More with John Calipari on Poythress, Mulder, platooning and more
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From the article: "Some of my best teams I've played five guys, six guys. I mean, my best teams. Last year was a good team."
I would argue that last year was Cal's greatest team, until he went away from the platoons which made them into a very good, but not all-time great team.
The stats bear this out BTW. UK was a significantly more dominant team using platoons (especially defensively) than any other team Cal has had at UK. The more he went away from it, however, the less dominant UK became.
And just to be clear, I'm not suggesting UK should platoon every year and not implying that it would always be successful. It takes a unique situation for platooning to work, a situation which I thought last year's team was well positioned for. (not only physically but mentally and emotionally as well.)
This year's team I don't think has the front-court depth, the balance, or the versatility to use the platoon system to their advantage over other substitution patterns.
But make no mistake, if UK ever finds themselves in a situation in the future where they could platoon to their advantage, they should definitely use it to the fullest extent IMO. I just hope that someday they are blessed to be in such a position again.
I would argue that last year was Cal's greatest team, until he went away from the platoons which made them into a very good, but not all-time great team.
The stats bear this out BTW. UK was a significantly more dominant team using platoons (especially defensively) than any other team Cal has had at UK. The more he went away from it, however, the less dominant UK became.
And just to be clear, I'm not suggesting UK should platoon every year and not implying that it would always be successful. It takes a unique situation for platooning to work, a situation which I thought last year's team was well positioned for. (not only physically but mentally and emotionally as well.)
This year's team I don't think has the front-court depth, the balance, or the versatility to use the platoon system to their advantage over other substitution patterns.
But make no mistake, if UK ever finds themselves in a situation in the future where they could platoon to their advantage, they should definitely use it to the fullest extent IMO. I just hope that someday they are blessed to be in such a position again.
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If it happens again and they do I really hope they finish the job at the end or we'll never friggin hear the end of it.
It is interesting that he called last year's team a good team but not one of his best teams. They were definitely one of the top 3 teams in the country last year.
BLUE
1-- ulis, 2 -- bridges, 3 -- matthews, 4 -- lee, 5 -- humphries
WHITE
1 -- hawk, 2 -- murray, 3 -- mulder, 4 -- poy, 5 -- skal. Or if Willis is more deserving than hawk, or to go big;
1 -- murray, 2 -- mulder, 3 -- poy, 4 -- willis, 5 -- skal
It could almost work again.
1-- ulis, 2 -- bridges, 3 -- matthews, 4 -- lee, 5 -- humphries
WHITE
1 -- hawk, 2 -- murray, 3 -- mulder, 4 -- poy, 5 -- skal. Or if Willis is more deserving than hawk, or to go big;
1 -- murray, 2 -- mulder, 3 -- poy, 4 -- willis, 5 -- skal
It could almost work again.
Almost. Although I think you meant Briscoe, rather than Bridges. But there's a bigger drop off than last year. Skal, Ulis and Murray need to be more than Hawkins and Humphries. They'll still get spot minutes but Humphries will need time to adjust to this level. I think we'll go 7-8 deep for the most part depending on how the Mulder/Matthews saga plays out.
To me, our situation this year is perfect. We have a core of extreme talent, solid depth to make a good rotation, and good enough players to potentially plug into that rotation in case someone goes down with a serious injury.
Yes...briscoe....thanks for keeping me straight.
I agree about not quite having the horses. If I were coach, I'd be imagining a rotation of ulis, Murray and briscoe splitting the 1 & 2's minutes; mulder and matthews sharing the 3 minutes; poy, skal, lee, and humphries divvying up the 4 & 5 spots, with skal/alex getting @25 each and marcus/humphries @15
I agree with the platoon last year. Even professional teams got worn out by that ball pressure. We don't have the bodies at forward to platoon this year. Only one guy has the ability to defend an athletic SF anyway and he's coming off injury.
Cal won't platoon again. Not good for recruiting. Top players want to play right away and want to play lots of minutes.
I would not mind seeing a little pressing, especially with this guard oriented team.
Will any coach have the guts to try it again? Bill James says the best bullpen in baseball is one that utilizes closer by committee, and yet every manager picks his best guy and makes him the closer, by default. It's hard for a coach to send in five new guys while pulling a couple of guys who were killing it off the floor.
Regarding the theory that it's a problem pulling a group of guys who 'were killing it off the floor' I know that was a common concern last year but the number of times that actually occurred was very small (on the order of 2 or 3 times even though I'd argue it's less than that.)
The reason I say that is because even when a team goes on a run, after about 5 or 6 minutes if you are looking closely you can see the defensive pressure started to wane (and this was largely regardless of the unit in question), the pressure on the 3-point shooters gets lax, people aren't sprinting down the floor everytime etc.
