A hypothesis is never certain. It is proposed as perhaps a possible explanation for possible subsequent consideration with data.
Your idea of "B12 teams being too beat up" is another hypothesis.
I proposed my hypothesis the same as you did--to see if anyone else had any data supporting or refuting it, or a more fitting hypothesis.
Which would you like to explore?
A"tidal wave"of no calls would only occur, IF there there were a tidal wave of no calls that were verifiable on replay, right? Because each request of a no call review would cost the requesting team 2 points when nothing was found, right? So there would never be a tidal wave of no call challenges unless...
OMG!
@KUinLA, are you suggesting there are a "tidal wave" of No Calls that are occurring?
Good morning.
Hypothesis: More and more coaches are emulating Self's gambling strategy of sending the team out flat for the easier first game, in order to amp for the second game, and long benching the first game to ensure plenty of energy for the second game.
Pitiful way to treat a great coach.
Be it a botched call.
Or be it a biased call.
For the Madness the rules need to be changed so that both calls made and calls not made can be challenged.
The NO-CALL is a loop hole for throwing games that needs to be closed.
Its easy to close it, too.
If you ask for a video review during a game on a specified NO CALL, and no missed call is found, then the appealing team loses two points.
And after the game, the appealing team gets to choose whether to submit the NO CALL finding to a No Call committee for impartial review. No game result would be reversed by the NO CALL committee, but the committee would be authorized to fire the ref for both failing to make the call, and for failing to make the call on review.
Boom! Problem solved.
Will do. Rock Chalk!
I see three ways to interpret the post 1979 data.
Interpretation 1: Most of the Big 12 schools are from low population states (except the Texas schools) and they have to depend heavily on out of state recruiting and most of them lack a basketball legacy rich enough to attract as high of quality of players in as great of numbers as the schools in the conferences closer to the hot beds of recruiting. So: the Big 12 isn't as good overall and doesn't win as much in the Madness.
Interpretation 2: There is a significant seeding and officiating bias growing out of the need for the NCAA to make money off its tournament by ensuring lots of EST time zone teams and large population center teams survive and advance; this makes it harder for the Big 12 teams to win as much as the other conferences that generate more eyeballs.
Interpretation 3: Both.
Since Barry Hinson was just interviewed by Kevin Haskins in a story on CJOnline.com and said tournament seeding decisions are heavily driven by considerations of what makes the most money for the NCAA, I am going to go out on a limb here and say the correct interpretation has to be either Interpretation 2, or Interpretation 3.
But how can we decide between Interpretation 2 and 3?
I guess the best way would be to compare the conferences pre-conference winning percentages indexed for strength of opponents.
I am going to need some help with this.
What I recall is that the Big 12 supposedly faired well in the pre conference season this year and that is a big reason why the Big 12 has been so highly regarded this season and why it got so many teams into the Madness.
What I also recall is that this year's phenomenon is not unusual. The Big 12 teams often achieve a pre conference record against good competition that gets the Big 12 rated pretty well and gets quite a few teams in.
If I were to be correct in these recollections that the Big 12 fares well (not better than all of them, just some) over the years in pre-conference performance relative the the performances the conferences that exceed it in the Madness, well, then I guess it would be Interpretation 2 that would have to be defaulted to.
And if that were the case, then I reckon it would fair and appropriate to start indexing total number of rings, Finalists, and Final Four teams for the inherent bias in the seeding and officiating of the tournament.
For example, KU has 2 rings since 1979 before indexing but after indexing for seeding and officiating bias, KU should probably have an adjusted tally of say, 3, or 4 during the same period, where as, say, Kentucky, UNC, or Duke, should each have 1, or 2 subtracted for their adjusted totals.
Are you with me on this, Brother Wiss?
Do I hear an amen, from Jayhawk nation?
Interesting take about Che Guevara being like Stalin, or Pol Pot. I have to admit near total ignorance about him and so I did not realize he was a bad actor of that magnitude. I have never read him or studied him. I just recall he used to be an icon on posters and t-shirts in the 60s and 70s. And about every 10-15 years later, there would be a book or movie about him, but he never seemed pivotal to any historical processes I have been attracted to study, so I never paid them, or him, much attention. If he were like Stalin, or Pol Pot, I guess I grossly underestimated his impact. Oh well, I guess I can add him to a long list of subjects I haven't studied and should before I leave this mortal coil. A funny thing about this list of subjects is: the longer I live, the longer the list gets. I can remember in my 2os, when the list of things I intended to learn was rather short. Now here I am in old age, and the list is the longest its ever been, even though I do my damnedest to keep ploughing through the list. Maybe if I posted less on on here I could shorten it up. :-)
Time will tell on Ollie. Why I am not willing to judge him yet is that he won a flipping national championship and could not land a boat load of OAD/TADs aka draft choices, or have I forgotten again and he did?
This leads me to one of two conclusions and I cannot yet pick between them.
First, it could be that Ollie just does not have the personality and judgement about staff to be able to capitalize on his great good fortune last season.
Or...
Second, Ollie got caught up in this high tide of talent stacking that sucked the OAD/TAD players almost completely beyond the reach of all non elite majors and sharply limited the infusion of talent to most elite majors, like KU and UConn and Louisville and Indiana and MSU and UCLA.
If it were the former, then Ollie is the flash in the pan that you perhaps suspect.
If it were the latter, then Ollie may just be one of many good coaches caught in the buzz saw of a suddenly, sharply uneven redistribution of recruiting linkages.
The short form is that Ratso has always relied on a mixture of physical intimidation and on plain old bodying and bumping to intimidate the other team psychologically. They really play the game pretty much the conventional way with conventional offenses and defenses.
BAD BALL is not about intimidating anyone physically, or mentally, at all. Often KU is taking all, or most of the physical abuse for great stretches of the game.
BAD BALL is about shrinking impact space, while cycling through your offensive formations that include 1-2-2, 1-3-1, 1-4, 4-1, or a four corners spread.
We are playing as hard nosed as Izzo, but Izzo's teams were never about Joe Frazier style of play at all. They were/are Sonny Liston, Mike Tyson type sluggers trying to hurt you and scare you into losing your nerve.
We are Joe Fraziers boring in, in, in, in, and taking the hail of punches until we can get close enough to get you. We are trying to take away your advantage in athleticism by getting ourselves into positions where the advantage does not matter.
We are attacking, and attacking and attacking to get so close to you that your great advantage in height, and your great advantage in athleticism may not matter. And while we like to get you fouled up, we really don't care if you get fouled up or not, because we are disrupting your flow by getting to the foul line and by getting into your impact space, no matter what.
"Put me in coach, I'm ready to play..."
--John Fogarty
Thanks for weighing in on this.
It can be done.
Your recipe hunts.
I have a hunch that speeding it WAAY up and then slowing it WAAY down; i.e., the amplitude of the cycle is important when playing against so much length.
That UK is the hardest team to beat in a long time (IMHO since each of Lew Alcindor/Kareem Jabbar's UCLA teams, and two of Walton's teams, each of which had an undefeated ring season if I recall correctly--@JayHawkFanToo augment me here) we are in full agreement.
My point however is that KU's BAD BALL is much, much, much more systematic than what UConn used to beat UK.
