If I was Coach, I would do a Ray Meyer and keep those two horses on the court the entire game if it is close. The drop off is astronomical and our Freshman need time to get stronger and accustomed to the speed of the game. They will be fine, but they are not ready. Who else you going to play against a team like Illinois?
I agree and I know coach agrees. In context of the thread, I'm happy we have Leach to also score, and if Ty/Mullins can get more consistent in scoring then I think that leads to more opportunities for resting Bardinelli - if they don't have to carry the entire offense the entire game, it's better for everyone but our opponents.
I could be wrong, and I don't think we can know, but I suspect the long, hard minutes per game last year had some contributing impact in the injuries to Ty and Matt, and I just don't want to see something like that happen again to any of our guys for many obvious reasons.
True but how many of those ten got those minutes when MSU was up 40.
I don't know, I didn't watch the game. Looking at the box score, four of their five starters had less than ten points, and overall the starters had 46 points. The bench put up the other 43. It seems more likely MSU was just better overall, Nebby was overmatched, and MSU players got a lot of rest in over the course of the game. The two stats that jumped out at me beyond the minutes was MSU had 17 turn overs, 20 assists, and 48 rebounds. Nebby only had 8 steals, so those turn overs sound mostly unforced, but Nebby also only shot 18% from three. Dunno if that was bad shooting on open shots or, more likely, MSU defended the arc pretty well.