MBB: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[Dave 'd-mac' McHugh]

You won't find this on most D1 chat boards... love D3.

I just think it is a shallow and narrow analysis that attempts to apply linear thinking to a multivariate situation.

[USee]

You won't find this on most D1 chat boards... love D3.

I just think it is a shallow and narrow analysis that attempts to apply linear thinking to a multivariate situation.

Personally I try to take one mulitvariate every day.

[izzy stradlin]

Augustana

Orange. 17
Ebel.      16
Sortillo.  12
Johnston 11
Wofford.  11 and 12 reb

It was almost if Augie has been playing possum on the defensive end all year, especially behind the arc.  Sorensen and Henry got couple fouls early and Raridon sat them a majority of the first half and NCC was playing a bunch of Freshman and Sophmores throughout much of the game.  IMO Augie played its best game of the year defensively on the perimeter and continue to be relatively efficient offensively.  Fellas,  Nolan Ebel is starting to remind me a lot of Hunter Hill with his clutch shooting, ability to penetrate, run the offense and get to the line and convert (9-9 fts) .

I was glancing at the box score at saw this as a good example of the "foul trouble fallacy". These two key players had limited minutes but only finished the game with 3 fouls each meaning the only thing that limited their minutes was the coach and what he perceived as foul trouble.  Not trying to pick on Raridon-- most all coaches do this as it has been ingrained into basketball culture, but in reality just decreases your chances of winning (similar to the sacrifice bunt in most cases in baseball).

A decent explanation:
https://theoryclass.wordpress.com/2010/04/27/foul-trouble/

I basically stopped reading that article when it said that the objective is to maximize minutes.  From my POV, the objective is to win the game.  So the two factors that should come into play are (1) to what extent does the coach trust his player to not pick up foul number n+1, and (2) what is the relative dropoff between the player and the reserve who will enter the game.  There is also potentially an element of how effectively the coach thinks he can steal minutes if his player is on the bench and he wants to shorten the game (or maintain the relative status quo, score-wise).

The decision on #1 should factor in both how disciplined/smart the coach feels the player can be about avoiding the foul, and also how much risk relative to the norm there might be from the opponent exploiting the player's status (read as: do they have the talent go at the player while he is relatively more exposed).

I don't think you're getting the point.  Of course winning any game is done by maximizing the minutes of the players who are playing the best.  I think that goes without saying.   The general point is that coaches only limit this by benching players with less than 5 fouls.  You can't assume a certain foul rate will continue and even if you could, it doesn't matter if you put a player on the bench-- if you do, he only gets to play less unless you time his minutes so perfectly that he fouls out when time expires.   N, N+1 etc should be irrelevant unless it's the 5th foul.  Obviously there are exceptions where a player has become emotional and is fouling and needs a minute on the bench but that's not what we are talking about.  I think the article goes through a couple caveats.  There is probably a similar article from the fivethirtyeight.com guys but I don't have time to look right now.     

I can guarantee you with 100% certainty, coaches who are most conservative with "foul trouble" over the years (ie 2 fouls in the first half always equals bench), have decreased their probability of winning games.       

I realize this goes against years conventional sports wisdom but there are quite a few similar sports fallacies that are coming light to when smarter people have taken a look at basic evidence rather than relying outdated group-think.

Oh, I'm getting the point.  I just think it is a shallow and narrow analysis that attempts to apply linear thinking to a multivariate situation.  Whomever wrote that article is trying to be 538-like, but is IMO failing badly.

Are there times when leaving a player in as fouls pile up is probably a better call?  Sure.  But there are also times when, because of other factors, a coach is wise to show the player some pine.

And, were you aware that one of the players whose fouls were being "managed" was also actually playing with a lower body injury that, at minimum, limited both his stamina and mobility to at least a moderate degree. Accordingly, his " foul management" was only part of story you are attempting to tell, and his being less than 100% physically necessitated physical as well foul management.

