Rest starters in a blowout; the Knight method

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uihawk82

Well-Known Member
I remember back in the day when every big 10 bball game was on Thursday and Saturday. Ten teams and you were on the road for two games then home for 2 games. Sometimes now teams play 3 times in 7 days with these goofy schedules and even 4 times in 10 or 11 games. That is tough. Back then it was 4 games in 14 days or so.

I remember watching a Saturday game between Indiana and Illinois and Knight had a really good team but they were getting clocked by a really good Illini team. Knight tried a lot of bench people in the first half with not big effect and after about 5 minutes of the second half after his starters kept playing bad he just took them all out for the rest of the game. I think he was sending a message to the starters but giving their legs some rest also.

I watched the first half and not the second last nite but I see the bench got a lot of game time. That was good and I hope the starters got a little more rest.
 
Was anyone else annoyed when Wieskamp got pulled for his 3rd foul last night? When you're down 25 with 15 minutes to go or whatever it was, saving a guy in foul trouble for the end of the game is probably kinda pointless.
 
uihawk82 said:
I remember back in the day when every big 10 bball game was on Thursday and Saturday. Ten teams and you were on the road for two games then home for 2 games. Sometimes now teams play 3 times in 7 days with these goofy schedules and even 4 times in 10 or 11 games. That is tough. Back then it was 4 games in 14 days or so.

I remember watching a Saturday game between Indiana and Illinois and Knight had a really good team but they were getting clocked by a really good Illini team. Knight tried a lot of bench people in the first half with not big effect and after about 5 minutes of the second half after his starters kept playing bad he just took them all out for the rest of the game. I think he was sending a message to the starters but giving their legs some rest also.

I watched the first half and not the second last nite but I see the bench got a lot of game time. That was good and I hope the starters got a little more rest.
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I don't remember Thursday/Saturday. I do remember Wednesday/Saturday was usually the norm, though. Occasionally a team would have Wednesday off and it'd be Saturday/Monday (especially if it was a good team and ESPN wanted them as part of their "Big Monday" lineup that week).
 
SpiderRico said:
I don't remember Thursday/Saturday. I do remember Wednesday/Saturday was usually the norm, though. Occasionally a team would have Wednesday off and it'd be Saturday/Monday (especially if it was a good team and ESPN wanted them as part of their "Big Monday" lineup that week).
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I am going back to the mid to late 1970s thru about mid to late 80's before the Big Wednesday thing came up and before TV was so big and all games were televised. There were games back then when Lester was playing and the hawks were in their final four year when they had non-TV games. And a lot of those games were televised by local or midwest broadcast units because if they had the ratings it was cheap, good programming in prime time.

I remember what you are talking about when ESPN got huge and Big Weds and then Big Monday was like a 6 PM Big East Game and then 8 PM was a Big 10 tilt and you always had to watch to see if the Big East would have a brawl or some fisticuffs.
 
uihawk82 said:
I am going back to the mid to late 1970s thru about mid to late 80's before the Big Wednesday thing came up and before TV was so big and all games were televised. There were games back then when Lester was playing and the hawks were in their final four year when they had non-TV games. And a lot of those games were televised by local or midwest broadcast units because if they had the ratings it was cheap, good programming in prime time.

I remember what you are talking about when ESPN got huge and Big Weds and then Big Monday was like a 6 PM Big East Game and then 8 PM was a Big 10 tilt and you always had to watch to see if the Big East would have a brawl or some fisticuffs.
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Yeah, my experience goes back to Raveling's last year, 1985-1986....so anything before that is foreign to me. :)

But Thursday/Saturday is insane. Only one day off between games is kinda dumb....tv or no tv. There's a whole other part of the week they can play. :)
 
SpiderRico said:
Yeah, my experience goes back to Raveling's last year, 1985-1986....so anything before that is foreign to me. :)

But Thursday/Saturday is insane. Only one day off between games is kinda dumb....tv or no tv. There's a whole other part of the week they can play. :)
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They did it that way for travel and classes. Fly out Thursday from campus to a Thursday nite game, maybe fly back to campus or probably on to the Saturday game city, Take your books if staying on the road. Play anytime from noon to 6 pm on Saturday but usually tip off by 4 pm on Saturday. Back by decent time.
 
uihawk82 said:
They did it that way for travel and classes. Fly out Thursday from campus to a Thursday nite game, maybe fly back to campus or probably on to the Saturday game city, Take your books if staying on the road. Play anytime from noon to 6 pm on Saturday but usually tip off by 4 pm on Saturday. Back by decent time.
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Pac-12 still has this type of schedule, but not necessarily on Thursday/Saturday. They have the travel partners:

USC and UCLA
Stanford and Cal
Oregon and Oregon State
Washington and Washington State
Arizona and Arizona State
Utah and Colorado
 
PCHawk said:
Was anyone else annoyed when Wieskamp got pulled for his 3rd foul last night? When you're down 25 with 15 minutes to go or whatever it was, saving a guy in foul trouble for the end of the game is probably kinda pointless.
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Yeah, if your biggest worry at that point is that you make a comeback, it comes down to one possession at the end, but dammit, we don't have JW, I think you're going to take that every time.
 
