🏀 KuBuckets Archive

@Crimsonorblue22

Thanks for posting Self's take.

Self appears to be feeling some REAL pressure about this recruiting season.

He is really pumping Cheick up by comparing him to Thomas Robinson, almost the way he pumped up Cliff Alexander last year.

But I just don't see where Cheick is the rim protecting presence that Self has said is needed.

Cheick is with Perry and Bragg our third 4. And with Jamari and Mikelson he is our 5th four.

Cliff Alexander was about the same size as Cheick. Cliff could not protect the rim.

Heck, Thomas Robinson was not a rim protector. He was a great rebounder and a tireless aggressive defender and offender by his last season.

But Jeff Withey was the rim protector that let Thomas roam.

I can see how Cheick could rim protect against ISU, because Fred never has rim protectors, and Fred lost his top recruiter to St. John's. I can see how Cheick MIGHT be able to rim protect on 6-7 Rico Gathers. But against four footer stacks?

I don't know.

This may be an admission for preparing KU fans that there isn't going to be any footer or near footer added this year.

But whether Cheick is too short to rim protect, or not, MY GAWD AM I ECSTATIC TO HAVE HIM JOIN THE JAYHAWK JARHEADS AND SEE WHAT SELF CAN COOK UP FOR HIM TO DO AS A 4 PLAYING 5.

@JayHawkFanToo

Sheck it out!

Shecky Greene would be proud.

The shecking crew starts now.

Now, put a sheck in the box by Jaylen Brown's name.

@JayHawkFanToo

Thank you kindly, sir.

@JayHawkFanToo

LOL! ;-)

Of course adidas is bailing out of the NBA to concentrate on the college and of course it was sucking air on the NBA threads.

The other reason adidas pulled out was to put some more pressure on the Nike-Jordan and Nike-Nike fissure.

The Nike-Jordan folks will want to jump in on the NBA thread contract, because the Jordan brand is so heavily NBA oriented and could make so much money at home and abroad from doing so.

The Nike-Nike division will be wanting to lay off, because Nike appears to be in a mode of trying to plateau Nike-Jordan and grow Nike-Nike to get more control over their business, IMHO.

It was a smart move all around by adidas, whether they're desparate, or sufficiently backed.

You have to understand that adidas has apparently just taken the worst that the giant has to dish out in the NBA and college. It has apparently shut the player spigot to a drip to adidas programs in college and apparently stopped the theft at the NBA level since Wiggins, who "totally coincidentally" got side-tracked into the media black hole of chainsaw ice sculptures, Minneapolis St. Paul. And Embiid, who they were probably worrying about more than Wigs, is out in the injury ethers. adidas appears barely able to supply its five lonely big time programs with 3 stacks and Nike appears to be sewing 5-10 stack programs to dominate conferences faster than mushrooms coming up off last years spore around a dead Douglas Fir in a Pacific Northwest coniferous rainforest between Eugene and the coast. The giant has really appeared to flex its North American muscles and god only knows what the giant might be doing in strategically targeted overseas markets in other sports. But adidas has had that money management outfit (name forgotten) that took a very big ownership position quite some time ago now and that outfit among other things reputedly manages untraceable bail out monies, and so as long as that deep pockets investment management firm backs adidas (I haven't checked for a year or so, so I can't say if that firm is still invested or not), we should soon see adidas go on the offensive again. Take their best shot, let them reveal their strategy, and then strike back.

We will know about how serious adidas is if Self stays at KU and Donovan goes to the NBA. Donovan is Nike-Nike, and if he is washing his hands of Nike-Nike in college, it means that another round of shoewar may be about to break out.

If Self jumps to OKC, which seems very unlikely now, it could mean the adidas movement is throwing in the sponge.

Fun thing to watch.

Glad I haven't got any money at risk in it.

Rock Chalk!

Someone give the phonetic spelling for Cheick so I know how to pronounce it.

Way to go, Coach Self, now Jaylen Brown, come on down.

Don't stop till we reach the top.

@Lulufulu

It made no sense for Adidas to keep trying to sell apparel with an NBA connection, because Nike controls the vast majority of the important NBA shoewear endorsers. They have to connect the shoes and the apparel and they could not find a way to do that in through the NBA. I agree with you that they need to focus on college. They have concluded apparently that they cannot negotiate enough NBA players away from Nike- Nike and Nike-Jordan. It appears they have decided to concentrate on building relationships in Junior high, high school college before it is too late. Money to be made in the United States is perhaps greater in college products, and Adidas problems in Europe mean it has to generate revenues right away in USA. But the long-term play remained professional basketball-- both the NBA and professional leagues overseas. Professional basketball is the long term marketing path to impact shoe and apparel shoe global markets IMHO.

@JayHawkFanToo

First word: cleats.

So: We disagree on complexity.

We do agree that as we move toward global markets of runs of half a billion shoes the marginal cost of any petroleum resin and fiber based shoe nears zero, no matter the complexity likely to be used in a basketball shoe for everyday wear.

But, of course the most important point is kids and adults just don't wear cleated shoes to school, or work, or shopping or on weekends the way they wear basketball shoes. And this is the angle that is driving shoe wars and making b-ball shoes the spearhead of attack. They tried hiking and tennis and track shoes, but those sports didn't translate to global markets.

@Lulufulu

You have distilled the essence of what I have been laboring a few years to hypothesize and call attention to. But it goes a bit deeper. Soccer shoes cannot be made as cheaply as basketball shoes and soccer shoes cannot be worn recreationally. Thus the global market for basketbal shoes is orders of magnitude greater, even though more kids play soccer now, but not later if a global push to spread basketball were to occur. Finally, basketball shoes and clothing can fuse more easily than soccer shoes and clothing as the business migrates into selling petro clothing. Underneath this is all about migrating the world's shoes and clothing consumption from natural fibers to petro fibers. The EU being in depression makes Adidas participation only more urgent in needing to offset EU losses with mArket share increases in North America via basketball.

@drgnslayr

This would be Plan B. :-)

Be ready, my friend, I am working on an audacious hypothesis to explain what has happened to recruiting since 2008.

@BeddieKU23

You assume K didn't tell Ingram about the PG the first meeting. Why? No reason to assume that. And if they didn't know the first meeting, of course the headlines and text messages and a facetime/skype call make it clear faster without the second meeting in home. No, I don't think that quite fits. Duke had four dump truck visits before Ingram signed. KU had none. Duke had far the better recruiting class and returning team for Ingram to play with than KU had before the PG broke, even if we assume things went as you assume. Ingram never had a reason to be waving KU in Coach K's face, unless he were trying to bargain something out of Coach K. But what? A point guard? Duke's backup PG options were better than Mason. KU was in an inferior position, and OKC had just opened up. Coach K had to have known that. But UNC and UK had the horses and the similar brand shoes. KU had Adidas. Brand competition. This appears to have been about much more than a reclassifying PG. But what? Yours was a hypothesis worth trying. . thx for offering it.

@BeddieKU23

Wow, that's a nice tidy version. Thanks.

Its so simple.

There was no need whatsoever for Duke to make those last two in-homes, right?

Funny the NC didn't do the same for UConn, UL, or KU? I don't recall those three adidas schools having the dump trucks back up after their rings.

I wonder why?

@wissoxfan83

It looks like KU (B12) and Wisconsin (B1G) and UL (ACC) and Indiana (B1G) and Texas A&M (SEC) are getting increasingly lonely on the recruiting trail. They are the adidas crown jewels--the schools that would be adidas stacks, if adidas could find enough players to build stacks with.

This is brutal stuff. If I were going to make a movie of it would be promoted like this...

Right Way Films in association with KUBuckets.com Productions and Barefoot Basketball Productions

presents an @jaybate 1.0 film

"FIVE RECRUITED TOGETHER"

starring...

Rick Pitino
Bill Self
Bo Ryan
Tom Crean
Billy Kennedy
and
America's youth

Executive Produced by Baby Jayhawk

Produced by Joel and Ethan Cohen

Associate Producer: @approxinfinity

directed by Sam Peckinpah and @jaybate 1.0

story by @VailHawk and @wissoxfan83 and @jaybate 1.0

screenplay by Frank Nugent, James Agee, Robert Towne, and Sam Jaeger

Cinematography by James Wong Howe

Special Effects: @JayHawkFanToo

Music by T. Bone Burnett, Marvin Gaye and John Williams

Title Song by John Prine and Bob Dylan

Basketball consultants: @drgnslayr and @HighEliteMajor and @ralster and @REHawk

Costumes and Uniform Designs by Edith Head and @Crimsonorblue22

FILMED IN IMAX

Sound by THX (because the audience is listening)

Shot in Pinewood Studios to minimize coercion and on location in homes, gymnasiums, airports, meat market tournaments, and chain hotels across North America, West Africa, Europe, and Central Asia.

TAG LINE: When the Wrong Way Took Over, Five Said No

Plot: In a college basketball industry caught up in a war between two PetroShoeCo-agent complexes, five college basketball coaches try to keep doing it the right way in order to give college basketball one last chance at redemption.

COMING SOON TO A THEATER NEAR YOU

(Note: All fiction. No malice.)

@Lulufulu

IMHO Diallo and Jaylen Brown are miner's canaries in the adidas recruiting mine. If they go Nike, then it means Nike gas has filled the adidas mine, and the adidas mine may be no more.

