Hunter makes another bunny...then good huslte.

Hunter gets on the board

Looks like Louisville will be the favorite to play in the final of the tournament.

@Crimsonorblue22 Who' s favored? We play the winner, correct?

Glorified practice at this point. Probably not even that with the talent discrepancy.

Rebounds:

Lucas 8

Ellis 6

Seldon/Mason with 6 each

Did everyone go to bed at half time? Seems warranted perhaps.

@SoftballDad2011 Love the full court press by Self and KU Admin on the NCAA. Sounds like some other schools may be rallying to the cause.

Would be interesting if some shoe contract analysis could be performed @jaybate-1.0

@wissoxfan83 Yeah, don't know what we'll learn from this: Neither from a player ability to play perspective, or from a Coaching philosophy perspective.

@wissoxfan83 yes, tight game pulled it out in the end.

Mason - 11

Seldon - 10

Svi = 9

Ellis - 6

Coaching a bball team in Hawaii must be a pretty tough gig.

@Crimsonorblue22 3 blocks total and he has 2 of them. Guess that's good. Still not sure that this game will mean anything from a stat perspective due to the mismatch in talent.

@Crimsonorblue22 He did...I think I called that out at the time.

@Eric-san don't think it proves anything due to the talent differential.

3 of 5 starters have 3 RB each and Jamari has the least at 1 with Graham having 2 already.

Lucas has 4

Why is Jamari starting?

11 assists on 13 baskets.

65% shooting

66.7% from 3

10 players in 1st 10 minutes.

@DCHawker If he had defensive breakdown, I'm good with subs as long as he doesn't sit indefinitely now. Rotate folks in and keep everyone fresh.

Guess my question is the pt rotation because of a change in thought or do to tournament play that will go away when regular season schedule kicks in.

First 10 minutes - 9 players have been in the game.

lots of subs

@Eric-san 18-16

Hunter in already. Svi an early sub. What's going on?

Self subbing for a 3 game in 3 day tournament, or bending to pressure?

@Crimsonorblue22 Guess I missed the substitution

So did Svi start over Seldon?

This may be a stat buster game. Jamari with at least 2 blocks already it looked like.

We lost the opening tip AGAIN. @Jesse-Newell what are we to make of that?

Let's get the game blog going.

@DinarHawk I picked it up!

@blackmild33 Outside of one or two, don't think anyone wants him to. Just make the adaptation to higher talent pool he started to get.

@drgnslayr Thanks and good to hear. I was wondering if position would make that much of difference.

So the Cheick is in the mail. If we get to cash it, what is the impact? Seems I read he was even more raw than Bragg from early practice sessions. How would he be different from having had NBA rookie of the year Andew Wiggins...where we lost a lot of game and were knocked out early?

While would love to get him eligible and playing, what is the impact?

@JayHawkFanToo yes, I am and it's not crazy. It puts the discussion in a realm that you have now accepted a paradigm shift to illustrate the point. The point of Kuhn's paradigm discussion focused around science is true of any discipline. Basketball included. New rules (3 pt line, shot clock), more athletic players, new eligibility reg's (OAD). All of those have impact.

The point of Newton v Einstein is that phsyics saw physical reality through a lens of Newtonian phsyics. There were anomolies not accounted for by Newton. The science world either didn't see them, dismissed them, or explained them away. Einstein crashed that and opened up new ways to view reality. Bill Self takes anomolies from his team and dismisses them: "we just missed bunnies and we'll do better"...you know he could say the same thing about missing 3 point shots in games...but he doesn't he takes a completely different approach and calls the 3 point shot "fools gold". How many times has fools gold ended our season?

One could argue that Calipari is doing that to college bball with his recruiting. One could argue and many have on this site that the 3 point line is becoming more integral to winning basketball with 3 points better than 2.

@dylans I don't buy the practice thing...last couple years I was fine taking the "let's enjoy the process" line when we were very, very young. This year, Self doesn't get that level of room to operate. We're experienced, we're talented, and we got a Summer to get a jump start on the rest of the college bball world.

It was squandered against a depleted MSU team and the things we thought Self learned this Summer are no where to be seen. What we do see is the same type of decion-making that has been our archilles heel year in - year out.

Yes, one game, but him tinkering within his system, making what is evidently poor player personnel and scheme decisions made this one loss decisive. No free pass this year.

FreeHunter #FreeGreene

@BeddieKU23 I think you missed that @AsadZ want's Self gone, not Greene.

@DCHawker You've hit it. We've reached a plateau (high desert) and Self needs to make a decision on approach to the game. The half in / half out usually doesn't bode well; you're not accepted in either camp and are left out in the cold. Our angst is seeing if he'll turn the corner or stay in the dead-middle.

@JhawkAlum They "traded" places with us the days they knocked us out of the tournament. So yes.

@Bwag Got myself reading these notes: So instructive whether science or basketball:

Chapter I - Introduction: A Role for History.