I think Frank Mason, if his knees hold up, is absolutely the right guard to do what Shabazz did, AND I think KU's BAD BALL, which focuses and achieves to an unprecedented degree, disruption of flow, rather than strips, TOs, and blocks, is the team and system that if it played perfectly, that could most likely beat UK.
UK is simply too talented and too favored by referees to be able to be beaten by teams that just modulate tempo and play the way UK has seen over 35 games plus six before the season started.
UK has to see something they have never seen before and something that forces their young players into making an almost constant series of choices about attack coming from all directions and all players.
KU is the only team able to do it. No one else in college basketball can really pull out bigs away from the basket with one player and then attack from that player, or from four others.
No one has the defense AND that kind of offense that have been intentionally designed in combination to disrupt flow end to end.
UK has had it slowed down on them. It has been roughed up. It has seen all of the conventional approaches to overcoming greater talent.
But it has not seen BAD BALL.
UK is a low possession team.
Cal schemed UK precisely as a low possession team because he had 4 footers and he knew everyone would slow the ball down and try to muddy it up on UK all season. He has even prepared his team for having its centers pulled out. Cal was very, very smart to do what he did.
But...
BAD BALL can be played at different tempos.
BAD BALL is about shrinking impact space and attacking from all points on the court.
It is about disrupting flow, not winning disruption stats, and this UK has never played against.
It appears to me that that first KU-UK game has focused every move Self has made the rest of the season about developing capabilities aimed to contend with a team like UK.
UK is just a better version of what it was when we played them the first game of our season after they had already played 6 games.
KU is not only not the same team, it is playing a kind of basketball UK has never seen that has been being developed the entire season to deal sooner or later with meeting them.
UK is designed to do what it does no matter who it meets.
KU is designed to disrupt the flow of whatever another team does on both ends of the floor.
Something has to give in this sort of an encounter.
Self designed the confrontation this way.
Self is a defensive coach and this solution of his is the thinking of a defensive mind.
KU is now effectively playing defense on both ends of the floor.
Everything KU does is designed to disrupt flow, to stop runs, to create scoring opportunities at the FT line where how good UK is does not matter.
Self's logic distills to this: it is easier to disrupt flow than it is to impose flow.
And if a team with superior talent cannot flow, cannot stay in any rhythm, its greater talent can be defended, and outscored at the FT line, and on a good trey day, beaten with as few as 10 3ptas, and as many as 25 3ptas.
I don't know if KU will be whole enough to play a perfect BAD BALL game if it survives to meet UK.
But if it is, and if it plays a perfect BAD BALL game, which will not look at all like a perfect Good Ball game, unless UK plays a perfect, slow, Dribble Drive game to counter it, KU will win.
I don't really think UK can play a perfect, slow Dribble Drive game with rhythm and flow against KU.
I think KU can play a perfect BAD BALL game against UK.
I am only saying its possible.
Nine out of ten games KU loses.
But when you are trying to scheme a team to beat the most talent stacked team of not only the talent stack era, but in at least 40 years, and probably in the entire history of college basketball, I am pretty confident that Self has built the only mouse trap that could do it even once.
You can bet Cal has his entire team practicing against each other driving into each other to guard intentionally shrunken impact space. Cal knows exactly what Self is doing. But the beauty of BAD BALL is that even when you know its coming, even when you practice defending against attack from all directions and positions into you, it is still disrupting your flow and breaking up your rhythmn and flow.
Frank, Wayne, Devonte, Kelly, Perry, Brannen, and Svi can all break out in canned heat from three.
Everyone but Brannen can drive it into their man and draw a foul.
Not a one of them fear being blocked any more.
They only thing they have to keep focused on is to keep driving in so tight UK has to either commit to the block and our guys make sure our shooting elbows make contact with some part of the Kentucky defender every play, or if the Kentucky defender does not commit, that our guys reverse under the basket so the rim is between them and their man, and if help comes to stop them on the reverse side of the rim, they either make shooting elbow contact with the help defender, or kick to the man he has left behind that has floated out to the trey stripe. Or more likely simply attacks from where he is. This is the essence of attack basketball. Short NBA players have been playing this way at least since the days of Bill Russell or back to Tom Gola. KU players have to learn to use the rim as a screen on almost every shot. And if they can't use it as a screen, then reset, or kick for the trey. We've got the athleticism to do this at almost every position. This is not a pipe dream at all. Basketball can be played this way.
But we've got to pray we can win a couple of close skirmishes before we even get to UK.
I am much more worried about getting to UK than I am about UK. We have been designed to beat UK. But we are going to see ways of playing that are new to us before then.
Most of our guys are young and have never been to a Madness; this is our biggest enemy the first weekend.
We've got to get guys believing they can play at this level and able to recognize, and react correctly to styles of play they are seeing the first time. This is what Marvin Menzies was talking about when he said he is not going to outcoach Bill Self. Notice Marvin did not say he could not outcoach Bill Self. He was saying that he is going to rely on his experience seniors to recognize and react to familiar tournament circumstances better than KU's green team will. He is playing to his strength. KU has to play to its strength--BAD BALL--something NMSU has not seen.
Two wins in three days this week end will do the trick.
HOWLING
Alright you sunnsabitches, I'm supposed to be getting some work done, and I can't.
Howling!
It probably wouldn't be necessary, because Haase is a Jayhawk, but I kind of hope Roy told Jarrod to give Bill a call and ask Bill how to beat Fred "when it counts". And Bill gave Jarrod a few tips. Wishful thinking, but fun to do.
Huggie owes Self big time for getting him that damned bonus.
Its time for Huggie to prove his B12 loyalty.
WVU needs to give those Kentucky AAU babies a taste of good old Huggins Smash Mouth.
A half of full court smash mouth and then a half of half court smash mouth could soften the Kentucky Kittielitters up good.
Bruise'um up, Bob!!!!!
For the first time ever I will be rooting for you and bringing all my transcendental meditative powers to bear in your favor.
Go, Huggie, go!!!!!!!
@drgnslayr said:
It's always up to KU in March
DEFINITIVE PHOF!
Maybe needs to be etched into stone above the entrance to the field house.
RECALL THE MAYOR!!!!!!!
Oh, how right you are!!!!!!
Anytime. :-)
Read a story somewhere yesterday, meant to post it, got hurried, forgot where it came from, but I will paraphrase the comment UConn's Shabazz M made when asked about how to beat this year's UK team.
Basically he said it would be very, very tough to do, but that it would have to be done the same way UConn beat UK last season. A good point guard has to speed it up and get a lead, the slow it way down and defend the lead, then keep repeating the whole game.
Inference: the roots of BAD BALL may be found in the UConn defeat of Kentucky last season.
Inference: Shabazz didn't think of it on his own. Kevin Ollie told him.
Inference: Kevin Ollie skulled with Larry.
Inference: BAD BALL, as Self has constructed it, is one part guard control of tempo to create and defend leads cyclically, one part shrinking impact space to maximize FTA advantage, one part expanding rim attack from perimeter players to include mobile big man attack platforms, one part stretch 4 attacks from all over the court, one part outside shooting threat, and one part offense-defense aimed at disruption of flow on both ends, rather than simply at winning the disruption stat [(blocks + strips)/turnovers] on the defensive end.
