🏀 KuBuckets Archive

@HighEliteMajor
@HighEliteMajor

I think we can safely call that a PHOF!

Part of me wanted to say nothing and just savor it.

But my hope for this board always is that it creates synergy and there can be no synergy without back and forth, and so I will make a game effort at responding.

Its hard to add much to your ten points, because you've hit frozen ropes with all of them. All one can do is introduce complementary analysis that may not add much, but might enrich the combustible fuel-air mixture of some Selfian-ambiguites underling the debate that will ensue on these subjects in coming months.

(1) Greene IS up against the biases of Self Ball for sure, and he is definitely competing outside his comfort zone in Self Ball, exactly as you say, but at the same time, it is conspicuous that BG is the first guy of the season to go in Self's TOUGHENING BOX. Self doesn’t usually put guys he is not counting on in the toughening box and never as the first guy. BG appears so demoralized presently that he may even have been in Le Box Toughening, since he started going through rehab. Self appears determined not to let him wallow in self pity. What we are witnessing is Self incarcerating and then sticking the needle into a quasi cripple, who sacrificed his body (read played operable) for Self last season. Now one thing we know about Self: anyone that plays operable for him doesn't necessarily get the world served to him on a silver platter the next season, but most definitely is included henceforth and into posterity as an inner circle guy—a guy to be counted on. On one extreme we have Mario Little who played operable and who just didn't quite have enough left to be a serious rotation guy, but who Self nonetheless went to in many crunches Little's last season. On the other extreme, we have a guy like Selden, who arguably plays operable all the time, and who has enough talent left to be better than Self's other options and so contributes a lot. But either way, once you are in with the Post-Operable In-Crowd you are considered one of the knights of Sir Bill’s Round Jump Circle Table.

Without putting too fine of a point on it, Self is beating the steaming shizz out BG with psychological warfare. This is an intensity of PSY-OPS that Self usually reserves for guys he intends to count on, but this goes even beyond that. This is standing around kicking and clubbing and torquing and paradoxing a guy, when he is in rehab. Self didn’t even do that to Brandon Rush. If this won't make the rest of the team rally 'round BG and around all their teammates, Self may have to resort to a Deer Hunter kind of scenario in a hut on stilts out on the Kansas River by a sand bar. He may have to stand their screaming and spinning the drum on a Smith with one bullet and makie BG play Russian flipping roulette to find out which teammate is man enough to come forward and play with him!

I mean Brannen is in Christopher Walken kind of pain right now. And I don't know who is going to DeNiro him out of this, but some teammate HAS to step forward and sacrifice himself (i.e., be the next into the toughening box) to save this post-operable, quasi-crippled trifectate extraordinaire. The man from red clay country, the man who went to the wall for Self last season playing operable, the man who kept draining fools gold for the Coach that disingenuously claims treys are Fool’s gold, this man deserves better than this, even if his hip never regains its pop and flex. This man is a new , sub basement evel of The Toughening Box. This is like Self saying, "Alright you bunch of spoiled, Fool's gold loving, trinitary wannabe pussies playing X-boxes in the Taj Mahal we built for you, I'm going to take your three-ball ring leader, the best gunner of the bunch of you, maybe the best shootist I have ever coached, and the guy we all know played operable for us last season, and I'm going to grind my jack boot adidas into his hip scar and screw with his southern Randolph Scott kinda mind until one of you cowards comes to save him and turns this band of babies into a team of men.” Self’s eyes are flashing. “You thought last season was tough? You thought @aybate 1.0 was right about calling you basketball's Merrill's Marauder's? You thought you had been to Myitkyina? Well, now hear this: you didn't take Myitkyina last year. You hear me? You got your asses punked by Division III Wichita State and that chicken vent of a coach they have! You may think you are a highly ranked team with a bunch of experience and great three ballers that just won the WUGs. But I say you are all worthless gutter trash, lower than the stuff Bruce Weber scrapes off his Nikes in the Xperimental Barns in Dung Hollow a couple hours west of here!!!!" Self reddens and veins ripple on his forehead and neck. "Mr. Best Three Point Shooter KU ever had over there is in the Toughening Box and he's going to stay in it tell hell freezes over, or till one of you guys figure out how to play real basketball, while he sinks girlie man treys at 40%., and then goes into The Toughening Box for him.” Self kicks a puke bucket placed their for him by the director of basketball operations. “Fool's gold is making 40% of your treys on legs that haven't played hard defense. I want 40% on treys from exhausted legs, injured legs, operable legs." Self looks around. “Or let no man come back alive!!!!! You may think this looks like Horejsi, but its not. Because you failed to take Myitkyina last season and I had to eat shizz shaking the hand of Mr. IMax Forehead, this is the flipping gorge of the River Kwai, where a team of failures last season must learn to cooperate under the worst conditions imaginable to build A Bridge Over, what shall I call it, the River Hard Wood that will be blown up in March, so that you can then build another Bridge Over the River Madness in March and April, if that Micron Brain Bob Bowlsby doesn't move March Madness to the next fricking year!" Self struts around maniacally hyperventilating. "Watch your three point shooting friend there, Brannen Greene. He isn’t in a hurt locker of pain. He is in a hurt terminal warehouse of pain. And he is there, because of you conceited, self-satisfied numb nuts, and its going to get worse for him until you start to get it and save his ass!” Whistle blows. Now start running and don’t stop, while Mr. Georgia here hops in place on his bad hip!”

I can't explain it. I just have a hunch that BG is being groomed for important work, even though I have been telling everyone all off season that he needs a red shirt and that hip ain't coming around anytime soon without a year's rehab…whilst no one, least of all Bill Self, hath been listening to the erstwhile ’bate.

(2) I believe Self wished he were a great long ball shooter, so he has three point envy, and I believe his college injuries awakened him to the fact that almost no player makes it through any season, often any game, with the things required to shoot a high long ball percentage: two good knees, two good ankles, untorn muscles, untorn/unstretched ligaments and tendons, working fingers on the shooting hand, working rotator cuffs, un-hyperextended elbows, unsprained wrists, working hamstrings, working achilles heels, and so forth. The human body is a complex and vulnerable system in Self’s mind. Self learned from his D1 time that operable players that are great athletes can often guard on sheer force of will, and that even healthy shootists have slumps and utterly unpredictable moments. I believe Self believes trifectation really is Fool’s Gold. Its a gift that about 35-40 percent of the time makes winning easier, the rest of the time life is about will, defense, and 50/50 balls, and explosive plays. And I believe Self is putting both his team and his fans in The Toughening Box about three point shooting by his Fool’s Gold Redux. Remember, as alluded to above, he likely believes overconfidence is this teams biggest enemy after winning the WUGs.

(3) Vick is a potentially great player playing somewhat beyond his years in Self-protected roles, but not yet experienced and mature enough to both become the an unprotected target of Blue Meanies that a young starter invariably is, or to beat out a healthy, mature Greene. But Greene is not healthy. So: Vick is getting some minutes and being productive and if he can translate his length into guarding over picks he is going to play quite a bit, because he appears, like Greene, to have no conscience about squeezing live rounds. Thus Self will have the same kind of problem with Vick that he has with Greene, despite liking Vick’s defense better, and despite trusting Greene’s ability to play through more. When he looks into Vick’s eyes, he sees the same thing he sees in Greene’s eyes. Cold indifference to Self’s warnings about shooting. Trey ballers are assassins on wood.They are the French Connection to the assassination of President Kennedy wearing silks instead of suits and ties. They warm up in the basketball equivalent of Dealy Plaza—the arc beyond the three point stripe. They don’t think twice about a long shot from the Grassy Knoll. And though their coaches hate to resort to them, when the situation calls for it, the order for their services comes down from on high in code, and they do the job their way. Self is like all Allen Dulleses. He would like to find a way not to have to order the shooters into action. Its messy. It requires the involvement of persons one has little control over, once the green light is given. But in the final analysis, all coaches, like all Allen Dulleses, keep the option of shooters in their tool set. If nothing else, there presence is a serious deterrent to an opponent getting too reckless in what he thinks he can get away with. Shootists may be loners, or not, but they most often work in teams of three. Triangulation ensures success. Triangulation compensates for glitches. The high low offense is set up for the assassination deterrent. It has three perimeter slots for the shooters. Every time down the floor is Dealy Plaza for an opponent, if you have three assassins to put on the floor. But the opponent never knows whether this trip is a dry run, or for real, whether the shootists are going to be ordered to do their jobs, or whether the ball is going inside to the plumbers. How Vick shakes out this season depends a lot on Greene’s hip, and Svi’s nerves. Shootists either have nerves of steel, or they are sociopaths lacking all emotions. Svi’s disastrous shooting season last year proves he has nerves that were not yet steel. If Svi’s nerves have been grown tempered this off season, Vick will play 10 mpg. If Svi’s nerves were irreversibly frayed, then Vick is a 15-20 minute man, maybe even if Perry swings 3/4.

(4.) Selden is a black box with broad shoulders, a long first step, some touch outside, and the muscle and length to guard long 2s and short 3s. Self knows Selden is a walking injury. But Selden has proved he can guard injured and that is the bottom line for Self, when Selden was a 2. But now Selden is a 3 and Self knows Selden will have trouble with the best 3s that are 6-6 to 6-8, even during Wayne’s healthier moments. Hence, Perry has to be ready to play some 3 situationally, and some 3, if Wayne pays one of his frequent visits to the MASH unit. Self is NOT going to rely on Branden, or Svi, or Vick, at crunch times. If Selden can’t go at crunch times, Perry swings 3. Of course, this depends on Bragg being able to getter done and talented as Bragg is, Self’s palms sweat even thinking about having to rely on Bragg at crunch time.

(5) It is both motivation and reality. With Self, always remember BOTH. He is squeezing the committee of Selden, Greene, Svi, and even Vick, who despite being able to hide behind a cross section of mylar, could wind up their at certain times because he can guard, whereas the others, excepting Selden, are works in progress that way. At the same time, however, none of these guys appear ready for a 40 minute dose of that rare guy at the 3; that near Michael Kidd-Gilchrist kind of freak that one usually runs into once or twice a season. So: for those times, and if none of the committee of the 3 stay healthy, or progress enough, Perry has to be prepared for what he should have been playing all along. Perry could be our Michael Kidd-Gilchrist at the 3, instead of a stretch 4 forced outside by blue meanies. But I am being a whiner here. Self knows his shizzle. If he says Perry can play 4 in the crunch, then I will ride along. What’s one more year, after my having to go along for the last three?

(6) Traylor will play despite the lack of rebounding, when Self can scheme rebounding out of the other four guys. Remember, Self has this weird rebounding ace in the hole at the point guard. Self has Bill Bridges Lite handling the ball out front. If Bragg and Perry were in the game, both of whom can ding it from outside, then Self could pull them out, along with both wings, let one of those four shoot it, and actually rely on Frank Mason to beast the carom. It is feasible. Mason is a great rebounder locked up inside a point guard’s body.

(7) We will never play faster, or slower, because the other team dictates our tempo, and as long as Self has a bunch of L&As most opponents will choose to play slow. But we will, at Self’s discretion, shoot sooner, or later, after crossing half court. Good Ball played in the WUGs is the quick trigger offense.

(8) Nope. We never solved that problem with recruiting. We will only be able to score b2b, when Bragg is playing someone short and weak, or Perry is playing a non-blue meanie with slow feet that he can spin on.

(9) I am as excited about the prospect of Bragg and Mickelson as Bragg and Perry. Both tandems pose big problems for the opponent. Bragg and Mick bring us “length” we haven’t seen for awhile, and a nice mixture of shot blocking and mobility that we haven’t had since TRob and Jeff in the run to the Finals. But as I said, Bragg and Perry bring two guys that can step out and pop, which was what made Marcus and Kieff such a potent duo. With good health among all our bigs, and reasonable progress with both Bragg and Mick, we are blessed. If either of Lucas, or Traylor, finding a steady journeyman game, we are sitting pretty every way but in scoring depth inside.

