Rodney Purvis was UConn’s leading scorer, averaging over 15 points in the Huskies’ first 15 games of the season. His shooting percentages — 50.3 percent from the floor, 45.7 percent from three — may have been unsustainable, but it was undoubtable that Purvis was the team’s best player.
Then he had a bad game.
In a January 14 loss at Tulsa, Purvis went one of nine from the floor, missed all seven of his three-point attempts and scored only five points, breaking a streak of 21 straight games in double-figures dating back to the 2015 season.
The result of that one bad game was Purvis being stripped of his place in the starting lineup.
Some guys respond well to a kick in the ass. Jim Calhoun was famous (infamous?) for removing someone from a game instantaneously following a mistake on the court. Other guys genuinely play better off the bench, for whatever reason. Rashad Anderson is the gold standard of this category. Despite not starting a single game in 2006, Anderson was the second-leading scorer on a team that featured five NBA draft picks.
While some can handle the adversity, others can’t. To make a change so drastic as relegating your leading scorer to the bench requires one of two things. The first is abject desperation. If your season is skidding off the tracks, or you can’t find another way to get through to a struggling player, bench him. Why not at that point?
The Huskies weren’t exactly firing on all cylinders at the time of their lineup change, but they were far from a train wreck. They were a week removed from a big win over Memphis and only a few weeks beyond their impressive victory at Texas – all while center Amida Brimah was out of commission following finger surgery.
The second reason to attempt a drastic lineup change is if you have near certainty that it will work. As we detailed in the immediate aftermath, Purvis saw his opportunities shrink while Jalen Adams and Omar Calhoun — the duo that combined to usurp Purvis’s lineup spot — struggled to make up the difference.
Asked his reasoning for making the change, coach Kevin Ollie offered neither desperation or certainty. “With the lineup changes, it kind of gives us that pop off the bench,” Ollie told the Hartford Courant. “It’s really allowed us to be more dynamic off the bench. Hopefully, guys are buying into the role, buying into UConn, and not buying into themselves.”
Getting a pop off the bench is a great thing if it happens organically. Had Omar Calhoun, Steve Enoch or Sam Cassell Jr. become Rashed-esque contributors off the bench this season, that would have been fantastic. However, to attempt to manufacture that contribution by removing firepower from your starting lineup is an ignoble undertaking.
Possibly realizing the error of his ways, Ollie returned Purvis to the starting lineup in time for the Huskies’ impassioned run through the AAC Tournament and in their two NCAA Tournament games.
So the process was flawed. What about the results?
Here’s a look at the season’s first 16 games in which Purvis started, followed by the next 15 on the bench. And finally the team’s five tournament games (all starts).
Label it a coincidence if you like, but Purvis performed much better when he was in the starting lineup. The team was 11-5 with Purvis starting and 10-5 with him on the bench. They were obviously 4-1 in their tournament games.
It might not have mattered in the grand scheme of the season. After all, Purvis did come up big when it counted in the NCAA Tournament. But considering the results, it should be obvious that the decision to relegate Purvis to the bench was a mistake.