You've heard of The Birth of the Blues?
This is The Birth of the Bad Ball!
I haven't seen NMSU play.
I know Marvin Menzies is a Pitino Athleticism Disciple.
I studied them at length and did not infer them to be so athletic inside, just on the perimeter. But they are big on the inside and they stay big substituting.
Its going to be good test for BAD BALL.
If Marvin's smart, and he is, he will be copying KU outside the way Fred copied KU.
Bad Ball to go viral?
HOWLING
Copy and paste!!!!!
HOWLING
Maybe @VailHawk and The Director of the BIA ( i.e., the reputed but never verified Basketball Intelligence Agency) could take care of this little citizenship issue with a few phone calls to the State Department and Department of Immigration and Naturalization, plus a bottle of Stoli from President Frank Underwood delivered by First Lady Claire Underwood, to the Russian Premier, plus a carefully planted legend at KUBuckets.com that Sasha really is a USA citizen? :-)
I am damned proud we are spending more than UK on recruiting.
And I hope we double the budget.
Recruiting is LEGAL!
Maybe he could play for KU this summer in the World Games?
The Coach stepping forward, when some forward stepping is needed.
It appears this situation could not only cut both ways, it could cut every which way, or not at all.
I have ventured relatively little speculation on the Big Red Dog situation, because the situation appears too opaque for me to make sense of, and perhaps rather more complicated than appearances suggest, at this time.
All I can do is wait for more data points.
Its giving me some sweaty palms, though, despite my long term optimism.
For now it remains for me, as Churchill quipped of Russia, as his quip was reputedly recycled in Enigma starring Martin Sheen, and as paraphrased in Oliver Stone's JFK, a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.
As usual, you see the landscape clearly and state it clearly.
I will keep thinking about pursuing the "development" approach you have asserted a couple times now.
My problem with it is that Self pursued it and did very well, but apparently found it posed these problems.
~It requires exceptionally skilled teachers as assistant coaches and each time the team does well, these assistants leave to become head coaches and become competitors not so much on the court, but in the recruiting theater. His recruiter specialists seem much more prone to stay with him longer; this way he is not diluting his talent pipeline each season.
~It takes time to develop all levels of projects, as we have learned again and again, with anyone from Thomas Robinson, to Jeff Withey, to Tyrel Reed, and now with Landen Lucas and Jamari Traylor, yet each season brings with it immediate needs due to injuries, unexpectedly slow development, changes in the way the game is called, etc. So even if one relies on and sells development short term circumstances still make recruiting for immediate need a necessity.
I was going to go on mentioning other problems with the development model, but then an idea occurred to me, @drgnslayr.
What D1 really needs to do is develop a Junior Varsity Division that develops 4 year players and plugs them into the varsity, whenever they are ready for a shot, and drops them back down to JV, whenever they fail their promotions. This would keep players from sitting on benches and wasting away. It would also create a half step up to the intensity of D1 Varsity ball. A freshman team is not what is needed. A JV is what is needed. Expand the scholarship limit from 13 to 15, or 18. The JV plays about half the games and none beyond a bus ride.
Expand the coaching staff to include a JV coach and a couple of assistants. Institute it that the JV coach and assistants are not allowed to recruit off campus. They are development coaches.
The additional cost of the scholies and assistants could be offset by televising and by gate receipts for the JV games. JV tickets could be much lower and become the games the families and kids attend.
JV Division Ball could become the testing ground for new types of offenses and defenses, as freshman ball once was.
More kids get college degrees.
More kids get a chance to develop and play D1 Varsity sooner, or later in their careers.
More players acquire better fundamentals.
More coaches are around the practice courts full time to work with and develop both the varsity AND the JV players.
OADs and TADs remain a part of the process, but the tendency to live and die with them is diluted.
Schools like Kentucky that rely on 10+draft choices each season increasingly find the high ceilings and low foundations of these 10 draft choices increasingly off set by swelling numbers of "developed" players with great fundamentals and intermingled with OADs and TADs.
Let's hope they build enough apartments in the new athletic housing for such a program.
Rock Chalk!
đ
I looked at it that way for awhile. It may still be the right way to look at it.
But here is what I have come down to for the moment.
Self is about 51. He is the winningest coach that last 5 or ten years, at least before this season. He has a phenomenal string of power conference titles He has a ring. He comes from a rich basketball legacy. He coaches at a school with the richest basketball legacy. He obviously cares about the past, present and future of the game. He has F.U. money. He has looked after all the coaching pals in his life that he could. He has helped Janks. He has helped Danny. He has helped Billy twice. He caught Hinson when he was falling and got him back on his way. He has shunted players to Leonard down at FSU and to others. He got Larry back into college coaching. He has reclaimed Kurtis' career and let him become a respected assistant again. He helped Norm get the St. John's job and he took him back when he got run. He has embraced many of the rogues of college basketball, from Frank Martin, to Huggins, to Tark. He has never dissed on Roy and invited Roy back and never recruited in Roy's back yard until several years of Roy recruiting in Bill's backyard. Instead of turning on Ratso Izzo for Izzo Ball breaking Cole's face, and Rick Barnes for breaking Butcher Ball breaking Embiid's back, he has talked admiringly about both men and the good they have brought to the game. At a time when Philly Ball was falling through the cracks, Self began scheduling the Philly teams not to recruit there, but to build a link between the great Philly Ball Tradition and KU's and Okie Baller's traditions. He has kept it close for countless coaches with bad teams who's jobs were hanging by a thread. He has never cheap shotted a team that did not cheap shot. He has taken Larry Ball and Eddie Ball and fused them into Self Ball which has been the single most copied scheme of play that last ten years. He has developed and advanced 70 point take what they give us and perfected playing it any way they want and letting the other team set the tempo. He has reconnected countless strands of the KU tradition to the present. He has created the Assists Foundation and improved the quality of life for many generations of children in world where facilities and resources for those children are shrinking callously and sometimes cruelly. He did without the scholarships Roy's peccadilloes caused. He has saved the Chancellor's bacon on Scalpingate, Realignmentgates I & II, and LewGate. He has put up with Sheahan's ineptness hiring coaches ands has had to watch huge sums of money that either should have been going to KU basketball, or to Self himself, and not complained, because he tried to be a good teammate to the hapless KU football program. He fought through his mid life crisis without ever taking a season off the way Coach K did 30 years back, when he cried burn out. Self has fielded every curve ball thrown his way without ever really turning on any of the players that apparently lied to him about when they were jumping. He has made every player he has had a more complete player, even if he has not always been able to bring out the absolute best in them (what coach ever has). His KU players come back. Even KU players that weren't his come back. He has turned what I was sure would be an extremely difficult season into an extraordinary new kind of basketball that other coaches are already imitating before the season is even over. The man is a basketball genius. If he thinks he can find a way to bring more good basketball to KU with OADs and TADs, and that it is the best way for trying to keep KU relevant in this rapidly changing D1 environment. then I am willing to give it a go. I actually believe he needs this challenge at this stage of his career. He needs to coach a bunch of great players. He needs to see if he can make his vision of the game of basketball a reality with the best players. Every coach wants to. But if Colonel Frank "The Self" Merrill Bill thinks he