You just achieved ABSOLUTE MAN status in my book.
Congratulations!!!!!
jaybate 1.0
10346 posts
Cliff and Okafor sprang from Chicago.
Snacks recruited both very hard for KU.
Snacks lost Okafor, but landed Cliff.
Snacks hiring was reputedly based on his ability to recruit Chicagoland.
Cliff was kind of an exploding cigar.
I have not heard any word about who Snacks is recruiting hard in Chicagoland for this year's recruiting class.
I have not heard anything about Snacks generally since his reinstatement.
Snacks seemed rather more subdued on the bench during his time back.
The only time I noticed him at all was in one of the last couple games, when he wore a black suit with near chalk stripes, what I recalled as being something of a fashion no-no for a wide man.
Whither Snacks?
Blaming losing on one bad call is whining, if the call was an accidental missed call.
But can identifying referee bias the last ten minutes of games, as was observed in the UW-UK game, and the UW-Duke game even be whining?
Is there any more serious violation of the game than extended referee bias?
Should ten minutes of referee bias down the stretch of any game, even an exhibition game, be tolerated?
Part of me agrees with your conclusion. On the other hand, WWF started as a dramatic fantasy. The NCAA STARTED AS LEGITIMATE ATHLETIC COMPETITION.
Something happened.
I like a good Mystery.
It's an OAD title, if and only if we all pretend what appears to be going is NOT going on.
Otherwise, it appears to prove refs can select OADs models.
Ah, yes, the old refs have secret knowledge that we mortals lack, schtick. 😄
Great insight slayr! I missed that stretcher.
This is like listening to Pravda back in the day!
The game at least indicates that refs can appear to select OADs. I am less sure it indicates OADs can win a ring.
In the UK-UW game we appeared to see how a mediocre coach can bungle a game apparently being given to him with no calls. Cal appeared to blow it, though in the age of Ball Noir it appears perhaps remotely possible that some kind of double cross could have occurred, too.
In the Duke-UW game we appeared to see how a great coach that appears to have sold out, like Adolph Rupp and certain New York coaches once reputedly did, appears to capitalize on a game appearing to be being given to his team first with no calls. Coach K apparently went first to a press to increase the opportunities for no calls, then, when that appeared to close the small gap, Coach K went small at the five and appeared to no call foul Kaminsky non stop, while having his hopelessly tiny but great foul shooting PG drive endlessly and appear to be given phantom calls on every kind of shot including a trey. It appeared to be a classic double whammy.
Coach K appeared to give a clinic in how to enable referees to appear to select a winner. All coaches should study this game intensely, especially his apparent use of emotion after the game.
Note: I am not claiming any of the above occurred, because I do not know. I am saying this was how it appeared to one fan. If the NCAA were to want to get away from these appearances, it might establish a commission to study and manage these appearances.
The game changed.
Wiggins had to be sand bagging.
There were no upperclassmen for him to defer to!
Then boom! He steps into the NBA and he is doing as a rookie what he could not do at KU!
Of course he was sand bagging.
Jordan was third option behind two great experienced talents.
Danny? He was playing on an experienced talented team. Brown called it one of the most talented teams ever.
UW showed what playing hard is.
UK and Duke just would not play that hard. That's why the refs had to step in and decide both gAmes.
In Okafor's defense, he doesn't even know HOW to play that hard, because he has probably been protecting the merchandise since highschool.
Elite 5s.
Elite PGs.
All ye know.
All ye need to know.
Darkness falls on college basketball.
(Note: Sing "Ball Is a Carnival" to the tune the The Band's "Life Is a Carnival.) ")
You can walk down the free throw lane, flop in the paint
You can fly off a back board top even if ev'rybody caint
Smash away, smash away, it's the violent age
Look away, look away, you caint feign the rage
Hey, buddy, would you like to get your bell rung cheap
Knocked off your feet
I got chops with each hand and two kicks with my feet
Ball is a carnival, believe it or not
Ball is a carnival, two bits a shot
Saw a Guard with the jinx in the third degree
From trying to steal from people, people you cain't see
Trip away, trip away, in this court of mirrors
Kick away, kick away, fair is just a veneer
We're all on the same court ready to slide off the edge of the
world
Asymmetric old world
The court is a sideshow from the referees to the cherry cheese cake
Ball is a carnival, it's in Big Shoe
Ball is a carnival, its another screw.
