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Can he shoot 40% from trey out to 28 wing to wing and guard the trey stripe out to 28 feet?

Or is he 6-8 and up and shoots a 38% trey from the corner trey?

In short, can he do what DiVincenzo and Paschall did for Nova?

If not, he probably can’t win a ring against a NIKE-EST team that can.

There are NO LONGER many ways to win a ring against NIKE-EST teams, once the NIKE-EST teams become armed with the DIVINCENZO-PASCHAL MODEL.

Athleticism 22 feet and in is an evolutionary dead end, unless rules are changed to preserve such athleticism as an endangered species.

3 > 2 plus some uncontested dunks: it is the new E = MC^2 of the apparent NIKE-EST entertainment value basketball era.

The 28 foot open look trey by a perimeter player and the open look corner trey by a big are the only plays entertainment value whistles can’t interfere with.

All lobs appear obsolete, too. Contestable dunks appear out .

Athleticism within 22 feet is what you play, if all you care about are conference titles and concede to the DIVINCENZO-PASCHAL MODEL in the Carney.

A new day with a new way has dawned.

Until the rules are changed.

The pace and space era has dawned. That's what the Warriors and Rockets have built. Spread the floor with four shooters and a PnR big man. Force the defense into impossible choices in space.

Defensively, this can be countered if you have multiple similar sized players - KU can do this next year with Grimes, KJ, Garrett, Dedric, Silvio, Mitch, and Langford if he comes. Your 5 man needs to be able to guard a 1. Your 2 needs to be able to guard a 4. Your 3 needs to be able to guard a 5 rolling to the rim. Your 1 needs to hold his own if the other PG posts up.

Offensively, you have to be able to space the floor so that teams cannot double without creating too much space. The corner three creates space because you can't help on the wing or at the top without conceding an open corner. You can't bump a rolling big man without exposing a wing. Impossible choices. Easy dunk, or 40% shooter open from three?

Hesitate, and both are open.

Oh my, I wasn’t expecting the corner trey by bigs to be the tipping point away from the late 20th/early 21st Century game!!!

Man, that DiVincenzo was one of the best guards I’ve seen in a long time!!

That guy could play ALL aspects of the new game superbly!

Seeing him must have been like seeing the first jump shooters, or the first athletic footers.

DiVincenzo did things out there I haven’t seen since that point guard at Michigan that wasted us. Only DiVincenzo was so much stronger and longer and seemed a better leaper. He was just so hard nosed and polished fundamentally, and understood the new game so well. He’s the new standard for the new college game, as much as Curry has been in the pros.

What a privilege it is to see great players do things the normal Top Hype 100 only dream of doing.

I hated losing to the Novacats, but man did I love seeing a new game being born. The old was getting a little stale and self satisfied.

@jaybate-1.0 I would imagine that the Kansas Hoops coaching staff is bearing down on the search for a pair of such gunners. A recent LJW article appears to have tapped into that pursuit. The Nova game was indeed a shocker to the entire collegiate hoops world. At 15 minutes into that contest I just shook my head in abject wonder, figuring that the game had become something very different from most anything I had viewed in recent seasons. I know full well that Bill Self is anything but a quitter; but I think that after 30 minutes his brilliant basketball mind was already focused on designing a new type of squad for the near future. What he was seeing represented a major jolt to the strategists and tacticians who normally win so many Division 1 contests. Here's hoping he can affect change with a core of players who can and will quickly adapt to the challenges presented by Jay Wright and Co.

Wouldn’t it have been awesome to see Stephen Curry on that Nova team. Curry had to play the old style in college. Imagining Curry playing Nova style, is like imagining Big O and West in the trey era!

REHawk said:

@jaybate-1.0 I would imagine that the Kansas Hoops coaching staff is bearing down on the search for a pair of such gunners. A recent LJW article appears to have tapped into that pursuit. The Nova game was indeed a shocker to the entire collegiate hoops world. At 15 minutes into that contest I just shook my head in abject wonder, figuring that the game had become something very different from most anything I had viewed in recent seasons. I know full well that Bill Self is anything but a quitter; but I think that after 30 minutes his brilliant basketball mind was already focused on designing a new type of squad for the near future. What he was seeing represented a major jolt to the strategists and tacticians who normally win so many Division 1 contests. Here's hoping he can affect change with a core of players who can and will quickly adapt to the challenges presented by Jay Wright and Co.

