What do you think having a 6-1o hall of famer washing your jock did for players making excuses that they couldn't play a role for the team; that they were future NBA stars?
Miles has played in a Final Four as a freshman and been a pro and travelled the world. When he is washing your jock and looks at you whining about fighting over a pick, what will that do?
These kinds of men are priceless to a program.
A final four perimeter with a .700 front court unless Bragg and Diallo come along way in a short time.
Interesting point. There is lake effect weather in coastal southwest Michigan close to Lake Michigan that is what you refer to. But rightly or wrongly, southeastern Michiganians say lake effect drives their rain and snows across their state surrounded as it is by Great Lakes. And having felt their humidity and rain and seen their snows, I accept two kinds of lake effect.
Nice scoop.
Miles will toughen our guards way up.
And sharply improve their passing. Improving their passing will really make KU tough.
Good hire!
I am kind of looking forward to Perry beasting on Niang.
I like Niang okay and wish him well.
But there he is...standing between Perry and the respect that Perry now, after paying some serious dues, richly deserves.
Two go into conference play vying for POY, and one comes out.
Alas, Perry came from the right side of the tracks.
He had the earring and the face hair, but he didn't go to bed hungry, or wonder who his father was, or watch his mother work three shifts to feed nine kids, or watch her shoot up while he and his brothers and sisters tried to figure out how to get something to eat.
Neither did Andrew Wiggins, but Andrew Wiggins was the greatest physical prospect since Lebron James and Perry was just a talented, hard working, intelligent 5-star that was a new level of quiet for Bill Self.
Perry thought he could spin his way to stardom and stay above the fray.
Perry found out the hard way that he could not.
Oh, he's got the spin moves alright, but using them, and surviving the abuse heaped on him are two different things.
Larry Bird and Earvin Johnson came from the wrong side of the tracks, even though they came from families with some of admirable character. Larry's steel ribbons were out in neck country of southern Indiana, where fathers some times despaired, and drank and hung them themselves, as Larry's did, because they couldn't feed their kids or keep their women in decent clothes, because small farms didn't pay, big farms were so mechanized they didn't need many hands and didn't pay much for what they needed. And the slaughter houses got moved to the arid west 40 years ago. And the small factories dried up.
Earvin Johnson came from Lansing, MI, probably within view of the State House spire, where the winter snow was deep from the Lake Effect and the factories ran furiously in his early childhood but began to slow down by his teens, until mothers were raising rabbits in cages made of abandoned fork lift palates lashed together with rope and bailing wire, to get some protein in their kids. Oh, the worst of that sort of thing did not come till the 1980s, after Earvin was in Show Time, but he saw his share of the edge of poverty. The legislators selling out the white and black autoworkers to use the workers own tax money to start to pay for moving their jobs to East Asia were then meeting in Lansing and making deals that were soon to make the fucking heat go off in parts of Lansing, where Earvin was a gawky kid with a sweet smile, great handles, and a hardwood road out of a world just beginning to implode and be chronicled by Michael Moore over in Flint. Here is a synopsis from Earvin's wiki page of his "early years." Remember: Magic was lucky. Unlike Larry, who's pop killed himself, Earvin's pop and mom were both there for him. But if you read this you get the idea of what it was like and of what his mom and pop were actually protecting him from.
"Earvin Johnson Jr. was born in Lansing, Michigan to Earvin Sr., a General Motors assembly worker, and Christine, a school custodian.[12] Johnson, who had six siblings,[13][14][15] was influenced by his parents' strong work ethic. Johnson's mother spent many hours after work each night cleaning their home and preparing the next day's meals, while his father did janitorial work at a used car lot and collected garbage, all while never missing a day at General Motors. Earvin Jr. would often help his father on the garbage route, and he was teased by neighborhood children who called him "Garbage Man."[16]"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_Johnson#Early_years ↗
Note that these were the "good times" in Lansing in the auto industry. Flint not so far from Lansing was likely already beginning to feel some chill for shutting down the old Fisher Body Plant. But Lansing, like Flint, likely suspected its days of assembly line jobs were numbered too.
Both boys--Larry and Earvin--grew up without handlers, without a petro-shoeco conveyor belt. It was Dapper Dan time. The Dapper was started in 1965 in Pittsburg, PA, but was so inconsequential that guys on my Kansas City high school team didn't even know about it as late as the early 197os. By Earvin's time in the late 70s, it was a big deal however. Still, back in Earvin's time, high school coaches were yet important and respected, instead of second fiddles to the AAU coaches, as today. It was cash under the table times, too, if you were lucky, rather than shoes to resell and informal agreements about agent fees and endorsement deals.
But more importantly, It was get yoe azz whupped on the playground under steel nets, if you weren't mean enough to keep it from gettin' whupped, cuz the playground wuz still where you hadda go to play the best, not some kid glove and nylon netted circuit of meat market festivals ending in Las Vegas. If you got lucky, you were a diaper dandy at the Dapper one day. And something called the McDonald's All American Game had started in 1977 and Earvin was its first MVP in 1979. But that was one day, too. Two if you did both. The rest of getting good at basketball was happening just off the mean streets on asphalt bounded by chain link without referees.
Both boyz--Earvin and Bird--went lookin' for the game on asphalt, as a way out of what they wuz caught up in. Larry found the game where ever he could. Earvin found it the legendary way--at the neighborhood playground.
It wuz, as Mark Twain might have written were he some how still alive and writing about escaping to the play grounds instead of the territories, gwine ta be a hard life, if they didn't some how get out through the aphalt, onto that sacred wood and through the Blue Meanies to the promised land of BHOFs and big houses and FU money.
Guys like Harry Edwards with tenured gigs in campus sociology ghettoes warned kids the game was a million to one shot, even as Harry waxing his skin dome in the upscale side of the East Bay and was making his living off the game, too. It was mixed message. And if you were Larry Bird, or Earvin Johnson, you already knew what he was talking about and understood that he wasn't really offering you an alternative as much as stating how long the odds were of you making it. It made you even more likely to take no prisoners on the way.
Perry did not live this sort of a life, in this sort of time, as nearly as one can tell. He grew up in the patriotic but increasingly dark shadow of 9-11 and substantial hollowing out of American industry with the come of clean digital being dangled disingenuously in his young face masking draconian upward redistribution of wealth. No wonder Perry is so quiet. He grew up listening to such an incomparable load of crap spewed through talking points media that he probably knew instinctively there was nothing to say. He knew all one could do was work hard, keep ones head down, and weave your way through the lies and bullshit that passed for public discourse in his youth and now teen aged years.
And we can all thank god for Perry's relative good fortune. His family sounds as if it found a wrung higher up the socio-economic ladder than the Bird and Johnson families of the 1970s.
Perry probably didn't have it easy though.
Perry probably had it like lots of middle, or lower middle class kids, plus whatever additional baggage dark skin pigmentation still brings with it. His standard of living was eroding almost without his recognition of it. Drugs probably wrecked some even in his good high school.