Hey, buddy, would you like to buy a game real cheap
Here on the street
I got plus six on each team and fast fiber to my seat
Ball is a carnival, believe it or not
Ball is a carnival, two bits a shot
Ball is a carnival
Ball is a carnival
Ball is a carnival
Original Songwriters: ROBERTSON, ROBBIE / HELM, MARK LEVON / DANKO, RICK
Now if those bosses of his would upgrade their web site to at least y2K standards of ease of use, then we could all really enjoy @Jesse-Newell.
Congrats JNew.
Morpheus: There is a recurring conventional wisdom in the Matrix, Neo, it says that there are more good college basketball players now than ever before and that the level of D1 basketball is now higher than its ever been.
Neo: It seems to be bunk, when I take off the conventional wisdom prescriptions and look around, like Neo freshly broken out of his pod and gasping at the world as it actually is.
Yea, I know a thousand Agent Smiths are going to come for me very shortly, because I took the pill @HighEliteMajor and Morpheus have been offering--the one that let's you see what's going on, and here is how it looks outside the pod when I yank out the fiber optic cables jacked into my forehead and the electric current drip lines jacked into my temples. And rip the hype conduits feeding into my rib cage.
The conventional wisdom confuses muscle mass with skill and athleticism.
There are more guys now starting and rotating that wouldn't have started, or rotated 20 years ago, if you leaned them up to morphology standards 20 years ago. And vice versa, more guys from 20 years would be starting today, if you Hudy-ized them to today's standards. More fine players were in D1 20 years than now. Lots of there in the L already.
There are more guys now that don't have a clue about offensive, or defensive fundamentals than ever before.
There are more guys now that know how to weight train in ways that make them carry more weight, less fat and over develop their fast twitch muscle fibers more, so that their ligaments and tendons, that are about the same as they were 20 years ago, become over stressed and fail partially or totally, until all of this modern talent is playing at 3/4 speed by the end of the season, if it is playing at all.
There are more guys coasting at 3/4s speed to protect the merchandize than ever before.
There are more guys getting cheap shotted and butchered now than there were 20 years ago.
There are more guys now sitting on the bench because they are not from deep talent pools, so that players from power AAU teams, and basketball academies that produce endless streams of players, are playing.
There are more prison bodies and wide loads, and palookas in D1 now than ever before. More guys that would have labored for jucos two years, then for a second division D1 team for two season, and then for a CBA team, or a Euro team, or a prison team, depending how those first few years off the training table went.
The draft choice talent this year is more concentrated that it has been maybe in forever, but the concentrated talent is not as good, or as developed, as the concentrated talent on Wooden's last eight ring teams, or on Dean's teams overshadowed by Wooden during those years, or by Houston's teams during those years. Wooden's last eight ring teams would have whipped this UK team by 20 even with the refs wearing UK jerseys. It wouldn't have been close. The undefeated Indiana team? They would have blown this UK team out of Indiana and into Lake Michigan. Seriously, they were waaaaaaay better than this Kentucky team. They had played together for years and they had amazing talent.
NCAA D1 is arguably more depleted of top talent now than it has ever been, since integration spread to most schools by the middle 1960s. There are almost certainly fewer talented, developed players playing in D1 now than in Wooden's era of rings from 1963 to 1974, or so. The level of teams playing in the NCAA tournament, because only the best teams were taken in those days, is almost certainly higher than it is today, when teams like Iowa State, composed of a bunch of transfers and juco players, and lacking even a semblance of big men, can challenge for a conference title and make it into the March Madness. ISU would have been laughed off most D1 courts by Top Ten teams even 10 years ago.
There hasn't been a single team in D1 with the level of polished starting talent equal to the 1976 Indiana team.
There hasn't been a single team with the athleticism and overwhelming NBA hall of fame talent of either UNC's national champion with Michael Jordan, James Worthy, and Sam Perkins. If you are young, Jordan was third banana on that team.
There hasn't been a single team with the D1 athleticism and awesome subsequent NBA careers of University of Houston's Phi Slamma Jamma:
Hakeem "The Dream" Olajuwon (AKA
Akeem Olajuwon)
Benny "Bomber from Bernice" Anders
Clyde "The Glide" Drexler
Larry "Mr. Mean" Micheaux
Michael "Silent Assassin" Young
Sean "Stretch" MacRitchie
Alvin Franklin
Rob Williams
Reid Gettys
Ricky Winslow
Greg "Cadillac" Anderson
OMG! That was an insane team and it didn't win!
The NCAA has never seen two players in the National Finals of the quality of Magic Johnson and Larry Bird, since that game. Their teams weren't much to write about, but Johnson and Bird? There haven't been two players that good in the same Finals since.
