MBB: Great South Athletic Conference

[narch]

urban myth - i'm too lazy to verify this for the gsac schools, but most schools that use a standard stats program have an option to differentiate overall and conference stats - if the gsac season box score doesn't allow this you have to manually calculate those numbers

[mattgrubb]

i will say that this is the first year of intrigue in the gsac and it is needed, the conference is only as great as the sum of its parts and as a whole its only great part has been maryville in past years
this year there is so much excitement i love it

Wilburt, i will do my best to make it down there

Andy Chaney for President

[Urban Myth]

thank you narch, guess i will have to get to that.  i'll see if i can get lagrange's and huntingdon's stats up tonight, since the other three schools obviously have their own fan club.

the gsac has been pretty exciting this year, many close games.  big weekend coming up, i hope that i will be able to make it.

[scottiedoug]

The GSAC would be even more intriguing and exciting if it could lure a couple more schools in men's bb   If there were ever to be an automatic qualification to the NCAA, should it be the tournament winner or the regular season winner?  If the former, should the tournament be at a neutral site?

All four of Fisk's players that William researched have pretty good stats, and all of them are reallly good players.

I am still interested in what y'all think of my earlier question:  does it matter for all conference whether all that talent produces a tournament winner?

[wilburt]

Doug why should it matter whether "all that talent" wins tournament?  We aren't selecting the All-Tournament team, but the All-Conference team, where the regular season should matter the most!

I do like the idea of having a neutral site once the GSAC gets an automatic bid.  I have always liked the idea of having Atlanta as that permanent place.  Finally, of course it should be the tourney winner who gets the automatic bid, otherwise why even have a tourney?  Unless you all want to go see some exhibition games at the end of the year ....  

Those are my thoughts...

[Spencer Beaty]

I agree.  But to do that we are going to have to get some more teams in the conference. 

[ohyeah]

my money is on Grubb in an eating contest, Killer in a dribbling contest, Old lion in a talking contest, Spencer Beatty in a whit contest and William in a race. 

Those are my all conference picks.

[coachwgh]

Like the coach says in "Teen Wolf"....."look at it this way fellows, it will all be over in less than an hour."  (as he bites a hard boiled egg)  Someone give me an egg!  It has been a long year to say the least.  Underachieving would be an understatement.  I got time to quickly comment on a few things and hopefully bring about some other ponderings(that being thoughts not mannerisms of Oglethorpe's head man and LC alum Phil "Dollar Bill" Ponder).  We have three games left and then 10 days off before we play in the play in game of the GSAC tournament.  Don't worry I am not circling the wagons.  We are mathmatically out of reaching 3rd place no matter what happens.  I had someone tell me after the Huntingdon game that I should be very proud of the intensity my guys display, especially at this point of the season with only 6 wins.  I thanked him and then made peace with the fact that right now I believe we are doing all we can do and that we won't stop trying to get better until we take our last breath.  LC-PC generally gives a crowd friendly game unless you're a loud mouth that likes to yell at officials and the scoretable instead of watching the fastest paced game outside of teams that run "the system". The last three at Piedmont have come down to the wire with last year's OT barnburner and three years ago when Piedmont had got 3 shots in the last 12 seconds.  I remember after the buzzer sounded I was shocked that we held on to that one.  Mariotti is definitely a better place for us to play Maryville than Baird but the result has been the same no matter where we play.  Fisk is Fisk and you better take care of the ball and rebound or it is Good Night Lucile.  

I think it was OldLIon that said PC's top 1 or 2 were as good as their 7 or 8 and that because they were deep it was difficult to statistically stack up to others.  That is correct and I feel the same about our guys but is that better?  Maryville's top 3 are far better than there bottom 3 and they are as we all know very good.  Just wondering...Is it better to have 3 players better than anybody elses 3 or 10 better than anybody elses 10?  We will not get two teams into the national tournament, unfortunately.  I don't think that they will take two teams out of a five team conference instead of 2 from a 12 team conference, but I don't know.  I would love to see Fisk and Maryville both travel and win a first round game.

[Urban Myth]

IIs it better to have 3 players better than anybody elses 3 or 10 better than anybody elses 10?

I personally think it's better to just have your top 5 better than anybody else's top 5.   You can have two teams with an equal top 3, but their supporting cast, the other two guys on the court, are going to help greatly in who wins.  Hence the concept of "team".

[wilburt]

Pulling for two singers with Fisk connections:

Mandisa Hundley (Fisk Class of 2000) American Idol contestant this season, (not sure whether see will or had advanced) see link:

http://www.idolgohome.com/Oct15/american-idol-mandisa-hundley-060115.php

Beyonce Knowles, daughter of Mathew Knowles (Fisk Class of 1974) and former Fisk basketball player.  Beyonce is up for several Grammys this evening, see link on bio:

http://comunidades.msn.es/dangerouslybeyonce/tinaknowles1.msnw

[mattgrubb]

Coach, keep up the good work at LC
I think it is better to have several players who are better than your bottom players, that way you know your coaching has had an effect on your players while they have been in your system and you know who to go to when the game in on the line i.e. Matt Ennen, Jeff McCord, Josh Tummel, Sidney Ellis, Raul Placeres, Monte Callloway, etc. for Maryville.  Lambert knows who to get the ball to and has known that every year for several years now.

