The known unknown (e.g., Frank Mason's RISKY probability of developing into a top D1 PG) can be anticipated and hedged for (e.g., CF can be practiced at PG and Devonte can be added).
We know injuries will happen, but not to who. KNOWN UNKNOWN. Depth is the solution.
Mismatches will happen. Known unknown. Help is the answer.
Slumps will happen. Known unknown. Multiple shooters is the answer.
Teams get the flu. Known unknown. Depth is the answer.
But the unknown unknown is a bitch.
Last year, Naa's selfie of making the beast with two backs went viral.
One season Darrell Arthur asked not to start.
Mario Little decides to go house to house looking for a girl fiend.
TRob loses his adult family and becomes his sisters guardian.
Scalpinggate and realignment gate go on for years.
9/11 happens
An alum buys the Naismith Rules but doesn't display them in Allen Field House ever.
Your starting PG averages 10 TOs per game for part of a season for no apparent reason (Tyshawn), then decides he has more important things than basketball on his mind and wants a few weeks off...during a conference title run.
Your SHOECO, which signed you because of your tradition and brand begins requiring you to wear stupid looking uniforms frequently.
Referees inexplicably begin calling fouls that make no sense for half a season, then start NOT calling obvious fouls for half a season. No explanation given.
The next Lebron plays soft much of the time.
None of these events were eventualities Self could anticipate, and so hedge for in advance.
They were issues that had to be dealt with in real time.
There was no instruction manual for how to deal with them.
Somehow Self won or shared ten conference titles, and one ring, while other coaches in the conference never won one title outright, or a ring.
It took some luck for sure, and endless hard work.
But in the moment, when the chips were down, again and again Self showed amazing strength of character.
Once I studied risk management extensively related to the unknown unknown. I overlooked character as a hedge technique then. Now, after watching Self the past decade, I think character and hard work may be the only controllable hedges against the unknown unknown.
Character is not only the right stuff, but it is resilience of the right stuff. It is sticking with good choices, when everyone else is scrambling for solutions, when they cannot even fathom the problem. It is getting better at what you know, when you cannot yet know more. It is accepting things as they are and working at getting better, rather than deluding yourself into thinking things can be different in the moment.
Character is committing to getting better at what you can do rather than wishing yo could do something else.
Time and again this is Self's great edge: he finds ways to get better at what they already do, when others are wasting time and energy budget on learning to do different things.
This why so many both marvel sat his accomplishments, yet clamor for him to do different things.
Because he tends to focus on getting better at what he has decided any particular team can be best doing, there always are a lot of other things he might be trying instead.
But because he is such a shrewd judge of what his teams can be good at, and keeps them getting better at doing it, while others are asking why aren't you doing this or that too, and while other teams are trying this and that, Self's teams keep getting better at what they do do.
And apparently over the course of a season it makes his teams get very good at what they do, but leaves them vulnerable to teams in the tourney uniquely suited to disrupting what Self's teams have become so good at doing.
And therein lies the seeming paradox of an awesome W&L statement and lots of tournament upsets.
And perhaps the insight needed to adapt.
