"Less is more."
That phrase, used by Indiana coach Archie Miller in the context of a larger response regarding his use of scholarships and the size of his rotation, stuck out during Miller's introductory press conference on Monday.
Miller was asked about his roster management philosophy and how he plans to use the team's allotted 13 scholarships at Indiana.
Here is Miller's full response, courtesy of iuhoosiers.com:
Well, I think in this day and age with the fluidness of the NBA, early departures, also the transfers that happen, in my estimation, it's not to your full advantage to have 13 guys that are playing in the game on scholarship. You're not going to play 13. You may have 13 on scholarship and have a couple guys, whether they transferred in, if they can impact Indiana University or you redshirt a potential kid one day and look down the line in his fourth and fifth year as being an all-conference player. There's some of those. But I don't think we want to be a team that straps ourselves and limits options. That would be what I would tell you. We're always going to be comfortable playing between nine and ten guys, and if you have 12 or 13 on scholarship, you're probably going to see some unhappy guys, and sometimes less is more in that.
There are two separate, but related, topics at play in this conversation: scholarships and rotation size. Miller's predecessor, Tom Crean, made a habit of using all 13 scholarships, sometimes even over-signing incoming recruits. The scholarship numbers would always eventually work out when players either transferred or declared for the NBA draft. It's a fairly common practice in college basketball.
Based on Miller's comments, it sounds like he might lean towards the opposite end of the spectrum, favoring to leave a scholarship or two available in some years. Open scholarships can be extremely valuable in the transfer market, especially when pursuing graduate transfers who are immediately eligible. If Miller chooses to use all 13 scholarships, there's a good chance it will be because one or two players are redshirting, either due to mandated NCAA transfer rules or to pursue a developmental redshirt season.
Miller's approach appears to originate from his philosophy on rotation size. Only five players can share the court and the larger a team's rotation, there more likely it is that there's a drop-off in talent occurring somewhere in the back end of the rotation.
But how important is a small rotation and how important is it for a team's best players to play the vast majority of the game (i.e. at least 30 minutes)? Looking at recent NCAA Tournament success, the "right" rotation size is roughly eight players with at least two players who spend at least 30 minutes on the floor.
Here's an analysis of the rotation size and minute distributions of Tom Crean, Archie Miller and recent Final Four participants from the past six years. Six years seemed like a fair duration and sample size in order to include Miller's entire tenure at Dayton and Crean's years at Indiana after the program had recovered from the Kelvin Sampson mess.
It's worth mentioning that it's fairly subjective to define the size of a rotation or what qualifies a rotation players as such. Before embarking on the following research, I decided to define a rotation player as one who appeared in at least two-thirds of his team's games while also averaging at least eight minutes per game, while choosing not to round up the stats of a player who fell just short of this criteria. (The cutoff has to come somewhere, so I chose here. Regardless of what the criteria are, there will always be players who barely make or miss the cutoff. Also, midseason injuries, transfers and dismissals prevented numerous players from playing the required number of games to be considered a rotation player.)
In the past six years, the average Final Four team has had a rotation size of 8.3, while playing 2.7 players at least 30 minutes per game. Of the 24 Final Four teams since 2012, only one had more than a nine-man rotation (2014 UConn) and only two didn't have a single player who averaged at least 30 minutes per game (the platoon-minded 2015 Kentucky Wildcats and Wichita State in 2013, when 12 players averaged between seven and 28 minutes.
In the last six seasons, Indiana's average rotation is 9.2 players while averaging just 1.2 players per season who average at least 30 minutes per game. Only Yogi Ferrell ('14-16), James Blackmon Jr. ('15, '17), Will Sheehey ('14) and Jordan Hulls ('12) have averaged at least 30 minutes per game for the Hoosiers in the last six seasons.
During the same time period, Archie Miller's average rotation at Dayton was also 9.2 players, while averaging 1.8 players per season who averaged at least 30 minutes per game. He coached two teams that had three players who averaged at least 30 minutes per game.
