Well its pretty clear she did not want to French Kiss.
jaybate 1.0
10346 posts
This has to go down as one of the weirder situations in recent memory.
File it in the X-Files.
Let Mulder and Sculley come out of retirement and solve it.
It will probably wind up with Mulder on the roof of Allen Field House watching Cliff be drawn up in a tractor beam into a giant flying saucer that slowly rises and soars into the night sky.
PHOF
As I have said before, you must have been fun to play with. :-)
P.S.: And you ARE absolutely right about the need for us to Savage the Shockers!!!! Injuries or no injuries. Two go in. One comes out.
~Bill Self’s penis is bigger than mine.
~If KU doesn’t get upset quickly, everyone will find out what a pretender I am.
~I wonder if Winthrop will take me back?
~I wonder if we could learn to play BAD BALL in a week?
~It’s hopeless. He's going to treat me like he does Scott Drew.
~I could leave a suicide note.
~I could pretend to have amnesia
~I could get a 200 point tattoo on my giant forehead that reads: please don’t beat us bad, because I pimped you last season.
~Motion play.
(Note: All fictional satire. No malice.)
👉 👌 👏
I have copied and pasted your prayer into the rest of my iPrayer that I send out daily by microwave to the universe in hopes of one day making the "right kind" of first contact with whatever intelligent life may be out there. My worry is that "House of Cards" will get there before my iPrayer and earth will be scheduled for sterilization by NOMAD. :-)
jaybate 1.0 explores hypotheses of legal activity.
It is an interesting data point to add to the puzzle.
Thanks for calling my attention to it.
I am not sure what to make of it.
But conspiracy theories involving illegal activities, especially illegal conspiracies, appear better inquired into by appropriate authorities than we non professionals.
Rock Chalk!!!
Danny is one of those rare, rare, RARE persons that have great talent, great presence, and great humility, and that can be at their best when they need there best.
I am so grateful that he chose to be a Jayhawk.
My only regret is that he could not have been both a Jayhawk in one universe and one of John Wooden's players in another. I am not knocking LB, because he is one of my all time favorites, but John Wooden would have won 3-4 rings with Manning in either the pre-Sam Gilbert UCLA era, and in the Sam Gilbert era, at UCLA.
It is not rational. But I just believe Danny deserved the greatest coach who ever lived the same way Jabbar and Walton did, and Wilt should have had.
Why, oh why, oh why, didn't the stars align on John Wooden's visit to Lawrence so that Wooden would have been the Kansas All American and later KU head coach.
Danny and Wilt would have each won 3 rings.
God only knows how many rings Wooden could have won at KU.
Oh, well, never mind.
Enough basketball metaphysical musing.
HOWLING
Well, I'm sorry, but I thought I made clear that I thought HEM was male, but that I always try to err on the side of not assuming in these sorts of instances.
Rock Chalk!
Copy and paste on Groce.
Not sure what to make of Ollie yet, except that guys that can win a ring, even with somebody else's players, know how to bench coach.
But coaching, as you and others have rightfully pointed out, involves so many other things than just bench coaching. It hardly seems fair to expect Kevin Ollie to have mastered all the long list of skills a top coach needs after only one season as a head coach at any level.
For example, the access to top players is shifting fast right now.
The rules have apparently changed recently, even if we cannot all agree on what the rules changes have been.
Something changed.
The great concentrations of OAD/TAD talent at fewer schools for short periods of time has lead to more programs having to figure out how to adapt with less, at least until they can figure out how to join the haves at the new level. Self and Pitino and Donovan and Izzo seem to have gotten shoved down a tier. Maybe Calhoun would have gotten caught in this shift and perhaps Ollie is now. Hard to say yet.