@Lulufulu

Yep, its an owie on the heart.

Self and KU needed a break.

But this could refocus things on Jaylen Brown.

IMHO Ingram and Brown will tell us the most about where this Nike vs. adidas thing is heading.

Nike has appeared to control the elite big men for years now.

The only inroads adidas has made has been on a few elite point guards and wings--essentially the elite perimeter guys KU, UL, and UCLA have been able to gather.

Long time Nike-Jordan lean Ingram jump shifting to Nike-Nike Duke confirms that Nike leans still tend to sign with Nike programs. But it also suggests there maybe some kind of power shift within Nike involving Nike-Jordan and Nike-Nike.

Long time adidas lean Jaylen Brown seems recently to be favoring Nike-UK. If Brown signs with Nike-UK, it basically means that adidas cannot even hold the slim ground it has gained the last couple of years. Losing Brown to Nike-UK could actually signal a death knell for adidas as a would be competitor seeking greater market share in USA basketball. If adidas cannot even deliver Brown to an adidas program, it appears to be in serious trouble IMHO.

Nike-Duke signs long time Nike-Jordan lean Ingram making it five draft choice stack for second straight season at Nike-Duke!!!

Nike-Nike appears to declare all out war on Nike Jordan!

Does this mean Nike-Jordan-UNC is going down hard?

Nike-UK appears to be being slapped down the pecking order by Nike.

Nike-LSU appears to be given preference in SEC.

Nike-Duke appears to be given preference overall.

adidas schools appear increasingly marginalized by Nike juggernaut!!!

adidas KU apparently just used for hype.

@JayHawkFanToo

Details, details. Glass half full. He took quite a few with him!!!

Rock Chalk!!!

Bring on Brandon!!!!!

@Crimsonorblue22

Great question. I don't know. Lately I learn things here about as fast as anywhere. Someone here usually leaks it before it happens. :-)

I do have one suggestion. Contact a cheating stock broker and ask him...

Where's the fast fiber?

Then access the internet by it.

You should learn it about 10 seconds before the rest of us. :-)

@JayHawkFanToo

He became one of two defining myths of western civilization for 2000 years. And a name for an onerous surgery.

Offer season ticket holders 120% of face value today for season tickets this season, then resell them tomorrow for 150% of face value.

Tell Cindy she won't be seeing Bill much until after KU wins the ring next April.

Tell adidas we will wear the stupid looking uniforms as a quid pro quo for Ingram.

Thank Pitino and Bo for letting adidas stack Self this season, and promise that we will step aside each of the next seasons for them to take their turns at being stacked.

Lay down unprecedentedly massive bets on KU beating Schlocka Smart every meeting this coming season.

Console Perry about not getting to play the 3 AGAIN!

Email DARPA to begin microwave mind control transmissions to Frank Mason to feed Ingram every time down the floor.

Text message DARPA to begin microwave mind control transmissions to Diallo to sign with KU tomorrow.

Facetime DARPA to begin microwave mind control transmissions to the President and all the Presidential candidates NOT to say or do anything to start a war, or trigger a melt-down into martial law that might pre-empt KU's championship season.

Call Danny and ask him to teach Landen a jump hook this summer for when Ingram occasionally dishes it to him off a drive.

Email the Drake Group to hold another presser about UNC's "easy course" scandal.

Remember, Brandon is not the next Lebron, or the next Wigs, but the first Brandon.

(Note all fiction. No malice. Repeat after me, Brandon: KU!!!!!!!)

@JayHawkFanToo

Achilles had his heel. :-)

Boone may just buy the NCAA.

There is no reason it cannot be put up for sale.

And frankly, at this point, with it apparently gone weak in the investigative knees due apparently to the chill of the OBannon case, maybe the best antidote for the PetroShoeCo-agent complex jockeying would be for them to have to deal with Boone.

Give Boone five years in control of the NCAA and he would own both Nike AND adidas, and there wouldn't be any more of these god awful adidas uniforms anymore, or anymore asymmetric talent distributions.

And all the arenas would run off wind power electricity.

And in very short order he would take over ESPN and CBS Sports and probably turn on Big Gaming and have them begging not to be raided and their assets sold off. Hell, Boone would wring all the fat out of Big Gaming. No more casinos and all that unnecessary monument building shizz. He would stream line big gaming to some CPUs and lot of subsurface storage in some desert somewhere, and then call all the intel organizations and all the narco-trafficers in and say something like, "Boys, the days of laundering black a dirty monies in sports betting for free are over. I am your banker now. And when we get this streamlined its going to cost you less than before and you're going to launder more because of it."

Just kidding. The above is only joking around.

And glad the Pokes basketball caught a break.

Rock Chalk!

@drgnslayr

First, I want to say that because I trust you so much, I went back and studied Wilt's and Kareem's shooting stats.

What leaped out at me in your defense is that that Kareem's career per game basis eFG% is 56% vs. ONLY 54% for Wilt! Score one for the slayr!!

Kareem
http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/a/abdulka01.html ↗

Wilt
http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/c/chambwi01.html ↗

The raw FG%s are similar. Score another for the slayr!

After learning this, I was ready to check into the Alzheimer's home and start wandering around in the fog.

But then I zoned in on years in which Wilt scored ppg amounts similar to Kareem. BOOM! I felt redeemed.

When Wilt was averaging 33 t0 50 ppg for his first 9 seasons, his eFG% and his FG% suffered a bit. He fell below 50% two of those seasons--46% his rookie season and .499 his 7th seasons. :-)

By comparison, Kareem only scored greater than 33 ppg once in all his seasons, Wilt scored a lot more than 33 ppg 8 seasons.

Kareem's highest scoring season was a doozy. He scored 34.8 ppg with 57.4% accuracy. Awesome.

Wilt's highest scoring season, when he averaged 50.4 ppg, he shot only 50.9%.

And when we compare Kareem's highest scoring season of 34.8 ppg making 57.4% with Wilt's comparable 33 ppg season we see Wilt shot 54%. Score another for slayr.

But then something remarkable happens. Wilt plays with very good Laker teams and decides to score in the 20-25 ppg range, at the request of Bill Sharman; this is the same rate as Kareem scored for the majority of his career.

Kareem is highly efficient scoring 20-25 ppg, and his effective FG% ranges between 55-60% with most seasons being 55-58% with two 60% seasons. Awesome Kareem.

But Wilt decides to show everyone what the actual upper limits of scoring efficiency are for human beings.

So: for five seasons Wilt scores between 20-27 ppg and shoots between 57-68% eFG%. Oh my! Dunks, finger rolls, and turnaround fadeaways for five seasons achieve a higher percentage than skyhooks over a long career.

But that isn't the end of Wilt's decision to show what the upper limits of eFG% for human beings can be.

Wilt's last two seasons he decided not to shoot much at all just the same as Kareem did his last two seasons. Here follows the ppg and eFG% for Wilt and Kareem.

Wilt
14.8 ppg, 64.9%
13.2 ppg, 72.7%

Kareem
14.6 ppg, 53.2% eFG
10.1 ppg, 47.5% eFG

So: what I infer here is that Kareem was marvelously consistent and efficient over his career and because he was asked to score vastly less for his teams his total career eFG% comes out higher than Wilt's does by a slip margin of 56 to 54 percent.

But when you drill down to Wilt and Kareem playing for good teams and being asked to score about the same load in the 20-25 ppg range, Wilt then becomes either as efficient, or sharply more so.

And when you drill down to the end of their careers, when both are on good teams but needing to score very little, Wilt's efficiency completely stomps on Kareem's.

What I take away from this is that if Wilt and his trio of money shots (i.e., dunk, finger roll and turnaround fadeaway bank) were sharply more efficient means of scoring than Kareem's duo of money shots (i.e., dunk and sky hook).

Had Wilt been allowed to score as little as Kareem, Wilt might well have average 60% from the field for his career, as opposed to Kareem's 56%.

And had Wilt been allowed to score in the 10-15 ppg range he would likely have averaged making 65-70% eFG, where as Kareem would have continued to labor along a in the 55-60% range, because Kareem was not strong enough to just dunk, and though he was the all time master of the hook shot IMHO, the hook shot just does not permit as high of an eFG% as does Wilt's combination of dunks, finger rolls and turnaround fadeaways.

So, the way I look as this @drgnslayr is: we BOTH win.

You were right. Overall it is tough to pick against Kareem's stats as being the more efficient scorer.

But I was right. When Wilt was permitted to score at the rate Kareem was allowed to score at, Wilt was a significantly more efficient FG scorer than Kareem.

One bias that I have forgotten to take out of this analysis is that Wilt's astronomical scoring years occurred his first nine seasons, just as Kareem's biggest scoring years did to. This was the time when Wilt averaged 50 and 44 ppg in two seasons, while Kareem was scoring 34.8 and 31.7 ppg. It is frankly unnerving to imagine what shooting percentage Wilt might have achieved his first nine seasons had he only had to score 20-25 ppg. I am not joking, when I say that he might well have averaged 65-70% from the field at the height of his athleticism, and only having score 20-25 ppg. My reason for introducing this point is that if anything, stats are dramatically underestimating how efficient Wilt might have been.

