🏀 KuBuckets Archive

@HighEliteMajor

I saw 4 out 1 in versus MSU about 4 straight possessions during the first half, when Self was trying to get out the blocks quickly. Fewer consecutive possessions but more interspersed the first half versus UCLA, when again, Self sought to get out quickly. I don't recall Vandy early. I missed the early part trying to find a place to watch the game.

What I sense so far is that where as last season Self rather judiciously opened in the High-Low Passing Offense to feel out the other teams, find whether they were going to be packing the paint, or defending the trey stripe, doing both, and to get his young players through their early game jitters, and used to making some reads; this season Self has opted for the same kind of fast starts we saw in Korea (what I call Good Ball), where the ball comes up court quick, not fast, and someone is supposed to trigger quickly, anywhere from 10-15 seconds total including transition into the clock. It seems to be up to the players whether they will pop the trey, or drive it, but either way the idea is to seize the initiative early. As I said, I saw some conventional high low formations and some 4 out 1 in the early going, but either way, it was a quick trigger attack with more treys than drives. Not much action at all. No ball reversal. Just 1 or 2 passes and dribble and boom! This is where people are feeling a dribble drive offense, but I have not called it Dribble Drive because Self hasn't used any Ball Screening, which I consider pretty much structural (at least in my admittedly limited knowledge) to that Offense.

After 3-5 minutes of trying to quick trigger an early lead, then Self appeared to switch gears in all the games against the ranked teams except Vandy into defending the lead by switching to either conventional high low passing game, or Bad Ball, for 3-5 minutes of probing the other team's game plan. The last ten minutes of the halves of the games so far have been spent defending leads, because KU had leads to defend. And, except against MSU, when we shot so poorly down the stretch, its been pretty easy to defend the leads. 47% trey balling makes defending leads pretty easy, even when Self cuts back on how many treys we take from the quick trigger early going.

What remains to be seen, of course, is how Self will use the multiple offenses I have described, when the outside shooting is cold, as it cooled against MSU, and there is no lead to defend the last ten minutes of each half. Will Self have the gumption to quick trigger to close the gap and build a lead, or will he hunker down and BAD BALL his way back into the game?

It is going to be very interesting to watch.

@Lulufulu

The Most Uneasy Indicator: its a toss up for me between how few blocks and alters we have seen, and the fact that we are shooting 47% from trey after 5 games.

Teams need to be able to block and alter opponents at least some to keep the opposing shooters from getting too confident, especially inside, and so far we just aren't a threat this way. The more this anemic blocks stat persists, the more other teams are going to begin going inside and staying inside on us. This will lead to higher shooting percentages for them, and more fouling for us. We can afford to foul inside, because we have so many post men playing minutes for us. But it is very tough to give an opponent a lot of short threes and expect to be a big winner.

But the other uneasy indicator is that KU has shot over 50% from trey twice recently this season, if I recall correctly. And I checked the latest stats and KU is shooting 47% from trey over five games so far this season. It means we will probably be shooting back to average for awhile now. I just do not expect that this entire team can average 47, or even 45% from trey for a season. 40% is about max and 39% seems more likely, even with all of our good shooters. Another concern embedded in that fine early shooting is anecdotally speaking what seems a more than typical volatility in swings in our shooting. KU shoots 50-60% one game after shooting 20%. Again, I haven't plotted the shooting percentages each game, nor calculated a volatility stat. But it feels more volatile than usual. High volatility makes it even tougher to win on your off shooting nights. For example, if we had shot 35% instead of 20% ag% ainst MSU, we might have won that game. And shooting 50-60% was hardly necessary to win the games we won.

The Most Optimistic Indicator: The silver lining for me so far this season escaped my recognition for awhile. But its this: versus a solid and ranked MSU team, with two fine D1 impact players in Valentine and Costello, KU lead 30 minutes and hung close in single digits at the end, while shooting only 20% from trey; that is frankly much more impressive to me than KU blowing teams out when shooting > 50% from trey. To me this means we can learn to beat some good teams on our off shooting nights, if we can just reduce our volatility a little.

@HighEliteMajor

I did not recall Jackson had rebounded well, or done anything will before the last season. I recalled Him as one of Roy's recruits who had not panned out as hoped for Self. Thanks for calling that rpm stat to my attention.

@Lulufulu

You r getting me geeked up!

@HighEliteMajor

I agree that Traylor would have to show something he has not yet shown to reach the same level as Jackson. And yet Jackson had also shown little promise his previous years.

Traylor is not who we hoped for at the 5. And yet with him as part of the composite 5 the 5 averages a double double with low TOs against ranked teams early. We would have killed for an OAD, or a 5 star, that could have stepped in and done that. We were viewing Diallo as our savior even projected raw and mostly only able to board and block.

The real question is will Traylor grow nonlinearly into his great opportunity as Jackson did, when Kauns knees did not heel. Or will all the composite 5 grow together? If they each grow just 1 Ppg and 1 rpg, they would be at something like 14 and 14. Traylor taking over the 5 seems improbable. But ech improving 1 Ppg and 1 rpg, even without Diallo, seems feasible in one season.

What OAD or 5 star could likely average 14/14 with low TOs his first season. Not many. As we agreed in. Another thread, blocking maybe wanting, but maybe that will rise with a bit more Mick and some added Diallo.

Hope springs eternal in small increments.

@drgnslayr

2020 hindsight is not always reliable, but in the rearview mirror it increasingly looks like Alexander sat and trailer played, because Alexander was probably never going to be available down the stretch .

@Second-Prize

No one is hating on Traylor IMHO, even when they ARE being caustic in their assessments of his limited productivity.

To site a player's limitations is merely mastering the obvious.

Traylor can't hold the jock strap of even KU's middling centers in a player to player comparison of productivity in almost all aspects of the game and this is a fact.

But here is simultaneous truth, something you profess well, when one shears from your pos your hating accusations.

The truth of your post is that teams need different things from different players and not all of what is needed by a team falls into that measured quantitatively.

There are things needed by a team, like toughness, will to survive, energy, explosiveness, that don't measure and record well in discreet variables.

Looking back to 2008, there were many that were sure that KU could not be competitive with Darnell Jackson starting at the 5; that he was too short of height and talent not to be dominated and exploited eventually, even when backed up by Kaun. They said the same of Kaun. In particular, I doubted Kaun's ability to contribute because of his knees.

But in the end, a key ingredient of that 2008 ring team was the competitive greatness and will of Jackson and Kaun.

Right now, of all the players, and despite all of his troubles with focus and consistency, and moodiness, everyone on that team knows that Jamari Traylor has ALREADY been through hell and survived. Whatever his numbers read, he has never folded for Self, never said he was too injured to go, never made excuses for his lack of productivity, and his struggles to overcome his own limitations at the positions Self has put him in. He has just kept coming, however inadequately he has performed. That will, that determination to just keep coming, to just keep getting knocked down and getting back up, that will not to quit when everything seems against his possibility for success at this level, as so many point out so often, THAT WILL TO GO ON AGAINST ALL ODDS, that must be what Self wants from Jamari Traylor, what Self thinks is the most important missing ingredient among his other talents starters, and what he thinks could be the difference between being a very good team and a champion.

We all may doubt Self's judgement on this, and we all may cite Traylor's tiny productivity numbers, but in the end we all know that champions possess this quality in spades, or they do not become champions. Self is gambling a lot on Traylor this season, but it may be that Traylor is the one guy with sufficient quantities of this quality to make the difference for this team, if only he can get his productivity numbers up some.

@phoghawk33

If you want to see Brandon Rush's true athletic greatness, watch him before his knee injury in games when he was being asked not only to carry the team offensively, but then reassigned from his man at the 3 to guard someone like Kevin Durant, or some more mortal basketball player.

Like all great players, Rush seemed completely undaunted by requests by Self that ordinary players would never have considered within the realm of possibility. Against an all time great like Durant, Rush could not stop him, but he could slow him just enough to give KU a chance. Against merely very good players at the 2 and 4, Rush would lock them down almost instantly. NO defensive assignment was too daunting for Self to assign him, while also asking him to keep scoring, keeping being the saddle the team rode. It was the greatest tribute Self has ever paid a player. Self, the supremely demanding defensive coach that prided himself on every player on his defense being able to guard his position, never hesitated to send Brandon Rush into the jaws of defensive disaster to save the day. Deep down, Self knows Brandon was the best Self Baller ever. Wiggins had more XTReme Athleticism, but not the physicality of Rush. Wiggins could dominate an opposing team with scoring and defense, but he could not orchestrate a team--could not both carry it on his back and play so that everyone else could get in sink with him. Teammates watched Wigs, they did not play with him. And Brandon did all of this as a freshman. Wigs could have done it by his second or third season, but there was no second or third season. And in the final analysis, Rush hung an NC banner at the end of the field house and Wigs did not.