After 5-10 years of the best not playing in D1 at all, we are about ten years into the OAD experiment, which started Rush's freshman year of 2004, if I recall correctly. It took about ten years for all of the strands depleting player quality and player supply to filter through.
Let's be honest: Kelly Oubre would have red shirted on KU's 2008 Ring Team; that's how far things have depleted and diluted.
Things have gotten so bad that Big Man U cannot even field a single true 5 out of 13 scholarship players.
Not one.
KU plays in B12 12 conference entirely devoid of 5s.
The Big 12 is like a culture where all the 5s have been abducted and sent to Gitmo. We are all in fear and denial about it.
There was zero chance that the Big 12 was one of the best conferences in any place but Whoville, where a person is a person, no matter how small. The Big 12 was so depopulated of true 5s that flipping Horton could have started and made first team all Big 12 for any team in the conference.
There were only a few teams in the country able to field teams with true 5s, and decent perimeters at all: Wisconsin, Kentucky, Duke, UA, Louisville, Gonzaga, and Utah are all I can think of right now. Maybe UNC?
Look how many no talent teams there were in every conference.
Come out of your pods.
The good players are all in the NBA.
They either aren't developed enough, when they play in D1, or the are protecting the merchandize.
And all of these supposedly good players that are 3-5 year types?
Well, what does it mean to be good, when you don't have anyone worth a damn to play against?
Can anyone imagine what Danny Manning would have done in an 18 game round robin never having to face anyone better or taller than Rico Gathers?
For god's sakes, Danny might have averaged 70 ppg against this year's Big 12.
Pull the fiber cables out of your heads.
Its scary as hell what is going on out here.
But we'll never change it if we don't first come out.
Search me.
I don't know. I feel like we are in a chincy carnival with sports broadcaster barkers, and fun house mirrors distorting everything so nothing appears as it may be.
That doesn't mean I am saying there is any cheating going on. It means that appearances of the officiating have gotten so bizarre in this fun house of a tourney that I cannot tell what is really going on.
I keep hoping I am going to see a tournament game that appears legit for 40 minutes, so I can at least not be distracted by such unsettling appearances as quasi karate chops to the head being reviewed and found not to be a flagrant 2.
I sure haven't seen all of the games, but I'm still waiting to see one that appears legit for 40 minutes. All I am asking of the refs it to make it at least appear legit. I don't want to know what is really going on. just at least make it appear real, whether it is, or isn't.
It just doesn't make sense to make all of them appear questionable; that seems like asking for trouble. Surely some game will be allowed to appear to be played straight? Maybe this one? We can hope.
I know how my reason suggests the game should go, but then my reason often gets me tricked at the carny. Never the less, here is my take. UW left it on the floor in a tough contest against UK and the refs. I also recall that Duke reputedly has a lot more talent than UW. Finally, Duke had an easy game that it was able to sub freely through and so Duke should have a lot more gas in its tank for the game. It follows then that Duke should win this game handily and put an end to Snow White Bucky's glass slipper evening at the ball.
But there are at least two legitimate reason for the game possibly being close.
First, Duke is going to have some problems defending the rim with Okafor/Plumlee chasing Frank Kaminsky out to 25 feet on a regular basis. Duke does not seem as dominant at the 4 position, so UW should be able to drive on the Duke 4.
Second, Duke could well have an off shooting game against UW.
But those are the legit reasons Duke and UW MIGHT be close.
The probability is that Duke should wallop my Buckies.
But these Buckies seem on a mission.
And the Buckies have the greatest intangible of all: experience.
Maybe its a team of destiny.
My fingers are crossed for it to be.
Whatever, it does appear to me that if UW can get a lead the second half, this is going to come to, or at least appear to come down to, UW vs. Duke and the referees once again.
ON WISCONSIN!!
I know its not fair to kick a man when he is up (Cal went 38-1 this season), but I am increasingly intrigued with the notion that Cal may not be a very good game coach, after all.
He has a good W&L statement at UK (.833 in 6 seasons, though he has only won two conference titles in those six seasons) that is comparable to Self's and at .733 overall in his career he is comparable to Self also.
So: he's as good or better than Self, right?
Well, let's look closer than the W&Ls and vacated seasons.
Could Cal have taken over Bo's Badgers and beaten the UK team coached by Bo Ryan?
Um, no. If a guy can't beat a 2 draft choice team with a 10 draft choice team, how is he going to beat a 10 draft choice team with a 2 draft choice team?
What about last season? Cal reputedly had more future draft choices on his team last season than any other team, but he did not win the ring. Was he a great coach last season? Um, no.
