A friend asked me to comment on this article, which was published by Malcolm Gladwell in the New Yorker.
First of all, Vivek Ranadivé is incredibly self-centered and should reevaluate why he wants to coach twelve-year-old girls. This statement does not absolve his counterparts of their boorish, loutish, and short-tempered behaviour but he is coaching at the wrong level. Usually, that particular age group restricts full-court pressure because of the destructive effects on skill development. If he had limited practice time, Randivé should have focused on fundamental skills.
Obviously full-court pressure would work; most teenagers make horrendous decisions under any type of pressure. It’s entirely different when rick Pitino does likewise at the University of Louisville because of the difference in skill level and age.
T.E. Lawrence did what any intelligent person facing long odds would do: he changed the paradigm under which he was operating. It’s what the Viet Cong did to the U.S. Army, what David did to Goliath, and what Digger Phelps and Fordham did to Doctor J. and the University of Massachusetts. One of Gladwell’s arbitrary set of examples that is appropriate is Tibco software because that company understood that they needed real-time information and accurate analysis to surpass larger competitors.
If a “skilled” youth team executes at an acceptable level, full-court pressure will bedevil their players. If a team executes at an elite level, they will pick full-court pressure apart. There is a reason that the favourite in war wins 71.5%. The underdogs don’t win because they are better at war but because they change the particular type of war that is being fought (which is exactly what anyone who is short-stacked should do).
Gladwell acknowledges this fact in effect on page two of the article but continues with another seven pages of dilatory, pedantic, and superficial logic. He is right about one statement: need fuels innovation and dire need accelerates the creative process.
The article discusses two possible outcomes for a mismatch: the underdog changes the game and prevails or favourite crushes them. It’s incredibly rare that the underdog does not alter the conditions of the battle and prevails (prevailing only due to luck, perhaps). Princeton didn’t try to beat Georgetown in the paint in 1989, they tried to cut and pass around them.
If a Major League pitcher has a great fastball but poor control, the batter should make him throw strikes or wait for his pitch. If the pitcher has a great fastball and precise control, their talent will overcome the batter (except for the element of chance, such as when Kirk Gibson took Dennis Eckersley long).
Pressure has its place, at the right time, in the right situation, and against the right opponent. Against the tremendous talent of the superior talent of teams such as the Chicago Bulls and the Boston Celtics, Rick Pitino won only one playoff series during his Association coaching career. Michael Jordan (1989) and Larry Bird (1988) picked his team – the New York Knicks – apart.