Platoon Squads

[Mdoggie]

With the team being "stacked" next season, what are the chances Geno could/would platoon the squad? Meaning 5 in 5 out. Has he ever done it before?

 

[Sonny44]

I doubt it very much. He is very good at optimizing performance and match-ups. Mix and match; see what combos work the best together. Plus he would never separate Pheese from KLS IMO.

 

[HardHatGuy#2]

I have always wanted to see him try that. Take 5 pine-riders, who are usually on par with most competition in terms of talent, run them into the pavement for a couple of months of training, then put them in occasionally for 5-6 minutes of The System. Drain your opponent of energy, weaken their knees, and throw their coaches for a loop; they'll have to spend time adjusting for this change-of-pace instead of the package UConn has in for this game. Since The System is largely self-managed, Geno et all can work on the sideline to make in-game adjustments for the starters. They come back in, refreshed and with a new game plan, and face a tired team that has to shift gears again, only to find that the team they are facing now isn't the team that they had been playing.

Classic strategy, but teams rarely have the talent on the bench to pull it off. UConn could.

 

[pppggg]

With the team being "stacked" next season, what are the chances Geno could/would platoon the squad? Meaning 5 in 5 out. Has he ever done it before?

Men's BB at North Carolina under Dean Smith. Had 10 studs. Nonstop pressure on defense and nonstop running on offense. Affective and entertaining. Ran a 4 corner offense- very spread out and that created cutting and passing lanes. Geno is a student of the game so you never know. He could actually do something similar.

 

[Sluconn Husky]

I'd day the odds are slim to none. Geno would likely consider that a gimmick, and he's going to have way too good a squad for gimmicks.

 

[Waquoit]

Never heard the four corners described as entertaining before.

 

[rvwsleep]

Never heard the four corners described as entertaining before.

Entertaining if 2 conditions were met.
1 You were a NC fan
2 You were a Phil Ford fan.

 

[mauconnfan]

Calipari just tried it with his high school AA's to make them happy, it was a terrible decision. Gene couldn't coach that way because he's too smart to have the plan mapped out already, he likes to coach and part of that is making decisions on the personnel. One kids playing really good but they all come out? Not Geno's style and it won't happen. Also the 4 corners, never again - please!

 

[Kaizen]

May be 2-3 out, 2-3 in. Not 5 out 5 in.-

 

[HopJim]

With the team being "stacked" next season, what are the chances Geno could/would platoon the squad? Meaning 5 in 5 out. Has he ever done it before?

Not that I'm superstitious, but...lets not get too far ahead of ourselves. Been watching UConn for many years and rarely have I seen a deep bench. For a variety of reasons, Geno tends not to go to more than 7-8 players. Injuries, transfers, etc. tend to catch up. That being said, would love the opportunity to see us go 10 deep. Wonderful thought!

 

[CocoHusky]

Next year is going to be interesting 5 in and 5 out could be a way to keep everyone happy.
You could have a team tall Natalie, Azura' KLS, Megan, and Kia. and a team ultra quick with Batouly ,Gabby, Napheesa, Crystal and Nikayla. Lexi & Kyla could back up the tall team and Molly & AEH could back up the quick team.
Not many teams would be able to match up with two different UCONN styles of play and each player would have a defined role. Still think this is fantasy & not likely to happen.

 

[UcMiami]

He did it in the Olympics in 2012 for a few games pretty consistently - maybe not a full five in and out at once, but three in and then another two at the next stoppage. It got less obvious the further along in the games they went, but there was definitely that platoon like feel. It didn't happen as much in the 2016 games. I am trying to remember back to 2000 an 2001 and I think there was a bit of that happening as well with the TASS group of forwards playing together - if you have the roster to do it, it makes sense. If you have ten players who you want to play serious competitive minutes it is really hard for them all to get in sync with each of the other nine. So having two sets of perimeter players that practice and play together can be a way to create more coordination, and the same with two groups of interior players. You don't see it very often in college because no one has that many quality players, but you see it quite often in the pros both men and women. You do see it more with teams that have no star quality players, but a large roster of good players - Depaul and or Syracuse last year, KY with its 40 minutes of dread a few years ago.