Let's go back to Cal's Nerlen Noel's team. It was considered the most talented team of that season. It to was reputedly certain to win it all. But then Nerlen went out because of injury. Of course, we shouldn't expect a team to win a ring without its star center, right? But we should expect a coach to do at least what Self does when he loses his star center to injury and the NBA right? Self won 26 games and a conference title and a 2 seed in the Madness. He even made it one round with a patchwork front court with his best player injured and his one draft choice--Oubre gimpy on a right knee owie.
What did Cal do when Noels went out? Cal didn't win a title in a weak SEC and he lost in the first round of the NIT? Is Cal a good coach when injury hits? Um, no.
What about 2012 with his ring team--the one that we are supposed to believe means he is a very good coach? Surely that proves he's top notch, right? Well, with the first 5-stack, or was it six, Cal won a ring, but do you recall who he beat for the ring? Let me refresh your memory. It was KU without a single McDAA on the squad--with Conner Teahan as its 6th man. And after jumping out to a big lead, KU came back to within striking distance of winning. How good of a coach cannot blow out a team with no McDAAs and two injured starters with a team with 5-6 healthy McDDAAs? Was Cal a great coach when he won his ring? Or did he just have a ton more talent? Um, maybe the latter.
What about his Memphis team without all the ringers he did not know about? The one with the great Derek Rose. He won a ring with THAT team, didn't he? Um, no. He lost to KU and had a vacated season.
What about his team with Marcus Camby, maybe the best center in basketball that season? He won a ring that season, right? Um, no. He got to the Final Four, though, before having a partially vacated season. Hmm. Dick Harp, reputedly one of KU's worst coaches made it to the NCAA Finals with the best center one season. Maybe Cal is comparable to Dick Harp? I apologize, Coach Harp. You didn't have a single vacated season.
The point is: where is the case for Cal being an exceptional coach, when you take away overwhelming talent as his edge? Even when he has overwhelming talent?
Self won a ring when he coached against Cal and a bunch of ringers including Derek Rose.
Self almost beat Cal with sharply less talent in 2012.
Ryan did beat Cal with sharply less talent than Cal.
Question: could Cal ever beat you'rn with his'n and his'n with you'rn?
Dekker a Top 15-30 draft choice?
Hmm. Well, okay, if you say so. I was thinking of Dekker, as say, Mario Chalmers, in the second round.
Oh, well, that makes it 10 stack Nike-UK vs 2-stack adidas-UW.
@drgnslayr said:
The Hayes call was redemption for several bad calls. I guess they don't own all the refs, just some.
Or maybe what was being resolved was spread related?
Its all very mysterious to me.
I am beginning to wonder if they ought to stop calling it "a single elimination tournament" and consider calling it "a shoe brand-agent-referee complex challenge." :-)
And what stands out most to me today is that we are all Kansas fans and not Wisconsin fans, so we are at least modestly objective about what we were watching!
Lucy, I believe the NCAA has some 'splainin' tah do.
I mean the monitor-reviewed call on the karate chop to the head defies logic unless...
Hey, I've got it!!!!! There are two speeds of fiber being used to rig the stock markets, according to a 60 Minutes story, or something, right?
Well, what if the feeds the referees are viewing are being modified with special effects before they are reviewed by the refs, so the refs actually think they are not lying.
Yeee hawwwww, it might be the digital wild west in the 21st Century.
:-)
You are right to note some ambiguity involving UW and MSU stacking counts.
Frankly, I'm having a little trouble correctly defining what exactly appears to be being stacked.
In my recollection, it started out in the hyping defined as McDs, as per UK's and media's press kit talking points.
But then what seemed significant was that these guys were shoe-brand-related OADs and 2ADS; i.e., they came identified as likely OADs, or at least aspiring OADs, and a significant percentage of them turned into 2ADs for all manner of reasons.
