" title="Spartans Weblog">Spartans Weblog

In light of the speculation in the last two posts that Izzo may be ramping up to use MSU’s depth to make a run at the Big Ten Tournament championship, I thought I’d check to see whether past tournament champions have had unusual amounts of depth. In theory, having more players playing significant minutes should reduce the burden on your starters and leave them in better shape to win three games in three days.

Defining what constitutes depth isn’t immediately obvious, though. I went with a fairly simple measure: number of players playing at least 10 minutes per game.

The table below shows the 10 previous conference tournament champions, along with the following:

• Number of players averaging at least 10 minutes per game for the full season (and playing in at least half the team’s games).
• Number of players playing at least 10 minutes in each of the three games en route to the tournament championship. (I’ve excluded Iowa’s opening round game in 2001, partly because it was really hard to find the box scores for that season’s tournament.)
• Number of players playing at least 10 minutes for the losing team in the tournament championship game.

The results, I’m sad to say, aren’t all that dramatic. All ten of the champions had at least 8 players average 10 minutes/game for the season. But that’s not a difficult threshold to cross; 10 of the 11 Big Ten teams meet that criteria this season. Only three of the champions had 9 or 10 players average 10 minutes for the season.

In each round, the average number of 10-minute players used by the champions was 7.3, as teams tend to shorten their benches in more important, closer games. These numbers are skewed a bit by two of the champions: (1) in 2001, Iowa only used 5 players in the final for some reason, despite already having played three straight days to get to the final and (2) Illinois used 9 players in their first game in 2005 as they blew out Northwestern but only used 6 players in the closer semifinal and final games.

In 6 of the other 8 years, the champion played more players in the final than in at least one of their first two games. So there’s a smidgen of evidence that having an extra player to give you minutes to in your third game can be helpful.

I included the number of 10-minute players on the losing team in the final to see if the winning teams tended to play more players, on the theory that the team with more depth would have an advantage on the third day of play. Apparently, it doesn’t, as the losing teams averaged slightly more 10-minute players than the winning teams. (I didn’t pull the number of 10-minute players for the full season for the losing teams.)

Intuitively, I’m still of the opinion that playing all nine contributors (starters plus Walton, Allen, Summers, and Gray) could have benefits in terms of keeping the players fresh for the 3-game stretch it takes to win the conference tournament. Plus it could have benefits in terms of playing more aggressive defense to either create turnovers or wear down the other team so they can’t defend us as aggressively. But there’s not much in the numbers to back this up.

It may also be that we need a more sophisticated measure of depth. Here are the number of 10-minute players for Big Ten teams this season:

10: Michigan, Minnesota, Penn State

9: Indiana, Iowa, Michigan State, Northwestern, Purdue

8: Illinois, Wisconsin

7: Ohio State

The three teams with the most depth by this measure are all in the bottom six in the conference standings. It could be that using more players is a sign that your starters and top reserves aren’t all that good so that there’s not much drop-off in bringing in players at the end of the bench.

Ideally, you’d want some way to measure the productivity of the 8th, 9th, and 10th players a team uses. But that’s not a simple matter, particularly if you’re trying to measure defensive ability, which could be a key consideration for using more players off the bench.

Tuesday Night Links

TAFKATBTW’s weekly conference check shows last week’s wins over Penn State and Iowa has boosted MSU out of conference-only efficiency margin limbo and back into the top-tier of teams in the conference.  MSU is currently tied for third in points per possession at 1.05, in fourth place in opponent’s points per possession at 0.96, and tied for fourth in efficiency margin at +0.09.  Given the closing four games, those numbers could be pulled back toward the pack if the Spartans can’t translate their recent efficient play to road games.

Future Spartan Draymond Green scored 29 points to lead Saginaw past Arthur Hill in the first round of the Class A playoffs last night.

Big Ten Country breaks down the next two weeks for the three Big Ten title contenders, giving Wisconsin the edge at this point.  He notes the following:

The schedule has played a role in the race. Indiana got the biggest advantage, being able to miss a road trip to Purdue. But overall, kudos to the Big Ten for increasing the regular season schedule back to 18 games and minimizing the impact scheduling would have on crowning a champion.

I’d add that Purdue probably has a bit of a gripe here, since Wisconsin doesn’t have to travel to East Lansing, either.

The best of the Big Ten power poll themes I’ve see: Off the Tracks compares each team to a Star Wars character.  MSU is The Emporer, due to the great power we still have to decide the conference race (and, hopefully, not due to our bad skin).  Michigan State is entrenched at #4 in the overall power poll voting.

Looking ahead to Thursday night’s game,  Joe Rexrode has a rundown of the Izzo-Ryan rivalry.  It’s painful reading.  And motivation to try to play spoiler for the Badgers this season.

If you couldn’t stand to read the last link, this may be more enjoyable: A Youtube clip of Neiztel’s follow-the-bouncing-ball 3-pointer against Wisconsin last year.  It’s taken from the Izzone; fun to watch the pregnant pause in the crowd as the ball bounces on the rim before the eruption as it drops through.