I still think coaches are missing the boat today not teaching the footers of today the finger roll and the turnaround fadeaway bank shot to go with the dunk. Wooden's shooting studies proved tie and again that the bank shot from the 45 degree angle is the highest percentage shot on the floor outside of layups and dunks. It is frankly stupid to have 6-0 point guards and 6-6 wings driving the iron, when a footer could be shooting anyone of those three moves off a pivot from the low block and scoring a basket 55-60% of the time plus a FT 60-70% of the time. And if you happen to find the next Wilt or Kareem, in college you could probably count on making 65-75% off the pivot.

Rock Chalk!!!

@Lulufulu

Most definitely. The only way anyone can make a case for anyone other than Wilton is to include most championship, and of course, as Wiltse, that is a team statistic, not a player statistic. Will played on the best "team" in the NBA two times and one to NBA titles..

Next, let me read emphasize how superior will was to Kareem offensely without a single "what if". Kareem had only two money shots. A dunk that he was not strong enough to get up anytime he wanted. And this guy homework that he often to head to shoot 50% or less on.

Wilt had a dunk that he could score 99% of the time on even when they filed him, because he was the strongest player on the floor by an order of magnitude.

Wilt had a finger roll alternative to the dunk that was 95% accurate.

Will had a turnaround fadeaway Bankshot that was usually more accurate as Kareem's skyhook, because he was able to take it closer to the basket.

These three shots could be taken off the same pivot foot planted immovably on the low block every trip down the floor.

No other post man has ever had the combination of Wilt's height, strength and three money shots off the same pivot foot on the low block in the history of the game before or after Wilt Chamberlain.

Wilt's three money shots off the same pivot foot were not an accident. The bear of the creative m they bear of the creative marks two great coaches--Red Auerbach and Phog Allen--and one great innovative mind--Dick Harp--that counseled and coached Wilt early. Allen was already expert in the hook from having taught it and build offenses around for it for four years with Clyde Lovellette. Auerbach and Allen both understood that the hook shot was, though hard to guard, a stoppable shot with double teaming, and a relatively low percentage shot in comparison to finger rolls, dunks, and turnaround Bank shots. Thus, they crafted Wilt's money shots around being completely unstoppable. Two worlds great credit, he listened and perfected all three shots, while developing his strength. Will came to have a brilliant basketball mind in his own right.

One more thing to remember Wilt: every player that ever stopped on the floor with them respected an did not challenge his strength. Though a gentle giant, we're not provoked, comments about Wilts herculean physical feats and acts of dominance and physical intimidation are legendary and many. Most players admitted to living in fear of him breaking their arms, if they tried to stop his dunk sho most players admitted to living in fear of him breaking their arms, if they tried to stop his dunk shot.

Wilt was up here.

Kareem was down here.

@drgnslayr

Now this is some serious sleuthing! 😎

Congrat 007!

The tell tale should show up on a planning proposal, zoning app or bldg permit that combines sports bar with a fitness center/athletic club.

Q: does UK already have this? 😀

P.S.: I am as vulnerable to this unease with the uncertainty and suspense with waiting for uncertain outcomes, as anyone. I don't like that things have changed over from what they were. Self has gotten a lot of good players in the 20-100 rank and we have won 82%, 11 titles and a ring. Who wouldn't want to perpetuate and improve on that? I would. I liked getting to know the players. Living and dying with their growth and peccadilloes and so on. I would like for Self to have been able to continue plucking the occasional OAD out of an imploding program, like Xavier and Josh, and continuing to rely heavily on the 3-5 year guys. I liked him putting players like Chalmers in the toughening box on and off for 3 seasons before unleashing them and watching them play brilliantly. But since NBA OAD rule has reached full adverse effect, and the PetroShoeCo-agent complex regime has responded as it has, and since the NCAA got hit with the Ed O'Bannon case, imploding basketball programs seem temporarily a thing of the past, fleeing OADs looking for an honest program non existent, and the likelihood of 3-5 year players winning against 9 and 10 stacks in the Final Four improbable, well, change hurts, but we have to find a path forward through the change and not back.

(Note: this post grew out of comments two of our erstwhile posters, @BeddieKU23 and @HighEliteMajor made under a thread about the virtues of recruiting 20-50, or 20-100 rank players. The thread was about Marques Bolden. I found some flaws in reasoning that I have tried to lay out below.)

@BeddieKU23 said:

if the recent trend continues we should pick wisely which top prospects we do chase.

As with @HighEliteMajor, I feel your frustration, but...

Shouldn't Coach Self should pick wisely, regardless of the present trend continuing, or not?

Of course he should. So: your remarking in this fashion is a straw argument. Now, I know you and know you are not prone to making straw arguments, so I have to infer that you are accidentally making one due to your authentic concerns about KU's recent and potential recruiting shortfalls.

More specifically, you appear, as do many here, very uneasy about the perils of the new recruiting battlefield that has apparently rather calculatedly been crafted by NBA Commissioners past and present, and subordinated to by the NCAA. KU's choice of adidas also contributes to the problem some. If KU were with Nike, KU would at the very least have a some what greater supply of potential recruits being channelled toward it by agents and agent runners, if one were to assume Rick Pitino's comments, as posted in full by @JayHawkFanToo, have credibility.

Top line, as opposed to bottom line, because its always best to take your points off the top before the accountants get to the numbers--this recruiting battlefield (or game space if you prefer) has induced some foreseeable and some unforeseeable current dynamics of asymmetric distributions of talent emerging from the current regime of the PetroShoeCo-agent complexes.

Put more specifically, adidas trying to increase its North American market share to offset revenue loss in the on-going European recession, plus the Nike-agent complex logically pursuing its agenda to preserve its market share against adidas attempts to increase North American market share, in an NBA instituted OAD game space, has appeared to combine to redistribute asymmetrically (i.e., concentrate) talent at a few programs and so heighten supply scarcity of OADs outside those few programs that appear to be being stacked 9-10 deep in some cases and 4-6 deep in other cases in each of the Power Five Conferences).

I am pointing out a straw argument as respectfully as I can here, based on what appears to be a false assumption arrived at out of apprehension and concern for our KU program. Apprehension and concern are understandable, but they appear to be obstructing clear thinking.

It seemed (and seems) conspicuous to me that you would suggest that the game's winningest coach for an extended period the last decade and a man who has taken not one but four consecutive programs to significantly higher levels than where he found them, and that has adapted effectively to many profound changes in the rules of play and recruiting over the years, is going to evidence "unwise" thinking depending on whether a current trend continues, or not.

Coach Self might well be mistaken. Nothing is certain but uncertainty and unforeseen consequences in strategic planning and execution in competitive activities. But I fail to see any evidence of lack of "wisdom" on his part, and I fail to see any historical pattern of lack of wisdom suggesting that we should be apprehensive about him acting unwisely in a hopelessly repetitive way.

So, again: I can only logically infer that discussing Coach Self in terms of "unwiseness" is...a straw argument.

Do you see the problem with this line of argument?

The reason I have gone to some length to outline this is NOT to pick on you. Rather, I see what you did with the best of intentions as emblematic of a trend among board rats. These sorts of straw arguments based on false assumptions being made about Coach Self with increasing frequency concern me. My best guess right now is that they signal a palpable fear among our board rats regarding the future of KU being able to recruit successfully and that fear being errantly projected onto Coach Self. When the rules of the game and the game space are changing, mistakes rise, and the cause is not likely "unwiseness" on an experienced coach's part. The obvious probably triggers are the rule changes and the game space changes.

The question then is: is Coach Self adapting to the changes? Bo Ryan is going the route of lesser ranked players for four seasons that Self appeared to shift from after the 2012 Finals loss to then unprecedented 6-stack UK. Look at how great Ryun is doing. Maybe Self should go back to that? Well, let's think on that briefly. How would Ryan's team this season and last have done with the injury pattern Self's teams had the last two seasons? Two seasons ago, Kaminsky does not play the last month and a half due to back injury. Without Kaminsky, UW might not have even made the tournament and surely would not have lasted beyond the first round. How about this season? Well, they probably would have made the tourney, but it would depend on when the injuries would have occurred as to how well UW would have done, right? Let's assume Dekker get the same injury pattern as Perry, and their 3 gets the same injury pattern as Oubre, and Kaminsky gets the same injuries as Lucas and Traylor down the stretch. I don't think UW gets to the Sweet 16 even.

Now back to the recruiting issue.

All coaches in D1 not at stack schools are in something of a pickle right now until they find a way around the apparent stacking of certain programs, and the scarcity it induces in non-stack programs. And there is no need to buy into my hypothesis regarding the drivers for the pattern of the stacking to agree with my assertion. It does not matter (for this assertion) why the stacking is occurring. It is precipitating scarcity of top talent for Self at KU and Ryan at Wisconsin, and Pitino at UL, and, until Coach K apparently caved in recently, Coach K, and until Izzo apparently caved in before this past season, Izzo.

Ryan called it "rent-a-player." Pitino called it agents and agent runners channelling certain players to certain brands and said he concluded the NCAA thought it legal. Regardless of the names and description, it appears a real phenomenon quite independent of one's wisdom.

Frankly, it is kind of insulting to Coach Self to hint that he maybe too "unwise" to get what is going on, and too "unwise" to recognize the risks and effects of his latest strategy and tactics in trying to pursue the best talent available.

And it is kind of reductive to ignore the flurry of injuries that hit KU the last two seasons that seem independent of the age of the players involved.