But even assuming that one squad was on a run and destroying the other team, there was nothing to prevent Calipari from leaving them in for a longer stretch. In fact, that's exactly what Calipari offered to them early in the season when he said something to the effect that a squad can stay in as long as they want, as long as they don't give up more than 3 points etc.
FWIW, in hindsight I think what made the platoons work so effectively was that it not only allowed each squad to give 100% effort on the floor (in particular defensively) not only because they knew that they would be getting a break, but because each squad was able to come in fresh with the same energy level. When everyone is on a similar level then it's trivial to see when a team's defensive intensity is starting to wane. And that just so happened to be anywhere between 4 to 7 minutes.
The problem when you start to mix and match players and go away from platoons is not only does it mess with the unit's familiarity, but it causes confusion concerning people's roles on the court and most importantly it put the players at a different energy levels. So when defensive breakdowns start to occur, it's harder to know what the cause was and where to plug the leak. (which the mere action of trying to plug the leak by substituting someone else exacerbates the issue.)
And that's what killed me BTW seeing Calipari go away from platoons late in the season as this was exactly what we started to see late in the season. (i.e. less cohesiveness, more defensive breakdowns etc.) Platoons clearly was working, and Cal even had an advanced stats guy on the team who in theory should have been able to see that UK's effectiveness was getting worse the more they went away from it.
Beyond that, UK had the heart-rate monitors and statistical data etc. to be able to clearly assess each players energy level, what their optimal exertion duration is, how much time they need to regain their energy, how quickly they can ramp up etc. In theory all this information could have been used to figure out an optimal way to get the most out of the players.
Instead I think that Calipari got scared, for whatever reason. Probably because of pushback he received on the recruiting front. Of course my response to that is Kentucky's going to experience negative recruiting regardless. If it's not about platooning, then it's going to be about something else.
Beyond that , even though Calipari backtracked and swore off platooning after the season it still didn't help with some of these guys (Jaylen Brown's, Malik Newman's of the world) and IMO that's probably best for all concerned as at the end of the day it's better that UK doesn't pander to recruits who are more interested in padding their individual stats than they are at being a part of a winning organization.
As far as the question of whether anyone will try it again. Certainly they will. Platooning has been done at all levels and given the right circumstances has proven to work well. (FWIW I would argue that the NBA largely platoons given that the typical substitution pattern sees the starters play most of the 1st quarter, then a rotation of backups come in to relieve them and play into the second quarter, and then the starters return to take them to halftime.)
As I said, I'm hopeful that someday in the future that UK is blessed to be in a position that they can effectively platoon and that next time they take full advantage of it for the full season. Given Cal's comments during the off-season it doesn't appear that he's come around on this, however, which is disappointing to me.
FWIW, my great fear is that Duke or UNC or UCLA etc. someday finds themselves in a similar situation and end up not only using it but sticking with it to the point that they win the whole thing. Kentucky had that opportunity this past season and IMO simply gave it away for no good reason.
I'm with you on this. Imagine if the 96 team had platooned. And Cal did get scared, probably because of the Poythress injury. He needed to completely abandon it and go with his best six/seven or completely stick with it, because the hybrid seemed to hurt Booker, Lyles and Dakari, and they made negative plays at crucial times in late March.
Let me ask you your opinion on this. You're a guy like Tyler Ulis. Do you feel more confident coming into the game with four guys you practice with every day, or with the remaining four starters? I mean, the second platoon often came in and did better than the starters. But would you rather come in and have KAT, Willie, and Aaron to pass it too?
Let me ask you your opinion on this. You're a guy like Tyler Ulis. Do you feel more confident coming into the game with four guys you practice with every day, or with the remaining four starters? I mean, the second platoon often came in and did better than the starters. But would you rather come in and have KAT, Willie, and Aaron to pass it too?
Until Coach K platoons it won't get the credit it deserves. Dickie V condemned it when Cal was doing it. If K was to do it it would be revolutionary haha
I agree with JPScott and others on here, UK was at its best last season when the platoon was in full effect. The energy and urgency was better. And, maybe most importantly, it was a nightmare for opposing teams to have to try to adjust to a whole different look just when they might be figuring out how to best respond to one group. Besides that, it was fun as heck to see all that great talent play.
It obviously drove some of our fans crazy. But I think that was mostly delusional fans who really think they have a deep understanding of basketball (which by definition almost always - no always means - they never really do) when what they really have are preconceived notions of "how the game should be played" from watching a lot of games, but never truly understanding any game theory. The old: "we always do Y after we do X, so everybody who knows anything about basketball knows that is the only way to be successful" crowd.
