It's ok to play their pace you just can't have fast empty possessions when it counts.
No, it is okay to play at their pace. But it's a disadvantage.
Over the course of the season, taking care of the ball has been a weak point. It's always a possibility that it won't be in that game, but the odds probably aren't in your favor.
This was the game Wisconsin wanted to play. They hit about 50% from three and they got to the line as much as we did. I bet if there's cac drawn up somewhere on a whiteboard in the locker room, you'd see these on there somewhere.
How do you create pace then?
We pushed the ball as much as possible against Wisconsin. Unless you turn them over, you have no chance at creating pace.
I'm not saying we could create pace. You are correct that no one can speed them up. I was actually really impressed with our outlets after defensive rebounds. I'm saying that because we played at their pace (voluntarily or involuntarily) it was a disadvantage to us because of what you pointed out in your post just a couple of spots up in this thread.
Wisconsin had a significant chance to win this game if they didn't turn the ball over and kept the pace low (check), hit a high 3Pt rate (check), and they got to the line as much (or more) than we did (check). When you're playing a team that, statistically, doesn't shoot as well as you do from the foul line (and let's face it, no one shoots as well as they do from the foul line), that's + points for them. When they shoot a high percentage from 3, it's going to matter more because of the lack of possessions (as illustrated by their extremely high efficiency).
I'm going to give our guys a hell of a lot of credit. They played Wisky straight up and took their best shot when they played textbook Whisky ball. And it was almost an Herculean effort from Jake that nearly single-handedly beat a damn good team that played the exact game they wanted to play.
I'm not being critical. I'm just saying that this is why I didn't like going up against Wisconsin in the first place.