Then after Pitino's comments especially, it seemed significant that the guys were shoe brand-agent related OADs/TADs with some kind of agent and agent runner support linkage. So then I tried to think about them that way to more fittingly characterize the stacking. This was reinforced recently by Jaylen (sp?) Brown's reputed comments reported on a reputed ESPN feed posted here recently. I emphasize reputed, because we never saw the words come out of Jaylen's mouth--just a white card quote. The ESPN broadcasters did not appear to be their first stringers either. So: there is at least some possible reason to be wary IMHO. It is not beyond imagining that some "wrong way" types involved in recruiting were contriving and feeding the quote to ESPN to set the kid up for a smear campaign, because maybe he wasn't staying with the program, or maybe he was considering the wrong school. We cannot do more than hypothetically speculate, because of the lack of transparent portray of these processes to fans via mainstream media outlets. Even reputed ESPN broadcasters in the reputed feed appeared surprised that Jaylen would say such a quote, not apparently because of whether the substance were accurate, but rather that he would be so candid! Why they appeared to find his quote so candid and such candor so surprising was difficult to discern IMHO. Regardless, the reputed story is out there that Jaylen plans to pick a school for shoe brand related reasons, including support relationships, which appeared perhaps to include miscellany like agent and agent runner information services, so I decided to try to think about the apparent stacking this way, at least briefly.
But then in the Madness, in the wake of Jaylen's reputed comments, what seemed to begin to make perhaps some sense was how many certain, say, Top 15, or Top 30, draft choices a team has in a season, whether they were going to be drafted that season, or the next. After all, an agent would not make a fee for a kid being an OAD, or a TAD--those are kind of slang words of sport referring to how long a kid will be in a program, and frankly that does not seem as important as that the kid will be drafted and become formally represented for a fee, if you follow the verbal distinction.. A kid being a draft choice refers to a real event in a business sense. An agent would make a fee for a kid being a "draft choice," especially in the Top 15 to Top 30; that seemed more fitting terminology so my thinking shifted to that, as I wrote my post above.
Very subjectively speaking, from a layman's POV, I didn't see a single draft choice on MSU's team likely to be drafted in the Top 15, or perhaps even in the Top 30 this season, or next, so I characterized them as a no-stack. Maybe there was one there and I missed him. You've got a sharper eye for that sort of thing than me, so I will defer to you, of course.
UW had one obvious draft choice this season: Frank Kaminsky. He may not be a superstar in the NBA, but the guy should be a top 30 draft choice, at least, maybe Top 15, and an important rotation piece to an NBA team, because there aren't many footers that are legitimate three point shooters that can also guard the post. Won't he just piss off the reputed star system in the NBA, if an NBA Superstar 5 has to go chase him to 28 feet for four NBA quarters in a playoff? I love it. All the NBA 5's will likely band together and try to intimidate him until he is out of the league, or not making them chase him, so they don't have to work so hard, right? :-) Just kidding. But imagine any of the NBA teams with a great 5 suddenly pulled 25 feet from iron leaving the lane wide open to guard a trey balling footer. Its juicy to think about. I guess that's how Dirk Nowitzki has been used to win a ring, so we can reason that it can work at that level. But there is something about Kaminsky that reads more pure 5, than the great Nowitzki, who always seemed a footer 4 to me and more athletic than Kaminsky. But it could all be semantics. I don't know the NBA game that well anymore. Anyway, imagine what great NBA power forwards and perimeter drivers could do with no big man presence inside, because their rim protector 5 was playing chase out in three point territory on Frank. A guy like Frank Kaminsky could change the NBA without meaning to. The stretch 5. God I love it. The NBA would have to go to twin towers to rim protect and it might still not work; i.e., UK's inability to rim protect even with footers Towns and Caulley-Stein, with Frank being the ultimate (so far) Mobile Big Man Attack Platform (MBMAP) was fascinating to watch.
But I am veering way off course.
The key definitional questions regarding the appearance of stacking are:
1.) are we talking McDs?;
2.) are we talking shoe brand OAD/TADs;
3.) are talking shoe brand-agent complex OAD/TADs; or
4.) are we talking shoe brand-agent complex draft choices?
The difficulty in defining this is not surprising. The continuing leaking out of information regarding what might charitably be called a relatively non-transparent complex of activities keeps driving the a need to reshape the language needed to talk meaningfully about it. Protean, baby!!!
Rock Chalk!!!
Hell yeah!
Whether the UK loss CHANGES things depends on what exactly the agent-shoe complex does for players. No one is making it very clear yet.
They made him pay!
Thx for wishing us a Happy Easter. Back to you!
Hope they fix you quick!
No calls in the broadcast booth and on the floor? Hmmmm.
Totally. But it is so bitter sweet. It is like film noir where John Garfield, or Robert Ryan have to fight a completely rigged fight and decide to go ahead and win it, only to have to fight again in an even more rigged fight.
Ballnoir, I am calling March Madness now.
The mascot is called "Bucky the Badger."
So they are affectionately known as The Buckies.
Some times.
The amount of no calls was at a flood tide level on both ends of the floor for UK. On defense, UK was butchering UW. And it is the first time I think I saw a team commit more uncalled fouls on offense than they did on defense.
