🏀 KuBuckets Archive

Winning and losing are always multi factorial.

The fresher and more apt an explanation is the more likely it is makes us more prone to underestimating, or overlooking, an adequate constellalation of drivers that Self will have to fix/add to get to the Finals and win.

Hold in your minds @HighEliteMajor ’s fresh and apt explanation regarding the need for KU to have shot at least as many 3 PTAs, as the 40 Nova took, and probably more like 45-50 to offset KU’s lower trey make rate.

But add the following to it.

Here is why Nova won part 2:

a.) Self had no bigs that could guard the trey stripe, and all of Jay’s bigs could (result: Nova got way more open look treys; that was crucial), so KU has sign or train bigs to guard the trey because teams are going to copy Nova

b.) Self had no bigs that could shoot the trey and Jay had two that could (that meant Jay could put his bigs outside and KU had to switch and guard them with perimeter guys they could easily shoot over, and it also meant Jay could keep his bigs home and clog our driving lanes), which means Self has to get some bigs that can trifectate;

c.) Self had no trifectates on the bench (Garrett actually shot an uncontested airball) and Jay had one or two more on his bench, so the bench has to do more than guard; and

d.) 3 huge mismatches.

The three killer mismatches that smashed us were Paschal outside shooting (+16 pts over Doke), Nova Bench scoring (+11 pts mostly over our bench mostly on treys indicating high ppp) and Spellman (+11 rebounds on Svi).

I believe there was a fourth mismatch that didn’t show up in the line score, but that combined with our bigs that couldn’t guard the trey stripe to lead us into the kind of help defense that left Paschal and Spellman open for so many uncontested treys.

6-4 175 lbs. Vick had to guard 6-7 210 Bridges. The box score indicates we controlled Bridges well. Bridges only got 10 points and 3 rebounds. Great job, Vick! But wait! My guess is Vick was being given a ton of help to keep Bridges from running wild. In essence, Self said something like: help shut down Bridges and let Paschal shoot treys. If they beat us with Pascal shooting treys, then they beat us. The point? Guarding 6-7 210 pound All-Americans with skinny 6-4 combo guards and big manhelp won’t work at this level of competition, because sooner or later it runs into big men that can bury the trey. KU needs a real 3 to guard real 3s straight up and not surrender open look treys to anyone..

Now that I have identified these other deficiencies, it’s clear KU had to shoot at least as many, and probably more treys to have a chance, but would not have been enough on its own. KU needed a bench to take some of the additional treys. And KU needed a 3 to guard their three straight up so bigs could guard outside. And KU needed bigs that were trained to guard outside. And they needed some one that could match Spellman on the boards; another 11 boards would have bought KU the rebounding edge it needed to overcome the trough 3pt percentage with increased 3 ptas.

With the constellation of augmented drivers above, plus what KU already did, then KU could have beaten Nova.

In short, it needed a productive bench, a true 3 that could guard a true 3 without help, and bigs that could at least guard the trey and preferably another big that could make the trey.

@jaybate-1.0 I really thing billy was a missing piece for this game.

I don't think this team makes the FF with Preston instead of Silvio.

@jaybate-1-0 Let me ask you a serious question about your opinion that KU should shoot 3's every possession.

How long would it take a team to realize this strategy and camp out with all 5 defenders on the 3 point line and force KU into shooting 25'-30' shots where the % is probably at or under 30% in a best case scenario. Over 100 shots, that's 90 points or less.

I just don't see it ever being a feasible strategy that would win many games because it would be too easy to defend.

@BShark w/him not instead of.

and Villanova 1 for 8 from 3...at 10:30 mark of first half...hmmm.

@Crimsonorblue22 Impossible though.

@Crimsonorblue22

Defensively, emphatically yes. Billy would have been perfect for guarding Spellman. There wouldn’t have been any open look shots by Paschal or Spellman.

Offensively, it’s harder to say. I posit high volume three point shooting wins a higher percentage of games than high volume back2basket shooting, or a balanced attack, so a lot would have depended on how well Billy shot the trey and how much Self let him do so. If our team treys had dropped 5-7 per game with Billy, I am pretty confident we would have lost MORE games with him, even though we might have fared slightly better .against Nova, because of better defensive matchups. The trouble with Billy would have been that Self would have had to give him 10 to 15 FGAs per game eventually to keep him and the shoe company-agent complex happy happy, and one has to wonder: would Billy have been as productive as our three point shooters spreading his 10-15 FGAs among our trey shooters. It could have been that billy would have rotated with Doke, as Silvio has, but then we would have been in a similar predicament of matchups vs. Nova.