By all accounts, Perry was a fastidious, quiet, driven, hard worker with considerable height, lots of bounce, marvelous agility for his size, and little hands that never unloaded a box car, or ran along side and grabbed ahold of one to pull him aboard so as to escape an abusive father, or the police for the gang member he might have had to snuff for raping his sister in the alternate world he did not grow up in.
Praise god, and the Kochs for keeping Theissen and Boeing and some of civil aviation and the oil bidness engaged in Wichita so that Wichita, or Perry's portion of it, was not apparently a violent, dangerous legacy Perry brought to KU with him, as he learned to play the D1 way.
Perry was not old and hard beyond his years. He seemed a true freshman to a fan like me. A true Kansas kid of the kind I once was so long ago now.
He was studious and quiet and obsessive at mastering basketball technique--the legal parts of it anyway.
Perry probably didn't grow up with a lot of Van Vleets on his block, or on his AAU team, though to tell the truth, I didn't take the time to look up that apparent cheap-shotter's back ground.
Doubtless Wichita had those Van Vleet kinds of kids but I am guessing that by Perry's time you had to live in those kinds of hoods to grow up with them and get punked by them when you weren't looking.
Nevertheless, when Perry got to D1, he found that not only other teams, but his own team, was full of these kinds of young men from the mean streets.
And they didn't leave him alone, if he left them alone.
No way.
When he listened to his coach and just played the game the best he could, they appeared to go out of their ways to put the hurt on him.
And when he turned the other cheek, they elbowed it and stiff screened him.
And when he tried to fight back, with his little hands that had never unloaded box cars, or grabbed hold of them on the lamb, or worked a garbage truck route, or gang fought on a regular basis, well, they set out to sucker punch him and eventually a key moment bust his nose out the back of his highly intelligent head.
He appeared stoic about it.
He methodically went about learning some tricks of the trade finally, but by then a few retaliatory tricks appeared hardly enough to dull the onslaught of punking laid on him.
Perry had the earring and the facial hair, as previously noted, but to the Blue Meanies, he was just another suburban kid one might as well punk while one had the chance.
Hurt the kid. Hurt him bad. Why? Because he had a brain and was going somewhere, even if he didn't make it in basketball. He came from a good family. He was a good boy. An egg head pretending in petro-treads and petro threads to be a hard wood guy. A guy who might be just good enough to make you look just bad enough to lose you your one long shot chance at a payin' job on wood somewhere.
Hurt him. Hurt him bad.
And laugh about it. Hell, the opposing coaches were probably grateful if you would hurt him, because he was inchoately becoming a stretch 4, the hardest kind to guard in D1. And he played for that righteous, "right way" Bill Self guy with the ten titles, or was it eleven, and the slit eyed smile, and the winning percentage other coaches can't even dream of.
Hurt the MoFo. Hurt him bad. He was the quiet type from a low population state the talking heads didn't care about, and he was playin' for a coach that discouraged retaliation. Taking the abuse might get your better calls later...FOR THE TEAM...you know that shizz.
HURT HIM. HURT HIM BAD!!!!
He's just another momma's boy suburban kid with a daddy actually working' and keeping the lights on in the crib.
Hurt him. Hurt him bad!!!!!!
So after three long hard years of this shizz, Perry knows the Blue Meanies aren't ever going to let him spin gently into that good night.
No, sir, never.
They are coming for him in his senior season, as I type.
They are laughing about what Fred Van Vleet apparently did and apparently got away with.
They think its hilarious you can punk a big stud like Perry Ellis and he does nothing but go to the locker room, get some cotton up his nose, and then comes back out and wobbles around the floor for another half, while the Blue Meanies try to decide whether to put him down again, or let little big man go this time.
Perry Ellis knows what it feels like now to turn the other cheek against Blue Meanies.
It feels like two cracked cheeks; that's what it feels like.
A basketball court in D1 is not filled with nice persons.
It is filled with talented players and Blue meanies.
Sometimes two go in and one comes out.
Sometimes a gang of 'em come looking for you for 40 minutes.
And sometimes there is no where to hide in the era of asymmetric refereeing.
You can do the Gandhi G thing.
Or you can go all Larry Bird and Earvin Johnson.
You can look at the Blue Meanies like just another strategic/tactical obstacle standing between yourself and greatness, between yourself and your full belly and house on the hill, between your past and your future, and you can do what Bird did. And Earvin too.
Take.
No.
Prisoners.
You can beat them at their own game.
You can dish it out before, during and after you take what you are going to get no matter what you do.
You don't ever stop the Blue Meanies. They are muscle bound half talents that don't know any other way to play; that wouldn't even be in D1 if they weren't willing to play the way they do for the kind of bottom feeding, high foreheaded scum they have for coaches.
You can say the free punking stops here, and stops now.
But you don't say that until you have already punked them unexpectedly first and laughed about it and said under your breath, "and that was just for starters. How do you like the new Perry Ellis, now? How bad do you want it? How much can you take? Because I can take more than you ever dreamed of and dish out more than you ever dreamed of, too." And get on with backing up the trash talk.
If it had been up to me, I would have said screw basketball practice this summer, Perry Ellis, you are already a helluva basketball player. I want you to go through Navy SEAL training this off season and come back as "The Designer Assassin."
SEALS, at least all but one of the ones I have met, are XTRemely quiet dudes. The only noisy boastful one I met was reputedly broken and under some kind of PTSS and kind of crazy. The others were eerily quiet. Quiet like big cats looking at you from their cage. Not agitated at all, but in motion. Just completely present and centered and able to eat you in the blink of an eye.
Perry, despite probably being too tall to be admitted, is a natural born SEAL, if he ever went through the training and decided he wanted to become one, he would readily adapt to being one of America's quiet terminators.
I would love to see Ensign Perry Ellis take the court against Fred Van Vleet. It is one time I might ok KU wearing black uniforms. Or maybe the digital cameos of blue, dark blue, black and specks of white, that the Navy wears some. Just once.
But I am an old man, and the world has long since passed me by.
And I trust and like Bill Self so much that I am glad he and not me holds the reigns on the wonderful young Perry Ellis, for I know Coach Self will guide him through the Blue Meanies the right way and not succumb to my pettiness.
Rock Chalk!
Preposterous then is highly subjective.
All you have to do to convince me is include everything my hypothesis includes that your hypothesis excludes, then explain why a slump would not have been anticipated down the stretch after the combination of a 25 game hot streak of shooting, and the accrued injuries, wear and tear, and developmental impediments, down the stretch, and outline a more productive offense for a team that lacked accurate Trey balling from Greene, Selden, Graham, Ellis and Svi, and any b2b offense or rebounding from injured Lucas, Traylor, and Ellis, plus ineligible Cliff!
What offense could have possibly come close to being as productive as Bad Ball was with the deficiencies noted?