PHOF times 2

My Wisconsin take, at least in the Bo Ryan years was to find bigs who could shoot. Two are in the pros, one was a college player of the year. Jon Leuer and Frank Kaminsky could stretch defenses way out. Frank then had the athleticism to get inside on them too. Leuer not so much, but other than injuries this year he's had a decent pro career.

@wissox BRIAN BUTCH! Before Leuer. He was my favorite guy to play with on my college basketball video game. Until they quit making them.

@wissox

So glad you recalled Kaminsky and Leurer. These guys are out there.

Bo was on the right track. He even had a passel of trifectates that one season. But like Self, he got to enamored with seeking balance between the short trey and the long trey. He conceived drive ball that Self borrowed and exaggerated into BAD BALL, and both got trapped in the success (to a point) that that their innovations enabled. They nibbled around at the edge of the idea of all trey shooters in the line up at once. Self had Markieff and Marcus, too. But they never went ahead and became a three point shooting team that spread the floor and tried to ONLY take uncontested dunks inside.

Frankly, Bo and Self laid the ground work for Jay; this is always how it is with progress.

Some have to get close, but fall short because their way of thinking has not yet completely made the paradigm shift.

Bo and Bill each harbored the hope of fairness officiating; that there could be short treys all the way to the Finals, if one were good enough at all phases of the game.

WRONG!

Sooner, or later, entertainment values appear to take precedence.

The beauty of what Jay figured out is that there IS a way to play that makes it so entertainment values, as presently enabled, cannot deny you your offense with no calls. The three point shot is the last protected form of scoring that a team/coach has control over. The team/coach get to decide how many open treys they want to take. Jay decided 40 was necessary to beat another trey shooting team whose coach was still laboring under the 20-25 3pta mind set.

If Self were to raise it to 30-35 3ptas, Jay would just have raided his 3ptas to 60-65 and still clobbered us. This is why I say that the asymptote for three point shooting is, without rules changes, going to increase to very near the number of possessions.

More and more trey shooters will be encouraged in junior high and high school, and fewer and fewer of them will be weeded out for lack of athleticism. Over time more and more of those gifted in late 20th/early21st Century athleticism will be culled early for those that can pot the 40% triceratop.

The 3pta asymptote will approach the total possessions minus some small percentage of uncontested dunks. The dunks will approach having to be nearly 100 percent made to be taken however, as the asymptote for the trey ascends and more and more 3 pt shooters fill the rosters at all positions.

The future is three.

@Kcmatt7

Kieff Morris would have fit right in on this past year's Nova team.

Robert Horry of the old NBA would have been perfect for this game.

Steve Patterson of the old Wooden teams would have been a 45% trey shooter from the top of the free throw circle. He was deadtly.

There are just so many of these guys that could have played in the Nova offense, if they had not been marginalized for not passing the eye test and for possession of Top 75 and less athleticism.

And this is not a skin pigment thing.

I have long argued that African American players have suffered perhaps the most from the eye test. They eye test is about "athleticism" in a very narrowly defined criteria. I played with tons of African American players on the playgrounds that could shoot lights out, but not get up. They were screwed by the eye test same as many Caucasian Americans.

Self probably couldn't count on a quantum computer all the guys he has passed on 6-8 and over that could have made the corner 3 40% of the time, because they didn't pass his own eye test for "athleticism."

The game of basketball is a relentless liberator of hide bound thinking, of eye tests, and yes of prejudices, too.

The game of basketball, no matter how slow it is to come around, rewards those that find the way to score the most points. It has a history of outflanking the obstructions of every status quo sooner or later.

The three point shot is a form of athleticism. Period.

And for now, the refs call it pretty honest about the fouling. If you foul a trey shooter, its a four point play, or three if he misses. And the floor is so big beyond the stripe out to the 28-30 foot radius, it is VERY tough to deny open look treys acquired either by pull up after transition, or by a little action outside.

I LOVE BASKETBALL.

Especially during the off season, when we get to figure out what it all meant the previous season.

But here's the thing about Villanova - all of those guys are A+ athletes.

DiVincenzo had a two hand block in that title game. He's a guard. That's not something you see from guards. He's legitimately an above average athlete at the guard spot. I think some would dismiss him because he's not African American, but he's as athletic as most anybody around the country. Spellman got athletic once he lost the weight. Brunson is a good athlete (extremely strong for a player his size). Bridges is an NBA caliber athlete. Nova had a very athletic team. Not necessarily all freaks of athleticism, but very athletic.

