What's helped me get over losses is simply see the game from a coach's perspective. The quote from Darnell Jackson after UCLA knocked us out in the 2007 Elite8, sums it up for almost EVERY Tournament loss: "We didnt do/got away from what brought us here".
If we dont execute our season-long and nation-leading FG% defense, we are vulnerable. We just became any-ole-tourney-team-with-a-few-athletes if we dont execute decently. That defense, coupled with high%plays offensively can be dominating... especially against inferior opponents, but it also should keep you in a game vs a dangerous opponent.
When you dont do these two things, you just gave away the 'edge' that Self gives us.
The game tape doesnt lie:
Bucknell -- Seniors underperformed. Didnt execute Self's system, because they didnt buy into it fully. Langford admitted it 4yrs later. Bad chemistry between players and coach.
Bradley -- Lots of frosh. Who are prone to more outings with inconsistent execution of the system. Heck, they may not even fully know the system. Really cant expect that '06 team go too far in the Tourney...
UCLA -- Didnt execute the gameplan. Played D, got lots of strips/steals, but also GOT stripped and turned it over. If you recall, it was like KU vs UNC, except we didnt finish the bunnies/layups, mainly Rush+Chalmers. They learned. They played within the system the next season.
(Davidson/Memphis 2008..) -- NOT losses, but very well could have been. I put these wins here because they very easily could have been losses (the "Madness"..) --> this is to remind ALL of us that off-nights can happen to very good, sound teams (see AZ, FL, MichSt, Syracuse, WSU in the 2014 Tourney). That would apply to 97 KU also. Would Bill Self still be here if he hadnt won it all in 2008?
MichState -- Frosh heavy. Cole + Sherron, 2-man team. Twins get manhandled, and realized they were "soft". They changed that to their immense credit, and to Bill Self. We destroyed lesser opponents, as a dominant bigman + a dominant guard can get you far...but against a solid experienced and bruiser-type lineup like MichState, our weaknesses got exposed.
UNI -- Honestly, we didnt play D. Sherron did have a pulled groin, so was 80%. I'd buy that, as we all saw he didnt look like the same Sherron Memphis and UNC faced, nor the one Wille Warren got blasted into anonymity by. That UNI-Sherron went 0-6 from trey (and he was a trusted senior shooter, with a pure trey gun since Day 1 as a frosh), and also he got stopped by 6'6 tub-o-lard O'Rear. Man, people quit the angst about Ali Farokmanesh, a 6ft guard with no hops, and their "happy giant" Egelseder 7footer who hit 2 threes. Ask yourselves 1 question: Where is Ben Jacobsen now?? ...yep, back to anonymity in the brutal MVC (chuckles...). I dont see UNI's fairy-tale upset of a royalty program having done ANYTHING for their recruiting or national stature. I see the problem being Tyshawn, Sherron (perhaps excused), and Tyrel Reed NOT PLAYING DEFENSE. Come on, people, same old analytical fact comes up to bite us in the tail, and yet there is all this angst. Seriously, if you cannot beat a melting-pot hodge-podge team like UNI, you deserve to sit at home. E-s-p-e-c-i-a-l-l-y if you got a royalty program name on your jersey. Again: If you cannot do what made you 30+ great all season, in a game that counts, then you werent great enough to deserve to advance. Call this the Iron Law of the Tournament. Survive your off-night and advance.
VCU -- It seems that Shaka Smart did a fair amount with 1 set of recruits (Skeen, Rodriguez), but chose to stay, avoid high-profile pressure...and then has faded also: Got blown out of the Tourney in 2013 with a 25pt loss. So, what did that fairy-tale upset of KU do for Shaka? Did it help his recruiting? Did it enhance VCU's national stature? Umm...Im starting to think UNI and VCU are just George Mason-type flash in the pans. How about FloridaGulfCoast? Pull a couple of upsets, then disappear as soon as the arena lights are turned off. Oh, and in the meantime, Billy Self is busy recruiting, crafting Conf champs 8, 9, 10...and putting together a NC/Final Four run the year after VCU. The lesson of VCU is if our guys dont respect the opponent, or dont execute our D, and dont go for the high% looks, then we arent (in that game) who we "were" all season 30+wins long. Yes, KU was the overall 1seed...BUT, wasnt it this same 2011 team that "looked past" the Tennessee walk-ons and got embarrassed? So maybe that is the reason we didnt execute our 'vaunted' defense against VCU. You cannot say they were more athletic than us. Story of the game was: lack of D, Reed 1-for-7 trey (trusted senior shooter, but with bum foot), and Markieff's 6 t.o.'s. Marcus + Tyshawn showed up to play, but 2man teams dont get very far. Having an uberfrosh No.1 rated PG (Selby) at 80% with a bum foot also didnt help our depth or explosiveness either. It hurt because we saw weak Duke get an easy path NC, and I know our guys would get "up" for a name opponent. We would have destroyed Duke, and trash-talked them while doing it. I'm not sold on the "bad hubris" angle. Selby was snake-bit 3 ways (ncaa + 2 separate injuries), and this group of athletes tended to look past inferior opponents (Tennessee). Trash-talk all you want...if you can back it up. That is nothing new, ask Michael Jordan. I dont mind that swagger. Notice Self even said he didnt mind the trash talk "as long as we back it up on the court". We didnt execute our defense...& shot a bad%...AND turned it over = we lose. Dont look at the overall 1seed...look at the game tape of VCU, if you can stomach it. Sooo, so, so easy to see why we lost to an inferior, flash-in-pan team like VCU. Get over it.
