Basketball On The Internet.

I DON'T get it, I really don't.

What is up today with the overwhelming majority of coaches now embracing this US college-style of substitution pattern?

Did I miss the memo?

I recognise a college game cannot go more than about 1:37 before one of the two sideline deities inserts him or herself with a sub or time-out.

I get that.

I understand the whole control-freak nature of college coaching, where the coach and his/her system are the constant and the players are ever-changing. So the coach is god and the players are the true (or non) believers who pass through on their four-year pilgrimmage. Those who last that long.

But in this day-and-age of professional sport, I cannot understand how many of our coaches seem to operate by rote or by some predetermined plan which lacks the flexibility to factor in actual events in the game.

For example, and close to home, I have seen a player stroke a three, then finish a steal in the open-court with a slam dunk.

To my way of thinking, this is a guy on a roll, feeling good about himself so let's ride that good feeling for as long as it lasts.

But no.

Instead, the guy was subbed out at the next whistle.

Say what?

Now I don't want to talk in too many specifics here for obvious reasons but this tendency to want to run the whole roster through a game before the end of the first quarter just leaves me baffled.

Hey, I've seen one NBL coach get 11 players in during a first quarter, which has to be a record for momentum-killing.

It's not as if we're even playing 48-minute games anymore.

They're a piddly 40.

Split into four lots of 10, with breaks in between!

So you're telling me your best players cannot play more than five or six minutes before needing a break?

Last round here in Adelaide, Townsville coach Paul Woolpert - who strikes me as a man's man and is one of my favorite coaches - was just as guilty as the next guy of doing it.

Gary Ervin had blistered Jason Cadee and was caning Mitch Creek for 15 points on 5-of-5 shooting, including 2-of-2 threes and 3-of-3 free throws.

His triple to close an exhilirating first quarter made the lead 26-17 to the Crocs.

He was unstoppable.

So Quarter Number Two starts ... and Ervin is sitting off.

Um, WTF?

Was his shooting hand tired?

I'm figuring - naively I guess - if he has just wiped the floor with the opposition, then had a two-minute quarter-break breather, then on we go and see if he delivers another six-eight points while he's feeling this hot.

Or 10.

But instead, he is sitting.

OK. Call me old fashioned but if that's Al Green or Cal Bruton or Leroy Loggins with 15 in the first quarter without a miss, they're heading for a 50-60 point return.

I'm not singling out Woolpert - just that specific incident - because this is the trend everywhere lately and it just baffles the hell out of me.

Is everyone pressing fullcourt for 40 minutes and that's why they need to sub so often?

Is every pro basketball player in the country so unfit they cannot play other than in spurts?

Has the game really changed so much?

Sometimes I wonder if coaches are actually coaching or just inserting themselves so it seems as if they are.

They seem to have become the masters of no-mentum.

In a recent  WNBL game, I saw a player subbed in who ran up the court and back down before being subbed out. And no, she wasn't in so the coach could briefly talk to the player she replaced.

She was just in, then out.

Yeah. Her face said it all as she sat down.

I'm not against all players getting used through a game, if that's your particular philosophy.

I am probably more inclined to favor the seven/eight-man rotation in a 40-minute game but everyone is entitled to run their team as they see fit.

Hall of Famer Darryl "Iceman" Pearce refers to a lot of today's coaching doyens as "book coaches", as in guys who coach exclusively from a plan but have no feel for trends and momentum shifts in a game.

I'm inclined to agree, which probably means we will share a dinosaurs exhibit one day soon.

I guess the KISS method I first heard outlined by former Boomers coach Barry Barnes - as in, "Keep It Simple, Stupid" - is a lost art with so many of our masterminds needing to insert themselves so regularly.

But is it really coaching, or just interfering?