Madness Time
Given that it’s March Madness time, just thought I’d throw out a few observations about the traits of teams that win championships and what to watch for when the games are played.
Most teams that win the NCAA Championship have a team that fits into a pretty consistent model. Meaning, most successful teams have a really good point guard that can effectively handle either slowdown tactics or can handle the pressure of quick pressing opponents. Your style might be either structured slow or helter skelter fast, or anywhere in-between, but you have to be able to play YOUR game, as well as adapt to each game’s conditions. Because your opponent can sometimes dictate that it’s going to be a defensive, low scoring possession type game, and you have to have a guard that can play a game like that that needs to have effectiveness in the quality of possessions which means good shot selection with minimal turnovers. Your point guard is your key player at keeping the game under control.
The successful teams also need to have enough “big” play from their center and forwards that they can effectively defend the “big” play of other teams, which includes shot blocking when needed, and most importantly, defensive rebounding when the opponent misses shots. You don’t have to dominate them, you just can’t be dominated BY THEM. In other words, you might not be the biggest team out there, but you have to be able to play effectively enough against the biggest teams to not allow yourself to be pushed around.
The successful team also needs to have a go-to scorer type of player. Often times, there is a really close game that might come down to the last shot, and your team needs to have that player that can both create and hit that key shot. Again, look at the championship teams of the past, and you will see that player that hit that shot when it was most needed.
Enough high quality depth to be able to handle a game with a lot of fouls called is often important, though not absolutely necessary. There have been some teams that have won with a “usual rotation” of only six or seven players, but there were still some occasions when seldom used players from the bench have had to step up and play key minutes of big games.
And usually, the winning teams of these tournaments have been able to convert important free throws down the stretch of close games. It of course makes sense that if a team CANNOT make free throws, then their opponents can use that weakness against them and continuously foul the team and force them to beat you from the free throw line. Many a “good” team has failed to be a great team because of weakness from the free throw line. The DNA of most champions includes the ability to hit free throws in the biggest of games.
And an important thing to watch for is the fact that the “stars” of most of these teams (the ones who play those key positions of “big man,” “point guard” and “go-to scorer”) are the players that have to carry their teams the most. These are big games. True stars play their best in big games.
But it is still a TEAM game. The school that plays together as a TEAM and has all of the other criteria will usually beat the team with a star or two that plays sometimes spectacular and other times less than ideal basketball. The one who most is able to control whether a team plays unselfishly like a team is their coach. Show me a team that passes the ball around, tries to create the best shot possible each time down the floor for their TEAM as a whole, and I’ll show you a team that is well coached. Show me a team that plays good team defense, rebounds well, and busts their asses every time down the floor to try to keep their opponents from scoring, and I’ll show you a team that is well coached.
The winning team of the usual NCAA tournament is the team that can effectively play the best defense when they most need to stop the other team, as well as being the team that CAN score the key basket when they most need to come up with points. It is kind of obvious thinking, but, when you really think of it another way, the champions are the teams that can crank it up to a higher gear offensively or defensively than any of their opponents. Watch for a team that has a gear ONE HIGHER than any other team, and that will probably be your champions.
Enjoy the games.