There have always been discrepancies in talent, but the concentrations that emerged at UK and Duke this season appear conspicuously unprecendented at least over the last 3 decades. For this fact, I am inclined to view randomness as a probable trigger of this phenomenon. If it were just a coincidence of a coach with charisma (Cal), or a coach's longevity (Coach K), triggering a 10 draft choice roster, then over a period of 30 years, we should have seen this sort of anomaly occur before. I am ignoring Wooden's concentration of talent 45 years ago, because so many argue that that had largely to do with Sam Gilbert buying players, and I am trying to leave that sort of hypothesizing to the authorities. I am just examining legal, or random possibilities. Big Shoe and Big Agency were not significant forces in college basketball 45 years ago. They are now, so they can be viewed as possible drivers. But they have been forces for some time, so why did they trigger the phenomenon now? Something did. Three things stand out a bit as points for inquiry. adidas has evidenced a strong desire to expand its presence in college and pro basketball apparel marketing. And Pitino has talked about agents and agent runners shaping talent distributions to some degree in an ill-defined way. And some have reputedly remarked on some willingness of in-state AAU coaches to steer talent away from Self, in a way vaguely reminiscent of that reputed to have occurred with Norm Roberts over his 8 or so years at St. John's. But these are only scattered points for possible inquiry into possible explanation of the phenomenon, and not any where near sufficient to explain the phenomenon, even if confirmed. The most one can speculate is that it appears we are looking at various tips of a possibly legal ice berg. By this I mean actually legal; i.e., a constellation of legal drivers that have formed a large iceberg of dynamics only partially visible to the laymen viewing remotely, as we all are and do. To reiterate, I am not interested in exploring for any potentially illegal aspects; that would be the authorities' jobs. I am just interested in keeping the discourse alive and searching.
We have all spent a lot of time commenting on possible causes of the redistribution of talent, but much less time commenting on the effects on the programs not getting the 9-10 OAD/TAD rosters.
Asymmetries of distribution of anything always trigger adaptations by those experiencing the declining share of distribution.
In a desert, if you can't bring thirsting Los Angeles in a drought to the water, to borrow from Robert Towne's Chinatown script, you adapt and bring the water to Los Angeles.
If the distribution of oil and gas are too heavily concentrated in the Middle East to avoid market shocks, and meddling of Mid East leaders standing on those reserves, you open up fields in East Africa and North America, and off the coast of Brazil, and eye ball the long denied oil rich waters off Korea, while at the same time knocking over the Middle East leaders standing on those reserves and put in some new lackeys. It also doesn't hurt that doing so denies the Eurasian center point to ancienne nouveau riche like the Russian-India-China alliance either.
If USA has the high, middle and low frontiers over Iraq covered with high tech bang bang, when USA invades, then Iraqi terrorists (regardless of who may be paying them to do it and what kinds of costumes they may put on to pretend to be whoever they are pretending to be) resort to low tech IEDs, and for decades on end it appears.
Consequences, baby! Down stream turbulence from sticking the stick in the river. At times infinite variation within limits. Maybe even harboring some strange tendencies. But also some times just some completely unforeseen consequences that make everyone scratch their heads.
Viva complexity!
I suppose that is what we are witnessing with Self and Pitino at the first tier segmentation beyond the UK and Duke sticks stuck in the river of recruiting. Ah, what a cascade Eddie Lorenz started that was overlooked so long. Why doesn't anyone ever comment that Eddie created his own butterfly effect? Scalar self similarity with a hint of irony? Or maybe they have and I missed it.
Anyway, at the next tier segmentation, butter flies, in rare cases, "flying" down hill, like certain less beautiful stuff, we have Fred trying some innovations the last few years sans even the piddling number of OADs Bill has, and now even copying BAD BALL from Self late this season, while Huggie goes another direction in cracked tooth country with pressing combined with a form of Bad Ball.
Oh, my! says George Takei (mispronounced).
No way! says George Takei (pronounced).
But I digress with George's career resurgence as a metaphorical down stream effect of the short lived butterfly of Star Trek.
Another interesting thing of late was called to my admittedly challenged attention by @HighEliteMajor. If I recall correctly, HEM said: Coach K, who started the season with a reputed 9 OAD/TAD roster, but who has for reasons I do not adequately grasp, struggled some along the way (because I do not follow Dook closely enough), has adapted a 2-2-1 three quarter court zone press (note: conceptually near and dear to HEM's and my hearts) to add to his sharply increased reliance on three point shooting. Coach K has relied heavily on trey balling a few times over the last 15 years, when he had the shooters, but that 2-2-1 seems quite unusual for him. Possibly a manifestation of downstream turbulence?
Perhaps some of Coach K's reputedly deep roster has fallen short of expectations, say, maybe as Cliff Alexander has, and so he finds himself in effect a few players shy of UK's young load performing adequately in a weak conference, and so is coming up with a tactic that he thinks will help him compensate for UK's unique combination of depth AND key players with significant experience; that Coach K's less long roster lacks at cornerstone spots!
