Big Ten Geeks will run a lot this year

Every single fall we hear the same thing, and it seems to come from at least two different Big Ten coaches.

"We're going to run a lot this season."

I don't know why they say it. Are coaches letting those media types get to them will all of their slow-basketball bashing? Are these the taglines that recruits want to hear? Fast basketball does not equal good basketball, so it's not as if the coaches are commenting on the likely success of the team. Whatever the motivation behind such proclamations, they show up every year, about the time the leaves change to a beautiful autumn array of colors.

And like the fall foliage, this promised uptempo style tends to have a very short shelf life.

Take Illinois for example - which has not been fast under the Weber regime:

The possessions per game have never broken 65.0. Just for reference, 65.0 would have ranked 240th in the country last season in terms of pace (out of 341 Division I teams - the median pace was 66.6 possessions per game). But that hasn't stopped Weber from proclaiming otherwise. When he got the job, he promised up-tempo. After his great 2004-05 season, it was hinted that the Illini might run more in 05-06. After Brown and Augustine left, Weber stated that they might run a bit more in 2006-07. And coming into this season, well, it's becoming old hat. Heck, Bruce Weber has the words "up-tempo" in his bio.

I don't mean to pick on Coach Weber here - I think he's one of the best in the country - but no matter how many times he says it, the Weber-coached Illini have never been, nor are they ever likely to be, a fast team. And I can't stress this enough - that's not a bad thing. It's not a good thing either - strictly neutral. There are many ways to win a basketball game, and I have yet to see any serious study concluding that faster basketball is better basketball. A lot of bad ingredients can make for a fast team - offensive turnovers, sending the other team to the free throw line, and bad defense that allows for quick, easy shots, for example. No sane coach would adopt these practices in order to move up the pace chart, because pace doesn't win games. Efficiency (scoring more points than your opponent for a given number of possessions) does.

Weber isn't the only one promising a faster pace this season. In fact, the season's main culprit is Tom Izzo. Seth Davis wonders if the Spartans will re-kindle their "need for speed." Tom Izzo seems to think so, promising to push the ball up and down the court, and that he might even engage a 10 or 11 man rotation.

(Huh?)

These are some bizarre things to say. First of all, it's hard to see how going 10 or 11 deep is desirable and possible (it can't be both). I think the idea that most fans have in their head is that a team will run so fast that their opponent, playing a typical 7-8 man rotation, will be sucking wind by the 10 minute mark, and will get run out of the building because they can no longer make it up and down the floor.

For lack of a better term, that's just crazytalk.

It just doesn't happen that way. Even UNC, which averaged 74.0 possessions per game last year (highest among all BCS schools), with some of the finest athletes in basketball, wasn't sending opponents into the training room with cramps. This is for two reasons. First, like it or not, it takes two to determine the pace of any game. UNC can run on offense, but they can't make Washington State (who averaged 59.6 possessions per game) take a quick shot. So when the two played last season, it was a fairly pedestrian 66-possession affair. That was the slowest game UNC was involved in last season, and the 2nd fastest game for WSU. So when Izzo says they will push the ball "up and down" the court, he just means "up," unless he plans a matador-style defense. Secondly, you don't see a lot of fat guys in basketball games. Sure, it's tough, but I'd argue that nearly every team in the country goes through a more demanding two hour affair in the conditioning phase of the offseason than a basketball game against the Tar Heels (one full of TV timeouts, whistles, free throws, substitutions, a halftime, and team timeouts). UNC is tough to beat, but easily survivable.

Now given that you won't see a significant inherent advantage in playing 10-11 guys (tiring the other team out), why would you? The 10th and 11th "best" players on the team are significantly worse than the 1st or 2nd. If that wasn't true, well, either your team is looking historically good, or historically bad. Now, we think that MSU is deep, and probably the deepest team in the conference (part of the reason we picked them to win it), but we don't think that Tom Herzog can hold a candle to Goran Suton. So long as Goran says he can play, we say he belongs on the court.

One of the stories being weaved in with this MSU speed story is a supposed return to the style of play that got the Spartans to the Final Four. Hogwash.

The larger numbers are years in which Izzo's teams reached the Final Four. Sure, MSU was uncharacteristically slow in 06-07, but last season's 64.9 was right around two Final Four seasons: 98-99 and 02-03. Izzo's fastest seasons (data only goes back to 96-97, sorry) were the early ones. Since that time, he's settled into a zone between 64 and 67 possessions, roughly. And really, if it was as simple as playing faster, what would that say about Izzo? We'd have to assume then that he was too dumb to see a painfully obvious correlation, and if only he had pushed the ball more, the Spartans' season would have lasted past the round of 16.

The real staple of MSU Final Four teams is turnovers, plain and simple. Izzo's built a reliable offensive machine (which does not require NBA talent!), that becomes superhuman when the players take care of the ball. I feel good about their chances this year because I think the TOs will be down, but I'd be shocked if we saw new heights in MSU's pace.

That goes for everyone. You can't believe things about pace you hear in the fall. Remember that, and don't be fooled by smooth-talking head coaches again!