If Billy were a 40 % trey shooter and we took the same number of treys, we would have been MUCH better, but not if not is my best guess.

@jaybate-1.0 Doke shot 77% from the field this year. Over 100 shot, that's 154 points not including any FT's he would make so we could assume his number would could assume that number to be higher.

In order to reach that 154 mark from 3 point shooting, a shooter would have to make 52% of their 3 point attempts.

Shooting all 3's just isn't a smart or feasible strategy because of the percentage a team would have to shoot over the course of a season to make it an effective strategy.

@Texas-Hawk-10

It’s a good question and I will be serious.

Most offensive action is now run from two feet beyond the trey line to the baseline. Thus, less than half of half court is having to be defended. And even now defenses are camping on the three point line more and more.

This is what we are used to: running actions in the lesser, closer-to-the-basket half of half court.

Nova tries to penetrate to two point range to collapse defenses to kick out to open treys. Or ball screens outside at the 3point stripe so it’s shooter can step back to 22-28 to get the unblockable look. There are almost no passes into the post for b2b play. Driving is the preferred means of collapse.

In a 100% 3PTA offense, the entire half court would be used to run actions to get open looks in an 8, or 6, or 4, foot swath beyond the trey stripe, depending on the skill of your 3 point shooters.

Contraction of defense and stretching of defenses will no longer be in relation to the basket, but in relation to the swath.

Some offenses would start with players on both sides of the swath with a trey shooting post man in the swath. Players would cut in and out of the swath. Screening and ball screening would occur. Others possessions offenses would begin with weaving starting at the mid court line and weaving into the swath. Other possessions the ball would be worked to say the low blocks and the ball would be weaved outward to the swath.

All past offenses would be adapted over time to generate open looks “in the swath”, instead of “in the paint”, or “at the stripe” and new offenses would be devised to do the same.

Every defender would be camping in the swath same as every defender used to camp “around the lane” before the 3 pt shot and “along the trey stripe” after it, when coaches were still trying to balance 2 and 3 point scoring.

Shots can be created any where on a basketball floor regardless of whether players are camping here, or there, or elsewhere.

Defenses will be devised to guard “the swath.”

Offenses will be devised to create open looks in the swath. Where the shots are created will depend on the skills of the shooters.

The kind of athleticism required to play swath-centric will change from what they are today, same as the kind of athleticism changed from the 1950s to the 1980s and thenfrom the 1980s to now.

Look at the KU-Nova game and the UM-Nova game. Nova’s muscular, hooking defense and 3 point shooting completely obsoleted the “athleticism” and “go get a basket” abilities of KU and UM.

We saw the same obsolescence occur when the jump shot, great leaders and highly mobile footers entered the game. The horizontal set shooting of fences and players were obsoleted.

Jay Wright has not just built a great team. He has obsoleted playground descended basketball of the kind played airborne and exploding for one on one plays. The playground shaped modern game is now as obsolete as the horizontal set shooting game became before it.

Now the great players and teams will increasingly be those that have the kind of athleticism and shooting range to get open looks in the swath.

It’s all about the swath, not the trey stripe, or the paint.

Texas Hawk 10 said: [SEE CAPS]

@jaybate-1.0 Doke shot 77% from the field this year. Over 100 shot, that's 154 points not including any FT's he would make so we could assume his number would could assume that number to be higher.