Here's the year-by-year breakdown of the numbers presented above.
Indiana
2016-17: 10-man rotation, 1 player (James Blackmon Jr.)
2015-16: 9-man rotation, 1 player (Yogi Ferrell)
2014-15: 9-man rotation, 2 players (Ferrell, Blackmon Jr.)
2013-14: 9-man rotation, 2 players (Ferrell, Will Sheehey)
2012-13: 8-man rotation, 0 players
2011-12: 10-man rotation, 1 player (Jordan Hulls)
Dayton
2016-17: 9-man rotation, 2 players
2015-16: 11-man rotation, 3 players
2014-15: 7-man rotation, 3 players
2013-14: 10-man rotation, 0 players
2012-13: 10-man rotation, 1 player
2011-12: 8-man rotation, 2 players
2016-17:
South Carolina - 9-man rotation, 2 players
Gonzaga - 8-man rotation, 1 player
Oregon - 8-man rotation, 1 player
North Carolina - 9-man rotation, 2 players
2015-16:
Villanova - 8-man rotation, 2 players
North Carolina - 8-man rotation, 2 players
Oklahoma - 9-man rotation, 3 players
Syracuse - 7-man rotation, 5 players
2014-15:
Duke - 8-man rotation, 3 players
Wisconsin - 6-man rotation, 4 players
Kentucky - 9-man rotation, 0 players (platoon season)
Michigan State - 9-man rotation, 3 players
2013-14:
UConn - 10-man rotation, 2 players
Florida - 9-man rotation, 2 players
Wisconsin - 8-man rotation, 3 players
Kentucky - 9-man rotation, 4 players
2012-13:
Louisville - 9-man rotation, 3 players
Wichita State - 9-man rotation, 0 players
Michigan - 9-man rotation, 4 players
Syracuse - 8-man rotation, 3 players
2011-12:
Kentucky - 7-man rotation, 4 players
Louisville - 7-man rotation, 3 players
Ohio State - 8-man rotation, 4 players
Kansas - 8-man rotation, 4 players
That phrase, used by Indiana coach Archie Miller in the context of a larger response regarding his use of scholarships and the size of his rotation, stuck out during Miller's introductory press conference on Monday.
Miller was asked about his roster management philosophy and how he plans to use the team's allotted 13 scholarships at Indiana.
Here is Miller's full response, courtesy of iuhoosiers.com:
Well, I think in this day and age with the fluidness of the NBA, early departures, also the transfers that happen, in my estimation, it's not to your full advantage to have 13 guys that are playing in the game on scholarship. You're not going to play 13. You may have 13 on scholarship and have a couple guys, whether they transferred in, if they can impact Indiana University or you redshirt a potential kid one day and look down the line in his fourth and fifth year as being an all-conference player. There's some of those. But I don't think we want to be a team that straps ourselves and limits options. That would be what I would tell you. We're always going to be comfortable playing between nine and ten guys, and if you have 12 or 13 on scholarship, you're probably going to see some unhappy guys, and sometimes less is more in that.
There are two separate, but related, topics at play in this conversation: scholarships and rotation size. Miller's predecessor, Tom Crean, made a habit of using all 13 scholarships, sometimes even over-signing incoming recruits. The scholarship numbers would always eventually work out when players either transferred or declared for the NBA draft. It's a fairly common practice in college basketball.
Based on Miller's comments, it sounds like he might lean towards the opposite end of the spectrum, favoring to leave a scholarship or two available in some years. Open scholarships can be extremely valuable in the transfer market, especially when pursuing graduate transfers who are immediately eligible. If Miller chooses to use all 13 scholarships, there's a good chance it will be because one or two players are redshirting, either due to mandated NCAA transfer rules or to pursue a developmental redshirt season.
Miller's approach appears to originate from his philosophy on rotation size. Only five players can share the court and the larger a team's rotation, there more likely it is that there's a drop-off in talent occurring somewhere in the back end of the rotation.
