2012-13 NCAA Men's Basketball Thread

[vmd9]

Is it just me, or has college basketball become an incredibly low scoring sport? I'm looking at the final scores right now.

Clemson 56, Georgia Tech 53

Western Illinois 49, North Dakota State 36

Samford 40, Wofford 33

North Dakota 49, Sacramento State 48

These kind of scores have become common place this year. Why is that?

Lot of people have blamed the refs. Mainly seem to notice a huge jump in fouls being called, which I think I agree with to some extent. Sometimes you just have to let them play the game. I watched some A10 and MAC games that seem to have a foul called on every possession. Doesn't allow teams to get into a rhythm which would explain the low scoring and upsets.

[dfwabel]

Is it just me, or has college basketball become an incredibly low scoring sport? I'm looking at the final scores right now.

Clemson 56, Georgia Tech 53

Western Illinois 49, North Dakota State 36

Samford 40, Wofford 33

North Dakota 49, Sacramento State 48

These kind of scores have become common place this year. Why is that?

1- Risk aversion from coaches. Less possessions give you a greater opportunity to win. It is the equalizer they think they need. The team will shoot 35% whether they have 100 possessions or 60 possessions, so if they have less times to shoot, the better. Stats are just down, even from the era of a 45 second clock.

2- Junk defenses. Whether it is the Syracuse "matchup 2-3" or the Dick Bennett "Packline Man" which is used by many teams including Butler; allows teams to handcheck.

3- Officiating has no NCAA standard. The ACC is different from the SoCon, which is different from the Atlantic Sun all who an official can be contracted to if they live in the southeast USA. The lesser conferences have officials call more fouls; statsheet.com shows you that. Guys who call less fouls work more.

[pmoehrin]

Is it just me, or has college basketball become an incredibly low scoring sport? I'm looking at the final scores right now.

Clemson 56, Georgia Tech 53

Western Illinois 49, North Dakota State 36

Samford 40, Wofford 33

North Dakota 49, Sacramento State 48

These kind of scores have become common place this year. Why is that?

I think the big difference I see now is your getting more and more of these defense only type players inside mainly at the center position. Guys averaging 3 blocks and 6 points a night. That means your essentially playing 4 on 5 basketball on offense with little to no inside scoring threat. Your asking a lot out of your swing men in half a court offense in that case and if you have an undersized team as is the case with most small conference teams, I don't know how your going to be effective in the half court.

I don't think it will effect the NBA too much because you have these superstar swing guys like LeBron, Kobe, Durant, Harden that can score regardless of who they are playing or what they have around them. But in college top notch offense players are few and far between, but defensive players are always in obedience. Its not hard to find NBA quality defenders even in small conferences on .500 teams. The difference is how well you play offensively and very hard to get offensive talent at the college level if your not one of the major programs.

I don't want to completely discount the officiating because it is part of the problem, but this I think is the core of what's really going on and I don't think rule changes or how the game is officated is going to change much. The overall coaching philosophy of the game is what needs to change in order to open up scoring and that's not going to happen overnight.

[floydnimrod]

Is it just me, or has college basketball become an incredibly low scoring sport? I'm looking at the final scores right now.

Clemson 56, Georgia Tech 53

Western Illinois 49, North Dakota State 36

Samford 40, Wofford 33

North Dakota 49, Sacramento State 48

These kind of scores have become common place this year. Why is that?

I think the big difference I see now is your getting more and more of these defense only type players inside mainly at the center position. Guys averaging 3 blocks and 6 points a night. That means your essentially playing 4 on 5 basketball on offense with little to no inside scoring threat. Your asking a lot out of your swing men in half a court offense in that case and if you have an undersized team as is the case with most small conference teams, I don't know how your going to be effective in the half court.

I don't think it will effect the NBA too much because you have these superstar swing guys like LeBron, Kobe, Durant, Harden that can score regardless of who they are playing or what they have around them. But in college top notch offense players are few and far between, but defensive players are always in obedience. Its not hard to find NBA quality defenders even in small conferences on .500 teams. The difference is how well you play offensively and very hard to get offensive talent at the college level if your not one of the major programs.

I don't want to completely discount the officiating because it is part of the problem, but this I think is the core of what's really going on and I don't think rule changes or how the game is officated is going to change much. The overall coaching philosophy of the game is what needs to change in order to open up scoring and that's not going to happen overnight.

I think you hit the nail on the head.

Your first paragraph pretty much describes the University of Cincinnati basketball team. Three defensive-minded big men with little-to-no post moves on offense. Their two other post players are wings if they reach the rare odds of going pro (one was a 6'8" guard in high school, but plays the 4 spot now).