(10) I like to think of cleaning up the game as real Mortadella from Italy, and recent attempts to clean it up as processed American baloney. Really cleaning the game up so that it became more about releasing the athleticism and speed of the remarkable athletes of today, along with forcing them back into benefitting from developing their fundamentals more than their muscles, this I would welcome as I would a visit from James Naismith. I believe there is some reason to worry about the game turning into a foul fest in regular season, but the widening of the lane could save us all. Why? Because the wider lane, coupled with calling touch fouls, is going to make coaches rely much more on sliding for defense, than on muscling. Thus the coaches will mostly have already anticipated this by working way more on sliding and way less on bodying. It could be a renaissance season. But I have learned to wait and see about such enthusiasms.

Again, a great job of setting out the major issues as the season starts.

@REHawk

This situation drove Donovan away. Pitino is only hanging till his kid at UMinn has the bonafides to run UL, or land with an elite Nike program. Self's best move, if he can stand it, is to hang on long enough to hire Tyler and get him two years of assisting at some level for KU ON HIS RESUME, and then take the biggest pro check he can get. This 3-4 year path will get him a shot coaching an Olympic team, which he clearly wants to do.

Self almost has to know that once he and KU TOOK THE MONEY from Adidas, and adidas couldn't break the apparent embargo, that that killed any chance he had of winning a bunch of rings in his final decade of coaching, unless something catastrophic happens to Nike.

I suspect he is only hanging on for Tyler and a shot at the Olympics, maybe the conference title run, too. But to me, the Greatest KU coach since Phog Allen is on a short fuse now, because of the damn Big Shoe politics. Breaks my heart to write it. He coulda been the greatest. He was perfectly prepared to join the ranks of the all time ring winners, when he turned 50. But the apparent embargo hit at exactly the worst time for him. And the tragedy is KU and Self made the choice.

😞

@Statmachine

Let's reduce it to basics.

Svi was thought to be a 17 year old phenom able to play instantly in D1 and likely go to the NBA after a season.

He could not stay with a man over a pick and he could not make his treys.

LaGerald also came out a year early so he is nearly as young as Svi was.

So far, he contributed significantly to winning the WUGs.

When he comes in, he is productive, even if not yet polished.

He is a serious talent that will contribute this season, but will be a phenom next season if he stays.

LB had him pegged two years ago.

LB doesn't misread many players.

Vick is the real deal.

Svi is in a bind.

There is no substitute for foot speed in any sport.

Vick has it now.

Svi is going to have to develop it the same way Tyrel Reed had to develop it.

Some players can develop foots speed, and others cannot.

Time alone will tell.

@Crimsonorblue22

It would be a sight to behold!

@Crimsonorblue22

He would naturally grow neural nets.

He would naturally get more muscular, but not necessarily gain weight. Baby fat often makes way for muscle, rather than weight gain.

Jeff Withey his last season was what a player looks like that decides to strengthen and lean up the body fat on what he has.

Jeff Withey his second, or third season, before he got the mysterious sickness, was what Jeff Withey looked like when he weighted up below the waist.

Surf Youtube for Pete Maravich feeds at LSU and then in the pros. Realize that his father was a career basketball coach that eventually coached D1. Realize that players worked out with weights to build strength in those days, too. They tended NOT to do the home made protein shakes made of egg whites in a blender that football and weight lifters and weight men in track did. Look at Pete Maravich's body morphology evolve from college to the pros. It is far less change than Svi evidences between his freshman and sophomore season.

Watch Maravich move. Watch how limber and yet explosive he was. Realize that even then people said he could never stand up to the abuse of the NBA, because even back then there were a lot of bruisers in the NBA and the NBA allowed more contact. Realize that Pete not only stood up to the beating, he ran a lot of NBA players ragged.

Also, just watch and enjoy.

But remember that this weight training thing aimed at muscling up and bulking up players is being done to ALL the players to one degree, or another. There are a whole lot more skinny African American and Caucasian American kids that are being put through this morphology re-engineering routine than just the Crimean Kid. This is now big business: food, machines, digital monitors, and chip implants are around the corner.

My point here is: Is all this morphology re-engineering good for the players and good for the game?

Think about it. TV tells the NCAA to unleash both more athleticism AND more violence to amp the ratings. The NCAA tells its conference commissioners this is what sells and makes the checks big for the member institutions. The conference commissioners talk to their director's of officials and say something like call the game so that the great athleticism of our players is revealed more frequently and more telegenically. And don't foul out the guys that do the monster dunks and that go flying through the air to slam it, and that shoot those incredibly long treys. The directors of officials go to their referred teams and say, "let'em play as much as you can without it turning into a full blown brawl. Let the guys hang on the rims, let the guys make contact. And so on. And the increasingly weird combination of protecting certain players and letting others be butchered is what results.

Throw in trying to keep the game in broadcast windows and trying keep the games close enough to not wreck the spreads constantly, and making sure the stacks dominate the Final Four, and making sure that teams from the right kinds of markets tend to advance in the early rounds, and you have the pitiful WWF-ization of the greatest game ever invented.

In today's game, Pete Maravich would have been told to gain 20 and be quick about it, then we'll figure out where to put the next 10-15.

And Pete would not have been a better basketball player because of it.

He would have been able to stand up to the prison bodies better; that's all.

But of course the game of basketball is so exciting even played with little contact that for every prison body play we might lose, we would gain the incomparable greatness of a Pete Maravich, a Tiny Archibald, and so on.

And the natural prison bodies would be even more dominant playing against a greater number of natural skinnies.

Basketball leadership needs to take a hard look at weight training NOW.

If they don't, they are just sewing the seeds of the next great class action suit that the Drake Group will be advisors on and the some law firm will get their percentage on.

@dragnslyr has said several times, and it bears repeating: the players weight training-enabled musculature appears to be getting outside the envelopes of both the ligament/tendon connecting tissue and perhaps the skeleton itself.

I don't give a damn what anyone says, these are our children playing the game.

We owe it to them to bring some standards to this process of morphology reengineering and we owe it to them to get the rules called in a way that encourages players to play within certain limited variances from their natural morphologies.

This is a moral ethical issue that will inevitably become a legal-political issue, if we don't create some scientific/medical/engineering standards for what is being done to players by the current system.

@justanotherfan

You articulated this very well. Thanks for the assist.

Over the years I have come to accept an insight once shared with me that smart persons don't do dumb things, so much as they make net benefit choices based on constraints and accept the costs as necessary to get what to them appear the net optimal benefits.

It follows that if you and I are smart enough to recognize and frame the issue as we have that Bill Self is also quite capable of doing the same also.

In turn, Bill Self must be making what appears to him an optimizing net benefit choice subject to constraints, and not a short sighted mistake.

Put another way, Bill Self must realize that he is trading off possible wins in March by playing guys hurt for wins earlier in the season and conference titles.

Thus the question is: what vision of costs and benefits and the context they occur in drives him to this choice?

If we concede Self is a smart coach--one with above average intelligence, and highly competent to coach the game to be played many different ways, then I think we have to look to the context he is operating in to see why he is making the choices he is making.

Self has not just a little but a lot of first hand experience at who wins the recruiting battles, at what it feels like to come up against teams with vastly more talent in March, while at KU, and in the regular season, at places like Illinois, Tulsa, and ORU.

Self has gone 0-fer, or nearly so at ORU. He knows coaching'em up can only do so much.

Self knows that taking over a program that is up, like Tulsa, was much more feasible to create a good coaching W&L statement than at a place that was down like ORU. He knows W&L statements and conference titles are the gold standard with management in his profession. Mostly you don't get fired when you win >25 games and you win your conference title. Period.

Self knows lots of coaches have gotten fired a few years after winning a ring. Self knows already people are beginning not to care a whit that he won a ring in 2008. Rings are the ornaments on a career. They help you get ranked higher than other guys by reporters and fans looking back. Coaches can't eat looking back. They can't create huge trusts for their kids looking back. They can do those things by winning more than >25 and conference titles. They need to get a ring once in a while, but most reason that that will take care of itself, if they keep the program up and winning >25 and hanging conference titles frequently. Rings just aren't controllable. Most guys aim to coach for 20-30 seasons, if they can hang on. No one has won more than ten rings. Next is 5 rings. Most top coaches win 1 or 2 rings. Rings are not controllable. Rings can buy you a few seasons of popularity and can get you into some recruits you used to not be able to get into see. But the rings are not controllable. Seeding by a system aiming to create the biggest audience determines a large share of which top team wins any given ring. If you are at KU in a small population state in the CST, you can pretty much know that you will usually get the raw end of seeding. Thus a rational coach logically infers that rings don't pay the rent and keep the lights on in a 30,000 sf house on an estate. Winning >25 games and conference titles, which are something a coach at KU holds a distinct edge in doing, and so has some control over, do pay the rent and keep the lights on. And the longer he coaches the bigger the trust funds he leaves for his kids. And never underestimate the extent of the desire of a parent to provide for his kids and ensure to the best of his ability that they never have to fend for themselves the way he had to, when he was young, unless they want to. A parent knows that some kids are gentle and not equipped to run with wolves, while others are. A parent wants to protect all of his children from the real world, if he can. Love, education and an enormous trust fund are the best ways to do that.

The longer Self coaches at KU, the more certain he is his children never have to fear for the rest of their lives. And the longer Self coaches, the more certain Self's grand children never have to fear for their lives. And so on. It is that simple. There is no end to the desire to secure the futures of the generations either. If Self could make a billion dollars coaching, he would try to do it. There is inelastic demand for wealth, because, as the Rockefellers demonstrate. No matter how much wealth they have and how much they control, they can further enhance it and further secure the order that secures them and their future generations at the top of the heap of the global economy. Self may say he doesn't foresee himself coaching a long time. Fine. He can say what he wants, but when he looks at his children eventually he will think: well, another year of $10 million, or another five, and they are iced at the level of the next grade of wealth up. All the talk about wealthy people doing what they do because they love it is only half the story--the half put out to the plebes. The other half is that they are highly incentivized and driven to enhance their wealth endlessly for their future generations and for their visions of how the world ought to be organized for their future generations. For every one wealthy person that talks about making their kids earn their livings there is in the back ground an enormous, unspoken of, and growing trust fund. Period.

So having covered the driver of wealth, let's get back to immediate context.

Self cannot land the best players...not yet.

Self cannot get nearly the numbers of the best players that other elite programs get...not yet.

And he's been at it for over a decade now at KU.

And he has been the most successful coach of his generation for a goodly portion of that tenure.

Self probably looks at the field of coaches at elite programs, AND the field of inexperienced coaches with much less talent than himself, with dump truck loads of OADs and 5 stars backing up each season and thinks, well, that's not how it is at Kansas. I'm not bitter about it. I have one of the great jobs in my profession. I get a lot of very good players and always tend to have more than the other teams in my conference. I have an unfair advantage in the conference, and if I use my skills wisely, and keep trying to get better as a coach and keep trying to make my teams better, with what talent the system allows me, then I can pretty much hang on her indefinitely and get richer than I ever dreamed, and amass a fortune that will ensure great lives for all of my family for generations to come. And I am doing what I love. And I have great kids. And I am a midwesterner that has been to Paris and learned that there are somethings in Lawrence that I like better than in Paris. I like to visit Paris on the private jet for a long weekend, but I like living in Lawrence. I like walking down Mass Street and popping into this cafe, or that pizza joint and talking ball and small talk with the towns people. They are my kind of people outside of basketball people. They like me and I like them. They aren't asking me to work miracles. They are asking me to be the best I can be with what I have to work with. They are asking me to keep Kansas being Kansas, not turn it into Kentucky. I like that. And I will work my butt off for them and for my kids and my wife and my staff and me. This is my home, unless something drastic changes.

The key to Self's choices about when to ask players to sacrifice their bodies lies in what I have outlined above.

My hypothesis is: Self looks at at the talent distribution and the seeding system, and the inherent talent advantage he usually holds in conference, and the seeding benefit of winning the conference, and the talent disadvantage that he operates at increasingly in the Madness, and comes to a VERY rational conclusion.