My point here is simply that whatever the degree of fairness in the rules changes (formal, informal, or random) altering talent distributions asymmetrically, we are quickly witnessing counter strategies and tactics emerging at an accelerating rate.
What if we enter an adaptation runaway that turns around and bites the talent stacking on the butt, as unforeseen consequence?
I know, chaos and complexity theories are already so last century, but...
Maybe some old knowledge in this case can give us a little edge in speccing on what might lie below the water line.
Rock Chalk!!!
Classic story. You made my day. This is the human side of business that so many lose sight of.
That's awesome. Congratulations on both activities. You guys make us all able to do what we want to do.
HOWLING!!!
I have always assumed you were a male, but when one's memory begins to be a palimpsest of sorts, because of health issues, well, discretion is the better part of something or other. :-)
Thx for sharing this.
Haase could turn out to be Roy's one potential long term influence on college basketball coaching, if he keeps getting a few breaks, and lands with the right shoe brand.
I have never understood why Roy's assistants have had so little success in college ball. Roy is a terrific coach, but don't tell anyone I said that until he retires and quits recruiting against us. I thought Steve Robinson would be a great one. It would be nice if Vaughn would come back and carry on his legacy in college. If Vaughn could land with a non elite major as a head coach (as Danny Manning has done), I suspect Vaughn could be the next in line to replace Roy. But Jacque's got to get somewhere where he can build a winning resume, first. I understand board rats sentimental hopes that he comes to KU as an assistant, but that would be stupid for him to do after being an NBA head coach. He needs to land with a non-elite major, and turn it around into a winner the next five years and then be ready when Roy exits, or Bill exits. Its the only way he will get serious consideration at an elite program.
But back to Haase, whom I have always been fond of, too. Haase has the bonafides to step up to a non elite major very soon. It would be really great for him to take an Illinois over and jump, but I think Haase should carefully study Self's career. Follow Okie Ballers if he can. Self following Kruger at Illinois was the smartest move BillSelf ever made. KU was a no brainer, because he was ready. But that Illinois move is what catapulted his career into being an irresistible hire for an elite major.
Kruger had built a strong foundation at Illinois. All Self had to do was keep the recruiter and add a few pieces.
By contrast, going to Illinois now would be a bad move for Vaughn today, because Groce has not created much of a foundation.
It is okay to rebuild a program from scratch once, but once you prove that ability once, always pick a high foundation next to prove you are adept at building the structure, as Self proved at Tulsa, and the super structure as Self added at Illinois.
I was just talking with a civil engineer (head of a city's engineers) about the history of engineering and he has a keen interest in the Age of Regulation from about 1900 to 1915 or 1920. He is interested in comparing and contrasting the approach to and use of regulation in that era with the last 20 years. Kind of recall that you are not a civil engineer, but you seem to have a healthy curiosity, so might you have read a good book ever on the Age of Regulation with an engineering angle that I might suggest to this engineer as he commences some systematic inquiry into the legacy of his field?
Thanks for weighing in.
I have always been fond of engineers.
Hope others notice our exchange.
It is so fun to see how reasoning from differing premises can lead to different conclusions. I grew up with this sort of discourse in my father's house, so I have never found civil disagreement uncomfortable, or uninformative.
@HighEliteMajor knows I respect him (I can only infer gender from some remarks, I don't claim to know for sure) and we learned a loooooooong time ago to agree and disagree comfortably. HEM, more than any other single poster I can recall saw the potential of building bridges across differences in order to enrich the sports discourse in online communities. I have always been very grateful HEM for that. Frankly, I don't ever recall @HighEliteMajor bitch-slapping anyone. HEM thinks it through and states the affirmative of his position clearly, and points out logical inconsistencies he finds in other positions. And admits his own when they rarely surface. Can't ask for more than that. To reiterate something I have noted in the past, the only lasting contribution I believe I have made to KU Basketball discourse is entering into a pact with HEM once upon a time to bridge differences. Opinions come and go. Positions shift and change as new information surfaces. Understanding grows. Experience adds wisdom. New blood adds vitality. But to me the cornerstone of an online community is the legacy of bridging differing opinions with respect and with a sense of a team searching for the path of understanding through thick and thin. HEM and I have agreed on so many things, and we have a good deal of agreement on the current team and where we think the future of basketball may be headed. Our disagreement over the merits (demerits) of Self's coaching late this season are simply signals that there is more to be learned and discovered about what is happening.