Re-run the UK player's completely gratuitous karate chop to the head of UW's best trey shooter and the magical review of it by the refs. It was akin to being asked to review the Zapruder film and concluding that Kennedy lived.
In response to @VailHawk on another thread...
adidas-Wisconsin achieved one of the greatest victories I have seen in the last 40 years. It beat Nike-UK, which was without question the team with the most draft choices on it in the last 40 years.
Bo Ryan took a 1-stack and beat John Calipari's 10-stack.
It was unbelievable.
It made me feel incredibly lucky to have gone to both KU undergrad and UW for grad school.
I never dreamed the Buckies could get it done.
But they had Frank Kaminsky and a bunch of drivers that could also can the trey.
They had exactly what Bill Self probably hoped to have this season: Joel Embiid and a bunch of drivers that could can the trey.
Frank Kaminsky reputedly stayed, because he loved the college game.
Joel Embiid reputedly left, because he hurt his back and still had a chance to be the the third round pick.
Frank Kaminsky and his adidas-Badgers deserve to go down in the history of the game, along with the 1957 UNC Tar Heels that beat Wilt, as the greatest Giant killers in the history of the game.
In any case, it was the greatest victory by any team so far in the still early stages of the Big Shoe-agent complex era.
It was a terrible beauty to behold, because adidas-Wisconsin not only had to beat UK, for the last ten minutes of the game, but it also beat the referees that called one of the most egregiously asymmetric games I have ever watched down a stretch. Just a disgraceful job of officiating. So bad I could write a book about the last ten minutes. If no calls were the criterion for putting refs in a hall of shame, these officials would be in on the first ballot. But what's the point of complaining anymore about asymmetric officiating. Asymmetric officiating apparently appearing to be aimed to shape outcomes of games appears now as much a part of March Madness as One Shining Moment. All I ask is that some wit on YouTube commences a trradition this year with a feed called "One Shameful Moment" that does for the seemingly bogus foul calls what One Shining Moment does for the beautiful moments of the tournament. We are so far past equitably bad officiating now it is tragic.
But back to the inspiring victory by adidas-Wisconsin and the monumentally inept loss by Nike-UK and its 10 draft choices in search of a coach.
It was a testament to how truly mediocre of a coach John Calipari was and how limited in competency his 10 stack was as a team, that they could lose to a 1 stack.
This loss makes any of Bill Self's clunkers in the Madness seem like Renoirs.
If the refs had called a fair game, adidas-Wisconsin might have beaten Cal's Nike-UK band of still too young with talent by 15-20 points.
But the refs didn't call a fair game for whatever reason. Oh, but I won't go back down that road, because so many think that calling a spade a spade regarding referees is whining.
It looked like adidas-Wisconsin just said we are going to beat Nike-UK AND the refs and we are not going to be denied.
It was a magnificient effort.
It was almost biblical.
It was way better than frying Emperor Palpatine in a plasma matrix.
It was like David kicking the big, fiercesome, but astonishingly stupid Goliath in the balls for 40 minutes before he fell over, still without knowing how he had been fallen.
IT. WAS. SWEET.
The only downside to this victory is that adidas-Wisconsin had to burn most of their energy budget to beat Nike-UK and the flipping refs.
And Nike-Duke got to play a low possession game, against one of the most ridiculously bad semi-final team efforts in modern memory--Tom Izzo's bunch of astonishingly modest talents that made one wonder how they got this far by a fair symmetric whistle?
Seriously, Duke was sleep walking through the MSU game. They were as flat as a Bill Self team being sent out flat for the easy game of a two game series, which is exactly what Coach K did.
It was hilarious to watch Izzo try to coach a NO-Stack against a 9-stack. Izzo appeared to know his team was so out matched that he never even told his guys to bring out the tire irons and brass knuckles that he appears to have them pack sometimes. It was almost like Tom wanted to be beaten by 20 points to make sure there was a zero percent chance that anyone thought his No-stack deserved a chance to get humiliated on a larger stage. For persons that think Tom Izzo is some kind of genius, it is time to wake the flip up. Tom apparently couldn't even adjust his belt a notch much less come up with mid game or half time fixes. His game plan appeared to be: come out and shoot four threes and then watch me stand around and yell a lot beside a stool. Tom Izzo is to NO-STACKS what John Calipari is to TEN STACKS. But I digress again. Let's be kind and say he did find his way to the Final Four without a lot of good players and then got exposed as a gunsel with no bullets in his clip. Next.
