you’re the coach of the cougars…
so your team wins the big 12 championship but your tired, injured and have no depth to spare …the games in the big 12 tourney will be as tough or tougher than the ncaa tourney games especially the first week rounds of 64 and 32.
is playing in the big 12 tourney worth it? considering there is no break afterwards until the start of march madness…
or would you be better to start all the reserves including elvin and take the loss while resting and healing ?
consider….one more injury and all hope of natl championship is gone
Valid points and now the conference tournament is meaningless for us… rest and regroup for the big dance
You play the games to win. There are no guarantees about how far we will go in the NCAA tourney, so you play to win championship of the B12 tourney first, and that won’t be easy.
I wouldn’t throw a games by starting walk ons. I would rest people though and not play anyone 30+ minutes/game if we win the regular season title though.
And if anyone is borderline, I’d sit them.
That said, I don’t think Kelvin will do that.
As not CKS here what I’d do, obviously we pay the regular season straight up. Win the title and secure our one seed.
Then you have to carefully evaluate the tourney. No way I’m playing Shead or Roberts first. Or anyone else in big minutes. The evaluation comes in the back of your bench, if you honestly believe that McFarland is ready enough to be a meaningful contributor and not just five fouls and a breather you pull the redshirt and you play him in the tourney to get him game acclimated.
If not you play to win but not with your remaining starters in heavy minutes. If Dunn, Wilson, Lath, even Elvin for a bit along with minimal minutes from Sharp, Cryer and Francis get the win that’s great but no reason at all to put any starter at major risk.
use it to get playing time for replacements…
Play these last 2 games straight up and load manage the starters heavily once we get to KC
McFarland is redshirting, he wont be playing under any circumstances
Imagine losing a tournament game because you put in Elvin and refuse to play a guy who is on a redshirt.
Elivn ain’t playing. 8 guys are playing. In the Big 12 tournament Wilson and Dunn can get 25-30 minutes. Lath can get more minutes. Roberts and Shead do not have to play heavy minutes. But, you still play to win games with the the guys on the court.
I’m not disagreeing with you, if he was ready to meaningfully contribute we would have seen him already in real life not just in “what would you do?” message board talk. You don’t think about playing him if it’s for 5 fouls and some spot rest. If I was told from on high, he was truly the difference between a title or not I would have a different opinion on his status.
Some teams thrive off adversity I think this Coog team is one of those team’s.
Never met the Sampsons but there’s no way they don’t want the regular season and Big 12 tournament titles in year one.
And that’s why I love them.
For selfish reasons ( i will be in KCMO) I say go for both Titles. .
I’ll be shocked if CKS goes abt it any other way. #DNA
Agreed, I’d just prefer to minimize our adversity until absolutely necessary. These last two games necessary adversity. Big 12 tourney? Unnecessary chance to add adversity.
You can try for both the regular season title and conference tournament title when we were in the AAC due to the lack of strength of schedule.
Now that we are in the Big 12, we have to play it smart and make sure we are 100% healthy and in form going into the NCAA tournament.
Playing it smart would be letting our new rotation go through as many tough games as we can get before the ncaa tourney
I want the regular season title and the ncaa tourney title…
Don’t care about B12 Tourney…