can find a way through the jungle, then I sure as hell am going on the march with him. I probably don't have that many years left. I waited 2/3s of a lifetime for a coach like this to coach at KU. I always knew that if the right midwesterner ever got a hold of the KU program, and did just some of the things that Self has done to reconnect it to its greatness, that more could happen at KU than KU being a training ground for UNC coaches. I think Bill Self is terrific and I believe I see his flaws as clearly as anyone, maybe more so, because I have studied him a lot and thought about what he does in coaching a lot, and learned a lot doing it. I don't mind people having different opinions of him than mine. I know what I know and when realize I'm wrong I just admit it and change. Bill Self is an extraordinary human being and coach. Not a saint. Not perfect. But a guy who just works relentlessly at getting better. And after 22 long, work-crammed years of getting better, he is now pretty damned good. The wheels can always come off at any moment. He could make a character error. Someone could set him up. Persons that want control of the revenue streams of KU basketball at any cost, could make things so tough for him that he decides to move on. The winds of change could blow against him for an extended period. He could get sick. He could have an accident. But he is ours now and I love it. love every little thing about it, except how much he expects guys to play through injuries, but he even seems to be moderating on that a bit. I never look at other coaches and wish they were ours. I never look at other teams and wish they were ours. This team this season that has played so poorly at times and that has had so many players not live up to expectations; this team that I was very frustrated by at times; this team has totally redeemed itself in my eyes even if it gets beat by NMSU in the first round; this team has overcome more adversity than any other Self team I can recall, and any other KU team other than Danny's '88 team. I love this team. I love everything about it. I love BAD BALL. I love the beauty of Frank's after burner drives in the spread sets. I love how this team sometimes drives it from all five positions. I love that this team has good trey ball shooting in reserve and about to come on line. I even love our challenged bigs with no back to the basket game, because there is no quit in them and they keep bouncing back from adversity, and doing whatever they can do, however little it is sometimes, to find a way to make this team have a very good season, and pursue a special season. I love Wayne playing through the greatest obstacle he has ever faced: himself. I love Kelly Oubre, who should be protecting the merchandize, but who is just too damned fiery and cock sure not to rise to challenges for his teammates. I love Perry who has learned to love contact and mastered a new kind of stretch 4 game and is now even becoming the Daddy of this team by playing in pain. You are probably too young to recall it, but Perry is our Willis Reed from the ancient times of the Bill Bradley-Walt Frazier--Earl Monroe--Dave Debusscher New York Knicks of the late 60s. Perry is the Daddy who doesn't complain, who just keeps going to work and making sure the lights stay on, food stays in the frig, the rent gets paid, no matter how much he hurts, no matter that he has no one he can really tell how he feels, no matter that he doesn't even know how HE feels all the time. This is the daddy that Self has been forcing Perry outside his comfort level all these years to become. Teams need daddy's on the floor as surely as families need them at home. Daddies don't have to be good talkers. Most daddies aren't. Daddies just have to deliver, or die trying to. I love "The Committee of the Five." I love that Jamari is finding a way to contribute on one leg. I love that even though the basketball gods have taken away his one great weapon--explosiveness--he keeps coming to work, too. Jamari drives on one leg. No one gave him any kudos, but he grabbed five rebounds recently...on one leg. Jamari has blocked a few shots...on one leg. Jamari runs the floor...on one leg. The guy probably shouldn't even be suiting up. But he is like an oldest brother in this family. He broods. He bridles. He sulks sometimes. But he just keeps going out and doing what he is asked to do....on one leg. I love Landen Lucas. How can anyone NOT love Landen Lucas. This project from Portland has become a credible post defender and a guy who makes a few plays on both ends when things look most hopeless. When the tent seems to be folding, big Landen stands up tall and holds it up for his team. When the footers and the 300 pounders show up and everyone else on the team gets to go out 25 feet and play chase me around, Landen closes the lunch bucket and reports for duty outweighed by 40-60 pounds and starts leaning and pushing and shoving and guarding. And he does this without another big mean enough to back him up. When big Landen sticks his face into the action and it gets busted by some prison body with prison body pals, Landen is on his own. Guys give him double down help, but they don't come running to enforce FOR him! What Landen is doing is taking a special kind of courage. Ask Cole Aldrich that first season he started without an enforcer at his back. Landen has gotten the crap knocked out of him many games, while he trying to learn how BAD he had to be. Now he knows. He may not be a great center, but he damn sure is a courageous and serviceable one now. And who could not love the Cryogenic Twins--Svi and Hunter. Hunter especially. You've heard of a raw deal? Hunter didn't even get a deal this season. He just got RAW. But still he has come in and mad storked just enough to keep us competitive down the stretch. And he's doing it with dripping icicles hanging from his cojones. Hunter may be erratic and gangly, but he has the fiery right stuff. Hell, I even love the Big Red Dog. I suspect it will surface one day that Cliff in a way saved this entire season of adversity for KU all by himself. Call it a hunch. Call it what you want. But I love the guy and believe he is Jayhawk to his bone marrow. I know it looks bleak right now for him, but like I said, some day I think it will be said that Cliff did his part after all.
I can get down with the best of them.
I have known the Black Dog.
But this year?
With basketball's Merrill's Marauders?
With Bill Self for a coach?
Am I going to let the slings and arrows of outrageous recruiting asymmetries and money power games get me down?
Never.
No way.
Negatory.
Nix.
"Here error is all in the not done."--Ezra Pound
They cannot take away my love for this coach and this team and this basketball legacy, if I do not give it to them.
Rock Chalk!
I got it from faulty memory that's where. :-)
Thanks for augmenting.
Assuming UK stays at 10 draft choices each season, an agent that represented most of the UK draft choices in coming years would make a pretty good living.
I wonder if the stuff IU professor emeritus Murray Sperber documented in "College Sports Inc." going on as late as 1990 ever got resolved by the NCAA?
Crean and self will be VERY interesting.
And isn't it fascinating how Crean's recruiting juggernaut at IU dried up at almost the same time UK and Duke hit the overdrive stack? I wonder what happened there?
Surprises? Oh yes, but hopefully not the first weekend!
And ain't it grand we get to call a 26-8 record, a conference title, and a 2 seed a limp along season!!!!
Autobahn it is, coach!
I never thought of that!
Brand managing might have something to do with it to!!!!!
đ
When an asset, good, or raw material gets sharply more valuable, exploiters are tempted to grab control of it.
You can have a painting hang in your house you bought cheap from a talented young artist that burglars pass by. But if the young artist turned out to be Picasso, insure the sucker and buy a home security system because news travels fast among knowledgeable thieves and the weasels they use to collect target info on.
Imagine how much more valuable KU BASKETBALL became, when Louisville signed that $40+ Million dollar adidas contract! KU's old shoe contract, which was big in its time, is just sitting there waiting to be renegotiated. Some operators have to eyeing the fees they could be cutting out of that renegotiation.
But KU Basketball value is not like the value of an ounce of gold. It isn't traded on a market at one variable price, and it isn't one item. KU basketball is like a container not for sale holding many items that are for sale, or that can be managed for fees, if one can shoulder, or sneak, in and get control of either the container, or some of the things in it.
Consider the agent fees for representing KU's players once they leave KU for professional basketball at one level or another.