[FIRST, DOKE’S 77% WAS DECEPTIVELY HIGH. HE WAS SIMPLY INCAPABLE OF BEING OUR 1ST OR SECOND OR EVEN OUR THIRD OPTION AGAINST GOOD COMPETITION. HE COULD NOT CREATE DUNKS ON DEMAND THE WAY 3 POINT SHOOTERS CAN GET OPEN AND SHOOT ALMOST EVERY POSSESSION OFTEN WITHOUT ANY ACTION—JUST PULL UP AND SHOOT. HE WAS NEVER A SHOOTER YOU COULD BANK ON GETTING A BASKET WHEN YOU NEEDED IT IF THE OTHER TEAM HAD EVEN A CREDIBLE CENTER. HIS 77 WAS NOT FEASIBLE TO TAP INTO MOST POSSESSIONS. BUT FOR THE SAKE OF ARGUMENT, LET’S PRETEND HE WAS LIKE WILT OR JABBAR—SOMEONE YOU COULD RELY ON TO GO GET YOU A 2 POINT BASKET ANY POSSESSION AND MAKE .540–Wilt’s career FG% AVERAGE. A GOOD TREY SHOOTER GETS YOU 40-46% ON 3s. THUS A TEAM FULL OF WILTS GET YOU .540 on 2 POINT SHOTS AND A TEAM OF STEPHEN CURRY’S GETS YOU 43% ON 3S. THE 43 CONVERTS TO ABOUT 65-70%. CLEARLY TREYS ARE THE WAY TO GO. DOKE’S 77% COULDNT BE ACHIEVED BY A TEAM FULL OF DOKES. DOKES 77 IS CONTINGENT ON GETTING NEARLY ALL DUNKS NEARLY ALL THE TIME. EVEN A TEAM FULL OF DOKES COULD NOT GET NEARLY ALL DUNKS NEARLY EVERY SHOT. BUT A TEAM FULL OF GOOD 3PT SHOOTERS ACTUALLY COULD SHOOT 43 % WITHOUT MUCH TROUBLE.

ANOTHER WAY TO THINK ABOUT THIS IS TO SUBTRACT POINTS FORGONE BY SHOOTING 2 POINT BASKETS. THIS APPROACH MAKES MORE CLEAR THE TRUE COST OF SHOOTING 2 PT BASKETS. EACH 2PT BASKET FORGOES SOME PERCENTAGE OF 3 PT BASKETS THAT COULD HAVE BEEN MADE. THUS EACH 2 PT BASKET IS REALLY WORTH SOMETHING LESS THAN TWO POINTS, AND IF YOU ARE PLAYING A MOSTLY OR ALL 3 PT SHOOTING TEAM EACH POSSESSION YOU ARE VERY SHORTLY FOREGOING TO MUCH TO EVER MAKE UP, UNLESS THE TREY SHOOTING TEAM HAS A TROUGH GAME.

TO A THREE POINT SHOOTING TEAM, EVERY TIME IT FORCES A KU TO SHOOT A MADE TWO POINT SHOT IT IS LIKE 1/3 OF A STOP.

In order to reach that 154 mark from 3 point shooting, a shooter would have to make 52% of their 3 point attempts.

Shooting all 3's just isn't a smart or feasible strategy because of the percentage a team would have to shoot over the course of a season to make it an effective strategy.

@jaybate-1-0 There were 2 key junctures in the first half where we got amazingly open looks for three. We could have cut the lead to 11 or 10 and had the ellusive mo. But nova purposely i am certain left only Garrett open for those looks knowing he was ill equipped for those shots. He shot your aforementioned airball and he clanged the other. They naturally raced down and canned shots and the game was over. They forced us into the lowest of all percentage options and again made us look foolish.

@jaybate-1.0 Doke's back to the basket game was a sketchy deal. He had that little over the shoulder flip that would find its way into the basket about half the time. Other than that, it was all dunks. He did use an up and over move a few times, but he was not an adept back to the basket scorer. Instead of an entry pass, a drive to the hoop by one of guards with a small flip to Doke was the best utilization of Doke, imo. Going straight 3 ball wouldn't have worked because they were jamming the perimeter, and denying us 3 point looks. Tech did the same thing to us the first time we played them, and they scorched us. And Nova simply did the same thing- deny the three ball, collapse in the paint on post entry passes, and make us beat them driving the ball. But their defense was pretty stout, even when we drove the ball. We encountered an execution on both offense and defense that was elite, far better than any team we played all year.

jaybate 1.0 said:

@Texas-Hawk-10

It’s a good question and I will be serious.

Most offensive action is now run from two feet beyond the trey line to the baseline. Thus, less than half of half court is having to be defended. And even now defenses are camping on the three point line more and more.

This is what we are used to: running actions in the lesser, closer-to-the-basket half of half court.

Nova tries to penetrate to two point range to collapse defenses to kick out to open treys. Or ball screens outside at the 3point stripe so it’s shooter can step back to 22-28 to get the unblockable look. There are almost no passes into the post for b2b play. Driving is the preferred means of collapse.

In a 100% 3PTA offense, the entire half court would be used to run actions to get open looks in an 8, or 6, or 4, foot swath beyond the trey stripe, depending on the skill of your 3 point shooters.

