Malcolm Gladwell is smarter than you

#26
#26
It is an interesting debate. When it works, it works well.
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#32
#32
kidbourbon said:
But it worked against the best teams in '91, '94, and '96, right? Were there not any decent guards those years?
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Please tell me who in the country had better backcourts than those three teams in the years they won. Also, Vegas won in '90, not '91.
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#33
#33
kidbourbon said:
But it worked against the best teams in '91, '94, and '96, right? Were there not any decent guards those years?
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Those three teams would have won the national title playing the Princeton offense and John Chaney's zone. They were simply better than anyone else. In the cases of Vegas and Kentucky, much, much better.
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#34
#34
kidbourbon said:
But it worked against the best teams in '91, '94, and '96, right? Were there not any decent guards those years?
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Further, if Kentucky had attempted to press UMASS in the Final Four as much as they did in that year's opener, they'd have been going home two nights early.
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#35
#35
kidbourbon said:
But it worked against the best teams in '91, '94, and '96, right? Were there not any decent guards those years?
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It wasn't emploted in those years in truly meaningful ways. Every one of those coaches backed away from his hardcore pressing tendencies and kicked everyone's teeth out in the half court. Go look.
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#36
#36
hatvol96 said:
Please tell me who in the country had better backcourts than those three teams in the years they won.
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That isn't the question. The statement was that the press couldn't beat a team with great guard play. Thus, the guard play of the presser, not the press-ee, is at issue.

I will wait for you to go on record that the pressing teams did not play against great guards en route to their championship before name dropping.
 
#38
#38
hatvol96 said:
Those three teams would have won the national title playing the Princeton offense and John Chaney's zone. They were simply better than anyone else. In the cases of Vegas and Kentucky, much, much better.
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I agree. But that is beside the point. The question at bar is whether a pressing team can win a national championship. Several posters appear to have flatly concluded that, no, they cannot. So regardless of whether they needed to press...they did press, and they did win.
 
#39
#39
kidbourbon said:
That isn't the question. The statement was that the press couldn't beat a team with great guard play. Thus, the guard play of the presser, not the press-ee, is at issue.

I will wait for you to go on record that the pressing teams did not play against great guards en route to their championship before name dropping.
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Name the great point guards those teams beat. A flu ridden freshman Bobby Hurley? Jeff Capel? Lazarus Sims? Kenny Anderson and Jalen Rose were the best they faced. Georgia Tech scored so easily for 30 minutes against Vegas that Tark called off the press and Arkansas didn't press full time in the regional final against the Wolverines. Kentucky didn't press full time against anyone in '96, so their inclusion is this discussion is senseless.
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#40
#40
hatvol96 said:
Further, if Kentucky had attempted to press UMASS in the Final Four as much as they did in that year's opener, they'd have been going home two nights early.
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I disagree. No way Pitino was losing to Calipari a second time that year. Especially after Cal came out and popped off about how he out-clevered Pitino by making him prepare (from statements made to the media) for box-and-one and triangle-and-two defenses that he had no intention of running.

How I remember such minutiae, I have no idea.
 
#41
#41
BigPapaVol said:
It wasn't emploted in those years in truly meaningful ways. Every one of those coaches backed away from his hardcore pressing tendencies and kicked everyone's teeth out in the half court. Go look.
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I did look. Maybe the only youtube clips I saw were the pressing ones, but it sure looked like all those teams pressed pretty much all the time.
 
#42
#42
kidbourbon said:
I agree. But that is beside the point. The question at bar is whether a pressing team can win a national championship. Several posters appear to have flatly concluded that, no, they cannot. So regardless of whether they needed to press...they did press, and they did win.
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There's a huge difference between a team that can press and uses it as a weapon and one that has to turn people over with its press to win. The teams you've listed are the former. The teams of Bruce Pearl and his patron saint Tom Davis are the latter.
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#43
#43
kidbourbon said:
I disagree. No way Pitino was losing to Calipari a second time that year. Especially after Cal came out and popped off about how he out-clevered Pitino by making him prepare (from statements made to the media) for box-and-one and triangle-and-two defenses that he had no intention of running.

