There are other effects on the team by not playing bench players than their not developing like they could with some game experience. After the loss in the conference tournament at Little Rock Courtney Walker's jr. year a player's dad told me that "C Walk is wore out, hates basketball, and wants the season over". Last Dec at OKC before the game against OU, Courtney's mother said "Courtney is very sick'. After the game I told her mother that Courtney did not play like she was sick, but Coach Blair did rest her a little. Her mother said "he usually doesn't" and sounded very bitter. As mentioned in an earlier post, Coach Blair does run certain players in the ground.
Back to bench players, at the conference tournament Skyler Collins freshman year, her mother asked me "do you have any idea of how it makes you feel to work your butt off in practice and never get in a game, especially when you have never sit on the bench before?" Skyler Collins was the poster child for neglected bench;players, the few times she got in a game she tried so hard she would make a mistake and instead of being left in to settle down was jerked back to the bench. Realize this is ancient history,but shows s mentioned earlier, Coach Blair has a long history of not developing and using bench players,
I think Coach Blair is a good to great coach with a blind spot to bench players.

Skylar's mother needs to relax. Most of this is exaggerated . Subs never get enough playing according to them .

See Gary's interview before the TCU game - he discussed this !

Exaggerated? I hope that is sarcasm. Until players fouled out, he basically played a 6 man rotation against TCU. Not going to work over a long season.

Gary's interview before TCU game is probably on aggieathletics.com Watch it .

BigJim49 AustinNowDallas said:

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Gary's interview before TCU game is probably on aggieathletics.com Watch it .

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Different from the one a few posts down?

https://texags.com/s/22749/gary-blair-danni-williams-talk-about-ams-struggles-will-to-improve/58

I think Blair does have a history of underusing his bench, but he's in the HoF and I'm just a fan. As fans I think we overinterpret from what we see in games without seeing what the coaches see in practice.

This year I think it's exacerbated by the composition of the team and what kinds of combinations could be put out there.

I think being at nearly all the home games, all the conference tournament games, watching most of the televised/streamed games, most of the Blair Luncheons, and talking to parents at all the conference tournaments since Coach Blair has been at A&M is lots more telling than watching one interview. The article in the Eagle today indicates Coach Blair "wants" to play more bench players, but he seldom does.

Guess GB read this thread and took all the good advice! He was running so many players in and out of the lineup starting in the first quarter against the Islanders that I could hardly keep up with which 5 were on the court

And the Ags won big and everyone played and the team was happy!! So were the fans,.

Is issues playing bench usually aren't against teams like TAMU-CC but teams like UT, MSU, and USC. I hope he is willing to commit to it when it counts.

Don't everyone get to excited about Gary playing the bench.........let's step back and remember
the basics.......

the game of basketball from high school to college is really different.....we have had many conversations on this board about the speed of the college game.....the plays....the zones...man to man.....defense, offense and then of course their is Gary offensive playbook.......it is a lot for a freshman to take in....depending on whether they came straight from high school play or club play and who their coach was and the type of game he/she played will tell you their basic skills..

This group of freshman shows they are very raw talent if you were at the game. You saw them make some good plays but more often they were out of position,,,,,shooting off their back foot....passing to where noone was ...running down the court with the ball behind them and never looking to see where it is or where it is going.....BUT the good part is they care, they listen to direction from the others players on the court and all they need is seasoning and time.......Our team this year is middle of the road ....inexperienced .....how well we hold up will depend on whether a couple of them can get solid enough to give breathers to the starters....

Next year recruits we have some transfers coming that will booster our roster. Kelly and Amy are pushing hard to recruit Texas talent.....

Players needs to quit going over the back, look before they pass they are not seeing the other teams players and passing the ball right to them, slapping at the ball and falling into the other teams players....they have to stop getting these fouls we don't have a post player to replace Hillsman when she is in foul trouble and we don't have another point guard to replace Knox.....Danni does most of the scoring with Howard who is our big rebounder We hope with additional playing time Jasmine gets better reading the plays so her positioning will improve and our spacing on plays will improve naturally when everyone settles in. Thank God Cooper can play so we have our 6th man.

I think that it's good that we are talking about this now. I do like the Coach Blair is now saying that he wants them to play so that he can have film on them to teach from. I still wonder how we would have been at the PG position if McElroy would have still been on the team.

aggieFann said:

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I think that it's good that we are talking about this now. I do like the Coach Blair is now saying that he wants them to play so that he can have film on them to teach from. I still wonder how we would have been at the PG position if McElroy would have still been on the team.

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I think it would have been at most like 2012-13 when Jones arrived and played 12.1 min/game behind the Senior Pratcher.JJ's minutes only went down to 11.9 in conference play.

But, of course, given how McElroy left the team, it leaves us to wonder if she would have been mentally ready to take that much of the load.

As to whether it's good or bad to be talking about this now, I don't think it really matters. We're fans; we will debate everything at any time, and I would think that Coach ignores whatever discussion we choose to have unless it filters back somehow to parents or players.

With all due respect to the amount of WBB MUAG has watched, while I agree that one interview is going to be pretty meaningless, the think we don't have as fans is actual real teacher/mentor relationships with players and knowledge of what happens at practice. I am completely guessing, but I suspect that our coaches are old school enough that they view non-garbage time minutes as be earned in practice. There's also the idea that putting an unprepared player in a game can sometimes do more harm than good for their long-term development. Other times you do it as a wake up call to point out that no, you can't just turn it on in a game if you haven't mastered your craft enough in practice.

I was also amused on Sat night to see some of the MBB fans ripping Kennedy for giving his bench too many minutes vs SC State.

Part of the points I was trying to make is that playing bench players,when possible, not only helps their development, helps keep them happier and probably practicing harder if there appears they might get in a game. The bigger point is that it would help keep the "star" player/s from being "run in the ground" as mentioned in a post earlier. You don't want your best player/s wore out, hating basket ball, and wanting the season over.