Here is what great esteem I hold Rush in. I am a huge fan of Mario Chalmers. But that 08 team could have lost Chalmers and Rush might have been able to take up the slack and move forward for a ring. Chalmers could not have replaced Rush's loss--not against a great team for all the marbles. Rush had to take over some of Mario's men on defense from time to time through ought Mario's career. The reverse NEVER occurred. Together they were a nearly unbeatable combination that last season, once everyone else got the skill, ball protection and experience needed. But that team was the KC Kool Jazz Quintet and there was just one band leader cool enough to lead that jazz band: Brandon Rush. He was the hub of that team even as he rehabbed early in the season. Self put the team out on the floor and made it play exactly as it would, when Rush was sufficiently rehabbed. Self had no doubts about who was the crucial piece of THAT team. They two didn't see eye to eye. Brandon at that age could not reciprocate the trust and respect for Self the coach that Self the coach felt for Brandon the Player. It was an unstable relationship for that reason. And Self is not a man that forgets easily, or backs down. Brandon's jersey will hang in that field house one way only. Self will never back down to Brandon. EVER. It is a matter of the KU tradition, not just personal principle, or even just a struggle of two wills, which it most certainly is. Brandon will, like Wilt, finally have to come back and knuckle under to the KU tradition. He will have to go through enough life to one day come back an mean "Rock Chalk Jayhawk," as surely as even the greatest player in the games history finally did. There is something bigger here than anyone man, something bigger than the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune faced by anyone man, no matter how great the evil, or how vast the pettiness, involved. When one comes to Kansas, one is joining Basketball Tibet and Basketball Vatican and Basketball Oxford rolled into one. It is a living myth--a living tradition--one that transcends ALL who play and coach here. It goes on. NONE is bigger than it. Not because no one can be. Clearly Wilt went on to greater greatness afterwards. In all likelihood Andrew Wiggins will, too. But the myth lives here, now, and always. And the living myth, which asks none subordinate to it, also insists none ordinate to it. It exists as a continuous river and like all rivers, no one can be greater than the river without killing the river. There are dead rivers. The Chicago River is one. It now flows backwards and not into the lake. Its soul is gone and without it the City of Chicago labors in a kind of mythological purgatory, awaiting the restoration of its natural river it knows must be righted but believes never will be. The Owens Valley in California has existed in mythological death since its desiccation by the southward diversion of it to Los Angeles. The Colorado River south of the Arizona-California line verges continuously on another--desiccated from diversions, so that it is barely a trickle entering the Sea of Cortez. The living myth of Sonoran Culture will one day right this wrong, but until then, Sonoran culture exists in a wounded existential realm.

KU Basketball is a small living myth in comparison to the great living myths intrinsic to the still living rivers, and to those neutered ones mentioned above. But it is no less real and magical in the culture that it regenerates and enables those placing themselves beside and within its waters to live beyond the secular and religious suffering of this world.

Greatness recognizes its own limits finally.

Wilt Chamberlain, the greatest, did.

Brandon Rush one day will.

In some ways his journey is even more complicated than the one Wilt strode.

He gained the ultimate ring that was possible, what even Wilt Chamberlain could not do. And so Brandon asks even more painfully, what is it you want from me that I did not already give?

Wilt apparently asked this question resentfully for many years, unable to forgive the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune and prejudice during his time on Mt. Oread.

Wilt apparently could not for along time look past the simple, parochial outward appearances and behaviors of the town and university that he chose, so as to connect with the deepest well spring and river of the greatest game ever invented.

But in the end, once he had found all that he had ever quested after, in all the ways his brilliant mind and gifted body had enabled him to quest, after he had encountered, attempted and mostly conquered all in all the world's great cities and in the world's great paradises, there remained an unquenchable thirst in him--to drink one last time, and so forever after, from the one living myth he had ever encountered in his remarkable life--the one living myth he had turned his back on out of his experience of the wrong those imperfect mortals around it had done him, and out of bitterness that his own failures within the mythic river that been left to him. He was one of the greatest renaissance men of the 20th Century by any measure of such a term. He was so much beyond just a great basketball player. But finally even Wilt said to drink again among my fellow men and women from the waters of the one living myth I have encountered on this mortal coil matters more than all the wrongs done me, and the bitter failure I encountered. And it asks only that I return and drink again. And when he did, the great man wept, as I do typing this, and said humbly, "Rock Chalk, Jayhawk."

This Brandon Rush will one day have to do. And he will have to do it before, or after, his jersey is hung at the end of the Monarch of the Midlands.

And until he does it, he will not have taken the final step that all great must take. To step back down and rejoin the living myth they emerged briefly from.

Rock Chalk, Jayhawk.

Just between us, Harrison Barnes couldn't hold the jock strap of a Brandon Rush with two good knees. Rush is one of KU's all time greats--the best between Danny Manning and Andrew Wiggins and it's a crime his jersey is not up there with Chalmers'. No Rush, no ring. He was so great he could lead a team to a ring on one bad leg. Rush on two good legs would have made just as big of an impact on the NBA as Wigs. Rush was a giant talent!

@Crimsonorblue22

Dauster seems smarter after we discipline him with winning! 😄

London, 20:11:31 GMT, 30 November 2015

SI-5 Memo

TO: all 00 agents and staff of the Sports Intelligence Ministry

FROM: J

RE: SPECTRE Basketball Complex

Agent 0014 will now be our man in college basketball. Evidence from the BIA in Lawrence has finally surfaced that Ernst Stavro Blofeld's number 2, Emilio Largo, has been the mastermind behind a SPECTRE front organization prosaically named the Big Shoe-Big Agent Complex by the colonials in The BIA, but which actually goes by the name COIL which stands for collegiate organizational influence and leverage. Largo's COIL is an a insidious application of SPECTRE business and terror techniques to the quaint but increasingly revenue positive game of college basketball, wherein a popular sport that has given the plebes a stiff upper in a lot of tough times is taken over at the organizational level and turned into a SPECTRE front organization for enabling SPECTRE Gaming, Drug and Pleasure Services to Insinuate themselves and compromise key officials in order to let the activity be used as a conduit for SPECTRE pursuits in many related fields damaging to her majesty's interests. 0014 has been assigned to infiltrate COIL determine its current reach, and kill Largo, once the full breadth of COIL's operational reach can be determined. The BIA has pledged full cooperation.

Brandon is maybe the best guy not starting in the NBA.

If Chita State is not good enough make the tourney and let us beat them into flour there, then let's offer to replace Washburn with Chita State in exhibition and beat them by a hundred points!

SELF’S RECENT THIRD EVOLUTION: ADAPTING IMPACT ATHLETICISM TO A SHORTENED SHOT CLOCK AND WIDER LANES

In Korea, Self was confronted perhaps serendipitously with play under international rules just a few months before a news season of D1 was about to start using a 30 second clock and a wide lane. In short, Self got to experiment with the 24 second clock to be used in the WUGs, and experiment with the wide lanes used in WUG. What Self evolved was a 3 point, quick-trigger offense which followed quick trey attempts by using his modestly talented big men in a high mobility, horizontal front court game in which the game became less about leaping high for rebounds and more about running across wide lanes to get position for either grabbing the rebound, or swatting it to keep it alive for another teammate. Self ran relatively little high-low passing offense and almost no BAD BALL in Korea. Instead he focused what I have just described and what I nicknamed GOOD BALL. GOOD BALL was wildly successful in Korea and KU won the WUGS with it.

SELF’S NEW SYNTHESIS: MULTIPLE OFFENSES 2.0 FOR THE 21ST CENTURY

Back in the last century, around 1964 to be precise, Larry Brown brought Dean Smith the High Low Offense Henry Iba had invented for the Olympic games. Dean had been running Bruce Drake’s Oklahoma Shuffle. Dean fell in love with the High Low Post Offense, but did not want to give up some of the better choreographed plays in the Oklahoma Shuffle. Dean and Larry had the inspiration of plugging these “actions” into the high-low, so that you got the best of both. Passing offense was used to move defenses to create the impact spaces needed for shooting or driving, and intermittently, actions could be run out of one of the impact spaces. The net effect was to keep a defense continually uncertain of what was coming: passing offense, or action. At the same time, Dean was picking up on John McClendon’s recent innovation of the four corner offense for stalling, aka defending a lead. Pretty soon Dean had a passing offense, lots of actions within it, and a four-corner stall that also had some actually offensive potential with a top point guard scoring in isolation off the dribble, or dishing to a surprise cut by one of the players on the four corners. Dean had to figure out what to call all of what he was doing. He called it Multiple Offenses and shortly wrote a book about it with Multiple Offenses in the title.

Bill Self in the 21st Century, has done something similar to what Dean did in the 20th Century. Self has strung the high low passing offense with the actions on na offensive necklace with two other beads: GOOD BALL and BAD BALL. God only knows what Self will call it. Until he writes a book to explain, I will call it Multiple Offenses 2.0 for the 21st Century, or MO2.0 for short.

Even in this young 2015-2016 season it is apparent where Self is going. He opens in one of these, and then cycles through the others over the course of the game situationally. Which one he usually opens with seems in a discovery in process to him and to us.

High-Low Passing Offense with and without action, and eventually with a weave: a good scheme for feeling another team out to find out what they are running. This is good for making a team work on defense, and burn up their energy budget sliding with the ball motion and with the weaves. It is good when you are wanting to use of the shot clock before shooting. Fans say same old same old. Opposing coaches seem to dread it. They talk about Self High-Lowing them to death.