I am similarly proud of the way you and I have found a path through the thicket of disagreement, though our search for a relationship remains quite young.
Online communication, contrary to what the gloom and doom crowd suggest, is a great, great, great step forward despite its perils.
When postal services were created in the 1700s, or so, they dramatically augmented communication. They greatly enabled the coordination of of political, military, and business activities. I am probably the only one that thinks this, but I believe the mail service hugely augmented the romance and evolution in loving relationships among persons by expanding the range and space for amorous and affectionate exploration of feelings among loving persons. Vices were enabled also, but all innovation (technical, infrastructure, etc.) and ensuing change triggers and inevitable calculus of new benefits and costs.
It took awhile for persons to learn to adapt their writing styles from that used for personally hand delivered letters, to letters delivered through the mails. Frequency changed length and content for interpersonal communication in writing.
The mails immediately fell prey to government spying and the spying of military and business competitors, and to spying of jealous lovers and so on.
But in retrospect, the net benefit of creating the mail services were so enormous that that costs and problems were utterly worth bearing.
It is a similar situation with interactive communication on line.
It has been one of the great satisfactions of my life to participate online with so many good board rats, and to find one in HEM willing to set an example of respectful disagreement and joy in learning from each other that could act as a cornerstone in the KU Basketball Legacy.
I have always learned as much from disagreeing with HEM, as from agreeing with HEM.
I believe the import of what we are all doing here now is laying a foundation of intelligent discourse in the online medium for the next 50 years of THE LEGACY.
I believe that you, @JayHawkFanToo, are contributing, too.
I believe everyone is here.
It is imperfect.
It is human.
It is subject to virtue and subterfuge, and occasional stupidity.
It has all the beauty of human discourse and all the vagaries and misunderstandings that homo sapiens have wrestled with as they have muddled forwards for several hundred thousands of years of language usage.
There are certain instances, and realms, that one participates in, when one is most fortunate to have been alive.
The possibilities for abuse, and identity theft, and experimentation with discourse framing techniques, and set ups by special interest groups, and so on are endless even in this little online community.
But the net benefits are greater.
I am glad @HighEliteMajor is here.
I am glad everyone is here.
PHOF
Isn't that the case with any team in Madness?
Shooting slump equals quick out.
Everyone needs to stop holding Self and KU to different standards than other elite coaches and programs. Self hasn't even had his first Cal trip to lose in the first round of the NIT! And this team has lost way more to injury and suspension and started with less talent than that UK team started with.
Coach K has had a bunch of early exits.
Fred Dread, the Mayor of Ames has never won a title or a ring! He is just plain potential nothing else.
Pitino has been up and down. Rick, as good as he is, with 4 footers is a 4 seed!
Roy, recruiting the whole country, is a 4 seed.
Is Donovan even in the tournament?
Ratso Izzo is a 7 seed!!
Self and Bo Ryan are the only non OAD/TAD stacks with an apparent prayer of beating the apparent OAD/TAD Nike lean stacks.
Face it. He is a genius and better than the rest, except for Coach K. And if he were to stay around as long as Coach K, he would probably exceed his win total, for the same reason Coach K and Knight exceeded Dean's total wins. They coached in eras with longer seasons for similarly long numbers of season. And Dean exceeded Rupp for the same reason. And Rupp exceeded Allen for the same reason. If there were a way to index total wins for games played I suspect Allen would be the winningest coach all time still, though Rupp might be neck and neck.
Cal?
He would definitely be .500 with this KU roster.
Cal apparently knows his limitations and unknowingly plays ringers at Memphis and anomalous talent stacks at UK to compensate.
Fred?
Fred has already copied Bad Ball, while KU fans are still trying to argue why it won't work!
😄
Myitkyina.
The team will put you on its back and carry you there, if it has to, or you can march it on your own two feet, but we are going there one way or another.
I said it was going to get tougher and tougher.
It is not as bad as it is going to get.
You might as well get ready for that.
These guys are being offered the kind of obstacles that turn teams into legends, after a season.
Frank Mason on sore knees is faster and tougher than other teams' grade A healthy point guards. He is lightening fast! With 5 days rest and everything on the line he will be unstoppable. Same for Kelly. Wayne is breaking through the knee fear barrier. BG's foot will heal and he will be blazing treys. Everything depends on Perry and I have not one doubt that a Kansan will produce when needed.