I can't think of one, and because of my abiding respect for you, I have spent some time going down the list of known offenses to find one that would make your case, so I could rationally support you as I so enjoy doing. But I could not find one that yielded net advantage, unless I disregarded data and ignored actual outcomes.
Things would have gone worse, not better, under every scenario I have considered.
@HighEliteMajor said:
Again, I think you focus on a strawman – I have never said that he did it on purpose.
Not a straw argument and not trying to claim you are saying it was intentional.
I am trying to make categorically clear its high improbability under ANY CONDITION; that it could probably not happen intentionally, or accidentally, as a result of Coach Self's, or any coaches' actions, except as part of some impossible to foresee chaotic effect of a butterfly wing flapping and causing a hurricane elsewhere 6 months from now.
That clarified, a key issue here is your remark: we shot excellently 25 games and poorly the last 11, and your inference that because the slump and BAD BALL closely coincided BAD BALL is the trigger.
Correlation is NOT necessarily causation.
And this is the essence.
Correlation is reason to look for causation, but not to assume it.
Since the team had shot outside well for 25 games, it was due, statistically speaking, for a slump, of one duration or another; this Self and his statisticians would easily have foreseen. What to do?
Injuries and wear and tear and developmental impediments were probably assessed, as I have outlined above in this thread.
The injuries to rebounders that weren't even effective rebounders before injuries were noted. There would be few rebounds.
The probability of an outside shooting slump was forecast as high and so taking and missing treys made little sense.
A decision was probably made to take the UW drive ball sets they had been adding to their repertoire much of the season, as many teams had been, and resort to an XTReme form of it that we saw and I have explained and named BAD BALL; i.e., UW drive ball with much less Trey shooting. Collapse the defensive space everywhere and drive for a bucket and a foul.
Stats were probably calculated of how many 2 and a FT plays had to be created to replace the treys not taken in order to avoid the likely impending and injury and fatigue exacerbated slump and compensate for treys not taken. A few treys were to still be taken to test if the slump were in effect, and to keep opponents stretched.
Or self accidentally destroyed everything unintentionally out of reactionary stubbornness, is your hypothesis suggests.
Though very improbable, your hypothesis is not utterly impossible. However, though not absolutely certain, my hypothesis appears considerably more probable, if only because it is data inclusive regarding injuries other if only because it is data inclusive regarding injuries other time., where in tear, and developmental impediments. and given Self's historical predilection in minimizing downside risks to expected phenomena.
Perry is suffering from having been so slow to Learn to play the game in a dominant way.
Playing for KU gets one big time exposure quickly. There is no off Broadway time here. Look weak early and you get branded weak. And it's tougher to change an image than acquire one. Perry was finally ready to change the image in that hot run in January early February, but then he got hurt. And when he came back, he got punked by a little guy. More bad branding.
He will easily be one of the 12 best, if he stays healthy and doesn't let little guys punk him.
Frank also suffers from bad early branding. He couldn't getter done his first season. And he isn't pretty. And he was going to Towson State.
Frank is likely the best PG in D1 this season. Period.
Finally, part of the reputed recruiting embargo involves asymmetric media coverage. If you are not privy to the biggest recruiting pool, you are also probably not going to get the most media strokes from media that probably has an informal deal to promote the players from the biggest talent pool in order to maintain access to them.
There appears a lot of going along to get along among media.
@HighEliteMajor said:
So you don’t believe that a coach can affect the collective psyche of a team? Don’t you always refer to Self amping or not amping his teams? What is that?
I do think a coach can amp his team for a game and let them come out flat situationally for a game, when it is in his team's strategic interest for him to do so, but that sharply differs from a coach destroying a team's potential three point shooting for half a season, when it would not be in their interest to have it destroyed.
If coaches could make team's avoid slumps and shoot great all season, why I reckon they would all do it all the time. I would.
But they can't, so they don't.
Attributing too much power and influence to Self, or any coach, is as problematic as attributing too little.
Great point.
And Curry is doing what he is doing at something of a height disadvantage.
Think what will be feasible, when someone comes along with Curries abilities in a taller, stronger chassis!
Greene apparently fell from 50 to 15, because a hip injury, concussion, and an as yet undisclosed change in pigmentation for perhaps three weeks in February converged with shooting back to average and rendered him highly inaccurate, or was it Self's voodoo phrase and being asked to drive the ball?
Selden's shooting fell from 43 to 11, because he shot back to his average and became so unfocused he could hardly dribble the ball without turning it over, or was it Self's voodoo phrase and being asked to drive the ball?
Svi's shooting became inaccurate all season, because he was 17, from a war zone half a world away, barely spoke English, never guarded over picks at the level of athleticism and violence of American D1, or was it Self's voodoo phrase and being asked to drive the ball?
Perry's shooting became inaccurate down the stretch, because he shot back to his average, had a severe injury that kept him out of games, and became the target of opposing team's defensive schemes, or because of Self's voodoo phrase and being asked to drive?
And we could pose similar questions for Devonte could we not?
Frank? Well, he was the only anomaly, the only guy who Self's voodoo phrase and being asked to drive could not accidentally, or on purpose, wreck, right? Well, even Frank cooled some down the stretch--shot back to his average some and suffered obvious leg weariness from a lot of high minute efforts. Or was Self's voodoo phrase and dat old devil being asked to drive the real culprit again?
I am going to go out on a limb here.
Does playing Self defense an entire season put a lot of wear and tear on players legs late in the season that can fatigue their shooting legs more than team's that don't play at this level of defensive intensity, and lead to more episodes and runs of bad shooting late in seasons, or is it Self's voodoo phrase and dat ol' Debble being asked to drive that cause it?
Hmmmm.
This voodoo phraseology and being asked to drive the ball--it is very big medicine, bwana.
Now that I know BG was operable and concussed, and that Svi wasn't a serious option, and Wayne was going to be an unfocused underachiever, things Self could probably have seen up close, yes, his choices make more sense to me.
You keep asking what injuries, as if last years injuries and wear and tear were not among the most extensive during Self's KU tenure. You keep not acknowledging that Wayne and Svi never showed consistently good three point shooting at any stretch last season.
The injuries and wear and tear to the high minute perimeter shooters were observable during the season and/or documented afterwords. Wayne demonstrated that he could not make the three consistently under any strategy of attack. Svi tried spot up three-point shooting on and off for the entire season under all forms of attack and failed. Devonte Graham could not stay fresh enough to keep his three-point shot accurate, or even play 35 to 40 minutes per game the last month.
There was no alternative offensive scheme that would have worked without effective three-point shooters, or effective b2b players.
