ShareThisNew Virginia men's basketball coach Tony Bennett's philosophy has long been to sit a player for the rest of the first half if he picks up two fouls.
"I think you have to have a feel of the guy he's guarding, and the situation, if you're going to reinsert him in the first half," Bennett said.
The lack of "feel" -- i.e., experience with Atlantic Coast Conference foes -- may have hurt Bennett and the Cavaliers on Saturday night.
When star guard Sylven Landesberg picked up his second foul roughly eight minutes into the game, Bennett sent him to the bench -- didn't reinsert him until after halftime, even though the Cavs went the final eight minutes of the first half without a field goal, building a deficit they never overcame. Wake Forest went on to halt Virginia's eight-game winning streak, 69-57.
"Offensively, (Sylven) is such a threat that you worry as much about an offensive foul as much as a defensive foul," Bennett said. "We cut (the lead) to four in that game at about the seven-, eight-minute mark, and I thought maybe we could get to the end of the half without him picking up a third.
"... But I think if I had to do it again, I would have slid him back in there. You learn from that."
Most ACC coaches don't have hard and fast rules for what to do when their players encounter early foul trouble. They say it's a situational instinct:
North Carolina coach Roy Williams said that after a player picks up a second quick foul, he'll take him out of the game, remind him not to earn a third silly one, rest him for a period, then put him back in.
"I've never been a guy who holds them out the whole rest of the half," he said, "and I do believe when it gets inside the 3-minute mark, 2-1/2 minutes left in the first half, I do try to take them out at that time," so that they don't pick up a third.
Maryland coach Gary Williams said he's more likely to reinsert a player with two fouls if his team isn't playing well. "I don't want to lose the game in the first half, with my best player or a good player on the bench," he said. "I'd rather take my chances of him getting a third foul, and the other side of that is, maybe he can make us play better again and get back in the game there in the first half."
N.C. State coach Sidney Lowe, however, tends to be more conservative; he sat Tracy Smith against Wake Forest and at Florida State when he picked up two fouls in the first half, and did the same thing with Dennis Horner against the Seminoles, and Scott Wood vs. Clemson. At Maryland last weekend, he did reinsert Wood in the first half after the player picked up two fouls. Lowe said he doesn't have a true "philosophy" for when, or whether, to reinsert a player.
"If someone comes in (for the guy with two fouls) and plays well and (we) go up 12 to 15 points, then there's really no reason to put them back in there ... the game will dictate that," Lowe said. "The time and score will also dictate whether you take them out."
IRON BLUE DEVILS
Duke's fans -- some of who are concerned that the Blue Devils may be overworking Jon Scheyer, Kyle Singler and Nolan Smith -- aren't the only ones paying close attention to the minutes logged by the Big Three.
ESPN sideline reporter Erin Andrews said Clemson coach Oliver Purnell was urging the Tigers to keep pushing in an effort to tire the Blue Devils in Duke's 60-47 win on Saturday. Purnell admitted as much on Monday.
"We were monitoring minutes during the game and recognized that Scheyer and Singler had not been out of the game," Purnell said. "With our style and all of that, it was something we were trying to do at the end. And quite honestly, they looked bushed. But I give them all the credit in the world. With tremendous mental toughness, those two, along with Smith and their other guys hung in there when they were tired."
Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski sounded confident that superior conditioning is keeping his top players from wearing down. Scheyer and Singler played 40 minutes each Saturday, and Smith played 37.
"They're in great shape," Krzyzewski said. "They finished the Clemson game, and all three of them, they could have played another 20 minutes."
(News and Observer staff writer Ken Tysiac contributed to this story. Contact Robbi Pickeral at robbi.pickerel(at)newsobserver.com.)
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
columnMust credit The News and Observer of Raleigh, N.C.