And of course it is the height of reduction to say, oh, well other teams have had injuries, too, that should not be an excuse for the last two seasons. Ha! Look at the Final Four teams this season, heck, look at the Elite Eight teams, and show me one team that was playing with a team as "nicked up" as KU. There wasn't one team remotely as banged up!!

Every great coach has seasons damaged by injuries; that is a given and fans ought to realize that.

So: why am I writing about injuries, when this is about recruiting and Self's lack of "wiseness" about how to recruit and who to recruit?

Simple, most of the arguments I read about Self's lack of wisdom in recruiting, or errors in recruiting, carefully point out that as result of Self's recruiting we have not been as successful as we would have been had we signed other players, or not signed some of the players we did sign. They leave the implication that the last two seasons sub par finishes were driven by who Self recruited, and failed to sign, and who Self failed to recruit, and failed to sign. KU would have been much better off if Self had acted differently.

This is of course reductive and fallacious, because it leaves out the clustering of injuries the last two seasons.

There are two simple tests for the error in this sort of reasoning.

First, assume the same injuries had occurred both seasons with the scenario of Self not signing Wiggins and Embiid and Selden, because those three were too highly ranked to be "wise" for KU to sign. Assume Self had kept AWIII and signed some 20-50 prospects instead. Assume best case for AWIII: 40% trey, no drive game like Wiggins had, not as good of defense as Wigs, and never capable of threatening to hang 30 against anyone on any given night, and an average of 11 instead of 14ppg. Assume instead of Embiid dominating the paint and rim, leading us to a title early, assume a green weak Lucas, plus a new 20-50 big recruit-- some one like Lucas only greener and weaker manning the 5 by committee. Maybe even include Traylor and Mikelson. Oh, and scratch Selden as a member of the team and add in a 20-50 that can't play very well because he lacks Selden's athleticism. Oh, and give him the same operable knee injury that Selden played with an entire season. Give him the same lost pop. He plays waaaaaay worse than Wayne, because he isn't as talented and just as green.

Oh man, that alternative team would have gotten smoked all season long. .500 if lucky!!!

Now move forward to this past season. No Oubre. No Cliff. Just a couple 20-50 types that really can't play well their first seasons at all. But AWIII has serious experience now. Still can't drive it. Defense comparable to Oubre, when Oubre is gimpy, but inferior to Oubre when Oubre's knee gets somewhat better, before getting worse. Next, assume AWIII has to sit with a knee injury the first month, as Oubre did, then assume he comes back, but then gets injured down the stretch and wears the big white gauze cotton ball on his knee a la Oubre. Just for kicks, assume they keep AWIII's injury a secret, same as they kept Oubre's. No don't. They would have let us know, because he wasn't going to be drafted. AWIII's only strength, outside trifectation plummets to 35% with bad wheels, same as Oubre, Tyrel Reed, and other outside shooters have with bad wheels. Still no drive game. His now average defense crumbles, because of the weak wheels. Because he is not as talented as Oubre, he is not as effective as Oubre playing injured. Now, imagine the Selden replacement. The 20-50 guy is just learning to stay on the floor in rotation. But like Selden, he is playing without pop and he is having some head problems just like Wayne had. That's only fair to include in this simulated alternative scenario, right? So he REALLY sucks all season and NEVER has any of the few stellar games Selden has, because, well, even after a second season, he is not as good as Selden.

But, oh, wow, here is where the really big payoff comes recruiting less talented bigs,right? It comes inside where we have a second season 20-50 big backing up Landen Lucas. Ouch! Let's assume he has the same injuries as Traylor, too. I think we could have played Taps for last season's chances for getting an 11th title, right?

I could go on here, but I think the picture is getting increasingly clear.

Self HAS made the best choices in a very difficult situation.

This is what we want in a head coach.

Any good coach can negotiate the good times with easy.

It is the tough times, the times when the deck is stacked against you, that you need a really great coach, a guy with sound judgment making sound decisions, to get you through a mine field.

We want to sign the best talent we can get.

We have to recruit the best to get the best.

We have already tried it the other way.

We need to move down the exact path that Self is moving.

We need to expect that there will be trips and mistakes and unforeseen shizz to deal with.

We need to realize that there will be clusters of injuries and Cliff's which ever path we take.

We need to realize that rising uncertainty makes people afraid and fear doubt whatever choices are made.

We need to suck it up and start dealing with our fears, rather than making straw arguments that only seem sensible if you leave out most of the adversity that the alternative scenario would have had to deal with same as the actual scenario had to deal with.

Rock Chalk!!!!

@HighEliteMajor

I feel your frustration, but…

I believe it is called being on the same team and having the same goals.

He wants the best players. They do too. They have the same goals.

You seem to have taken some tempting but tough ground to defend.

Imagine Self at a presser saying, "We at KU choose not to recruit the best players, because we don't want to compete to sign them. We don't think we can. We give up. We also don't want them, because I have to bench them too much!! Because of my personality, I can't coach them without benching them often, so screw them. The days of pursuing great players at Kansas are over."

I am not sure I could get behind that.

@VoyagingJayhawk

Coaches wish for and work awesomely long hours for success and it is a terrible irony that it can make them more preyed upon, too.

And Yes, a big time D1 coach has a long job description.

And a Balkanized constituency.

And imagine how tough things can get when neither your Chancellor, nor your AD, actually hired you, and your base did not pick them. They have no vested interest in you, unless your winning keeps you intensely popular and keeps a major donor base giving and supportive of you.

If your winning slows even a little, and the alliances out of power come up with some hair brained, yet marketable angle for a switch, suddenly the "hogs to the trough" dynamic is set in motion!

Ask Rick Barnes.

@HighEliteMajor

Let us assume for a moment that top Nike leans tend to go to anointed Nike coaches and top Adidas leans tend to go to anointed Adidas coaches.

Let us next assume that there are way more Nike leans than Adidas leans.

Next let us assume that among the leans there are some that could be swayed by increased informal downstream incentives. Let's call these recruits "switchables."

Finally let us assume that Adidas wants to increase market share of players choosing Adidas schools and programs above the existing proportion of Nike leans vs. Adidas leans.

What kinds of switchables would an adididas-agent complex want Self to pursue most? Switchables in the top 10 or switchables in the top 11-50?

Answer: top 10 switchables generate more endorsement potential and more agent fee potential, so the system would prefer Self go after the best switchable talent and Self would prefer to work with the best switchable talent.

Next, about Tyler Davis, what if Self and the Adidas-agent complex try to keep lesser bigs like Tyler from going to competitors in conference like Texas, or out of conference (any elite coach needing a near footer)?

What if Self and the Adidas-agent complex looking for top 10 switchables think they've got a couple, and think Embiid was staying, and so soffer Tyler a choice: wait for KU to clarify, or go to Texas A&M, to old pal Billy Kennedy and his assistant Glyn Ciprien, who was on Billy Gillispie's staff at UK? This keeps Davis out of conference and off a UK or Duke, or UA. And it builds a bridge in Texas for future recruiting and maybe builds a bridge for hiring Ciprien as a KU assistant down stream.

But then Embiid jumps, Cliff comes and the Top 10 switchable stays with Nike?

Re: Boulden--see Tyler.

The point? It seems Self HAS to go for the OAD switchables AND the Davis/Boulden types. It seems he strings it so guys he has to ask to wait get an option to go another place and get to choose when to commit, or wait.

@VoyagingJayhawk

Thanks for weighing in in Coach Self's favor on another recent thread. There are a lot of people--a lot of political alliances--in and out of KU nation that are just drooling over the chance to get their guy into what Self has turned KU into. They want to chip away at him. Talk nice, but chip, chip, chip away at him. That is how the game is played. But underneath they want to run him bad, bad, bad, so they can get their guy in and get their alliance up to the hog trough. This is all about alliances not at the hog trough trying to get to the hog trough. I am not talking about posters here. We are just a small bunch of board rats doing what we love. But for everyone of us chipping, chipping away at Self here, there are serious players in KU Nation playing big time politics and doing the very same thing in order to get to the hog trough. Thus we should be careful not to let out questioning and analyses give impressionable folks a mistaken impression, or let our analytical commentaries be used by opportunists to portray a KU nation disunited over Self--at least to the extent the board rats do want to keep him as our coach.

While I am broaching this subject, there are very probably a small but significant complex of AAU coaches and agents working tirelessly to undermine Self's recruiting, because it is in their interests to squeeze him out and get one their guys into the coaching seat. The coaching seat is one of the things to get in control of at a big time program, in order to be able to shoulder one's way into the hog trough. Every coach at every big time program is sitting on a precarious throne. It used to just be about top down pressure to win to keep the revenues coming. But now that revenues are so huge, and locked in by contracts, IMHO, the game now is not to unseat the coach to get a winner, but rather to unseat the coach to let another alliance get to the hog trough. At every big time program there are these alliances: some in power, and some out. And the ones out want to be in, so they can get to the hog trough. This is how it appears. Basketball programs are VALUABLE!!!! There are riches to be had by getting in control of the big time programs. Losing, contrary to popular belief, appears not what drives all the firing of coaches these days. Coaches with very good records are getting S-canned right and left. And the replacements don't necessarily do better. The game now is to force the head coach out by any means that happen to be handy. If the guy wins, then force him out because he doesn't win enough. If the guy loses, then force him out because he loses. If he is African American, force him out to get a Causasian American. If he is Caucasian American, force him out to get an African-American. If he is fiery and aggressive, force him out to get a calmer, more collected image for the university. If he calmer and more collected, force him out to get a guy that is more fiery, edgy and aggressive. If he is a good recruiter, force him out to get a better bench coach. If he is a great bench coach, force him out to get a better recruiter. If he plays slow ball, force him out to get some one that plays a faster more exciting tempo. If he plays fast tempo, force him out to get someone that plays a slower tempo like Coach K or Bill Self. If he doesn't shoot enough treys, force him out for someone that shoots more treys. If he shooters more treys, force him out for someone that shoots fewer treys. THE KEY IS TO FIND SOME REASON TO FORCE THE COACH OUT--ANY REASON AT ALL, SO THAT THE ALLIANCE OUT OF POWER CAN GET THEIR GUY IN AND GET TO THE HOG TROUGH.

