pennsive
Junior
Posts: 200
Reg: 11-21-04
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02-14-21 11:34 AM - Post#320749
I needed some escapism after watching the impeachment trial, so I went on the Penn Athletics website to view a Mark Zoller-led Penn team narrowly defeat Yale at Payne Whitney to capture the Ivy championship. What struck me about Fran Dunphy's squad, in comparison to Steve's teams, is my unproven assumption (based, however, on many years of watching and reading) that you didn't get court time with Fran unless you played rugged defense, keeping your legs moving, filling the passing lanes, and grabbing more rebounds than our players' limited athleticism might otherwise predict. If you were inclined to pick up reach-in fouls, and not beat your man to the spot, you could enjoy a front row seat on the bench. On offense, what may have ben complicated fact, seemed, fairly seamless and simple, and therein lay its beauty. Certainly it was a winning formula, generally, as we fondly remember
To play on Steve's teams, driven by analytics, my hunch (also based on watching many, many games on computer TV and some in person watching) is that toughness and gritty defense have taken a back seat to more offensive elegance, more spread the court offensive play, and fun to watch offensive sets. Although Steve, like all coaches, will preach the importance of defense, the players who play for him, by and large, seem to lack the the back alley toughness of Fran's teams.
The similarity between the coaches appears that neither would tolerate free-lancing, at the expense od pattered play. Bottom line for me is that Steve's teams are more fun to watch, but Fran's teams, even during the three point era, a didn't depend as much on hitting threes the way Steve's do, and were more likely to win. Stated differently, you are always in the game if you can play defense, and defense does not depend on a home court advantage. While the rest of the Ivy League (possibly ex Princeton which always was pretty much our equal and more athletic that we credited them for being), are much better athletically than the teams used to be, so Fran's winning formula was more easily achieved; and although I remain a huge fan of Steve's, I am betting that Fran's way, even in today's game, would do better against current Yale, Princeton, Dartmouth, and Brown squads, and about the same as Steve's would do against against Harvard, Columbia, and Cornell. Do you agree?
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