And it just does not seem credible that Bill Self, or any other coach, could intentionally, or accidentally , destroy a team's three-point shooting ability for all, or half a season, by switching offenses. I do not recall another coach accidentally, or intentionally doing such a thing for half the season for all of the season. Likewise, I do not recall a coach accidentally, or intentionally, destroying a team's above average natural rebounding ability for all, or half a season. Nor do I recall a coach accidentally, or intentionally, destroying a team's above average ability to pass the ball for all of the season, or half a season. It just doesn't happen.
Coaches can help teams reach their potential, or fail to help them reach their potential. But I have never heard of a coach destroying a team's potential.
Injury, wear and tear, and individual player developmental impediments are something observed often. Coaches accidentally, or intentionally, destroying team's' potentials is far less frequently observed. These factors seem so much more plausible as drivers of the teams' second semester limitations, than coach self accidentally, or intentionally, destroying the team's potential, that it is hard even to take your hypothesis as within the range of the probable.
People some time confuse me calling Self a genius with him being infallible. Genius
actually makes MORE mistakes faster than ordinary folks. The problem genius faces is ordinary persons needs to reduce complexity to make inferences and draw conclusions about the actions of genius acting in response to complexity without needing to reduce nearly as much.
@HighEliteMajor is reducing injury context massively in order even to posit a hypothesis in a gotcha condition.
You are saying, well, yes, Self can be strategically flexible but tactically stubborn, and so that is why he is not winning higher than 82% of his games and getting more rings. But you are reducing that what he is doing is already winning 82 percent and 1 ring and 11 titles and that there would be cost to pursue the benefits of increased tactical flexibility you value. There would be costs and benefits to him to do what you suggest. There is no strategic free lunch.. Wooden was nearly completely inflexible in strategy and tactics. He did not even believe adapting at all to what other teams did. Wooden won ten rings. Self is like Jim Carey in The Mask compared to Wooden in terms of game adjustments.
HEM faces many difficulties with his hypothesis, but how ever he adapts it, he will sooner or later be faced with cost-benefit analysis of doing it other than Self did it. So will you.
I once did cost-benefit analysis for a living in the evaluation of possible future strategies and tactics and logistics. It is an acquired skill that few can do without being educated, trained and abused with high stakes and overwork into doing. Even the best CEOs and generals surprisingly often aren't good at it. Their strength is finding ONE scenario they know will work and organizing like hell and inspiring and demanding great execution while controlling the crucial details and delegating what is best delegated. Considering multiple scenarios and sorting for the best scenario can tax their patience; this is so especially when there is no winning move--just lesser of evils. This is why there are feasibility analysts. They consider what those driven to succeed cannot bear to think about.
There is a forensic form of all of this that is exceedingly painful, too. Counterfactual inference.
What might be the net benefit of not doing what was done and acting differently?
Contrary to popular notions, past mistakes are not repeated because of insanity, but because of pain and boredom avoidance. People don't want to think through the net benefit trade offs when there is no glory and feasible success assured by doing so. They suck and cost shift instead. They live in denial.
People like to think there is a fix to every bad outcome, but often no better option was feasible.
It's a hard world sometimes.
Husband Kimmell, it turns out, probably acted brilliantly in the run up to Pearl Harbor. Did almost everything right. And it was especially right if he figured he was not going to get the Intel he would require to avoid surprise attack. By keeping all but his carriers in the harbor, they could be repaired rather than lost at sea. By keeping the carriers without huge fleets at sea they became undetectable to the Japanese. Had he kept the fleet at sea ready for battle the entire fleet probably would have been found and sunk. The only reason he is not lauded was A scapegoat was needed in those days.
Self averted total disaster last season with an ugly choice that probably couldn't have lead to a better outcome, but avoided a lot of worse ones. You have to be a hard man to do it. Self is a hard one.
He won a title and a game in March with zip at the end, then got murdered by a guy he probably detests.
I just dont think any alternative approach could have accomplished even that.
But I am always open to hear the path with the better net benefit.
P.S,: Korver is taken as an anomaly much as Hank Luisetti once was. But all skills improve with reps over time. What confuses people is the stochastic runs and variance that enables a Korver to shoot 41 one season one season then 42 .,then 44 then 54, then fall back to 40 or whatever and so on. Keep letting Korver, or any good shooter, shoot through the runs and variances and the long term trend will be up unless injury or refs alter the stochastic context. Players can and will shoot better than Korver in time. The power of the three is in its nascent stage. Shooters have not yet started the steep improvement that will occur once the system starts heavily selecting toward them from early to late in careers. There is a significant probability that shooting can be brain mapped and individuals with legacy burn patterns can be identified systematically all over the worl and trained to shoot much better than today's players. And that is just one path of many for improving the breed.
And last season was FAR from his NBA season best of 54% from Trey.
Basketball coaching remains bogged down in pre Trey think.
The way to win in the NBA is to comb the world for Trey ballers and normalize having a team of 45-54% Trey shooters at positions 2-4, a footer at the 5, and a fine point guard.
And every possession starts with a Trey 3 seconds after crossing mid court.
I know you feel you have a strong case here, but do you see the high improbability that Self even could wreck a team of allegedly good try ballers confidence in their shooting for an entire season by questioning their ability to shoot the Trey and win? It seems almost statistically insignificant, and the entirety of your argument rests precariously on that premise. Could Self really wreck an entire team's confidence in shooting the Trey ball, and then even if he could, why in the world would he want to do it? Frankly, it doesn't make sense unless you argue Self became temporarily crazy. But there is no evidence of such a break with reality.
What we see instead is evidence of injuries and player performance problems tracking back to early in the season converging with worsening injuries and fatigue that by the time of mid season made sustaining the good record by the early approach largely unsustainable.
You also have to largely ignore the accruing late season injuries to make your hypothesis credible, whereas my hypothesis includes them. This is suspect and precisely why I posited my alternative hypothesis.
When I look at what you imply would have happened if Self had not played Bad Ball you seem to be largely ignoring the reality of the teams capabilities by the end. There is no logic or evidence that your counterfactual that things would have gone much better by not playing Bad Ball should be expected. And Self's Bad Ball did in fact enable his massively degraded team limp into a title and a first round win. It seems a brilliant and successful maneuver to me at a time when other options included shooting more treys without a single credible Trey threat other than Mason by that point of the season, or play b2b with no ability to do that, or run the floor with a bunch of injured, worn down guys and no good rebounders to start the breaks.
You have put yourself in a real box here, unless you ignore/minimize the injuries, which I am not letting you do by posing my alternative hypothesis.
And Self needed no crystal ball at all from mid season on to know his outside shooting was going to be as weak as it turned out to be. He just needed the inside skinny on his guys physical conditions, likely minutes the second half, allow for the usual injuries that occur, and then look at the law of averages based on how hot his guys had been on the front nine.
I think maybe you have become to invested in Self wrecking his own team with one sentence and it's making you feel an I gotcha coach moment.
Include the injuries.
BG really did have operation. Self really does say he had a mild concussion. And then start including the rest of the injuries and wear and tear. It all adds up.