Nike-Duke has a full tank of gas for Monday night thanks to Tom Izzo and his band.
adidas-UW has a half tank, if that..
Nike-Duke is a 9-stack.
adidas-UW is a 1 stack.
I would never again rule a team with Frank Kaminsky out of any game.
But the odds are stacked even higher against adidas-Wisconsin in this Finals against NIke-Duke , than they were against 10 stack Nike-UK.
At least against 10 stack Nike-UK, adidas-Wisconsin had a full tank and it was facing a seemingly average coach in John Calipari.
But 9-stack Nike-Duke will have a full tank and the winningest coach in the history of the game--a coach that has won rings without 9-stacks, albeit with apparent cheap-shotting before tho season.
adidas-Wisconsin has a half tank and a 1-stack.
Luckily for adidas-Wisconsin, it has Bo Ryan and Frank Kaminsky and a lot of VERY (for today's game) experienced Badgers.
ON WISCONSIN!!!!
Stumpy Miller appeared to adapt to the change within one recruiting season with the apparent help of the Nike-agent complex. Within two, and without an NCAA ring to his name, or an 82% W&L record for ten years, and without having coached at a major before UA, Stumpy appeared able to beat Bill Self out for Kaleb Tarczewski.
Shaka Smart is Stumpy Miller with more brains, and some feisty charisma. Texas is in a state with 30 million persons to bag Nike AAU power team players in, and UA is in a state with 6.5 million persons to do the same in. Texas has unlimited monies, even without Nike largesse. UA has limited monies. Both coaches came to their Nike majors from EST mid majors.The scales tip to Shaka IMHO and Stumpy has dominated the Pac 12.
Nike has apparently taken control of the ACC with Nike-Duke and the SEC with Nike-UK. It appears to be splitting the Big Ten three ways with adidas with the following teams: Nike-MSU and adidas-Wisconsin and adidas Michigan.
Nike appears to be splitting the Pac 12 with adidas with the followig teams: Nike-UA and adidas UCLA.
The Big 12 is the last power conference that Nike lacks a decisive player in. adidas-KU owns the Big 12. That apparently cannot be allowed to continue, or the dominant oligopolist would appear to have no clothes. Nike-Texas apparently has to be made into a program that at least splits the Big 12 with adidas-KU.
I just don't see Shaka and Nike-Texas having any trouble at all doing in the B12, what Stumpy Miller and Nike-UA have done in the Pac 12 in about the same amount of time, maybe even sooner if the dump trucks really start rolling in in earnest.
Cal is an average coach and he has been able to dominate the SEC with his 5 stack in 2012,ascending stacks reaching a 10 stack this season. We know Cal is an avergae, maybe even a below average, coach, because with 10 draft choices, and the refs giving UK the game the entire last ten minutes of the Nike-UK vs. adidas-Wisconsin game, adidas-Wisconsin with one draft choice--Frank Kaminsky--beat Nike-UK. Bo Ryan is a good coach. He beat a 10 stack with a 1 stack.
You don't have to be a very good coach to win big with big stacks. You just have to be adequate. Cal is adequate. Stumpy is adequate. Shaka can be adequate. He can probably be better than adequate.
KU fans should be worried about that, unless Self and adidas-KU find someone willing to counter-stack KU, however this stacking is finally one day understood to occur.
.
JAYHAWK UNION TELEGRAM FOR @**ralster
**
DUMP TRUCKS MARKED "NIKE-AGENT COMPLEX" RUMORED ALREADY IN ROUTE TO UT-AUSTIN ATHLETIC HOUSING. STOP. NEW BEPA (BASKETBALL ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY) SIGN BEING ERECTED IN FRONT OF UT-AUSTIN ARENA. STOP. SIGN REPUTEDLY READS: WARNING--BIG SHOE OAD DUMP SITE. RECRUIT AGAINST AT YOUR OWN RISK!
(Note: All fiction. No malice. )
ESPN's reporters are propounding CONSPIRACY THEORIES and I for one am sickened by this kind of paranoia!!!
Anyone in their right mind knows that a shoe company that pays a school $45m and sponsors power AAU teams has no purpose other than giving back to the game.
All these conspiracy theorists at ESPN need to be declared enemy combatants and sent to Gitmo!
