Kriisa has averaged 15.3 mpg so far this year. And that is with him making <30% of his shots. So, you would expect the minutes to go up from there if he starts making a decent %.
As for last night, I don't know why but Pope played the team differently than the prior 5 games. Last night was a more traditional 8-man rotation with 4 guys playing 28-33min. Because our bench is almost as good as our starters, that is not the optimum way for this team to play. Most nights (vs P5 schools) our starting/best 5 aren't going to be significantly better than the other team's best 5. But our bench will be significantly better than theirs. So we need to keep our guys fresh, while wearing their guys down or force them to go deeper into their bench than they want.
Having two guys at every position that are both good players and maybe even compliment each other, and then playing them major, maybe even similar, minutes is in and of itself a massively advantageous way to play regardless. But it’s an even bigger advantage when you play really fast. Basically playing 2 guys comparable minutes is a “system.” And if you can get the level of players UK can it is a dominant system.
Pope has used this system for a number of years now and Bruce Pearl has been using it also for a few years to give Auburn a much better team than the individual parts would justify. Pearl’s bench coaching certainly isn’t the reason for Auburn’s success.
When Calipari platooned that was the most dominant UK basketball I’ve seen. But Calipari stumbled into in it. He only did it as a way to give enough “showcase” minutes for players’ draft purposes. And after the incredible success of that system what did Calipari do? He promised to never employ it again because it might be used against him in recruiting an OAD freshman to start at every position – couldn’t have any competing for or sharing of minutes if you’re only OAD, right? And, of course, the 5-star OAD recruiting fanboys in the fanbase agreed that platooning must never occur again. But it is occurring again – and will continue to occur at UK because it’s the way to win games. And the kicker is something Calipari mentioned but was afraid to try to sell, and something the recruiting fanboys couldn’t see that most UK hardcore basketball fans could, and that is that the system even made the players look better for draft purposes.
