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I think their 3-2 zone was not as weak as it may seem? We know what OD we put up at SG/PG/SF, and we still put up only a 9.5-10 OD in the team ratings, after our big men's OD was mixed into the team rating. They put up a 10.5 in the team ratings with probably an equal amount of dragging down from their big men. They get some bonus from the zone, but you can still imagine where their PG/SG/SF's OD must be at if they are putting up higher OD than Bronson/Dillard/Serrano. Plus I think I read somewhere (Parrot monologues?) that outside offenses will reduce the decline in perimeter defense slightly over the course of the game via reduced fatigue?

You can estimate the salaries too, and this is after using the database to estimate our own guys salaries right now, not what they began the season with:

USA -- Colombia
PG 76k 102k
SG 85k 85k
SF 51k 120k (PG)

If you think that Colombia has been training their own guys too (likely enough given their ages?) it's not hard to imagine that they actually had a fairly decent advantage on the outside. My impression is that they put up a really strong perimeter defense which smothered us into submission.

The rebounds are less clear but assuming 3-2 doesn't hurt rebounding, you can give the GE some credit and assume it mirrors real life pretty well, and imagine that playing RnG and jacking up 3's will result in a lot of long rebounds, and hence more ORs. I don't have any data to back that up, but my impression over this first season has been that a lot of results make sense if you ignore all the GE lore and just imagine what may happen in a real life basketball game.

Defensively, we played a M2M and it looks like they just got a nice SG matchup: Bronson is great but he's still only 21 and it looks like their starter was at worst Bronson's equal right now (and probably better if he's gotten any training). If Bronson wears down at all stamina wise they probably have a big game. Plus their backup is an aggresive player who gets a lot of FTs, may have gotten to the rim some despite RnG and been tough to defend on the inside, etc.

Throw enthusiasm, GS, and effort on top of that and I don't think it's unexplainable to lose by 13 at a neutral site.

Prominent OD in a 3-2 zone at the NT level is not good, particularly since they had guards at the 1-3. We put up just a few sub levels lower while having only 2 NT level perimeter outside defenders on the court, including a center subbing in at SF.

Can we point to the game against Argentina as a lack to the team's enthusiasm versus Colombia? We really should have TIE'ed that game. Even if we did lose, we still would have beaten all the other teams that we should have beaten (like Colombia).

We TIEd virtually every other game, and Normal against Argentina was the correct play. A loss to Argentina, and we're in the same boat.

Yeah but the point is that their OD is probably better than it appears. You can argue that their outside D was not that good because you're used to seeing better ratings in other NT games, or you can argue that it must be better than we thought because they clearly shut us down. The second seems more logical to me.

It was certainly effective. I think to point brian was making is that a prominent OD rating is not that good, and therefore, the results clearly outpaced the rating. I'm not sure I buy that there was any reason to expect them to outpace their rating, though--they played a PG at SF so they clearly weren't dragged down the way you'd expect from a team using a typical SF there (as we did).

As to Charles' question about having to go through repe, what, is it election time already? The real answer is that it's entirely speculation until we see our opps and schedule. Having the toughest game last is clearly a disadvantage moving forward (assuming you win) since you almost have to use a CT which is impossible to recover from in 3 games (if you play it earlier, there's motivation for both teams to normal instead).

Yeah but the point is that their OD is probably better than it appears.

How can their OD be better then it appears? Their OD is likely around proficient in a M2M with guards at the 1-3. So probably 14-15 in OD at the 1-3 positions. I'm not sure how that puts so much pressure on the perimeter to stop two good passing, handling and driving guards from being able to find the open space inside. Plus we had a very well rounded SF that can move the ball and score inside.

There's nothing logical about it.

Can we point to the game against Argentina as a lack to the team's enthusiasm versus Colombia? We really should have TIE'ed that game. Even if we did lose, we still would have beaten all the other teams that we should have beaten (like Colombia).

Well, maybe. Same could be said about Uruguay. I think I outlined a lot of this before hand in the offsite, but, here's the problem. By going 1-1 in those two games, we set ourselves up to finish 4-1, even if we did beat Colombia. We had a good idea (and were right) that simply finishing 4-1 wasn't enough. In fact, even if we had won last night, we STILL would've finished 3rd on PD. Thus, the goal was to beat Arg & Uruguay. That way, even if we ended up losing to Colombia and finishing 4-1, at least one of them would've had 2 losses and PD wouldn't have mattered. Worked vs Arg, the game vs Uruguay was really what doomed us.

That's a bit convoluted, but basically, had we TIE'd those games, still gone 1-1 (although it's possible we would've ended up 0-2), we probably would've been in even worse PD shape, meaning we would've needed a BIG win vs Colombia (even more than the 15 or whatever it was we ended up needing).

wozz teaches me that 3-2 has virtually no influence on RB

Even says in the manual: 3-2 Zone: Increased perimeter defense at the expense of interior defense. Slow pace.

Where in there does it say anything about rebounding?

Trust me, 3-2 does not affect rebounding compared to m2m.

Sorry, meant that as a, "duh, it's right there in the manual, how did i miss that".

Gotcha.