UCF

[waterhead]

This is so much more than...hey look what 3 guys did in 5 games one year. Therefore, fatigue is superstition.

You absolutely refuse to acknowledge the part where our coach gets the guys ready and knows how to keep them ready. If he tones down practice, saves minutes in game when he can, and we get almost a week before the 2 postseason events, it's not crazy that our best players would perform.

As pointed out though, your Evans example is misleading, and the Caupain one is inflated by an outlier. There goes half your research.

You are picking one game outliers to make your point. Take those games out...and the point still remains.

 

[jacobkdoyle]

There's a principle of rational debate called "steel man", in which it is more prudent to attack the strongest part of your opponent's argument. This is opposed to "straw man" where you attack the weakest part, or fabricate a weak argument to attack. Straw men are easy to defeat, but ineffective in moving the debate forward. You seem to be building a straw man out of Waterhead's comments.

He presented 4 pieces of limited data. 2 of those were easily taken apart. I don't know what else you want me to do. That was the strongest thing he had and it was incomplete at best.

 

[Cartel]

I may be old-fashioned on this but if our coaches spend hours a day watching these guys practice and play, I'm going to trust that they can tell when they aren't operating at full capacity. I'm sure our coaches even feel it and experience themselves. It's a long season and if pressed, I'd easily go with resting a guy as much as you can over keeping things at 100%. If fatigue doesn't exist, you don't see that as a difference. But as was mentioned, the mental side of things matters. If your brain is telling you it wouldn't be beneficial to go hard in practice for 2 hours a day in between games when 3 months into a season, I'd say it might be worth listening. It's human nature. These guys aren't robots. Just as an example, a couple weeks ago the day after the game the starters did yoga, and the bench guys did a full practice. There's a reason for that and I doubt the people there on the ground, in person would say they're simply subscribing to junk science. And even if they are, how does the mental aspect of believing you're refilling the tank get factored in? It's not really something that we can tangibly point to in this discussion.

This really feeds the mental fatigue aspect which is way more likely then the physical fatigue aspect...

 

[waterhead]

He presented 4 pieces of limited data. 2 of those were easily taken apart. I don't know what else you want me to do. That was the strongest thing he had and it was incomplete at best.

It's called moving the goal post. You asked me for additional info. I provided it. You moved the goal post to something else.

There was nothing incomplete about my data. You just wanted to pretend it was based on outliers (which it wasn't). Take out the outliers...guess what? The point will remain.

 

[sedziobs]

I may be old-fashioned on this but if our coaches spend hours a day watching these guys practice and play, I'm going to trust that they can tell when they aren't operating at full capacity. I'm sure our coaches even feel it and experience themselves.

You're describing intuition. I think these are all fair points. There are also counter arguments for intuition. Mike Brey and Jim Boeheim have played their starters almost the entire game throughout their careers.

There's not much point in demanding to see statistics and then complaining that statistics don't prove anything. If you aren't going to consider the parts of the data that support Waterhead's argument, then just stick to the intuitive argument.

 

[jacobkdoyle]

You are picking one game outliers to make your point. Take those games out...and the point still remains.

I'm not using 1 game outliers. I'm saying:

Last year Evans played 27.5 minutes leading up to the AAC Tournament. Then he had 5/6 days off. Then he played 27?5 minutes over 2 games and shot 13-17. Then on the 3rd game in 3 days, when he had to crank it up to 34 minutes, he shot 3-11. I submit that fatigue played a role there.

 

[jacobkdoyle]

It's called moving the goal post. You asked me for additional info. I provided it. You moved the goal post to something else.

There was nothing incomplete about my data. You just wanted to pretend it was based on outliers (which it wasn't). Take out the outliers...guess what? The point will remain.

Your information is incomplete. I asked for example from other teams, examples of other players on our team, per 40 stats, usage rates, etc. None of which were provided.