If the roster next year really is as good as we think it will be, and if some of the freshman develop quickly, I think he really may develop some platoon pattern to substitution. A Walker, Kia, Danger wing group and a Gabby, Coombs, Lou group or a Napheesa/Natalie and a Stevens/Camara pairing for example that tend to be substituted together.

And with the number of guards and wings on the roster we may see a return to the full court pressure for long stretches that we saw a while back - hard to do with a short bench because of fatigue and fouls, but with next years roster ...

 

[Zorro]

Next year is going to be interesting 5 in and 5 out could be a way to keep everyone happy.
You could have a team tall Natalie, Azura' KLS, Megan, and Kia. and a team ultra quick with Batouly ,Gabby, Napheesa, Crystal and Nikayla. Lexi & Kyla could back up the tall team and Molly & AEH could back up the quick team.
Not many teams would be able to match up with two different UCONN styles of play and each player would have a defined role. Still think this is fantasy & not likely to happen.

I think that what you meant to write was that NO team is going to be ab le to match up with UConn next year, regardless of who starts or what the substitution patterns might be. Wasn't it?

 

[UConn79]

With the team being "stacked" next season, what are the chances Geno could/would platoon the squad? Meaning 5 in 5 out. Has he ever done it before?

That's fine, but barring tranfers or injury we will have 14 on the roster. What about the other 4 ? You have a roster full of HS All Americans used to playing big minutes. Just keeping everyone happy may be Geno's biggest job next year.

This is crazy to start worrying about 2017 - 18 already.

 

[tomcat]

ASU has done this a lot in the past and with lesser teams, enjoyed some success. It can be overwhelming for the opposition to be confronted with four or five completely fresh opponents, so the strategy makes sense, at least psychologically. But ASU also is a team that never recruits well. It has few stars, so the difference been the third and fourth best and the seventh and eighth best is much smaller than you'd find with a team like UConn.

Yes, at UConn the second string consists of wonderful players, but they tend to be nowhere near as wonderful as the first stringers, and that kind of performance would show.

 

[CocoHusky]

This is crazy to start worrying about 2017 - 18 already.

LoL. The worry about 2017-18 season started two years ago.

 

[hoophuskee]

The strategy makes no sense. None. It's something you do in fantasy sports, all-star games or if you are so superior to every team and have absolutely no reason on losing. Someone mentioned Dean Smith did it- yes he did. But if I'm not mistaken I believe one game (maybe vs Indiana) NC's 2nd squad got their butt handed to them that he stopped it shortly thereafter.

Just because the 2nd squad has "fresher legs" doesn't mean they will be better. If KLS is drilling 3's, would you really want to pull her? Would you really want to take CD out of the game next year -- if so replace her with who? DO you really want to risk maybe losing a game to ND next year because your 2nd team was totally ineffective? What if late in the season 4 players are doing well in the starting 5 but the 5th player you need now needs ot be subbed in and she hasn't worked much in game situations with the other 4?

Doing a 5 in and 5 out as a regular philosophy is for fantasy sports.

 

[Zorro]

We might have three platoons, 2 with five and one with four. I think that any four of our five starters (whomever they turn out to be) could probably handle anyone else's five. We could then spread the remaining talent evenly over two groups of five, substituting every five minutes. Whaddya think?

 

[UcMiami]

The strategy makes no sense. None. It's something you do in fantasy sports, all-star games or if you are so superior to every team and have absolutely no reason on losing. Someone mentioned Dean Smith did it- yes he did. But if I'm not mistaken I believe one game (maybe vs Indiana) NC's 2nd squad got their butt handed to them that he stopped it shortly thereafter.

Just because the 2nd squad has "fresher legs" doesn't mean they will be better. If KLS is drilling 3's, would you really want to pull her? Would you really want to take CD out of the game next year -- if so replace her with who? DO you really want to risk maybe losing a game to ND next year because your 2nd team was totally ineffective? What if late in the season 4 players are doing well in the starting 5 but the 5th player you need now needs ot be subbed in and she hasn't worked much in game situations with the other 4?

