🏀 KuBuckets Archive

@VailHawk

Nothing about winning ring is probable for anyone in a 64 team tourney.

But if we were to slog to the Final Four, and if Perry were to be 90% by then, and we shoot our 10 treys well, we are the ideal candidate to beat UK, even without Cliff.

It takes a stretch 4 to pull one of their footers from the rim.

Once pulled from the rim, we attack the other footer from all other positions and win it on the foul line.

Why cliff would improve our chances so much is that he could outrun their footers end to end 15-20 minutes.

It all comes down to can we guard their footers? That is Self's forte. We could not guard them seven games, but we could disrupt their flow one game.

Nothing is written.

Nothing.

Self reveals some of what he is doing in Bad Ball, when he talks about what his team needs to do better.

Self says KU cannot go very far unless it gets more flow, more continuity in the offense.

Let's just call it flow.

What this means is that Self thinks offenses can't score efficiently without flow, I.e., if their flow is disrupted.

This means the goal of Self's offense and defense is to disrupt the opponents flow and achieve KU flow.

KU used to play disruptive defense aimed at winning the (steals + blocks)/ TOs stat, while at the same time playing a non sticking passing game create greater impact space. Defense started offense with stops flowing into transitions. There was an elegant athletic muscular rhythmn to Self Ball that everyone could distinguish from Roy's fast breaking ball. Self Ball squirted into and out of transition and half court ball Ina seamless flow, except for occasional grind games.

What Self has done with Bad Ball is say we can disrupt flow on both ends of the floor. And the essence of disruption is not strip + blocks/TOs , but rather the disruption of their offensive and defensive movement on the floor. Flow is a spatial dynamic, not a TO, or a block, or a strip. Those are nice when they happen, but they are no longer objectives. The objective is us having more flow than them, despite us playing on both ends to disrupt their flow.

Self is asking his players to disrupt flow on both ends, while trying to maintain their own flow on offense. The team is still struggling with it. It is winning by disrupting the other team's flow almost completely for long periods of games, and just barely maintaining their own flow enough to draw more fouls and win it at the line. It works but it is not the end goal. The first Texas game is close to what Self envisioned, but but between slumps, creating a stretch 4 Ellis, then losing him, and losing Cliff, and injuries to Traylor, Greene, frank, Devonte, and Oubre, the team is running on about 2/3s of the athleticism it once had, and this ignores Selden's strange journey back from knee injury and icing of Svi for failure to hit shots and guard over picks, plus the cryogenic action on Hunter, the team feels more like a Marine company half shot to pieces turning disarray into tactics just to take the real estate, not to do it the right way.

Hence, Self keeps hoping for the dust to settle enough to reorganize some and hope unit reforming bottom up finds its own equilibrium flow somehow. It some what beyond Self's tight control. The most he can do is ream individuals new ones for not trying to get in a flow, while realizing he is ordering to make so many changes on the fly to disrupt opposing flow that it necessarily will produce some loss of flow among his own players interactions on the floor. Our guys are being asked to think AND play, when most self teams this time of year are cats reacting and impacting in the moment. It is very hard to do it. It is the opposite of what most teams are trained to do. But it is why we are winning so much. Genius often asks the impossible of young men. Lord know Forest Allen did often enough. And then sometimes it is revealed to have been possible all along.

@VailHawk

Now you are getting it!

The players are the same way. They still slip and thinking open for an uncontested two oer three is good. It's not. Only driving into their space and forcing them to either foul you, or let you shoot, or both, is BAD BALL! Everything we do has to disrupt their momentum and stymie their runs,

Baylor was .445 PPP the first half. That bought us the cushion to shrink their impact space and make them foul the second half, even though they made a flurry of treys.

BAD BALL is BEAUTIFUL DISRUPTION OF FLOW!

@brooksmd

HOWLING!

I have put on my absorbent codger diapers!!!

BAD BALL STRIKES AGAIN!

The Merrill's Maurauders of D1 continued their intricately counter intuitive slog through the jungle warfare of the meaningless "Battle of Kansas City," with another seemingly impossible victory over conventional basketball metrics.