And leaking scandals is an A-Number-1 time tested way of politically savvy players getting rid of someone else's guy and getting their guy in. SO AS A BOARD RAT CHORUS WATCHING OVER THE KU LEGACY, WE HAVE TO WISE UP. WE HAVE TO BE SAVVY ABOUT THESE SCANDALS. We have to understand that any scandal that arises at KU, or at another elite program, could well have a dimension involving someone leaking dirt not to clean up a program, but to force one guy out and get their guy in. Basketball coaching is no longer a good old boy network playing a game of us versus the administration, trying to survive the whims of a Chancellor and the revenue ambitions of an Athletic Director. That was then, baby, and this is now. Now, every big time basketball coach in every big time program is like a CEO of a corporation targeted by corporate raiders for take over by regime change. And like every corporate raider, they operate inside and outside the target.

What I am talking about rather frankly here is not even a little paranoid, not even a little conspiracy theoretical.

What I am talking about is real politik of how things appear to work often, when there is big money to be made by regime change in a complex bureaucracy generating and processing big revenues.

And there is not only big money to be made within KU Basketball by changing who is coach, but in KU football, and shoe and TV contracts, and in influence within the university. And the university equals influence within the state government. And so on.

And you know what the real irony is?

The more successful Self is and the more valuable he makes KU basketball, the more certain alliances out of power are going to be struggling to find the dirt and find the angles to get him out of the coaching seat.

Never a dull moment in the game.

@Lulufulu

I should probably make this my tag line at the bottom of all my posts about great players.

There is Wilt.

And then there is everyone else. :-)

Seriously, Wilt could do anything but shoot free throws better than every other player that has played the game. He could have been a fabulous point guard--way better than Magic. Anyone that has watched him when he was young knows all it would have taken was three years playing point guard when he was young and he would have mastered it easily.

Either wing? He could do ANYTHING Jordan did plus a whole lot more. All it would have taken was three years playing the position when he was young.

Power Forward? OH....MY....GOD! He would have been the greatest Power forward ever and he wouldn't have even needed three years work.

Center? Not even flipping close. With respect to @drgnslayr, and others that have blown Kareem's horn, Wilt could have mastered a sky hook without any trouble at all. He almost certainly would have scored more with it than Kareem because he was soooo much stronger than Kareem. He could have shot every sky hook 5 feet from the basket and shot a much higher percentage than Kareem. Wilt would NEVER have had to range out as far as Kareem was always getting pushed. The reason Wilt never wasted his time shooting a hook shot was because it was frankly too low of a percentage shot for him to bother with, when he was strong enough to stay on a low block, and do one of two moves: 1) pivot and dunk; or pivot and fall away bank shot. Kareem had to shoot the much lower percentage hook because he was so weak. All of Wilt's moves were based on highest shooting percentage. Kareem could never match Wilt's scoring efficiency ever. This is what no one talks about. Wilt's scoring efficiency dwarfed Kareerms and Kareem was the only guy that ever scored a lot of points efficiently ever other than Wilt. If Wilt had been willing to let his scoring efficiency sag to what Kareem's routinely was, Wilt probably would have scored a hundred points in a game several times a season, not just one in his career.

Kareem was a great player.

But Wilt was UP HERE.

And Kareerm was down there.

All of which establishes the context for answering your question about Wilt's rebounding in relation to Big Russ and Bill Bridges.

Wilt's rebounding is UP HERE.

Big Russ, and Bill Bridges, rebounding are down here.

Big Russ and Bill Bridges are in my mind tied for greatest rebounders pound for pound among mortals. You might even put Rodman in with them. Its hard to compare Big Russ and Bridges because they guarded different positions and so blocked out and rebounded different positions.

Big Russ was the greatest rebounding center among mortals.

Bill Bridges was the greatest rebounding non center with Rodman a close second. Why was Bridges so great? Because he was 6-5 and played his entire NBA career on two bad knees and he could still rebound in double figures. Rodman was as good of a rebounder as Bridges. But Rodman did it on two good knees! This is why I hold Bridges is such high esteem.

But if you bounced a ball off the rim among Wilt, Big Russ, Bridges, and Rodman, Wilt would come up with it 9 out of 10 times.

Wilt is UP HERE.

Everyone else is down here.

@REHawk

I am so glad you were courageous enough to bring up Perry's knee.

We've all been living in denial about that.

Every guy with a knee injury, operated on, scoped, or just left alone, except for Tyshawn Taylor, has seen his effectiveness reduced during Self's tenure; this is ominous for the one True Kansan in our rotation.

Perry has come such a looooooooong way.

I respect him enormously, because he has grown into a kind of player that it was not at all certain that he could become.

Self could stand there and tell him this is what he had to become.

But Perry is who had to go through the blast furnace of transformation.

A lot of smart guys like him would have transferred and become who he already was.

But Perry Ellis is proof that Self's idea of "developing" people can work with players of great inner courage and perseverance.

I cannot think of another player--well, maybe Tyshawn--that has been through so much humiliation and then blossomed.

It is truly a metamorphosis for Perry.

One knows just how much of his mind power it required to come out the other side of the blast furnace, because his grades sank to Bs instead of As.

I hope he has achieved enough transformation on wood, so that he can go back to acing all of his classes.

And I pray for his knee.

I hate knees with a passion.

I hate all joints.

I hate anything that steals a young man's pop!!!!

I am praying for you Mr. Kansas.

Repeat after me: Bill Bridges.

Put a picture of Bill Bridges up in your locker.

Bill Bridges is the patron saint of all players with knee injuries great or small.

Bill Bridges was the greatest rebounder pound for pound I ever saw.

Bill Bridges had a heart the size of Bill Russell's.

I always dreamed of Bridges and Big Russ playing together and in one game never allowing the other team a single rebound.

Perry, you are a quiet man, but you have the kind of heart that Bridges and Big Russ had. You just weren't born knowing it. But now you do.

Don't let anything stop you now!!!!

(Note: @ralster got me thinking again. So: I'm trying to be a good glue man and provide him some glue here.)

If Bragg is a stretch-4 NOW, and if Self will scheme for him to play NOW, rather than spend 3/4 of the season coaching him up, before giving in and scheming to play through what he can do NOW, then I see us as being in very good shape NOW, without having to do anything but find one plodding footer over seas NOW.

One of Self's virtues has been his ability to do "both." He has developed guys and then played guys.

With OADs he has to reverse this.

OADs play.

Then develop.

OADs have to play NOW!

If they want to develop, they have to promise to stay a second season.

This is the only practical way to work with OADs now.

PLAY NOW.

DEVELOP LATER.

We have to have the talent that OADs have to be competitive in March and because they are OADs we have to have it NOW.

Playing now and developing late is what Calipari has been doing, and this is really the only thing that he is doing that Self can improve himself by emulating.

Cal wires his teams to do what his OADs can already do. About half his guys have to stay a second season, not because he has held them back, but because the pros get a look at how limited they are and decide not to draft them till they have had another year to "develop." The minute UK guys decide to come back a second season, the UK coaches go to work on them HARD for an off season; that is when improvement happens to players as UK; that is when guys get coached up.

Why does this make so much sense? Why not coach them up from the moment they hit town? Answer: because it takes 3/4 of a season of coaching them up to make them just a little better and you never know what they will and won't learn to do by that point. So: at the 3/4 point of the season, you have to fish, or cut bait, anyway, based on what the OADs can do. And invariably, what Self decides is to play through the only few things they either are developed enough to do, or that their posse will let them do, while they are protecting merchandize.

By just going with what they can do, and what their posse will let them do, from the start, then you develop your team for an ENTIRE season, so that it is a well oiled machine down the stretch with certain known limitations you spend an ENTIRE season scheming to compensate for, instead of waiting till the 3/4 point, and having to try to develop it "just in time" inventory style, and then confronting limitations you could not anticipate and trying to restring the bow the last month in the heat of competition and when so many guys are injured and fatigued that you don't know which guys to depend on for restringing the bow, because you don't know which ones will fit to go full speed during the tournament. Self got caught sideways in exactly this situation this season AND last.

I am grateful that you have been trying to introduce your systems think to board discourse. I have waited for someone else to introduce it, because I was trained in systems analysis and was afraid I would bore the piss out of folks with.

