@JayHawkFanToo
OMG, right you are, I forgot about Billy's hitch between Tubby and Cal.
Regarding Tubby leaving UK, I agree that he had been being pressured to leave by many elements of UK that were ungrateful for his accomplishments and recurrent early outs, and over time his persistent to recruit increasingly talented teams that could get back to the level of talent that Pitino had won with and that Tubby had won with early.
Tubby was forced to look for another job, because they made his experience there so unpleasant with constant doubting of his bench decisions and criticism of his style of play, and dissatisfaction with the amount of talent that he recruited. It was a classic case of an employer making and employee so miserable that they want to leave. I have talked to UK alums that said Tubby could easily have lasted a couple more years at UK, because of the school's desire not to fire its first African American head coach, especially one that had won a ring. I have talked to other UK alums that said Tubby simply had made it a point to know too much about the skeletons at UK, without violating any rules himself, to make him easily "fire-able." So the story I have heard a few times is: they wore him down and when he found a decent job he took it. Barnes went through pretty much the same thing at Texas, only Barnes was not living in the shadow of a Pitino. It was just the ten year fatigue thing that coaches widely talk about in the profession. After ten years at most schools, most coaches lose the constituency to attrition that got them hired in the first place, and a critical mass forms among powerful sub groups over time that want "their" guy in. Barnes understood his situation and probably lined up half a dozen ADs the last few years that would talk to him if he decided it were time to bail and pull the rip cord on his parachute at Texas. Tubby understood this at UK, also.
A lot of board rats wonder why I both criticise Self and am such a strong advocate for him here. I criticize him, because I come here to think and talk basketball and there is no one on this earth that I every agree with on everything all the time. I have my own mind and my own way of thinking and problem solving, so I hardly think it surprising that I sometimes come to different conclusions than even a great coach like Bill Self.
But the reason that I try to strongly advocate for Bill Self is precisely because I understand that he has been for the last three years or so entering into that ten year window of vulnerability that coaches enter into and I don't want people to take this incredible human being and coach that we have for granted, simply because of this stupid little ten year institutional dynamic that victimizes so many coaches. I hear it in creeping into posts here and into comments among family and friends that are Jayhawk fans. There is this creeping sense that, well, any coach that KU would hire now to replace Self, could at least equal what Self is doing. There is an a creeping under recognition that Self is doing what he is doing the right way and that KU would have to get very lucky again in hiring the right coach to find one that can do what Self has been doing for 11 seasons. The probability is that KU would find one that did not do it as well. There are just a handful of exceptional coaches at any given time and most of the ones that are easy to recognize are already fully settled in to where they are coaching. The young ones are all a gamble. Roy was a gamble. Had he not been wired deeply into Dean and Nike, and made the deal he made with Dean, it is highly likely that despite having been a very good practice and game coach, and a driven manager and organization builder, that he would not have been able to recruit competitively at all in a midwestern school in parts of the country he had never recruited before. People that talk about the deal Dean and he cut to divide the country up forget always that it was not just Dean and Roy dividing up the country. IMHO, it was Dean and Roy dividing up the player conveyor belt Nike had to offer. Again, IMHO, there was no way in heck Roy could have waltzed into SoCal and beat UCLA and Duke and North Carolina out for all the players from SoCal Roy signed without Nike behind him and without Dean staying out.
My point is that there is a tremendous amount of complexity to hiring a great coach, or someone capable of becoming a great coach. Lots of them can sign the players. Lots of them can game coach. Lots of them can practice coach. Lots of them can handle the media. Lots of them can unite the alumni and faculty and get along with the AD and football coach. But there are very, very, very, very, VERY few that can do it ALL, and then beat the best in a single elimination tournament, and then sustain that kind of excellence and drive year in and year out. There are usually only 4-5 in any coaching generation.
Hence, when we have one of them, and we most certainly do have one in Self, we owe it to the legacy to be vigilant about not letting stuff like ten year dynamics--the seven year itches of marriage transposed to the marriage of universities and their college basketball coaches--screw the stew.
I don't want Bill Self to get the Tubby treatment.
