Cobb: A Biography

Sporting News, The, Nov 28, 1994 by Steve Gietschier

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Because practices at Arkansas are occasions for battles so furious that Razorbacks players actually look forward to relaxing during games, there is little time to analyze the motivation for Coach Nolan Richardson's various scrimmage roster combinations. When the whistle blows, you just start running and pressing and hope the guys wearing the same color jerseys can hang with you.

In one late-October session, however, Corliss Williamson slowed down long enough to consider the curious five-man combination Richardson had concocted for a drill. Williamson, a marvelous fusion of brute force and open-court grace at 6 feet 7, 245 pounds, was teamed with point guard Clint McDaniel and fellow big men Lee Wilson (6-11), Dwight Stewart (6-9) and Darnell Robinson (6-11). All of a sudden, one of college basketball's most potent power forwards was a guard. "You never know what's going to happen around here," Williamson says with a laugh.

Richardson can't even describe it. The architect of the defending national champions mixes and matches his lineups according to the situation, playing hunches and letting his players tell him when they need a break. His practice experimentation pits his best players against each other and creates a 10-man rotation of interchangeable parts, all capable of activating Arkansas' trademark asphyxiating style. The big guys dribble and shoot. The little guys go inside. And everybody plays defense. The result is an outlandish brand of basketball, sort of a dissonant blend of hip-hop and thrash metal. Waves of Hogs flow from the Arkansas bench in an attempt to produce the on-court cacophony Richardson craves. The faster, more chaotic things get, the happier the coach with the gumball-colored wardrobe is.

Few Division I coaches want to replicate Richardson's style, but many are joining him in the move to deeper, more versatile rotations. As recently as 10 years ago, successful teams were using at most eight players in games. The play was slower, and offenses tended to concentrate on halfcourt sets. Today, major-college basketball is a much faster, higher-scoring game, with up-tempo offenses and pressure defenses taking advantage of rules such as the 35-second shot clock and the 3-point field goal.

There are more possessions each game and therefore more trips up and down the court -- usually at high speed. "The old pace allowed you to conserve your legs during offensive possessions," Michigan Coach Steve Fisher says. "Now, you need to have more people ready to play." Rules changes are not solely responsible for the move to deeper rotations. Players' increasing versatility, their desire to play a turbocharged style and the growing demands by touted freshmen for court time have contributed. The ability to deal with injury is a concern, and so is foul trouble. Coaches also point to the 13-scholarship rule and the surging flow of underclassmen entering the NBA draft as reasons for cultivating and using their reserves. As a result, the star system is waning. Sure, one outstanding player can carry a team to a certain point, but he needs eight or nine capable supporting actors to realize any championship aspirations. Emotion can still carry a team with a thin bench past fatigue in a one-game situation. But over the long haul, depth is necessary.