Let's win as many games as quickly as we can and sacrifice our bodies for the conference titles, because even if we rest up and get healthy for March Madness, between the biased seeding, the biased refereeing, and the great advantage in talent the other elite programs tend to have over us, we are almost never going to have a significant chance to win six straight games when healthy.

Let's make the best of what we can control. We can catch a lot of teams in development in pre conference, and if we are willing to lay it all on the line in the conference, we can beat a lot of teams in conference simply with greater talent, I can get us the rest of the wins we need, and when we occasionally run into a coach with an unusually good team in conference, well, he will be trying to figure out how to position for post season, and we can leave it all on the floor against him and win that conference title to. And, so, who cares if he wins another game or two in the Madness and we go out the second round in our off years, if we go out elite Eight in our good years, and, when once in awhile lady luck smiles on us in our match ups and injuries, we get a ring.

Do you see what I'm saying here?

Self is a realist.

That he is also a risk taker sometimes obscures that.

Self is an enormous risk taker, when he thinks he has a significant chance of winning something.

Self saw that he had the talent needed to win a ring in '08 and he played his cards very close to the vest in the conference run. He conserved his team for that Madness for sure, because he had the horses to win it all. And once he got there he took outrageous risks against UNC with that surprise lane jumping defense the first half. And he was always willing to risk defeat by sending teams out flat in that Madness until he got to UNC. He was so sure he had to take risks that he was willing to play his A game against UNC and then hope to win with his B game against Memphis with a coach he knew he could outcoach, one way or another, since he had equal talent,or maybe more, despite all of Cal's ringers.

But most of the other years?

Its been apparent that Self's most talented teams were less talented than at least two of the other elite programs in any given season.

Self plays to win.

In life and in the game.

The way you play to win is to aim at what you CAN win at.

Getter done.

Then worry about how to steal another slice of cake later.

But you better win what you can.

And he does that.

Mostly he has the talent to win the conference and he does it.

Once he had the talent and experience needed to win a title.

It seemed he had the talent in Wiggins and Embiid, but then he realized that Wiggins and his posse were not going to let Wiggins play full tilt. So he shifted gears an put the saddle on Embiid, who was the only player with a ton of talent willing to play hard enough to win a conference title. And he lacked a point guard. And then he lost Embiid to injury using him to try to win a title at all costs. Why did he risk him? Because he probably guesses that Wiggins and his posse would never let Wiggins play full tilt even in the Madness. Without Wiggins AND Embiid playing full tilt, there wasn't enough talent on the rest of the team to have a prayer of winning a ring. When Embiid got injured, Self had to have known how serious it was and that the likelihood of Embiid ever returning 100 percent that season was slim and none. So: a ring was never really in the cards, unless Wiggins was willing to step up. And the Stanford game made clear that that was never going to happen.

I frankly am impressed with Self's grasp of the context he is coaching in.

I am impressed with how level headed and calculatingly rational and insightful he has been during his KU tenure.

He really hasn't misread the level of his talent once.

I think the guy gets it totally.

I think the fans are still learning.

Rock Chalk!

(NOTE THE FIRST: WARNING--SOME CRITICISM OF SELF AND HUDY (AND PROBABLY LOTS OF D1 COACHES) FOLLOWS. I KNOW. ITS RARE FROM ME. IF YOU DON'T WANT TO HEAR A NEGATIVE WORD ABOUT OUR BELOVED COACHES SELF AND HUDY, DON'T READ IT. ENJOY YOUR DAY.)

@Lulufulu said:

I saw SVI stay in front of his man, who happened to be a smaller guard.

(NOTE THE SECOND: THE ABOVE TRIGGERED THE FOLLOWING BUT @Lulufulu BEARS NO RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE FOLLOWING. :-))

First, Big Julie, I saw huge potential in Svi in the beginning. I even compared him to a young Larry Bird. Even though I, Natan Detroit, should have compared him to Pete Maravich plus 2-3 inches, minus a coach-dad like Press Maravich that groomed him from the moment of weaning to have impeccable basketball fundamentals.

Second, I, Natan Detroit, am rarely wrong about what I see, when it stands out so much. Its like when my wife drags me to a ballet, which I want to know nuttin' about, and I see a tremendously gifted ballerina. It does not take an expert to see great talent, Big Julie. It takes an expert to see lesser increments of talent that could be developed, and expertise on the scale of Big Julie, or Sky Masterson, to see how both great and middling talent can be blended to create a team greater than the sum of its parts. I, Natan Detroit, do not claim to be a genius at those things, as Coach Bill Self so obviously is.

But it also don't take a genius to see when guys get treated as square pegs to be pounded into round holes, or vice versa.

Mostly, it doesn't matter whether a college player is treated round, or square, and driven into the opposite kind of a hole "for the good of the team," read coach, Big Julie, because mostly college player's are not going to make their livings as professional type basketball players, whether or not they believe that they will.

What they are going to get out of playing D1 is an education, which I dearly wish I had gotten, if they, unlike me, are insightful enough to grab one. They will also likely be heirs to debilitating arthritis later in life from injuries. But it is not all the contents of a manure wagon that they will be heirs to, Big Julie. They will also get the great joy of playing the game at a high level, the thrill of being a big man on campus, a lot of good tutoring, and introductions to beautiful young women the likes of which most of us can only dream about getting. These are all desirable incentives for subjecting oneself to the driven monomania of D1 head coaches pursuing enough wins each season to keep banking fantastic pay checks from athletic departments, Big ShoeCos, TV shows, camps, and lecture fees. Am I right, or am I right, Big Julie?

Hmm, yes, let us not be naives, Big Julie.

D1 Head coaches are as driven by bones as any Fortune 100 CEO. They've just found a way to satisfy the greed need through not-for-profit shells, is that not correct?

You are so right, Big Julie. They evidence the same kinds of smiles as the big CEOs. They manifest the same kind of double talk and professional patois in the media, as big CEOs. They wear the same kinds of high end suits. They live in the same kinds of houses. They drive the same kinds of cars. They fly in the same kinds of jets. They go on the same kinds of vacations. They belong to the same kinds of country clubs. Their PR flacks create the same kinds of public imagery for them, regarding their home life. Their subordinates dutifully say in spinfluence documentaries the same kinds of positive things about how great they are and how WYSIWYG they are.

But behind the PR crafted images, behind the foundations, and the good deeds, and the working with "the kids," lurks a human being that deeply, inelastically, unendingly hungers for more and more wealth, until finally like Great Whites, they are killed off by firing, or satiated with success and wealth, and swim off to television for some quick checks, and then dive down into the depths of retirement fishing the Gulf Stream, or the Grand Banks, or Grand Lake of the Cherokees, or the Jade Coast of the PNW, or one of the various upwellings in oceans around the world, where the kill is easy from a Steigercraft off Long Island, a Parker in the Carolinas, a Contender in the Keys, an Albury Brothers in the Bahamas, a Bertram anywhere, a Radon in California, or a Pacific in the PNW, or a Munson landing craft anywhere in this wide wonderful world of upwellings...and requires no 18 year old recruits.

So that is the Real Politik and Real Economik context of what I am about to say about Svi. Capice, Big Julie?

So, here we are starting Svi's second season and he looks like a big oaf--not like Bird, and not like Pistol.

As I hinted above, what we had on our hands here a year ago was a 17 year old Pete Maravich not raised by a coach named Press Maravich, and so behind in his footwork from what Pistol Pete was at 17.

And what have we now?

We now have an eighteen year old whose shooting confidence appears to have been ruined, whose body has been turned into a bar bouncer's, and he seems to be being groomed to play "an old man's game" of bang ball at a wing, when he came to us as a long point guard. This is the third time, Big Julie, that I have seen Coaches Self and Hudy take a tremendously gifted athlete and try to turn him into a mug. Travis Releford got the treatment. Jeff Withey was the other. Now Svi.

And it isn't pretty to watch, Big Julie. It is like putting Monica Bellucci in bib overalls and Red Wing boots and telling her to walk into a hog pen. It is not right, Big Julie. Not right at all.

Since you agree with me, let's recall Travis Releford for a moment, eh?

In hind sight, Travis Releford's conversion from race horse to war horse went well for KU and Travis his last two seasons, if having no NBA career counts as going well. His final season was especially memorable. I for one oohed and aaaahed about how great he played his last season. But his junior season reaching the Final Four was nothing to sneeze at either. Travis Releford did his part to keep Bill Self in the DEEP clover. You know, Big Julie, the $3-10 million per year depending on how you count the clover kind of clover, Big Julie.

But to get those two good seasons, Big Julie, Travis had to labor in obscurity for two season plus a red shirt season. Call it three years, eh? And Travis had to completely change his game--a total rebuild I called it--in which he ceased to be a potential world class race horse two with a funky shot and a wild hair, and became a hard nosed, mentally mature, bang baller on defense, a kid on the side, and a guy that never ran the break much. And he could STILL jump out of the gym, though he rarely did, Big Julie.

But was it a fair trade for Travis, Big Julie, that's what Sky Masterson axes me? And I got no good answer, Big Julie. I got only toughts, only toughts.

See, Big Julie, Travis woulda lost his wild hair no matter what he done with his game for those three years. Its a maturation kind of think, ya know. Da brain ain't developed to a grown up's brain until about 23, see? And, well, Travis red shirting and waiting a total of 3 years to play made sure he was over that wild hair thing that comes from incomplete neural net development, see?

And Sky, he tells me, Natan, don't be a mug. Travis shot 42% from trey his last season, when he was not injured playing bang ball. Suppose, Natan, that Travis had never been asked to play bang ball? Just suppose Travis had been allowed to develop naturally as a race horse running the floor end to end and soaring like an SR-71 Black Bird dripping jet fuel and flying through the air to target to release a nuclear tipped SR-71 drone dunk about six to ten times a game, eh? Oh, and suppose he shot his 42% from trey not just his senior season when he was relatively healthy, but his junior season, when he was not, also? Now having supposed this, Natan Detroit, consider that he might have been viewed by the GMs of the NBA as maybe the best 2 in the NBA draft and he might have been a lottery pick, instead of being viewed as a too small 3 with an old man's game. Just suppose this for awhile, Natan, and get back to me when you get the much respected and admired Big Julie of Chicago to come to the next game to be held in his honor at a location yet to be announced.

Do you see what Sky is sayin', Big Julie? He is sayin' that Travis Releford might have been an NBA player as a 2, but not as a muscled up, lugged up 3? Does this make sense to you?

Hmmm, I see, Big Julie. You are wishing to know more. You are wishing to know more about the case of Jeff Withey? Let me completely candid with you, Big Julie.

Jeff Withey was apparently nearly destroyed by diet changes and weight gain and weight redistribution, after he arrived at KU. He showed up a long, willowy footer with good mobility, a marked disillusionment with UA (and this is a feather in his cap, of course, Big Julie) and a shot blocking knack, but a little soft in Born Again personality for bang ball it was said by some.

So: Self and Hudy apparently went straight to work putting weight on him from the waist down. In turn, he appeared to get so sick at one point he couldn't play at all. Turned the most putrid skin color of anyone before Brannen Greene went mauve last season. This young footer then proceeded to languish for several seasons of tentative, inept play, and weight gain, and weight loss, and weight redistribution, before becoming his final two seasons a consummate shot blocker and one of the toughest players mentally that KU has had in the 5 in some time. And his final season, Scott Pollard appeared to step in to advocate for Self and Hudy to leave Jeff alone and just let him be the skinny footer with the great shot blocking knack that he was all along. They apparently did. And Jeff was drafted by the pros and was projected as a long term journeyman back up type of player in the NBA, which would guaranty Jeff of being a fabulously wealthy man in ten years. This was a good thing.