The key thing in systems analysis is first to distinguish what kind(s) of systems you are working with: open, or closed. Second, are the systems integrated, or isolated. Third, what are the net benefits to varying degree of integration? When you are working with human beings you are more or less consigned to trying to achieve/optimize system dynamics that are a product of feed back between open and closed systems. Sometimes the feed back is direct, sometimes indirect. One of the problems I see when folks talk about basketball in systems is that they don't distinguish between the closed and open systems operating. As a result they very seldom analyse actions with sufficient accuracy to learn much about who the systems fit together and interplay (dynamics, and in turn, about how these systems can be adapted to achieve more desirable dynamics.

For example, few seem to understand that the high low post offense (aka Carolina Passing Offense) is two sub systems--one closed and one open. Again, I have been reticent about introducing this kind of analysis, because I wasn't sure anyone would care to understand things on this level.

The two posts are a closed system. No matter what they do, whether they rotate between the most basic high and low positions, or rotate cross the lane block to block, they are moving in a closed system in relation to each other. Even if they both come out high, or even if one ranges to 30 feet and the other runs to a far corner, if they are moving in relation to the other, they are a closed, 2 element system. If they are not moving in relation to each other, then they are not playing a high-low post offense. They have paused to play something else, say a pick and roll offense, or a two independent post offense, or what have you. The key here is that to understand the high low post offense you first have to grasp that the two posts are playing in a closed system; that their play has meaning in terms of each other--in terms of a closed system. We might call it a closed circuit of movement.

The other three players--the perimeter players--exist in an open system--a 3 node series circuit around the perimeter. It is a circuit that does not close or cycle. In simplest terms it stays put while a looping closed circuit (system) operates within its umbrella, i.e., between it and the baseline and side lines.

What is going on with these two systems?

No one is screening anyone.

What makes this an offense at all?

Ball movement through a media of variable resistance, i.e., scoring risk.

Think of the ball as an electro magnetic impulse. The ball has charge and magnetism. It can even be given spin, but that is overworking the analogy necessarily.

Each player is a node that attracts and the discharges it toward another node. Each player's abilities to scorer from the nodal location he is at varies the charge and magnetism of the ball.

The ball may move within either circuit or jump across circuits. It may be passed around the perimeter on the open ended series circuit. Or it may be passed into the closed circuit where it takes on a new level of charge and magnetism.

Charge and magnetism of the ball in various player hands at various player nodes within the circuits increase and decrease the attraction of the defensive players to the ball, and so their positioning on the floor.

The essence of the high low post offense, and why it is called a "passing game." is that there is a difference in magnetism (defensive attractiveness of the ball at any given location and in a particular players hands) to be exploited by charging (passing) the ball to the next player at the next player node. An example will help here.

When the ball gets into Andrew Wiggins hands, he suddenly gives the ball both enormous charge and magnetism, because of his enormous capabilities to score from anywhere on the floor by either shooting it or driving it. The defense is greatly attracted to the ball in his hands. If Andrew were a part of no offensive systems, it would always make sense for him to shoot or drive. But he is a part of an offensive system. He is a part of a high low offense (a passing offense) comprised of two circuits or subsystems that I have described above.

The two circuits are layed out on the floor to enable Andrew with the ball to exploit his heavy magnetic attraction on the defense by passing (putting a charge on the ball) the ball to an open player on one of the two circuits at a rate faster than the open man's defender, drawn away from him and toward Andrew's magnetism with the ball, can recover.

Now do you see why Self does not like to set picks and screens and why he values ball movement, especially between circuits, especially when he has exceptionally magnetic guys on his team? The more talented and magnetic the guys on his team, the more he wants them kept spread apart so their magnetism attracts the defense, and allows the ball to be passed along the circuits to the open man.

Now do you see why he prefers more than one pass? The first pass exploits the oversight of the defense to Andrew. But the second pass exploits the scrambling recovery of the defense. In principle the second pass can be made along the circuit, or across the circuits even before the defense has completed recovery, so that the second pass should yield a sharply more open look.

Setting picks and screens and running actions basically create resistance in the circuit, kink it up, The only reason to set picks and screens and run actions off them is if opponent's defenders are so evenly matched with your offenders that ball movement does not create any overshifts by the defense that two quick passes can exploit.

Self almost always starts out running the high low passing offense to test the two circuits--to see on that given day against that given team what the degree of magnetism of each of his players is going to be. It is a systems diagnostic. This diagnostic reveals which players the opposing coach has decided to overshift most toward to deny. This is what Self means when he talks about opponents taking things away. But running the passing offense to start the game Self sees quickly what the other team has decided to try to take away, and which of his players have skills to exploit that take away strategy. After three to five minutes of this, Self then gets out the scalpels and directs his players where to begin attacking, and whether to attack through the passing offense, or through any one, or X number of plays of a thousand pages of offensive actions he has prepped them on for that game.

(Note: all this talk about this offense being too tough for OADs to learn is a lot of horse dung. It was designed by Iba and modified by Dean and Larry to be learned in three weeks by guys that had never played together in their lives. Self probably never teaches any team in any season all 1000 pages of the offense, i.e., every possible action. He probably picks a few pages of it that they will practice for any given game, as supplement to the basic passing offense. This is NOT rocket science, or brain surgery, or RF engineering. This is a bone head simple, two-circuit passing offense supplemented with some actions run under a few simple rule conditions, or when called by the PG, or the coach. That's all folks. End of stewing about how much easier it is to learn Cal's offense, or Sean's offense, or K's offense, or Fred's offense. They are all designed for idiots to learn in a hurry, because it has never been a requirement for basketball players to have high IQs. Quite the opposite. The history of basketball has been for every one Bill Bradley that plays the game there are about a thousand guys that can barely think, and then a lot of folks in the middle.)

IMHO, the thing to keep in mind about offensive systems is that they are of three basic kinds. And most combine, at least at times, some elements of the others.

One kind is that which we have been describing: the offense that attempts to favorably redistribute a defense spatially with ball magnetism and ball passing. It can have one circuit, two, or more. One of its characteristics is that no one has to get any where at a certain moment for the offense to work. It is not a timed offense set to create a shot a designated place for a designated player. It is instead search for an open look, regardless of who might get it. It is ball motion driven. Dean's and Larry's and Self's high-low is one example.

The second kind is an offense aimed to use player motion, rather than ball motion to create a timed open look at a particular spot on the floor for a particular player. Here again, all kinds of circuits and elements may be pieced together to choreograph the player motion. The Princeton offense is one example of this. The Oklahoma Shuffle is another. Frankly, Cal's dribble drive is another.

The third kind is something of a hybrid of both of the above. It aims to use both player motion and ball motion according to rules of interaction to deform defenses. These are what a lot of folks call (apparently with only rudimentary understanding) rules and spacing offenses like Knight and K's motion offenses. And the Triangle of Tex Winter falls under this category also. Though they operate quite differently.

I have to run, right now, but hopefully, this opens up the discourse on systems analysis of basketball this off season.

Obviously, offenses are systems on one end of the floor and defenses are systems on the other end of the floor. And they feed into each other.

Rock Chalk!

"The Illegal drug trade is the only means to maintain the solvency of an empire and even then, it only works for a century or so."

--jaybaticus, Roman papyrus rat that posted scrolls regularly about sports at the Coliseum and Circus Maximus, circa 87-27 BCE

Talking about drugs is addictive.

--jaybate 1.0

@sfbahawk

Exactly.

@JayHawkFanToo

OMG, right you are, I forgot about Billy's hitch between Tubby and Cal.

Regarding Tubby leaving UK, I agree that he had been being pressured to leave by many elements of UK that were ungrateful for his accomplishments and recurrent early outs, and over time his persistent to recruit increasingly talented teams that could get back to the level of talent that Pitino had won with and that Tubby had won with early.

Tubby was forced to look for another job, because they made his experience there so unpleasant with constant doubting of his bench decisions and criticism of his style of play, and dissatisfaction with the amount of talent that he recruited. It was a classic case of an employer making and employee so miserable that they want to leave. I have talked to UK alums that said Tubby could easily have lasted a couple more years at UK, because of the school's desire not to fire its first African American head coach, especially one that had won a ring. I have talked to other UK alums that said Tubby simply had made it a point to know too much about the skeletons at UK, without violating any rules himself, to make him easily "fire-able." So the story I have heard a few times is: they wore him down and when he found a decent job he took it. Barnes went through pretty much the same thing at Texas, only Barnes was not living in the shadow of a Pitino. It was just the ten year fatigue thing that coaches widely talk about in the profession. After ten years at most schools, most coaches lose the constituency to attrition that got them hired in the first place, and a critical mass forms among powerful sub groups over time that want "their" guy in. Barnes understood his situation and probably lined up half a dozen ADs the last few years that would talk to him if he decided it were time to bail and pull the rip cord on his parachute at Texas. Tubby understood this at UK, also.

A lot of board rats wonder why I both criticise Self and am such a strong advocate for him here. I criticize him, because I come here to think and talk basketball and there is no one on this earth that I every agree with on everything all the time. I have my own mind and my own way of thinking and problem solving, so I hardly think it surprising that I sometimes come to different conclusions than even a great coach like Bill Self.