 

[cincrulz11]

But even that study isn't well controlled and has a relatively small sample size. This is an issue that is unlikely to be resolved using data. So I would recommend not digging into your position, rather allowing that someone else's opinion is valid, even if it's not backed by evidence.

yeah to look up all the data itself is going to take forever, and then the sample sizes are still going to be so small, there will be a ton of variance.


and thats doesn't even account for the fact that we aren't robots and everybody is going to be different.


likely an argument that is never going to have a conclusion.

 

[jacobkdoyle]

You're describing intuition. I think these are all fair points. There are also counter arguments for intuition. Mike Brey and Jim Boeheim have played their starters almost the entire game throughout their careers.

There's not much point in demanding to see statistics and then complaining that statistics don't prove anything. If you aren't going to consider the parts of the data that support Waterhead's argument, then just stick to the intuitive argument.

His data is flawed. It's supposed to be about fatigue but it isn't mentioning the games cited are surrounded by near week long breaks. Nor does it mention that our coach openly discusses and practices making it easier on those players leading up to that point.

If you wanted it to be more fair, I think you'd find a stretch of the highest minute totals in streches of 2 games per week in conference play, and look at the stats then and after to see how they stack up with the season numbers.

 

[sedziobs]

His data is flawed. It's supposed to be about fatigue but it isn't mentioning the games cited are surrounded by near week long breaks. Nor does it mention that our coach openly discusses and practices making it easier on those players leading up to that point.

If you wanted it to be more fair, I think you'd find a stretch of the highest minute totals in streches of 2 games per week in conference play, and look at the stats then and after to see how they stack up with the season numbers.

Then do that. If you aren't going to do it yourself, don't demand data of others.

Waterhead has provided data showing SK and Troy's late season production did not deteriorate. The steel man tactic is to acknowledge that, and move on to your intuitive arguments about why the data doesn't support his conclusions. Complaining that the data is incomplete is the straw man tactic. It doesn't move the debate forward whatsoever. What makes this worse is that you told him to provide data in the first place.

 

[sedziobs]

yeah to look up all the data itself is going to take forever, and then the sample sizes are still going to be so small, there will be a ton of variance.


and thats doesn't even account for the fact that we aren't robots and everybody is going to be different.


likely an argument that is never going to have a conclusion.

Yep. The only way to get a true scientific conclusion is to have a legitimate control group. That would involve seeing how the same player operates on the same team in the same season with and without rest. That's obviously impossible.

 

[Jon Rycek]

I agree. We have a huge target on our back home and away. We are undefeated in conference (and top 10 ranked) and the nation's longest home win streak.

Which team is not going to want to spoil either of those?

Not UCF lol

 

[Jon Rycek]

The point was brought up that SK must have hit a wall. In his last 5 games he averaged 22.2 points.

Troy last year averaged 14.5. The year before 20.6.

Evans last year 14.5.


All of those are above season averages. These are the players who played the most minutes over the course of the year. I don't see fatigue playing out here. Getting rest for guys who are injured is completely different from fatigue IMO.

So because a couple guys scored more in crunch time we shouldn't test our stars at all? Of course they scored more towards the end of the year, that's when winning matters the most. Doesn't mean Evans should be playing forty minutes a game til then

 

[jacobkdoyle]

Then do that. If you aren't going to do it yourself, don't demand data of others.

Waterhead has provided data showing SK and Troy's late season production did not deteriorate. The steel man tactic is to acknowledge that, and move on to your intuitive arguments about why the data doesn't support his conclusions. Complaining that the data is incomplete is the straw man tactic. It doesn't move the debate forward whatsoever. What makes this worse is that you told him to provide data in the first place.

I'm not the one claiming that fatigue is superstition. I don't have to spend my day looking up why it's not. I'm open to anything, but if someone is going to say that, I'd like for a legitimate case to be made for it. I shouldn't have to tell him how to make a better argument. No one on earth would consider what he provided to be good enough to move anything forward either.