I don't care what anybody says. An 82% winning percentage, 11 straight titles, and one NCAA ring in 11 years are the stuff of Hall of Famers. And the guy is caught up in, and trying to adapt to, the biggest transformation of the recruiting process and the foul calling landscape in all my 50 years of watching the game and he has just been through two injury plagued seasons (one where he lost the best center prospect in the last 10-20 years to a back injury and last season where practically the entire team went down at one time or another), and somehow he is still winning big. This guy won a conference title with a committee of Landen Lucas, Jamari Traylor and Hunter Mickelson at the center, and Traylor was injured half the season! There isn't another coach in a America, hell, in the world, that could have won a Power Five Conference Title with a committee of Lucas, Traylor and Mikelson at the 5, NOT ONE!!
I totally understand @HighEliteMajor's alternative point of view to Self's on any number of issues. Focus on recruiting OADs. De-emphasis of three point baskets. Too quick of a whistle. And so on. And I understand many others honest differences with Coach Self of how to go about playing to win as times are changing. I like these differences. Some of them are why I come here to learn about the game still after all these years.
But all of these board rats that I allude to above, especially those that have played, coached and/or officiated, would probably tell those members of the board that just read along, or that are in the midst of struggling to learn just the basics of the game, that if they were to start following another great coach of the game today, the way they follow Self, that they would invariably come to have some other set of differences with those other great coaches. It is the nature of being a student of the game and of a team and of a team's coach to see the weaknesses and strengths of that coach and team of players. It is impossible not to see other ways to skin the cat than the way the great coach elects to do it. And if one is truly passionate about one's team, and about the course of its legacy, then one invariably comes out with ideas, and angles, and different ways of doing things.
But you don't look a gift horse in the flipping mouth.
Sometimes, when I read some of the criticisms of Self that suggest that Self is overrated, or just another coach that isn't smart enough to figure something out, or that Self just isn't creative enough, or just isn't innovative enough, I actually get @stupidmichael scared for some board rats.
I actually wonder how they feed and cloth themselves, and keep roofs over their heads. How do they balance their check books? How do they keep from burning the house down when they build fires in their fire places?
I want to reach out to them and say, "Bill Self is 52 years old. He is the son of a principle and a school teacher in an Oklahoma suburb. He wasn't born rich. His family was probably grateful for the scholarship he got to play ball for Oklahoma State to ease their budget pressures. He never made it to the pros. He blew a knee. He went apparently asked Larry Brown for a chance to wash jocks for Larry for a year. His first real coaching job was not at KU. It was at then down on its luck Okie State. He assisted an African American head coach, who to this day is NOT considered one of the top coaches in his profession. He finally lucked out and got to spend some quality assistant time with Eddie Sutton, but Eddie was a guy who had just completely crashed and burned on a near death penalty at UK and was fighting the bottle. Its not like Eddie was the superstar of coaching when Self assisted him. His first head job was ORU, a school every coach wants to be from, not at. He nearly went 0-fer his first season. Its a miracle he ever survived ORU.
My point here is that Bill Self didn't get to where he is the easy way. He was never Roy Williams working his way up in the top basketball program in the country under the most famous head coach of his era that paved the way for him to go from being an assistant straight to a head coach of a storied program. This guy turned ORU around. This guy sharply improved Tulsa. This guy kicked Illinois to a whole higher level. And when he came to KU to replace a legend, he didn't just replace him, he took the KU program, already operating at a high level to a HIGHER level.
This guy has overcome penalties committed by Roy.
This guy has overcome Scalpinggate, LewGate, two Realignmentgates, and signing on with the WRONG shoe brand--the brand that makes recruiting harder, not easier.
This guy has come back from eight down with minutes to go against a team full of ringers including Derek Rose to win a national title.
This guy has overcome in-state AAU coaches running talent out of state and a footer to UK.
Board rats that talk about Self not being good enough to compete and beat Coach K, Izzo, Cal, or whomever else forget that he has already competed against all of them and beaten all of them at least once or twice, and sometimes for high stakes.
This guy is rare.
When the seven year itch hits, don't be suckers and leave your wives.
And when the ten year coaching itch hits, don't be suckers and lose your coach.
Rock Chalk!!!
