Whiskey: I think that this is a general teaching moment for all of us. This bone-obvious fact [the value of knowing the wingspan, which all coaching staffs realize, while it almost never being reported by anyone publicly] must be attributable to the simple mental and habitual inertia that characterizes our inefficient species. "We've always done it this way, so, by jiminy, that's what we'll do!!"
We see this in all sorts of things in our lives, and one way to be "elite", creative, "ahead-of-the-curve" is to question the "always-done-it" guys and dump them when it's obvious that they don't make sense anymore. [Bench-pressing is another such "we always done it" thing.] Politics makes this almost impossible in the world of everyday living/ decision-making [believe me I was an environmentalist in younger years], but in sports this points the way to hurdling the competition: watch one of the rating services finally pick up on this, and find a way to get the measureable. For a year they'll be king.
For us as sports fans, it will increase our understanding of recruiting [how many times did we have to listen to posters say: why are we recruiting this guy? He's only 5'10"? ] I remember Al McGuire trying to explain this to a announcer twenty years ago. A University of Indiana basketball center's height was 7'0" but McGuire said: well, he's really not effectively that tall. See he has this unusually long neck and head, and so his arms aren't quite that long as well. The announcer, stone stupid, said: what do you mean? Seven foot is seven foot, isn't it?? McGuire gave up.
Smart guys succeed better than dumb guys usually. Our coaching staff is composed of REALLY smart guys. Thankfully they are coaching and not us --- especially some of us.
