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Post#1 » by RealGM Articles » Fri Jul 4, 2014 3:11 am

Every summer coaches tend to give interviews and talk about how they plan to play faster the following season. But then the calendar turns to February, the games get tight, and coaches continue to exert a lot of control over what happens on the basketball court. Most of the summer talk about faster pace is just cheap talk.


But in a few cases, we may expect a faster tempo next year. Mostly this is due to coaching changes, but here are 10 teams that I am confident will play faster next year:


Washington St.: Former head coach Ken Bone wasn’t always a slow-paced coach. At Portland St., he once had one of the Top 25 fastest teams in the country. But given the way he was recruiting at Washington St., Bone soon learned that his only chance to win in the Pac-12 was to keep the score low and try to steal a victory at the end. By Bone’s final season the Cougars were 336th in the nation in tempo. New head coach Ernie Kent played at a much faster pace in his time at Oregon, and even if the talent level is not there in his first year, Kent will almost certainly increase Washington St.’s pace from last year.


Delaware St.: I don’t think Keith Walker will be a lightning fast coach. He has not been a D1 head coach before, and after he took over as interim coach in February, Delaware St. did not have a huge uptick in pace. But almost anyone would be expected to be faster than former head coach Greg Jackson. In the 13 years for which Ken Pomeroy has tracked the data, Jackson’s team always ranked as one of the 20 slowest teams in D1.


Montana: Montana’s Wayne Tinkle made the NCAA tournament in three of the previous four seasons, but last year Montana struggled. And Tinkle did what veteran coaches do when things are not working. He slowed things down, tried to get his team to focus on what they did well, and tried to ring a late season-run out of the team. The team finished 9-4 after starting 8-9 thanks in no small part to a more controlled pace. Tinkle departed for Oregon St. this off-season and new head coach Travis DeCuire will take over. But even if Tinkle had returned, Montana would have likely played faster than their unusually slow pace last year.


The next four teams are all from the ACC.


Virginia Tech: I’m going to go out on a limb here and make a bold statement. The ACC will not be the slowest conference in the nation for the second year in a row. A lot of people blame the addition of Pittsburgh, Syracuse, and Notre Dame for the ACC’s decreased pace. But the decrease in pace has actually been coming for a while. The conference couldn’t keep losing fast coaches like Gary Williams and adding slow coaches like Tony Bennett, Brad Brownell, and Steve Donahue, and expect to have the same up-tempo attack as always. The good news is that this year’s additions Buzz Williams (at Virginia Tech), Jim Christian (at Boston College), and Rick Pitino (as the league swaps Maryland for Louisville) should work towards increasing the tempo in the long-run. Williams will likely improve the pace at Virginia Tech in two ways. First, he uses a quicker system. Second, by upgrading the talent level, Virginia Tech will no longer need to play slow to be competitive.


Miami FL: A bigger reason the ACC will play faster next year is that many of the league’s coaches had unusually slow-paced years last year. Jim Boeheim had the slowest team of his career at Syracuse. And Jim Larranaga had the slowest team he’s had in the 13 years Ken Pomeroy has been tracking the stats. In Larranaga’s case, he felt his Miami team was under-manned and needed to play slow to have a chance to be competitive. But with key transfers like Angel Rodriguez and Sheldon McClellan joining the fold, Miami should not slow things down quite as much this season. The Hurricanes were the slowest team in the nation last season, and they won’t duplicate that.


Syracuse: I’m not quite as confident that Syracuse will play faster. The team will once again be breaking in a rookie PG. And like last year, the lack of depth could cause Jim Boeheim’s squad to play slower than he would like.


But when you look at the big picture, last year looks like a fluke in terms of Boeheim’s career tempo. Moreover, Syracuse’s pace was artificially deflated because Tyler Ennis never turned the ball over last year.






























Year



Syracuse Raw Tempo



Avg 2002-2010



70.3



2011



66.3



2012



65.4



2013



65.2



2014



60.5 



On the other hand, it has now been four years since Syracuse has had a speedy team. While the Orange used to average over 70 possessions per game, Boeheim’s team has been trending towards a much slower pace of play in recent years. I’m projecting that Syracuse’s pace will increase significantly next year (to around 64-65 possessions per game). But without a lot of depth, I would still expect Syracuse to play slower than they have historically.


Boston College: Over his last two seasons, former head coach Steve Donahue slowed BC to a crawl. Donahue was hoping to ring out a few more close wins with the more deliberate pace, but it didn’t work and he lost his job.






















Year



Boston College


Tempo Rank



2012



205th



2013



261st



2014



321st 



New head coach Jim Christian has been a mixed bag in terms of tempo. He’s had some fast seasons and some slow seasons with his former teams. But he should get BC to play faster than what we saw last year.


Western Illinois: Former head coach Jim Molinari preferred an extremely slow pace, as his team’s tempo ranked 325th or worse in his entire tenure with the school. Billy Wright just left a Ball St. team that played at a faster tempo. But again, this is really just a case where any new coach would be expected to speed things up when the team ranked just 332nd in tempo last year.


Lamar: This is a bit of a stretch because former head coach Pat Knight employed an up-tempo system. But if you look at what Tic Price did at McNeese St., he clearly believes in an up-tempo attack. And if Price’s historic coaching-style is a fair representation, you can expect Lamar’s players to go even faster next year.


Auburn: Whether it was at Wisconsin-Milwaukee or Tennessee, the numbers support the fact that Bruce Pearl is one of the fastest-paced coaches in the nation. He will install an up-tempo exciting system at Auburn, and put transfers like Antoine Mason and Cinmeon Bowers in a position to play well. Bruce Pearl might not contend for an SEC title right away like at Tennessee, but make no mistake, Auburn will be a running team under their new head coach.

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