Late But... Thoughts on Sycamores vs. ISU Red

[SycamoreStateofMind]

A little late, but better late than never. As we look forward to yet another big MVC match-up vs. Northern Iowa on Wednesday as the Sycamores will look to open 2013 with a conference “road dub” or “W” for Cubs fans. The Trees are quite possibly the hottest team in the Valley not named Creighton and following the win vs. Illinois State post a sporty RPI of #29 and SOS of #22 in the nation according to statsheet.com.

One thing that has gone unnoticed in the Sycamores box score is the job that Greg Lansing did distributing playing time. 9 players played doubled digit mins. for the Sycamores, 6 played 20 or more and 2 played just a single minute shy of 20 minutes. The Sycamores are going to play a lot of close basketball games this year and this kind of depth will allow us to win more of those games than we lose. Had this one gone to OT the Sycamores were going to be in a good position to win the game. Illinois State only had 7 players play double digit minutes and only the starting 5 playing over 20 minutes. The result? Two players fouled out and the celebrated Center Jackie Carmichael had 4 fouls. If you didn’t understand the value of depth and a bench before reading this maybe you do now.

Let’s get it.

Read my entire breakdown here:

http://www.sycamorehoops.com/thoughts-on-indiana-state-vs-illinois-state/

 

[region rat]

Well done and excellent. K. Smith will come on soon and will be one of our best three players this year.

 

[bent20]

Lansing has commented in the past that it was difficult coming up with his rotation and distributing minutes. I think he has that coaching experience now to make it work. It's one thing to have the depth, it's another to have a coach who makes the best use of it. I don't know that Lansing is officially there yet, but he is definitely improving as a game manager.

 

[hans1950]

We seem to have the luxury of several players not only giving the starters a blow but actually contributing when they play.That is hard to do.The only thing I regret is using up a year of eligibility for Rhett Smith earlier in the season.It's obvious now that minutes are going to be hard to come by for him.Do you think he might redshirt next year to have 3 years left starting in 2014-15 season?

 

[SycamoreStateofMind]

We seem to have the luxury of several players not only giving the starters a blow but actually contributing when they play.That is hard to do.The only thing I regret is using up a year of eligibility for Rhett Smith earlier in the season.It's obvious now that minutes are going to be hard to come by for him.Do you think he might redshirt next year to have 3 years left starting in 2014-15 season?

Don't see this happening.