But then Sky Masterson says, "Natan, do not be a mug. Look at what happened here to Jeff Withey. He came to Lawrence and a bunch of time and effort were wasted trying to turn him into something that he was not, because he too had incompletely developed neural nets in the beginning due to youth. As a result he did not play as aggressively as he later would, and it was apparently decided that Jeff needed more weight and more strength to be more aggressive and tougher. And of course, Natan, you being of the skinny predisposition, understand that dynamite, and aggressive predispositions, come in slender packages, as surely as they come in thick heavy packages. And so, Natan Detroit, think about this: what if, since Jeff Withey was not going to become fully aggressive until his neural nets grew together sufficiently, well, what if Jeff Withey had focused all those years not on weight loss and weight redistribution, and muscle acquisition, and weird, scientifically arrived at diets, but had just eaten a usual healthy diet, and focused on acquiring offensive fundamentals and rebounding fundamentals to complement his savant like ability to block shots? What if Jeff had stayed healthy, and slender, all along, and just worked on his basketball skills 24/7 in a healthy condition? How much better might Jeff Withey have become, as a basketball player, had he not wasted so many years trying to become what he was morphologically NOT, and wasted so much time with related sickness and injury from trying to play the game in a way he was not predisposed to play it? Think on this Natan Detroit, and get back to me on this, once you have gained the deeply venerated and loved Big Julie of Chicago's consent to attend our much celebrated dice game at a location yet to be announced.

This Big Julie is in my humble opinion the crux of the issue, is it not? Sky Masterson has nailed it, has he not? To me, Natan Detroit, it seems so.

What is that you say, Big Julie?

Do you mean to say that well it does seem like an issue that Coach Self and Coach Hudy should look into before they waist three seasons trying to transform Svi into something that he is not, when they could perhaps more profitably for him and them simply let him eat healthy, work out, and keep working on his fundamentals and skills, until he reaches a point of physical and mental maturity that he naturally becomes far, far better than he can ever become trying to transmogrify himself into a 6-8 lug on the wing?

I, Natan Detroit, have to agree with the extraordinary wisdom that you have just bestowed upon me. I am frankly in awe of your insight into the greatest game ever invented. And I, and Sky, would be most honored, if you would agree to come and be a part of the most entertaining dice game of the year anywhere in the world, at a location yet to be announced?

(Note: All fiction. No malice, just some crit.)

@Lulufulu

Your latest assessment seems pretty accurate to me.

Though fans that pride themselves on trying to learn the game and be objective in their assessments don't like to admit it, all of us are biased by the long ball not falling.

Shooting 21% from trey on 19 3ptas colors our perceptions of other things, particularly guard play, for awhile after games.

Cold outside shooting does have some real adverse effects on what guards can do, of course.

So our perceptions are not totally a product of missing lots of treys.

It gets harder as the game goes on to drive the ball, if they quit honoring your trey, because you are bricking so many.

But I am convinced there is a psychodynamic between poor trey percentage and the feeling that the team, especially the backcourt, isn't playing well, when in fact it may be playing okay, but just not making shots.

Coaches are usually more objective about this sort of thing than fans, but even they succumb occasionally to the bias of missing the long ball.

The purpose of play is to make more baskets and FTs than the other team.

It doesn't feel good on a basic level, when we don't make'em.

And when we do make'em, it feels soooooooooo good that we sometimes think we are playing better than we are.

This is one of the ways you begin to know you are making progress as a student of the game; you see through the effect of shooting on your perceptions of the rest of the game.

On a subconscious level, everyone was, as shrinks say, experiencing a lot of cognitive dissonance because of all the clanked treys. We enter this season with lots of question marks in the front court. We aren't sure who can play and who can't. We aren't sure if Diallo will be cleared. We aren't sure if Bragg can come along fast enough to gives a scoring and rebounding presence in the paint. We aren't sure if Selden will ever be healthy. We aren't sure if Hunter will play as well as he did in the WUGs. We aren't sure if Svi is a complete bust. We aren't sure if Brannen's hip will bounce back. We aren't sure who Perry can and cannot score on in D1....

But we felt sure our perimeter guys could pot the triceratop, could trinitize the trifecta, could R2D2 the C3PO, could replicate the triplicates of last season and last summer.

It was like, well, at least we know going in we have one thing we can count on: the guys can ding from downtown.

But then they shot 21% and it was like Bohr and Heisenberg telling Schroedinger, sorry, you're making this too complicated. The stinking cat really is alive AND dead. Or its like Bohr and Heisenberg telling Einstein, Podolski and Rosen, sorry but changing the spin of an electron will change the spin of an electron across the universe instantaneously and quantum entanglement does involve superluminal speeds fellas.

Human beings, especially ones trying to practice the fine art of thinking about something systematically, really hate have their foundation kicked out from under them.

No, we all subconsciously cried, not our three point shooting assumption, NO, basketball god, don't take that away from us!!!!!

But the basketball god laughed at us and took away our three point shooting, as surely as the god of the universe laughed and took away the locality assumption from Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen.

Woe is us for awhile now.

We can't be sure of our outside shooting anymore, until our guys shoot their way out of the slump, if they do.

We have to wonder: was last year as freakish a year of three point shooting as it was a freakish year of injuries?

Maybe we weren't as good of trey ballers as we thought we were.

And all that doubt causes angst, and all that angst adversely colors our perceptions of other things, like floor play.

But a little time passes and suddenly we are able to get our bearings and things look a little better.

Rock Chalk!

@Lulufulu

Uh, well, he da man.

:-)

@konkeyDong and @HighEliteMajor

The way to sign Udoka is to put a Fuller Dome over Lawrence and plant a lot of palm trees.

He has to be a warm weather guy to be considering NCSU.

@drgnslayr

Stumpy didn't getter done for two straight seasons, when given the kitchen sink.

Big Shoe and Big Agent have apparently instituted a 2-year window rule.

Gotta get a ring when talent is being dumped on you, or the valve is diverted to others?

@Crimsonorblue22

Hey, I forgot about half a Perry and Joel missing out.

Its all been so terrible, I am repressing things now. :-)

@Lulufulu

Hell, yes, its great we made it to the season!!!!!

At my age and in my condition, its great to make it to tomorrow!

I agree that Bragg and Mickelson would be a great starting tandem, once both get their feet wet.

And, as usual, I would probably commit to a year of uninterrupted public service in the next Ebola outbreak, if Self would commit Perry to the 3 and make Selden his backup. But that will happen, when Self shaves his head for the Final Four and tattoos hyperpolysyllabicsesquepedalianism on his Johnson. :-)

@JayHawkFanToo

Interesting. In abstraction, KU is still one shy of UK after UK's worst recruiting year probably since Calipari got to UK. Hmmm.

And that's in the abstract.

Now let's drill to reality.

Let's look at our guys in terms of which of these guys will hold every game MUA if we were to get all the way to the Final Four.

Ellis--a 3 in real inches playing the 4 in KU inches that is proven not to be able to play effectively b2b against normally sized 4s and taller. Perry looks great inside and out, until he meets a 6-9 to 6-10 that moves as well as he does and with a mean streak, which is most every big that will be drafted in that size range. When Perry meets that guy, especially in the Madness, unless the opponent has extraordinarily slow feet, which they rarely do, then KU has to hope Perry's trey is falling or someone else on the team has a career game; this is the problem with building a team around a guy that does not promise every game MUA. Late in the Madness, Perry will tend to be an MUD (match up disadvantage).

Mason--a relatively short, former Towson State commit that struggled splitting time as a shooting guard and point guard his first season, and then blossomed as a point guard on a team that could not go deep in the Madness. I think Frank will at least stay even with most guys he meets, even the future pros in the Madness. He is an MUA, or an MUE (match up even), even late in the Madness.

Selden--hurt, as usual. The probability is always that Wayne will be injured or subject to lost pop. He showed just how good he could be in Korea, but that is probably not the Wayne you get for most of a season. The Wayne we saw last season is much closer to the Wayne we will see this season, than the Wayne from Korea. It is a bad break for Wayne to be so injury prone, but that's how it is for some players. Therefore, rank Wayne an MUD in the Madness, unless he some how hits an injury free stretch.

Diallo--not eligible. If you can't play, you are by definition a MUD.

Bragg--not in the top 3 at his position, while being recruited, he now appears to be growing into a potential gem, though perhaps a year away from being able to put a saddle on him. Since Bragg has never been classified an OAD, one has to rank him an MUD this season late in the Madness, because of his youth. His sophomore season, barring injury, he is an MUA all the way to a ring. Alas, we are talking about this season.

So: KU only has one Top 100 player that could be an every game MUA, or even MUE, and that's Mason.

So: this team is very much like Self's team last season, but without anyone on the team as good as Kelly Oubre.

Thus we have to hope for an injury free season to get the most out of what we have.

In reality, KU is much thinner in talent than the ESPN 100 numbers would suggest.

And FWIW and perhaps as importantly, UK, UNC, Duke, LSU, and probably MSU have sharply higher ranked Top 100 players than KU has.

@ParisHawk

LOL!!!

I hope you were being facetious about your boss.

If not, you need to fire your boss, unless you are playing for a pension and just winding it down.

I am going to go out on a limb here and say that America has the worst bosses of any advanced economy in the world, and maybe the worse bosses than most of the emerging economies.

Its not just "management," that sucks.

Most top level management has always been horrible in America. Henry Ford and Steve Jobs and even Bill Gates were the exceptions, never the rules. Top level management has always been focused on accounting results and financial maneuver and stock structures and not on the process of making good products. Most top level management wouldn't know how to make a good product, or even recognize a good product, if their jobs depended on it, which they don't.

What once made America superior to its economic competitors was what once made America's military superior to its enemies: Great Sergeant Majors, Great Gunnies, Great Chief Warrant Officers, and highly motivated not to fail young college graduates in the captain through two Louie ranks of the officers.

American once upon a time had a labor force that included mid and low level bosses that understood how to do things, and so understood what could and could not be done well. This labor force of low level bosses was marginalized by accounting controls and profits through financial arbitrage rather than through making and selling good products at a profit.

America was once a nation that depended on getting things done for its successes and prosperity. It won economic competitions. It won wars.

Now it intentionally sets out NOT to win wars. It just sets out to not lose them and convulse the opponent into something that can be denied to everyone.

Likewise in business, Ford and GM do not set out to beat Toyota, or Volkswagen. They set out to survive with them in an oligopoly. There is not incentive for victory, nor any ethic for victory, in American business any longer.

The last thing Ford, or GM, want to do is build a product good enough that it runs Volkswagen, or Nissan, or Honda, or Mercedes, out of business. They want to build stuff just good enough to keep them all in business, so that they get to keep spreading the risk of the unexpected and the costs of supporting parts suppliers spread around, so they can keep their bottom lines where they want them.

You boss should be talking to you about how well you did what you did, and studying the good things you did to show you how to spread the good you did to improve your short comings in other aspects.

We don't learn from our mistakes nearly as much as we generalize from our successes.

Good bosses understand this.

Good coaches do too.

@Crimsonorblue22

Yep. But the injuries the previous season were to cornerstones--Selden and Joel, not to sooooooooo many on the team. At least that's what my feeble brain recalls.

Last season was a coach's nightmare.

And a fan's too.

@JRyman

There is quality and quantity.

It is best to have both. :-)

But there are ways to get by with either.

In WWII, the Germans had the 88s and the better tanks in fewer numbers.

The Americans had the 75s and lesser tanks that caught fire easily but had vastly greater numbers of both.

We kicked their asses with air superiority and greater numbers.

My rule is have one great player (air superiority) and a lot of numbers (lesser tanks in greater numbers).

We will have to hope that one of our guys in front or back court blossoms into a great player and has a great season, because we definitely have the numbers.

@wissoxfan83 said:

It’s always funny to me that a team gets everyone back from a team that finished weakly and we say, great we’ve got an experienced team coming back, well an experienced team that wasn’t that great to begin with.

KU didn't finish weak.

It finished injured.

Big difference.

The team was actually very good for a few stretches last season, when injuries receded some.

And it was good enough to win a conference title injured; that says a lot about how much talent there is on the team, despite the deficiencies in the front court.

And it had such great character that it found a way to win despite the injuries.

I know we are both big fans of Bo Ryan.