This is the sort of thing I'm talking about.  There are a million considerations like this that may be a bigger or smaller part of the calculus depending on the situation.  They are nowhere in the equation shown in that article.

We're not talking about injuries, ex-girlfriend showed up in the stands, cool breeze went through the gym etc. Of course every real life outcome has multiple variables even if you don't know they exist.  What this is getting at is the arbitrary process of benching a player only because he has hit X number of fouls.  You know what I am talking about and have seen every coach do it.  I haven't watched any North Central College basketball games this year so I wish I didn't use Raridon as an example (I generally think he is a pretty good coach).  Let's just say instead the example Greg gave as to how Bosko handled one of his top players is a great example of what coaches should do and generally don't. 

[AndOne]

Come on, AO, you just have to admit it, NCC is in trouble.

Augie is better than we all thought, surely CC is too. 

I thought MU played IWU very tough tonight -- so they are going to be pretty good in a year or two as well. 

One tough league . . . and you have injuries to key personnel, you are going to be in trouble.

IWU'70

70,

I don't think I ever denied the the Cardinals are in trouble. The loss of one of the best all around players in the conference and region, and a pre-season All-American will put your team, as it would any team, in that position.

Re Augie and CC -- I agree.

[AndOne]

We're not talking about injuries, ex-girlfriend showed up in the stands, cool breeze went through the gym etc. Of course every real life outcome has multiple variables even if you don't know they exist.  What this is getting at is the arbitrary process of benching a player only because he has hit X number of fouls.  You know what I am talking about and have seen every coach do it.  I haven't watched any North Central College basketball games this year so I wish I didn't use Raridon as an example (I generally think he is a pretty good coach).  Let's just say instead the example Greg gave as to how Bosko handled one of his top players is a great example of what coaches should do and generally don't.

I think anyone who knows anything about D3 basketball would agree with you on that on.
And, if further confirmation is needed, give none other than Dennie Bridges, former head coach and AD at IWU a call. I'm quite sure he'd confirm that for you or anyone else who cared to inquire. 

[HAMBO]

I was at the Titans vs Big Blue game last night. With about 8 minutes to go the game was very much in doubt.  Basically it came done to a Millikin frosh/soph team vs a more physically and mentally mature upper-class Wesleyan.  Give Wesleyan credit.  They played hard and showed a lot of class.  I wish them success.

For sure, the Millikin team that played last night is not the same team as it was in the beginning of the season.  As they played last night, they would dominate over some of the non-conference teams that beat them early in the year.  Even more importantly, they are a strong academic and high character group which represents the D3 student-athlete model we all want to see.

I know both Coach Ron Rose and Matt Nadelhoffer very well and they are a class act.  The CCIW is fortunate to have them both.

[Gregory Sager]

I like it. That's a guy who should be in "foul trouble" but his coach gave him a full 36 minutes. Bosko might just be ahead of the curve on how he handles this but I have noticed coaches do a better job with this when they perceive themselves to be underdogs. Similar to underdogs going for it more often on 4th down in football. It's almost as if they coach with less of a fear to lose, and more aggressively and rationally.

There were several aspects like that at work last night. Bosko did indeed perceive his team to be the underdog; his team was behind; he was aware that NPU is a team capable of scoring a lot of points in a hurry; and he knows his personnel well enough to be aware that Stevenson is the guy who carries the water for his team. I don't think that Bosko would've gotten to where he is in his career if he was so hidebound in his thinking as to automatically bench his best player for the remainder of the half after picking up a second foul with 14:07 to go in the stanza in a situation in which that player was really needed on the floor.

On the other hand, I think that what the North Central guys are saying is reasonable, too. Todd Raridon is likewise a successful coach, and he knows his personnel. If one of the duo of Alex Sorenson and Erwin Henry, his two best players now that his son is out of the lineup, requires extra time on the bench due to a "lower body injury" (way to go all mysterious and hockey-like on us, Mark ), then benching him is a reasonable thing regardless of the foul situation for him or the other star player.

