Good post, @jaybate !
How to beat long, strong and athletics?
First and foremost, don't back down! We backed down immediately in our game with Texas. We backed down against SDSU, too.
If we are going to point fingers at players, then the finger pointing has to start with our two "seasoned veterans"... Tharpe and Ellis. Both played like children on Saturday. Our freshmen are going to be freshman when faced with a tough challenge, and Texas was a tough challenge. Freshmen are looking to follow a leader, and they were looking for help from Tharpe and Ellis. And ultimately, the freshmen were looking for help from Self. He's the guy who has been through all of this before. He didn't seem ready for Texas anymore than his troops.
We are normally the LSA team in the pissing match. But this time we met a team that had some size (mostly width) and a "big dog" attitude. Anyone can play big with the right attitude. We still had athleticism and length over Texas... it just didn't seem like it by watching the game.
We came to Austin with no plan for playing Texas. Oversight? Yeah, I guess! Just read all the excuses made by the team now. They were not prepared to face Texas. That was a coaching problem. This loss you can hang on Self. Maybe he wanted the loss. It has the potential for helping "season" this team in the future. If we really wanted to win in Texas we would have made a plan for how to do it and we would have psyched up the troops before stepping on to their court full of rabid Longhorn fans.
How many humility-building losses is it going to take to teach this team? I'd say there isn't a number that will work, because I don't think humility is what this team is lacking. They have too much humility. This team could use some swagger. This team needs confidence. Home games don't build confidence. Winning on the road builds confidence. We just lost a bunch of it in Austin.
I don't like the strategy of coaching where you throw your boys to the wolves as a test. I think it is disrespectful to them as human beings. Give them every tool to fight the war. Treat every game like it is the final game and you put everything into it. That is the only way you can build a team with a brand "competitive." That is the Shocker way... and why they are able to fight back and cream a team that was shooting 80% from the field and up by 15 at half. They have done it at home and on the road. We can hate the Shockers as much as we want... but the Shockers represent the lesson we have not grasped. And they are doing it without a single McDonald's AA!
Tharpe is the perfect example of Jayhawk and why we will not win in March if something doesn't change. Tharpe is motivated. He has plenty of motivation. He has worked his butt off since coming to Lawrence. That's great and what we want. But he isn't tapping into his competitive inner self. If he had, he wouldn't have pulled off the gas in Austin on Saturday. He left all his talents and toolbox back in Lawrence. And the rest of the team followed. The exceptions were Selden, Embiid and Mason... three guys I had pegged before the game as some of our best competitors.
Tharpe is so close to being one of the best PGs in the country. He is so close, but far off. He has to find the competitor inside himself. This is starting to look like a replay of EJ last year. I love EJ and he'll always have a special place in my heart for giving up his natural position, reputation (and maybe future) for the good of the team. But EJ had the same issue with not being able to tap into his competitive self and use it consistently, every game. When he did bring it, he had games like what he did to ISU on their court in front of their insane crowd. That's what competitors do. There is no mountain too high to stop them from getting to the top.
Tharpe is extremely motivated... he just isn't being competitive.
In the old days, one way to push a kid to see if he "has it in him" was to kick his butt on the playground. I know it helped me because after taking a few punches I dedicated myself to never letting it happen again. I was motivated... and I was competitive. That later translated into everything where I was challenged by someone else... basketball, school, job...
I'm not suggesting we take Tharpe outside and flog him. But maybe we can find another way to take him into an unknown space that challenges him inside... on a deep level... to find his competitive nature.
The same goes for Ellis. How can we turn him from being a sheep to a tiger?
These two players are the key to what happens moving forward. Embiid played okay on Saturday. But he had to do it alone in the post. Texas teamed up to smash Embiid because Embiid didn't have Ellis with him to fight back. Ellis watched Embiid get his shots blocked. He should have been darting to an open spot in the post so Embiid could have made Texas pay for double-teams and overplaying him on his shot. Embiid was left on his own.
Same on the perimeter. For so much of the game I thought Tharpe was on the bench, when in fact he was on the court, being busy hiding. He wasn't fighting to create offense. He wasn't going to carry his share of the load on his back. He left our perimeter freshmen on their own to fight it out with a hustling Texas team.
It is easy to understand why we had 12 shots smoked by a shorter, less athletic team. All of our offense was one-on-one. No team offense.
Selden deserves a lot of credit. That guy didn't give up. That guy hates to lose. He fought to put points up on the board, even though he had to do it alone from the perimeter.
Same goes for Mason. Sure... he got his shot smoked sometimes. That still didn't stop him from trying. Mason knows only one direction... forward!
We are sitting at that crucial junction in the road, just like where we were last year with EJ and Tharpe. Do we keep Tharpe running the show? Because if we change now, we may take an extra loss or two but Mason will have time to develop a rhythm before March.
I don't know. I see Mason having so much more of the natural competitiveness in him that we need in March. He can drive the ball, and right now we don't have enough of that from the perimeter. He's a guy who can have his shot smoked 10 times in a row, and he'll still take it to the hole at full effort for number 11... the winning score!
On the other side of the fence... Tharpe is in the right position to lead this team. He's been barking leadership to his teammates all year. He may be a better outside shooter.
Then think about defense. Tharpe has not been a quality defender. He got burned by the Texas freshmen who ate his lunch. Can we really be a threat in March without decent PG defense? No... we can not! Mason has the hustle and the attitude to defend well, but still needs to polish his defense. There may be just enough time left in the year for him to do that if he can get enough PT between now and March.
The Texas game was not just a bad performance from our PG. It was an atrocious effort by our PG. He quit in the opening minutes and didn't compete. Competitors don't quit, especially at the beginning of games. There is no excuse. Motivation by itself will not rescue Tharpe this year. It will take more than motivation... it will take competitiveness!
I'm mixed on changing Tharpe out for Mason. I just wish Tharpe could resolve his issues.
Can Tharpe and Ellis find the natural competitiveness inside themselves and use it in our remaining games?
The entire season rides on that question.
