Top Hoop Team's Strategy vs. MSU Cats

[aucat]

Watching the mighty Ucon Lady Huskies this evening and find it amazing that they only played 6 players (until 40 seconds left)!

Actually, if you watch the best teams, men or women, you notice that you have a strong starting 5 and maybe 2 or 3 key subs. This way the team really develops a chemistry and feel and anticipation for what the other team members are going to do.

I contrast this common sense strategy to the helter-skelter subbing that goes on with the MSU men and women's teams. Usually after only about 3 minutes into the game the coach calls timeout and you see three players head for the bench, even if one or more has been hot.

Anyone else have thoughts about this???

I know at times this year the Cats would make a substitution that just did not seem to make sense. One thing about the Lady Huskies, they are obviously IN GREAT PHYSICAL CONDITION!

Another advantage of sticking mostly with a starting 5 with only 2 or 3 subs, it gives an extra incentive to all the players to work really hard to crack that lineup. Heck, when you play the whole bench and move all the players in and out throughout the game, where is the incentive to work extra hard in practice? You know you are going to get good playing time anyway?

[Hawks86]

Other "experts" around here thought the opposite.

[BLACKnBLUEnGOLD]

You're watching top teams in the tournament; given the single-elimination nature of the tournament, and the fact that there are seven months of offseason coming up afterward, coaches have more incentive to shorten the bench and no real reason not to. I suspect these top teams use more players during the regular season so that their best 7 or 8 have enough left to carry the team on a long tournament run.

That said, if you start your best five AND do a lot of line-change style substitution, that will likely result in having some pretty weak lineups out there for significant stretches of the game. You can do one of those things, or you can do the other, but doing both seems like a bad idea.

[DicTater]

depends on the team. Dayton men used 11 players. VCU always uses 10 because they press all game. Depends on style of play and quality of players.