@globaljaybird
@REHawk
@icthawkfan316
Self wants to rest Frank more than all three of you combined and raised to the tenth power, but...
Defending leads requires shortening possessions AND maintaining a 1 PPP average, while the opponent plays BTWs and shoots treys every which way but loose and gets to 1.25 to 1.5 PPP.
To achieve that measly 1 PPP the ball has to get across mid court, then be held, for 30 seconds, or so, and driven to the rim and either shot in an inside trey, or dished to an open look trey. Doing all this against a pressing, scrambling, pressuring defense,can easily result in TOs.
It also requires keeping 3 70-80% FT shooters in the game for ball handling in the press.
It also requires guarding hard without fouling on the other end to keep the clock going and prevent a lot of freebie baskets.
So: who among KU's perimeter players can:
--shoot the trey;
--make 70-80% of his FTs;
--protect the ball during a press; and
--drive it.
Self thinks Frank and Devonte can do all of the above.
And he needs a third.
He hasn't got a third.
But he does have Mr. Lack of Conscience from trey and the FT line: Brannen Greene, who, suprisingly, is a decent dribbler when not trapped.
So his choice is Brannen, who is money at the line, but shakey on D, or Wayne, who is shaky at the line, and Svi, who the last time he took a trey accidentally banked it in.
Self is making a choice: he is reasoning that when an opponent is down 10-15 and closing with threes, Brannen can guard the trey stripe as well as Wayne and shoot FTs much more accurately. If the game gets within 1-2, he brings Wayne for D and brings Brannen for O. Svi is in the Absolute Zero Cooler with Hunter.
So: since Self is strategically committed to the build a lead/defend a lead model, there really is no time with a lead that he can take Frank out, except for the most minimal breather first half or mid point second half, and then it is a huge risk to the PPP needed for the defend a lead strategy to play out favorably.
So: what does Self do help Frank through this ordeal.
Self always uses the weave to let our guys jog around, rather than go directly into explosive mode driving the ball. Three man weaves are a relative breather, when Frank does not wind up driving the ball. And they force a lot of sliding by the defenders.
Self knew he had a VERY tired team, and a nearly spent Frank vs. ISU.
So: Self went to his first ever (that I recall) use of the four man weave. It forces the opponent to slide even more. And it makes Frank only have to jog one weave out of 4, instead of one out of three.
Isn't Self thoughtful. :-)
Its like Frank Merrill telling his Marauders on the way to Myitkyina that they don't have to run their they can weave there on a jog. Its not much, but its something...maybe just enough to get them to their objective.
Self this season is about "just enough."
He is about: if you can't win, don't lose.
Find the moment to build a lead that can be defended.
This is not about stepping on people's necks.
The Nike stacks we are up against are too big to step on their necks and win.
Self and is team have to be about "just enough" this season.
He and they are trying to figure out how to beat UK with 10 OAD/TADs and Duke with 9.
Self only has 3...about one game in 3. More often he has 1, or 2. Sometimes just one. We have to hope that gets better, that we get to three, but "let us not talk falsely now/the hour is getting late..."
Self can't develop a strategy based on a deeper bench, or even a shorter bench. He doesn't have as much depth, or a first five with as much talent. Period.
But what he does have are the Jarhead Jayhawks, or for you Army fans, Merrell's Marauders.
Yes, we are trying to win an eleventh conference title, but this whole conference round robbin is really an exercise in learning how to play this way--a way NO other team in the stacked category tries to play, or has to play. Self is trying to turn a vice into a virture, which is what Marine Corp strategy is all about. It can be done. It is what George Washington did in the revolutionary war. It is what Ho Chi Minh did first against the French and then against the Americans. Claire Chenault did it with the Flying Tigers in China before WWII. Chenault: we don't have as many planes as the Japanese and our planes aren't as good as theirs in a head to head dog fight. What do we do? Answer: First we pick where we engage and when. We decide when we fight, not them. Second, we attack from above, out of the sun, where they cannot see us, and where our overweight obsolete planes use gravity to accelerate our attack to speeds that the agility of their planes cannot be an advantage against us. We are flying at high speeds in straight lines and their agility no longer matters...if we shoot accurately. It worked. It worked magnificiently. It worked throughout the war, when we had better planes. It even worked in Korea some with propeller planes against jets briefly. Then we got faster jets and just went after them anywhere from any direction and forgot the strategy. Then we got our asses tagged over North Vietnam and had to create Top Gun School to relearn the strategy and tactics of dog fighting.
The right strategy and tactics can overcome an enemy for brief decisive engagements.
The tournament is that kind of warfare--a series of two game tournaments--6 single decisive battles.
There is a slim chance it will work, and Self has found no alternative that he believes fits better.
So: he has to out-efficient and out elegant our opponents (even when elegance involves ugly-ing things up) with his best guys shortening games, building leads, and defending them and hope to force them into keep their best guys on the floor too, only less efficiently.
It is a brilliant idea.
It might even work. :-)
But sooner or later its going to come down to a near death march by KU's best players, and an opposing team's best players, and most likely they are going to have one or two footers.
And our very own Frank Merrill believes that when that moment comes, his guys used to playing this way all season, will hold a slight edge over a more talented team that is not used to playing so many minutes per game...in a decisive engagement....once.
Like you only need to win by one point in any game, you only need to beat UK once. You don't have to be better than them seven times. Just once. And that's good, because 3 OAD/TADs don't beat 10 OAD/TADs in a best of seven. Ever.
The mission of this team is to drag opponents, especially superior ones, in defensive straight jackets into close games, then build a slight lead outside in, then play cat and mouse about when they will start defending it, and then draw the opponent into a kind of long possession quick sand and ugly hand to hand combat as each are sinking, and hope that they and not our Jarhead Jayhawks drown first.
This is the mission.
Who is willing to go to Myitkyina?
Think of Frank Mason, as our Frank Merrill on the wood.
!433px-Merrills_Marauders.svg.png ↗
God help me, I do love it so.--George Patton
