The New Yorker article in infuriatingly devoid of dates for the basketball aspect of the story, but unless it was early 90's, if Rometra was involved, she was a coach, not a ringer.

http://usctrojans.cstv.com/sports/w-baskbl/mtt/…

After Craig signed on, he recruited his daughter Rometra, who played Division I basketball at Duke and U.S.C. Rometra was the kind of person you assigned to guard your opponent’s best player in order to shut her down. The girls loved Rometra. “She has always been like my big sister,” Anjali Ranadivé said. “It was so awesome to have her along.”

I'm the furthest thing from a basketball expert — perhaps that was self-evident. In considerable detail, Steve Sailer makes some of the same points as you do about Rick Pitino.

But even if Gladwell generalized somewhat recklessly about basketball strategy on the basis of one example, the girls team story would illustrate an important point (if it were fully true). Many games — including real war — have unspoken rules that can be exploited by players with a fresh perspective.

Now I need to check into that ringer…

My problem with the Gladwell did not bother to check his sources. Girls basketball at the high school level has been dominated by teams of white girls who know how to press. Check out Joe Lombard at Canyon High School in Texas who is one of five high school coaches in the U.S to win 100 games. He was been running the full court press, let the best player take most of the shots for three decades.

In reality, Princeton University under Pete Carrill is a better example of how undersized, less talented teams can consistently win. It involves playing a slow down, back cutting game and always get back on defense to force every score to be made with a hal court set.

Pressing in girls basketball benefits system coaches that have the time to train their player in how to run the press.

Also, the real indictment here, for the Turks, as well as the 30% of goliaths who lose, is that they lacked the adaptability to change strategy when an opponent did so. When they do change, or decide to stick it out, they are much tougher to beat.