Something happens to a conference when a great coach takes deep root in it.
Before John Wooden became dominant in the Pac 8 starting around 1963 to 1973 or so, the Pac 8 was considered one of the toughest conferences around during the 1950s.
Pete Newell was at Cal winning a ring, and becoming the game's authority on big man coaching. Hall of Fame.
Sam Barry, the actual father of the triangle offense, and Forest Twogood, had been at USC. Barry made the Hall of Fame. Twogood made the Helm's Foundation Hall of Fame.
Slats Gill was at Oregon State winning five conference titles. four from 1947 to 1958. Hall of Fame.
Marv Harshman was at Washington State in the Pac 8 in the late 50s. Hall of Fame.
And of course John Wooden at UCLA. Hall of Fame.
These Pac 8 coaches may have been the best group of coaches ever to congregate in one conference for a decade. Practically every conference game they coached they coached against a future hall of fame coach!!!
But then some retired, and some moved on because of the ferocity of competition. Still others stayed, but one survived and transcended: John Wooden.
During the early 1960s to 1970s--Wooden's decade of dominence--some very fine coaches were attracted to the Pac 8. Hall of Famer Harshman stayed. Hall of Famer Ralph Miller landed at Oregon State. Hall of Famer Tex Winter was at Washington for four years, or so. Dick Harter, not a Hall of Famer, but a successful coach in D1 and the NBA came late to Oregon. Bob Boyd at USC was arguably the greatest coach ever to not be recognized for being a great coach, because he finished second to Wooden so many times. And so on.
But during Wooden's era of dominance, when Wooden won his long run of conference titles AND national titles, people argued that the Pac 8 was not all that great many of those years, despite a lot of very good coaches challenging Wooden.
There is something about long winning streaks that makes media and fans not be able to hold both the genius coaches capable of such long winning streaks and other exceptional coaches not quite good enough to break the streaks in their minds jointly.
When Wooden didn't dominate, the Pac 8 was great.
When Wooden dominated, Wooden was great, not the Pac 8.
There were even naives that said that the Pac 8 was weak while Wooden was winning his rings.
Bob Boyd, Marv Harshman, Ralph Miller, and Dick Harter were seriously good coaches that put seriously good teams with seriously good talent on the floor.
Wooden was just a genius by then blessed with great talent, too.
Consider Bill Self--a contemporary genius.
He has coached against a lot of good coaches in the Big 12 in his years.
Bob Knight. Hall of Famer.
Rick Barnes. Future Hall of Famer.
Mark Turgeon. Future Hall of Famer.
Fred Hoiberg. Might have been a future hall of famer had his heart and his agenda allowed it.
Bob Huggins. Future Hall of Famer.
Tubby Smith. Wears a ring.
Lon Kruger. Likely a future Hall of Famer if he can get out from under Self.
I am not saying the Big 12 has as many great programs as some other conferences. But Self has coached against some hellaciously good coaches in the Big 12.
But because he has risen to the challenge and won titles for eleven straight years people are beginning to downgrade the Big 12, same as they began to downgrade the Pac 8, once Wooden began to dominate it.
I guaranty you that if Roy, or Coach K had won the last 11 straight conference titles in the ACC, even with the fine roster of coaches the ACC has had, there would be people starting to argue that the ACC was just not that good of a conference and that that was why Coach K, or Roy, won 11 straight.
What people forget about these occasional genius coaches is that they actually attract good coaches into their conferences simply because coaches are insanely competitive and want to see if they can knock the genius off his pedestal. They want to coach against the best and see if they can beat the best.
I actually sometimes doubt the Big 12 would get the number of fine coaches it gets, if it were not for the chance to coach against Bill Self.
Self is one of the precious metals standards in coaching.
Coach K is another.
Calipari is another.
You want to compete?
You've got to coach against the best to keep it from getting boring.
The Big 12 had a flame out in the Madness last season.
It happens.
It has happened to other power conferences from time to time.
But Self has nothing to apologize for winning his titles in the B12.
The Big 12 has long since ceased to be that low contact finesse conference that used to get intimidated and beaten up in post season.
its bad to the bone now.
Does anyone seriously think coaches and teams from other power conferences have lately been looking forward to playing Bill Self, Bob Huggins and Rick Barnes teams in post season? or Bill Self, Bob Huggins/Frank Martin, Mark Turgeon, Mike Anderson and Bob Knight teams before that?
Uh, no.
I haven't seen this issue you refer to and I can't answer your hypothetical about a KU band director.
But, assuming for a moment that what you say were true, I can wonder if the the KSU band director might be projecting a desire onto the Jayhawk that the KSU band director may secretly be wishing to live out in the privacy of his/her bedroom.
I always knew being a KSU fan "sucked."
But it never occurred to me that being a KSU band director probably "ate."
Rock Chalk!
You are throwing down a challenge here worth throwing down. It has challenged me to rethink my argument that the hip injury alone triggered Greene's shooting slump. And I agree any explanation needs to explain the team's shooting slump
So: first, I have to analyse your hypothesis.
The essence of your argument, as I understand it, is this:
1.) Greene's injury was not decisive to his shooting slump because his shooting slump was not highly correlated with his tough to recognize injury and Self--a keen observer--blamed it on a mild concussion instead of his hip problem; and
2.) Self's questioning of his team's ability to win with shooting unnerved Brannen Greene and his team and triggered both Greene's slump and a team wide slump.
Regarding 1, I could reasonably imagine how Greene could get hot early on with a deteriorating hip injury that was causing mild, but not yet severe pain, but then with the combination of wear and tear by mid season and some acute tweaking could simultaneously begin to cool off from his hot streak, and plummet nonlinearly into an acute, enduring slump that was a convergence of cooling off and acute hip pain. And I could see this correlating rather highly with Greene's observed slump.
But in the interest of data inclusiveness, we need to fit Greene's "mild concussion" noted by Self as the primary driver into this explanation, as you rightly point out.
If one assumes that Greene got hot early, then began to feel the converging effects of natural cooling AND nonlinearly intensifying hip pain, then adding a "mild concussion" to the mix might reasonably be expected to compound the effect and send Greene into an abject, enduring slump, which was what in fact occurred.
But I am not quite done with Self's pronouncement of a "mild concussion" being the primary driver of his slump, as you have wisely called our attentions to.
