The board rats that were confident that KU would keep shooting over 40% after doing so five or so games before the Clemson game, just got a bolus of reinforcement in the arm after KU rather calmly shot 45.5% from trey for a sixth consecutive hot game!
Never one to look a win horse in the mouth, this was a good, unamped win against a good Clemson team.
Put another way, Self most definitely appeared to save the big amp for the second game this weekend.
And Clemson cooperated with the no amp, shoot hot strategy by shooting a miserable 30% beyond the trey stripe.
This has become this KU team's recipe for victory--shoot over 40% most of the time, and keep the opponents in the low 30%s from trey most of the time. And on the bad nights dunk with the Doke and try to win the disruption stats (i.e., strips, blocks and TOs). NOTE: an additional element of this strategy is to augment Doke with significant numbers on a per minute played basis by Silvio. Mitch contributes when the opponents bigs are smaller and more mobile.
KU played like a bunch of experienced tradesman. Nothing fancy. They built leads. They defended leads. Self did not appear to me to show any new wrinkles, which means he gets to save them for a rainy day to come.
Clemson's coach, a Jim Crews disciple, which makes him a Bob Knight disciple, couldn't keep KU from opening leads that it could then defend. Clemson's coach looked like the usual Self victim at the end; i.e., he looked perplexed at how they had been beaten.
Other specifics worth remarking on are few:
a.) KU continued to use its new (for Self) and counter intuitive (for me) "don't manage the clock at the end" strategy;
b.) KU had some trouble with Clemson's zone (KU has been noteworthy for NOT having trouble with zones this season);
c.) Silvio with 9 points and 6 rebounds, not Mitch, was put in at crunch time to close out the game (indicating Self is feeling more and more confident in a guy that should be getting ready for Prom instead of playing so well in the March Carney);
d.) KU won by only 4 in a game when it was hot and Clemson was cold, which leads dry washers about trough games, to worry about how badly KU would have been beaten by Clemson had the shooting percentages been reversed;
e.) Doke's leg got tweaked late in the game and looked pretty wooden walking off the court;
f.) Devonte isn't particularly sharp, but its hard to say if it was from the head shot of the previous game, or if it was Self no-amping this game;
g.) Malik still appears to be a knife with a keen edge but he had to play 39 minutes;
h.) Self did his equivalent of resting the players for the second game by having no one on the perimeter other than Malik play more than 36 minutes; and
I.) Svi impressed with his ups again, but was only journeyman on offense.
I have these takeaways.
First, its hard to gauge KU from a no-amp effort in which they try to play just good enough to win. They are likely to come out sky high for the Elite Eight game. Its best to say that this team is now good enough to go out and just play good enough to win and beat a pretty good team in the process. KU with an all out performance would have clubbed Clemson.
Second, each game that passes, the opponents get better, and the risk of a trough game from trey increases. KU is lucky it did not have a trough game against Clemson. It appears it would have lost decisively if the trey percentages were reversed. Most of the line score stats were similar but for the trey percentages in the Clemson v. KU game. With the game stats as they were, KU eeked out a 4 point win. Reverse the trey stats and Clemson hangs an L on us by a larger margin than just 4 points. But Self coached it right, and the KU players played it right, and there is no reason to second guess the Clemson game.
Third, BUT there is reason to note that the hot shooting streak is now up to six games with three games to go. Who thinks KU will shot >40% from trey for 7 straight games? for 8 straight games? for 9 straight games? Nine straight seems extremely unlikely to me. I previously noted the shooting stats for the last 14 games. Add Clemson and you have 15.
Right now, my best case scenario is KU and Duke shoot poorly, say 25-30% from trey, and KU eeks out another win, because Self has figured Coach K out. Next, KU shoots >40% in the semi finals and finals and KU wins the ring and AFH gets another banner.
Worst case?
Any game KU falls to 35% or less and the opponent shoots 35% or better from trey.
The only thing that kind of haunts me about the upcoming game with Duke is this: the Clemson coach ran a lot of what Duke will run. This could be bad or good.
Through a pessimistic lens, Coach K will have just had a terrific laboratory game to watch how KU operates on both ends of the floor against a Duke clone and it will undoubtedly let Coach K fine tune and find wrinkles for weaknesses.
Through an optimistic lens, Self will have had a laboratory game to find out what did and didn't work well; i.e., kind of a practice game for what Duke will do some.
What to make of this odd situation?
I am going to say that the KU players will be more comfortable with the Duke approach, after having just seen it versus Clemson, and the edge will go to KU.
What a flipping great strategic game its going to be!!!!
Everyone pay close attention to the details.
These two coaches know one helluva a lot about basketball and they are not going to be keeping any wrinkles in reserve.
WE ARE ALL GOING TO GET AN EDUCATION, IF WE PAY ATTENTION.
ROCK CHALK!
GO KU!