But the probability is that Bo wouldn't have won a conference title with KU's injuries last season. Make that high probability.

Bo just wouldn't have been able to improvise far enough outside what he normally does, the way Self did, to get her done. He's just not that kind of a coach. He has many strengths, but improvising on the fly is not among them.

Bo has proven over the years he needs good luck with injuries to win titles, or go deep in the Madness.

Self is so good that he can win titles with injuries, but even Self can't go deep in the Madness with lots of injuries.

For what its worth, I don't ever recall Bo Ryan having an equivalent rash of injuries on a team as short of big man talent as happened to Self and KU, and then winning a conference title.

Last season was very, very freaky for Self and KU--a huge anomaly in Self's KU tenure. Most injuries I ever recall across the board. Least front court talent. And we were largely bailed out the front nine by great outside shooting and on the back nine by BAD BALL.

And Self just bounced back and won the WUGs like it was no big deal totally shifting gears from what he has ever done in the past!

Self is a fabulous coach.

And though this team STILL lacks a great front court, there is enough material coming back with experience, plus Bragg, to make this team a threat to win another conference title, AND probably make the Sweet 16.

What board rats are often not factoring in is how much the team's outside shooting is likely to fall off from last season. Mason had a career season statistically last year. Players rarely have more than one of those in a four year college career. Kirk Hinrich and Tyrel Reed only had one great outside shooting season each. It is unrealistic for Mason to shoot as well as he did last season. And if Mason falls off just to 39-40, KU is going to need a ton of improvement out of its bigs to compensate.

Then there is Devonte Graham and the sophomore slump to be concerned about. Only a very few players start out with as statistically fine of a season as he did as a freshman, and follow it up with another equally fine sophomore season. If Graham AND Mason fall off a little, as should be expected, this team will struggle to achieve what it did last season.

Making a Final Four seems impossibly optimistic to me this season, even though I know the team will have several great spurts this season, because of having more offensive productivity in the paint.

Add Diallo, and then I would get more excited and wishful, but only somewhat. The reason Diallo is such a sweetener, is that even though he would only play at most 15-20 mpg, he would add the one thing this team is still weakest at, and which a good team requires: rebounding.

@justanotherfan said:

If Wayne is hobbled on a bad ankle, he should not be playing against Pitt State.

This is the nub of it. His injury appears chronic. Self is playing him, until Selden can't play at all. And then he will play Selden some more.

What we saw out there may be very much what we see this season.

Korea was what Wayne Selden can do when he is not injured.

But Wayne Selden is ALMOST ALWAYS injured.

It is a tough break for Wayne, as it was a tough break for Wayne Simien.

Simien got lucky and had most of his last season healthy and tore up the game for a season.

Self can only hope it happens for Selden. too.

And Self appears to have decided that Selden is always injured with something, and so you play him all the time.

Its a hard call.

My heart is with you on this: sit him till he is well.

But my head agrees with Self. For highly talented guys that are only well about 10% of the time, the only option is play them injured and hope they figure out how to play injured, and hope they catch a random break on injuries.

Bill Bridges was always injured. And his injuries were really severe: knees, but other things, too. Bridges had to learn to play injured. He was a great talent that no amount of sitting was ever going to fix.

Larry Bird, went from never injured to chronic back injury that cascaded into other things starting his second season in the NBA. He had to change his game and learn to play injured for most of his professional career.

My recollection of Simien was that he was injury prone his entire high school and college career before Self got him from Roy.

Self apparently had a conversation with Wayne and said something like, "Look Wayne, you are a great player, when healthy, but you are never healthy. You are so good that you are better than most guys even when you are injured. If you are willing to play injured, let's both just forget about your injuries and I will build the team around you. Wayne Simien at 75% is better than anyone else I have at 100%. But you have to play through the injuries for me to do this. If you don't want to play through the injuries, then I've got to go in another direction. Its your call." Wayne clearly rose to the challenge and got lucky on the injury front.

I believe Self has probably had a similar discussion with Wayne.

Wayne is the guy until Wayne literally can't walk out on the floor.

In another thread, @wissoxfan83 wrote that last season I called what we saw against Pittsburg State Bad Ball.

Uh, no.

Actually, I never called that Bad Ball last season and wouldn't call it that this season.

We just watched clunky High Low Post offense being worked on in the first game of the predicted touch call era.

In contradistinction, Bad Ball is a specific way of running the High Low Offense that Self adapted and resorted to increasingly from mid season on last year, until accrued injuries made Bad Ball the ONLY offense he ran at the end of the season. Bad Ball is running the High Low Offense to shoot short threes by driving INTO your man to COLLAPSE IMPACT SPACE (from all positions on the team), rather than trying to BLOW BY him and DRIVE TO THE RIM uncontested. Collapsing impact space is the coin of the realm of BAD BALL. Opening up impact space is the coin of the realm of the normal High Low Offense, and of what I call its Good Ball variation that was played in the WUGs.

The Pittsburg State Exhibition game appeared to me to be mostly just this team trying to practice running the High Low normally out of the blocks to see if the KU bigs had improved enough to constitute a credible scoring and rebounding presence in the paint.

To be clear, I am not talking about the 4 position, when I talk about the bigs. Perry is what he is. He looks good inside against guys his size, and not against guys bigger than him, unless they are incredibly slow footed and don't body him. Against the blue meanies, Perry has to turn into a stretch 4 and attack face-to-basket to be effective.

What I am talking about is the 5 position and the committee of players that will staff it most of the time. I say most of the time, because there will be 5-10 minutes every game, when Perry will take a blow and Bragg will fill for him and we will have both 4 and 5 positions staffed by our "bigs in question."

The N of 1 (an exhibition) indicated KU's bigs, subtracting Landen, who got fouled up and so did not show his game, are better offensively, somewhat improved on rebounding, but hardly dominant in either...yet.

If we look at Traylor, Mickelson, and Bragg as a committee at the 5, well, they beasted!!! They scored 33 points and grabbed 14 rebounds. If we had a single starter have that kind of night, we would be saying we had a future All American on our hands!!!

(Note: Isn't it about time that Jesse Newell and Ken Pom started tracking and packing the stats that would enable us to talk empirically about an All Committee team? Even the best teams usually have at least one position staffed largely by committee. Part of Self's greatness is his ability to find committees that work. We need an All-Committee Coach, i.e., a coach recognized for his particular gift with committee work at the various positions on his team. But I digress)

The only down side to Self's Three-mittee at the 5 was Traylor still appears unable to rebound beyond random grabs. He played against a Division II team and only got to two offensive boards in 16 minutes. He grabbed not a single defensive rebound, which means he remains clueless as a senior about how to block out a guy his own size with less athleticism and then go get a basketball coming off a rim. It is a strange, inexplicable deficiency in his game. They perhaps ought to have him hypnotized at this point. When Traylor cannot get a single defensive rebound against a D-II team in 16 minutes, something deeply psychological appears to be the impediment and NOT what the coach is asking him to do. I mean, does anyone think Self actually tells Jamari, "Yo, 'mari, don't defensive rebound tonight?" In 16 minutes guarding in the paint, a big man, even a little big man, should catch at least one random defensive carom!!

Enough with ragging about the Jam Tray's anti-rebounding.

Why do I say better as a team on rebounding after just railing about Traylor? Because Bragg and Mickelson grabbed 12 between them, and that is a decent, but not dominant night against a D-II team. We need those two to grab 12 between them against Duke, UK and UNC. This means we are probably better rebounders than last season simply because Self is finally playing Mickelson, and has added Bragg. But let's not kid ourselves. Until we see Bragg and Mickelson pull down 12 between them against the Blue Meanies on a top Division I, while getting punched out and muscled during the game, the jury is out on whether or not we have improved ENOUGH to be one of the top teams in the country.

(Note: Bragg and Mickelson WILL BE PUNCHED OUT A COUPLE OF GAMES, if Self stops leading with Lucas and Traylor. So: I think Self will lead with Lucas and Traylor as long as he can to protect Hunter from getting his pointy nose pushed out the back of his head before mid season, and to protect Bragg from head hunters and knee kickers, too. It is obvious Self is NOT playing Lucas and Traylor ahead of Mickelson and Bragg, because they are better. They aren't. What Self is doing is warming Lucas and Traylor up for coming back in to relieve with EXTREME PREJUDICE, which ever and whenever one of his relatively inexperienced bigs--Mickelson and Bragg--or his finesse stretch 4--Perry--get punked. It is basically a foregone conclusion that Perry will be punked again after the success Marsha and his Shocks had with that tactic.

Also, starting guys like Lucas and Traylor let them take the early fouls that refs will be calling to establish the level of contact allowed. Better for Lucas and Traylor to pick up those early fouls than Bragg and Mickelson.)

Though KU resorted a few times to BAD BALL vs. P-State, we can reasonably infer that KU was playing it very infrequently, because KU took 19 3PTAs; that rarely happens in BAD BALL. 19 3PTAs is the kind of number that comes with normal High Low Ball, or with Good Ball.

At this point, let's summarize the possible offense schemes Self and KU bring to each game, whether used each game, or not.

KU runs three offenses that we know of so far: Normal High Low; BAD BALL; and GOOD BALL (what we saw in WUGs).

Self was clearly tinkering with the normal high low in the first exhibition game.

My guess is that the second exhibition he will start with High Low again, but then tinker more with Bad Ball and/or Good Ball; so that the team will have a rounded exhibition experience with all three schemes.

But all offense and offensive preparation involves both strategy and statistics.

The three schemes are the strategic element of preparation.

The statistical element of preparation is something like 3PT shooting percentage.

The team shot 21% from trey vs. Pittsburg State. Self has to make a judgement call about his team's 3pt shooting. Are they going to shoot back to their average the next game, or are they starting the season in a slump and so one should expect the bad trey balling to continue a couple of games.

To make the judgement, Self will look at the practice shooting percentages. If the team has been shooting poorly in practice, then the judgement would be that the team would be starting the season in a slump. The prescription for that is for them to take 20-25 3ptas again the next exhibition game in order to bring the team closer to shooting out of its slump. Slumps are stochastic phenomena. The fastest way out of a slump is shoot as many treys as possible ASAP, short of shooting so many misses that you jeopardize winning a game. Against a second consecutive D-II opponent, it is logical to assume that KU's bigs can control the game, while Self lets the guards shoot a high number of treys, in hopes of shorting the remaining length of the slump, and so shortening the number of regular season games early that must be played during a slump.

On the other hand, if the team has been shooting the trey well in practices, then the prescription is to tinker on the offensive options (i.e., work on Good Ball and Bad Ball) independent of the 21% performance vs. Pittsburg State, and assume that the team will shoot back to its average this next game. In other words, don't infer a slump and don't try to manage for one.

In the regular season, your options would differ, because you would be trying to maximize the probability of winning against stiff competition. Typically, Self holds back on 3ptas, when he thinks his team is in a slump, or when he thinks his players are too injured to shoot them well, or when the team has been so hot for so many games, that he expects a slump to start sooner rather than later. He does this in order to guaranty a win by winning "ugly", i.e., by grind it out, or by shifting all the way into playing Bad Ball. You just take treys when you have a solid lead. The rest of the time you play for short threes only. If you fall way behind, then you take treys and try to burn up the slump attempts and hope the slump breaks.

To conclude, it was a rocky start for the High Low Offense. Those dreading Bad Ball will have to remain in suspense; that wasn't it. Regarding the front court, we finally have some small evidence for optimism about improved offensive productivity from our bigs. And we have some reason for improved rebounding from the bigs, but not from Traylor, and that's BAD, because many teams will go small on us, if they know Traylor can't rebound regardless of who he is matched up with. Lucas will take another game or two to assess. He gets you what I now call "The Newell Factor" on the tipoff, so he might keep starting just for that. But surely he can do better than what he showed vs. Pittsburg State, after all these years.

An ugly win to start the season.

The more things change the more they stay the same.

Only different.

More offense and rebounding out of the 5.

And isn't that what we needed most?

Even if it ain't purty?