But I'm not at all sure that this:

Sorensen and Henry got couple fouls early and Raridon sat them a majority of the first half

... which is the quote that started this discussion, is accurate.

The box-score PBP from the NCC live stats doesn't indicate substitutions, so reconstructing the first half required me to look at the game footage on YouTube. Henry picked up his second foul at 13:28 and sat for the remainder of the half. Sorenson subbed out after picking up his first foul at 13:12 with Augie up, 14-7, and he re-entered the game during a Cards timeout at 9:35 with Augie up, 23-11. That's a break of 3:37, which is what you'd reasonably expect for a guy who averaged 31 mpg entering last night's contest, and without looking up the other NCC games this year I'm willing to bet that that's generally when and for how long Sorenson rests in the first half. Sorenson then picked up his second foul at the 6:39 mark, with Augie ahead, 28-20, and at that point he exited the game for the remainder of the half.

In other words, while both Henry and Sorenson did indeed sit out the majority of the first half, it wasn't because of fouls. They were on the bench together with two fouls apiece for only that final 6:39. In fact, Sorenson didn't even get an early second foul at all, since 6:39 of the first half can't reasonably be construed as "early". Also, since the halftime score was 42-37 in favor of the Rock Islanders, the Cards actually gained ground during that 6:39 without Sorenson and Henry on the floor.

Please not that I'm not disparaging 4samuy in any way by saying this. Unless you have a copy of the print PBP in front of you (along with video of the game itself if the print PBP is incomplete, as NCC's is), it's not always easy to perfectly recall exactly what happened and when in a game, even if it's a game that you just saw. F'rinstance, I had recalled that Kyle Keranen's buzzer-beater at North Park was contested, and then Bob then found a video clip of it on social media that showed that it wasn't contested at all. In other words, we've all done this before.

I hope that this sheds a bit different light on what up until now has been a pretty theoretical discussion.

[Gregory Sager]

Come on, AO, you just have to admit it, NCC is in trouble.

Augie is better than we all thought, surely CC is too. 

I thought MU played IWU very tough tonight -- so they are going to be pretty good in a year or two as well. 

One tough league . . . and you have injuries to key personnel, you are going to be in trouble.

IWU'70

70,

I don't think I ever denied the the Cardinals are in trouble. The loss of one of the best all around players in the conference and region, and a pre-season All-American will put your team, as it would any team, in that position.

Re Augie and CC -- I agree.

I don't. I knew quite a while ago that Carthage was going to be good; I referred to them here last month as a "dark horse" in the CCIW race, which is still IMO a fair assessment of the Red Men. But as for the idea that "Augie is better than we all thought" -- no, that isn't true. To quote Dennis Green, they are who we thought they were. Augustana is a talented and dangerous team that was tabbed to finish third in the preseason poll, one point out of second place (and with a first-place vote as well, for whatever that's worth ... it might not be worth much); was nationally ranked early; and had a lot of regular posters touting them in November and December, while also noting that it's a young team that has the usual game-to-game inconsistencies of a young team (and, as 4samuy has pointed out, has vulnerabilities in terms of perimeter defense).

I think that most of us have been pretty much on target about Augie all along.

[Titan Q]

On Augustana I still stand by this...

Regarding Augustana, I watched a lot of their game vs Alma tonight.  In my opinion the Vikings are absolutely not overrated.  I will go as far as to say this - Augie is more talented this year than last year.  Now, that talent is young and/or experienced, so it is not all meshed together yet, and not always pretty.  But I believe this might be the most talented Grey Giovanine Augie team I have seen.

[AndOne]

I, for one, never thought Augie wouldn't be good. I did, however, not think they would be as good as they looked most of the time last night. I had not seen them play before last night.