Contraction of defense and stretching of defenses will no longer be in relation to the basket, but in relation to the swath.

Some offenses would start with players on both sides of the swath with a trey shooting post man in the swath. Players would cut in and out of the swath. Screening and ball screening would occur. Others possessions offenses would begin with weaving starting at the mid court line and weaving into the swath. Other possessions the ball would be worked to say the low blocks and the ball would be weaved outward to the swath.

All past offenses would be adapted over time to generate open looks “in the swath”, instead of “in the paint”, or “at the stripe” and new offenses would be devised to do the same.

Every defender would be camping in the swath same as every defender used to camp “around the lane” before the 3 pt shot and “along the trey stripe” after it, when coaches were still trying to balance 2 and 3 point scoring.

Shots can be created any where on a basketball floor regardless of whether players are camping here, or there, or elsewhere.

Defenses will be devised to guard “the swath.”

Offenses will be devised to create open looks in the swath. Where the shots are created will depend on the skills of the shooters.

The kind of athleticism required to play swath-centric will change from what they are today, same as the kind of athleticism changed from the 1950s to the 1980s and thenfrom the 1980s to now.

Look at the KU-Nova game and the UM-Nova game. Nova’s muscular, hooking defense and 3 point shooting completely obsoleted the “athleticism” and “go get a basket” abilities of KU and UM.

We saw the same obsolescence occur when the jump shot, great leaders and highly mobile footers entered the game. The horizontal set shooting of fences and players were obsoleted.

Jay Wright has not just built a great team. He has obsoleted playground descended basketball of the kind played airborne and exploding for one on one plays. The playground shaped modern game is now as obsolete as the horizontal set shooting game became before it.

Now the great players and teams will increasingly be those that have the kind of athleticism and shooting range to get open looks in the swath.

It’s all about the swath, not the trey stripe, or the paint.

Here's how I would defend you proposed offense of 100% 3 point attempts. A defender where the wong and sideline meet to take away the base shots since there isn't much room there, then I zone the other 3 players from wing to wing and force the offense into shots from beyond 25' which are extremely low % shots. The offense would effectively be operating in just 1/3 of the half court which makes spacing an issue.

If players go inside the 3 point line, I wouldn't care because the goal is still to take a 3 pointer no matter what in your proposed offense. It's just not a sound offensive strategy to me.

@jaybate-1-0 @Texas-Hawk-10 Ok, how about an offense that generally only takes 3s and lob dunks? Really, though, any offense would have the "ok, if you're giving that to me, we'll take it" aspect. So if you truly wanted 100% 3s, but the defense aligned as such, you'd take it to the rack.

Stick with the high percentage near the hoop, or threes. No mid-range.

KUSTEVE said:

@jaybate-1.0 Doke's back to the basket game was a sketchy deal. He had that little over the shoulder flip that would find its way into the basket about half the time. Other than that, it was all dunks. He did use an up and over move a few times, but he was not an adept back to the basket scorer. Instead of an entry pass, a drive to the hoop by one of guards with a small flip to Doke was the best utilization of Doke, imo. Going straight 3 ball wouldn't have worked because they were jamming the perimeter, and denying us 3 point looks. Tech did the same thing to us the first time we played them, and they scorched us. And Nova simply did the same thing- deny the three ball, collapse in the paint on post entry passes, and make us beat them driving the ball. But their defense was pretty stout, even when we drove the ball. We encountered an execution on both offense and defense that was elite, far better than any team we played all year.

It was a very smart gameplan too because this KU team wasn't very athletic by P5 standards. Garrett and Graham were the only drivers on this team and Graham wasn't particularly good at it.

Agree on Doke. Plus post-ups are just not good offense generally.

@BShark Newman was the best driver on the team, period.

@KUSTEVE Then who do we blame for him not doing it more?

The real problem was that Nova guarded aggressively on the trey line.

But we have shot okay sometimes on contested treys. No guarantees. And the more we pushed treys, the harder Nova was going to guard from the perimeter. That you can count on. Wright has his guys listening to him and executing. If he calls timeout and tells them to defend harder on the perimeter, they will.

It must be frustrating to be a coach and watch Wright operate. How does he get his guys so completely onboard?

Fightsongwriter said:

They forced us into the lowest of all percentage options and again made us look foolish.

Great insight.