But how important is a small rotation and how important is it for a team's best players to play the vast majority of the game (i.e. at least 30 minutes)? Looking at recent NCAA Tournament success, the "right" rotation size is roughly eight players with at least two players who spend at least 30 minutes on the floor.
Here's an analysis of the rotation size and minute distributions of Tom Crean, Archie Miller and recent Final Four participants from the past six years. Six years seemed like a fair duration and sample size in order to include Miller's entire tenure at Dayton and Crean's years at Indiana after the program had recovered from the Kelvin Sampson mess.
It's worth mentioning that it's fairly subjective to define the size of a rotation or what qualifies a rotation players as such. Before embarking on the following research, I decided to define a rotation player as one who appeared in at least two-thirds of his team's games while also averaging at least eight minutes per game, while choosing not to round up the stats of a player who fell just short of this criteria. (The cutoff has to come somewhere, so I chose here. Regardless of what the criteria are, there will always be players who barely make or miss the cutoff. Also, midseason injuries, transfers and dismissals prevented numerous players from playing the required number of games to be considered a rotation player.)
In the past six years, the average Final Four team has had a rotation size of 8.3, while playing 2.7 players at least 30 minutes per game. Of the 24 Final Four teams since 2012, only one had more than a nine-man rotation (2014 UConn) and only two didn't have a single player who averaged at least 30 minutes per game (the platoon-minded 2015 Kentucky Wildcats and Wichita State in 2013, when 12 players averaged between seven and 28 minutes.
In the last six seasons, Indiana's average rotation is 9.2 players while averaging just 1.2 players per season who average at least 30 minutes per game. Only Yogi Ferrell ('14-16), James Blackmon Jr. ('15, '17), Will Sheehey ('14) and Jordan Hulls ('12) have averaged at least 30 minutes per game for the Hoosiers in the last six seasons.
During the same time period, Archie Miller's average rotation at Dayton was also 9.2 players, while averaging 1.8 players per season who averaged at least 30 minutes per game. He coached two teams that had three players who averaged at least 30 minutes per game.
Here's the year-by-year breakdown of the numbers presented above.
Indiana
2016-17: 10-man rotation, 1 player (James Blackmon Jr.)
2015-16: 9-man rotation, 1 player (Yogi Ferrell)
2014-15: 9-man rotation, 2 players (Ferrell, Blackmon Jr.)
2013-14: 9-man rotation, 2 players (Ferrell, Will Sheehey)
2012-13: 8-man rotation, 0 players
2011-12: 10-man rotation, 1 player (Jordan Hulls)
Dayton
2016-17: 9-man rotation, 2 players
2015-16: 11-man rotation, 3 players
2014-15: 7-man rotation, 3 players
2013-14: 10-man rotation, 0 players
2012-13: 10-man rotation, 1 player
2011-12: 8-man rotation, 2 players
2016-17:
South Carolina - 9-man rotation, 2 players
Gonzaga - 8-man rotation, 1 player
Oregon - 8-man rotation, 1 player
North Carolina - 9-man rotation, 2 players
2015-16:
Villanova - 8-man rotation, 2 players
North Carolina - 8-man rotation, 2 players
Oklahoma - 9-man rotation, 3 players
Syracuse - 7-man rotation, 5 players
2014-15:
Duke - 8-man rotation, 3 players
Wisconsin - 6-man rotation, 4 players
Kentucky - 9-man rotation, 0 players (platoon season)
Michigan State - 9-man rotation, 3 players
2013-14:
UConn - 10-man rotation, 2 players
Florida - 9-man rotation, 2 players
Wisconsin - 8-man rotation, 3 players
Kentucky - 9-man rotation, 4 players
2012-13:
Louisville - 9-man rotation, 3 players
Wichita State - 9-man rotation, 0 players
Michigan - 9-man rotation, 4 players
Syracuse - 8-man rotation, 3 players
2011-12:
Kentucky - 7-man rotation, 4 players
Louisville - 7-man rotation, 3 players
Ohio State - 8-man rotation, 4 players
Kansas - 8-man rotation, 4 players