I think another reason could be guys not playing their natural positions and are being put in positions on the court where they're not comfortable offesnively. Some guys, like I mentioned before for UC, played "smaller" positions in high school, while other guys might have been the tallest player on their high school team are playing "smaller" positions in college.

I have no idea why that would effect scoring now more than other years, but I think it could be a factor.

[pmoehrin]

Is it just me, or has college basketball become an incredibly low scoring sport? I'm looking at the final scores right now.

Clemson 56, Georgia Tech 53

Western Illinois 49, North Dakota State 36

Samford 40, Wofford 33

North Dakota 49, Sacramento State 48

These kind of scores have become common place this year. Why is that?

I think the big difference I see now is your getting more and more of these defense only type players inside mainly at the center position. Guys averaging 3 blocks and 6 points a night. That means your essentially playing 4 on 5 basketball on offense with little to no inside scoring threat. Your asking a lot out of your swing men in half a court offense in that case and if you have an undersized team as is the case with most small conference teams, I don't know how your going to be effective in the half court.

I don't think it will effect the NBA too much because you have these superstar swing guys like LeBron, Kobe, Durant, Harden that can score regardless of who they are playing or what they have around them. But in college top notch offense players are few and far between, but defensive players are always in obedience. Its not hard to find NBA quality defenders even in small conferences on .500 teams. The difference is how well you play offensively and very hard to get offensive talent at the college level if your not one of the major programs.

I don't want to completely discount the officiating because it is part of the problem, but this I think is the core of what's really going on and I don't think rule changes or how the game is officated is going to change much. The overall coaching philosophy of the game is what needs to change in order to open up scoring and that's not going to happen overnight.

I think you hit the nail on the head.

Your first paragraph pretty much describes the University of Cincinnati basketball team. Three defensive-minded big men with little-to-no post moves on offense. Their two other post players are wings if they reach the rare odds of going pro (one was a 6'8" guard in high school, but plays the 4 spot now).

I think another reason could be guys not playing their natural positions and are being put in positions on the court where they're not comfortable offesnively. Some guys, like I mentioned before for UC, played "smaller" positions in high school, while other guys might have been the tallest player on their high school team are playing "smaller" positions in college.

I have no idea why that would effect scoring now more than other years, but I think it could be a factor.

Well that's the Anthony Davis effect but I think its pretty rare to get a big man that hasn't been a big man his whole career.

Its just the way the game is going now.

Offense minded post players like Garnett, Love, Nowitzki, Aldridge, Stoudemire have avoided playing the five spot like the plague. They want the option to go outside which is easier to get at the four and I don't think they want to go against what's often times the opposing team's best defensive player.

The other side of it is what I mentioned earlier about the swing spots becoming more of an offensive position. More touches for them means less for somebody else and the one position that has suffered the most offensively from that without question has been the center. But the center is still the most important defensive position on the floor and will always be, so if you know offense is going to be as much what are you going to put more emphasis on?

It used to be you could have guys like Alvin Adams, Rik Smits and Vlade Divac at the five spot and be perfectly fine. Now if your not averaging two blocks per 36 minutes, very difficult to justify being a starter. Guys like Tyson Chandler and DeAndre Jordan are not out there because of what they give you offensively and the same is true for the college game. The difference is like I said before there may not be much of a drop off defensively from college to the NBA, but there certainly is on the offensive side of things and that's what's getting exposed right now.

You can change the hand check rules and it will up scoring some. It may turn a team that averages 60 a night into a team that averages 63 ot 64 a night, but its not going to make them a 75 point a night team and if that's what people are expecting it to do they are going to be very disappointed.

The only thing I could think of that would open up scoring overnight would be to ban the zone defense. Is that going to be something people really want to do? Right now I would say no, but ten years from now I will guarantee you that argument will have much more merit and it wouldn't shock me if it eventually happened.

[Greg_Fryman]

The only thing I could think of that would open up scoring overnight would be to ban the zone defense. Is that going to be something people really want to do? Right now I would say no, but ten years from now I will guarantee you that argument will have much more merit and it wouldn't shock me if it eventually happened.

I feel really bad for Syracuse fans if this ever comes to light.

[RyanMcD29]

The only thing I could think of that would open up scoring overnight would be to ban the zone defense. Is that going to be something people really want to do? Right now I would say no, but ten years from now I will guarantee you that argument will have much more merit and it wouldn't shock me if it eventually happened.

I feel really bad for Syracuse fans if this ever comes to light.

Hey now we've been doing this 2-3 zone thing waayyyy before everyone else was doing it

[dfwabel]

Rick Barnes and his $2.4M is about to leave Texas, but who will they go after with a new terribly expensive contract?

[BigMac12]

Maryland just upsets #2 Duke, something we may see less off when the Terps jump ship to the Big Ten.

