES.

IOW, playing the stars ~40 minutes netted close losses vs Wisc, GT, etc... What would have happened if we'd played the stars a little less - say given them a 2-1/2 minute "blows" mid 1st and 2nd halves (and not nec. at the same time!) ?? To the other poster's point: maybe a rested Kyle, Jon, and Nolan don't give up the lead late in the first half to UNC, or maybe we take control earlier in the second half. Hypotheticals are just impossible to prove.

But to your main premise, which I was actually contemplating as I wrote my original post, is it worth an additional "half-loss" (risk) to have a more experienced and confident bench come March? Hard to say, but I kinda doubt even a chance of a single aditional loss to a ranked team in Nov. likely drops us a seed, but absolutely wouldn't drop us more than one seed row at the most. Certainly still undesirable, to play against a 2-seed in a regional semi versus a 3-seed in that round, but ask me in 5 weeks during the ACCT or during The Dance, after a couple of our starters get into early foul trouble, or maybe one gets an injury like a deep bone bruise and has to miss that regional semi entirely.

It simply isn't a clear, easy answer. That's all.


:rolleyes::o:D :cool:

MarkD83
02-13-2010, 07:55 AM
I like that you have brought up the ACCT. This is where rest will count. I (unlike Roy Williams) believe that the ACCT means something.

Because we are 8-2 and a shot at 1st place we will get someone from the bottom half in the quarterfinals. That team we play will also have already played on Thursday. This is the type of game that you hope Duke puts away early and then rests the starters.

If (and I hope when) Duke wins the ACCT the first NCAA game is Thursday and Duke gets a 1-2 seed. A high seed gives Duke a game against an opponent they can handle and then give starters some rest. So high seeds give you a chance to physically rest your players.

What matters more to me is mental fatigue rather than physical fatigue. I believe that Duke's woe's in the past few years have been due to mental fatigue leading to physical fatigue. The mental fatigue comes from our offense being predicated on one or two players having to bear all of the burden (JJ and Shelden, G etc.) and not getting rebounds (WVU). This puts an awful lot of pressure on shooting very well to win. This Duke team has multiple scoring options and rebounds well. Therefore, when Duke has an off shooting night...no problem get some rebounds and wait for someone (take Nolan at UNC) to come to life.

Finally, wins like those vs UConn and UNC where Duke shoots poorly and wins can help the team get over the mental fatigue by letting them know they can win on an off shooting night.

MarkD83
02-13-2010, 08:01 AM
I also like this discussion. I am more of a math guy and trying to hone into an actual number of losses that could be sacrificed early and finding that the number of losses may not be relevant is where I was hoping this would go.

Go Duke and here's hoping we talk about Coach K not resting his starters after a win against Md.

wilko
02-13-2010, 12:56 PM
we're still investigating that NCSU game mister wilco, could you tell us where you were between the hours of 7-9pm that evening..??

and do you have any witnesses?:cool:

"WE" .... who is "we"?
a hit dog will hollar... :D