Good Ball: a three point first, quick trigger offense followed by lots of big man motion across the new wide lanes, usually initiated from a 4 out 1 in formation, that creates quick leads, and stresses the opponents big men by getting them moving away from the basket. This seems to be what Self runs first, when he wants to jump out of the blocks early on a strong opponent. It seems to set a quick tempo. Fans love it. Opposing coaches same to get caught off guard by Self resorting to a quick trigger offense.

Bad Ball: if the refs are calling a tight game, and if your perimeter guys have a step on the opposition, this is a great way to get the short three and foul up the opposing team’s bigs early on. Played 4 out 1 in with Perry a driving stretch 4 against most teams guaranties Perry getting the opposing team’s starting 4 fouled up quickly. By collapsing the impact space and jumping into opposing players the fouls come fast and furious, or the easy buckets do.

So: MO2.0 puts a tremendous defensive recognition stress on opposing teams. Each time down the floor the opponent has to figure out: passing offense with or without action; Good Ball, Bad Ball, which’ll it be.

And Self has thoughtfully arranged to have KU’s players always line up in a 3-2 formation, or a 1-4 formation, or a 4-1 formation, or a 1-3-1 formation, and then be able to shift as the ball comes up court into any one of the other formations not used and then run all three kinds of offense from all the different formations.

And the beauty of it is, the players really only have to learn three very rudimentary offenses despite the several formations.

Guys do not have to be rockets scientists to player this way, nor is experience an absolute prerequisite. It helps for sure, but Calipari would tell you that experience helps in the Dribble Drive, too. Experience helps in everything.

It will be very interesting to see how many coaches start aping MO 2.0 lock, stock and formation.

Go, Bill, go!

The best antidote to Self’s game so far is Tom Izzo’s approach. He comes in with well drilled, strong, tough players trained to stay on spots, and knock opponents off theirs. He usually has stronger, heavier perimeter players than Self. He usually has thicker, more pugnacious bigs than Self. Izzo’s guys don’t have to be flexible enough to play it anyway they want. They are, like John Wooden’s players always were, hand picked to play it exactly one way—Izzo’s way, no matter what. All that being the case then, Izzo’s team’s eliminate Self’s advantage in flexibility. And they try to eliminate Self’s teams edge in athleticism by keeping it a half court game, but bodying a lot, by keeping things physically close on the court, and by scheming to neutralize Self’s best impact players, and to attack his weakest defenders. Only Izzo could see how to easily stop KU’s bullish but explosive point guard. Izzo put a lug of a post man and his own bullish point guard on Collins at the top of the circle and suddenly Collins could not use his usual strength and weight advantage to scrape off his man and drive the lane. If he went right, the point guard was hedging his right. If he went left, his weak hand, the lug of a post was hedging his left. If he went in between, they doubled him. If he tried to pass to the man the post was supposed to be defending rolling down the lane, Collins was too short and too limited in his passing skills to lob it accurately to the post man. Collins had not seen this simple adjustment before. He could not adapt in the moment. Suddenly all of Self’s advantage in playing it anyway Izzo wanted, vanished. 15 KU points vanished in frustration. Suddenly the drive couldn’t make explosive plays driving, and he had to pull back and shoot from 2-3 feet deeper to get the ball off. Even Self’s teams can’t win without the initiative and with their best player handcuffed and no clear matchup advantage elsewhere. Many coaches try this on Self, but most lack the keen sense of Self’s teams jugular and the kind of players needed to slit it, and the deep well of confidence to press on relentlessly…to maintain the attack despite the relentless KU defense…to equal him defensively…to take away the one or two players KU needs to score to win. Mostly, Self’s approach works. And when it doesn’t, especially against an Izzo, you can see him tweak the team roster to include someone at some position that could have countered what was done to it, rather junk the multiple offense he uses. Self sees problems mostly in terms of personnel unable to execute without match up advantage. A taller guard might have been able to handle what Izzo did to Collins, so taller guards followed. But taller guards have their own Achilles heels, so you have a guard rotation with long and short guards, same as you have big man rotations with long and short bigs. There have to be two guards able to handle, when an opposing coach decides to scheme to stop one guard. When a wing three or a wing two do not match up outside, a stretch 4 has to come out and take up the attack on the perimeter. And so on. If you are committed to playing it anyway they want, you have to have not only players, but combinations of players that can play it anyway they want and take what remains after they take something away. Other things equal, Self would rather use another player to take what they give us, than run ball screens and fade curls to shake a player loose that they are scheming to stop. On defense, he is pugnacious and willing to engage in help ONLY AFTER players prove they can guard their own positions without switching. Defense is a mano a mano and team a team game of diking and channelling the enemy to the middle of the court, where he is outnumbered and strangled…of being willing to track him down and corner him no matter where he goes and no matter how he gets there. Offense is a game of water following paths of least resistance…of flowing through the cracks of what is given.

Only Self could say for sure where this freakishly systematic philosophy and approach (tendency is perhaps more accurate, since he appears to vary from it occasionally, when expedient) to coaching and playing basketball came from. His mentors and their mentors certainly suggest some paths for fruitful research of the mystery, but for this exploration of Good Ball and Bad Ball ,explaining how he came to be this way is an unnecessary digression. Suffice it to say that this is observably over the long term how he approaches most games and seasons and that exceptions have so far merely acted as proofs of the rule.

SELF’S RECENT SECOND EVOLUTION: ADAPTING IMPACT ATHLETICISM TO TIGHTER FOUL CALLING

After coaching through a career long progression towards a more and more physical game, with only one or two seasons in which refs were told to clean it up, Self finally experienced acute tightening of certain kinds of foul calling and watched his tenaciously physical defense wither in a flurry of fouling.

Self’s solution to a more tightly called game hardly seemed an innovation at first. It seemed like not much more than looser defense and more driving the ball. The drive ball he appeared to adapt from Bo Ryan who had had success with it in the always physical Big Ten. But then Self took Bo’s Drive Ball to a whole new level. Self turned it into not just a couple guards driving but everyone driving from everywhere on the floor. Further, Self seemed to turn offense on its head. In the midst of the ascendant three point shooting era, Self said trey balling was fools gold and instead told his good shooting trey ball team to play almost exclusively for the “short three”, i.e., driving for two and a FT, from every where, all the time. The Carolina Passing Offense was largely jettisoned except for short feel-out stretches at the beginning of each half to gauge what the opponents new wrinkles would be. That really threw the three-loving fans a painful curve. But he didn’t stop there. Long a proponent of using ball movement instead of picks and screens, to create impact space for shooters to either shoot or drive in, Self then did the nearly unthinkable: he had his players drive “into” their opponents. It became a process of collapsing impact space so as to heighten the probability of being fouled in the act of shooting, or even just in the act of driving itself. This was not totally unprecedented for skilled guards to do intermittently. But until last season, no one had ever seen an entire team engaged in driving to collapse impact space to get the short three. It was XTReme by all measures. Tightened foul calling was one trigger. But another was a flurry of injuries the reduced virtually all of his team to walking wounded playing through. In retrospect, it was likely that the guys couldn’t have stretched the impact space even if they had wanted to, due to injury and so collapsing the impact space became the feasible if outrageous alternative. Most were appalled by it. But Mr. Run and Shoot from 4 out 1 in Fred Holberg saw the terrible beauty of it immediately and adapted in the post season tournament. Many others around the country saw it and adopted it also. If imitation were the sincerest form of flattery, Self must have been pretty flattered by the end of the tournament, when even Ryan himself seemed to see the new edge of the envelope that he had started, and got everyone on his team of fine shooters driving from everywhere, as well. So long as foul calling remains tight regarding the ball handler, it pays to have everyone putting it on the deck and driving it to the basket that possibly can.

SELF’S ADOPTION AND DEVELOPMENT OF DEAN’S AND LARRY’S MULTIPLE OFFENSES

Self’s offense is NOT and never has been limited to the High Low Offense, any more than Dean’s or Larry Brown’s were, though he probably plays more of a pure version of that than some other coaches that run some High Low. Self has always been a huge advocate of recruiting players that can make plays in impact space created by passing, rather than picking. Only with an exceptionally gifted, multidimensional scorer like BenMac, does Self commit over a season to running plays specifically to shake a designated player loose.

What Self runs and has always run is Dean’s Multiple Offenses, which is cornerstoned on ball movement offense originating out of a high-low post formation. Self’s teams have always alternated between the passing offense and running tightly choreographed actions out of one position or another. The longer his teams play together the more variety of plays, or actions, are used. There is, contrary to popular belief, Self’s multiple offenses create a lot of recognition problems for defenses. They never know whether KU will be in passing offense mode, or in choreographed play mode. He does either out of the same formations some times, and then varies formations sometimes and does the same thing. Self’s two post men execute almost every kind of action conceivable over the course of a game in the paint in search of what works and what is being given. Outside Self has shown a strong preference most of his career not to screen, or ball screen much, but when he has post men that are threats to score, and perimeter players that can dribble, pass, and shoot well, he definitely has played extended pick and roll out of his High Low Formations, which is a suspension of High Low post play.