I have to agree with the picks of ohyeah, that guy sure sees things straight

I also have to agree with Wilburt, i am pulling for Beyonce, and william i did meet her once and she asked about you?

[old_lion]

I think it is better to have several players who are better than your bottom players, that way you know your coaching has had an effect on your players while they have been in your system and you know who to go to when the game in on the line.

Matt, well said. Unfortunately, that's not always the case. To some extent, you have to "play the hand that's dealt you".

But the consistently successful programs appear to put a lot of effort into developing that core group of "go to guys" you are referring to. Maybe sometimes it's just a matter of deciding who your "horses" are, and riding them as much as possible.

[old_lion]

  1) I had someone tell me after the Huntingdon game that I should be very proud of the intensity my guys display, especially at this point of the season with only 6 wins.

   2) LC-PC generally gives a crowd friendly game unless you're a loud mouth that likes to yell at officials and the scoretable instead of watching the fastest paced game outside of teams that run "the system".

   3) I think it was OldLIon that said PC's top 1 or 2 were as good as their 7 or 8 and that because they were deep it was difficult to statistically stack up to others.  That is correct and I feel the same about our guys but is that better?  Maryville's top 3 are far better than there bottom 3 and they are as we all know very good.  Just wondering...Is it better to have 3 players better than anybody elses 3 or 10 better than anybody elses 10? 

1) I agree whole heartedly. I have a lot of respect for the intensity and effort you guys have brought every time I've seen you play.

2) Agree again. Seems to me one of the main reasons Piedmont is improved over last year is that we've managed to dial up our intensity a bit ... more in keeping with LaGrange's level. It s/b an entertaining and hard fought contest tonight. And the "loud mouths" should have it a little easier than they did in LaGrange. At least they won't have to expend any energy trying to wake up the folks at the scorer's table.  Now the officials ... I'm making no promises there ... they seem to have been just as bad/inconsistent in Demorest as anywhere else.

3) That's not exactly what I said, but I think you have the jest of it. What I was trying to say was that in our top 8 or so, I didn't  think there was all that much drop off in talent from the best to the worst.

You bring up an interesting discussion as to which of the two styles are preferable. Probably, there is not a definitive answer. I think what you have to do (re how you divvy up the minutes) is somewhat dictated by your talent ... i.e. you may feel you don't have a "top 3". And conversely, I also think how you choose to divvy up your minutes can be a factor that promotes or inhibits the development of a "top 3" ... or a "top few".

I've noticed that the typical distribution of minutes on most successful teams (yeah, I'm a stats geek) is a little different than what we've seen at PC or LC this season. Most really successful teams seem to follow a model something along the lines of ... maybe 3 guys around 30 mpg, maybe 2 or 3 more around 20+ or so, and 2 or 3 more in the mid to high teens ... as opposed to having 10 or 12 guys at or near double figure minutes. IMHO, this "PT model" tends to bring more stability to your team and engender the emergence of a core group (or "top few").

This is not meant as a criticism of anyone's coaching style (There is a military axiom that says the commander in the field, closest to the action, is best able to make the decisions.) It's just an observation of a trend I've noticed.

On the successful teams I'm familiar with, the critical competition has been to make the "top 7 or 8" ... as opposed to making the team or even making the starting lineup. I think we are seeing PC evolve a little more in that direction lately.

[mattgrubb]

Old lion i think all coaches look for a player that is a coach on the floor and right now the best i have seen is Adams from Fisk, sans all his outbursts, if he lost those he would be a great player, but at the end of the day I would not want him on my team b/c who knows when he is going to get a technical or ejected and in the big time games you cannot afford that, and embarrassing himself after winning a conference game
Mason has the ability to evolve into that
Green from piedmont is pretty good at that
Raul was phenomenal at that, 2nd best the gsac has ever seen

[coachwgh]

For those interested our SID, who does a fantastic job, put our conference only stats on the website.  The only difference in our guys is about 3 extra points a night for Jackson, everybody else is about on average with the total games.  My first two years we had a core of 7 guys that played all the minutes and we have developed into a more equal ability group.  I like playing with more folks.  I feel like it helps our style of play but it opens us up to more mistakes throughout the course of the game.  Rationale; if everyone makes 2 mistakes and you play 7 guys = 14.....if everyone makes 2 mistakes and you play 11 guys = 22.   I have learned to deal with hustle mistakes and errors that occur when guys are just playing hard and try too much or run past a play, which we do quite often, but we still demand perfection.  When perfection fails we just need somebody to get an offensive put back or take a charge.

I must add one thing.  Go Vols!  I don't know if any of you know that I grew up in TN and went to TN Basketball camps for four summers when Wade Houston was coaching the Vols.  I had to be a KY fan because the Vols just didn't do it for me.  Now I can officially pronounce my support for Big Orange Hoops!  I loved Pearl's orange blazer last night.