But the reason that I try to strongly advocate for Bill Self is precisely because I understand that he has been for the last three years or so entering into that ten year window of vulnerability that coaches enter into and I don't want people to take this incredible human being and coach that we have for granted, simply because of this stupid little ten year institutional dynamic that victimizes so many coaches. I hear it in creeping into posts here and into comments among family and friends that are Jayhawk fans. There is this creeping sense that, well, any coach that KU would hire now to replace Self, could at least equal what Self is doing. There is an a creeping under recognition that Self is doing what he is doing the right way and that KU would have to get very lucky again in hiring the right coach to find one that can do what Self has been doing for 11 seasons. The probability is that KU would find one that did not do it as well. There are just a handful of exceptional coaches at any given time and most of the ones that are easy to recognize are already fully settled in to where they are coaching. The young ones are all a gamble. Roy was a gamble. Had he not been wired deeply into Dean and Nike, and made the deal he made with Dean, it is highly likely that despite having been a very good practice and game coach, and a driven manager and organization builder, that he would not have been able to recruit competitively at all in a midwestern school in parts of the country he had never recruited before. People that talk about the deal Dean and he cut to divide the country up forget always that it was not just Dean and Roy dividing up the country. IMHO, it was Dean and Roy dividing up the player conveyor belt Nike had to offer. Again, IMHO, there was no way in heck Roy could have waltzed into SoCal and beat UCLA and Duke and North Carolina out for all the players from SoCal Roy signed without Nike behind him and without Dean staying out.

My point is that there is a tremendous amount of complexity to hiring a great coach, or someone capable of becoming a great coach. Lots of them can sign the players. Lots of them can game coach. Lots of them can practice coach. Lots of them can handle the media. Lots of them can unite the alumni and faculty and get along with the AD and football coach. But there are very, very, very, very, VERY few that can do it ALL, and then beat the best in a single elimination tournament, and then sustain that kind of excellence and drive year in and year out. There are usually only 4-5 in any coaching generation.

Hence, when we have one of them, and we most certainly do have one in Self, we owe it to the legacy to be vigilant about not letting stuff like ten year dynamics--the seven year itches of marriage transposed to the marriage of universities and their college basketball coaches--screw the stew.

I don't want Bill Self to get the Tubby treatment.

I don't care what anybody says. An 82% winning percentage, 11 straight titles, and one NCAA ring in 11 years are the stuff of Hall of Famers. And the guy is caught up in, and trying to adapt to, the biggest transformation of the recruiting process and the foul calling landscape in all my 50 years of watching the game and he has just been through two injury plagued seasons (one where he lost the best center prospect in the last 10-20 years to a back injury and last season where practically the entire team went down at one time or another), and somehow he is still winning big. This guy won a conference title with a committee of Landen Lucas, Jamari Traylor and Hunter Mickelson at the center, and Traylor was injured half the season! There isn't another coach in a America, hell, in the world, that could have won a Power Five Conference Title with a committee of Lucas, Traylor and Mikelson at the 5, NOT ONE!!

I totally understand @HighEliteMajor's alternative point of view to Self's on any number of issues. Focus on recruiting OADs. De-emphasis of three point baskets. Too quick of a whistle. And so on. And I understand many others honest differences with Coach Self of how to go about playing to win as times are changing. I like these differences. Some of them are why I come here to learn about the game still after all these years.

But all of these board rats that I allude to above, especially those that have played, coached and/or officiated, would probably tell those members of the board that just read along, or that are in the midst of struggling to learn just the basics of the game, that if they were to start following another great coach of the game today, the way they follow Self, that they would invariably come to have some other set of differences with those other great coaches. It is the nature of being a student of the game and of a team and of a team's coach to see the weaknesses and strengths of that coach and team of players. It is impossible not to see other ways to skin the cat than the way the great coach elects to do it. And if one is truly passionate about one's team, and about the course of its legacy, then one invariably comes out with ideas, and angles, and different ways of doing things.

But you don't look a gift horse in the flipping mouth.

Sometimes, when I read some of the criticisms of Self that suggest that Self is overrated, or just another coach that isn't smart enough to figure something out, or that Self just isn't creative enough, or just isn't innovative enough, I actually get @stupidmichael scared for some board rats.

I actually wonder how they feed and cloth themselves, and keep roofs over their heads. How do they balance their check books? How do they keep from burning the house down when they build fires in their fire places?

I want to reach out to them and say, "Bill Self is 52 years old. He is the son of a principle and a school teacher in an Oklahoma suburb. He wasn't born rich. His family was probably grateful for the scholarship he got to play ball for Oklahoma State to ease their budget pressures. He never made it to the pros. He blew a knee. He went apparently asked Larry Brown for a chance to wash jocks for Larry for a year. His first real coaching job was not at KU. It was at then down on its luck Okie State. He assisted an African American head coach, who to this day is NOT considered one of the top coaches in his profession. He finally lucked out and got to spend some quality assistant time with Eddie Sutton, but Eddie was a guy who had just completely crashed and burned on a near death penalty at UK and was fighting the bottle. Its not like Eddie was the superstar of coaching when Self assisted him. His first head job was ORU, a school every coach wants to be from, not at. He nearly went 0-fer his first season. Its a miracle he ever survived ORU.

My point here is that Bill Self didn't get to where he is the easy way. He was never Roy Williams working his way up in the top basketball program in the country under the most famous head coach of his era that paved the way for him to go from being an assistant straight to a head coach of a storied program. This guy turned ORU around. This guy sharply improved Tulsa. This guy kicked Illinois to a whole higher level. And when he came to KU to replace a legend, he didn't just replace him, he took the KU program, already operating at a high level to a HIGHER level.

This guy has overcome penalties committed by Roy.

This guy has overcome Scalpinggate, LewGate, two Realignmentgates, and signing on with the WRONG shoe brand--the brand that makes recruiting harder, not easier.

This guy has come back from eight down with minutes to go against a team full of ringers including Derek Rose to win a national title.

This guy has overcome in-state AAU coaches running talent out of state and a footer to UK.

Board rats that talk about Self not being good enough to compete and beat Coach K, Izzo, Cal, or whomever else forget that he has already competed against all of them and beaten all of them at least once or twice, and sometimes for high stakes.

This guy is rare.

When the seven year itch hits, don't be suckers and leave your wives.

And when the ten year coaching itch hits, don't be suckers and lose your coach.

Rock Chalk!!!

@RockChalkinTexas

Maybe UT should try copy writing some of these:

Smart Ass

Schlocka Smart

A Maxwell Smart, Not a Bond

Pet Smart

Neutron Coach-Destroys the Program, Leaves the Arena Standing

Smart Bomb

@ralster

Yes, yes, yes, hammer, nail head, hit. This is the point I have been trying to make in all of these posts today.

Cal is kind of Rick Barnes with a ten stack. He will win a lot of games, maybe all of them, if he doesn't come up against in top notch coaches with some exceptional players fused into an experienced team. But when that happens, Cal is destined for trouble.

@joeloveshawks

You know, I don't want to be disputatious on a Friday, okay.

But I really do think KU and UK are quite different kettles of elite program fish.

And I think history backs me up on this, if you will bear with me a moment.

UK has a history of awesome, often long runs of great success. But most of these runs have ended in disgrace, or been interrupted by disgrace. Historically speaking, violations are as much a part of Kentucky basketball, as the fast break. I don't know why. I have never understood why. But look at every long stretch of great success by UK and most have ended in revelations of systemic corruption.

Its like they have never really learned to win any other way.

The Pitino-Tubby regime seems to be the historical exception. But I have always wondered about that Ron Mercer team. I have always wondered if Pitino maybe went to the pros to get away from the alumni base that perhaps he doubted he could ever control. And then they basically made Tubby so uncomfortable that he finally left.

And they replaced Tubby with a guy that had left two straight programs with vacated seasons, the most recent program, Memphis, in near total disgrace, even though it was reputedly proven that Cal did not know for the second straight time about the season-vacating actions of those around his program.

UK falls on incredibly bad times between these incredible runs of success that end in disgrace; that seems the broad pattern, though it has not yet repeated under Cal...so far.

KU on the other hand has sustained long success that has never attained the astronomical height of success that UK's documented egregious cheating has apparently enabled. KU doesn't win as many rings. It never seems to totally dominate college basketball the way UK does for stretches. Even our remarkable 11 year run of conference titles has not equalled domination of college basketball beyond our conference. But KU never falls as far as UK falls either. And KU's infractions in basketball seem always to be minor, at least in comparison with what happens at UK.

So: in my mind there really is a difference in the cultures and the coaches and teams between KU and UK, even though both have dominated their conferences over the last century and both have held great home court advantages.

Where I am heading here is this: Cal has shown signs that he is not really that great of a coach; that he relies much more heavily on large advantages in talent to achieve what he does over most seasons, than does someone like Bob Knight, Bo Ryan, or Bill Self. Self, for example, just appears to adapt to the problems and get more out of less time time and again than does Cal. I don't think Cal is a bad coach at all. And like all coaches I think he has had a few high points. That 2012 UK team with 6 draft choices, but not depth, was an exceptional job of coaching by him--maybe the best he will ever do. But I think the exception proves the rule with Cal. And it is important to recall that Cal was very lucky that that 2012 team did not have to play any teams with comparable talent, and that it met a KU team in the finals that also had no depth, and had not one player that would have started for UK, and that was playing not one, but two starters with acute injuries (EJ and Travis). Hence, I suspect that if UK had come up against a healthy team with similar talent to UK, Cal would only have had a 50/50 chance to win at best. Cal is just not the coach you want for the winning edge in games between teams of equivalent talent and a top notch opposing coach.