SELF’S EMBRACE OF EDDIE SUTTON’S TAKE WHAT THEY GIVE US AND EXPANSION OF IT INTO PLAY IT ANYWAY THEY WANT

Sutton clearly impressed Self with 70-point take what they give us, which was a defining characteristic of Iba’s four disciples immediately preceding Self’s generation of coaches: Don Haskins, Jack Hartman, Eddie Sutton and selfs own college coach, Paul Hansen. Hansen was the least successful of these Iba disciples, but the philosophy of ball was quite similar to the others. Control tempo at a 70 point rate and take what they give us. But Hansen did not have great players generally speaking and made do with scrapping defense, ball protection and patience on offense at a time when offensive basketball was going athletic and faster paced. Sutton could get get the impact players, and some big men, and showed Self how to play the Multiple Offense way with guys that could “make plays” from the perimeter and grind in the post. But its important to make clear that take what they give us is NOT the same as play it anyway they want. Eddie Sutton’s teams tended to play under control. Tempo was geared to enable 70 point take what they give us. Self clearly embraced the concept, but expanded on it.

SELF’S EARLY FIRST EVOLUTION: PLAY IT ANY WAY YOU WANT

Highly competitive men appear to come in two flavors: the kind that want to dominate you by making you do what they want you to do; and the kind that want to dominate you however you want to dominate them. Both types of coaches employ more, or less, deception as they walk these two paths. But the biggest common thread among both types is that neither likes his team to compete on its heels, as it were. Seizing opportunities and “making plays” is common to both types.

Most college basketball coaches I can recall have appeared to fall in the former category.

But Bill Self, perhaps because of his personality, and perhaps because of his brief early time under the opportunistic, improvisational, and feisty Larry Brown, plus a reputed long term relationship with Brown after his brief year working for him, may have developed what still appears Self’s unusual predilection for liking to beat opponents playing the way they like to play, at least until his sticky defense convinces them that won’t work, and they shift gears to find another way to beat him. And its at that point that Bill Self shifts gears with them and plays better than them at the way that is their second preference for a means of attack.

This play it anyway they want philosophy works largely because Self, unlike most coaches, apparently coaches his teams to learn to play many ways. KU’s players are drilled in 70 point take what they give us. They are drilled in the running game. They are drilled to muddy it up and play half court grind games. They are drilled to play various tempos. And in games, they tend to come out in one of these modes aimed at a game with a tempo likely to end in the 70s only to shift gears into playing whatever tempo the other team tries to impose, and focuses on trying to beat them at that tempo, rather than trying to dictate a different tempo, or style of play. Play rough and KU plays rough. Play finesse and KU plays finesse. Run and KU runs. Slow down and KU slows down. There is not much energy spent and scheming done to force teams to play it KU’s way in any conventional sense of that term. Rather, KU’s way is every way, so an opponent never takes one out of KU’s comfort zone. Rather, they just find that they may have advantages in one kind of game, or another, that KU lacks the skills and athleticism to cope with. Its at that point and only at that point that Self will slow down, or squirt ahead. But for all the varieties of tempos and for all the varieties it will try in its offensive attacks, the end of most KU games under Self seems finally best characterized by 70 point take what they give us. It is a basketball equivalent of being a counter puncher in boxing, both waiting for an opening for a KO, but also being willing to settle for a decision on points. Opponents try this, and KU counters with the same. Single-minded coaches stick to one strategy, and Self matches up with it and the opponent grows frustrated playing it exactly as he intends to without pulling away. The frustration is palpable on the opposing coaches’ faces. They are doing exactly what they want, but KU’s defense is stuffing them and on the other end, KU plays at the pace they set and take what the opponent gives them, and hangs close and then pulls away some. Other coaches that take pride in flexible strategies, try one approach awhile, then another approach, then another. Each time Self’s defense adapts and stifles the changed approach being dictated. Each time Self plays the same tempo on the other end and takes what they give him. Each time, or at least 82% of the time overall, Self’s team hangs in, then separates. Eventually the opposing coach grows frustrated with changing attacks and settles on something that Self has already seen and defended earlier in the game. Each time, or 82% of the time, Self uses defense to default the game into an equilibrium strategy (the pattern of play that begins to recur in two player games when both opponents have moved and counter moved to the point that one or the other has exhausted the other’s opportunity set of counter moves, and both settle into a single, final pattern of play that leads to the outcome of play) the opposing team is either doing what it likes to do unsuccessfully, or doing something less preferred without success either. In short, opponents wind up out of their comfort zones and KU, because it has been coached to play it anyway they want, while it may not be operating at a peak level, is nonetheless operating more effectively than the opponent. And in this equilibrium strategy mode, Self then call a few opportunistically scripted plays here, and there, and then wait for his impact players to “make plays” to close out the game. On hot shooting nights, Self’s teams blow teams out, but otherwise, the object is to win in the seventies by 10-15 points and leaving the other coach not quite sure how it happened yet again.

MULTIPLE OFFENSES 2.0 (THE BETA SEASON)

(Author here: RIP/DFW—I took the time to write this down in request for a small tutorial on BAD BALL recently by the ever estimable @HighEliteMajor. I realized I had said most of what I had to say about BAD BALL in isolation previously, so I decided to clarify it by placing it in a broader context. One more point to make clear before jumping off—I have not exhausted all the types of offense in use in my analysis. Rather I have cherry picked among them that seemed most useful in characterizing the major varieties of offensive attack.)

Several board rats saying they didn’t see Bad Ball in the Vandy game made me realize two things: 1.) Bill Self is evolving the schemes that my concepts refer to; and 2.) my definitions of Good Ball and Bad Ball are still to squishy to be useful.

@HighEliteMajor kindly asked me to clarify, so I will try with the caveat that the scheme IS evolving.

To get at useful concepts, I first have to define offense in basketball, second, define two broad categories of offense in basketball, third, establish Self’s High-Low, Carolina Passing Offense (SHLCPO) in a context of categories of basketball offense; and fourth distinguish between the two categories of SHLCPO that Self seems to me to be evolving towards.

To reduce the burden on readers, I am going to minimize my usual digressions into basketball history and just try to specify things as they appear to me now, rather than explore the evolutionary origins and trends, as is my predisposition on this sort of thing. I reckon most have read my takes at one time or another on the origins and trends of offense over the last century of basketball. For those that have not, i apologize for the absence of historical context in this post. Perhaps sometime subsequently, I will try to distill some of that.

BASIC DEFINITIONS

HALF COURT BASKETBALL OFFENSE DEFINED:

Planned movement on a floor intended to increase the probability and productivity of scoring attempts on a possession modulated for relevant time constraints at any given period of a game. Basketball offense comes in two kinds: planned and serendipitous.

HALF-COURT PLANNED AND ALL-COURT SERENDIPITOUS OFFENSE:

Half court planned offense maybe highly choreographed, or intentionally free lance, or somewhere on a spectrum in between.The key to planned half court offense is the players coming down the floor with a purposeful means of scoring—choreographed, or free lanced—in mind.

All court serendipitous offense is scoring off undetermined opportunities, like rebounds, steals, slip and falls, etc. In serendipitous offense, you, the offensive player do not determine the offensive rebound, or the turnover, and can only with modest probability determine a steal. Note: even in serendipitous offense players are given some rules about how to fill lanes on a break, and rules about when to pull up and run offense, and rules about whether to dribble the ball on a rebound, or to just take it back up.

The distinction is made to characterize when a team is running its half court offense to score, and when it is simply reacting to a random break, while doing so, or while defending, or while in transition.

TWO CATEGORIES OF OFFENSIVE MOVEMENT: PLAYER AND BALL

The court dimensions are fixed. Rim and back board locations are fixed. All that can move are player and ball. At one extreme, every player can stand in a fixed formation, and pass the ball around. At the other extreme, the ball can stay at a fixed location and the team can run through taking a handoff of the ball. Actual offenses blend these extremes, but usually lean more to one, or more to the other.

DEGREE OF PRE-SPECIFICATION OF BALL AND PLAYER MOVEMENT: TIGHTLY SPECIFIED, LOOSELY SPECIFIED AND FREE LANCED

While realizing that degree of pre-specification actually exists on a broad, fluid spectrum, lets talk about tight and loose pre-specification, and full-on free lancing.

CHOREOGRAPHED VERSUS RULED SPECIFIED MOVEMENT OF PLAYERS AND BALL

Choreographed refers to pre-specified movement of players and/or ball indicating where and how players and ball are to move and be moved around the floor to increase the probability of scoring in the desired time period in the desired amount. Choreographed offense sets up in a formation, and run a pre-conceived pattern of movement of players and ball. Movement may be tightly, or loosely specified.

Rule specified refers to players running a mixture of tightly or loosely choreographed, or largely free lanced offensive movement based on rules. Rules are if-then-else logics. If the defensive players are in this defense, then run this option, else run that option. If the defensive players are hedging and helping this direction, then run this option, else run that option. And so on.

Most offenses are a mixture of both, but all offenses so far can be located on a spectrum somewhere between choreographed extremes and somewhere between rule driven extremes.

