No one. Other teams had to play their point guard even more than Carr and they did a great deal better than we did but that part was unavoidable for Pitino. Curious, what does fine mean to you ?
Carr lead the conference in minutes played, and didn't he average over 38 minutes a game? Even if they did play more time, it would have been less than 2 minutes a game.
Point was, they played a very similar amount and it was not a factor. These guys play big minutes in back to backs in preseason tourney's AND IN THE CONFERENCE TOURNEY. Then in the NCAA the best teams play 2 games in 36 - 48 hours and pull full games , even overtime. Rest occurs in blowouts. If they are too tired with all the timeouts, tv timeouts then conditioning is a issue.
Mental fatigue during a game can play as much a factor as physical fatigue. I'm not suggesting the minutes Carr played was make or break for the team last season, but having someone reliable to come off the bench and give a different look has it's value as well. There were times last season even with a fully rested Carr where he wasn't doing much on the floor.
Agree. Another factor on the mental side, how your team is playing can really wear you down. That is another huge factor in how a few of the coaches i know and follow build into both the offense and the defense to rob the opponent of the mental will to compete and often i have seen the other team given in. Running them through picks and screens over and over and then on defense , always being low and wide and never giving anything , forcing tough passes,tough shots. These things drain you mentally and physically. These programs have the most grueling practices you can find.
Obviously speculating, but Carr easily could have adopted the mind set of pacing himself throughout a game due to knowing there was really no one behind him who could produce. Carr was best on the attack, but played restrained at times when we really needed him to be aggressive.
This year having more ball handlers will allow Carr a chance to catch his breath off the ball, but never and i mean never on defense.
Yes, i by that and each person is different. These teams monitor the conditioning from beginning to end. Some people have a better engine and have better endurance then others. I have seen guys come in out shape and others who have never been out of shape. Ideally if your guys are in the best condition possible you will still want them in that shape at the end of a game and the end of a season both mentally and physically. I love Carr but he could have improved his conditioning plus the team was short in combination guard effectiveness so he carried a large load and we were often in desperate to win games all year so there really was not a place to spell him often, lets say in a dead ball 30 seconds before a TV timeout and 1st or second dead ball after. Only as a example of the conditioning, not as some promotion but i saw a zoom conference of Perrantes and Hall, two UVA freshman from 2013-14 talking about after the very first team practice of their careers sharing if that was as hard as practice was going to be then they did not think they could make it. Every player on that said the same thing . The point being that practices should be exceedingly difficult, especially in the hard labor of defense, focus, intensity and execution. They all told the stories of games being easy. That is why in recruiting it is spelled out that it will be really hard work on and off the court, no favors, not even for the green team. Simply put, it is not for everyone. So long story short, each person is different, how large is their engine to process oxygen, how poised do they stay emotionally, how much drive do they actually have . How much did they do on their own. So many kids are the best they ever had from their high school, among the best on their AAU team and have coasted at 80%. What happens when they have to go a 100% , maybe 17 minutes in a grueling stance or fighting through picks not to mention transition or running around screens, jumping, finding a body, block out. The theory is to never lose because the other team was better than you in conditioning and emotional strength. Lose because the other team made more shots, had better players, cold shooting. Hundreds of games i have seen one team simply outwork and out smart the other team. My father told me there were two things i simply could not be, lazy and stupid. That is a terrible combination. Part of stupid can be diminished by work but that being really smart would not cover that much of lazy.
The condition i referred to is very specific to basketball in concert with a great conditioning coach and trainer , with a monitoring vest and fast transitions to each drill. Additionally time with Bob Rotella all in concert with a coach who already went through it as a player. Contributions from another player who went through his own experience and found out what he thought was difficult was in fact not hard enough. All input on nutrition and recovery'. The work required id for champions.