History teaches us Self using "mild concussion" can mean many things. It appears to mean anything from a mild brain injury to a severe one. Zack Peters had a concussion that Self appeared to expect Peters to come back and play from that same season. If I recall correctly, Peters was then shortly thereafter diagnosed with a severe head injury that eventually forced him to leave the team, then the university, then the game, and after a brief time away, to an aborted attempt at a comeback at Arizona. Zack Peters was "nicked up" at one point. Perry Ellis was knocked silly in the WSU game at the end of the season. He went to the locker room. He came back out and at least appeared to be playing with some kind of brain trauma beyond just a nose injury. But it was never announced that he was suffering even a mild concussion. We know from neuroscience research that even mild blows to the head cause some injury to the brain. For comparison, Perry Ellis suffered an acute blow to the head vs. WSU and mild concussion was not even mentioned, as I recall. My point here is that Self is not a doctor, and he has strategic considerations doctors do not have, and he has in the past evidenced what appears a rather subjective interpretation of the effects of head injury. I certainly do not mean to suggest that he plays fast and loose with players' health, but rather that while probably being very careful of their health and respectful of the medical experts within the locker room, Self has also to think about his public statements in terms of what the mean for playing the next opponent.
The above brings me to doubt the accuracy of some of Self's public and subjective characterizations of brain injuries like the one Brannen Greene may have sustained. I am not saying he over stated, or understated it, or hit it right on the head. What I am saying is that if Brannen Greene had a long standing hip injury that were growing more acute as the season went on, and if Self were concealing that injury from opponents for strategic advantage, as could make sense for him to do, and as would not be unprecedented in his past masking of short term, or even operable injuries, it appears plausible to me that Self might well have pointed to a "mild concussion" as the true culprit of Greene's slump, even if it weren't the whole explanation. Why? Because opponents would have reason to expect that Brannen Greene would get over a "mild con concussion" much sooner than an operable hip injury. In turn, opponents would be much more likely to keep guarding Greene outside with a "mild concussion," than with an operably hip injury.
But if Greene really did get his bell severely wrung--much more severely than what "mild concussion" might suggest, well, then we are into territory of a convergence of severe concussion and an operable hip injury that could interplay in a way that Greene's shooting percentage from outside would plummet much as it did.
But of course this leaves the team 3-point slump to be reckoned with, too.
To reiterate, if I understand your hypothesis, you are suggesting that Self's zeal to develop an inside scoring game lead him to either purposefully, or accidentally, impugn his teams shooting abilities to such a degree that he created such acute doubt in them that their trey balling became a self-fulfilling prophecy of what Self had asserted.
Here is a problem with what you are positing that I think is incumbent upon you, who proposes the hypothesis, to explain in its defense.
Why would Self need to sabotage his team's three point shooting with doubting language in order to get them to work on driving the ball from all five positions?
And why wouldn't he have simply corrected himself as soon as he saw evidence of his pronouncement becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy?
Why couldn't he just come into the locker room and say, "Boys, we are a great trey balling team, and having developed our trey balling to a high level, we are now going to work on driving the ball from all five positions for a month or two. We are going to de-emphasize the trey balling for awhile, and work on driving the ball to the rack from all five positions to make up for our limitations in our back to the basket game. We've got great athletes in Jamari, Lucas, and Cliff and so I believe they are apt to be more productive off the drive than back to basket. And once we get this driving game down, well, then we will be collapsing defenses with our driving and then be able to shift gears and blow them apart with our great three point shooting."
Heck, Self might even have told the team something like, " And I am going to feed the media a line that we aren't going to keep shooting the trey ball, because its fool's gold with a team like you guys; that we aren't a very good trey balling team after all. And then when we come up against an opponent that we need an edge on, we will surprise them by going to the trey ball with a bunch of terrific shooters. [big warm Self smile] Hey, you guys are the best outside shooting team I have ever had. I want to keep the element of surprise on our side. Okay?"
Wouldn't that have been a whole lot easier and a whole lot less risky than telling his guys they really weren't very good shooters and meaning it, if they were healthy enough to shoot the trey well, and if he really thought they were one of his best trey balling teams?
Where I am headed with this is: I think Greene really was suffering from both a bum hip and a concussion. And given the apparent acute, unreported color change I witnessed in him for a couple of weeks late in the season, he may also have been suffering one of those dietary problems that comes from these high tech diets they put the players on, or some kind of jaundice, or what have you.
And the team?
Well, We know that Wayne lost his confidence trying to be the leader of a team that was increasingly marching to Mason's beat. And we have reason to wonder about Wayne's lack of pop and intermittent bouts of no-focus.
And along the way Graham got hurt.
And Perry got hurt.
And Cliff became a player one could hardly build around both for his sketchy performances and because of loan baggage.
And Lucas and Traylor got hurt inside, so for quite some time there was no one inside to rebound a missed trey and keep possessions from being one shot possessions only.
And so on.
And don't forget that the team truly was hotter than a firecracker for quite a long stretch of the season and that teams individuals and teams sooner or later go through slumps after getting incredibly hot.
So: I am back to the idea that Self did not design this slump, nor probably even accidentally trigger it.
I am back to thinking that he was reading the hand writing on the wall.
Greene probably wasn't going to get out of his slump because of operable injuries and a concussion that may well have been much worse than reported.
God only knows what was wrong inside Wayne's brain case from before the season started. He wasn't going to become a 40%.
Graham played well but was wearing down as a freshman from the D1 grind and then got "nicked up." No 40%er there.
Svi imploded almost immediately. No 40% there and even when he found the range it would be useless because he couldn't guard over a pick.
Mason? Self had put a saddle on him and ridden him, and knew he was going to have to ride him all the way. Therefore from the moment he made the decision to ride Mason, he knew Mason would likely burn out from wear and tear and stress sooner or later the second half of the season. So: though he was a 40%er as a 2 man, as a 1 man with a saddle on his back he was bound to lose his legs over the second half of the season.
Perry was the only guy he could likely count on to endure a season of wear and tear in D1, if Self could get Perry untracked. He did and Self moved the saddle onto Perry. Alas, Perry went down to injury. No 40%er there down the stretch.
Self had to have been able to forecast the second half of the season from the first half.
Had the team been in a slump the first half of the season, he might have said, "Hey, sooner or later we are going to get hot now." He might have stuck with the trey balling game on a big fat gamble.
But when the team had had its hot streak the first half of the season, Self had to have known the writing was on the wall. Accruing injuries and wear and tear of playing guys big minutes was going to converge with this team's inevitable shooting slump at the worst possible time for trying to win another title, or go deep in the Madness.
So: Self made the tough call--the unpopular call--the truth so many could not handle.
He said, "Yea, I know, we could have been a great trey balling team, but the injuries and the probable timing of the hot and cold streaks, have just made being a trey balling team unfeasible. Maybe next years. Now its time to face facts. And these guys are going to find it very difficult to face these facts without some cold water in the face. This is a one way street once we start down it, and the sooner we start down it the more time and so the more chance we have to adapt for the stretch run."
At least that's what I come to, until your next set of eye openers.
Note: I want to make absolutely clear that I am not saying you are wrong here, or even trying to refute you. I am trying to pose an alternative hypothesis that I think might also fit, so that you can then get on with the business of elaborating your case.
