Friday, May 15, 2015

Now we know the price the NCAA is willing to pay

From an ESPN article by Eamonn Brennan LINK.

Note this paragraph:
After the first brief uptick in scoring averages during 2013-14, the 2014-15 season was the lowest scoring in the sport's history -- mirroring a decades-long trend toward slow play during which teams gradually scored more points per possession but averaged fewer and fewer possessions per game.

Somehow these coaches that have slowed down the game are being cast as some sort of villains that have ruined the game. But people forget that, regardless of the pace of the game, teams will have the same number of possessions (plus or minus one). So, the team that is more efficient per possession will win the game. If, as the game has slowed down, teams were becoming more efficient on offense, then the coaches were doing just exactly what they were supposed to do. It is not about faster or slower, but about better.

Now we know: offensive efficiency ("more points per possession") is not that important to the NCAA. What is important is more points per game, no matter how much efficiency has to be sacrificed to get them. They do not want BETTER PLAY: what they want is more scoring.Well, going to a 30-second clock should increase the number of ill-advised desperation shots taken as the shot clock runs down, if that is a good thing.

'Fess up, NCAA: what is at stake here is not an attempt to make basketball better, but an attempt to make it richer.

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