Athleticism comes in more than just speed and leaping ability, though. For all of his explosive quickness, perhaps Allen Iverson's single greatest athletic trait was his balance. He could twist and contort in all sorts of ways and never lose any speed on a drive, all because he kept incredible balance, even through contact.

Jerry Rice became one of the greatest receivers of all time not because of blazing speed, though he was fast, or even incredible size and agility, but because his ability to adjust his body and maintain his coordination to make catches was uncanny. Larry Fitzgerald has a lot of that same ability. Most every great pass catcher does. They just have the ability to coordinate their hands even as they twist and adjust. You see that same form of athleticism in all great fielding outfielders. The ability to run and track the ball is a form of athleticism.

Chris Paul isn't thought of as "athletic" when it comes to today's PG's. He doesn't have John Wall's straightline speed. He doesn't have Russell Westbrook's power. He lacks elite size and explosiveness. But he understands how to create space, how to do little "jujitsu" moves that change your balance just enough that you lean one way, clearing space for him to wiggle past, or release a jumper, or create a pocket to thread a pass through.

And then there's Steph Curry, who can create an angle out of nothing. His release is so quick that bigger players cannot get to it, even when they are anticipating it. His balance when dribbling, the ability to shift his weight from one foot to the other without making that shift clear to the defender is uncanny. It makes him so much more difficult to guard because he's already made his move before you realize that he shifted his weight onto his other foot to push.

All of that is athleticism. All of it is elite. Some of it is imperceptible.

@justanotherfan

Choir preached to.

Absolutely, Nova's players were wonderful athletes.

Its old-think athleticism that is being eroded by the new way of playing.

There were wonderful three point shooting athletes that aren't in the Top 75, because they couldn't pass the eye test that is used to early identify and fast track the Top 25 players.

The Top 25 is based entirely on old think, on the rear view mirror, pre-2010 notions of athleticism--notions that grew out of the era when the way to win was to beat the other team into a bloody pulp and jump over it for short treys.

Those days were changed by the new rules on fouling designed to discourage muscle ball and "hack'n'slap all the time", and after the over correction, to discourage driving for short treys by averting eyes to no calling, especially against non NIKE-EST high seeds.

The moment the rules to diminish roughness were corrected and then revised to discourage not only XTReme Muscle (which has exposed Izzo for the overrated jerk he always was), but discourage driving for short treys, Nova's "shoot-treys-first-and-dunk-wide-open" offense with all five guys being 39% trifectates was feasible, not just an idea that should work mathematically in principle.

Remember, a number of coaches from the moment the trey was instituted have grasped the mathematical advantage of taking all treys. I forget where I read it now, but some coaches in backwater NAIA and small college women's basketball have used the all trey, all the time offense over the last 20 years with some success. But they were lost in the shadows of media coverage and largely overlooked as eccentrics.

The rules changes over the year had to evolve to the point that shooting threes was really the only way to get there points. Until the short trey was taken away, "old think" of a balance between treys and dues was the only way to go.

Jay Wright did not go all the way to all treys all the time. He has just reasoned that there is some number of treys more than an opponent takes that makes one almost unbeatable. And he has inferred that if one is shooting poorly from trey land one night, don't stop shooting treys, shoot MORE treys!

He also reasoned out that it was not enough to hold the 3>2 advantage in total treys taken. It was also important to smooth the phenomenon. Anyone with a stats background understands smoothing. The more guys you have shooting treys every night the less variance you are going to have. Reducing the peaks and valleys of team trey shooting by having more players shooting the trey dilutes the effect of one trifectate having a bad night. It is exactly the same as 2point coaches like Self wanting to spread the 2 point offense around among 5 starters-each scoring in double figures.

Lastly Jay was brilliant in grasping that the way to get stops in 3 > 2 was no longer limited to an all or nothing stop. In fact, what one wanted to do was to devise defenses and run defenses that suckered the opponent into shooting either mid range 2ptas (most preferable), or Quixotic short trey attempts. Jay understood that the short trey game was over 2 season ago at least. He was a genius at foreseeing this. Self sure as hell did not see it coming and in fact can't break his old habits of believing refs will call the short trey, if he just keeps ramming it inside. He was the same way once about feeding the post and b2b offense. Old habits die hard, I guess.

