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The win against Montana was a fun one to watch. It got a little intense as Montana did all that they could to come back in the game, but the Dukes weathered the storm and came out on top, much to the relief of the Dukes fans and their growing ulcers.
At first glance, it was easy to think that what we saw during that game was merely the 10/40 offense redux. I think that it was something a bit different. This was a ten-man rotation rather than strictly a two-platoon system. There's a subtle difference - we saw players like Clark and Saunders stay in across changes in the rest of the personnel. There is also a difference in minute distribution. Check out the stats after the break.
When we played the 10/40 system during Everhart's first year, the time that each platoon was on the court wasn't equal, but the numbers were fairly close. Consider the following games with their minute ranges:
Opponent | Minute - High | Minute – Low | Difference |
27 | 16 | 11 | |
26 | 15 | 11 | |
Xavier | 25 | 15 | 10 |
Bona | 23 | 17 | 6 |
LaSalle | 26 | 13 | 13 |
URI | 24 | 16 | 8 |
28 | 11 | 17 | |
So what does all of that mean? The only game during full-blown 1040 that was even remotely similar to this one in terms of minutes was the LaSalle game, and that was still a good four minutes different.
Against Montana, the players who should see the most minutes did - Clark with 28, Saunders with 27, TJ with 25, SJ with 24. Players that should have got the most minutes during 1040, too, so that's not quite as big a deal. The biggest difference is with the minute totals for our players further down the bench. Two players with 11 minutes is quite different from what we saw before in '06-07. Only one game was close to that; on every other game, players towards the end of the bench had 4, 5, even 6 more minutes of playing time.
We occasionally saw full substitutions in this game, but it wasn't indicative of the platoon system, simply of a liberal substitution pattern, and one that I liked.
This was a unique rotation, and I wonder how it would hold up during a longer span? As long as we have the depth, I say go for it. Our players were able to put up numbers similar to what they had the rest of the season, but undoubtedly they were less worn down by the end of the game. I also feel that we have been ignorant of some of our depth the past two years. Johnson was the only bench player who was used a season ago with any regularity. This year, a lot of us wanted to see more of Wright and Marhold than we did.
Something to ponder for the future.
In any case, below are the promised pictures from Grizzly Journal!
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