Nova is very skillful and well drilled about letting guys they think cannot beat them have open looks, while at the same time forcing good trey shooters inside the treys tripe.

Nova did this to both KU and UM.

But to give Self some luv, KU shut 6-7 210 lb AA Bridges down to 10 measly pointswith a combination of a combo guard and some big man help, and literally giving Paschal a bunch of open looks betting Paschal could not beat them.

Jay's defensive gambit worked.

Bill's failed. Paschal bombed us back to the stone age.

But if Paschal had choked, or even just shot a little under his trey average, that 10 point lead at that point probably would only have been a 5-7 point lead and Garrett's misses would not have been quite so devastating.

Self was trying to do what he always does, when a team shoots lights out the first half: ride out the opponents best flurry of punches the first half, and chip away at the lead, while showing as few wrinkles and adjustments as possible the first half, so he has as much in his bag of tricks for the second half and as so as muchelement of surprise in his adjustments as possible.

Jay has coached against Self 3 prior times, knows his tendencies, and bet he would respond this way. Jay also anticipated that it was likely Nova's trey shooting would fall off sharply the second half, which it in fact later did (Nova shot 50% the first half and 35% the second half).

Jay responded with impressive clarity of analysis and conclusion in the heat of the moment. Many coaches would have begun defending the lead with about 6-10 minutes to go. They would have converted to a lot less trifectation and a lot more milking the clock to get to half as quickly as possible. Instead, Jay had his Cats keep shooting treys, as long as they were falling. Everyone was taking them. It was one of the most impressive halves of shooting I can recall. They mixed in a few quick dunks, too. And they (and the refs) did NOT put KU on the line the first half, which is one of Self's tactics for chipping away at big leads. Self likes to hurry down and play for the short trey, hoping to quick score and stop the clock for some FT points while the clock is stopped, which then gives his defenders a more controlled situation to defend afterwards and so more stops and so more hurries up the court to quickly play for a short three again. But Nova and the refs (you can never talk about Nova, or any other NIKE-EST team, in the CARNEY without the refs in the same breath) kept the clock ticking with no calling and Nova kept shooting treys. It was the perfect counter to Self's tendency. KU could hurry up but couldn't stop the clock and get to the line for short treys. Hence, KU's tactic actually fed into and actually enabled what Nova was doing. KU effectively was shortening its possessions (without getting a foul or a short trey) and so giving Nova MORE 3 pt attempts! Then add in Self opting to use help to contain Bridges and let the Nova bigs take open looks and beat us if they could, and Paschal shooting lights out, and, well, you have what happened down the stretch of the first half--a blow out.

Self and KU fans should not feel too terrible about what happened.

The identical thing happened to Michigan in the Finals.

Self and Beilein built teams to face most of the teams they would meet this season. They had, frankly, never seen a team with six trey shooters--two of which were bigs. Further, neither had probably ever faced a team with not one, but two, maybe even three 3 point shooters with NBA range from three.

Against Nova, you have to defend the college three in the corner against Nova's long bigs, which means your combo guards can be right there and they can still shoot over them without getting blocked. But what's worse is that your combo guards can't just defend the trey stripe, or even just 2 feet beyond it. Nova had two perimeter players that could bury it from 28 feet and they DiVincenzo may have the best reliable range on a jumper since World B Free. I mean DiVincenzo is simply a Doomsday Weapon from outside. Self was talking about how KU's bigs had never guarded the trey stripe and so there were compromises in defensive scheme that had to be made for their limitations that way. Well, what he wasn't saying was that KU's combo guards had never had to defend that many guards and forwards out THAT far!!! And you saw the same phenomenon on Michigan, too. Nova's guards and forwards could shoot farther out than what KU and UM players were trained to defend against. Nova's bigs could shoot farther out than what KU and UM bigs were trained to defend against. Michigan defended a little better, but only a little.

