The Kim Caldwell System

#751
#751
RetroVol said:
You make a good argument in your post. I'm not dismissing that. I do think that there weren't lot of folks who thought as we started the season last year that we had the team to play toe-to-toe with some of the best in the country and, as you note, hand UCONN a loss and beat Ohio State on their home court to go to the Sweet Sixteen where we faced Texas again and once again hung with them. Maybe there were a lot of, "Yeah, we really didn't do much," posts on here last year, but I think most people thought we overachieved. And, yeah, there was that incongruous rough patch in the SEC where it looked like fatigue, a mental let down after UCONN, and some bad breaks (Kaniya slipping against Vandy) hurt us. But, overall, a really good year in most people's minds, and one to build on. Which Kim did with her portal class and then the early recruits this year.

Looking back through the lens of this year, it looks different. And regardless of what we say about last year, this year definitely pushes some questions to the fore that can't be ignored.
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On that note, the beauty of sport is how quickly the “narrative’ can change. If the LVs pull off an upset win today, we will be having a different (and far more pleasant) conversation.
 
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#752
#752
Again, I'm having fun both in thinking about Kim's System, this team, and how it plays out going forward and in fooling around with AIs. So, I copied all my substantive posts, pro and con, about Kim's System from this thread and put them into a document, then gave it to ChatGPT to summarize. It did, then offered to create a "system map." I then asked it to pretty that up using Lady Vol colors. Here's the result for those who may be interested.
 

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#753
#753
I'm putting on my "question Kim's system" hat. When she sits back and tries to figure out where to go after this season here is another thing she's got to consider: the bell curve of talent/skill at the level she wants to compete. I think this may be a big difference between D2 and D1, especially P4, and double-especially-so for those with Final Four aspirations. This gets back to the "Generational Talent" aspect a little, though not limited to that.

Think about a bell curve of talent/skill for D1 prospects. Like any bell curve, the vast majority are grouped near the middle. What that means is that the difference in talent/skill for a player at, say, the 50th percentile vs. the 55th percentile is going to be some amount, call it X. But, as you move right on the bell curve, the gaps in talent/skill grows for each percentile. So, the gap in talent and skill between the 90th and 91st percentile might be as much as between the 50th and 55th, and the gap between the 90th and 95th would be greater, maybe 5X or 10X. And then you get to the rarefied air of the 97th, 98th, and 99th percentile -- the top few players in each class, maybe in a decade, or even in a generation. The gap in their talent/skill over ANY player who replaces them on the floor can be huge. They need to be on the floor all the time. They're "gravity" players -- the system needs to revolve around them.

At least that's one view. But it's not the universal take, and there's a well-known women's basketball coach who takes the opposite view: Stephanie White, Caitlin Clark's coach. She's been among those who suggested that the Fever might be better without Caitlin. A few weeks ago, commenting on Nikola Jokić's absence from the Nuggets, she talked about how the ball moved better without him. She is a "system" over "great talent" coach. (Then Caitlin came along a few days later and was asked what NBA player she thought he could learn from and picked Jokić.!)

Kim's going have to decide where she is on that spectrum, and she's going to have to account for the difference in talent/skill stratification at the level she wants to compete at today vs. D2. Basically, I'm saying that at D2, the effect of a system making a team greater than the sum of it's parts is higher than when you have very substantial differences in skill/talent across a lineup. What "true team basketball" may look like at the FF level of D1 may be different even than at the national championship level of D2. It may look more like putting the "gravity" players in position to pull the team along with them, and everyone else supports.

Whether it's "wins above replacement' in baseball or "plus/minus" in basketball, we all have the intuitive sense that some players are just darn near irreplaceable. Maybe it's a good thing to have some of Kim's approach to keep your very top talent fresh at the end of the game and at the end of the season (like "load management" in the NBA or pitch counts in MLB), but the exact approach to that may have to look somewhat different from her D2 days.

How does she keep the best of the substitution/effort component of her system, including the opportunity for minutes to prove oneself, while still handling the spread of talent on a Final Four level team? And if Big Oh is what some think she may be, that's a question that needs answered before next season. Well, come to think of it, it needs answered regardless, but whatever her answer, it may get stress-tested next season.
 
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#754
#754
RetroVol said:
They [ The very top players ] need to be on the floor all the time. They're "gravity" players -- the system needs to revolve around them.

At least that's one view. But it's not the universal take, and there's a well-known women's basketball coach who takes the opposite view: Stephanie White, Caitlin Clark's coach. She's been among those who suggested that the Fever might be better without Caitlin.
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On May 23, 2016, White accepted the head coaching job for the Vanderbilt Commodores women's basketball team. She completed the 2016 season with the Fever, finishing her time there with a 37–31 overall record and a 6–6 record in the postseason.[18] Through her five seasons at Vanderbilt, White compiled a 46–83 overall record and went 13–55 against Southeastern Conference competition.
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Yes, that is the very same Stephanie White who dazzled us all into somnambulism at Vandy.
 
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#755
#755
1reVOLver said:
Yes, that is the very same Stephanie White who dazzled us all into somnambulism at Vandy.
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Exactly. I'm making an argument against any system, including Kim's, that fails to account for the stunning span of talent/skill at the very top of D1 women's basketball.

Which, by the way, from the standpoint of coaching excellence, just makes what Kim did at Glenville State that much more impressive. If I'm right about the spread in talent, she was taking VERY similar athletes and just dog-whupping her competition.
 
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#756
#756
madtownvol said:
On that note, the beauty of sport is how quickly the “narrative’ can change. If the LVs pull off an upset win today, we will be having a different (and far more pleasant) conversation.
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Not for me. If we win, I would consider it a bad loss for OK who probably underestimated us due to our poor play. Just like Miss State and A&M beating us doesn’t prove their team is good
 
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#758
#758
vols90 said:
Not for me. If we win, I would consider it a bad loss for OK who probably underestimated us due to our poor play. Just like Miss State and A&M beating us doesn’t prove their team is good
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Agree. Ordinarily I’d be in the “win cures all” camp, but this has been so horrendous it’s going to take a few wins, a tourney run probably, to make it all better.

Even then there would still be the question of what the hell just happened.
 
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#762
#762
ShortyMac10 said:

I know Draya was hurting wen she was talking
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It's clear this culture of Lady Vols Nation is divided as hell. Even with it's former players. Sad this has been a long going problem even before Caldwell got there. Just simply no one was bold enough as former players to call out previous LVFL who tried to carry to Pat Summit torch out the same way. Smh.

Anyways onto seeing the Lady Vols get waxed again today.
 
#771
#771
Somehow we are still in this game. On that play, we had our tallest player guarding at the top of the key and our point guard under the basket. Coop just missed two free throws What in the world is going on? Nice three by Hurst.
 
#773
#773
Down to 3 with no help from our bigs. Maybe inside offense
and defense will improve when the Big O and others come in next year.
 
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