[AndOne]

NCC tried to play chase and catch up to Augie for the entire game last night, without any success. Two or three times, after falling behind by what I remember as 8-12 points, the Cards rallied to close the gap to 3. But each time, with Stomper Giovanine subbing liberally, Augie had the answer, and quickly sprinted back out to a fairly comfortable lead.

As well as Augie played last night, I still have to think that if NCC had Connor Raridon, it very well could have been a different game. For those not closely familiar with the Cardinals, they are missing a whole lot more than Connor's lost points and rebounds. The entire team dynamic is out of sync, especially on the offensive end where the formerly steady ebb and flow now more often resembles a light to moderate chop, that might best be described as uneven given missing the steady influence of Connor's 5.86: 1 Assist/TO ratio.

One good thing (possibly the only one) about CR's being out of action is the continued development of some of NCC's younger, less experienced players. Last night NCC sub Tommy Koth, who was arguably NCC's best player, came off the bench to hit 5 of 7 shots, including his only three, for a career high 11 points. He also had 3 rebounds, 3 assists, a block, and a steal.
Continuing his recent rapid development/improvement was freshman Matt Cappelletti who hit 4 of 7 shots for 10 points. Matt also pulled down 4 Rebounds, and added an assist, and 2 blocks.
JQ Phipps chipped in another 7 points.

[4samuy]

I like it. That's a guy who should be in "foul trouble" but his coach gave him a full 36 minutes. Bosko might just be ahead of the curve on how he handles this but I have noticed coaches do a better job with this when they perceive themselves to be underdogs. Similar to underdogs going for it more often on 4th down in football. It's almost as if they coach with less of a fear to lose, and more aggressively and rationally.

There were several aspects like that at work last night. Bosko did indeed perceive his team to be the underdog; his team was behind; he was aware that NPU is a team capable of scoring a lot of points in a hurry; and he knows his personnel well enough to be aware that Stevenson is the guy who carries the water for his team. I don't think that Bosko would've gotten to where he is in his career if he was so hidebound in his thinking as to automatically bench his best player for the remainder of the half after picking up a second foul with 14:07 to go in the stanza in a situation in which that player was really needed on the floor.

On the other hand, I think that what the North Central guys are saying is reasonable, too. Todd Raridon is likewise a successful coach, and he knows his personnel. If one of the duo of Alex Sorenson and Erwin Henry, his two best players now that his son is out of the lineup, requires extra time on the bench due to a "lower body injury" (way to go all mysterious and hockey-like on us, Mark ), then benching him is a reasonable thing regardless of the foul situation for him or the other star player.

But I'm not at all sure that this:

Sorensen and Henry got couple fouls early and Raridon sat them a majority of the first half

... which is the quote that started this discussion, is accurate.

The box-score PBP from the NCC live stats doesn't indicate substitutions, so reconstructing the first half required me to look at the game footage on YouTube. Henry picked up his second foul at 13:28 and sat for the remainder of the half. Sorenson subbed out after picking up his first foul at 13:12 with Augie up, 14-7, and he re-entered the game during a Cards timeout at 9:35 with Augie up, 23-11. That's a break of 3:37, which is what you'd reasonably expect for a guy who averaged 31 mpg entering last night's contest, and without looking up the other NCC games this year I'm willing to bet that that's generally when and for how long Sorenson rests in the first half. Sorenson then picked up his second foul at the 6:39 mark, with Augie ahead, 28-20, and at that point he exited the game for the remainder of the half.

In other words, while both Henry and Sorenson did indeed sit out the majority of the first half, it wasn't because of fouls. They were on the bench together with two fouls apiece for only that final 6:39. In fact, Sorenson didn't even get an early second foul at all, since 6:39 of the first half can't reasonably be construed as "early". Also, since the halftime score was 42-37 in favor of the Rock Islanders, the Cards actually gained ground during that 6:39 without Sorenson and Henry on the floor.