Landen Lucas got 3 fouls and 1 TO in 8 minutes against Pittsburg State....WTF!

Perry Ellis is a senior and made 4 TOs against Pittsburg State...WTF!

Svi Mykhailuk couldn't the broad side of a KSU Experimental Barn...WTF!!!!!

Senior Traylor goose egged defensive rebounds and grabbed 2 offensive rebounds in 16 minutes...WTF!

Senior Hunter Mickelson may have fallen in love with basketball, but it doesn't do him any good, since Bill Self remains in love with Landen Lucas and Jamari Traylor, started Lucas, subbed Traylor before Mickelson, and then watched go 10/6 in 13 measly minutes...WTF!!!!

Frank Mason null sets the trey, but some how snags 4 boards from the point...WTF!

Freshman Carlton Bragg makes fewer TOs than senior Perry Ellis...WTF!!!

LaGerald Vick is more productive on a PPP basis than Brannen Greene but BG gets to play twice as many minutes...WTF!!!!!!

Devonte gets 8 assists and becomes KU's new PG, but MR. Reliable's shooting tanks. WTF!!!!!

@drgnslayr

Had my doubts about Gill, but he turned the corner to 9-5 at Liberty, same as he turned The corner at Buffalo. It looks more and more like he was the victim of a smear campaign run during one of the lean rebuilding year, rather than a program careening out of control.

Hypothesis: A new regime was desperate to consolidate control over the program in order to dictate who would get the then looming stadium renovation contracts. When the economy and realignment issues derailed stadium renovation, it turned out he was fired for nothing. Tragic.

@drgnslayr

Sheahon could learn to hire good coaches and then not fire them before they have had a chance to develop a team. Board rats might be forgetting Yost was almost s-canned before the Royal's first Series run. Someone at the Royals had a pair, ignored the fan outcry against Yost, told ownership Yost was his guy and risked his own career to keep him. Yost and the Royals turned the corner.

Bad teams have to be bad for awhile, until they figure out how to win.

Never should have fired Gill, Sheahon.

Never should have hired Charlie, Sheahon.

Stick with Beatty, Sheahon, even if it gets you fired.

Getting fired occasionally trying to develop something good is part of the risk of leadership.

Yost risked getting fired trying to turn the Royals into something special. Someone stuck with him.
They are special.

It doesn't always work.

But it never works unless a boss and his subordinate are willing to RISK FOR GREATNESS.

@HighEliteMajor

Yes, but the wide lane may tempt more use of the weave in a touch foul year.

@SoftballDad2011

We then have to seriously worry about Jamari's rebounding as a senior!

@JRyman

WUG Takeaway:

Guys can get stale running tightly-scripted, high- low offenses for two seasons and can be energized by learning to run a more improvisational, quick-hitting offense.

The teacher in Bill Self solved the problem, not the coach. Teachers know they have to shift gears on what they teach ocassionally. You can't teach all heavy stuff. Gotta throw in some fun stuff to to keep the minds sharp and eager.

Or perhaps it was Cin.

"You know, Bill, you don't like the same thing EVERY night for dinner for two years, no matter how perfect I get at making it."

The team is experienced. These ways of playing are arrows in a quiver. We will see three kinds of ball this season.

First 3-5 minutes will be classic high-low passing game to feel out what the opponent is doing on both ends; I.e., how they want to play it.

After that Self will shift gears, to either Bad Ball, or Good Ball for 3-5 minutes.

The last ten of each half he will go with what has worked best.

For a few big games where he feels he needs to squirt into an early lead, he will surprise the opponent with starting in Bad Ball, or Good Ball.

jSPN BULLETIN:

Self still optimistic Alexander will play.

@HighEliteMajor

"The #67 player could demand time at KU. He could demand a trip to the moon, too."

Lol

@drgnslayr

Perry, then Frank and Selden.

You can make anyone seem THE guy by playing through him.

But to me who you play through is situational game to game. It's driven by MUA each game. A great talent can make the situational choice the same every game.

The difference maker is the saddle guy. He is the guy the team is schemed around.

Brandon Rush was the difference maker in 08 even with the knee and all the great players. He was the hub. He was so central that Self did not change the scheme when he was rehabbing. He just plugged another player in the role and waited for Brandon, so the team would be ready to plug him in.

The difference maker is not just the guy with the biggest MUA one one one, but he is the guy who, if you scheme the team around him, he creates the greatest advantage for the whole team.

He is he guy that when you play with him as a cornerstone he is most likely to create the most advantage over his man AND his team over opponents.

Put great talent in support of a difference maker and you've got a potential champion.

I don't know if Perry is good enough to be enough of a difference maker to win a ring, but...

He's the guy...unless someone super novas.

@JRyman

Good idea. I am going to have study Golden State. Like many, I watched and marveled at Curry, but didn't study how they did what they did as a team.

Is it beyond Self to do what you suggest?

A few years back? Yes.

But Self in short order has shown tremendous willingness to adapt: Bad Ball the second half of last Season; then Good Ball in Korea.

I believe the recruiting asymmetries encumbering him are triggering the new adaptability.

I bet he has studied Golden State some.

It caught a lot persons' attention. I should have remembered. Thanks for the assist in remembering.

Hope you are managing with your health issues and glad to have you here another season!!

@HighEliteMajor

I've been scratching my head a lot about how to play without b2b scorers in the paint, because I am among those that saw this coming even when we did not know there was a clearance issue with Diallo.

Yes, Bragg and Mickelson could score b2b, and could form a very interesting committee at the 5, but I am not sure either is ready to overpower any big studs in the paint yet.

And this brings me to culling my memory banks for a team to use as a model for such an eventuality as no b2b scoring in the paint.

You may have mentioned this last season, but I recall Lute Olson's Arizona team with Mike Bibby, and those two other great wing men shooting UA into a ring, while their four big skinnies in rotation guarded and rebounded well, even though none of them really were offensive threats b2b, or outside.

Frankly, Mason, Graham and Selden have quite a lot in common with that threesome of UA's that won the ring.

If we could come at teams with a five big law firm of Ellis, Lucas, Mickelson, Bragg, Diallo and Associates, we might be able to make this dog hunt without b2b--just with defense, and board crashing on both ends.

And without Bad Ball.

But with a lot of treys.

Just a thought.

@konkeyDong

We need the boards bad.

:pray: Diallo clears.

@Lulufulu

First, I value @JRyman's takes on basketball and coaching here very much.

Second, I don't recall any aliases that think they know more than Coach Self in any global sense.

Third, I'm glad you spoke up and addressed how much is learned here in our public discourse.

@JRyman said:

I am glad you reiterated your questions, so that I have another chance to answer them yes or no. and then go beyond the yes or no format to what I think is the heart of the matter.

Is anyone on this sight have a higher basketball IQ than Bill Self does? Yes or no? EMPHATICALLY NO. BUT EVERY BRILLIANT PERSON I HAVE EVER WORKED WITH HAS MADE MISTAKES AND MISJUDGMENTS THAT LESSERS CAUGHT AND BY CALLING ATTENTION TO THEM HELPING SUCH BRILLIANT PERSONS REDIRECT ONTO THE ERRORS. WE CLEARLY CATCH SELF IN MISTAKES AND MISJUDGMENTS, BECAUSE THERE ARE MANY OF US, WE THE ADVANTAGE OF HINDSIGHT, AND EVEN IN REAL TIME FORA LIKE JESSE NEWELL'S LIVE BLOG WE HAVE THE ADVANTAGE OF OBJECTIVITY. ANY PERSON ENGAGED IN ANY ACTIVITY AT A HIGH LEVEL OF PERFORMANCE WILL TELL YOU THAT THERE ARE CERTAIN ADVANTAGES TO BEING IN THE MOMENT IN THE THICK OF THINGS, AND CERTAIN OTHER ADVANTAGES TO BEING ABOVE THE FRAY AND BEING ABLE TO LOOK AT THINGS WITHOUT THE PRESSURE OF ACTION IN THE MOMENT. ONE OF THE GREAT THINGS ABOUT BEING A FAN OF BILL SELF IS THAT HE HAS SUCH GREAT CONFIDENCE IN HIS ABILITIES AND SUCH CLARITY OF PURPOSE THAT HE IS WILLING TO TALK AFTER THE FACT ABOUT SITUATIONS (SOMETIMES AFTER THE GAME, SOME TIMES DAYS AFTER THE GAME, SOMETIMES WEEKS, SOMETIMES MONTHS, AND SOMETIMES THE FOLLOWING SEASON, ABOUT WHAT THEY MIGHT HAVE DONE BETTER. I REALLY THINK SELF IS MORE PRONE TO REVEAL THESE KINDS OF REVISIONS IN HIS THINKING THAN MANY OTHER COACHES AND IT IS THE SIGN OF A BRILLIANT AND SUPREMELY CONFIDENT MIND BENT ON GETTING BETTER. THERE ARE MISTAKES HE WON'T ADMIT, BECAUSE ADMITTING THEM WON'T MAKE HIM, OR HIS TEAM BETTER AT THE TIME, IN HIS ESTIMATION, OR IT COULD JEOPARDIZE HIS AUTHORITY, OR BECAUSE HE JUST DOESN'T HAVE A FIX FOR IT YET. BUT HE CAN BE REMARKABLY CANDID AND PROFOUND IN HIS REMARKS AT TIMES AND OFTEN THESE REMARKS TAKE DAYS, OR WEEKS, OF PUBLIC DISCOURSE HERE TO RECOGNIZE THEIR SIGNIFICANCE. FRANKLY, SELF IS SO GOOD THAT I NEVER TRY TO CATCH HIS MISTAKES. I DEVOTE MYSELF TO TRYING TO FIGURE OUT AND THEN UNDERSTAND WHAT HE IS DOING. I HAVE LEARNED MORE BASKETBALL TRYING TO FIGURE OUT AND UNDERSTAND WHAT BILL SELF DOES THAN ALMOST ANY OTHER WAY IN ALL MY YEARS OF WATCHING THE GAME. HE IS COACHING AT A VERY HIGH LEVEL, EVEN RELATIVE TO MOST OTHER D1 COACHES. FANS THAT TRY TO PLAY GOTCHA WITH BILL SELF ARE REALLY MISSING THE EDUCATION OF A LIFE TIME. FIRST OF ALL, HE DOESN'T MAKE MANY MISTAKES. SECOND, IF YOU FOCUS ON HIS MISTAKES YOU ARE GOING TO MISS ALL THESE OPPORTUNITIES TO FIGURE OUT WHAT THE HELL HE IS REALLY UP TO MOST OF THE TIME. I FIND HIS MISTAKE ONLY INCIDENTALLY TO LOOKING AT ALL THE GOOD STUFF HE IS DOING AND TRYING TO UNDERSTAND HOW HE DOES IT AND WHAT THE RATIONALE IS, IF ANY DRIVING HIS CHOICES.