It obviously drove some of our fans crazy. But I think that was mostly delusional fans who really think they have a deep understanding of basketball (which by definition almost always - no always means - they never really do) when what they really have are preconceived notions of "how the game should be played" from watching a lot of games, but never truly understanding any game theory. The old: "we always do Y after we do X, so everybody who knows anything about basketball knows that is the only way to be successful" crowd.
Ditto, I see this team as being a very good full court pressing and ESPECIALLY Zone traps ....but I'm not certain these will be employed too often....or often enough.
Me and you were VERY adamant that going away from the platoons was a huge mistake as we noticed that Cal was going further and further away from the platoons as the season progressed.
It took away the advantages we had over the Duke's and Wisconsin's of last year and made us much more beatable. To this day I don't understand why Cal did that. It was blatantly obvious that we were dominate while platooning and vulnerable as we kept going away from it.
I think platooning hurt their wind late in the season. The starters began to play more minutes than they were used to, and they were exhausted.
Good PR move, but Calipari changed the ground rules at the end of the season and the players' bodies hadn't had time to adjust by tournament time.
Good PR move, but Calipari changed the ground rules at the end of the season and the players' bodies hadn't had time to adjust by tournament time.
I LOVED this aspect of platooning. I thought it was 6 points, but regardless, it was a huge incentive to play outstanding defense. And if you can platoon and get that kind of defense all game, you are pretty much unbeatable with who we had on the team.
I DONT WANT TO HEAR THAT DAMN PLATOON WORD AGAIN 
![[poop]](https://ct.yimg.com/mr/uploads/891/1682179.png "Poop [poop]")
AND DONT TELL ME WERE GONNA RUN INSTEAD OF PLAYING POSSESSION BALL EITHER
AND DONT TELL ME WERE GONNA RUN INSTEAD OF PLAYING POSSESSION BALL EITHER
For right or wrong, it really did look like we played our best basketball when we utilized the platoon system. Cal even made a comment about strength in numbers/tanks coming over the hill. Either way last season was pretty awesome til the last game. Freaken badgers...........smh
I think Tyler would be perfectly fine with the players on his squad. As you said many times the 2nd platoon came in and played better than the 1st platoon. Beyond that, Tyler was all about winning and the platoons accomplished that.
But I think this is a false premise. While I've long been a proponent of last year's team going full platoons, I always viewed it as a framework which is not rigid.
For example I think what was obvious was that no more 30 minutes of full platooning was all that was needed to take the legs away from the opponent. After 30 minutes, I was perfectly fine if Cal wanted to mix up the lineups, or give players who he thought deserved extra minutes additional time, or find his 'finishing five' as Cal liked to call it.
And of course there's the opportunities in cases of injury, foul trouble etc.
So in the case of Ulis, even if he was associated with a particular unit, there were still opportunities to play with the others as well.
I think you're on to something with this observation.
It's been a hard year for me arguing this issue, as in a way it's put me on the polar opposite view of a lot of people who I respect for their overall basketball knowledge.
But on the other hand I think it almost comes down to a situation where since they have been so immersed in basketball over the years, they can't seem to shake their preconceived notions about the concept to see the very real advantages that only platooning can provide. Even when the results are staring them directly in the face they can't seem to open their mind up enough to grasp what just happened.
You can downplay it all you want, but when UK was platooning they were playing at a level which was unprecedented in college basketball history.
Look at the stats during the course of the year and get back to me if you doubt it. UK got progressively worse the more they strayed from the platoons. The sad thing was that one could see it as it was happening.
By the tournament the TV announcers were still talking about UK's formidable defense but by the end of the year they simply weren't playing at that level anymore.
Would UK have been able to maintain the level of domination throughout the year using platoons, even after Poythress went down? It's an open question that will never be answered.
UK still did extremely well after Poythress got injured during the few times when they primarily platooned, but it became harder to discern statistically as Cal started to mess around more with the substitution patterns, including platooning only part of the game and then going away from it (and FWIW, platooning really only works to full effect when as I said you do up for up to 25 to 30 minutes, in order to take away the opponent's legs.)
I can say that the first two times that Cal scrapped the platoons from the outset (January 6 and January 10) were UK's worst games of the year (Ole Miss and Texas A&M). They really should have figured it out then IMO. (and yes I was saying that at the time while others thought it was merely a coincidence.)
As far as the idea that UK didn't have the optimal roster for it, sorry have to disagree with that. I acknowledge that it's extremely rare for a team to be in a position where platooning makes the most sense, but that UK team was perfectly set up to do it.
What platooning did was truly make them greater than the sum of their parts, which is a feat that's incredibly hard to accomplish.
Again, it actually didn't. The platooning itself was still very effective, even with Hawkins playing instead of Poythress.
I invite you to go back and review the past season, game to game and even minute to minute and it's rather clear that the more UK went away from platooning and went toward a more herky-jerky substitution pattern, the less effective they became.
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