rlh04d wrote:I look at "gimmicks" in sports as being something outside of the norm that are, for the most part, effective because they're rare. And are used for the most part because the coach believes they have to rely on something out of the ordinary to have an attempt at winning.
Evansville plays a very different brand of basketball than most teams. I think it's more effective because of the rarity with which it's used.
In college football, I think of the triple option the same way. The triple option wouldn't be very effective if more teams were using it. It mostly relies on a team not seeing it before that season, and then not having much time to prepare for it.
In baseball, I consider the knuckleball to be a bit of a gimmick.
There's a reason the triple option offense in college football is a preferred method of play for the service academies. There's a reason why 40-year-old pitchers are able to be effective when they rely on the knuckleball. And there's a reason why Evansville relies on setting endless screens for one effective scorer. They're effective because they're different, and they're used because the people using it believe they can't be effective with a more standard method.
You can be successful with what I consider gimmicks, to a degree. Evansville can upset Wichita State twice in the same season they go to the Final Four. Georgia Tech won an ACC Championship once using the triple option. RA Dickey won a Cy Young with the knuckleball in 2012.
But knuckleballers aren't generally the lead guy in the rotation, and there's a reason Dickey was nearly 40 before he had his one great year. There's a reason why service academies don't win national championships, and why Georgia Tech's record is abysmal when teams have longer than a week to prep for their offense. And there's a reason why Evansville likely won't ever compete for a Valley championship, despite continuously having the league's leading scorer. There's a reason that power pitchers dominate major league lineups, and why the teams that win college football and basketball championships are generally built along established blueprints (generally pro-style teams with talented offensive/defensive lines in football, teams that are effective on both offense and defense with talented PGs in basketball, both able to play multiple styles effectively).
Gimmicks are effective. But you're usually establishing a ceiling on your success in utilizing them.
I'll eat crow if DJ and Simmons prove me wrong next year, but I firmly believe Evansville would be a more effective team if they concentrated on a more equal distribution of the ball and an inside-out offensive style utilizing Mock more than this same tired style of running endless screens to break one player open. Evansville has been tremendously lucky in the last few years by keeping their one offensive threat healthy. Evansville is always one injury away from a completely ruined season. That's not how good teams are built.
WSU might lose a game to Evansville sometimes, but no one will ever deny that WSU is the better team. And there's a reason why WSU could lose any player on the team and still be a good team. Postseason success would be limited by losing a Baker, or Early, or Van Vleet, or Cotton, but without any one of those players, that's still an NCAA tournament team. If Evansville loses Balentine early next season, they probably won't win more than 10 games.
Very intelligent post and overall discussion of the gimmick aspect of UE basketball. As an Evansville native hoping for a turn-around of our program I can say I agree with everything being discussed here. The gimmick definitely puts a ceiling on the program. And does so with the added negative of doing it with a style of play that is not entertaining to watch. Having 1 guy run off of screens for 30 seconds hoping to get a holding foul called so we can shoot free throws is not an entertaining style of play. It's pretty much eroded all community support for the program. If it were successful that would be one thing, but to settle for a boring style of play that is not successful is a bad combination.
The 5 minute stretch where Mock was actually involved in the Wichita State game was without question the most exciting 5 minutes of basketball a UE fan has seen in years. Unfortunately we know that was just a fluke and Marty will get them back to basics by the time the next game rolls around.