 

[Jon Rycek]

I never get this fatigue thing. How many hours during the summer do you think these guys play pick up basketball? How many hours are they practicing a day. Do you really think playing 30 vs 35 minutes in a game twice a week makes that much different to a 20 year old athlete? Many of us on this board are old and decrepit so I get why a 40 minute game may seem overwhelming but come on. If anything the mental fatigue of traveling, practicing and dealing with school may be a whole lot more of a problem for a young college athlete.

Yeah because they're 20 they're machines. You really don't think playing a 40 minute college game doesn't wear you down?

 

[jacobkdoyle]

I'm not the one claiming that fatigue is superstition. I don't have to spend my day looking up why it's not. I'm open to anything, but if someone is going to say that, I'd like for a legitimate case to be made for it. I shouldn't have to tell him how to make a better argument. No one on earth would consider what he provided to be good enough to move anything forward either.

In order to accept waterhead's data, I have to acknowledge that it is a valuable measure in this debate. But I never agreed to that. He decided that it will be the measuring stick. It simply isn't a good one. I pointed out several reason why. If he now wants to stick to his original claim, citing the data that he presented, that's up to him. But it's not enough for me to change my stance.

 

[jacobkdoyle]

In order to accept waterhead's data, I have to acknowledge that it is a valuable measure in this debate. But I never agreed to that. He decided that it will be the measuring stick. It simply isn't a good one. I pointed out several reason why. If he now wants to stick to his original claim, citing the data that he presented, that's up to him. But it's not enough for me to change my stance.

Your data on the other hand at least offers more to review.

 

[waterhead]

I'm not the one claiming that fatigue is superstition. I don't have to spend my day looking up why it's not. I'm open to anything, but if someone is going to say that, I'd like for a legitimate case to be made for it. I shouldn't have to tell him how to make a better argument. No one on earth would consider what he provided to be good enough to move anything forward either.

The original point was SK hit a wall. The answer was he most definitely did not. And neither did ANY of our highest mpg guys for the last few years.

The question back was I can't agree until I see efficiency numbers during those games. They were provided. Efficiency numbers went up in the very late season games. The games when fatigue would start to show.

Then we moved on to outliers within those late season games to try to explain our positions...lol. come on man!

 

[sedziobs]

I'm not the one claiming that fatigue is superstition. I don't have to spend my day looking up why it's not. I'm open to anything, but if someone is going to say that, I'd like for a legitimate case to be made for it. I shouldn't have to tell him how to make a better argument. No one on earth would consider what he provided to be good enough to move anything forward either.

This is a very strange precedent for a sports fan message board. I would say I'm one of the bigger stat heads on here, but this isn't a scientific advisory panel. We don't have to spend all day looking up data to make our opinions valid. Would you like me to demand data supporting every claim you make? It's one thing to ask for data supporting claims that are statistical in nature. It's another to demand data for an intuitive thought.

I actually posted what is probably the most relevant statistical study you're going to find, and you've completely ignored it.

 

[jacobkdoyle]

Then do that. If you aren't going to do it yourself, don't demand data of others.

Waterhead has provided data showing SK and Troy's late season production did not deteriorate. The steel man tactic is to acknowledge that, and move on to your intuitive arguments about why the data doesn't support his conclusions. Complaining that the data is incomplete is the straw man tactic. It doesn't move the debate forward whatsoever. What makes this worse is that you told him to provide data in the first place.

You are making it sound like I asked for that data, and I got it. I asked for more information after waterhead already set the rules that the last 5 games of a season from 3 players on 1 team will determine this. The data I asked for then was about other teams, other players on our team, per 40 minutes stats, usage stats, factoring in coaches who switch practice routines, etc. I never got any of that. The only piece of anything left to argue is what Caupain did in the AAC and NCAA Tournament, with nothing to go on besides shooting % and points. And SK's SR year. We have no idea what is included in that. Did he go nuts on his SR day? Was he getting a lighter load beforehand? I don't know any of this bc what I was presented what the most limited version of data conceivable. I'm actually trying to help him out by giving him better things to test for HIS theory and you're knocking me for not doing all the work involved in that for him too? C'mon. I can't do everything.