But does experience equal success? Another good write-up by Deadspin tries to answer that question:
Are the one-and-done-reliant teams—or at least those teams not coached by John Calipari—secretly vulnerable against older, more seasoned opponents?Calipari is called out as an outlier because his young teams have a tendency to win more often than expected against veteran squads. That alone may hint at the ultimate answer.
The median tournament team age (2.77, based on minutes played, where FR = 1, SO = 2, JR = 3, and SR =4) seems right in line with what Georgia will be putting on the court next year, which is encouraging. However, other numbers are less favorable. Take this for example:
It turns out that higher seeds are typically a bit younger than lower seeds.On the surface, this finding makes sense. Your lower seeds often come from the one bid conferences, and the talent in those conferences is often spread pretty evenly across teams. That means experience may indeed triumph in a conference tournament setting, putting the "older" clubs in the tournament.
Your higher seeds tend to be the major conference champions and at-large recipients. These are the teams pulling in 3-, 4-, and 5-star guys year in and year out. These are also the teams that field younger clubs, either because of attrition due to the NBA draft or because the young talent is too good to keep on the bench.
The post is worth your time and, even though the sample size is way too small to be conclusive, the message seems to be that experience wins out when talent is equal, but talent tends to win out in the end.
What does it all mean for Georgia? It means there is hope. It also means Mark Fox has to start winning some of these big-time recruiting battles, because not doing so lowers the ceiling on what the team can accomplish long term.
h/t Deadspin
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