No, I think I know what you are trying to say, but you've still lost me. So do you also discount the entire first half of the season where you play out of conference teams? What about quick turnarounds, like Thursday and Saturday games the same week? Should games against new coaches within the conference be discounted too? What about teams that play a lot of freshmen? You get 3-4 days to prepare for your first round NCAA opponent. There is more film on teams than ever before. There is more than enough time to game plan. This is surely a strange argument that I have never heard before..
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Generally, all of the major teams rack up wins against weaker teams in the early part of the season. In the early part of the season many coaches are still trying to learn their team as they beat inferior teams in many cases. In some cases the inferior teams are coached by coaches that have certain preferences in style and those could be known. Major players on those teams can be reviewed as you suggest, but how much do you think is sufficient scouting? It was standard protocol for Basil Mawby to scout each team 10 games if possible before playing them and that was high school. When I’ve scouted many , many years ago I can tell you that a game or so may provide misleading results. I can get tendencies of a team and players relative to the team that they are playing and the players at that time, but not as much as if I followed the team I was about to play more than a couple of games.
You mention 3-4 days to prepare for your first round NCAA game and that is true…and coaches are scrambling to get film. Perhaps you are aware they also call coaches about the teams if their relationship with the coaches are good enough to solicit their opinion? Why call other coaches if there is sufficient film to answer your questions? Because coaching is not a matter of fact that team A played this way against your opponent and therefore you can too with your personnel. Along those lines, what do you do when your films shows little relative to your team tendencies and player personnel in the film you see…when the film still leaves many questions? I can give you simple tendencies in attacking a zone press, man press, half court zone X and O stuff that are generalities, but all those are tempered by your own team and knowledge of the other team. Do you think that all players are “guarded” on the court the same by all teams? There exists different rules for different players for different games in many cases and all of those things is based upon previous knowledge. Consequently, my ability to structure an approach with a lesser team to beat a better team is enhanced with more knowledge and not less. If the other coach is just as effective with the same pertinent information and just as good as me the better players win. The opposite condition where neither coach has information will result in a win with the best players as well.
In all cases there is an interaction between players and teams as well as the main effects of players and teams which essentially suggests that several combinations between effective players and coaches are always at play and I would never suggest that a coach has little effect. I think coaches can have huge influence. I only suggest that a coach’s effect is magnified when the coach knows more than less and there exists no place of such magnitude than in conference play in comparison, where the coaches and players have a larger sample size and direct comparisons rather than just film or talking to other coaches. Hence, NCAA Tourney success is weighted more to players than coaches in comparison to conference play. That is my reasoning and it is fine to disagree, but I find that reasoning much more palatable to Keady’s success in conference while not being as successful in tourney play rather than Gene forgetting his basketball or running into something he has no idea how to attack due to something completely new and never experienced. I think without Gene's results, logic supports my reasoning. However, I know several thousand sit in a gym and see the same game and many have different ideas and so I’m not surprised that others would disagree…and that is fine, but it is what I have evolved to believing...