We are going the hard way, but we ARE going.
Self's major decisions on strategy have been vindicated. They overcame the inevitable Trey shooting slump, the injuries and suspensions to deliver us through adversity to the eleventh straight B12 title and the 2 seed it ensured. The Trey slump is coming to an end at the perfect moment.
Myitkyina is now near, not far.
We are coming in under cover.
One foot in front of the other.
Think of sitting on the patio May 1st with a cold beer and a national champion t-shirt.
Think of 10 years from now when your grand kids ask, "Grandpa, tell us again about the season the Marauders won it all when no one believed they could."
Think about saying, "I was there beginning to end. I saw it with my own eyes. They were the most heroic team I ever saw."
One foot in front of the other.
It is both.
If the team were schemed around Trey balling without a strong inside game and strong big man rebounding, it would be 0-9 because of this statistically probable shooting slump to .37. It would have no recourse, as it were, to the slumped Trey shooting.
But by having adopted Bad Ball, it can keep testing the Trey balling and then have a winning scheme to ride out the slump.
Had we not been slumping we would be 9-0.
The reason Self is like the Cheshire Cat right now is he knows the slump is starting to break at the perfect moment.
And he knows the guys have learned to ball without the Trey, when some one takes it away.
And his team is playing the best defense all season now.
What the team is doing defensively is brilliant, not just good.
If Perry's knee keeps healing, I agree with Coach Self: I like our chances.
The trick is to hire and retain the best guy available. Part of that could be being a legacy, like Danny, but hiring the ultimate legacy in Dick Harp guarantied no success.
FWIW, Forest Allen was from CMSU, if I recall correctly.
And Eddie could not getter done at OSU.
We lucked out gigantic with Self.
He just keeps getting better and he is in a tight spot not having a b2b 5, or a rim protector the same year someone apparently decided to 9-10 stack Nike programs and assign them 1 seeds outside their regions apparently to maximize their likelihood of keeping adidas programs out of the FF.
Regarding Roy, he could never have won a ring at KU, because he promised to recruit the wrong half of the country. Using the recruits of someone recruiting the whole country, plus himself recruiting the whole country, he quickly won two rings as he would have at KU.
Self WILL leave KU sooner or later, by retirement, or for a new challenge--nothing odd about that. Same with a legacy.
It would be nice to see a legacy, but not if he were not the best candidate.
Feeling bright eyed and bushy tailed. If we had any doubts about Bad Ball, Fred copying it means it's for real.
5 days will help Frank most of all.
Perry cannot get back to more than 80-90%.
The rest will help that knee of Kelly's.
Go Hawks!!!!
KU , Self and KU fans should feel enormously flattered, because Fred copied BAD BALL to a Tee.
Not a little but as completely as you can counterfeit something late in a season.
Clearly a counterfeit has flaws. Fred's boys went weak in the knees and lost their composure late and started hoisting treys a few possessions that nearly cost them the game.
What stood out like a sore thumb was that which ever team played the most BAD BALL won. When KU got away from Bad Ball, it lost its way. Same with the Clones! Bad ball just flat beats Trey balling. Bad Ball beats Fred's little NBA Lite offense. Fred and his clones are converts.
Fortunately for KU IT GOT A GOOD TEST OF PLAYING ITS OWN MEDICINE. It will invaluable as BAD BALL goes viral in the Madness.
Now the live rounds start.
Next.
Agreed on Self influences.
SHOECO - AGENCY COMPLEX is only a hypothesis waiting for more news data points to surface. For now, there seems no need to go beyond what Rick Pitino left at their and the NCAA's doors. Will be interesting to see if more surfaces.
There Endeth your short run!
Your kids do my favorite art work about KU of all time. Send them to a good art institute.
Agree.
I want add that I agree that Bennett would be a great get for KU, if Self were to depart 5 years from now. He has to be one of the best of his generation, if Danny decided not to come home.
Bennett is a good young coach, like Self was when Self came to KU 11 years ago. But in coaching, as in most professions, there is no substitute for experience when the really big money is on the table. Same as Coach K always holds an edge on guys like Self. There is a point of diminishing returns, but Self is 8-15 years away. And Bennett, like Self, and K, and Knight and Dean and wooden had to wait for the senior genius with the experience to clear out to become the best. Having more recruited talent can make you look smarter, but you're not. 😄
You read it here first.