Kentucky -- Our 2012 team had heart. Also a habit of starting off cold, and getting in big holes. They almost dropped the final Mizzoo game in AFH, but pulled it out, making it one of the best wins in KU history. Tyshawn + Elijah, god love them both (& I sorely miss both still), took us all the way. Starting 5 good as anybody, but no bench. What could have been if Yr2 Selby +/- Markieff were available? KYo getting his broken hand in his altercation with the 6'9 white kid from TX who then never played, and transferred due to "concussion"...surely didnt help our depth development. Nor did Selby, foolishly deciding to go pro? So that run ended, 3 missed dunks and 2 bricked FTs short. But they gave us wildly spectacular memories over OhioState, UNC, and Purdue.
Michigan -- A painful TEAM-FAIL lesson in NOT executing down the stretch. Oh, and everybody had a hand in that downfall...from EJ turning it over on the dribble and passing up the final layup, to BMac missing the pointblank baseline layup, Withey and KYo giving McGary that uncontested reverse layup, after a loose 50/50 ball, and Releford just absolutely disappearing the last 2:30. EJ also missed 1 (ONE) critical FT that would have put us up 4pts with less than 10sec (Burke's 3 wouldnt have mattered). The 10sec call on EJ was bogus, it was 8.5 sec. Tape doesnt lie, nor would Self call a bench TO, because he didnt think it 10sec either. Why would he call a timeout when we were trying to run off clock? Frankly, it came down to EJ not making 1 FT that gave Burke the opportunity.
Stanford -- Stanford upperclass, long team. Recall the packed in zone? Tarik held his own (18pts), but paid the foul price. 6'8 Ellis and 6'8 Traylor showed limitations to their game, with different analysis for each. I am sharply critical of Perry Ellis. Traylor? Not quite the finisher that Ellis can be...AND we get beat by EKY in the first round (yeah, Mercer-style. NorfolkState style) if Traylor doesnt go 18 & 15. Think about that, and realize this team was a season long aberration from true, dominating Bill Self basketball. The defense and toughness were just pitifully disgusting, with Wiggins and Selden being the most consistent bright spots, along with Traylor. Embiid showed enough glimpses to become an OAD, did enough things to tip the balance in KU's favor (mostly) on both ends of the floor...but once he was out, it would take a team effort, which was precisely why this team faltered. It didnt have an identity. And y'all saw the guardplay. Come on, we werent going far. Again, it took a superhuman effort by Traylor just to get this team past Eastern Kentucky, which was a 1 possession game with 2-3min to go.
We sat at home, exactly as we should have, since much, much better defense was being played by almost every team in the Elite8. "Only 25 wins" tells you this team had serious flaws, for a Bill Self team. Which tells us Self's best products are his 2nd, 3rd, and 4th year teams. Not a frosh heavy one. Even one with 2 of the top3 NBA picks. When Wiggins can score Durant-like 41pts (at WVU), but KU still loses the game...y'all know thats just not who we are.
Game tape and season-long stats tell the story. This year, we got felled by both. But because of the season-long trends, the Stanford loss shouldnt be such a shock, now should it? I'm NOT going to stroke fellow fans' hands like some girl and say "I know it hurts", because the truth of "why" is simply overpowering, and cannot be ignored. I know the players carry the loss with them forever, in a way us fans & alums simply cannot. Care to ask Sherron about UNI, or Collison about Syracuse? Or Reed about VCU? Or how about asking Thomas Robinson, Tyshawn, and Elijah about Kentucky...and coming that close? I think our players pay the ultimate price, as they get to carry that L forever with them, in a way that we never ever could. They will be running re-plays over and over in their memory...but the only kicker is that THEY are in the replay, not executing, not playing D, or failing at the FT line. I will, as a result, be 110% supportive of our past players. Their battles on the hardwood are over. I'll love all those Jayhawks forever, win or lose. I am less patient with fans (including myself). We need to just understand the reason for the loss, and look for corrections & improvement the following season. That's really all we can do. Nobody's team will win it every year. Part of being a fan, of even the winningest programs, is learning, within ourselves, how to handle defeat and learn from it.
My advice: Get ready to Dance next year. And the year after. And the year after that. Put Self's W% to work for your brain: If he gets in the NC game 4 times, odds are his system/team will win it over 75% of the time. We. Are. Due. But you got to build the machine all season AND never let off the pedal til you get to that final game.
RCJH! Is it October yet...
