Quick note on foul trouble

[doggydaddy]

I watched two games recently.

In the most recent men's Uconn game they were down 19 to Nova in the first half. Their best player Napier picked up his 2nd foul and they took him out. They don't have a great bench and they best guard of the bench is Samuels, a freshman with totally uneven minutes during the season.

He averaged only 8 minutes a game, 2 points, 1 rebound and one assist.

So, what did he do here? Played 21 minutes, helped Uconn close the gap in the first half and scored 11 points going 7-8 from the line.

In the BYU womens game against Nebraska, their star center, Hamson picked up her 4th foul with 10 minutes left and BYU leading 53-52. Harry, a guard comes in averaging 3ppg and hitting 30% on 3's. She goes on to make three 3pointers over the next 7 minutes and BYU out scored Nebraska 18-8 building a nice 11 point lead, 71-60.

Now, I'm sure there are examples of player going out with foul troubles and it not going well for that team. Chong, Banks and Stokes are more than capable of doing what happened in the two examples I gave. Good enough minutes to compliment the remaining players so they can still play well enough to win. And none of those teams had 3-4 AA type players still on the court.

 

[UcMiami]

Nice post. You just never know what will happen in games plus and minus. As CD frequently points out, invariably the kid in the 'scout' who can't hit the backboard from three point land and therefore doesn't need to be guarded proceeds to hit only the bottom of the net on five straight threes when her team plays Uconn.

 

[DobbsRover2]

That seems to have been a common thread for at least the UConn guys over the years. Most famous case might have been when Emeka Okafor picked up two quick whistles in the 2004 semi against Duke and sat most of the first half, and his teammates responded by keeping the game pretty close so that the Huskies could put the Devils away in the second half. Sometimes the reserves can put in 5-10 minutes fueled on adrenaline and fresh legs and boost their team. Also really seemed to me that Nebraska kind of relaxed too much after Hamson went out rather than stepping up the pressure.

 

[Waquoit]

. Most famous case might have been when Emeka Okafor picked up two quick whistles in the 2004 semi against Duke and sat most of the first half, and his teammates responded by keeping the game pretty close so that the Huskies could put the Devils away in the second half.

Bad example. UConn won but they never put Duke away. And guys on that UConn bench are still in the NBA. We have a small sample size here but the one game where the WBB team had foul trouble the game was still just a 3 point game with less then 4 minutes left. UConn has only Stokes on the bench that can keep up the level of play. Let's be honest, when Geno has had the bench in the game late (not counting the walk-ons), the offense struggles. It's going to be an issue if we need big minutes from the bench against the top couple of teams.