Ken Pomeroy is always worth the price of a subscription...even better when family gives it as an Xmas present

In his discussion of players and how coaches treat/protect them once they garner 2 fouls Hunter is the center of discussion...

Here is an small excerpt that shows you what you are missing and is a great discussion starter....explaining a bit to those here who stop and ask "why take a guy out with 2 fouls".........

There are also coaches who don’t go nuts if a starter has two fouls, but one rises above them all. Western Carolina’s Larry Hunter is the only person to coach in each of the past seven seasons that has his two-foul starters on the floor more often than on the bench. Of 2,135 minutes where a Catamount starter had two first-half fouls since 2010, they were on the floor for 1,189 of them, or 55.7%.

His starters tend to commit a lot of fouls and perhaps a small reason for that is they know there won’t be a quick hook when they get whistled for a second. Not only does Hunter lead the nation in percentage but over the past seven seasons, the 1,189 foul-troubled minutes by WCU is significantly ahead of the next most aggressive team over that time (Oakland, 1,067).

Who is Larry Hunter? Perhaps he’s a visionary. Or some kind of irresponsible madman. He’s coached for 23 years including a previous 12-year run at Ohio. He’s won 375 games. He shares a name with a famous computational biologist. So there are a lot of reasons to think he knows what he’s doing. But does he?

The Catamounts went 10-8 in SoCon play and 16-18 overall but that doesn’t tell you anything about whether the strategy was effective. Their starters fouled out 25 times which tied for second with Nevada, behind Washington’s 34. If the goal is to maximize starters’ minutes, Larry Hunter was successful at that. But the goal is to improve one’s chances of winning and whether that was achieved is unknown from the information given. Nonetheless, while every coach restricts first half playing time for a player with two fouls, it’s clear some are way more flexible than others.

Here’s the data on all 321 active D-I coaches that have at least one year of experience in the books since the 2009-10 season:

Minutes Minutes PctMin
Rank Coach (Seasons) Team 2-Fouls On On
1 Larry Hunter (7) Western Carolina 2135 1189 55.7
2 Keith Richard (6) Louisiana Monroe 1777 939 52.8
3 Ron Hunter (7) Georgia St. 1925 948 49.2
4 Jim Boeheim (7) Syracuse 1651 810 49.1
5 Greg Kampe (7) Oakland 2209 1067 48.3
6 George Ivory (7) Arkansas Pine Bluff 1758 849 48.3
7 Dave Simmons (7) McNeese St. 1555 707 45.5
8 Randy Bennett (7) Saint Mary's 1782 804 45.1
9 Matthew Driscoll (7) North Florida 1690 756 44.7
10 Bob Walsh (2) Maine 576 254 44.1



.......Clearly this is a really interesting subject and over the years we have seen Devo, KVK, Baltic and others pick up fouls and come sit for a while. Maximizing minutes is the goal. Gambling on a player being able to play without fouling is not a game for faint of heart

I whole heartedly endorse a subscription for those who need a hobby or want more complete understanding of the game

Thanks for the info. It is a timely topic as it was pretty noticeable that Saul used a lot of situational subbing with Tony in the first half after he got his second foul. Seemed like he played a lot of minutes with 2 fouls.

RB

Hunter is 171-188 at Western Carolina so something isn't working. Don't know if it's this practice or not.

Pretty funny -Wikipedia has him born in 1884 and having died this year. Can't trust everything you read there, but it's a quick source of info generally.

Not sure if it has to do with this practice. I think it is hard to recruit to and hard to win given the budget. I think he is doing well with what he is given. Got to know Ritchie Gordon pretty well. He spoke very highly of coach after playing for him for 4 years. Being from Atlanta Ritch said it was a huge adjustment to get used to the backwoods and hills around Western

Exactly...situations, player skill sets, timing/pace of game, etc.

Here's to Larry and the Catamounts pulling the big upset tonight.

I think you have to judge a coach by his conference record more than anything. Larry's only been under .500 in conference three seasons with WCU and probably about the same with us in 23 years of D1 coaching. Larry's Achilles is the conference tournament however. He has been one and done ten times (7 with us) with most of those coming against worse seeds. He has won the conference tournament once in 23 years. His WCU career has almost exactly mirrored his Ohio tenure with his high water mark coming in year 5 and then settling into meh. IMO he's a good but not great coach.

He's 91-87 at Western in conference play-.511 percent. Now that is about as mediocre -average as you can get . Anyway, I wish him happiness in his current endeavor.