Excellent reads from the @Jesse_Newell and @jaybate posts on cjonline.com!
I was reading down the page, and before I reached Jaybate's words about us tiring other team's out, that was already percolating in my head, because random luck is easy to attribute to one or two games, but as the sample size grows, a pattern starts to appear.
I'm looking for a pattern, and I think I may have one.
Look at Jesse's graphic showing the last 10 years of Jayhawk stats on opponent FT%.
I'm trying to piece together every team we had over the past 10 years... but it seems like there could be a relationship with the depth of our teams and our opponent's FT%. I could be wrong, but it makes sense that the more depth we have, the more we substitute and displace PT over more players. In doing so, this impacts the freshness of our players, and that should have a reverse impact on our opponent's freshness. This is all about our opponents' energy level when they step to the line.
I believe another factor may be our M2M defense, and comparison to how many other D1 teams are running M2M. It feels like we are the anomaly this year because of the rules calling closer. Teams are playing more zone, not just with us, but with everyone. There are not so many coaches in America that are married to a M2M. I wonder... I wonder if our stat on being 6th nationally will even improve as the season progresses! I wonder... if it will be connected to how close games are called and how often our opposition runs into M2M? If refs (collectively) start allowing more contact, perhaps more teams will play M2M and we are no longer the anomaly. Teams get used to facing M2M, so they maintain a higher energy level during games. But if we remain the anomaly, teams aren't used to facing M2M, and so it will tire them quicker than usual.
One more factor helping to tire our opponents this year; media hype. We've received so much hype, mostly based around Wiggins, that every team we play this year receives so much extra hype before we play. It's just more chaos they have to deal with, more sleep they lose, and more energy they have to spend before the game ever starts. We get the "best shot" out of everyone we face this year, and that means they are super jacked up to play. That may mean they play inspired basketball, but at what eventual cost to their energy level?
I do believe this all relates to teams being tired.
So how can we exploit this moving forward?
Strategy for beating "tired" teams should be broken down into different time zones:
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Season - it seems that some teams get stronger through the year, while other teams tire as the season progresses. Maybe I'm being too broad here, and should say 'players' instead of 'teams' so when we scout future opponents we should study each player's "estimated energy level." We put more-aggressive defense on the "tired" players (who may be more-likely for TOs, too). If we foul them, we foul them, and we watch them brick FTs. Most players bricking FTs accept it as a slump for the game, and either get anxious or reduce their shooting. It's a kind of "mental jinx."
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Game - we should have plenty of substitutions during a game, and we should push tempo. By doing so, we take full advantage of all that depth we have. Run plenty of on and off ball screens. Normally, you don't want to foul teams a lot in the second half, and I'm still not going to advise it now, but if we are considering a strategy based on opponent's being tired, I'd say we should definitely avoid fouling them in the first half! There are two big reasons why we shouldn't foul in the first half; first, our opponents have more energy and so are more likely to hit their FTs, second, we need to win the fouling wars and by having few fouls on our guys and more on opponents, we can use that as leverage to keep moving the foul wars in our direction. Players in foul trouble tend to play less aggressive and draw fewer fouls.
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Defense - on the defensive side we should continue to push our M2M. Opponents facing M2M get tired more on their offense than when they face zones (or at least, they should). Our guys need to pester and play tight, forcing opponents to burn more energy on offense. Players' energy changes from moment to moment. When they have to use extra energy on bursts (more-likely when facing M2M) it takes them a minute or two to recoup some of what they spent. During that period, they are shooting FTs, and are more-likely to miss.
Consider that we have probably the best conditioning coach in the nation (Hudy). Fuse our conditioning with our depth, and we shouldn't lose an energy competition with anyone this year. Perhaps the biggest advantage we have this year on our opponents is the amount of energy (as a team) we should bring to games... how we use it... and how we force opponents to use theirs!
If none of this makes sense... run continuously around a gym until you have to wedge your arms on your thighs when you stand. Now go shoot 10 FTs in a row and count how many go in!