Some one indicated recently that Nick Collison had made something like $240 million in salary in his now long career mostly as an NBA back up. An agent probably gets a percentage fee for negotiating those contracts for Nick, plus a percentage fee for what ever endorsement deals Nick got. I have no idea what the percentages would be, but let's say they are between an investment banker's 2% and a real estate broker's 6%. Nice.
And of course there are attorney, accounting, and financial management fees and others. Nice.
Historically, KU basketball has generated a few Nicks and a lot of lesser Nicks. Imagine if KU basketball could generate 5 to 10 Nicks per season? Maybe even 1 to 2 double or triple Nicks per season. Recall Nick was only a journeyman, never a star as a pro. Imagine if KU could join the 9-10 draft choice stack class with UK and Duke!
Imagine how tempting it would be to HIGHJACK control of KU basketball away from a Chancellor, an AD, and/or a basketball coach that wouldn't play ball with connecting you to the stream of Nicks, double Nicks, and triple Nicks that could come through KU each year with the "right relationships."
Moving from a 3-5 draft choice roster to a 9-10 draft choice roster, is, as UK and Duke indicate, feasible with the "right relationships."
Then think about increases in KU related and player related shoes, shirts and souvenirs at KU and beyond, during the players's KU career and for many years after. Sweet!
Bill Self could have won 100% of his games and 10 national titles and the big operators and exploiters would STILL be looking to run him out and get their guy in!
In fact, the more Self wins, the more chance there is to take this thing to the "next level" with the "right relationships" and the more pressure and temptation there are to HIGHJACK the program away from Bill, Sheahon and Bernadette.
Think how many operators there must be out there right now trying to find a way--ANY WAY--to force Self out and get THEIR guy in!
Money, money, money!!
MEMO
TO: KUBuckets.com Board Rats
FROM: Director, BIA
SUBJECT: Seeding Assessment and Analysis of NMSU
CLASSIFICATION LEVEL: FOR OFFICIAL BOARD RATS ONLY!
NMSU is an interesting opponent for KU, but not because KU supposedly got an unexpectedly âtough seeding,â which I donât think they did.
Tough? Maybe, but this is probably easier than Stanford last season.
Unexpected? NOTâŚATâŚALL!
(Hypothesis: Ratings are down. Talent stacking is up. Thus, two things are more imperative than ever. First, three, preferably four EST teams need to make it to Final Four for good ratings. Second, at least two of the talent stacks need to make it to the Final Four for good branding of draft choices. Note: in this hypothesis, nothing illegal is being hypothesized to occur. This is a business. Seeding rules and protocol are not laws. Some big organizations have to make their monthly nuts. The more audience declines, the more pressure there will be make sure the biggest audiences possible are achieved. Under those circumstances, it is ALWAYS best for KU not to make it. End of hypothesis.)
If you feel pretty skeptical about the hypothesis, ask yourself: what is the most talented team in the last 40 years, an undefeated team, a team of 10 reputed draft choices, a team from a conference called the SouthEAST Conference, a team from the Eastern Standard Time zone, doing in the Midwest Regional in Omaha, NE,when its the only flipping undefeated team in the Eastern Standard Time Zone and East Region? Why isnât Duke, or Wisconsin, in the Midwest Region? What the flip is this about, if it is not about maximizing the certainty that adidas KU and adidas Indiana and other media undesirables exit BEFORE the Final Four. How ever reality is actually unreeling before out eyes, it at least appears that anyone the NCAA, Big Media, Big Shoe and Big Gaming probably wouldn't want in the Final Four get exiled, er, seeded, to the Midwest bracket to be eliminated for certain by the most talented team in 40 years. Think it as the NCAA's version of a Stalinist purge. It also appears a testament to how little faith this oligarchy of college basketball appears to have in Coach K's 9 OAD/TAD draft choice stack that an apparently clearly inferior (to Kentucky) Duke was kept in the East Bracket and given essentially four practice games to get to the Final Four. The powers that were didnât apparently think Dook could get out of a region with Self and KU and WSU and Indiana and they were perhaps right, at least, if that were what they thought. So: hypothesis: the oligarchy apparently sent Kentucky to do the job they apparently doubted Duke could do.
I told everyone this march to a ring was going to be tough--part of one long slog. I didnât say completely unfair, but I will hypothesize that now too. It is going to involve beating an apparently stacked deck and an apparent dealer with an apparent agenda that does not apparently involve KU's welfare, as it does, say, Duke's. Kentucky could win either place with similar probability. Posited another way, there is nothing fair about war, and now there is nothing fair about college basketball seeding in the NCAA tournament. You come from the wrong brand? You come from the wrong size media market? You come from the wrong time zone? You donât have the right agent relationships? Welcome to college basketballâs Burma Road. Off, off, off,off, off, waaaaay off, Broadway it is.
Hypothesis continued: KU is not playing opponents in this tournament; KU is playing the basketball oligarchy. You want to go on to win this thing? You donât even get to use the Burma Road. The Burma Road is controlled by the basketball oligarchy and its given to Duke and Kentucky and its well paved. You want to win this thing? Youâve got to go through the Burma jungle first.
Well, ya know what, powers that are? KU is already a bunch of battle hardened jungle fighters trained for this kind of asymmetric basketball warfare. Basketballâs Merrillâs Marauders are catching a few winks, eating whatâs left of their air dropped rations, then strapping them up and lacing them on, plugging in their mouth pieces, putting on their flack jackets, and they are going back on the march into the jungle through the mountains where they are the better fighters.
They are marching to Myitkyina again.
And the first hamlet in the Burma basketball jungle (note Burma today is called Myannamar if I recall correctly) with enemy in it has a desert fighting outfit from Las Cruces called the New Mexico State Aggies, and while its too bad for them, they are no match for KU in the jungle.
Out in the pre conference world, a dark age of asymmetry ago, where New Mexico State didnât even play a very strong schedule, they were barely .500. WSU, New Mexico, and Baylor were their strongest opponents and they lost decisively to all of them. NMSU did go on a winning streak in their weak WAC conference, or they would not be in the tourney at all.
Analyze THIS,Paul Vitti!
Like the Marauders, NMSU tries to win games at the FT line. Like KU, they donât fare well out on the road, where home whistles are hard on FTAs, but they are 2-0 on neutral courts. Overall, liike KU, they get way more FTAs than opponents and make them just slightly less often than KU, but only slightly. They also double the blocks of opponents, win the strip stat, and slightly win the TO stat. They are +6 rebounding, where as KU is +4.
THE ESSENSE OF VICTORY: NMSU is a team with two heads: 6-8 trey baller Remi Barry and 6-9 230 Pascal Siadam. While NMSU scoring is spread around, cut the heads off these two generating a combined 26 ppg, and the body dies. Fail to, and youâve got problems. Under normal conditions, this would be an easy task for the Marauders. Oubreâs wing span strangles Barryâs trifectation and Perry Ellis shuts off Siakam, while still scoring on the other end. Oubre can do the job, but Ellisâ knee makes handling Siakam chore, especially when Siakam gets the ball on the blocks and scores at .577 efficiencyâthe stuff Bill Selfâs dream are made ofâŚnext season. So: the game distills to two things. Can Perry pull Siakam away from the basket with Perryâs three and drive Siakam into foul trouble on offense, before Siakam gets Perry into foul trouble trying to stop Siakam on the low blocks at the other end. The other crucial issue is: can KU get to the line more than NMSU and get NMSU fouled up, or will NMSU do it to KU?