Not that I know of, 9-10 OAD/TAD stacks never happened before either. Bad Ball never happened before.
KU is the best team from the best conference with the toughest rschedule in the Midwest! It's about damned time we started speaking up for ourselves , because none of the click'n eyeball whores seeding the tourny or hyping it will.
Unless KU gets a 1 seed!
It's true! UVa is another eyeball and click seed with no one over 6-8. So what!
PHOF^10
Duke is a joke!
How does a coach with a 9 OAD/TAD stack have so many losses in an est conference with home refs everywhere it plays?
Big East?
It is a weak conference.
Temple I could see, but we always beat Jay Wrong!
Nova is as short as we are!
Nova is a joke!
Nova is an eyeball and click seed if ever there were one!!!!
Always remember that Big Media has to favor any EST school over KU.
It's business.
Don't EVER, EVER forget it.
When it comes to eyeballs and clicks, they will say or do whatever it takes to get them.
Move KU's campus to an EST city and KU would be KING!!!!
Bo's Boyz are the only onez az tuff as us. We would beat the other teams by five like clockwork. Apparent Nike Stacks are the tough chores. 9-10 OAD/TAD stacks are tough, but UK PLAYED IN A WEENY CONFERENCE and Duke keeps getting beaten by less stacked teams, so we could take either on a good night.
FREE KU FROM MEDIA SEEKING EAST COAST CLICKS!!!
KU IS THE ONLY HIGHLY RANKED TEAM OTHER THAN UK THAT HAS KEPT GETTING BETTER DESPITE ADVERSITY!!
QQUIT BELIEVING THE HYPE THAT OTHER TEAMS IN EST ARE BETTER.
It's a bunch of spin to give big media market teams the number one slots!!!
KU Should be the Number 1 seed.
KU fans don't love this year's team?
Who is this journalistic jerk kidding?
THIS IS THE LOWEST YET!
Tell players players busting their butts their fans think they aren't very good?
Dodd, have you heard your boss thinks you aren't exactly Edward R. Murrow? And that people reputedly click to ABC SPORTS when they see your by line?
Sarcasm font!
Get outta here!
KU FANS LOVE THIS TEAM.
They are just getting adjusted to a new way playing the game. It happens every five to ten years for the last century or so!
Next.
Self is contending with two new phenomena.
First, he has to deal with effects of accelerated learning. Teams AND players have to be developed in a season. Players are on learning overload. They lose focus more frequently and require more redirects and more intense redirects and more simple redirects to cut through their own analysis paralysis. "SOFT" and Self's competitive fire are the tools he has found work best so far.
Second, the first problem is compounded by his having to resort to a new way of playing and so the players having to learn a new and counter intuitive, heady style of play.
This is the opposite of the pasteurized AAU junk Cal teaches and Self has had to resort to it to help compensate for the talent asymmetry from apparent talent stacking.
Note: maybe we need to start calling it SMART BALL and Cal's AAU dribble drive DUMB BALL. 😄
Anyway, learning to play a new way creates even more information overload.
Self is defaulting to the simplest, most intense instruction to keep from talking too much to his info overloaded players in the chaos of combat.
It makes so much command sense. The military creates its own highly specialized command jargon in battle to counter the chaotic noise of battlefield information.
It is not being mean, brutal, or belligerent. It is signal control to ensure a message gets through the information overload of combat.
Self is a genius, not only at basketball strategy, but in addressing the media, so as not to betray what he is trying to do in his basketball strategy. 😄
Grant faced a similar problem late in the Civil War. He was among the most brilliant strategists and tacticians our country has produced. When finesse and maneuver could win the day in the West he proved himself brilliantly effective. When he came east, he read the vast difficulty of the situation correctly, and changed his approach profoundly and decisively yet consistently with his underlying principle.
He knew Sherman's March from Chattanooga to Savannah would be criticized as viciousness of a high order in its effect on civilians. But he knew he needed to defeat not one but two foes: the Confederate Army and the Confederate people and he had to protect Lincoln from as much criticism as possible while doing it.
He let Sherman terrorize the Confederate people on the way to positioning his army to put Lee and the Confederate people between a great hammer and anvil. Grant then began relentless pursuit from both directions that all sides called heartless and blood thirsty and strategically misguided until Lee and the Confederacy collapsed.
