Bench Play

[incHOGnito]

You can't truly play Mike's system if your bench can't at least play even ball when they are in.  Over the past few years, we tried to use our "depth" to wear teams out, but it doesn't work if the bench allows the lead to shrink (if we are winning) or the lead to expand (if we are losing).  The difference this year is that our bench can not only play even ball, but it can expand or cut into the lead. 

Last night our bench scored 34 while our starters scored 45, that is some nice balance.  And you could see the results of this balance at about the 10 minute mark in the second half.  UGA really started to look weary, as the Mark Fox could not afford to play his 8, 9 and 10 guys at critical times late in the game.  By contrast, we were fresh enough that we played the same 5 guys (arguably our best group of five on both ends) for all but about 40 seconds of the final ten minutes. 

In my opinion, that was the best execution of Mike/Nolan system I have seen since the mid-90s.