Both teams like a low possession game. NMSU likes an even lower possession game than the Marauders do.
Frankly, both teams NEED a low possession game to keep enough fuel in the tank to ensure beating their next opponent, either WSU, or Indiana.
This is going to be match up between old style stay on the spots grind ball by NMSU seniors trying to win the old disruptions stats the old way versus the Marauders BAD BAL, where the Marauders try to disrupt the other teamâs flow by crowding their impact space, and by use of mobile big man attack platforms, and spread-drive-kick sets, rather than trying to dominate the disruption stats. The Marauders will try to get out to a lead and then defend the lead, same as usual. Then repeat. To do this, they will employ intermittent bursts of up tempo to get leads to then slow down and drive it and disrupt their flow. The Marauders should be able to run their big men and beat NMSUâs big men down the floor during these bursts, so look for Jamari and even Hunter to run the floor in short bursts the first half for some easy baskets. But remember, the bursts of quick tempo are strictly bursts to get small leads to defend. KU could run NMSU out of the gym, if there were no second game. They key is bursts of speed, then conserve, conserve, conserve, until the lead is spent, then repeat. If KU is making shots, and FTs, then NMSU could be the best first opponent KU could have hoped for, because, despite NMSUâs height and weight, KU should be able to have a low possession game be ready to fly against their second opponent.
NMSU OVERVIEW
INSIDE LENGTH: They stay taller in the paint starting and subbing than KU. They are four deep 6-9 to 6-10.
INSIDE WEIGHT: They start a bruiser in 268 6-10 Nephawe, but he only plays 26 minutes. Their other big, Siakam is not shrinking violet at 6-9 and 230.
OUTSIDE LENGTH: They start shorter than KU. They start 6-0 to 6-2 at one and two, with a 6-8 three, then sub longer at guard, and shorter at 3. Devonte will see a lot of minutes this game if Wayne struggles with the short guards. Brannen and Svi should both get significant minutes, because of their length, backing up Kelly smothering 6-8 trey baller Remi Barry.
OUTSIDE WEIGHT: They start lighter and not as strong as KU, but they are quick. They get lighter as they sub.
TEMPO: As noted above, they like an even lower possession game than KU, which may force KU to try to speed them up some, since NMSU cannot be made to play much slower. Still, if KU is not hitting and has to resort to the drive most of the game, this could easily turn into a game in the 50s.
TREY BALLING: They donât shoot as many treys as KU, but part of that is because they player lower possession games. Unlike KU recently, they always take more treys than their opponents.
FGAs: Like KU, they average significantly fewer FGAs than opponents.but they average nearly the same trey percentage. Where KU has several near 40% trey shooters, they have twoâ6-0 Ian Baker and 6-8 Remi Baker.
FTAs/FT%: FTs are the spine of each teamâs offense. Shooting way more FTAs than the opponent are when each team is most likely to win. Clearly, something has to give here. KUâs driving game works partially because it uses 3, and up to 5 players, to drive on an opponentâs weakest match ups. NMSU is very big and strong inside, but not very mobile. It is very short and quick outside. KU could very well resort to considerable bursts of one big and four smalls to pull at least one of NMSUâs slow bigs out to cover. The moment NMSU does that, however, KU will then drive on NSMUâs remaining big and fouls will ensue.Though unpopular with fans, this BAD BALL Offense Self has created is a wicked problem for a team like NMSU, especially when KU can get a few treys to fall the first five minutes of the game, so the opponent honors the trey stripe the next five to ten minutes of driving and occasional transitioning.
REBOUNDING: KU is likely to lose the rebounding battle, unless it can foul up NMSU, but KU has proven in Bad Ball that it can be down +5 and still win.
PROTECTION: the team that wins the protection stat will probably win this low possession game, because low possession games magnify the importance of each possession and of each turn over and strip. One TO in a 80 possession game is less significant than 1 TO in a 50 possession. 1/80 < 1/50
COACHING: Marlin Menzies is a Rick Pitino disciple. That means he knows his stuff and knows how to attack weakness and defend strength, and apply pressure create TOs. If KU can win the protection stat, shoot and make more FTs, pick up some transitions with its big wings and short bigs running the floor, plus get on the glass at least within -5,Mensizes is right, he wonât outcoach Self. But if KUâs young Marauders get goosey about their first NCAA game, and turn it over, Menzies is good enough to keep up with any coach including Self. Menzies is doing the right things with the players he has. That is always dangerous, unless we play well.
CONCLUSION: the Marauders are going to be playing the winner of the WSU-Indiana game.
((Note: Information in the preceding BIA Intel Estimate is for official board rat use only. Any intentional or accidental dissemination of the analysis beyond official KUBuckets board rats will trigger disavowal of any awareness of its existence. OmertĂ baby! And beat NMSU!)
I have known failure and success.
I truly believe I would have been just as good without the failure, maybe even better, because I wouldn't have wasted so much time and energy recovering from the wounds of failing.
It is perhaps good to fail once at something, preferably something small and inconsequential, to become clear that performing well enough to win is the goal. It only takes one lesson IMHO.
The reason to avoid losing is that any outcome is a risk to be habituated, so avoid losing like the plague.
Winning is in large part a habit.
The part that one cannot do without is struggle.
It is struggle I have always learned from, not failure.
Get a degree in struggle.
And you can learn all you need to know about struggle by learning the difference between struggling effectively and ineffectively. Just examine the difference between getting an A, or a B. The difference in struggling between an A and an F is obvious. It requires no study. Studying the difference in struggle between an A and B, or if you are not to sharp, between a C and a D, is endlessly helpful. Human beings recognize the big gradations almost intuitively. Its the fine gradations they need recurring lessons with.
If you can win every game by one point, or more, do so.
leave losing to those that don't care about winning.
Embrace struggle not as an end, but a phase of every process.
And learn to shorten the struggle phase as much as possible.
Lengthen the highly productive flow as much as possible.
The question I have for you is not so much that you predicted right on Wayne (kudos by the way), but rather:
a.) what did you see in his play the first 3/4s of of the season that made you think he would come out of it; and
b.) why has Wayne performed so erratically for so much of the season?
I have a lot of ideas about this, but, while I have believed he should be the starter all season, it was more because I saw no one ready to fill that role on the bench, rather than thinking that Wayne would come around the way he has of late.
You on the other hand seemed to have diagnosed Wayne correctly. By this I mean, with you it was not just a matter of their being no credible alternative, but you saw that he would raise the level of his play sharply.
What did you see and what was your thought process that lead you to be able to correctly read Wayne?
This is not the first time that you have hung in with a player, but it maybe the most extreme case where a player has spent a very long time fumbling and struggling and searching for his game and then found it within a single season.
We can all learn from you on this.
I believed Wayne was being a good glue player, but felt his ceiling had been lowered and I could not understand some of his acute problems with dribbling and holding onto the ball.
Others decided Wayne was not the man to be starting at all.
I know he has greater than average athleticism.