All the usual maneuvers by Scott Drew proved futile.

With a 2/3 speed 5-star and a DNP OAD, the Marauders went to definitive BAD BALL milking leads and playing brilliant defense all the while gumming up BAYLOR on both ends. It was like the Bears fell in the La Brea Tar Pits. The more they struggled the more they sank.

SELF IS A GENIUS!

AND HIS JARHEAD JAYHAWKS ARE THE MOST COURAGEOUS BUNCH OF PLAYERS SINCE THE 2012 RUNNER UP TEAM!

And they were the most courageous I ever saw.

Amazing!

On to Myitkyina!

@HighEliteMajor

I think what coach K is trying is validating the logic of what we have been advocating.

I just think Self has come up with a different way to skin the cat.

Talent levels between the teams differ so sharply.

Coach K has the big anchor defender in Okafor that Wooden came to rely on with Jabbar, Walton, Patterson and Washington. Self lacks this.

Self also lacks a great anchor defender in the Short Fred Slaughter mold.

But even if he had one he seems to prefer to guard the basket rather than make the basket hard to get to.

Self also sees little value now in big leads. He spends every lead he gets on shortening the game or collecting fouls.

Self has left the program much farther than any coach in recent memory.

@DanR

This could be one part get Perry a few minutes early, when it does least damage, to get him over the fear of coming back, then sit him for the rest of the half. If we have a small lead, repeat the second half for 4 minutes then sit.

The other part, and the bigger part is to force Drew to prepare for more players.

If Perry can even play at 50% capacity it will surprise me.

@Statmachine

Success breeds imitation. Be very afraid. Next season most teams in the Big 12 are going to drive it and emulate what Self is doing.

@HighEliteMajor

I love that style of play, as you know.

But I am afraid that untl the rule enforcement changes, if KU had 9 OADs, as Duke has, BAD BALL would win 9 of 10 games. Really this a very difficult innovation and more global in principle than board rats yet appreciate.

This is about as far from traditional Self Ball as Self can get. Shrinking impact space is the opposite trying to increase it. Defending leads is the opposite of playing to create runs. Systematically muddying it up even when you have superior talent is the opposite of playing to optimize transition. Playing to win the protection stat and break even on the disruption stat is the opposite of playing to break even on the protection stat and win the disruption stat. Playing to keep it close is the opposite of trying to step on their necks. Playing Bad Ball every game is the opposite of playing it anyway they want. I could go on and on. Self has inverted Almost the entirety of his approach to the game that everyone has copied the last ten years. He has left his own program. And he started the season trying to leave it against UK. But he realized he had not changed radically enough.

This team now, even as crippled as it is with injuries and a suspension, has more ways to attack the basket than most teams it faces. It was a logical response for a global thinker like Self who has with few exceptions favored diversified attack. We favored a meat ax approach to change. Trey balling. Self said no that is not diversified enough. So he laid a tick tack toe grid on half court and set about devising as many ways to attack the basket from each of the nine cells as he could. It's brilliant. It gives up back 2 basket action and turns every cell on the half court into a potential drive point where impact space can be shrunk to a foul situation. AND he samples the trifecta every game to see if any one is hitting. It is BOTH. He has a lot of Trey shooters but even more drivers. Half court is the way to create the fouls. Get the opponents stationary, attack their space, shrink it, reduce it to FT shooting ASAP, defend the lead.

It is very hard to defend no matter how big and athletic an opponent is, and once our guys learned to help defend, we are in every game, even with everyone injured, no one able to hit threes, and our flipping star out.

Kelly Oubre gets it better than anyone right now. When our treys start falling again, look out. We only need to make 5 of 12 treys to win every game playing this way and that is sooooo easy for this team to do for six games after slumping for ten games.

Coach K's team has underperformed this season, given his talent. I reckon Self would be neck and neck with Cal, don't you?

And then he would beat Cal even with one less OAD/TAD. 😃

Seriously Cal has slowed tempo down against good teams just as Self has, at least when I have watched.