(Note: all of the above is satiric fiction. No malice. The question is not what is adidas doing? Adidas appears to be meeting a competitive standard. The question is why do ESPN reporters seem surprised not by what is going on, but by Jaylen Brown's reputed quoted candor? )
When the next call goes out for cyber intel guys by Uncle Sam, answer it. Intel is about using the obvious in unintended ways. BRILLIANT redirect of Twitter. If you don't want to make a career of it, if you want to work gratis for the greater glory of The KU Basketball Legacy, see Special Agent @VailHawk and he will give you our secret hand shake and secret cocktail we use to identify ourselves behind our nose glasses at bars around the world.
Best regards,
Director,
Basketball Intelligence Agency
How about we falsify Danny Manning's birth certificate?
Ooh, nice insight.
Just once I would like to see Self recruit the hell out one of these full of it types and then after the stupid hat trick ceremony where he picks KU, then Self holds a press conference and Self says, "The players and I have talked it over and we've decided the guy just doesn't have a pair. All our guys try really hard and, well, its nothing personal, but we would rather play with someone that does, too."
Alright, you got me with the hottest woman analogy. :-)
Can Thon Maker and Zimmerman and Bragg play?
ON WISCONSIN!
Joel would be great, but isn't he still rehabbing?
Is Cole too old?
Jeff could be the rim protector for sure, but he wasn't much of a scorer.
I figure the Morri I are a little too far advanced and valuable to their organizations to back track for something like this.
Thomas Robinson is at a slight road block in his career, but he is not really a 5, though don't get me wrong. Wouldn't it be great to have Thomas thunder dunking on some opponents again?!!!!
Wow!! That was better than a miracle drug for making me feel better about the WUG!!!
Forgot about that,
Thanks for the assist.
You were very kind and empathetic to me one time when I was feeling a bit blue.
You seem kind of down the last month or so, not your usual bringer of mirth.
I hope you are okay and if anything is weighing on you beyond our weakness at the 5 and our reliance on OADs, that you will know that we are in your corner and sending you our warmest beakings as good Jayhawks do.
Rock Chalk!
Frankly, feeling queasy about the WUG, unless we sign an elite center and a solid 3. I fear a PR problem that will haunt us for awhile in recruiting and marketing, if we go lay an egg representing USA with the team we finished the season with minus Oubre.
194D : 11H : 46M : 33secs
...as I post this. Below is supposed to be a running talley, if I did it right, which I probably did not. Maybe someone else can get it right.
I give up. :-)
P.S.: Regarding Greg Marshall, I just had a feeling that in a selection year, when a Bush needs some unity in the base to get selected, the boys at the Texas branch of the petroleo club would think twice about stubbing a thumb in the eye of the Kansas branch over a sissyball coach.
A lot of this comes down to what Nike wants to have happen at Texas. If they want to nail down the last power conference for Nike, then this could get ugly for KU in a hurry. If they view Texas as their Big 12 program to stack, Shaka will be at least as successful as Sean Miller, Coach K, Calipari and Izzo in their respective power conferences.
It just takes one class to put him on the map and a second one to put him in the 8 and a third one to put in in the Final Four for a ring.
But if they don't care about the Big 12, then Shaka will have to do a slower build.
Either way, the program is ready for a good new coach and Shaka is way worse news for Fred, who has just lost his recruiter, than to Self, or Kruger.
One thing I have always liked about Smart is that his teams are in fabulous condition. I think if he gets some players and gets them in XTReme Condition, that that will push the rest of the B12 teams to get in better cardio vascular condition and that, more than any other single thing, will push the Big 12 back into good showings in the Madness.
Smart is wiry like a whippet.
Self is a rott lab mix.
Fred is an airedale.
Kruger is a schnauser.
Tubby is a bulldog.
Huggins is all rott.
Trent is a Doberman.
Bruce is a poodle.
We need a fast dog in this pound.
Someone to speed things up.
Shaka could do that.
But if Nike decides it wants to sell more shoes to 30 Million Texans and nail down the fifth power conference for Nike, then look for dump trucks to start backing up to the UT athletic housing very soon.
It makes sense to me that unless Nike and adidas tone down the conflict, Nike has to try put Texas in the driver's seat of the B12.
Thirty million Texans.
Lots of eyes.
Lots of feet.
Solid draw for the Final Four.
Stack'em!
Stack'em High!!
(Ally hypothetically speaking of course.)
Fortunately, we probably will.
This tournament has probably awakened quite a few of the remaining recruits, and maybe even some of those that are sitting on UK's and Duke's benches, to the reality of several supposed OADs sitting on a bench for most of the games of an NCAA tournament.
I am not saying this will end program stacking, just that there will be some guys that sit and think, well, I do actually like to play, and not just practice. And If go to KU and I'm a 3 or a 5, I am going to get to have the fun of playing all the time.