We are talking about an order of magnitude increase in three point shooting range and accuracy with this Nova team at all positions. Neither Self, nor Beilein, could scheme any defenses that would work. The magnitude of Jay Wright's accomplishment is hard to gauge accurately. Wright faced three of the wiliest defensive coaches in the game in Huggins, Self and Beilein. If anyone could have schemed a defense to stop Nova, one of those three would have been among the most likely to have done so. In this perspective, Jay Wright achieved an absolutely towering accomplishment. From another perspective, as a friend of mine noted, Huggins, Self and Beilein had among their least talented teams in years and each of their teams were conspicuously missing pieces that doomed them from the start against a team with all the pieces. WVU was a poor shooting team. Self had no bench and no rebounding and no 3. Beilein had no three point shooting. So: from this perspective, Jay had a flipping cake walk, since his team not only had all the pieces of an NCAA champ, it also had an unprecedented edge in number of trey shooters at all positions and an more or less unprecedented edge in number of trey shooters with NBA range, and a coach that has been among the first to recognize that always shooting more treys (Nova shot 10 more than KU and 4 more than Michigan. But remember, both those numbers reflect game totals in blow outs, when KU and UM were forced to shoot a bunch of desperation treys they didn't want to shoot the last ten minutes of the blowouts. In the first half, of both games, I would hazard a guess that Nova fired away from trey the first 10-15 minutes of each half a significantly higher frequency than both opponents than end of game stats would suggest.

Finally, let me echo what both Self and Beilein, two fine defensive specialists indicated: Nova played a stifling defense and rebounded well. How do they play such fine defense with players ranked below the top 75 players in their recruiting classes?

Well, for one thing, it appears The Top 100 list either:

a.) apparently emphasizes players with put it on the deck and go create a basket abilities far more than defensive abilities, or rebounding abilities, or three point shooting abilities, or arm-hooking abilities; or

b.) those that make the Top 100 lists don't know their butts from first base about who can play, because they are too busy sucking up exclusively to POWER SUMMER GAME TEAMS.

KU and Michigan also brimmed with guys The Top 100 yahoos missed on, but Self and Beilein were still too mesmerized by guys that "could go make a play" even to recognize the insanely good trey shooting athletes that Coach Wright cherry picked most likely to significant degree from Jesuit Roman Catholic basketball feeder system. This of course does not explain why Notre Dame and Georgetown failed to find these incredible young men Wright assembled and coached up.

Increasingly, while I steadfastly acknowledge the apparent NIKE-EST biases of Carney seeding and whistling, and the random luck of recruiting and injuries, I recognize that a few coaches just accept the dominance of the trey unconditionally and others still cling to keeping it ghetto-ized in the 15-25 attempts per game range. Increasingly, it appears there just are a few coaches that recruit to build potent three point shooting teams willing to use it as their primary and go-to weapon when the going gets tough, and most others that still believe that the primary and crunch time weapon is great go-get-a-basket athleticism wedded to action and defense.

The three point era keeps unfolding before us--glacially it came for a while, but now it seems to be on the verge of sliding down a luge path.

There is a new definition of how to go get a basket at crunch time.

There is a new definition of what a team's primary, first option weapon ought to be.

It is the player that can go get an unblock able trey.

This can be done by mobile, long bigs that can shoot out of the corner against less mobile long bigs unable to guard that far away from the basket.

This can be done by finding guys with the right blend of height, strength, shooting range and shooting accuracy to shoot jump shots farther out than waterbug style combo guards can stretch-out and block.

Like all new approaches that take basketball by stunning and overwhelming surprise, it may or may not be able to be duplicated by more than a few teams. Only a few teams could keep ahead of Wooden's ascendant talent acquisition curve and emulate Wooden's 2-2-1 zone press, sticky m2m half court defenses, and single post offenses, and beat Wooden. I suspect many teams will soon be able to emulate what Nova has recruited and schemed to significant degree. I suspect many coaches will start selecting toward more trey shooters and coach trey shooting more and more. Self has already come quite aways down the path, but he has not been able to recruit bigs that shoot the corner trey since the Morri. Self has to commit to finding bigs that can shoot the corner trey. He has to tell the recruits that if you can guard and rebound, and screen and defend the trey, you will be required to shoot the corner trey at KU, or we can't use you, except as a back up.

Whew!

Its exciting to be alive during a potential college basketball strategy tipping point.

Free the bigs to shoot corner treys.

@jaybate-1.0 The services do focus heavily on AAU shoeco ball. That's why Garrett was a relative unknown and UNRANKED when he signed with Kansas. Of course by signing with Kansas that made them all go "oh crap" and get him in the top 60.

It's also how you see a kid like Barry Brown ends up outside the top 200. When he committed to KSU I watched what I could find of his HS tape. I wondered: how in the heck is this kid not in the top 100???! The kid can defend and shoot. Good player.