If the dump trucks stop coming to UK in 9-10 draft choice range, if Cal has to go out and try to beat LSU with the same, or fewer draft choice players, or really depleted by injuries, as KU became the last two seasons, then I am pretty confident that Cal and UK will not be good enough to keep winning the SEC.

Even Self found that when your talent is depleted by injury, and you advantage in talent is not huge, you suddenly cannot keep winning on the road. And winning at home, even winning most every game as KU did this past season, is NOT enough to get it done in a tough conference. You have to go out and steal some on the road, or you cannot win your conference. Self gambles everything on stealing enough road wins on the front nine to put some distance between him and the rest of the teams, and then hopes that injuries and fatigue wear down the opposing team's relying heavily on offense, and trey balling, more than they wear down his teams relying on defense, low possession games, and driving. Cal's reliance on offense will make him vulnerable to any downturns in talent at UK and spikes in talent at places like LSU, Auburn and UTenn.

And because Cal is just an above average coach and not a great one, he is unlikely to be able to keep winning all his home games as the talent gap narrows.

Of course my assessment of Cal could be wrong in the following way. Cal made a commitment to always having more talent than everyone else for sure by Memphis and he has stuck with it through his UK tenure. As a result, we have never really gotten to see what he might do as a coach holding fewer aces from the beginning of any season. Maybe he could adapt. But the way that team fell apart when Nerlen Noels got injured, and Cal's failures to capitalize on his stacks the last two season, makes me lean toward Cal just not being a great coach--an above average coach, yes, but not a great one. And I think these three experiences vindicate his decision to always opt for recruiting strategies aimed a him having greater quantities of talented players than other coaches. I suspect Cal knows his limitations and has pursued recruiting consistent with them, the same way certain other coaches, like say, Bob Knight, have known their limitations as recruiters, and have opted to rely on their great strengths as teachers and bench coaches and strategists instead of on recruiting at any cost, to pursue their winning ways.

@JayHawkFanToo

Ah, thanks for making my Friday just a little sweeter!!

MU finishing last.

There is some baseline justice in the universe! :-)

@Lulufulu

Donovan has wanted to go to the pros since his double ring teams. It has been fascinating to see him stay and try to make something enduring out of Florida basketball. I think Floridians as a fan base are maybe too football partial to ever truly appreciate what he has done for them. I also think Donovan has to be asking himself what he is doing there trying to build something lasting at Florida when college basketball is being brought to its knees by the NBA, the ShoeCos and the Agents with the Media-Gaming Complex in the Back Ground monitoring nothing longer term than eyeball counts and scale of vig. Donovan has to be thinking, well, he has won two NCAA rings back to back. All he has to do is go to the NBA and win two rings and he beats out Larry Brown as the most successful coach at both levels combined. And he would never have to go begging for another OAD either.

One of the problems I have with KU and KUAD is their XTReme underutilization of their resources and possibilities for improving university academics AND athletics WITH academics. It is like the Chancellor and the AD have forgotten that KU is a great research university with a billion dollar annual budget and the capacity to "develop" new funding sources that could make it a lot easier for KU to attract top flight minds and top flight athletes simultanaeously. Everyone loves Lawrence that lives there, but everyone that lives there, or considers going to school there, knows that one needs to get out of the winter and the summer every once in awhile and get a change of pace.

I grew up studying mesozoic marine reptiles, because of a great uncle who was a high school biology teacher who taught me to collect marine fossils in Kansas. They were residuals of a great inland sea that once covered the Great Plains.

Later in life I learned that zoologists and marine biologists actually came from esteemed universities on both coasts and from around the world to study the fossil collections of ancient marine life collected at KU. These scholars came from universities with marine science research centers on campus, or near their campuses. UCSB, where the former KU women's basketball coach just took a job, has not one but two Marine Science centers on campus. And the names of the off-campus centers are familiar even to non academics: Scripps Institute of Oceanography, Woods Hole, and so on. These institutes and centers are invariably in beautiful locations that academics from all over the world dream one day of living and working in.

But there is still another kind of marine science installation that most do not know about. Certain universities individually, or jointly, maintain marine science research stations in extraordinary locations around the world, where faculty go from time to time to do research. There are marine science research stations in many, many beautiful tropical and Mediterranean climate locales around the world. The Mediterranean climate coastal region of Chile is a place few think about, but it is absolutely beautiful coastal region next to perhaps the greatest ocean upwelling and fishing locations in the world. Surprise, surprise, it has a marine science research station. There are such research stations scattered through the tropics and Mediterranean locations around the world. Their existence is, among other things, a perk to a hot academic that a university is "recruiting" for its faculty.

Perhaps it is time for KU to open a marine dinosaur (technically known as Mesozoic Marine Reptile) research station somewhere in the Caribbean, say on Nevis, or Aruba, or wherever a marvelous tropical setting has the promise of habitat conducive to study of Mesozoic Marine Reptiles, where KU players could then go and take classes for a couple of weeks each semester and during a summer term studying ancient marine reptiles, after having studied ancient marine reptiles of the mesozoic inland sea that once covered Kansas before departing. I am confident KU's Biology-Zoology department would leap at the chance to start up and staff such a facility and participate in such a research undertaking. And I am confident that between the estimable Chancellor Bernadette Gray-Little's "grant development" skills, AND the KU Basketball Alumni Contributor Base, that a world class KU Mesozoic Marine Science Research Station could be instituted, funded, built, and operated, that would generate both ongoing grant funding from the Navy, and other sectors, keen on studying known and yet to be discovered capabilities of mesozoic marine reptiles that might be adapted to Navy purposes, national security purposes, and simple advancement of basic science.

Classes and/or research programs could make use of KU graduate and undergraduate students including KU Basketball players.

KU could thus offer recruits and players not only the great challenge and opportunity of playing for the Father of All College Basketball Programs, of developing one's game in pursuit of huge professional salaries and endorsement revenues that the best KU players increasingly often achieve, and the chance to play in the greatest arena in college, or pro basketball, and the chance to attend one of America's true gems of public higher education academically and socially, but also to spend significant time three times a year in a tropical isle participating in the thrill of exploration and learning amidst the warm beauty of one of the world's great oceans.

Now, I ask you: what are the chances that Brandon Ingram, Cheick Diallo, Malik Newman, and Jaylen Brown would choose Lexington, KY, or Durham, NC, over KU under this scenario?

I mean, the Cumberland Mountains are nice once, if you like camping, and Wrightsville on a weekend is nice, but how would those compare with Aruba, or Tahiti, or the Seychelles?

And Kansas has the Mesozoic Marine Reptile location and collections needed to get started on this immediately.

I bet the Boothe's would love something like this.

But if Mesozoic Marine Reptiles are not the hot ticket, then many, many fields of study in the KU curriculum can benefit from overseas research stations. And not a few of those fields of scientific inquiry can find highly desirable locations for research station location.

There is NO reason KU cannot meet or beat the competition for academics and athletes simply by doing the right thing for a good university to do--research and teach and develop.

Rock Chalk!

@JayHawkFanToo

Thanks for the assist!!!!

@HighEliteMajor

That big wad of white fabric on his knee kind of gave it away.

It never made any sense that he sat early and then could suddenly play, because "a light went on." That is fairy tale theater stuff. And then after going on a tear the gob of white stuff on his knee grew and suddenly other coaches figured out how to stop him. The whole 20 mpg on a shallow stack team for a first rounder never made sense either.

They appear to have fooled folks most of the season. I missed it most of the season.

But c'mon! In retrospect, he appears to have had a knee problem and they apparently concealed it so as not to jeopardize his draft appeal, right?

Or are we supposed to keep believing in this "light going on" mythology in which it goes off and on an off only in random coincidence with styles and sizes of knee lingerie?

Oubre was waaaaaaay too talented and way too good, when he was good for this 20 mpg thing to have just been about the selfish young OAD and lights on and lights off myths IMHO.

@dylans

Great post. Thanks!

Maybe I have been underestimating PetroShoeCo influence? 😀

Now what we need is coverage of the agent and agent runner meetings!!!!!!

Howling!

LSU HAS REPUTEDLY THE BEST RECRUITING CLASS DUMP TRUCKS CAN HAUL THIS SEASON.

What if Barnes takes what Cuonzo left and adds some from his usual pipeline? Could UK finish third in the SEC even with a haul here at the end?

Remember Barnes could beat Self occasionally and Self is a lot better at winning without a stacked deck than Cal appears likely to be.

And remember Pearl at Auburn should now have enough guys for joy riding. Could Cal and UK finish 2, 3, or 4 in the SEC even with signining most of what remains unsigned?

@Lulufulu

Is Brad Stevens the past AND the future of college coaching?

😀

Any word on Donovan jumping?

Advice for Bonnie:

Breakfast-Esau's

Lunch-Brophy's at the Harbor

Dinner-El Encanto hotel

Buy an Anderson 21 and a wet suit and learn to scuba dive off the islands. It is cold but great adventure.

Go to Fiesta!!!

@approxinfinity

Now that is being rewarded for hard work!

And in a state of 50m it should be a little easier to get a few players that can make plays!

Gosh, I hope they don't go after Self next!