But tell us what was wrong with him, and what happened to set him right?
You have had the best handle on Wayne.
One way to understand Self is to think about how you manage your own budget.
You have a rough idea of what will be coming in and you decide how much you want to spend and how much you want to save. The amount you want to spend determines how you can live. You may want to live a different way, when you get more money coming in, but until then, you have to live the best way you can on what you have coming in and going out.
To some extent, these limits have nothing to do with one's philosophy and preferences.
They are parameters you have to live with for the time being, until you can change them.
Now, how you live within these parameters does have something to do with philosophical and aesthetic and technical preferences and that is where you have some room to make some choices. Some things you like more and are more suited to your legacy style of living. Others you like less and are less suited to it.
Somethings you hang on to, while meeting your budget.
Other things you let go of, while meeting your budget.
In the process of living and making these choices you discover that you made the right choices on somethings and the wrong choices on others.
You discover that somethings you gave up, you really miss and want to get more money coming in so you can include those back in.
You learn things about your self. You learn that somethings you thought were crucial were not. Other things you took for granted you discovered had a whole bunch of significance.
And so on.
This, I believe, is very close to the life and process of a basketball coach moving along season to season in his team operation and during a season.
Self repeats infrequently, but significantly, that he finds certain things that he used to think were important to winning, just weren't. And so he tries to eliminate them from his to do list to leave more time for the important things. Time is what he is really managing.
Other things he appears to find more important than before.
Still other things he did not used to consider as important, he now prioritizes.
John Wooden finally figured out how to win a ring without a single big man on his team in an era when most of the major basketball programs already had two big men in their starting five. Wooden then won a second ring the same way with a significantly different roster. He played the single high post offense with those teams.
But when he got the chance for big men that could score off the blocks, he did not hesitate to sign and tailor his game around them. He won three rings in a row with Jabbar. Then he signed another one: Bill Walton. He won another three rings. He played the single low post offense with these teams.
But what people forget is that next he could not sign another big center that could score back to the basket off the block, even though 6-9 240 Steve Patterson was a load. However, Patterson did have a great 20-23 foot jump shot at the top of the free throw circle. Wooden went back to the single high post offense and attacked on low wings with 6-6 Curtis Rowe and 6-8 Sidney Wicks, while his guards played in tandem out front. It as a 3-2 set with the middle three the high post man.
Then he found Richard Washington and another big, whose name escapes me. I believe he shifted to the high low double post offense, though I am not absolutely certain on that. Whatever, he most certainly went back to a low post with Richard Washington.
These changes in offense are analogous to the changes you make in your own family budget.
You make the changes based on rational net benefit. Some are harder to make than others. Some are actually quite easy to make. You make the changes, because it makes sense to make them.
Some folks hate change.
Others are comfortable with it.
In basketball, some coaches hate changing offense and change defenses every time down the floor.
Some coaches change offenses, and stick with the same defense no matter what.
Some stick with basic schemes on both ends, but vary the formations a lot; that has been Self on offense this season. On defense he has stayed largely with man to man.
Wooden never really had much trouble changing offenses to fit his material.
But he had been very stubborn about his defense. He was committed to man to man defense throughout the 1950s, when he was always coming in second. It was not until Jerry Norman, a former player came back as an assistant and showed him the three quarter court 2-2-1 zone press that he ever even thought about playing zone of any kind. Wooden refused to play zone even with no one over 6-5 on his team at times in the past.
When Norman brought him the idea for the 2-2-1 zone press, Wooden flatly rejected it and told Norman not to waste his time with such nonsense again. But Norman risked his job and approached him again. He basically said that if Wooden wouldn't at least let him experiment with the 2-2-1 zone press on the freshman team, Norman would leave UCLA. Wooden was then struggling to keep assistants because he was on such a small budget. He caved in and said Norman could coach the JV one season with the 2-2-1, as a trial only. No promises about adopting it to the varsity. But as the JV season wore on, Wooden became enthusiastic in his belief in the potential for the 2-2-1. The rest is history.
My point here is that basketball, while a game, is coached and played by human beings that approach the task in pretty much the same way one does other tasks. They don't want to waste time changing, but they WILL change once they see the net benefit of doing so. And they change rather readily once they see the net benefit.
The problem most fans face is that no matter how hard we think in the abstract about these issues of offense and defense, they are actually applied in a real world with real parameters and real variables, real costs, and real benefits. Coaches working every day, years on end, with this stuff, just like business managers, and generals, and orchestra conductors, and heads of research teams, develop a keen understanding of current and historical costs and benefits. They really do know more than we do. And so when our ideas take form, they may increase the benefits, but not hold down the costs enough for net benefit in a large enough incremental increase to justify using them.
I have to think that Bill Self, with a staff of a few experienced assistants, plus a kitchen cabinet of head coach friends he can run things by, and pick things up from, has literally thought of every different way to approach using his talent even BEFORE the season starts. The only things he may not have already considered are the unforeseen things that evolve over the course of the season. One player gets it faster than expected. Another player doesn't get it. One player gets hurt. Another develops way beyond what was expected. And so on. These things Self has to adjust for on the fly. But these are the things that he has a particularly acute insight into in terms of the relationship of costs and benefits of exploiting that most of we fans just cannot have.
This is not to say that we can NEVER be valid, and/or right.
We can be.
But realistically speaking, not often.
More often than not, when we come to an insight before Self does, and he follows us later, I have to think that he got there before we did, and just knew some extenuating circumstances that required waiting, that we did not know.
(I beg your pardon here, for I know I am covering some ground I have covered before earlier this season, but I am trying to say it more clearly and say it within the context of the issue you have raised.)
Basketball is not rocket science, as they say.
We are not talking about trying to explain the difference between a quantum realm and a classical Newtonian one, when we contemplate switching from high low to dribble drive.
On the other hand, basketball does have a good deal of spatial complexity and dynamics of motion and so on that can be tough for laymen, and even some basketball coaches, to get the hang of.
Some basketball coaches do innovate and then other basketball coaches do follow.
Most innovate only infrequently and borrow frequently.
So: what is the point here?
Self was confronted with some unique problems before the season started that you mentioned.
He has later been confronted with an unusual number of unforeseens that interacted with those initial unique problems to produce a complicated risk return matrix for different possible solutions.
Put another way, none of the feasible solutions were both low risk and certain to yield large net benefit.
This is the kind of situation that confuses and sinks all but the most flexible thinkers. Rigid thinkers get trapped in the lesser of evils trap. Flexible thinkers invert some parameters into variables and vice versa. They then find new opportunities and new critical paths that actually turn sows ears into silk purses.
Self, contrary to what many think here, is IMHO an extraordinarily flexible thinker within certain parameters.
What happened this season was that in addition to the usual number of variables he is good at flexibly juggling; i.e., tuning an infinitely variable temperature rheostat, or CVT transmission pulley to find good solutions between the heater core and the car interior, and the engine and the drive wheels, Self was in metaphorical terms also being confronted with problems with the heater core itself, and the engine itself. These were problems with parameters. Problems with parameters get really hairy in a hurry. When working with variables, you are basically working with a closed system with infinite variance with in known limits. But when you have trouble with your parameters, then you have this cascading effect of varying the known limits and the infinite variety where ever the parameters are set temporarily.
