Does everyone agree that our only way into the tournament is by winning the Tournament? If so then should we not play our starters major, major minutes and spend some of that time getting the young kids more experience and time to gel? Or put another way should we use the rest of the season to prepare for the Tournament?
On a side note.. I have always thought that finishing first in the Conference is a way more impressive accomplishment than winning the tournament and should be awarded a spot in the NCAA tournament.

How could someone not agree that winning Arch Madness is the only way into the tournament? That’s the only reason we got in last year and our record and team was much better. Only one team in the Valley is going to March Madness and that’s the winner of Arch Madness. As for only focusing on Arch Madness, that makes zero sense. We’re tied for first place in our conference. We need to focus on each upcoming game we have and focus on the tournament when we get there.

I agree we’ve missed opportunities to develop young guys this year by playing the starters late in blowouts.

College basketball endurance is not a big deal when you consider you are playing two games a week and the game is only 40 minutes. Endurance is way more important during conference tournaments, especially if a lower seed team has to play an extra game that week. It is more important in my opinion for the best players to play as much and as hard together than any slight advantage for resting them. Once you hit tournament time most teams tighten their bench rotations way down anyway. It is not like giving your eighth or ninth guy extra experience is useful unless that is part of your SOP, example a team that wants to play pressure defense and absolutely has to play reserves. Example some of the VC teams before Shaka Smart went to Texas. Ideally if your five best players can stay on the court, you want to play them as long as possible. Point taken if you have a lumbering big man who can't handle 40 minutes like Kaleb Wesson(random example for a Big10 school), you gotta do what you have to do. Someone like a Ethan Hap or John Teske, you want them playing 35 minutes in your biggest game. Those guys can handle it providing they do not get into foul trouble. Then again if you intentionally take minutes away in the name of developing a bench, that is a victory for any team playing Wisc or UM when those two are off the court. There is no way some developing guy is going to approach either the offensive production of Hap or defensive production of Teske. Come tournament time your probably going to lose if either of those guys are not on the court for extensive periods of time against top competition.

There is no way that PM is going to bench guys for the sake of resting guys. He wants to win every game and I don't see him risking a W just so a couple guys get a few extra minutes of rest.

I agree with most of what milkman said, although I specifically wonder about Custer and whether or not we're taxing him too much given his play this season. My only concern would be a D-Rose type injury to a key guy late in garbage time. Our home game versus Valpo was super chippy, and our starters were in that game up 20 with under a minute to go. That was probably the biggest nervous nellie moment I had all year. In that situation though, I think we're arguing about an extra couple of minutes for our starters. Obviously in tight games like this, the bench time has to contract.