Does anyone know this roster of players better than Bill Self does? Yes or no? EMPHATICALLY NO. BUT WE ARE ALL PRISONERS OF OUR EXPERIENCE AND OUR ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT HOW TO PLAY THE GAME, WHEN VIEWING OPTIONS OF OFFENSIVE AND DEFENSIVE SCHEMES, OPTIONS OF STRATEGY AND TACTICS, AND OPTIONS OF ABILITIES. I NEVER FIND THAT BILL SELF MISJUDGES THE ABILITY (OR LACK THEREOF) OF A PLAYER TO PERFORM A NEEDED ROLE IN HIS BRAND OF BASKETBALL, ONCE HE HAS THEM ON THE TEAM. HE GUESSES WRONG ON RECRUITING VERY OCCASIONALLY, BUT THEN HOW COULD ONE NOT. BUT SELF IS VERY PURPOSEFUL AND SENSIBLE AND FOR THE MOST PART DOES NOT TALK MUCH ABOUT WHAT HIS PLAYERS MIGHT BE ABLE TO DO FOR ANOTHER TEAM, OR ANOTHER COACH, OR ANOTHER SYSTEM. HIS FOCUS IS WINNING HERE AND NOW WITH THE PLAYERS ON THIS ROSTER THIS SEASON UNDER THE SCHEME AND STRATEGY HE HAS SELECTED. IN CONTRAST, OFTEN, WHEN MANY HERE EXPLORE A PLAYER'S ABILITIES AND PERFORMANCE, THEY ARE VIEWING THE PLAYER NOT THROUGH SELF'S LENS, BUT THROUGH THE LENS OF OTHER APPROACHES TO SCHEME AND STRATEGY. BOARD RATS OFTEN DON'T SAY SO, BUT WHAT THEY ARE REALLY OFTEN WRITING IS: THIS PLAYER COULD DO SO MUCH MORE THAN HE IS BEING ALLOWED TO DO...IF SELF ADOPTED A DIFFERENT SCHEME AND STRATEGY. THAT PLAYER WOULD DEVELOP MUCH FASTER... IF SELF ADOPTED A DIFFERENT SCHEME AND STRATEGY THAT MADE BETTER USE OF THAT PLAYER'S TALENTS AND SKILLS. @HighEliteMajor AND I CLEARLY AGREE ON A LOT OF ISSUES ABOUT BASKETBALL, BUT HE FREQUENTLY ANALYZES PLAYERS IN TERMS OF HOW MUCH MORE SELF COULD GET OUT OF THEM ANOTHER WAY; I.E., UNDER ANOTHER SCHEME AND STRATEGY. @HighEliteMajor DOESN'T DISPUTE THAT SELF HAS A SOLID GRASP OF WHAT WORKS. HE ARGUES THAT SELF STICKS TOO CLOSELY WITH HIS SCHEME AND STRATEGY TO OFTEN WHEN THE TALENTS OF HIS PLAYERS SUGGEST GOING TO ANOTHER SCHEME AND STRATEGY. I THINK IT IS A VALID ARGUMENT AND ONE THAT REVEALS A LOT TO BOARD RATS ABOUT WHAT ELSE MIGHT BE FEASIBLE. AT THE SAME TIME, I OFTEN DISAGREE WITH @HighEliteMajor THAT DIVERGING FROM SELF'S SELECTED COURSE OF ACTION WOULD YIELD SOMETHING NET BETTER. I FIND THAT WHEN I DRILL DOWN INTO WHAT SELF IS DOING, ESPECIALLY AT TIMES THAT IT SEEMS MOST COUNTER INTUITIVE, THAT I COME TO AGREE WITH SELF'S CHOSEN COURSE OF ACTION. I BELIEVED HE MADE THE RIGHT DECISION WHEN HE OPTED FOR BAD BALL ONCE I UNDERSTOOD IT. @HighEliteMajor DECIDED IT WAS A TERRIBLE CHOICE. BUT HERE'S THE THING: I AM HERE TO LEARN AND I LEARNED A GREAT DEAL NOT ONLY FROM DRILLING DOWN INTO SELF'S BAD BALL, BUT ALSO A TON FROM @HighEliteMajor's SOUNDLY ARGUED ANALYSIS THROUGH A DIFFERENT LENS. I DECIDED THAT @HighEliteMajor FOUND AN ALTERNATIVE PATH THAT MIGHT HAVE WORKED AND SO MIGHT BE WORTH RETAINING IT FOR FUTURE CIRCUMSTANCES, EVEN THOUGH I CAME TO THE CONCLUSION THAT SELF'S ANGLE WAS NOT ONLY BRILLIANT , BUT BETTER. IF @HighEliteMajor HAD NOT CHALLENGED BILL SELF'S DECISION MAKING AS RIGOROUSLY AS HE DID, I WOULD NEVER HAVE COME TO UNDERSTAND WHAT BILL SELF WAS DOING IN THE GRATIFYING DEPTH (AT LEAST TO ME) THAT I REACHED. THIS IS THE GREAT SYNERGY ENABLED BY SPIRITED PUBLIC DISCOURSE. IT GOES A LARGE STEP BEYOND WHAT EVEN COACH SELF--THE GREAT BASKETBALL GENIUS THAT HE IS--CAN REVEAL AND TEACH BY EXAMPLE.

Does anyone know what players need to be recruited and signed for this KU team better than coach Self does? Yes or no? EMPHATICALLY NOT. BUT ONLY THROUGH THE LENS THAT COACH SELF VIEWS THE GAME. THROUGH OTHER LENS, EITHER THOSE OF KNOWLEDGEABLE BOARD RATS, OR THOSE BELONGING TO OTHER GREAT COACHING MINDS OF THE GAME TODAY THAT BOARD RATS HERE CAN ACCESS OVER THE NET THE SAME WAY THEY ACCESS COACH SELF (I.,E., REMOTELY) SOMEONE ELSE MAY WELL COME UP WITH A VALID ALTERNATIVE ANGLE ON RECRUITS THAT WILL IN THE PROCESS ILLUMINATE EVEN MORE WHY COACH SELF IS PURSUING WHO HE IS PURSUING.

If anyone can answer yes to any of those questions please step out of your shadows and reveal what great coach you are. Prove it to the masses you are as great as you say you are? What’s you wing percentage? Where? What level?

TO ME TO DEMONSTRATE THAT NO FAN IS AS GOOD AT COACHING, AND THE ASPECTS OF COACHING, AS A COACH SELF LIKE SELF THAT HAS SPENT A CAREER LEARNING TO COACH AND WHO IS PAID $3-5-10MILLION PER YEAR FROM VARIED SOURCES IS KIND OF A TAUTOLOGY; I.E., A SELF-REINFORCING PRETENSE OF SIGNIFICANT TRUTH THAT IS QUITE BESIDE THE POINT OF PUBLIC DISCOURSE ABOUT THE TOPIC OF KU BASKETBALL. I HAVE NEVER READ A SINGLE BOARD RAT ON KUBUCKETS CLAIM TO BE SMARTER, BETTER, OR TO HAVE A HIGHER BASKETBALL IQ, OR TO BE A BETTER RECRUITER, OR A BETTER JUDGE OF TALENT, OR BETTER BENCH COACH, THAN COACH SELF....EVER. SO THE REAL QUESTION IS THIS: WHY DO YOU POSE SUCH A STRAW QUESTION? WHAT IS IT YOU ARE REALLY TRYING TO ASSERT IN THE FORM OF A STRAW ARGUMENT/QUESTION THAT HINGES ON A PREMISE THAT DOES NOT TO MY KNOWLEDGE EXIST?

SO: HAVING TRIED TO RESPECTFULLY AND GENUINELY TRIED TO ANSWER YOUR QUESTIONS ONE BY ONE, I WILL NOW ASK YOU: WHY DO YOU POSE THIS STRAW QUESTION?

WHO EXACTLY IS IN THE SHADOWS CLAIMING TO BE SMARTER, ETC., THAT COACH BILL SELF?

NOT ME.

I CALL SELF THE GENIUS.

AND I MEAN IT.

AND I DON'T CALL MYSELF ONE, NOR DO I VIEW MYSELF AS ONE.

@HighEliteMajor?

I don't think so. I believe he is pretty much in awe of WHAT SELF has accomplished AT KU, and HE APPEARS TO respect the soundness of the Self approach, despite his opinion that Self CAN GET TOO INFLEXIBLE IN ADHERENCE TO THE APPROACH.

@drgnslayr? NOT SLAYR. HE SEEMS TO THINK SELF IS AN AWESOME COACH THAT COULD GET BETTER BY STUDYING HOW THE NBA COACHES ENCOURAGE MORE FREE LANCING AND CREATIVITY.

@REHawk? WITH ALL DUE RESPECT TO THE REST OF US, THE COACH PROBABLY KNOWS MORE BASKETBALL IN ONE OF HIS EYE LASHES THAN THE REST OF US COMBINED, BUT HE CONSTANTLY MARVELS AT WHAT THE EDMOND KID KEEPS PULLING OFF, EVEN THOUGH HE HAS THE USUAL SUCCINCT JUDGEMENTS COACHES THAT HAVE HAD TO MAKE A LIVING MAKING SUCH JUDGEMENTS ARE FAMOUS FOR.

I HAVE GONE DOWN THE LIST OF EVERY ALIAS THAT PUBLISHES FREQUENTLY HERE BEYOND THE SHORT LIST ABOVE, AT LEAST THAT I CAN RECALL.

I CAN'T THINK OF ANY FREQUENT POSTERS THAT ARGUE THEY KNOW MORE THAN SELF, OR HAVE MORE KNOWLEDGE, WOULD BE BETTER D1 HEAD COACHES AT KU.

WHO ARE THESE POSTERS IN THE SHADOWS?

IF THEY EXIST, TELL US WHO THEY ARE?

I FOR ONE WILL WRITE A POST IMMEDIATELY AND POKE FUN AT THE IDEA THAT SUCH AN ALIAS KNOWS MORE AND WOULD BE A BETTER HEAD COACH THAN BILL SELF.

AND I WILL BE AMIABLE DOING IT.

SERIOUSLY, I DON'T RECALL READING ANY OF THOSE KINDS OF POSTS HERE, OR EVEN AT THE OLD SITE, EXCEPT FOR THOSE POSTED BY SITE DESTABILIZERS, OFTEN APPEARING TO BE LURKERS FROM FIZZOU, KSU, MEMPHIS AND UK. AND WE CAN'T BOTHER OURSELVES OVER THOSE TYPES.

P.S.: Here is an example of why public discourse is so helpful, even when it cannot necessarily answer a question in short order. @HighEliteMajor has grappled with with understanding Jamari Traylor's performance about as much as any of us. Unlike me, HEM drilled to Traylor's stats and went to some lengths to try to understand why Self kept playing him. I had opinions. Everyone else had opinions. Pro Journo Jesse Newell even weighed in with the jump ball stat that Landon Lucas and Jamari excelled at. But in the end, HEM pulled out the decisive stat--the anemic rebounds per minute stat, or something related to that. The guy does not get enough rebounds to sneeze at. After all the Ken Pom-ing and all the opining and all the human interest angles, and all the energy angles, and all the exploding out of position angles, and after he learned to put it on the deck, and got a rudimentary J, still the bottomline questions is: how can Self afford to play a big man that gets so few rebounds per minute played?

NO ONE CAN ANSWER THAT YET.

NOT ME, NOT YOU, NOT ANYONE.

NOT EVEN SELF CAN ANSWER THAT YET.

AT LEAST HE HAS CHOSEN NOT TO ADDRESS IT.

If one lets go of the frustration, this single statistic of @HighEliteMajor's points us to something very, very, VERY important about Bill Self.

He is a coach that bets players with great physical ability can eventually learn to do a task that is consistent with that sort of physical ability, if Self can find a way to give that player enough time in the context of the team's need for success.

Self is a coach that decides some players just can't get it this season in time for the good of the team.

But the most important thing is this: Self is a coach that bets on great physical ability learning how...and then finding a way.

Its true that Self picked Traylor off a high school team shortly after Traylor had been homeless.

But it was really Traylor's high school coach (or was it his AAU coach) that saved Traylor from the streets; that got him back under a roof. Not Bill Self.

Bill Self is the coach that saw a ton of athleticism, explosive jumping, lots of muscles, and said that if I can coach this guy up, I can have a player with just the kind of MUA I need in my big man rotation. I need a guy who can go small when the opponent goes small on my long big men, and yet have the kind of explosive physicality to dominate the little guys the opponents bring into the game to trip up my long bigs.

Self sees in Traylor a small big that could help Self play it any way they want.

Self apparently saw in Traylor a guy who COULD learn to put it on the deck, who COULD learn to shoot the J. And Self apparently believed sooner or later the athletic Traylor could "get it" regarding rebounding. He could "get the knack."

We have three years behind us and one to go with Traylor.

Traylor can score a little, and a little scoring is apparently how Self defines the role.

But its the damned rebounding knack that Traylor can't quite get.

And yet...

Self sees the athleticism in practice. He sees him explode out of position in games. He sees him play through injuries.

