Over the past 13 seasons, we have been able to take a kind of "elitist" attitude to Kansas basketball.
Who can argue with the results during conference play? 13 consecutive conference titles sits atop the NCAA record book!
But this year has been a different kind of year. In the past, a typical conference season starts off with a hot Kansas team, getting out of the blocks quickly and forcing the rest of our league to catch up. We didn't pull away this year. In a typical year, we don't lose a home game, or in the most, we lose one home game. So far this year, we have already dropped 2 conference games at home and we will continue to be tested at home.
In this atypical year, perhaps we need to adjust our strategy moving forward.
In those past "elite years" we carried an attitude that we were the team to beat in the league and were superior to the rest of the conference. So our strategy was to focus all our attention on our own game and not focus on the teams we played and how they could challenge us. This meant a limited focus on scouting our opponents and then putting energy into unique strategies to practice on in preparation to the games to be played.
I believe in those past 13 seasons we also took our "elite attitude" into March. Just look at how we have been beat in March, often by clearly inferior opponents who specifically came at us with a customized game plan on how to win.
I'm not trying to make this an attack on Coach Self's approach to the game. He's a HOF'r and well-deserving of this accolade! I'm just bringing a topic we can discuss that seems to be the best time to talk about it because of the uniqueness of our team.
I still see this team through a half-full glass. We are stocked with talent, and in some areas, there isn't another team in America with more talent (when considering our experience)!
Our biggest weakness appears to be the lack of depth in post players. Granted. But a "glass half full" perspective must see that we are easily one of the best teams in guard strength! The 4-1 offense is the right approach, not only because of the weak post depth but also because of the strength of our guards!
We have opportunities with this team that NO OTHER TEAM in America has! Our biggest strength on this team must surely be "team handles" and "team speed" and "team passing"... three areas where we have not taken advantage of in most games.
Our game with WVU this Saturday is the perfect opportunity to use a completely different strategy than we have run against them in past years. In the past, we always had a preparation strategy of trying to survive their press. So we went into the practice gym and ran our guys against 7-man presses in order to learn to deal with the pressure.
This year, why don't we focus on the STRENGTHS of this team? It is doubtful we will ever have a better team to battle WVU. We shouldn't just be "surviving" their pressure. We should be "attacking" their pressure! We should instantly show our superior handling, passing and speed by aggressively building a huge lead that not only helps us win this game, but puts WVU back on their heels, forcing them to try something else... something that is not where their strength exists.
Amazingly... our biggest undeveloped potential is in the area of "secondary break" offense. We have done a poor job with this all year. Our SB offense execution has shown us all that we do not put enough focus and energy on this in practice. Instead... we just focus on our half-court motion offense. We see how our half-court offense is largely based on a dribble-drive motion offense where our guards often take a one-on-one approach of driving on their defender, into the paint, and either finishing at the rim or feeding out to an open trey shooter. These same skills are often needed to execute a very successful SB offense. But when we do get into the open court on offense, we usually pull the ball out instead of attack the rim. This is one of the main reasons why we rarely make it to the FT line.
If we focus on SB offense, this Saturday, we should blow out WVU by 30+ points! And the really great news is... we will finally start taking advantage of the real strengths with this team!
As we sit today, we live off the trey line. We do get some offensive help from Doke... big time... but we can't count on Doke's offense to rescue us, largely because of potential foul trouble. We all know what this leads to in March. It only takes one game where our treys aren't dropping but our opponent's treys are.
If we add in the most-effective SB offense in the nation to our toolbox, we will have another tool that can help us win and help us from strictly relying on trey shooting.
There is NO REASON why we can't become the most-effective SB offense in the nation as this season closes in on March!
Let's treat this Saturday home game with WVU as an opportunity. Let's realize that we are not superior to any team in America if we don't apply a strategy unique to our opponents. Focusing on SB offense is a definite strategy we can apply on WVU, and we can continue to develop it for the rest of the season... finally taking advantage of the STRENGTHS of our team!
Rock Chalk!