What I really think is going on here is that because two hypotheses can fit the facts you have perspicaciously brought to all of our attention that we may be missing still more facts in this peculiar story involving Brannen Greene, Self and Brannen's dad. And for what its worth, that peculiar loss of color during that one stretch the last month or so of the season, which neither of our hypotheses adequately accounts for, might be one anomaly to switch on our, or other's, thinking caps.
Rock Chalk!
ABSOLUTELY SELF KNEW THE TREY BALL CAPACITY WAS BADLY DEGRADED, WHEN HE WENT TO BAD BALL!
That's what I've been trying to tell board rats, since the minute we learned BG played operable.
I suspected it during the season, when BG looked so pale and sick for a few weeks. But then BG's color restored and so then I was fooled a bit by his continued awkwardness. I thought, well, maybe everyone was right and BG just was a very limited athlete.
But nooooooooo, as John Belushi used to say.
BG was operable and as usual Self cloaked it to keep opponents guarding him outside, while first drive ball was embraced and then all out XTReme BAD BALL was resorted to.
Think about it.
BG was operable for most of the second half of the season.
Wayne grew increasingly inconsistent and never found the range on his trey ball, for whatever reason, and you can bet it was a hairy condition, whatever it was, since we saw the real Wayne in Hyundailand.
The Designer, who had become a stretch 5 40 percenter, got injured big time. Suddenly no trey gun.
That left THE RIVERBOAT GAMBLER with Frank Mason as his lone trey launcher and Frank was needed at the point 38 minutes in regulation and 43 in an OT game, because...
Devonte, and this is something everyone forgets, was not well down the stretch of the regular season. Something "nicked him up", or he entered a slump.
And I am not even mentioning the Crimean Kid going over the event horizon the three point black hole a month into the season and never recovering once it became apparent he could not stay with his own shadow over a pick.
Everything is a cascade in basketball teams. One injury, or failure to bloom, has effects down stream the rest of the season.
At the time the Crimean Kid did not bloom, everyone thought, oh, well, we've got Frank, Wayne and Devonte to rotate at the 1 and 2. No problema.
WRONG!
Once Svi was out of the picture, it meant Wayne HAD to play regardless of how awful his offense became, because he was the only one that could guard an All League, or better guy with some length.
And when Wayne's brain went China Syndrome, and probably as a result of yet another injury that Self has chosen never to reveal in order to protect Wayne's draft potential downstream, and Devonte hit some kind of ceiling plus got "nicked up," well, then failure of Svi to bloom bit us in the glutes big time.
BAD BALL was the only logical move last season, and we are just lucky as hell that THE GENIUS was able to invent BAD BALL on the fly, when all the bets were already laid down, and there were no more cards to draw, or we would NOT have won another conference title. And had we not won another conference title, we might well have ended up with such a low seed that we would have gone out the first round.
See, I keep telling everyone: if Self had tried to play anything but BAD BALL with the hand he was fanning thin air at the end of last season with, he wouldn't have gone .500 down the stretch. He most likely would have gone .250, or something like that.
THE GENIUS stared down the barrel of doom.
And Self bluffed outside and drove inside.
And he kept driving.
Until a name had to be invented for how ugly--but effective--it got.
BAD BALL!
I am curious why you view Brannen as a one trick pony?
He seems to pass the ball with snap.
He runs the floor extremely well for his size.
He seems an intense competitor.
Prior to his injury, he was coming around in his floor game. He attacked the basket some early.
He did not really regress to being one dimensional until his injury, which is quite normal during an operable injury.
Brandon's only major problem prior to, and during, his injury was the same thing that Travis Releford and Elijah Johnson and some other freshman have struggled with their first, and sometimes seconds seasons: wild hair syndrome.
Wild hair syndrome is where you cannot adjust your game to the flow of the game. You make wild, impulsive choices. You over commit. You pass wildly. It all has to do with incomplete neural net development in a young mind.
All a coach can do is keep trying the player to see if the neural net development has reached a level where the player's mind is sufficiently developed to make controlled use of the player's athletic abilities.
This invariably happens. Some take longer, and some shorter. But they all eventually come around.
BG will come around. His wild hair syndrome appeared to be lessoning during last season. But the progress that usually accompanies that reduction was diminished by him playing operable much of the season.
If BG recovers most of his athleticism, I expect him to be quite a player this season.
If he doesn't, then I would expect him to take a medical red shirt and become quite a player the following season.
Wild hair syndrome has mostly to do with late maturity.
It sure could work out that way.
But Self was playing BG operable, and he doesn't usually do that without giving someone a position the following season to try to see what they can do healthy.
Thus, it could work out that BG gets a chance to be more like a Glenn Rice. A big trey fish in a big pond that goes to the L and has a fine career.
Selden is the guy that would be the most scary if he could drain it at 40%. It would unleash his athleticism to go to the rim so much. We have to hope. He was shooting it pretty well in Hyundai-land.
But to what? :-)
The better the rebounding is, the more treys we can afford to take.
Let the three point shooting begin!!!!!!
Korver is your size.
He played at Creighton.
He averaged 45% from trey in four college seasons and made 48% one season.
But the NBA is where he really learned to ding it!
In 13 NBA seasons, he has only made less than 40% from trey two seasons.
He had arguably the best NBA trey % for a season (53.6%) though he only played 55 games. This was the basketball equivalent of batting .400.
He has had other NBA seasons where he made 49 and 47 percent.
He has averaged making 43.2% percent of his NBA treys for his career.
Ray Allen is the greatest NBA trey baller of all time, who is a well rounded player.
But Kyle Korver is the greatest three point percentage guy on binges. Period.
The 53.6% is an INSANE make-rate from trey!!!!!!
It means that for 55 games, on an effective shooting percentage basis, one NBA season he was asc good as going inside to a footer!
And this is a guy who is NOT a great athlete.
BG, seize the moment.
The trey gun is the unfair advantage.
Take it.
Adidas? Now that I had not considered!
Roy proved platooning worked.
Nothing is sacred about 7-8 players in March except one thing.
It is rare to have more than 7-8 players better than another Final 16 teams best 7-8 players.
The other teams best 7-8 players determine whether platooning can work.
You have to keep your best players on the floor to beat the other team's best players.
If you have ten as good or better than their best 7-8, then platooning makes sense.
Not if not.
7-8 guys can rotate and play half court games and not get tired, no matter if the opposing coach throws ten lesser players at the 7-8.
Thus, it's an energy budget management thing.
If you come at Self with 12 lesser players than his top 7-8, he will play grind and beat you with his better players.
File this post under just curious and triggered by BIA Special Agent @Crimsonorblue22, asking if I had forgotten about the DeBruce Center being the new place for the original rules of the game among other things..
To wit...
I was forgetful. :-)
But it tweaks my curiosity that there is no indication of ownership of the rules, or of the DeBruce Center, only that the rules will "reside" there.
So: yes, I would like to know who owns the rules now?
Also, from a real estate standpoint, something perhaps interesting (not nefarious, just interesting) appears to be occurring with Allen Field House becoming a mixed use complex.