Doing a 5 in and 5 out as a regular philosophy is for fantasy sports.

You see a lot of it in pro basketball - and it is all about keeping legs fresh. Five minutes of going all out in a running, pressing game really is exhausting and keeping your players fresh when you have good talent on the bench is important. And even if the second wave is not as good as the first wave, if the opponent keeps their starters in, the second wave can perform better than that tired first string opponent, and when the rested first string come back in, whatever the opponent has will not be able to keep up.
In the pros the shorter shot clock adds to the up and down nature of the game but a lot of college teams are not using much of the shot clock. Syracuse last year was a run and gun team, and used their long bench, and it got them to the NC game against teams that had more talent but couldn't keep up for a whole game.

 

[Vowelguy]

With the team being "stacked" next season, what are the chances Geno could/would platoon the squad? Meaning 5 in 5 out. Has he ever done it before?

This has been talked about almost every year and it NEVER happens.

 

[Kmoney]

Calipari just tried it with his high school AA's to make them happy, it was a terrible decision. Gene couldn't coach that way because he's too smart to have the plan mapped out already, he likes to coach and part of that is making decisions on the personnel. One kids playing really good but they all come out? Not Geno's style and it won't happen. Also the 4 corners, never again - please!

Calipari took the lazy approach. I suspect that he made a lot of promises to kids and didn't
want to damage his "One and done" machine. Geno will not put players on the floor because it's their turn.

In my own fantasy world, I would have loved to seen Geno coach that Kentucky team and
have Calipari coach UConn next year. I think Geno would have won the championship at Kentucky and Calipari's UConn would crash out.

 

[Mdoggie]

This has been talked about almost every year and it NEVER happens.

My first full year on the forum.

 

[intlzncster]

Calipari just tried it with his high school AA's to make them happy, it was a terrible decision. Gene couldn't coach that way because he's too smart to have the plan mapped out already, he likes to coach and part of that is making decisions on the personnel. One kids playing really good but they all come out? Not Geno's style and it won't happen. Also the 4 corners, never again - please!

Run the offense that resulted in the institution of the shot clock? No friggin way.

Reality is, while there will be plenty of good players on the roster, some kids will play themselves into playing time, and others out of it. A platoon system is a disincentive; it doesn't reward anyone for hard work. The guys who produce in practice, outwork everyone else, would get nothing for their efforts. Just standard playing time.

From an ingame perspective, all a platoon system does is take guys out of rhythm. As you said, last thing you ever want to do is take out the hot hand.

 

[Zorro]

Happy Birthday!

 

[hoophuskee]

You see a lot of it in pro basketball - and it is all about keeping legs fresh. Five minutes of going all out in a running, pressing game really is exhausting and keeping your players fresh when you have good talent on the bench is important. And even if the second wave is not as good as the first wave, if the opponent keeps their starters in, the second wave can perform better than that tired first string opponent, and when the rested first string come back in, whatever the opponent has will not be able to keep up.
In the pros the shorter shot clock adds to the up and down nature of the game but a lot of college teams are not using much of the shot clock. Syracuse last year was a run and gun team, and used their long bench, and it got them to the NC game against teams that had more talent but couldn't keep up for a whole game.

Noo - you don't - not pressing you don't. What you see is the stars playing near 40 minutes in the playoffs. Plus the NBA doesn't press because for the very reason it wouldn't work. Find me one NBA team that pressed consistently and was successful. Rick Pitino did it a few years with the Knicks but it's basically a gimmick and it wasn't 5 in and 5 out with any consistency. You're not going to risk opening the floor up to a guy like LBJ or Curry and you can't press Chris Paul especially with his teammate etc.

As for Syracuse, yes they did make the finals- but I doubt it was 5 in and 5 out. Here are there stats from last year for Cuse: I am too lazy to look at each NCAA game but I recall their pg getting big minutes not 5 in and 5 out. I seriously doubt they employed 5 in and 5 out as any pattern. They can play 10 players but that doesn't mean a sub pattern of 5 in 5 out.

http://www.cuse.com/documents/2015/11/13//Season.pdf?id=9184