But the point of all of this is to say that Jay was looking for guys the the Top 25 really probably only accidentally had a few of, because of the obsolete eye test for Top 25 players.

Jay was looking for big strong Nike and Catholic leans that could zone guard and shoot the trey at each position. Duke and UNC and UK probably would not have ever recruited DiVincenzo, simply because of the eye test. Self would probably only have recruited him, if he were an in-state player.

What Jay has done critically depends on the swoosh on Nova's shoes. Only the Nike stable of players is deep enough to have an entire surplus team of sub 75ers eye-test failers willing to sign with a Nike school and let it play the offense and defense that Jay developed.

But think how many such Nike schools can emulate what Nova has done, even if KU cannot because of KU's adidas contract.

Shaka Smart and Jamie Dixxon and Chris Beard all should just trey-up and KU would never win another Big 12 conference title. Its that simple. If all three of them wsere adaptable enough to copy Jay Wright, then boom! KU would playing for second, or third each season in the conference. Post season? KU would soon be a perennial 2-6 seed.

Self has to keep going overseas for Svi Mikailiuks. He's got to find big and small trey guns. Self has proven he can find enough small trey guns domestically despite the shoe contract. Its the trey shooting bigs he is going to have the most trouble with.

May be KU can inject 6-4 to 6-6 trifectates with growth hormones and grow them up to 6-8.

In a few years, the eye test will change for the Top 25 and most of the great trifectates will be in the Top 25.

Self has often been at his best when his back is to the wall regarding the need to adapt. Certainly, this season he showed he is still the ranking genius of adapting to adversity and improvising tactics when strategy going in fails. I never worry about Self adapting to player adversity. I worry about him dragging his feet on the underlying principles of the game. The underlying principles do change from time to time, when new technology enters the game.

The jump shot.

The footer.

Five man trifectation.

And so on.

Gotta adapt again, or stop accepting invites to the Carney.

justanotherfan said:

The pace and space era has dawned. That's what the Warriors and Rockets have built. Spread the floor with four shooters and a PnR big man. Force the defense into impossible choices in space.

No, no, this is old think.

This is the idea that pace and space are what gets the points.

It is the reverse.

Pace and space is NOT the cause of the high percentage three point shooter.

The high percentage three point shooter at as many positions as possible is what makes pace and space work, or outside ball screening, or drive and kick, or what have you work.

Pace and space can be used to create driving as Self likes to do. But its futile to play pace and space if they are not going to call the fouls for the short treys. F.U.T.I.L.E.

The key is being able to score from anywhere on the floor in the high percentage three point range--anywhere that yield 3, not 2.

Two is a 1/3 stop...of yourself.

It is like blowing a 1/3 bunny.

This range is increasing. I could probably field a team of high percentage 3 point shooters at the NBA level that can pot the triceratops at 30-35 feet regularly and mix in a few out to 40 if we schemed for it.

Over time there are going to be three point shooting belts that various players will be recruited to and designated to shoot from.

Bigs will shoot corner treys.

Wings will shoot 25 to 30 footers.

Howitzer players will shoot the 30-35 footers.

And all will make 40-45%.

Specialization will come to trey shooting.

Certain guys will be best at coming off actions.

Certain guys will be do corner treys during pace and space, or in outside ball screening, or what ever else is invented.

Note: wait till some one with the brains of Tex Winter comes again and starts running the triangle entirely out in the different belts. It will just free up three point shots endlessly.

Every team will want both kinds of shooters and be able to run both kinds of offense in all the belts.

It is insane what will happen to traditional defense, when it has to guard two belts between 20 to 35 feet. The rules makers might even allow a 4 point basket for 40-45 footers. And as long range shooting emphasis increases we will eventually see dead eyes from 35-40 feet even without rules changes.

What we are talking about here metaphorically are the shells of an atom.

The ball and players will hop like electrons from shell to shell. Each shell will see different types of offense being run.

It likely will one day evolve to rebounding outlet passes and one pass to a guy quick released to receive the ball 40-45 feet from the basket to quick shoot an open look. That might become the most indefensible open look trey there could be.

Board rats have to understand that jump shooting mechanics are still mired in the 20th Century. We think either of set shots, or jump shots taken at the top of vertical jumps.

That will change.