FOUR FUNDAMENTAL OFFENSES

1. BALL MOVEMENT OFFENSES:

Passing offenses use ball movement to move defenders into positions they cannot recover from in time as the ball continues to move to a new player at a new location. Passing offenses move the ball around a perimeter and wing to high post to wing to trigger side to side defensive movement so that one or two passes in the other direction lead to a player with sufficient open space around him (impact space) to shoot, or drive for a shot. The impact space can also be achieved by in-out ball motion contracting a defense, so that either the defense is late getting to adequate defense of the block, or, alternatively, late getting to adequate defense of the three point shooting area. Late defensive arrival to proper defensive position yields a scoring opportunity. Timely arrival yields a kick out (pass outwards) to shooters on the perimeter. The purest example so far of a ball ball movement offense is a pure High-Low Post Offense devised by Henry Iba for the 1964 Olympic team, adopted and modified by Dean Smith and Larry Brown, and now widely used today with the foremost practitioner being Bill Self. In the pure High-Low Post Offense no screens are set, the three perimeter players stay in their perimeter diamond pattern, while two post men rotate both high and low, and rotate side to side across the lane to get open for feeding the post in and kicking the ball from post back out to wing, or point, or opposite wing. Passing, or ball movement, creates the impact spaces for shooting and driving.

1. PLAYER MOVEMENT OFFENSES: CLOSED AND OPEN SYSTEMS

Scripted player movement, often away from the ball, as well as near it, in the forms of cuts over one or more screens, and screens on the ball, unfold in a more or less scripted series, and can be characterized as fundamentally player movement driven offenses. In purest form, all players move through a prescribed series of positions and tasks on the floor usually with some requirement of timing of player movement and ball arrival at a scoring opportunity. Early single post offenses and some double post offenses used tightly, or loosely scripted player movements around a post. Bruce Drake’s Oklahoma Shuffle was perhaps the purest extrapolation of player movement offense, where in all players but the post man, and even in some schemes the post man, too, became involved in cycling from position to position in a fixed formation. It was as close to a mechanistic offense as has been widely used in the game. Dean Smith ran it extensively until 1964 at North Carolina, before shifting to what he called multiple offense combining Iba’s High Low with routines from the Oklahoma Shuffle. It is a closed system in the sense that if not shot were taken, an offensive player would eventually wind up back at his initial position and the offense with repeat without need for a reset.

Another closed system offense are the motion offenses run today by Coach K tracking back to Bob Knight, and probably from Knight back to other coaches he studied and borrowed from including, but hardly limited to Fred Taylor, Henry Iba, and Claire Bee. Knight’s motion offense is heavily driven by rule driven options of action at each node on the essentially closed circuit of ball and player movement around the floor.

Yet another variation on the closed system player movement offense is Bob Huggins’ offense which appears to cycle through a series of decreasing radius cuts and increasingly densities/frequencies of picks until one player breaks to the basket and another breaks away to the perimeter and the the player with the ball gets a choice of enabling scoring opportunity inside, or outside, or of driving it himself. I haven’t studied it closely enough to swear by my description. Huggins might well explain it quite differently, but from the outside looking in, when Huggins runs what I call his dense pack, physical offense of tooth rattling screens, that’s my best shot at describing its basic character and dynamic.

At the other extreme is what I would call an open system offense. It maybe tightly scripted, as in the traditional Princeton offense that tracks to Pete Carril and to his coach. The team sets up in a formation, then the players run the a completely scripted six plays each play having a few rule driven options, in which regardless of the option chose, if the shot is not taken the next play is cycled into. I characterize it as an open system, because at the end of the six plays the offense usually evidences being reset and the six play sequence is repeated. The offense is not an infinitely repeatable do loop, to borrow a term from computer programming, as the offenses described above appear to be.

A less tightly scripted example of the open system offense is Dribble Drive Offense, used by John Calipari. Calipari called it Princeton on steroids for awhile, and he was correct. It largely originates with one player or another moving to set a ball screen. The player with the ball then chooses among options with rules and if a shot is not taken, the ball goes to the next sequenced to start at the next destination of the passed ball. The dribble drive actually combines some of rule driven motion offense with the play sequencing of the Princeton. But whereas the Princeton emphasizes tightly timed screening to create open shots, the Dribble Drive uses ball screening to trigger impact plays by superior athletes. When the shot is not there, and the next sequenced play inside is not there, then the ball kicks and reverses very much as in the High Low Passing Offense, where in usually a mirrored sequence of plays are run from the back side. This kinship with the High Low Offense is hardly surprising as Calipari got his under Larry Brown,as did Self, then running his variation on the Carolina Passing Offense (aka High Low with Oklahoma Shuffle routines inserted intermittently).

1. MULTIPLE OFFENSES: PLAYING SOME OF THE ABOVE IN DIFFERENT SITUATIONS

As far as I can tell so far, the earliest reference in book form to multiple offenses was in Dean Smith’s book of that title; that is not to say that Smith was the first to combine offenses, just that he was the first I have found to write a book explaining doing so. Multiple offenses can be devised out of single formations and run on principles of ball movement, or on player movement, or they can literally consist of running several different fundamentally different offenses. Smith’s use of the term is worth relying on. He said he ran a Carolina Passing Offense. He mixed in some Oklahoma Shuffle routines. And he ran a spread offense called a four corner offense where in the point guard moved the ball on the dribble while all the other players assumed mostly fixed positions until one or more broke to the basket at some point. He said they could and liked to run all the offenses out of the same initial formation. Other times they varied the formations and ran the same offense. The idea was to minimize what his players had to learn, while maximizing how much opposing defenses had to recognize. Though each offense so far described above has its own characteristics and fundamentals, it is fair to say that most coaches today also make use of multiple offenses to some extent or other. The multiple offenses are a recognition that no single offense seems to be ideally suited to all game situations. Further, there is some yield to forcing the defense in periodic new recognition.

1. THE TRIANGLE OFFENSE: FROM SINGLE CIRCUIT NODES TO THREE PLAYER NETWORKING, OR A HYBRID SYNTHESIS OF BALL MOVEMENT, PLAYER MOVEMENT, AND CLOSED AND OPEN SYSTEM OFFENSES IN THE FORM OF ENDLESSLY REFORMING TRIANGLES:

All offenses noted above recognize that a perimeter player with the ball has a player to the right and a player to the left that is one pass away, plus a post man in front of him that is also one pass away. The player in the post usually faces similar situation facing outward. Most of the offenses try to move players away from the ball, or to the ball, in ways that allow the player with the ball to act to score, or to move the ball into a scoring position. The same is accomplished in ball movement offenses by moving the ball to move the defenders to create an open impact space at a given point for a given player. We can think of this as creating impact spaces at circuit nodes.

The Triangle Offense of Tex Winter, derived from a rudimentary version of the offense taught him by his USC mentor Sam Barry. moves offense from a node centric paradigm to a network centric paradigm. Rather than let the player with the ball choose which triangle of three players he wishes to move the ball in relation to his central node, Winter’s Triangle is about replacing a central node with a three player network. The offense emerges entirely from the interplay of any three closest players forming a triangle of play, and when ever a made basket is not forth coming, wherever the ball ends up is where the next three player triangle takes shape and begins to execute. In simplest terms, without any unpredictable interventions, each time the ball moves around the perimeter, say, a new triangle forms and a set of rule driven options unfolds. The offense has post men and perimeter players, but the triangle of play can involve any three players and at any moment the players in the triangle of player are permitted to pass out of the triangle, where in another reforms.

This offense exhibits limited closure if you will. But odd as it may seem chaos theory lends itself to explaining this offense. The offense has a strange tendency of a triangle that keeps reemerging out of the unfolding chaos of interplay. The Triangle Offense evidences infinite variation within limits in how and where the triangles form. In execution it isn’t so heady. Find the two closest guys to you and play a three person form of the dribble drive offense. Ball screen, Give and go, pass away and cut and so on. If nothing works, pass out of it completely and let another triangle form and take the initiative from there. Some, including Michael Jordan, said it worked largely because of Michael Jordan. But then Phil Jackson showed that it worked with all kinds of exceptional players. Bottom line, is: it works regardless of whether there are other offenses that might work also. The enduring appeal of it is that it is flexible and adaptable to the varying composition of players and players’ abilities that teams go through during a season and from season to season. The down side is that not all players like playing it, and quite a few coaches are uncomfortable with the large amount of loosely choreographed, rule driven interpretations required of players playing the offense. College coaches particularly appear to want players thinking less about what to do, and thinking more about executing what they are told to do. Still, the only other singularly distinct offense that has won so many NBA championships with so many different casts of characters might be some of Red Auerbach’s schemes, which I admit to not having studied closely yet.

@drgnslayr

Not a tough metaphysical choice here for me.

I'm in it for three things:
1.) continuing and building the legacy Naismith started here;
2.) total wins; and
3.) total rings.

I love Wilt with a passion and what he showed a player could be. And I love the way his story ended with KU: "Rock Chalk, Jayhawk."

But you gave me an out here by saying Wilt never played and became a teacher in Philly.

Since this is another metaphysical question that won't change reality a whit, and its about choosing between KU and Wilt, and since one option is him never having played hoops, I take Wilt as a teacher and KU with another ring.

It would have been MUCH harder, had you said Wilt went to Pete Newell and Cal, or Fred Taylor and Ohio State, or UCinn, and won 3 rings in college; that I could not bear even in a metaphysical universe.

