Okay. I'm just having fun playing with LLMs. While walking today, I heard a youtuber make some claim about certain Tennessee players not producing well together because their styles conflict. It got me to thinking whether there might be a way to get an LLM to analyze that. Which led me to the play-by-play summaries on ESPN, and, voila!, they have time-stamped substitutions. it turns out copying those play-by-play summaries and pasting them into a Word document then saving as a pdf is fairly trivial. And LLMs read pdfs. And can analyze data. So... hours go by, playing around with feeding the summaries for the NC State, UCLA, Stanford, Louisville, and Florida games into the big 4. Some of the AI eccentricities showed up, like occasionally mis-counting things. (One AI caught another AI's error.) But overall, I think what I ended up with was accurate and significant enough to share this summary. (Again from Gemini. Don't know why. I use ChatGPT a lot, but for this, Gemini seemed better. I wasn't really going for a rigorous AI comparison!) So, for what it's worth:
Topic: Are We Seeing an Evolution in the "Hockey Line" Strategy?
After breaking down the play-by-play data from the NC State, UCLA, Stanford, Louisville, and Florida games, some distinct patterns are emerging regarding Coach Caldwell’s substitution philosophy. While the sample size is small (12 games total, 5 analyzed here), the data hints that the "system" is becoming less rigid and more situational, particularly in "winning time."
Here is a summary of the observable trends:
1. The Baseline: High-Volume "Platooning"
In the early "stress test" games (NC State) and the recent loss to Louisville, the data shows a heavy reliance on swapping all 5 players at once (5-for-5).
- vs. NC State: There were 11 separate 5-for-5 line changes.
- vs. Louisville: There were 6 separate 5-for-5 line changes.
- Observation: In both losses, the "Hockey Line" subs continued deep into the 4th Quarter regardless of the score or momentum.
2. The Adjustment: The Shift to 4-for-4
In the road win at Stanford, we saw a noticeable behavior change. Instead of swapping everyone, Caldwell frequently kept one "anchor" player (often Talaysia Cooper) on the floor while swapping the other four.
- vs. Stanford: There were only 3 5-for-5 swaps, but 11 4-for-4 swaps.
- Significance: This suggests an attempt to maintain the "fresh legs" advantage of mass substitutions without completely resetting the lineup's chemistry.
3. The Closer: 4th Quarter Management
This is where the biggest shift appears to be happening. We can contrast how the 4th Quarter was handled in close games:
- NC State (Loss): Executed a full 5-for-5 swap with 3:36 remaining in a tight game.
- Stanford (Win): Stopped all mass substitutions for the final 7 minutes.
- Florida (Win): Stopped all mass substitutions for the entire 4th Quarter.
The Data: Mass Substitutions by Game
| Game | Result | 5-for-5 Swaps | 4-for-4 Swaps | 4th Quarter Strategy |
| NC State | Loss | 11 | 6 | Rigid. Swapped 5 players with 3:36 left (game tied/close). |
| UCLA | Loss | 3 | 2 | Reactive. Abandoned system in Q2 & Q4 when trailing by double digits. |
| Stanford | Win | 3 | 11 | Hybrid. Heavy use of 4-for-4. No mass subs in final 7 mins. |
| Louisville | Loss | 6 | 2 | Rigid. Swapped 5 players with 7:05 left (down 18). |
| Florida | Win | 5 | 3 | Situational. Zero mass subs in Q4. |
What the Hints Suggest
The Louisville game appears to be an outlier where the "system" was applied strictly despite the deficit. However, the contrast between the
NC State loss (rigid 4th quarter subs) and the
Florida win (zero 4th quarter mass subs) suggests a potential calibration.
The Florida game may represent the "ideal" version of this strategy: use the platoon swaps for the first 30 minutes to wear the opponent down, then tighten the rotation to specific matchups to secure the win. We will need to see if this pattern holds in upcoming SEC games.