Grant took all the "blame" for the winning strategy and tactics by not explaining he had told Lincoln this was what it would take to win the war decisively. He took the media's wrath, so Lincoln did not have to, so Lincoln could survive and sustain him in his mission.
Self was keeping the mud off Allen and Iba, but both men would understand and applaud the brilliance of what Self is doing. Allen tried any and every kind of strategy and tactic he could think of over the years. Iba was the father of slowing it down and gumming it up, even as he was the father of the modern basketball offense. Great strategists and tacticians find ways to get it done. And it can take sensibility a long time to catch on to the brilliance and elegance of what many call ugly to begin with.
The awesome elegance of new ideas often overwhelms even its inventors, whose aesthetics are products of the time before their genius transformed possibility.
Oppenheimer said he thought of the eastern scripture "I am become death, destroyer of worlds," when he witnessed the first test of the atomic bomb that hastened the end of one war and bounded the USSR, then deterred world wars to date.
The responsibility of a great leader in competition is to get the most out of what he has within the rules and put his side in the best position to win, then get it done.
My father did not take his boots off for ten days on Iwo Jima. He did not change his uniform for three weeks. He and his fellow Marines did not fight pretty. They had to change how they fought in real time. It was not pretty. But they got the most out of what they had, and despite all the human error, they got it done. My father never did view Iwo Jima, or war, or competition as an aesthetic contest. He never saw Iwo Jima as a beautifully composed photo of a flag raising and he constantly reminded me not to think of any competition that way.
Basketball is a game capable of beautiful moments.
But it is not a beauty contest. Naismith and the rules never awarded points for beauty. The points are awarded and withheld by getting the ball in the basket and keeping the other team from doing the same--within the rules.
The deep beauty of what Self and his team are doing lies within the elegant fit of their strategy and tactics with their abilities within the rules.
The more tightly the refs call the game, the better Self's Bad Ball works.
Self's Bad Ball does not, like thug ball, depend on breaking the rules and refs swallowing whistles. Quite the contrary. It uses KU's athleticism to disrupt flow and then attack from all five positions. It challenges the refs to call the fouls and exploits both when they do, AND when they refuse to. Unlike thug ball, or even winning ugly, this is elegance and sophistication of a high order that is not yet smooth and flowing. This the elegance of chaos theory and emerging complexity. And these are the two most elegant scientific paradigmns to emerge the last half century.
Bad Ball is an experiment in altering fluid dynamics on wood.
There is as always the shock of the new.
Rock Chalk!
I sure understand your POV.
I just started calling it Bad Ball as a little retro allusion to years back when calling something bad was to call it good.
the last month or so I was reading how everyone was feeling kind of down about how ugly we were winning, and I got to feeling Self and our guys were not getting the respect they deserved for what I thought/think is a remarkably impressive innovation beyond winning a few games ugly with grind ball. Rightly or wrongly, I began to see a lot of method to Self's madness and the more I studied it, after being completely confused by it, initially, the more I impressed I grew with the principle and the accomplishment.
And I watched Frank play and carry himself, and the guys and they all just seemed like guys that really were Bad in the good way back in my youth. And I loved the cock sure look and the determination and the whole getter done way the team was going about it--so Jarhead Jayhawk--that it just bubbled out one post.
These guys deserve a lot of respect for what they have accomplished.
These guys deserve WAAAAAAY better than ugly IMHO.
And I'm okay if people want to junk BAD BALL not good enough to.
If "BAD BALL" has called folks attention to how special this team and this coach are, even if only out of forcing them to try to decide whether they like or dislike the term, then I am quite happy for any and all to come up with something better and more fitting.
I don't care if these guys get bounced the first round or not.
They have made me love them like I loved that 2012 runner up team and I doubted I would ever love another bunch of Jayhawks that much.
But these guys are BAD!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Anyway, probably an old guy is not the right guy to hang a moniker on them.
Maybe some of our students, or some of our young posters, have hung a better nickname on them.
Whatever, it came from my heart and from my desire for Coach Self and this team to be respected and loved for what they have done.
Rock Chalk!
And vivid possibilities.
If the opponents don't figure out BAD BALL, the slog could end in Myitkyina and those most used to slogging hold a great edge over those that have never slogged.