But since it ostensibly costs us only the most painful loss in the history of NCAA basketball--the loss to UNC in KC in 1957--its almost merciful to let him become a teacher, which he would have been great at, and let KU never have had that loss, and let KU get a ring this spring. Sweeeeeeeet!

@Crimsonorblue22

It is certainly a risk. And foreign players probably don't hold American college basketball in the same cultural esteem that many Americans do. They not only didn't grow up playing the game, they didn't grow up cheering for a college team.

On the other hand, some foreign players really develop strong attachments to their college teams and schools. Sasha Kaun seems genuinely a Jayhawk and to have almost become Americanized by his extended stay at KU. It helps when you marry a KU student, I suppose.

But will we ever see Joel Embiid again? He played here only two thirds of one season and the rest of it he spent consulting with medical professionals and business advisors, rather than going to The Wheel. Even if he were the nicest, most genuine guy in the world, how much could we possibly mean to him. He has now spent more time and energy fighting with a professional franchise than he ever spent with Self and the KU team.

A lot of it depends, I suppose, on how gregarious and educationally oriented Diallo is. He sounds very bright and multi-lingual. I know it sounds strange, but KU's best chance of keeping him around may be him liking some class and getting interested in pursuing some field of education. It might help if he were the kind of kid that either needed and wanted a band of buddies for a change. Or that was kind of ready for a steady girl friend and found one on the hill one day. These human aspects of players are hardly ever considered, and yet all of the college athletes I befriended were every bit as occupied by these issues as I was. They just have a big block of time every day where they are occupied with playing and learning the game.

@JayHawkFanToo and @HighEliteMajor et al

Whether Diallo plays a lot or a little depends entirely on what he is able to bring in his minutes.

Currently, our much maligned composite 5 averages a double double with very few turn overs and the ability to guard a full range of opposing big men from the long ones to the short ones; this is without Diallo.

Looking down the line score of our composite big, he seems about maxed out at 11/11.

Thus the first question is: can Diallo better 11/11 without TOs and reliably guarding everyone from footers to short mobile bigs?

The second question is can Diallo cut down on the TOs of our composite 5? Well, he might make the same number of TOs as Bragg, but it seems unlikely that he would make fewer TOs than our veterans most games.

The third question is who can he outscore? Well, he is supposed to be very raw offensively, so outscoring Bragg is unlikely. It wouldn't take much to outscore Traylor, Lucas and Hunter, but that's not saying much, and if he did outscore them some, then his turnovers could reduce that edge to almost a wash.

The probability is that given the same minutes he could snag more rebounds, score about slightly more, make lots more mistakes on defense and make more turn overs.

But Self mentioned both rebounding and shot blocking as Diallo's strengths he could bring, despite his "rawness."

Looking at the line score of our Composite 5, he isn't getting many blocks. But if what Self prized most was blocks, it would seem that Hunter would have been getting more minutes so as to get more blocks, for if he can do anything it is block shots.

The above reasons suggest why Self is painting a picture in which Diallo is not going to dramatically change the team's playing minutes and character for quite awhile.

I expect him to be brought in a lot like Jamari used to be brought in, before Jamari became the starter. Diallo's initial role will be to bring "energy" as Self likes to say. To amp up defensive intensity on a particular player, explode out of position to block and alter, and get used to the speed and violence of the game while he proves how many TOs/minute he is going to cost Self.

If Diallo's TOs/minute ramp down fairly quickly, he makes defensive adjustments effectively, and proves effective at stick backs, then his rebounding and his shot blocking will become sustainable net benefits and he will take over the post.

But Self knows that Embiid developed about as fast as possible for a foreign player that did not grow up playing the game, and Embiid was vastly better block and alter type blessed with unprecedentedly good foot work. Self could afford his turn overs to get his every possession block and alter effect. And Self didn't have veteran composite big men to choose over Embiid, as Self now has as he considers Diallo.

I am sure you know where this is heading.

If Diallo were get error free in a hurry, well, then yes, he would play a lot.

If Diallo were only to get about as good as the veteran composite 5, or slightly less, well, then how much he played would depend on how willing he was to commit to a second year.

Self has absolutely no incentive at this point to play Diallo over his composite 5, especially over Bragg, unless Diallo commits to a second season.

KU has already proven its veteran composite 5 can hang close with ranked MSU on a a bad KU shooting night, and make KU a big winner over ranked UCLA and VANDY on good shooting nights.

If I were Diallo, I would immediately tell Coach Self: "Thanks for sticking with me through all of this. I have thought about it and I am coming back next season. This season I want learn everything I can from you, concentrate on holding down my TOs, learning the defensive reads, snag my share of rebounds, block and alter when you tell me to, and see if I can't help ratchet our composite 5 up from 11/11 to 15/15 this season, and then, if I earn your trust, become a 30 minute and next season. During the off season I will work with Wayne Simien on a money move on the blocks. Whattaya say, Coach?"

Diallo will immediately be in the inner circle and after his second season, probably winning a ring with Bragg and Vick and Devonte and Svi, will be a lottery pick and have a nice, long $50-100 million dollar career as a tweener rebounder and defensive specialist.

@jayhawk-007 said:

As Coach put it, we are trying to score off the dribble and not just he pass.

Scoring off the dribble is a crucial part of BAD BALL that we relied so heavily on the last half of last season, and exclusively down the stretch, and that folks grew so to dislike.

I cannot tell if board rats are learning to love the whip (Bad Ball familiarity), or if our players are much less injured and so playing BAD BALL much better, and with more options, and so BAD BALL looks better to board rats. But its BAD BALL for sure.

Perhaps it has to do with Self alternating between GOOD BALL and BAD BALL, which he did not do last season. And Self is starting out with GOOD BALL, quick trigger offense from Korea, to build the lead and then shifting to BAD BALL, or the High Low, or some of both, to defend the leads with. Build a lead. Defend a lead. Build a lead. Defend a lead. This never changes with Self. Only how he does it changes.

Whatever, I have seen the high low passing offense, and GOOD BALL (what was run in Korea so successfully) and BAD BALL (scoring off the dribble with driving for short threes and more pull ups on the drives now that we are more healthy and can make them) all on extensive display. Any team that prepares for us has to be prepared for all three.

@HighEliteMajor

I always wished we had found a way to have hung onto Doyle.

I knew sooner or later we would be able to use a long point guard, especially if Self moved to two guard offenses.

Doyle would now be the long guard we need Svi, or Vick to be out front, the long, ball-handling guard that Selden has never been able to develop either the passing vision or the dribbling to be.

One thing Izzo exposed was how vulnerable Mason and Devonte are to big guards that can guard, muscle and handle the ball. Frank and Devonte are tough for their sizes, but Frank is wiry and Devonte is synthetic strength, and both fall in the short range of perimeter guards. There morphologies and abilities give them lots of advantages against guards that are tall and slow footed, or short and not very strong. But when they ran into quick, strong and long guards of MSU, they really struggled.

I am hoping Self shifts gears on trying to make Svi a 3, and spends the next three games redirecting him into the first guard off the bench. Svi is carrying to much weight to play point guard now, but Self can move either Frank, or Devonte into that role 5 minutes into the game and come with Svi and KU's future will be a lot safer than relying on Vick the Stick this season. We have to be able to apply some muscle in the back court against teams like MSU, or we will be an L waiting to happen. I really like Vick the Stick and expect him to become quite an exceptional player, but I just don't think being able to body with MSU guards is within his reach this season. Hence, I encourage retooling Svi for the 2, and letting Perry be the backup at the 3, especially with Diallo available now in the front court. This lets us keep our composite five with Diallo getting ten minutes at the 5 and ten minutes at the 4, and, if Diallo developed rapidly, then take 10 at the 4 and 15-20 at the 5 by January, February, or March.

These 40 minute nights for Selden are stupid from a long term stand point. I know Self is trying to see if cramming Selden with playing time will finally burn the neural nets in to allow consistency, but I just don't think Wayne is ever going to be a consistent player. His mood and his focus will likely limit him until he reaches 23-25 and full neural net grow in.

GG Smith is Tubbie Smith's kid. Self is doing Tubby a favor, and getting some KU branding in the Bo-Wash corridor.

GG played for Tub at Georgia, then Tub got him on the UK staff.

From there, GG joined John Patsos at Loyola MD.

Patsos had assisted Gary Williams at Maryland and turned Loyola into a minor giant killer with an upset of Indiana.

GG replaced Patsos.

GG will probably have Loyola playing some of Tubbie's physical line side defense.

And Tub will tell GG about Bill's strength's and weaknesses, especially about BAD BALL.

Ought to be a blow out, but KU needs to take care of business and not let Loyola hang around too long, Loyola will muddy it up and start putting a hurt on KU players. If KU were cold, this would be how upsets happen.

@jayballer54

Every top 25 program used to send letters of interest to every Top 100 recruit. Once done then the players used to create lists. It's probably still sort of like this only with a big shoe filtering overlay and starting 9th grade, or so. Just a guess.

@DoubleDD m

People wonder this about most streaks. It must be happening for some reason other than human mastery of a process. But Wooden was quite confident that he and his staff had "learned how" to win championships regularly. Other coaches have had similar levels of talent runs, like Dean Smith, but only Wooden and his staff figured out how to do it. Same with Self's conference title run.