Kuhn begins by formulating some assumptions that lay the foundation for subsequent discussion and by briefly outlining the key contentions of the book.
A scientific community cannot practice its trade without some set of received beliefs (p. 4).
These beliefs form the foundation of the "educational initiation that prepares and licenses the student for professional practice" (5).
The nature of the "rigorous and rigid" preparation helps ensure that the received beliefs exert a "deep hold" on the student's mind.
Normal science "is predicated on the assumption that the scientific community knows what the world is like" (5)—scientists take great pains to defend that assumption.
To this end, "normal science often suppresses fundamental novelties because they are necessarily subversive of its basic commitments" (5).
Research is "a strenuous and devoted attempt to force nature into the conceptual boxes supplied by professional education" (5).
A shift in professional commitments to shared assumptions takes place when an anomaly "subverts the existing tradition of scientific practice" (6). These shifts are what Kuhn describes as scientific revolutions—"the tradition-shattering complements to the tradition-bound activity of normal science" (6).
New assumptions (paradigms/theories) require the reconstruction of prior assumptions and the reevaluation of prior facts. This is difficult and time consuming. It is also strongly resisted by the established community.
When a shift takes place, "a scientist's world is qualitatively transformed [and] quantitatively enriched by fundamental novelties of either fact or theory" (7).

@JayHawkFanToo Yes, and short of one or two saying he should go, the general context is for Self and us to take the next step...adapt to the changing environment.

For example, Newtonian physics was brilliant and explains lots of phenomena and issues, but then Einstein revealed that Newtonian physics didn't explain it all. Then Bohr and others even took physics further and blew Einstein's mind "I can not believe that God plays dice" or something like that. To praise Einstein is not to belittle Newton.

All were great authorities in physics. I highly suggest the following book: The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Kuhn which may be the most quoted book outside the Bible in the 2nd half of the 20th c. The link gives a good recap of the major issues around the power and shortcomings of paradigms and though referencing science is true of any field. http://www.uky.edu/~eushe2/Pajares/Kuhn.html ↗

Bottom line we all want to win and we've done a good share of it...but our failures have been spectacular. Self has waded into the realm of top tier talent recruiting, jury is out on his ability to mentally adjust to all that brings to personnel playing and scheming. The concern is that we may not be adapting to the changes in the game and may have become too inflexible.

@JayHawkFanToo No one said he was a poor coach. Reality is, like any leader, your strengths can be the seed of your own undoing. We all want to see him take the next step. The passion around this loss is due in part to what we saw at the WUG. The seeds of what could be an adjustment to take Self and our Jayhawks to the next level.

Do you think we will win it all this year playing Traylor/Lucas the majority of the minutes and reverting to what became known as bad ball?

Granted depending on BG's particular behavior the severity of the suspension is valid or not. My bigger concern is that Self is losing the war with his, is it fair to call it irrational, approach to player PT & offensive game planning.

It's similar to child rearing, when you have kids getting older and you find yourself having to mete out tough discipline (barring special instances and individual personal responsiblity considerations) you screwed up when the children were younger.

BG brings the immaturity and Self provides the environment for it to manifest.

@JhawkAlum don't disagree depending on what happened, which I don't know. But it IS STILL on Coach Self that he's creating an atmosphere and team dynamic that pushes players who should be playing to distraction with his irrational approach. Sure the players behavior may dictate the discipline, but when you, as the coach, have gotten to that point with players in the locker room that it comes to having to discipline like this, you've lost the war even though as Coach/Leader, you'll always win the battle because you have all the power.

@HighEliteMajor perfecty laid out the argument against Self's mis-aligned basketball paradigm in his most recent posting.

@HighEliteMajor Outstanding commentary. It is apparent that that Self's blind spot is huge. He wants to win, but his instincts betray him in classic Greek tragedy fashion. His great qualities will continue to keep him successful, but it seems he's hit his peak if he doesn't significantly change his ways of thinking and seeing. You've called those out perfectly. I'm particularly concerned as you are that comments post MSU game reveal Self's mind that he can continue to tinker and make slight adjustments and better luck in our performance to win.

I especially agree and like your take down of the "we don't see practice" argument. Practice is for games and games are where we see results or the lack thereof.

We'll continue to have success, but the shine is off in my heart and mind. The MSU game was critical. We're 1-4 now in the Champions Classic I think and this year we were the better team in everyway but when we played the game especially a lack of adaptation when MSU made their run in the 2nd. All the shortcomings were put on display for everyone to see.

@RockkChalkk agreed. He's looked more active.

@JhawkAlum Coach Self does manage playing time and I think he's screwing it up. Now more than ever, I attribute our big losses exclusively to him. He recruits players, coaches them up or not, and dictates style of play, and adjusts personnel / strategy to onging developments.

Last years loss to Kenucky was embarrassing, but they were a most talented team with summer playing (like we had this year). This years loss to MSU despite MSU's ranking is unacceptable. I personally think Coach negligently did not adjust personnel and strategy to close that game. He kept the horses in that weren't getting the job done. BG frustrated, Hunter M most likely frustrated, and as a fan, I'm frustrated. Seldon' has played sub-par most of his career here and yet seems immune to accountability.

@Bwag said:

@jaybate-1.0 we've never had Diallo. He too will be a Freshman when he gets on the court.

But could his be an indication. http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2015/nov/19/diallo-travel-maui/?sports ↗

@jaybate-1.0 we've never had Diallo. He too will be a Freshman when he gets on the court.

@DoubleDD but I read this article and it doesn't bring me hope:

http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2015/nov/18/self-sees-progress-looks-more/?sports ↗

Seems to me Self sees the missed short shots as an anomaly not a function of wrong personnel in the game. We'll see if min distribution and rotation changes. Depending on level of competition, rotation approach may be the best hint.

@DoubleDD let's hope the lesson gets through.