Nate Oats Totally Disagrees With Rick Barnes On This Hoops Theory
By Cody McClure
The age-old question — to sit or not to sit?
Tennessee has an old-school basketball coach in Rick Barnes, who is adamant about sitting players in the first half after they commit two fouls.
The logic is, of course, that you want to have your best players in the game during the second half. You don’t want a guy to pick up over half his allotted fouls in the first half.
Makes sense when you look it that way. But there are other ways of looking at it for some coaches.
Alabama’s Nate Oats, who is regarded as a “basketball genius” by some when it comes to the analytics of the game, says he’s not a fan of sitting players with two fouls.
“He had two fouls in the first three minutes. He finished the game with two fouls,” Oats said recently about one of his players. “You’ve got to stay aggressive whether you’ve got fouls or not. I’m not a coach who’s going to sit guys with two fouls.
“Analytically it makes no sense. You’re going to play the amount of minutes you play and pick up fouls when you pick up fouls.”
So, who’s right here? The old-school basketball coach or the analytics guy?
Both are quite successful, so perhaps there are multiple ways to skin a cat.