[cshookemHORNS]

Rick Barnes and his $2.4M is about to leave Texas, but who will they go after with a new terribly expensive contract?

That's what I'm wondering. It's pretty clear he's gone, but who's his replacement?

[ninersdd]

Damn, what an ending to the ASU-Colorado game!

[dfwabel]

Rick Barnes and his $2.4M is about to leave Texas, but who will they go after with a new terribly expensive contract?

That's what I'm wondering. It's pretty clear he's gone, but who's his replacement?

They need to have two or three guys targeted ASAP.

I have no idea on who, but on the women's side they spent dollars to replace Jody Conradt with another high-profile coach in Duke's Gail Goestenkors and that did not work out too well.

[Billy B]

Kentucky looks like they may be on the verge of collapsing after getting blown out by Tennessee. And it doesn't seem like Calipari is too happy with all those 5 star recruits he has. He apparently yelled at Archie Goodwin during the game that he couldn't coach him and didn't go into the last huddle of the game because the players weren't listening to him all game. In the post-game conference he called some of the guys "uncoachable." And senior Julius Mays said he told some players not to bother coming to practice tomorrow. Looks like UK will be sitting at home during March this year.

[Kevin W.]

Just goes to show that even the best recruiters can bust in a given year. No doubt Kentucky will be back next year.

[dfwabel]

Kentucky looks like they may be on the verge of collapsing after getting blown out by Tennessee. And it doesn't seem like Calipari is too happy with all those 5 star recruits he has. He apparently yelled at Archie Goodwin during the game that he couldn't coach him and didn't go into the last huddle of the game because the players weren't listening to him all game. In the post-game conference he called some of the guys "uncoachable." And senior Julius Mays said he told some players not to bother coming to practice tomorrow. Looks like UK will be sitting at home during March this year.

UK did not rank themselves top 5 in the pre-season and Calipari knew it would be an issue for them to become a team overall. It is a teaching effort to make five stars work as one in a year and last season, Calipari had older players like Darius Miller and Terrance Jones. They lost seven guys in 2012.

[Billy B]

Kentucky looks like they may be on the verge of collapsing after getting blown out by Tennessee. And it doesn't seem like Calipari is too happy with all those 5 star recruits he has. He apparently yelled at Archie Goodwin during the game that he couldn't coach him and didn't go into the last huddle of the game because the players weren't listening to him all game. In the post-game conference he called some of the guys "uncoachable." And senior Julius Mays said he told some players not to bother coming to practice tomorrow. Looks like UK will be sitting at home during March this year.

UK did not rank themselves top 5 in the pre-season and Calipari knew it would be an issue for them to become a team overall. It is a teaching effort to make five stars work as one in a year and last season, Calipari had older players like Darius Miller and Terrance Jones. They lost seven guys in 2012.

I never said they should be a top 5 team, but it's a disaster for this team not to make the tournament. The season isn't over yet and they can still turn it around, but that's not looking very likely. Kentucky should be really scary next year. Bringing the Harrison brothers in will at least give them some kind of chemistry and they'll be returning more players than this year. It looks like this current group of freshmen have a lot of maturing to do if they want to play up to their potential as a team though.

[cshookemHORNS]

Rick Barnes and his $2.4M is about to leave Texas, but who will they go after with a new terribly expensive contract?

That's what I'm wondering. It's pretty clear he's gone, but who's his replacement?

They need to have two or three guys targeted ASAP.

I have no idea on who, but on the women's side they spent dollars to replace Jody Conradt with another high-profile coach in Duke's Gail Goestenkors and that did not work out too well.

That's what I'm worried about, you know whoever gets hired is going to get paid big, but hopefully they dont pick a bust.

[Raysfan12]

Kentucky looks like they may be on the verge of collapsing after getting blown out by Tennessee. And it doesn't seem like Calipari is too happy with all those 5 star recruits he has. He apparently yelled at Archie Goodwin during the game that he couldn't coach him and didn't go into the last huddle of the game because the players weren't listening to him all game. In the post-game conference he called some of the guys "uncoachable." And senior Julius Mays said he told some players not to bother coming to practice tomorrow. Looks like UK will be sitting at home during March this year.

This post makes so much sense. Kentucky is acting very selfish right now without Noel and I'm glad they are going to make it into the NIT instead of the NCAA Tournament. I also don't think that UK will be all that scary next year especially that Calipari is not that great of a coach as most people think and their competition will be better than them.

[floydnimrod]

Last year was definitely the exception to the rule in terms of coaching 5 or 6 of the best freshmen on one team. And I don't think Kentucky fans realize that (or at the least the ones I know don't).

[Burmy]

Perhaps now would be a good time for my proposal of shortening the shot clock? (if not 24 seconds, then at HIGHEST 30?)