Thoughts on depth

[CappyNU]

I've seen mentions here and on other NU sites regarding concerns about our lack of depth beyond the "starting" lineup of Law, Pardon, Taylor, Turner, Gaines, so I took a look at the stats to find comparable teams over the past 5 years to what we have done so far, with bench guys getting 24% of available minutes per KenPom.

Out of 375 major conference team seasons, 38 of them have used fewer bench minutes than us. Of those 38, 25 made the NCAA tournament with another 3 making the NIT. Of those 25 teams, 11 were top-4 seeds in the NCAA tourney.

Last year alone, you had Syracuse (S16), Duke (E8) and Kansas (E8), 2017 had UCLA (S16), Michigan (S16), 2016 had Duke (S16), Iowa St (S16), Syracuse (F4), Notre Dame (E8) and Wisconsin (S16), 2015 had Wisconsin in the championship game with all starters playing 28+ mpg.

Point is, 2/3 of teams in our depth situation made the tourney and those teams have generally done really well. Yes, we've had 3 really tough losses and no big wins yet, but if this team can really continue to gel, they have the talent to get it done. Maybe tomorrow night is the beginning, 10 years after the last time we won in East Lansing.

 

[Wrestlerneverdiesasacatfan]

I've seen mentions here and on other NU sites regarding concerns about our lack of depth beyond the "starting" lineup of Law, Pardon, Taylor, Turner, Gaines, so I took a look at the stats to find comparable teams over the past 5 years to what we have done so far, with bench guys getting 24% of available minutes per KenPom.

Out of 375 major conference team seasons, 38 of them have used fewer bench minutes than us. Of those 38, 25 made the NCAA tournament with another 3 making the NIT. Of those 25 teams, 11 were top-4 seeds in the NCAA tourney.

Last year alone, you had Syracuse (S16), Duke (E8) and Kansas (E8), 2017 had UCLA (S16), Michigan (S16), 2016 had Duke (S16), Iowa St (S16), Syracuse (F4), Notre Dame (E8) and Wisconsin (S16), 2015 had Wisconsin in the championship game with all starters playing 28+ mpg.

Point is, 2/3 of teams in our depth situation made the tourney and those teams have generally done really well. Yes, we've had 3 really tough losses and no big wins yet, but if this team can really continue to gel, they have the talent to get it done. Maybe tomorrow night is the beginning, 10 years after the last time we won in East Lansing.

Good stat! Beat MSU

 

[haywood jahblowme]

I've seen mentions here and on other NU sites regarding concerns about our lack of depth beyond the "starting" lineup of Law, Pardon, Taylor, Turner, Gaines, so I took a look at the stats to find comparable teams over the past 5 years to what we have done so far, with bench guys getting 24% of available minutes per KenPom.

Out of 375 major conference team seasons, 38 of them have used fewer bench minutes than us. Of those 38, 25 made the NCAA tournament with another 3 making the NIT. Of those 25 teams, 11 were top-4 seeds in the NCAA tourney.

Last year alone, you had Syracuse (S16), Duke (E8) and Kansas (E8), 2017 had UCLA (S16), Michigan (S16), 2016 had Duke (S16), Iowa St (S16), Syracuse (F4), Notre Dame (E8) and Wisconsin (S16), 2015 had Wisconsin in the championship game with all starters playing 28+ mpg.

Point is, 2/3 of teams in our depth situation made the tourney and those teams have generally done really well. Yes, we've had 3 really tough losses and no big wins yet, but if this team can really continue to gel, they have the talent to get it done. Maybe tomorrow night is the beginning, 10 years after the last time we won in East Lansing.

very true - most have a rotation of 7-8

most also usually have better chances when their top guards go down. that is where we still suffer

 

[ricko654321]

I've seen mentions here and on other NU sites regarding concerns about our lack of depth beyond the "starting" lineup of Law, Pardon, Taylor, Turner, Gaines, so I took a look at the stats to find comparable teams over the past 5 years to what we have done so far, with bench guys getting 24% of available minutes per KenPom.

Out of 375 major conference team seasons, 38 of them have used fewer bench minutes than us. Of those 38, 25 made the NCAA tournament with another 3 making the NIT. Of those 25 teams, 11 were top-4 seeds in the NCAA tourney.

Last year alone, you had Syracuse (S16), Duke (E8) and Kansas (E8), 2017 had UCLA (S16), Michigan (S16), 2016 had Duke (S16), Iowa St (S16), Syracuse (F4), Notre Dame (E8) and Wisconsin (S16), 2015 had Wisconsin in the championship game with all starters playing 28+ mpg.

Point is, 2/3 of teams in our depth situation made the tourney and those teams have generally done really well. Yes, we've had 3 really tough losses and no big wins yet, but if this team can really continue to gel, they have the talent to get it done. Maybe tomorrow night is the beginning, 10 years after the last time we won in East Lansing.

Interesting data. What jumps out to me is that we are at effectively the 90th percentile here (38 out of 375 teams), and that's before conference play (ex 2 games), so it might go lower than the 24% bench minutes as season progresses.

Interesting that 25 of 38 have made it to tourney. 66%, vs maybe like 45-50% of power conference teams over all. If we had another couple guys at the level of Vic / Pardon then I'd agree with you on talent level, I agree Vic and Dererk should be playing just about as many minutes as they can handle (in the 30-35 range, pending foul issues). I don't think Turner or Taylor need to be consistently above 30 (averaging 33 and 32), I think we should take about 5 mins away from each of them and give to Nance / Kopp / Greer / Ash / maybe Falzon if healthy.

I wasn't able to watch the Columbia game, but looking at the box score, we won by 21 and Law + Turner played 36 minutes, Taylor 38 minutes (Pardon 29, though I'm guessing he had foul trouble otherwise that would prob have been higher). Those #s seem excessive to me, but what do I know.

One factor that could account for the 66% tournament rate is you are effectively self-selecting the teams that didn't have injury issues to their starters over the course of the season, which is likely positively correlated with making the NCAAT (though to be clear I don't think that would account for the full divergence between ~45% to 66%, could blame small sample size in part but I'm not sure that's why). Ultimately though it comes down to what you highlight - what is the talent level of the 5-6 guys that are playing most all the minutes for these teams vs our team - in many of the 38 cases over the last 5 years it was high enough to get it done... is that true of our team that we can ride just those 5 for such a high portion of the game? We will find out as the season progresses!

 

[Alan Smithee]

We used our bench a lot tonight!

 

[Katatonic]

very true - most have a rotation of 7-8

And as I have long stated, need 3 consistent scorers among the starting 5 and at least one off the bench.

Right now, there is no one who can consistently be that 3rd wheel w/ Law and Pardon.

Thought that the combo of Taylor and Turner could be that 3rd option, but there have been too many games already where both don't show up enough in the box score.

And still need that scorer off the bench.

This team kinda reminds me of the 2010-11 team which had those narrow losses to MSU and dOSU (twice each).

 

[ricko654321]

We used our bench a lot tonight!

Yeah... Izzo came in with a good game plan to run us up and down the floor after every made basket, and also attack repeatedly inside to get us into foul trouble. It worked. We started out with energy for about 5 minutes, but momentum swung their way after not too long as we couldn't match their pace and intensity (or depth after we started accumulating fouls).

Too his credit though, CC had us give them a fight for a while in the second half but didn't needlessly use Vic and Dererk, both were under 30 mins (partly due to fouls).