How I remember such minutiae, I have no idea.
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If he could have pressed them, why didn't he?
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#44
#44
kidbourbon said:
I did look. Maybe the only youtube clips I saw were the pressing ones, but it sure looked like all those teams pressed pretty much all the time.
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Wait a minute. Your knowledge of what those teams did or didn't do comes from Youtube?
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#45
#45
hatvol96 said:
Name the great point guards those teams beat. A flu ridden freshman Bobby Hurley? Jeff Capel? Lazarus Sims? Kenny Anderson and Jalen Rose were the best they faced. Georgia Tech scored so easily for 30 minutes against Vegas that Tark called off the press and Arkansas didn't press full time in the regional final against the Wolverines. Kentucky didn't press full time against anyone in '96, so their inclusion is this discussion is senseless.
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Kenny Anderson was a damn good college player. Damon Stoudamire and Khalid Reaves were a very solid backcourt. Hurley was very good. (I didn't know he had the flu, but flu or no flu, Duke got the living shiznit kicked out of them in that game). That isn't a bad start off the top of my head.

The statement about Kentucky in '96 I just don't know if I can go along with. They were certainly pressing LSU in the regular season when they beat them by approximately 96. They were pressing every possession. Did they stop at some point along the way?
 
#46
#46
kidbourbon said:
Kenny Anderson was a damn good college player. Damon Stoudamire and Khalid Reaves were a very solid backcourt. Hurley was very good. (I didn't know he had the flu, but flu or no flu, Duke got the living shiznit kicked out of them in that game). That isn't a bad start off the top of my head.

The statement about Kentucky in '96 I just don't know if I can go along with. They were certainly pressing LSU in the regular season when they beat them by approximately 96. They were pressing every possession. Did they stop at some point along the way?
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Why wouldn't they have pressed a team with awful guards? LSU was crap. How much did they press Padilla and Traveiso in the Final Four? Not much, since they got sliced to bits doing it in the opener. I'm assuming you missed the part about Tech shooting about 60% until Tark called the press off and strangled them in the halfcourt. Arizona's inability to guard Corliss Williamson and the fact that Reaves and Stoudamire couldn't throw it in the ocean that afternoon in Charlotte had a whole lot more to do with Arkansas winning than the press did.
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#47
#47
hatvol96 said:
Wait a minute. Your knowledge of what those teams did or didn't do comes from Youtube?
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I'm not 19 years old. I saw all those teams play, and I do have a memory. And when my memory thinks of those teams, it sees a press. But by no means is my memory perfect.

Also, it should be noted that your memory is not perfect -- alluding back to your statement that the late 70's and early 80's Crum teams pressed their opponents into the ground. My dad, a diehard UofL fan who went to all those home games and watched the rest on tv, confirmed that UofL pressed just occassionally.
 
#48
#48
hatvol96 said:
Why wouldn't they have pressed a team with awful guards? LSU was crap. How much did they press Padilla and Traveiso in the Final Four? Not much, since they got sliced to bits doing it in the opener. I'm assuming you missed the part about Tech shooting about 60% until Tark called the press off and strangled them in the halfcourt. Arizona's inability to guard Corliss Williamson and the fact that Reaves and Stoudamire couldn't throw it in the ocean that afternoon in Charlotte had a whole lot more to do with Arkansas winning than the press did.
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I don't remember that. But I'm not calling you a liar.
 
#49
#49
kidbourbon said:
I'm not 19 years old. I saw all those teams play, and I do have a memory. And when my memory thinks of those teams, it sees a press. But by no means is my memory perfect.

Also, it should be noted that your memory is not perfect -- alluding back to your statement that the late 70's and early 80's Crum teams pressed their opponents into the ground. My dad, a diehard UofL fan who went to all those home games and watched the rest on tv, confirmed that UofL pressed just occassionally.
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Is that why Denny Crum spent every summer at clinics throughout the country teaching the virtues of the 2-2-1 press?
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#50
#50
hatvol96 said:
If he could have pressed them, why didn't he?
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I think you misunderstood my post, which is my fault because I wrote it poorly. Before Umass played UK in the regular season, Cal apparently told some reporters that Umass was going to play box-and-one and triangle-and-two defenses. Umass won the regular season game. After the game, Cal was popping off to the press about how his earler statements were just lies meant to trick Pitino into preparing for offenses that Cal never planned to implement.
 
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