I have never seen Bill Self rub it in, but he did today.
Usually when an opponent shoots 39% from the field and 27% from trey, Self slows it down, and defends his lead, so as not to humiliate a fellow coach. Self's preference for not humiliating his colleagues with lopsided victories has been one of Self's admirable and retro characteristics that have endeared him to many in ever coarsening age of narcissism and preening vulgarity that we as a nation labor through. This he did today.
But when his team also shoots 54% from the field and 58% from trey, and his team is playing great basketball on offense, defense, transition, and even huddling during time outs better than usual, Self usually pulls his starters and first and second rotation guys and turns it into a 80-60 win that helps the opposing coach save face back home.
Not Saturday, January 2, 2016, a date which should live in infamy in Waco, Texas, but which should be savored by KU basketball fans as a day when justice was finally done to an impudent twit named Scott Drew that has unnecessarily disrespected Bill Self for many seasons in hand shake lines after games, and even put it to Coach Self and his Jayhawks, once in a game in a galaxy far, far away.
There have been many memorable lop sided victories in basketball, but to put this smashing thrashing into perspective, one must reach into American military conquests to even begin to do it justice.
KU's crushing of Baylor was the basketball equivalent of the WWII Battle of the Philippine Sea aka The Great Marianas Turkey Shoot, or perhaps even the dreadful massacre called the Highway of Death in the Gulf War.
Brave men like Rico Gathers were beaten senseless, guarded senseless, scored on with impunity, run ragged, and generally treated like pinyatas at a birthday party in Hell.
Baylor walked on the floor actually looking like it had the talent to beat KU.
But Baylor walked off James Naismith Court looking like a bear turned into road kill by an eighteen wheeler and then skinned and packed into Jimmy Dean sausage casings and spit roasted two weeks over Reactor Number 2 in Fukushima, Japan.
I don't recall a talented basketball team being beaten as badly as KU beat Baylor EVER!
But did Bill Self stop playing his fabulous foursome of Wayne Selden, Perry Ellis, Devonte Graham, and Frank Mason?
Answer: not for a long damn time.
Remember, the final score was 102 to 74.
And it didn't feel that close.
Look at the PT: Wayne, 34 minutes; Perry, 24 minutes; Devonte, 32 minutes; and Frank, 28 minutes.
Hell, Self doesn't necessarily play these guys this many minutes in close games!
Oh, well, Perry's and Frank's minutes were a little low, but they did have 3 fouls a piece.
Come on, when was the last time Bill hung 102 points on a visitor and played his starters this many minutes?
You can go back to The Big Bang and not find something comparable.
Hell, The Big Bang was probably not that much louder than Allen Field House's orgy of noise for what Self and KU served up to Scott Drew and his neutered bear cubs.
Think about it.
Casual observers of headlines and the box score will say, well, yes, of course KU won big because it shot 58% from trey and Baylor only shot 29% from trey.
But remember, KU's last game KU shot 29% from trey and beat a decent UC Irvine team by 25 points.
Baylor shot 29% and got a century hung on it.
KU finished +28.
There was much more going on in this merciless beat down than one team with a hot hand and one team with a cold hand.
One team played what at times appeared a perfect game against a talented team that was simply eviscerated.
Many is the time I have seen a team get shelled like this for a half and walk off the floor shaking their heads not sure how things had gone so wrong.
But I have NEVER seen a team as talented as Baylor come back on the floor and get beheaded twice in one afternoon.
Every time out, it was like Scott was standing there without his head--taken from him by the KU players and Self during play, and being handed back to him by his own demoralized players.
Without putting too fine of a point on it, it was like watching Scipio Africanus march a Roman Legion through baby nursery.
To go on any more about the magnitude of the slaughter of these innocents would be to indulge in gratuitous prurience.
Suffice it to say that as usual C5 handled their post men with 19 Points, 13 Reebs.
Wayne was the blazing star of the game with a shooting hand so hot it literally left a contrail, wherever he went.
Perry had a good, but average for him, outing.
Devonte played one of the greatest games I have seen a KU 2 guard play. He finally grew into the shoes left him by Nic Moore and showed that the role Nic created in the WUGs in Korea is what made that team a champion and can make this one a champion also. I have been harping on Devonte being inefficient all season, but today he was not only efficient, but efficient playing a brilliantly high risk game doing everything for everyone on the team, ranging from taking over the game for stretches, to being Frank's and Wayne's Tour de France grade domestique other times. It was an absolutely beautiful game of basketball.
Frank is fast turning into an alchemist before our eyes. He is becoming a kind of Hermes Trismegistus in sneakers. He is thrice great. Frank glides around much of the time almost like an AWACS flying over the frey linking every one without even appearing to be doing much, until a little redirect is needed and then boom he makes one of his incredible plays that he makes look easy, but which one sees no one else doing in D1.
Hunter got lots of raves from others and rightfully so, despite getting fouled up early. He hung 7 points, six rebounds, 3 blocked shots, several alters and lots of good post defense in only 17 minutes due to fouling. Were Hunter to put together 30 to 35 minutes of such play, we might have been watching a day approaching what C5 put on today.
Bragg looked good in his 10 minutes, but Self was very careful to come with him as a first substitute at the 5 against a replacement, who was about as slim as Bragg and a perfect match up for Carlton. Still, Carlton did his job.
Landen saw 11 minutes, less than I expected. He too did his duty, though.
Diallo was productive, but one can score when one takes 4 15-18 foot jump shots outside the flow of the offense in 6 minutes of play. My hunch, and its just a wild guess, is that if Cheick had shot half as much he would have played twice as long. Just a wild guess. :-)
Jamari slipped into his unproductive ways in rebounding and scoring in his 10 minutes, but his hedge defense was seamless, he dished two assists, and got a fine block.
On the Greene and Svi front, Greene got the big 18 minute opportunity, looked very rough, but was productive. Svi looked very smooth, but was not very productive shooting and rebounding. Greene got 3 rebounds and fought hard on defense, which justifies his roughness more than his shooting, given the role he is being asked to fill. And miracle of miracles, BG got an assist. He also didn't make Self palm his forehead. Svi looked smooth, as I said, and did not make Self palm his forehead. But Svi at the FT line kept him from being knocked out for the rest of the season. Svi managed to score 5 points on FTs in only 4 minutes and 1 FGA. Svi is not out of the competition yet, despite Brannen holding an edge.
The only black lining to all of these silver clouds I can find are the high number of fouls by C5. Hunter had 4, Jamari 4, Lucas 3, Bragg 1, and Diallo 1. That is 12 fouls on C5! What does this reveal? It reveals that big strong bigs with quick feet are one way to take KU into a Free Throw shooting contest on a day when KU is not shooting as astronomically well as KU shot against Baylor. Think about that: 12 fouls out of the 5 position. I reckon C5 could hold Wilt under his average giving 12 fouls!!!! Bottom line: you can only give huge numbers of fouls against good teams, when they are shooting poorly and you are hot. Do it on the reverse kind of a night and you are apt to get into problems.
But my did I have to look a long way to find anything negative to say.
Great, great, great exhibition of team basketball at the expense of Scott Drew.
What could be better?
Maybe a week of great sex with a beautiful woman?
Maybe.
Rock Chalk!