Please not that I'm not disparaging 4samuy in any way by saying this. Unless you have a copy of the print PBP in front of you (along with video of the game itself if the print PBP is incomplete, as NCC's is), it's not always easy to perfectly recall exactly what happened and when in a game, even if it's a game that you just saw. F'rinstance, I had recalled that Kyle Keranen's buzzer-beater at North Park was contested, and then Bob then found a video clip of it on social media that showed that it wasn't contested at all. In other words, we've all done this before.

I hope that this sheds a bit different light on what up until now has been a pretty theoretical discussion.

Yes.  It's amazing where this went and how it engaged such passion.  "Early" is a very relative term depending on who you talk to. The point that I was trying to make is that neither were on the floor playing and contributing the number of minutes that they would normally and it wasn't IMO because they raised their hands and asked coach to remove them from the game. I was trying to make the point that they played without their two best players(taking C Raridon out the equation)  a majority of the half and Played Frosh and Sophs who played quite nicely. My apologies for instigating such a passionate debate. Now... let me give you my reasons for why I think coach Giovanine exhibits sideline behavior I admire 😏

[Gregory Sager]

Actually, 4samuy, you instigated one of the more well-thought-out and useful debates that we've had in awhile. Heck, we even had a bouquet tossed our way from Mr. Hoopsville himself because of it.

[iwu70]

Yes, one multivariant a day, keeps the PhDs away. . .

AO, thanks for your honesty about where NCC is right now. 

IWU70

[kiko]

Augustana

Orange. 17
Ebel.      16
Sortillo.  12
Johnston 11
Wofford.  11 and 12 reb

It was almost if Augie has been playing possum on the defensive end all year, especially behind the arc.  Sorensen and Henry got couple fouls early and Raridon sat them a majority of the first half and NCC was playing a bunch of Freshman and Sophmores throughout much of the game.  IMO Augie played its best game of the year defensively on the perimeter and continue to be relatively efficient offensively.  Fellas,  Nolan Ebel is starting to remind me a lot of Hunter Hill with his clutch shooting, ability to penetrate, run the offense and get to the line and convert (9-9 fts) .

I was glancing at the box score at saw this as a good example of the "foul trouble fallacy". These two key players had limited minutes but only finished the game with 3 fouls each meaning the only thing that limited their minutes was the coach and what he perceived as foul trouble.  Not trying to pick on Raridon-- most all coaches do this as it has been ingrained into basketball culture, but in reality just decreases your chances of winning (similar to the sacrifice bunt in most cases in baseball).

A decent explanation:
https://theoryclass.wordpress.com/2010/04/27/foul-trouble/

I basically stopped reading that article when it said that the objective is to maximize minutes.  From my POV, the objective is to win the game.  So the two factors that should come into play are (1) to what extent does the coach trust his player to not pick up foul number n+1, and (2) what is the relative dropoff between the player and the reserve who will enter the game.  There is also potentially an element of how effectively the coach thinks he can steal minutes if his player is on the bench and he wants to shorten the game (or maintain the relative status quo, score-wise).

The decision on #1 should factor in both how disciplined/smart the coach feels the player can be about avoiding the foul, and also how much risk relative to the norm there might be from the opponent exploiting the player's status (read as: do they have the talent go at the player while he is relatively more exposed).

I don't think you're getting the point.  Of course winning any game is done by maximizing the minutes of the players who are playing the best.  I think that goes without saying.   The general point is that coaches only limit this by benching players with less than 5 fouls.  You can't assume a certain foul rate will continue and even if you could, it doesn't matter if you put a player on the bench-- if you do, he only gets to play less unless you time his minutes so perfectly that he fouls out when time expires.   N, N+1 etc should be irrelevant unless it's the 5th foul.  Obviously there are exceptions where a player has become emotional and is fouling and needs a minute on the bench but that's not what we are talking about.  I think the article goes through a couple caveats.  There is probably a similar article from the fivethirtyeight.com guys but I don't have time to look right now.     