@HighEliteMajor

Diallo was worth it if KU had so many veteran bigs returning that Davis didn't want to compete with them for PT and our only choice willing to compete with them was was Diallo.

If I recall correctly TAM maybe an adidas school.

If so, TAM is a lesser adidas school than KU, so one would infer Davis was as much of an adidas lean as any guy going to UK or Zona is a Nike lean. So that basically eliminates the Nike schools from this discussion. What ever ingredient triggers brand loyalty was apparently an active ingredient.

Adidas-TAM had more sure development minutes for a guy who needed more development than adidas-KU had to give.

Adidas-KU needed a guy to make a decisive one or two dimensional contribution to a veteran team in a composite 5 for a tourney run. Diallo fits the bill. As I recall, until the very end when St. John's and UK got needy, KU was a leader and one of few seeming willing to take the risk on his problems all season. We didn't need him earlythis season, because of our vets, but he could help us late. We were in a good position to take the risk.

A key here is that our composite 5 has averaged double doubles against UCLA and Vandy and Davis is only at 15/7. So he is not the dominant rebounder that we needed to go with all our mature shooters. Diallo promises to add the crucial blocker rebounder needed as part of a composite 5.

Self probably figures If the pros will take as a part time 5 in D1 then they can have him.

Also, as we learned with Embiid 2-3 year 5 s that develop faster than expected can jump after their first season.

The biggest problem for team continuity is the unexpected OAD, not the expected variety.

@Lulufulu

When you do anything over or under your own average its variance, not skill or lack of it. The crucial thing about the Warriors is they would have beaten the Suns even if Warriors had only shot their average. The Warriors have built a team with such a high Trey average and such a high Trey frequency they can always win on their hot nights, almost always win on their average nights and win some on their off nights.

Being able to find a way to win some against the top teams on one's own off nights is the hallmark of a potential champion.

Competitive greatness is the only additional ingredient required.

@DoubleDD

A fun question with a complex answer.

Few recall even frequent final four finishes other than first place, but they FF appearances probably help recruiting and prestige nationally more than titles.

Few recall a single conference title, but they are very important to getting a high seed enabling one to go deep, and win the tourney. A very high percentage of Ring winners also won their conference titles.

It means a greater level of accomplishment to go deep in the tournament than to only win a conference title, or finish second, because the tournament is the ultimate objective. But in reality, the grind of winning a conference may be a greater athletic challenge. Put another way the conference title may prove the greater test of long term consistency, where as the tournament may be the greater test of peak performance.

But as you accrue consecutive conference titles to a record number, consecutive conference tiles becomes vastly more memorable as a record over time than winning even a single ring. Many teams have won several rings. Only one team--UCLA-has won over a decade of titles and a decade of rings.

To break either of UCLA's records would worth doing.

But to add to KU's total of rings is most important in my mind, so it can one day surpass all the schools now ahead of it; that is the ultimate goal--not consecutive rings but total rings.

So I would not trade interrupting our title run for going deep. But I would interrupt it for a ring.

But I can envision no circumstance where intentionally playing not to win a title would offset the cost of not getting the high seed, so I view this as an interesting metaphysical inquiry into the structure and values of our game, but not a real world choice to be faced. KU needs to win conference to get the best seed to have the best chance at winning.

Now, I could justify treating the conference tourney as exhibition games once the conference were won.

@DoubleDD
The short answer is I don't know.

I should be clear. I don't believe in "hit men" being used in D1, because I haven't seen evidence of such. And for the sake of players and the game I hope I never do.

Instead I suspect some thing probably "legal" and something even within the rules of basketball in terms of being a foul, but maybe not necessarily a foul that gets one thrown out of a game or suspended a season. Think of the time Embiid was upended on his back and when Perry's nose attacked Fred Van Vleet's elbow. Law enforcement saw nothing illegal. Referees didn't call fouls in one, maybe both cases. And yet the contact and intimidation effects appeared quite asymmetric and apparently asymmetrically beneficial.

During early integration there was reputedly much of this sort of thing--something legal but involving asymmetry in contact and intimidation. So far as I have read, racists in early integration did not have to be ordered by a conspiracy to operate as "hit men", or even with asymmetric contact and intimidation that early reputedly resulted in some injuries to African American players, sometimes to them being knocked out of games. They acted this way because it was
a culturally ingrained response to outsiders viewed as interlopers. Further, some Referees reputedly tolerated this asymmetric contact and intimidation more than others, but the phenomenon of the outsider getting aggressive, intimidating treatment was reputedly not rare.

To come from a foreign land, to play for a school contracted with a foreign shoeco, a shoeco trying to break into a game and related market shares dominated by a domestic shoeco, a game substantially played and coached by persons with loyalties to the domestic shoeco, and with referees already reputedly leaning toward "lettin'em play;" that appears a situation to bear some possibility of asymmetric contact and intimidation without any likely illegality, or at times even foul calling. This hypothetical scenario would be quite different than designated hit men, yet over the course of a long season could result in significant, somewhat similar asymmetric attrition.

Might expectations influenced by James Harden's $200,ooo,000 bones have incentivized Diallo taking some risk?

I have hypothesized in the past that the system might work based in part on informal expectations of agency fee rates and endorsement deal amounts derived from recent deals.

Or it could be his own lack of knowledge about the way the game appears to be being played in America. Why should a 17-18 year old from Mali with a short time in America necessarily be more knowledgeable of such things than even we board rats who watched the game a long while and still struggle to understand what goes on behind the scenes.

Why do you keep saying he’s coming back?

--@wrwlumpy

The short answer is he is apparently sushi and won't be ready even though the market may be ready for him.

The longer answer is "Rational Expectations Theory" by Nobel Economist Robert Lucas of the University of Chicago.

The consensus appears to be that Diallo is limited offensively; i.e. he lacks a money move in the paint, or three point shot. We will learn more about this shortly, but that is what I have to work with in discourse presently.

What is important for fans to remember, IMHO, is that we will not only be learning about how productive a player he is, but also about how able he is to protect himself from D1 violence. The former is what most fans are interested in, while the latter, at least insufficiency in the latter, is what most fans are surprised (and horrified sometimes) to learn about usually over a longer time frame. More about this later.

At only 6-8, or 6-9, and not a wide body, and not apparently younger than his class, that makes him a WYSIWYG tweener, when drafted next spring, same as Julian once was, only Julian was a couple of years older, and so probably much less sushi than Diallo will be.

Athletic, rebounding tweeners without offensive skills tend to have to choose between a short journeyman career and a still born career. This is probably around a $3-5 million career.

Athletic, rebounding tweeners with a money move inside and a credible outside jumper, are high lottery picks with a long journeyman career, or a long star career. This is a $50 to $200 million dollar career.

Green foreign players, not part of the apparently dominant Big Shoe-Big Agency Complex that do not really understand the game yet are particularly vulnerable to XTReme Cheap Shotting and XTReme Muscle that bears in it no small risk of serious injury.

Think about how good it was for the apparent Big Shoe-Big Agency Complex for then apparent adidas lean Joel Embiid at adidas KU to be "neutralized" by a big Injury, whether intended, or accidental in commission. Joel Embiid almost certainly would have become the most dominant player in the NBA for the next 10, maybe 15 seasons, once Lebron passed his peak.

I suspect Joel Embiid would have been worth much more money to the NBA, to an NBA franchise, to a petroshoeco-agency complex than Andrew Wiggins. Big men still rule the NBA, its just that there has been a shortage of good ones lately. Those shortages have always come and gone in the the history of professional basketball. People had about written off the dominance of the footer, when Tim Duncan lead San Antonio to five rings. But I digress.

My point here is not that Diallo is the next Joel Embiid, or Duncan, in talent. Its clear he is not even close.

My point here is that Diallo should try to avoid being the next Joel Embiid in injury.

Diallo and his team should relish a smaller role this season at KU, so as to learn the ropes of American basketball, which are apparently rather well greased, and slippery, and suspended rather high over some very, very, VERY hard wood to fall on in a very, very, very aggressive game.

I am increasingly convinced there are only two rational ways to play the OAD game for a player that actually has OAD talent.

The first way is the way a kid that grew up playing the game, Andrew Wiggins, and his basketball savvy Dad, appeared to play it. Protect against injury the entire season by playing 2/3s speed and never, never, never make high injury risk plays. Never, never, never let the team be put on your back. Always, always, always, be a cog, not a hub. Insist on two showcase games to score greater than 30-40 points in to burnish the image and juice the GMs. Then just cruise to the end of the season playing good defense, working the weights, enjoying college life, but taking no physical risks. The great, great OAD talent that does not need to learn a lot about the game and about how to protect himself from the Blue Meanies, because he grew up playing the game and has advisors that have trained him for years in how to protect himself while playing the game is ideal for this option. This does not seem to be Diallo.

The second option is to accept the label OAD, but plan on being a TAD. Be a cog the first season learning the ins and outs of the way violence is dispensed and what you can and cannot get away with safely. Spend that first season adding a money move and working on your trey, whether your coach lets you shoot it or not. Work on strength. And if you are really raw, working on all aspects of your game. But above all use a season learning how to protect yourself from XTReme Cheap Shotting and XTreme Muscle. Then use a second season being a star that is a lottery pick that does not get injured in college, and knows how to handle himself in the NBA.