There is no reason that a new kind of jump shot cannot evolve that de-emphasizes vertical jump and emphasizes horizontal/long jump; i.e, catching an outlet pass at mid court and one step jumping toward the basket from mid court to get the uncontested trey look. Imagine identifying the long and triple jumpers early and culling for the ones that can shoot. Then teach them to shoot "long jump" shots. This would be a version of a shooter that would shoot with accuracy from vastly greater distances.

We have barely scratched the surface of transfering jumping motion to forward direction to the service of long distance three point shooting.

Great leapers could do for three point shooting what they did for the lay up. They could turn three point shooting into a leap forward to use the angular momentum to become proficient at 40-60 feet.

This is all just about asking great athletes with good shooting eyes to do something differently, same as Hank Luisetti and a few before him asked great athletes to do something differently.

Absolutely no doubt in my mind that the 2-2-1 zone press would then have a resurgence. But then learning to run&jump shoot in the seams of the 2-2-1 would counter the counter.

It is such a great, GREAT game James Naismith invented.

It is the chess of athletics.

@jaybate-1-0

I agree that pace and space works because of three point shooting. Nobody is following Doke out to the corner if he goes there. Nobody is chasing Marcus Garrett off the three point line. The whole reason pace and space exists is because not everyone can get a big man like Doke, so you have to make his size a disadvantage.

Malcolm Gladwell, a remarkable writer, did a great book several years ago talking about the advantages of disadvantages. In the past, it was viewed as an advantage to be big and strong in basketball. Big men ruled. Mikan. Russell. Wilt. Kareem. Hakeem. Robinson. Shaq. Duncan. On and on, the way to win a title was to get a dominant big man and work from there. Count the rings among that list right there. It's a big number. Sure, perimeter players were great, including the former GOAT Michael Jordan, but there was nothing like having a great big man.

In the same way, Gladwell looks at Goliath and all of his perceived advantages. Big and strong. Heavy armor. A spear that could crush you. A sword that could take your head off. A large shield to deflect any blows. Taller, stronger and heavier than anyone out there. That was seen as an advantage because everyone imagined having to battle him in hand to hand combat, where his size, strength and armor gave him an overwhelming advantage.

But David saw something different. Where everyone else saw a literal giant too big and strong to be defeated, David saw an immobile, clumsy man weighted down with too much armor to ever hope to catch him. The fight was over before Goliath even realized it had begun. As Gladwell observed, David changed the rules of engagement. Rather than battle in close, hand to hand, David used his slingshot skills to perfection. Goliath never even drew his sword or cast his spear. The stone hit him before he had a chance to raise his shield.

Pace and space is the basketball equivalent of a sling and stone. It changes the terms of engagement. Mobility is prized over size and strength. But pace and space can also be beaten. Pace and space works so well because so many current coaches still adhere to old rules of engagement. They are still trying to fight hand to hand against teams with slings and stones (not an insult, by the way, because the accurate sling and stone guys are dominating right now). Rather than emphasizing rim protection, you have to emphasize line protection. The three point line must be protected and defended as closely as the rim was in the 80's and 90's.

No corner threes. That is today's equivalent of the layup. You cannot give up corner threes. Period. No exceptions. I repeat - NO CORNER THREES.

You have to funnel everything into the middle of the floor. This is why UVA's packline defense is so effective. The packline is designed to funnel things to the middle. But you can't do that without having certain other rules. When you funnel, you always help from the strongside wing. On PnR, you bottle the roller into the middle of the lane to prevent the guard from getting a straight line drive. Two through Four is an automatic switch on any PnR or Pick and Pop action.

You never help from the corner on any drive because that violates rule #1 (no corner threes). Push everything to the middle of the floor. Force threes from above FT line extended to the area between the circles, where you can extend your defense to force the longer threes.

But that all requires effort. You have to harass and cover tons of ground. Every pass has to be challenged to make sure guys aren't getting clean catches against a rotating defense. It requires depth. It requires a relentlessness.

That's the next shift. Offense is ahead of defense, but defensive minds will catch up. It's the constant push and pull of the game.

All new recruits must bring with them to campus:
1) Their own shiny new vehicle.

2) Their own girlfriend/wife/both.

3) A fake ID.

4) Enough cash to pay up front for however long they are staying in college,.

nuleafjhawk said:

All new recruits must bring with them to campus:
1) Their own shiny new vehicle.

2) Their own girlfriend/wife/both.

3) A fake ID.

4) Enough cash to pay up front for however long they are staying in college,.

PHOF