@justanotherfan
Losing a low possession game like that by 2 points is like losing a high possession by 6-8 points.
Everything is a sliding scale in this stuff.
So: the effects of the randomness factor slide too and there is really no net change in the effect of randomness. Randomness scales up and down.
It is somewhat misleads and oversimplifies to say the real problem is needing 8 more possessions to score more.
The real problem involved needing BOTH fewer TOs and higher FG% AND more stops at the other end. Insufficient stops stemmed from defense failing to strip sufficiently, and failing to both force more misses from lower percentage attempts and grab more of those rebounds.
Its all of these on both ends of the floor that create the net effects that determine each team’s scores and so the game outcome.
Basketball occurs on both ends of the floor and events of both ends of the floor combine for net effects.
Frankly, the fewer the trips the fewer the chances there are for random variance to work net against you, but when it does the greater the impact it has.
It is not clear to me yet if the reduction in accrued random variance and the gain in its percentage contribution to final score is a wash or not.
I suspect that since Wooden and Smith and Rupp and Pitino represent winning big up tempo, and Knight, Coach K, Iba, Eddie and Self represent winning big with low tempo, that the risks and rewards of playing fast, or slow, are a wash, and that what is really decisive is adopting the tempo that the particular players you have any given season are best suited to play efficiently.
Efficiency is, regardless of tempo, the holy grail of basketball.
If you score, handle and defend more efficiently than the other team, at whatever tempo you play at, you are likely to win.
The beauty of great talent is that if you harness it to the right tempo that allows it to play most efficiently, whatever tempo it may be, great talent and fitting tempo demolish opponents.