What Is the Required Number of Dunks in a Game for a Team from Middle Earth in CST?
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Villanova’s EST dragon awakened (or should have) the basketball world to the formulaic, mathematical advantage (3 > 2) of shooting at least 10 or more treys than one’s opponent, no matter the number of treys the opponent shot. But that three point dynamic assumed the other team unwisely, even slavishly, adhered to the conventional wisdom of the ancients that good teams ought to maintain balance between 2pt and 3pt shooting and not shoot more than 25 treys, lest they descend into a gothic arena’s dark lair of a dragon guarding shimmering iron pyrite, rather than gold bullion marked long stolen from Fort Knox by private central banker owners.
In turn, a number of board rats, including yours truly, have hand-wrung about KU’s lack of 40% trifectates in the upcoming 2018-2019 season of questing after the ring that reduces so many to little more than Gollam’s in complimentary tennis shoes.
Interestingly, other board rats have responded that in the three-ball era reigned over by apparently EST-leaning Petroshoecos and their apparent dark allies–the Media-Gaming Complex, one still does not necessarily need a lot of 3pt shooters to win rings. Their counter intuition is that teams can defend their ways to Ringville and they point to the paragon of defensive flaccidness–Roy Williams–leading his North Carolina EasyHeels to a ring with a defense oriented team of 5-stars the year before Jay Wrong dipped into his black bag of stochastic tricks and became Lord of the Threes.
There is, after all, seeming improbable feasibility in defending one’s way to Jay.R.R. Tolbate’s dream of a KU Ring Trilogy, in which the little people of Midway Earth band together under the deft leadership of good sorcerer Bill Gandself, ally with other elements of basketball’s 300+ high and mid major kindoms, and root out the soleful, one-eyed Dark Lord Nikron and his band of one-eyed head coaching dragons defending the gold backed, brand-channeled, Carney system of entertainment value-biased competition (all only reputed, of course).
But the strategy of defending one’s way to a ring, or a Ring Trilogy, or even to a runaway Ring Singularity, in which Bill Gandself were to overcome his inner Gollam and go all Wizard of Westwood and win 11 straight hinges on more than just lowering one’s glutes on the defensive end and guarding harder than Theoden.
Since, a team from Midway Earth has less chance of getting a short trey in the Carney under the watchful, burning eye of Dark Lord Nikron, the counter-intuition of defending one’s way to a ring must be a blend of maximizing hacked 2 point attempts on offensive end with lowering glutes and opposing team shooting percentages on the defensive end.
Thus the objectives distilled are two: maximize two point shooting percentage on offense, and minimize both 2pt and 3 pt shooting percentages of the opponent on defense.
Because Coach Gandself is a defense first sort of coach by self-proclamation, let us too begin explication of “how to” suppress opponent’s offense with defense.
KU could field as many as six credible Long&Strong bigs: Doke, Silvio, Mitch, Lawson 1, Lawson 2, and McCormack. Seven if footballer James Sosinski were to come back a little improved.
6 bigs x 5 fouls/big = up to 30 fouls to give per game inside
The number 30 (as in 30 denied shots on 30 possessions) means Gandself could choose to massively over guard inside, and essentially deny almost all open 2pt attempts, not just the 30 where fouls were perhaps called. With six L&As, Gandelf gets to foul everywhere, all the time, inside the trey stripe. With seven, Self could arguable eliminate the two point shot entirely. Against good free throw shooting teams, this might be unwise. But against most teams with old fashioned coaches seeking balance scoring inside and out, effectively eliminating the 2 point basket practically wins the game right there.
Next, consider outside. KU could be a little understaffed outside, unless LaGerald Vick were to return. Let us assume cooler heads prevail and he does, because Self understands Vick can guard, and because Vick knows his only chance for big money is to stay focused for a season. With bigs inside that do not need to worry about fouling, and with two five stars outside, plus Vick and Moore, KU’s perimeter can OVERPLAY the opponent’s perimeter players and deny the opponent ANY open look treys out to 25-27 feet without fouling outside. They can simply overplay them, turn and burn back to the trey stripe on any one that breaks by, defend any pull up trey on a blow by from behind, and let the bigs hard-contest /foul any breakaway drives into 2-pt range.
Thus, KU will have minimized both 2pt percentage and 3pt percentage. High 20% opponent shooting could be feasible to maintain game in and game out, if one were willing to give an opponent 20-30 trips to the line on hard-fouled (and so unmade) 2 pt shots. This seems doable.
If so, and assuming none of our players become dead nuts on three point shooters this season, then we are looking at how to squeeze our 2pt percentage as high as possible.
Why?
Because there is no point trying to build a short trey offense for March, given that Carney referees will not call shooting fouls on an EST team guarding a CST team; that’s why.
Thus, things distill to 2pt offense accuracy.
And 2pt offense accuracy quickly distills to dunking, if you lack 3pt shooting and can’t get a short trey.
So: how many dunks per game should the Midway Earthers shoot to ensure victory?
Should KU attempt any shots other than dunks?