Every one can modulate a thermostat to get comfortable in the car and keep driving.
Not many can adjust the fuel injectors, or switch from throttle body injectors to direct injectors, and work with the soft ware and firm ware in the black box that manages the different kinds of injectors, while also fiddling with the rheostat for the heater and jumping into the car and keeping up with fellow drivers you are caravanning with, or racing against.
And if you find that your engine lacks the power you need, because it is missing one entire piston (Embiid), it presents a real problem of moving from trouble shooter to real mechanic needing to swap engines, or at least engine components in and out and retune the whole vehicle until it works effectively again.
And I would argue that when Self not only lost Embiid, his parametric rim protector, and found he did not have anyone on his team that could play back to the basket, or rim protect, or rebound, he suddenly found himself confronted with not one but four broken parameters: rim protection, post guarding, back to basket scoring, and rebounding. Switching to three point shooting, which he did for awhile, could only fix the scoring and only then with intermittent slumps that would require another way to score, or result in losses.
Once you get into fixing parameters, you are basically into model building, which is design and engineering new solutions, followed by re-fabrication, re-assembly, fine tuning, and re testing.
That is VERY complicated work even in a simple game like basketball. Human beings are not as predictable as rods, main bearings, valves and radiators. And their brains have as many (way more actually) bugs as black boxes with firmware and software.
Avoiding fixing parameters is why coaches invest soooooo heavily in recruiting the right players that ensure the parameters are in place.
Self had done everything he could on the recruiting end, and was left with broken parameters that needed redesigning in the process of a season unfolding. It was a hairy situation.
I don't believe he has really faced it to this extent in his entire KU tenure.
To avoid redesigning parameters, he invested heavily in trying to train our small bigs to be back to the basket scorers early. He tried long after fans had given up. It is easy to say change the parameters, when you don't really have to figure out the foreseeable headaches and unforeseeable ones that go with making the changes.
Self understood from the beginning how tough this was going to be. He understood that it made sense to TRY to teach the small bigs to play back to basket, if at all possible, and no matter how messed up things appeared while trying. It was a reasonable bet to try. I've frankly never seen guys that couldn't learn some b2b moves. But finally Self had to admit that the clock was running and none of his guys could learn fast enough.
So he did what is called inverting the problem. If you can't teach them to attack back to the basket on the blocks, then maybe you can have them attack the blocks face to basket from various spots and score inside that way. None of them could do that at first either, but all of them except Landen proved able to learn to do it in only a few games.
But of course that meant trying to teach the perimeter players a new way of playing on the perimeter with short bigs charging the blocks.
And so the cascade of problems with redesigning started.
And they kept cascading through out the season as players got injured, and players healed, and players got suspended, and players hit walls and so on.
Some how, Bill Self pulled it off. I doubt he is entirely sure exactly how he did it all, but he had a redesigned plan and he just kept banging on it and tweaking it and adjusting the rheostats and CVT pulleys until his team finally began to not only do what he was asking, but slowly started to "see" what the plan was, and then "see" how to bring not only their own technical mastery of it, but their own creative contribution to its possibilities.
Notice that Frank Mason is increasingly playing as he did last season, when that was clearly not working. The difference is that he can play completely under control within the BAD BALL scheme, and then have the insight about when to use his incredible after burners in the spread and drive it scheme to dazzle defenders and leave them like they were standing still. But he doen't do it all the time, and when he does it, it fits into the BAD BALL scheme, in a way he could never fit it into last seasons GOOD BALL scheme.
Whereas the 2012 season was a clinic in how to make do with 5 fine experienced players that fit all the parameters and variables and one very limited player who could fit some, but without any other depth, this season is a clinic in how to redesign a young and inexperienced team on the fly when you lack 4 basic parameters related to the inside game, despite having a lot of good athletes, and a lot of good basketball players on the perimeter.
I think the 2012 season was his greatest coaching job until this season.
This season took much greater virtuosity in coaching.
The 2008 season was a great job, because he won the ring, but most of the work had been done the previous three seasons and the 2008 season was a matter of fine tuning and maintaining an already well designed and debugged team. His biggest challenge that season was operating the team so that he could plug Rush in without a hickup when Rush was finally able to play 100 percent.
This season I am very confident that all his colleagues around the conference, and probably around the country, are just shaking their head in awe at what he has done.
Its like if Stradivarius could not only build a great fiddle, but play it superbly to, and build it and play it at the same time during 35 orchestral performances!
It is quite amazing.
And while he will have grown a lot as a coach and be a better coach in coming seasons because of this season, I don't know if he will ever be able to do a more virtuosic performance for two reasons.
One, I think the stresses of this kind of season are so great that a coach might only be able to pull it off once in a career. I really think that Self has willed most of this season to happen by an absolutely Herculean focus of all his abilities and energies and concentration. At some point a coach in middle age can't have the energy to do that any more.
Two, I think the trauma of this endeavor will drive him to either find a way never to get caught in this sort of personnel crisis at KU, or move to another coaching situation where it can be avoided. If Self decides that he cannot recruit the basic pieces he needs year in and year out at a high pressure place like Kansas, then he may decide that it is not logical to stay at a place like Kansas, which expects him to do that. He may decide he needs a different school that lacks those expectations, or a school that has the kinds of recruiting linkages that enable fulfillment of such expectations, or he needs to move on to a new challenge in the pros.
Self appears to me to have given more to the University of Kansas basketball program this season than in any TWO seasons in the past. He is not a kid anymore. I don't frankly know how he did it this season, having been that age once myself. I am in awe of his energy and competitive fire, not just his glass bead game brilliance at the strategies and tactics of basketball design and engineering, testing and development, on the fly.
I don't care if Bill Self gets 10 OAD/TADs on his roster next season, so much as that he just gets the parameters and variables--the basic pieces--of a basketball team signed. I don't want Self to have go through what he has gone through this season again. It is not good for him. It is not good for us. It is not good for KU basketball. I want him to be entering his gravy years, where he can at least start each season with all the pieces of a team that he needs. I know he is trying his butt off. I know he has always had a reputation as a great recruiter and he has brought in a lot of great players in his tenure. Something other than Self seems to be standing between him and his gravy years right now. I would like to see that obstacle removed, so he can get on with getting the players he needs to win the considerable number of rings he appears capable of winning. And I would like KU's administrators to lead, follow, or get out of the way regarding removing those obstructions for Coach Self ASAP.
Whether they do or don't though, he is going to be a better coach after this season, because of the enormous amount of learning he has undergone in trying to fix the parameters and redesign the team on the fly. And that's bad news for the other Big 12 coaches.
Rock Chalk!
Great insight on your part. I believe Self put himself outside his comfort zone from the start of the season. At 26-8, a title, and a two seed, its been quite a ride. .765 is not where Self wants to stay, but its mighty fine for second youngest team in the country playing the toughest schedule in the country without a rim protector 5 and without anyone that could play back to the basket.
Rock Chalk!
She was the best.
If I were Vitale, I would not go into still country for awhile.
Say what you will about the hill folk there, they retain some chivalric codes about outsiders coming in and messing with their women.
:-)
OMG, WHAT'S NEXT? JUDD, VITALE AND MEECHUM?