Robowe said:
Pac-12 still has this type of schedule, but not necessarily on Thursday/Saturday. They have the travel partners:

USC and UCLA
Stanford and Cal
Oregon and Oregon State
Washington and Washington State
Arizona and Arizona State
Utah and Colorado
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The B1G experimented with travel partners in the 1980's. Iowa's was usually Minnesota but may have been Northwestern a time or two.

ESPN and TV in general made a shambles of the old Thirsday-Saturday schedule. By the early eighties it wasn't unusual for Iowa to play on NBC on Sunday afternoon, then later CBS and ABC. EPSN introduced Big Monday in 1986 and that was the final nail in the coffin of symmetrical schedules. If you had a "wraparound weekend" you may play Thursday, Saturday and Monday. Three games in five days!
 
PCHawk said:
Was anyone else annoyed when Wieskamp got pulled for his 3rd foul last night? When you're down 25 with 15 minutes to go or whatever it was, saving a guy in foul trouble for the end of the game is probably kinda pointless.
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I'll admit I wasn't the slightest bit annoyed. But honestly did it matter?
 
PCHawk said:
Was anyone else annoyed when Wieskamp got pulled for his 3rd foul last night? When you're down 25 with 15 minutes to go or whatever it was, saving a guy in foul trouble for the end of the game is probably kinda pointless.
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Would have been a good time to pull all of the starters IMO. Rest guys when the opportunity presents itself.
 
SpiderRico said:
I don't remember Thursday/Saturday. I do remember Wednesday/Saturday was usually the norm, though. Occasionally a team would have Wednesday off and it'd be Saturday/Monday (especially if it was a good team and ESPN wanted them as part of their "Big Monday" lineup that week).
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Yep this is what I recall at least when I was a kid in the late 80's onward. Didn't seem to really change until the Big Ten Network came long. A weekend game was always Saturday except for the occasional Sunday afternoon nationally televised game. Saturday - good old Raycom!

The weekday games ranged anywhere from Monday through Thursday, but Wednesday was the norm. I suppose the exceptions were often games on ESPN.

Speaking of crazy schedules, I recall Chris Street's last game at Duke. For some reason, Duke played another home game the very next day, against Virginia. They were worn out and lost. Not sure I've ever seen back to back games that weren't in a tournament of some kind, other than that.

As to the point of the post - yeah, if you're down 30+ with under 10 to play or something, may as well pull the starters. I don't like waving the white flag, but in some circumstances, it's all you can do. No need to expend energy in a blowout, or worse yet, get someone injured needlessly.
 
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uihawk82 said:
I am going back to the mid to late 1970s thru about mid to late 80's before the Big Wednesday thing came up and before TV was so big and all games were televised. There were games back then when Lester was playing and the hawks were in their final four year when they had non-TV games. And a lot of those games were televised by local or midwest broadcast units because if they had the ratings it was cheap, good programming in prime time.

I remember what you are talking about when ESPN got huge and Big Weds and then Big Monday was like a 6 PM Big East Game and then 8 PM was a Big 10 tilt and you always had to watch to see if the Big East would have a brawl or some fisticuffs.
Click to expand...

Yeah the old Big East. John Thompson, Rollie Massimino, Lou Carnesecca, PJ Carlesimo, etc. Good stuff.

I remember for a while they allowed 6 fouls instead of 5.
 
uihawk82 said:
I remember watching a Saturday game between Indiana and Illinois and Knight had a really good team but they were getting clocked by a really good Illini team. Knight tried a lot of bench people in the first half with not big effect and after about 5 minutes of the second half after his starters kept playing bad he just took them all out for the rest of the game. I think he was sending a message to the starters but giving their legs some rest also.
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If Bobby Knight benched someone I guarantee it wasn't to save his legs.

 
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Fryowa said:
If Bobby Knight benched someone I guarantee it wasn't to save his legs.

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Mostly Knight was disgusted with his starters but if he wanted to really punish them he could have left them all in the rest of the way to get beat by 70. But then they would be totally wasted for the next game or two.

He was disgusted but he wanted to save their legs.
 
1977Hawkeye said:
Yeah the old Big East. John Thompson, Rollie Massimino, Lou Carnesecca, PJ Carlesimo, etc. Good stuff.

I remember for a while they allowed 6 fouls instead of 5.
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I wish they would bring that rule back and make it NCAA-wide.

You wouldn't see coaches pulling players after two quickies. And the players could actually play their normal game after picking up an early foul.

I remember Purdue once playing Louisville on a Sunday afternoon, then playing Iowa the following evening on Big Monday. Boilers were up eight or ten to Iowa midway through the second half, but the quick turnaround finally caught up to them. It may also have cost them the outright conference title which they ended up sharing with their buddies at Indiana.
 
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