I can guarantee you with 100% certainty, coaches who are most conservative with "foul trouble" over the years (ie 2 fouls in the first half always equals bench), have decreased their probability of winning games.       

I realize this goes against years conventional sports wisdom but there are quite a few similar sports fallacies that are coming light to when smarter people have taken a look at basic evidence rather than relying outdated group-think.

Oh, I'm getting the point.  I just think it is a shallow and narrow analysis that attempts to apply linear thinking to a multivariate situation.  Whomever wrote that article is trying to be 538-like, but is IMO failing badly.

Are there times when leaving a player in as fouls pile up is probably a better call?  Sure.  But there are also times when, because of other factors, a coach is wise to show the player some pine.

And, were you aware that one of the players whose fouls were being "managed" was also actually playing with a lower body injury that, at minimum, limited both his stamina and mobility to at least a moderate degree. Accordingly, his " foul management" was only part of story you are attempting to tell, and his being less than 100% physically necessitated physical as well foul management.

This is the sort of thing I'm talking about.  There are a million considerations like this that may be a bigger or smaller part of the calculus depending on the situation.  They are nowhere in the equation shown in that article.

We're not talking about injuries, ex-girlfriend showed up in the stands, cool breeze went through the gym etc. Of course every real life outcome has multiple variables even if you don't know they exist.  What this is getting at is the arbitrary process of benching a player only because he has hit X number of fouls.  You know what I am talking about and have seen every coach do it.  I haven't watched any North Central College basketball games this year so I wish I didn't use Raridon as an example (I generally think he is a pretty good coach).  Let's just say instead the example Greg gave as to how Bosko handled one of his top players is a great example of what coaches should do and generally don't.

Couple of thoughts here:

(1) I'm not talking about injuries, exes, breezes, etc. either, as you'll see below.

(2) Don't view this as a knee-jerk defense of Todd Raridon -- my comments were agnostic of the coach or team involved.  I think I can show you a couple dozen instances in the past where I've either chirped at the Cardinals' tactics or play, or where I've politely (hopefully) told AndOne that I think he's loco.

And (3) To be clear on this: I'm not poking as much at the theory you are suggesting as I am about how well the article did or did not support the case.  I think there are a number of coaches who are too by-the-book in how they handle this and other common strategic decisions during the course of in-game events, but I also think there is a lot that goes into the decision that is not visible to us as fans.  As random examples, we'll never know if:

- The coach doesn't like the matchup (either of the player to his direct opponent, or between the player and the style of game that unfolds) and feels his player is at risk of picking up fouls #3 and #4 if he leaves the player in
- The coach anticipates that the pace of play will be different in the second half due to some tactical change, and that the risk exposure will be lower then, so sitting the player now offers some perceived strategic advantage
- The coach believes that for whatever reason (talent, matchup, tactics, player savvy) there is a negligible dropoff between the player with two fouls and the sub he enters instead
- The coach sees that his team is already in the bonus and is okay with having the reserve in the game, because he is better at drawing contact/fouls and is a better free-throw shooter
- The coach likes the way the team meshes with the reserve in the game, believes he will get sufficient offense from others on the floor, and anticipates that his offense will stay in sync

Etc. etc. etc.  You get the gist.

The point is that we are not always privy to the factors that lead a coach to make the decisions he makes.  AndOne provided a great example from last night's game -- there was more to the decision than a simple 'two fouls -- sit him down'.  And my very significant beef with the methodology laid out in that article is that it factors none of this into the equation.  The fancy mathematical equations and white paper-aura of the article give it a sheen of gravitas that it does not merit because the premise is too narrow.  Decisions are often situationally-based, and the situation involves a lot more variables than just the two fouls.

When you get overly-simplistic in the variables you consider, you can draw bad conclusions, or assume causality where in fact none actually exists.  Like here:

http://www.tylervigen.com/view_correlation?id=359

(Or, who knows -- maybe there is actually causality in that equation...)