Self is betting on the longest shot there is in basketball; that a guy without the knack for rebounding can "get it."

Its who Self is.

He is, as @drgnslayr likes to say, a riverboat gambler.

When he views a hand as a potential big winner, he will pretty much take any risk.

Self would rather bet on the long shot that Traylor will learn to "get it" on the glass, than bet on anyone else bigger, or longer, being able to cover the small bigs that are thrown at us.

He is waiting on Traylor the same way he waited on Tyshawn Taylor.

To the rest of us, having a small big to rotate doesn't seem that big of a deal.

But to Mr. Play It Anyway They Want, well, a small big that can do it all is worth a whole lot!!!!

Were it not for all the debate over this topic of Traylor's virtues and vices, I don't think I would have ever seen Bill Self' mission as clearly. And the debate wasn't enough. It came down to one rock hard stat--rebounds per minute--set down and reasserted by @HighEliteMajor it repeatedly until persons just couldn't escape it anymore.

And when one is confronted with the truth, one has to fit it into the mosaic, if one wants to learn.

This is what Gandhi understood.

@HighEliteMajor got beyond giving us a choice.

He gave us a fact that won't go away.

It forces us to explain it.

Not rationalize it.

But explain it.

I don't know how this gamble of Self's with Traylor will play out.

But if this team learns how to rebound small, it is a huge step closer to playing it any way they want and doing so.

@ParisHawk said:

The less it’s about what we feel and more about why we feel that way

That is a very insightful way of putting it. Thanks.

I think that is something I can learn from--both as a technique for posting my own takes, and for redirecting others onto substance that triggers their feelings.

Rock Chalk!

@JRyman

It appears to me that you think public discourse of sports is problematic.

I think it isn't.

It appears you recall being misunderstood when you played. I recall the fans of my high school and the parents and the folks in the cafe understood as well as we did what we were doing. Most of them had played basketball. I especially remember listening to a neighbor down the street that had played college basketball for Sox Walseth at Colorado hooting hysterically at how little one of my high school basketball coaches knew about the game. I was dating his daughter at the time. He sat with me over dinner and layed out exactly what my coach was telling us to do and then layed out exactly how that was the wrong way to do it. And he was right. And I learned a ton from him. And I have always been grateful to him for teaching me that my cocksure, authoritarian coach was not all he was cracked up to be.

And I also recall lots of persons commenting on the games and on another coach I had--one who genuinely knew the game, and on teammates and myself that didn't know their butts from a rebound. And these folks never bothered me even a little.

So: I was grateful for the all the smart ones that cared about the game and like to talk the game. I always learned a lot from them. And I was never bothered by the idiots.

In turn, I am a huge fan of reading what aliases think about the game in a public forum like this, and I still learn a ton here after all these years.

I think aliases worry too much about the adverse impacts of public discourse, and not enough on learning from the public discourse.

I think vigorous public discourse is a virtue and a sign of a robust and healthy society.

Robust political discourse is indispensable to a republic. I am endlessly flummoxed by Americans that fear free speech.

I think public discourse of sport is a virtue and a strength of this board and, though we represent a infinitesimal slice of basketball fans, it excites me and makes me think basketball can avoid becoming a moribund sport given the vigorous and interesting posting going on here.

I just don't share any of your concerns about public discourse of sports being a cause for concern.

Its all a positive to me.

@jayballer54

They got Lightfoot, and like him, so they are zeroing in on one or both of Az or Bolden?

Maybe?

And Diallo is coming back? Because he won't clear this season?

If anyone remembers the hoops talk over coffee and a Danish in small town cafes, which is the tradition these chat boards arise from, the old timers were way tougher and unflinching in their assessments of coaches and players than we are here. They were brutal on second guessing coaches. Players were cut some slack unless they missed big shots, then they were chokers pure and simple. And they didn't have bandwidth to be nuanced about things. America used to be a place you were held accountable NOW for failure. PEOPLE GOT FIRED FOR LOUSY WORK INSTEAD OF LAYED OFF FOR OUTSOURCING. GENERALS AND ADMIRALS THAT LOST WERE RELIEVED OF DUTY, NOT CORPORALS. I'm not an Old Testament guy, but we just are not nearly as tough on our bungling leaders and our poor playing teams as we once were. We are just worse at sniping and smearing even in good times.

@Lulufulu

If no Cheick all season, then up to 20 mpg, after January 1. I just don't think he appears strong enough at this early age to hope for more even under a best case.

If Cheick, then this turns into an apprentice season for Bragg behind Perry: 10-15 mpg.

SEE ANSWERS IN CAPS

@JRyman said:

How many practices has anyone from this site been too? I OR SPECIAL AGENTS OF THE BIA HAVE BEEN TO EVERY SINGLE PRACTICE.

How many team meetings has anyone been too? I OR BIA CASE OFFICERS HAVE BEEN TO EVERY SINGLE TEAM MEETING.

How many coaches only meetings? THE BIA HAS BEEN TO ALL BUT ONE.

How many team workouts? THE BIA HAS MONITORED TEAM WORKOUTS FROM EVERY CONCEIVABLE ANGLE. WE HAVE HACKED INTO HUDY'S REAL TIME BIOMETRIC SOFTWARE OUTPUT. WE HAVE WATCHED THE PLAYER'S HEAT SIGNATURES FROM SATELLITES FROM SPACE. WE HAVE ACTUALLY CLONED CERTAIN MEMBERS OF THE TEAM AND HAVE ABDUCTED THEM WITH TRACTOR BEAMS AND REPLACED OUR CLONES SO THAT THEY COULD REPORT FIRST HAND EXPERIENCE TO US.

How many dr appointments or rehab assignments? THE BIA HAS COMPLETELY INFILTRATED THE KU BASKETBALL MEDICAL SUPPORT TEAM.

How many film sessions? ALL BUT ONE AND THE CURRENT VERNACULAR IS VIDEO, EVEN THOUGH THEY ARE TECHNICALLY DIGITAL FEEDS.

How many people have talked to coach Self about the type of players he likes and what he is looking for? EVERY SPECIAL AGENT AND EVERY CASE OFFICER IS REQUIRED TO MONITOR COACH SELF'S BRAINS AND INFLUENCE HIS THINKING WITH SPECIALLY ADAPTED MICROWAVE CROWD CONTROL TRANSMISSIONS.

How many? EVERYONE AT BIA THAT IS NOT BEING PAID MORE THAN ANYONE ELSE WILL NOT PAY THEM FOR SPYING 24/7 ON THE KU BASKETBALL PROGRAM; THAT'S HOW MANY.

THE BIA NEVER SLEEPS.

AND WE WHISTLE WHILE WE WORK.

ROCK CHALK!

ALL FICTION, OF COURSE, AND SANS MALICE AS USUAL.

@drgnslayr pulled out the Ouija board that I used to love as a kid in a recent thread. It inspired me to create a new, more vernacular board game oriented to KU Basketball and KUBuckets.!KUIJA.jpg ↗

@wrwlumpy

YOURE PRECOCIOUS TOO!

Awesome recall on Sharky!

@drgnslayr

Webb and the five got caught in the web of the numbers out at the car factories. It was too bad, but in Detroit its water off a duck's back. 👊🏿👊🏽👊🏻

Bankruptcy of GM?

It was a planned bankruptcy for 20 years.

Flush bennies for all collars.

Bankruptcy of city of D?

Planned for 30 years.

Depopulate.

Starve the city machine Washington was using on the car companies.

Carry on.

The people in the hoods are hard.

But the money behind the car companies is harder.

I love Tesla.

But Musk better watch out.

GM built tanks for Hitler during the war.

Ford built trucks.

Detroit...where the weak are killed and eaten.

Next President will be buying lots of munitions for bang bang.

Detroit is the iron Phoenix.

@globaljaybird

Fished'em twice as a boy for a change from farm ponds and reservoirs, and rivers. Amazing places those pits. I don't recall scorpions, just the Mocs and copperheads. Saw the Mocs, and was warned about the copperheads. Rattlers you can hear if you go slow son, but the copperheads, well, be careful. 😄

@wrwlumpy

Trying to be precocious about old age. Love the paradox of it. 😄

@drgnslayr

Preserving that very one could be a great thing. Detroit had an awesome playground tradition. How about building The National Playground Hall of Fame right there. Gotta be south of 8 Mile somewhere in the emerging urban grasslands of Motown!

@drgnslayr

It would be insane not to play 2-2-1 zone press EVERY TIME down the floor to shorten the 30 second clock to 24.

It would be insane not to alternate between zone and man when falling back into half court defense after the 2-2-1 press, so that the opponent has to spend 5 seconds on recognizing what defense you are in and setting up his offense accordingly, thus leaving 19 seconds to score.

It would be insane not to switch defenses once during the 19 seconds, so the opponent has take 5 seconds to reset his offense leaving him 14 seconds to score every time and leaving your team only 14 seconds of full tilt defensive effort.

It would be insane not to do these things.

But we live in a crazy world.

It took John Wooden hiring a young Jerry Norman to adopt the 2-2-1. Wooden as much as said he would NEVER have adopted it himself.

Self's only hope at midlife is to find his own Jerry Norman, some precociously bright young guy willing to pioneer the kind of defensive scheme I have already outlined, so that Self's hidebound tendencies are challenged, and his creative juices are squeezed into action.

I don't see that person on the staff.

Aaron Miles has the precociousness and the respect of Self, but Aaron to my limited knowledge has not been pioneering anything on defense elsewhere before he got here. We can hope Aaron picked up some defensive scheme perfectly tailored to short-shotclock ball across the Atlantic, but I'm not hearing any rumors that that was the case yet.

@HighEliteMajor

Bragg, adjusted to D1 Speed and Violence, plus Perry, would equal a very potent tandem in the touch foul season reputedly looming.

Bragg has the 17-20 foot jumper by most accounts. This guarantees his man will follow him to the high post, or on a float to the corner, or wing. The moment the middle is unclogged by a 5, Perry is money on the drive and spin short trey against most 4s.

Alternatively, Bragg with a b2b scoring Jones on the blocks (which he ought to have at 6-10 with a touch), makes Perry money, when Bragg is doubled to stop that low block J.

And Bragg canning a few treys and lining up at high post makes Perry money on his post spin having no rim protector to worry about.

THERE IS NO THREAT AS DIVERSELY POTENT IN BASKETBALL AS TWO POST MEN THAT CAN CAN IT FROM TREY AND B2B SCORE ON THE LOW BLOCK.

It is more rare than Israelis not wanting to control the water, oil and pipeline right of ways in Jordan, Syria, and Northern Iraq.

But in basketball it is worth as much as controlling the water, oil and pipeline right of ways in Jordan, Syria and Iraq.

It means total domination of the front court on offense, which means the back court is essentially free to operate one on one, also.

All good, all virtue, all winning flows from this rarest of rare combinations.

To have Sam Perkins and James Worthy as your low and high posts is a blessing from the basketball god guaranteed even to make Dean Smith--he of the voluminous talent and few rings--win a ring.

In the high low offense, to have a 4 and a 5 that can both score b2b and shoot it from 17-20, and put it on the deck to drive in between, yay, this is a gift from the basketball god second to none.

Yep, Kevin Muff is an Okie Baller!!!!!

Let's see, the one time Salina Central high school star who has knocked around in high school and juco basketball and DII in Kansas his entire career was a student assistant for Lon Kruger.

Lon Kruger played for and assisted Jack Hartman.

Jack Hartman played for Henry Iba.

Well, three degrees I guess.

Iba is like the genesis of basketball crab grass. He just keeps cropping up everywhere.

@kansas-oats

Father Greene played for the Gorillas?

Then Brannen Greene has to play big minutes.

Brannen Greene has the Kansas thang in him despite all that read Georgia clay in his treads.

Brannen Greene is a strip pit legacy.

Brannen has to play.

Brannen Greene has to be nicknamed after some of the black market liqueur that was once produced in the strip pits in quantities sufficient enough to keep Europe drunk right after the ravages of WWII.

Johnny Walker Greene Label!!!!!