The first option guaranties you the Big Money quickest and so in the largest present worth calculation quantities, but only if you are savvy enough, and tough enough, to avoid becoming a victim of violence.

The second option nearly guaranties you the BIG MONEY minus one year in present worth calculation, by sharply reducing injury risk. The down side is two years wear and tear and the possibility of non-violent, freak injury risk before signing the contract.

I honestly believe (but have not statistics to back me up) the 1-year risk of violent injury in D1 now exceeds the 2-year non-violent, freak injury risk in D1.

So IMHO: Diallo, unless he is a lot less raw than reputed, should definitely be taking the second option.

So: what has a University of Chicago economist from back in the 20th Century have to do with Diallo coming back.

Lucas empirically verified that a market of individuals and firms manifest "rational expectations," or learning (maybe better called behavioral conditioning), regarding applied market inputs. Specifically, when an individual experienced the Fed raising interest rates from x up to x+1 to reduce inflation in a market, then the individual built in his anticipation of a future move by the Fed to raise interest rates to reduce inflation in a market in the future. I don't recall specifics now, but the idea was that the Fed would have to raise interest rates to X+2 the next time to get the same reduction in inflation as the previous increase to X+1, because of market players building in an expectation of x+1.

Humans learn from past events.

They some times learn slowly; i.e., it takes several reps.

They sometimes learn the wrong lessons before learning the useful ones.

But eventually they learn.

The rational expectation lesson to learn here is that the market previously pounded the crap out of a sushi star and that it likely will apply even more force this time to achieve the same objective. Hence, a player needs not only to be more prepared than Embiid was, to wear a saddle for a team, but to expect even worse abuse, and so sharply the need to heighten Diallo's preparedness, not just by X, or X+1, but to X+2.

Its a loose analogy bordering on a metaphor. Forgive me. But it gets one in the ball park IMHO, and shares general light on a dynamic driving the world generally.

My hunch is that Diallo and his advisors will learn not just from Embiid, but perhaps from other players I don't know about, that if you are sushi, take two years, and if you are well cooked, then jump in one, but either way, be prepared more violence than what was dished out before.

We are not talking here just about how high his rpg is, or about his PPG. We are talking about his ability to negotiate attempted violence on wood.

So far, it appears that KU, Self and Diallo have learned something about playing the NCAA in the clearance game from prior experiences. It makes me think they have probably also learned about how much preparedness will be required for Diallo to have the best chance at a productive career; this includes something about the risks of violent injury versus freak injury, and their relation to degree of experience in the unwritten rules of violence in D1 basketball.

If no learning has occurred in KU, Self, adidas, and Diallo, then, yes, he probably jumps in spring even if he were sushi.

@REHawk

Move Perry to 3 for 10 mpg, during Wayne's blows. Let Svi be the third guard 20 mpg spelling Frank and Devonte 10 mpg each. Watch Perry become a high first round pick feasting on D1 3s! That will leave plenty of mpg for Diallo to be worked into the composite 5 by taking only a 1 mpg each from Bragg, Lucas, Traylor, and Mick. Start Diallo against all non ranked teams. Start best of the composite 5s based on numbers against ranked teams. Everyone gets about 10-15 mpg. Diallo comes back to be #1 choice next season playing 30 mpg.

@wissoxfan83

As a rule, I don't work for free.

@wrwlumpy

I didn't participate in the Vandy chat group much if at all. Sorry.

Why was the NCAA conducting the clearance process of Diallo as it did?

@KUSTEVE

Our composite 5 scored 11 points and snagged 11 rebounds and had few TOs. I seriously doubt Diallo will be able to match that production on his own against ranked teams till next season. It's going to be interesting to see how Self starts Diallo to satisfy recruiting perceptions AND plays his composite 5 to keep production up. Wild ride. Lots of permutations and combinations possible. Or Diallo could be the stud everyone says.

@Lulufulu

They are adding a reputed draft choice very shortly.

@JRyman

Great recollection. Thx for sharing.

One time I heard Wooden speak on that subject he said an offence knows where it is going and what the obstacles in its way will be. The defense doesn't. Therefore, the offense should win every time, if it executes. That's why he didn't believe in defense first. He believed in execution of what works first...on both ends.

He also said the only way the defense can guard a correctly executed OFFENCE is with superior athletes playing team defense. So he reasoned that if you had superior athletes executing defense correctly, it didn't matter what offense you ran, because it wouldn't work.

Thus he focused on getting the best athletes with competitive greatness, statistical research to determine what worked best, then on execution on both ends.

Incomparably elegant.

@wrwlumpy

I thought I had been making clear that despite none of our 5s being complete players, Self had found a way to get as good of numbers from our composite 5 as Embiid produced. Embiid was the second guy in the draft with those numbers. Double doubles every game from a 5 will get you a long way.

And I thought Lulu was just remarking that Ellis and Traylor that game were not efficient.

You are right about Traylor's floor game being useful. I am among those doubtful Diallo will take over the 5 until next season. He will take from someone in the composite 5's minutes, but it could vary game to game.

@JRyman

Thx.

Question: so you think preventative in this case?

Wayne is a poster child for focus.

His fluctuates widely and often.

Great performers learn to smoothly but rapidly modulate breadth of focus to evolving situations.

Focus can be broad, narrow and anywhere in between.

It's a gradient.

The enemy of smooth, flexible focus is rigidity.

Wayne has apparently been engaged in a Herculean struggle with too much rigidity of focus the last few seasons.

When he relaxed he relaxed totally and his focus fixed broadly and he appeared too lackadaisical.

When he amped up he tensed and his focus fixed narrowly and he appeared too tight.

The problem appears to be the rigidity of his focus.

Basketball is fluid. One scopes wide and narrow and in between frequently as one moves and as others move around one.

On Wayne's good games, he shows a full range and flexibility of focus. He appears both explosive and smooth as the situation demands. He shifts smoothly.

On bad games, he appears stuck in one focus, or shifting awkwardly among types of focus.

For a while I thought his difficulties were maybe a slow processor, then maybe too much learning, then maybe pot, then maybe a girl friend, but now it appears structural and maybe neural net based. They could be growing together, or he may just be battling it structurally. Whatever, he seems to be gaining ground on it, even though he has struggled a game or two this season.

When he is shifting focus smoothly he is exceptional in all phases of his game.

@KUSTEVE

😄

Was it just the white color that called attention to them, or were more guys wearing the long support hose on their legs than the previous two games?

Was Self already camouflaging leg injury to one guy by having several don the hose?

Or were several guys battling sore muscles?

Or were they preventatives for 3 games in three days?

@RockkChalkk

We only shot 16 treys.

That's a good number for 10 minutes of GOOD BALL--the first 5 each half--and 30 minutes of BAD BALL--the last 15 of each half.

This was a clinic in sequencing them.

Together it was gold ball alright!!!!!

Any word on what will replace it? The dorms were kind of a modernist, worker-housing, sculpture complex on the western horizon. They worked visually, for better, or worse, as a set.

@AsadZ

It's coming; this was what Dr. Self has been inventing and developing the last year or so. And he is not done yet.

Rock Chalk!

Seeking to prevent overconfidence, but with little to criticize, KU Coach Bill Self lashed out at his players for allowing Vandy to make 11 of 15 free throws

"We defended free throws like babies," Self cracked. "Every day in practice, we work on being telekinetically tough in blocking out their shooter's confident thoughts, on, on, on filling them with counter visualizations of missing. We even brought our copy of "Men Who Watch Goats," but it was like every guy was wearing Kimbies today."

Who needs 7 foot OADs, when you've got 6-7 to 6-10 Jacarlanter Traglucmic racking up double doubles every game of late?

Not KU and Bill Self!

Traglucmic, whose nickname is Hydra, scored 11 and pulled down 11 rebounds against Vandy, a team with three footers.

Said Self, after winning the Maui Classic, "Jacarlanter Traglucmic is personifying consistency inside. He does it all for us, even against footers. I couldn't be happier with the way he is playing right now."

It's not clear if the NBA will break with tradition of not drafting committees at positions, but the rumor is Jacarlanter Traglucmic could become the first committee lottery pick, if Cheick Diallo does not super nova.

@jayballer54

Seriously, Perry is the little engine that could.

He just kept saying I think I can, I think I can, and now he can.

He is turning into an accomplished D1 player who is a pleasure to watch.

We are so fortunate.

And the spin moves have been relegated to the past!

When I was a boy I played as a boy.

When I became a man I put the toys away and used the tools of a man.

If he can do it all season he deserves to go down as one of the all timers.

He could be set for a Simien senior season.

Go, Perry, go!!!!!

@Lulufulu

"Traylor got his ass handed to him by Mason."

PHOF !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I love BAD BALL!

Everything is good about it, when they are bigger.

Five minutes of GOOD BALL.

And 15 minutes of BAD BALL.

It handled Stallings and Vandy!!!!!!

Bad Ball is great!!!

Good Ball is great.

Self is too shrewd for most.

Sooner or later he will crack the IZZO NUT, too!!!!

Rock Chalk!!!!!