Bad News For Tennessee

[jakez4ut]

Originally Posted by lidderer

The nation, like every other collective board about a jersey colour or location, talks about a lot of things that sound intuitive and turn out to be boneheaded upon closer examination. That he goes beyond opinion is way more than commendable, even if you personally don't feel like he arrives at interesting conclusions.

And for what it's worth, and being a reader of this board, I have yet to read a single thing prior to this article about how teams that are the best at holding the ball are better than the best teams at causing turnovers. This wasn't news to you?

Also it doesn't really matter that it's 'obvious' how to beat UT, because it's pretty obvious how to beat any particular team if you even have basic basketball knowledge. What the article says is 'given the way elite teams play, and how the vols rely on their victories via D' it would appear that teams like memphis et al. are quite good at doing what it would require to beat a team like Tennessee, given how the Vols are set-up.

That's an important distinction, I think.

this is a good post, but as to the above, i will only say this: it's a given that the majority of us know that whether or not we force TO's will help dictate who wins and loses a game against us. Knowing that, it should be common knowledge that when teams do have good ball control, that will always ultimately trump those that rely on TO's?

at least it is to me. i know i've stated on this board on more than one occaision that relying on turnovers is a risky philosophy, it's hole heartidly different than imposing your will on a team and just flat out being better than them. relying on another team to make mistakes (even though it's part of your game plan and technique to cause them) inherently is a far riskier proposition than just trying to be better than the opponent.

but given our talent level and our adeptness at doing what we do, at this point, 26 games in, i've just come to understand that.......this is simply what we do. and it has worked far more times than it's not.

[lidderer]

Originally Posted by jakez4ut

this is a good post, but as to the above, i will only say this: it's a given that the majority of us know that whether or not we force TO's will help dictate who wins and loses a game against us. Knowing that, it should be common knowledge that when teams do have good ball control, that will always ultimately trump those that rely on TO's?

at least it is to me. i know i've stated on this board on more than one occaision that relying on turnovers is a risky philosophy, it's hole heartidly different than imposing your will on a team and just flat out being better than them. relying on another team to make mistakes (even though it's part of your game plan and technique to cause them) inherently is a far riskier proposition than just trying to be better than the opponent.

but given our talent level and our adeptness at doing what we do, at this point, 26 games in, i've just come to understand that.......this is simply what we do. and it has worked far more times than it's not.

Hmm, I think I'm just doing a poor job articulating that part you bolded. I guess an example would something like NFC vs AFC last year, and how the top 2 teams in the AFC were way better than the top 2 teams in the NFC. So let's use AFC to represent "good at not turning the ball over" and NFC to represent "good at causing turnovers", and then maybe it does a better job at expressing what the article is saying.

I don't think that's intuitive or something you can fully know from just watching games, especially when you can't watch all the other teams in ncaa play all their games and see if it works across-the-board.

[HawaiiVol]

Pick a thread that has to do with teams that will give us problems. You'll pretty much see that good ball-handling teams have a good chance to beat us in each one.

[lidderer]

Originally Posted by HawaiiVol

Pick a thread that has to do with teams that will give us problems. You'll pretty much see that good ball-handling teams have a good chance to beat us in each one.

that's not the point that we're talking about; we're talking about how---I don't know how many more ways to say this actually, so please look one post above at the possibly-bad AFC/NFC analogy and maybe you'll then understand what we're discussing here

[HawaiiVol]

The NFC, which would be your representation of UT, won.

It has been discussed that teams that take care of the ball will give us problems. I don't know many more ways to say that either.

[jjay2518]

Originally Posted by lidderer

that's not the point that we're talking about; we're talking about how---I don't know how many more ways to say this actually, so please look one post above at the possibly-bad AFC/NFC analogy and maybe you'll then understand what we're discussing here

Basically what I'm gathering is that if the best team at causing turnovers played the best team at holding onto the ball, the team that holds onto the ball will have an inherent advantage because of the styles of play.

[lidderer]

Originally Posted by jjay2518

Basically what I'm gathering is that if the best team at causing turnovers played the best team at holding onto the ball, the team that holds onto the ball will have an inherent advantage because of the styles of play.

dam you jjay, where were you 10 posts ago when I wanted to say exactly what you just said?

[lidderer]

Originally Posted by HawaiiVol

The NFC, which would be your representation of UT, won.

Correct, and it is probably considered like the greatest upset in the history of ever, which basically solidifies this point.

[HawaiiVol]

UT had more turnovers than Memphis last night, shot worse percentage from the field and 3pt range, and still managed to win.

Interesting.

[rwemyss]

You mean to tell me that all that "math" to support an argument that the Vols would lose if they couldn't force turnovers was wrong? Well I'll be...

[HawaiiVol]

Originally Posted by rwemyss

You mean to tell me that all that "math" to support an argument that the Vols would lose if they couldn't force turnovers was wrong? Well I'll be...

The only logical explanation would be that the FedEx Forum was sucked into an alternate universe where the laws of math do not apply.

[Vol. 1]

"Math can be a tricky thing......."

ready for that excuse to come along sometime.

[TennTom]

and that is why we play the game.....is there a mathmatical formula measuring heart and hustle Lid?

[BigPapaVol]

all the math is based upon this tiny little assumption: all else being equal. Funny that all else is NEVER equal. We killed them on the offensive glass and that resulted in the additional possessions (with easy buckets) that we would typically get from TOs.

[lidderer]

Originally Posted by BigPapaVol

all the math is based upon this tiny little assumption: all else being equal. Funny that all else is NEVER equal. We killed them on the offensive glass and that resulted in the additional possessions (with easy buckets) that we would typically get from TOs.

Lotta weird responses on this page.

But this is quote is the best one, because it's true, all else is never equal, which is why numbers don't ever say "this is the whole story", and why no one in this thread ever suggested they did or even could. And yet there's like 80 posts basically saying "numbers don't tell you the whole story". That's strange.

Excellent point about the offensive glass: a thing that our vols don't do well with helped us to win this particular game.

Hawaiivol, I'd try to explain it to you yet again, but instead I'll just encourage you to reread my prior responses to you and hopefully this time they'll click.