Assuming the DeBruce Center will be near AFH (a perhaps incorrect assumption on my part I will no doubt shortly be enlightened about), the Field House appears to be slowly experiencing accretion of not for profit building appendages: the hall of fame (or whatever its proper name is), the practice center, the DeBruce Center, the parking structure, etc. Some of these appear to be capable of generating revenues.
Does anyone know if these reputedly donated appendages to the original Allen Field House and its site are located on university land, or on pads carved out of university land and so are separate parcels with structures on them?
I have never known, if the original AFH were on its own parcel, or if it were on an unsubdivided portion of the university owned land. Knowing the land tenure of these structures, plus the not for profit corporations owning them (or holding management contracts on them) and the composition of the boards of these organizations might help us better understand how KU Basketball is structured in terms of influence and control via its building infrastructure and land base. A logical possibility would be for all of the structures, including Allen Field House, to be located on an undivided portion of university lands, because they all appear to be physically connected, but another logical possibility would be for each of the structures to be on individually subdivided land parcels with zero lot lines and access/circulation easements. It is a very interesting real estate, ownership, management, and insurance situation.
Some grad student at the B-School could probably get a master's thesis out of using the AFH complex as a case study not-for-profit mixed use developments.
Rock Chalk!
See my separated post related to this.
Do The Booths still own the original rules of basketball? Have I missed that they have finally been put on display and conveyed unconditionally to KU? Does anyone know, if the property rights to the official original rules of the game have been conveyed to KU yet? My expectation has always sadly been that they will never be conveyed to the ownership of KU. I suspect they will probably be conveyed into a private not-for-profit corporation with a board controlled by the booth family, thus allowing a healthy tax deduction and continued private control and continued private ownership. I wonder if their cost of acquisition will likely be written down with a donation deduction, plus some overhead fees on the real estate development that will house them? Say it ain't so!
Can't say if he will stick; that depends on defense.
When operable, BG is not an NBA prospect. Post operable, yes, if full recovery. Most any 6-7 guy that can run the floor and shoot 40% from trey, while operable, will get an NBA opportunity, if fully recovered.
Most national sports broadcast media commentators apparently suffer from penile or vaginal dwarfism. I no longer see much more to it than that. Oh, there is a good bit of media market size bias, but sex organ dwarfism appears to explain a lot. 🙌 😎
Damn! That is the kind of passion I have waited years to hear come out fused with your reason on your logical keyboard. I knew it was in there and would be worth the wait. Thanks.
PHOF!
Udoka = Udunka!
Let's lobby to get that sauce sold at AFH!!!
Great flexible thinking.
Sign contracts with all the petro shoes.
Politicians accept contributions from all persons and nations.
This may be the best way to diversify recruiting asymmetries.
Starting the season is always a positive!
Leonard was not my cup of tea, but I loved "Suzanne"!
NCAA to fire investigators and rely on recruiting confession booths.
World Wide Wes soon to be new director of NCAA clearance.
Stacks to be announced BEFORE mediocre coaches hired.
Silvio Berlusconi to replace Bob Bowlsby.
Trump pulls out of campaign to replace Zenger. Says he doesn't need the salary because he is rich. Will use illegals to build luxury highrise on Daisy Hill.
Lewis Black will become a motivational speaker at the Leo Buscaglia Institute for Advanced Kindness.
Olivia Wilde and Kennedy Summers will wheat wrestle, while Jeff and Jason play nude Horse, at Late Night.
Self to schedule Fizzou.
(Note: all fiction. No malice.)
Looking good after all these years and miracles.
Adidas AND Playboy could take this to the bank!!
Adidas Jeff Withey Playboy Model High Tops! Cha-ching!
Block Party Meets Endless Summers!!!
Advertising tag line: "A Playmate of the Year can tell a lot about an Adidas man from the size of his high tops!"
And I found this on the web about Miss Summers from Fox: "When Summers was named Playmate of the Year back in May, the men’s magazine made it a point of highlighting her impressive educational background. Summers obtained a bachelor’s degree and two master’s degrees and now she is working on her M.D.
She also speaks French and German, and her father served in Special Forces for the U.S. Army and her mother was a Russian linguist and cryptologist."
OMG!
The possibilities are endless!
Bring her Dad into the act!!!!
ANGLE ON:
Jeff rejecting in Adidas high tops!
Jeff getting sneezed on by a guy guarding him.
The big guy with a cold
Kennedy in doctor coat, black bag and Adidas high tops making a house call on Jeff in Adidas high tops!
Its love at first sight of Adidas!
But with a green beret in combat gear watching.
OMG!
Jeff and Hef.
A Bunny Block Party!
Jeff, puhlease bring her to the Phog, if you can ever start to think again!!!
Beware, the Cotton Tail!!!!
Rock Chalk!!!!
Noted and changed!
"Booze, Shoes and Blues": The KUBuckets Sessions
Recorded Live at the Old Flamingo
Featuring:
Howlin' Wolf Slayr and Notorious H.E.M
And the KUBucket Kool Jazz and Funk Punk Ensemble including but not limited to…
wissoxwindycityalmightyhawkfan
Sweet GlobalJay
RE Dick’s Half Way Inn Hawk
Lulu Vermont White Fululu
StatEveryInchUhMyLoveMachine
Crimson Soothin'Sister Hawk
jay "muddy Potter waters" bate 1.0
NotJustanotherOrdinaryBoysenberryJamFan
ParisRidetheMetrowithMilesDavisandCatherineDenueveAndTalkAboutTheHumidityWhileChattingupIsabelleHuppertWhenSheWuzStillNubileHawk
VailTwoMileHIghHawk
BrooksBadDogHatMD
konkeyBigDong
wrwCoolPicslumpy
Red.Thumbs Up Mothuh@#$%ing.Rooster
dylansdon’tgogentlyintothatgoodNashvilleSkylineNight
Double Down Double DD
joelovesMadDog2020andChateauRothschildewithSloGinFizzandLateNightjayhawks
BeddieTheLadiesMan2WomanDefenseKU23
JayOnlyMyOpinionHawkFanToo
truepokesaladanniehawk93
Texas-HyphenMyAss-Hawk-10
Plus Many More That Escape My Aricept Starved Brain Dump Right Now
Via @Fancaster...Olivia dumps Jason for ' bate 1.0
Via @Fancaster...'bate 1.o opts for celibacy
Via @Fancaster...Olivia rebounds, marries Pee Wee Herman
Via @Fancaster...Michelle O and Hillary will marry.
Via @Fancaster...Jeb and The Donald already married.
Via @Fancaster...Big Shoe No Influence
.(Note: all fiction. No malice.)
I like all those willing to take on seemingly impossible odds to achieve worthwhile goals, because they have plan to work harder and achieve unfair advantage on vile opponents. Coach Beatty appears such a man.
Go Coach Beatty, go!!!