@Texas-Hawk-10

Here is how I would respond to your defense.

I would recruit two DiVincenzos that can easily shoot 45% from 28-30 feet if that's all they train to shoot. I would send DiVincenzo1 into a seam of your zone, collapse it and pass out to Divincenzo2 and leap out to a 10-15 point lead the first ten minutes, and then smack you around on defense and literally muscle you into the two point zone, or sucker you out to the 28-30 feet range you have not been trained to shoot from and start scheming for my next opponent at half time, while telling my team to continue beating you into the next century the first ten minutes of the second half, while milking the clock the last ten and letting the scrubs play. Occasionally, I would have a PG drive into the lane in a nice big arc and taunt you at the basket and then kick out to wherever your zone and two weren't. I might even take and make the open two once just to humiliate you.

This was easy.

And I could come up with many more counters to whatever you come up with, same as coaches have always done playing mostly inside the stripe. Punch and counter punch can be played any where on the court. The question is: who has the new Doomsday Weapon and who is wielding the previous one that can't match the new one?

What you are struggling with is that we create shots now right in the middle of smaller defended areas within 22 feet of the basket right now and no one thinks twice about doing so, because that's how its always been done. THE SWATH is a huge area to defend with huge areas to enter and exit it on both sides.

I am not even a little concerned about beating you shooting treys from 28-30 feet with two DiVincenzos and taller bigs than yours that can't range more than 15 feet from the bucket. Its a piece of cake.

You've just got to get used to the change the trey causes.

We have traditionally guarded the area near the basket because that was the place to create the most points per possession.

Now we know TALL players can shoot QUITE ACCURATELY FROM THE CORNER AND DIVINCENZOS CAN SHOOT QUITE ACCURATELY ANYWHERE IN THE SWATH.

Since the combination of the bigs shooting corner treys and the DiVinenzos shooting anywhere in the swath can be inferred to yield a higher PPP than the traditional offense geared to go get a basket 25 times near the trey stripe and the rest of the time in the two point zone, regardless of how you defend the swath, THE SWATH RULES.

No-one now thinks twice about two hand set shooting being superseded by shooting with leaping athleticism and height.

No one now thinks twice about hook shooting being superseded by trey shooting and help defense.

Soon no one will think twice about all the driving for short treys and the 50/50 balance of treys and 2s being superseded by more and more trey shooting eventually moving toward an asymptote of nearly complete trey shooting.

Oh, there will always be some tiny amount of two point shooting, triggered by asymmetric distributions of abilities. But over time, the future of three point shooting ascending toward the asymptote is so bright, one has to wear shades.

Furthermore Belein in his tenure at Michigan has produced multiple NBA players that were essentially unranked.

Self ignored the rankings with Agbaji and Garrett. Hopefully both pay off.

drgnslayr said:

The real problem was that Nova guarded aggressively on the trey line.

IMHO the real problem was that Nova's guys were trained to shoot where KU gave them open looks and KU's guys were trained to shoot where Nova's defense denied them open looks.

In turn, KU either shot a low percentage on its threes (below KU's average), or did the even more foolish tactic of taking the given 2 pt attempt futilely hoping for refs to call fouls they were NEVER going to call in such a contest given the opponents.

Everyone has to remember there are two structural things going on in this March Carney--two tracks if you will--biasing outcome.

1. Seeding and whistle asymmetry appear to be favoring non adidas EST teams and lo and surprise, surprise, not one but two EST teams made the Finals and neither was an adidas team. UM used to be, but I think they shifted, didn't they?

2. The three point line is biasing outcomes toward good three point shooting teams and toward teams that are good at guarding the three point shot. And lo and behold three good to exceptional trey shooting teams--Nova and KU, and Loyola-- and two teams three that were either exceptional or solid at guarding the trey stripe, made 3 of the Final Four. And Michigan, the fourth, though not a good trey shooting team, was actually very good at guarding the trey stripe, forcing Nova to opt for shooting only 27 treys.

Not surprisingly, the team that won the Carney was:

a.) the best trey shooting team;

b.) the best at guarding the trey;

c.) from the EST; and

d.) contracted with Nike.

What a coincidence.

BShark said:

@KUSTEVE Then who do we blame for him not doing it more?

Newman, himself. Bill implored him to drive more earlier in the season to take some of the pressure off of Devonte’. It just didn’t click before the tournament at all. He was starting to get it, now it’s time to start over.