How Many Cupcakes Remain on the Schedule?

[GP1]

Will there be enough playing time to spread around over the next 4 years to make everyone happy? If not, will the team's success be enough to keep them here anyway, even if they can go and play somewhere else?

This is an important question. A more important question is, If they left, would they get more playing time somewhere else?.?I'll use another Steelers analogy since I am still in a bit of a Super Bowl after-glow. The Steelers are full of a bunch of guys who could only be good playing in Pittsburgh. Put them on another team and they become very average/bad players because their skill set probably does not fit most other teams.Aren't the Zips this team? A group of guys who are specifically recruited to play in a system suited for their skill set. If they transfer, they become lesser players than they would have with Akron.Is there enough playing time to go around? In the minds of the players, probably not. That isn't a bad thing though. Keeping the players hungry for more PT is important in a competitive atmosphere.

[Dave in Green]

Skip, are you talking about the possibility of some in the 10-player rotation feeling they're not getting enough playing time, or are you talking about players outside those 10? Certainly if you have a player who thinks they could contribute to a team somewhere but were getting almost no playing time at Akron and thought they might never crack the 10-player rotation, they'd have to at least consider other options. For those in the 10-player rotation, it's less likely that they might consider leaving. Then again, Bubba was probably going to be in the Zips regular rotation, but apparently wanted to go somewhere where he would be more likely to start and play more minutes. I hope Ohio was all he thought it was going to be when he transferred.The Zips system favors lots of good players rather than a few key players. What you hope is that any recruits would do enough homework to understand this and make their decisions on where to play based on the systems they see in place at various schools.

[skip-zip]

Dave,I'm definitely thinking about next year.....when 3 more pretty highly decorated high school kids get added to the mix. In particular, we'll have 6 guards, all of which are certainly capable of playing at many other D-1 schools, and were recruited by those schools already.It's funny you bring up Bubba. Although it's a fair example of a guy transferring over playing time, he appeared to have no patience at all about sharing his playing time. I'd sure hope we don't have another one quite like him. You would maybe be inclined to think that a player being recruited would take a look at the idea that Akron plays a lot of players. But even though we do go deep into the bench, there's still some pretty large differences in amounts of playing time within that rotation of players. GP,I like your point about keeping kids competing for playing time. Sure, that's not a bad thing. But, I'll disagree with you about the fact that these kids in some way might not fit into another school's system. Many of these guys were big-time scorers, rebounders, etc. in high school. I'd be surprised if they left and didn't find a situation where they could play.

[Dave in Green]

But even though we do go deep into the bench, there's still some pretty large differences in amounts of playing time within that rotation of players.

The season's trend has been toward more balanced playing time:* In the first 18 games of the season, there were only a couple of games where one or more Zips didn't play at least 30 minutes per game, and those were blowouts where the bench was emptied early.* In the last 6 games, no Zips player has been on the floor more than 29 minutes, even in the close one against Ball State.So it's fair to say that Akron's first 5 players off the bench can expect more playing time with the Zips than they would with just about any other D1 team in the country with a winning record and reasonable chance to win their conference and make the NCAA tournament. Of course you can never tell when a young player will get it in his head that the grass is greener somewhere else. Also, much as we don't want to think about it, injuries can strike at any time and affect the lineup. But even then, with more than 10 players talented enough to play in a 10-player Zips rotation, the program would not be as damaged by the loss of a player or two as a less deep team. So we should have less to worry about than most other teams.

[skip-zip]

Dave, I wouldn't even want to speculate about other teams with winning records, and whether their bench players get as much playing time, etc. I don't even know how to go about finding that information. Could we play our bench players more than most teams? Maybe so. You're seeing guys who didn't play much early in the season get bigger roles, and guys who got higher minutes earlier in the season have their roles diminished significantly. But the best players are playing much more. Our #1 guy in playing minutes plays approx. TWICE as much per game as the #10 guy.....if you are talking about only the 10-man rotation. If you go beyond that, it gets even more significant. If you asked the coach, I'm sure he'd tell you that he goes deep into his bench to try to keep players fresh, and not because of some calculated effort to equalize everyone's playing time to try to make them all happy.

[Hilltopper]

In honor of today. I prefer Chocolate Cupcakes.

[Dave in Green]

Skip, most of what's discussed on sports forums is speculative, with minimal statistical analysis. While it would be possible to statistically analyze the minutes played of every college team in the country by going through the thousands of box scores on any number of sports websites such as http://www.cbssports.com/ , it would be incredibly time-consuming and not likely to happen in our lifetimes. ;)I base my opinion that it's not likely there are many winning teams in the country with the balance of playing time among the top 10 players as the Zips on casual recollection of the hundreds of box scores I glance at during a season. I just don't recall many box scores where no player on a team played more than 29 minutes, as has been the case for the Zips over the past 6 consecutive games.

[zip37]

KD focuses on the character of a player, and this has paid off. I'm quite sure that if a player being recruited had issues with the amount of time he's getting KD wiuld know it and talk to hum abut the time thing.It seems to me that some on this board would settle for mediocrity as a olayer as long as their time was high. I never played ball at any significant level, but in some sports I beat out athletes with minimal personal skills because I was a TEAM player and called an overachiever; minutes/innings ment nothing to me ONLY WINNING within the rules and giving maximum effort at all times i.e. I would run to 1st base on a ball four count so I never got used to tsaking it easy. Perhaps KD has recruited similar types.

[johnnyzip84]

KD focuses on the character of a player, and this has paid off. I'm quite sure that if a player being recruited had issues with the amount of time he's getting KD wiuld know it and talk to hum abut the time thing.It seems to me that some on this board would settle for mediocrity as a olayer as long as their time was high. I never played ball at any significant level, but in some sports I beat out athletes with minimal personal skills because I was a TEAM player and called an overachiever; minutes/innings ment nothing to me ONLY WINNING within the rules and giving maximum effort at all times i.e. I would run to 1st base on a ball four count so I never got used to tsaking it easy. Perhaps KD has recruited similar types.

And you might eventually get into Cooperstown if you'd lay off pimping the sports memorabilia for a while! J/K of course zip37. You make a very valid point about team play (it's what makes KD's squads very compelling IMHO) but I couldn't resist the "Charlie Hustle" parallel

[zip37]

Unlike Rose, I hag minimal athletic ability, but on the other hand never bet with a bookie ;smarter than that.