Coach K is to be applauded for trying the counter strategy you and I have advocated and I hope it works, but I doubt it will, until the rules enforcement changes. Why it might work for Coach K is the same reason any strategy Coach K adopts tends to work pretty well: he has more talent and the refs seem to give him a favorable whistle--especially in the Madness.

@HighEliteMajor

Good question.

Now that we lack Perry and Cliff, and Jamari plays on one leg, and Selden has never recovered from his knee, and Frank's and Brannen's wheels are so hobbled they cannot jump shoot effectively I would argue that everyone but TCU and TTECH have as much or more talent than we do.

Kelly is our only edge and his right knee is still sharply limiting him.

Self is turning opposing coaches into preppers!

Preparing for BAD BALL is a nightmare.

KU can't score b2b, but that is the ONLY given!

Each game KU's Trey slump continues, opponents fear the law of averages bringing a 75% Trey ball game. Gotta guard the three.

Each game KU shrinks the impact space and "just drives it, " the driving originates from four, sometimes five positions on the floor! Gotta lay off everyone to stop the drive.

If you guard the perimeter, Self weaves.

If you guard the weave, Self puts his stretch 4 in the weave and pulls one of your posts.

If you guard the stretch 4, he pulls out the 4 AND 5, and drives the 5!

At least on defense, you only had to worry about the M2M and and a little junk diamond man and 2 zone.

Not any more!

Self showed a full blown 3-2 zone at the end of the TCU game.

It was a diabolical thing to do to opposing coaches.

The 3-2 can morph into Self's diamond and 2 zone, or stay a packed 3-2 zone, or move into a 3-2 matchup zone or a m2m.

Talk about cruel!!!

And he did it just for Scott Drew, who plays this zone game with Self.

Turn about is fair play.

Welcome to the Preppers, Scottie!

@JhawkAlum

I would rather have ten OAD/TADs, and have Coach Self coasting on Good Ball.

But ONLY Coach Self is currently good enough and flexible enough to keep juggling the pieces in the midst of the injuries, talent asymmetries and high jinks of the SHOECO-AGENCY complex and win 25 games, lose only 7, win an 11 th conference title outright, and have forged a new way of playing and STILL be in position to launch a credible campaign for dark horse national championship.

@Lulufulu

I would be brimming with confidence if we had not lost Perry and were not so uncertain about what he will and won't be able to do if we get him back at all.

But let's face it, this team IS the basketball Merrill's Marauders. They are trying to do something no one else has tried to do before them. No one else has tried to fight this way before. There is only one general that even really grasps the principles of this new kind of hardwood warfare. And he's our guy.

I recently read about what made Merrill's Marauders so different from other jungle fighting forces before them.

Before Merrill's Marauders, jungle fighters relied on trails to maneuver for battle in the jungle. They moved on trails and they ambushed the enemy on trails. They relied on camouflage and ambush. They did not rely on any complicated timed maneuvers through the dense jungle. They stayed in large groups and moved in large groups until they deployed into a position for ambush.

Brigadier General Frank Merrill decided to do it differently. The Marauders abandoned movement on trails when there was any risk of enemy ambush. Each man carried a compass and was given a set of individual timed maneuvers to carry out. Each man moved through the jungle separately at a considerable distance to ensure the survivability of the unit in ambush conditions. Each individual soldier was mapped through an area with a set of written instructions. Follow this compass bearing for so many minutes at such and such a pace. The instructions caused the Marauders to grow increasingly dispersed and to reconverge at a destination miles away. What I took away from this was that Merrill had discovered the concept of a network and of moving men like information packets around an internet to maximize the survivability of his force AND to ensure concentration of his force at a point of attack that the enemy would not be able to anticipate. The brilliance of this innovation is hard to gauge in our net centric world paradigmn. Now we take net centric solutions to ensure survivability for granted. But back in those days, really only the Navies of the world thought even in a rudimentary way in these terms. In essense, Merrill was turning his Marauders, a small military force, into a jungle convoy zigging and zagging, breaking into different elements and recombining and breaking and recombining so that the Marauders were nearly impossible to ambush decisively, and yet prone to converge force when attack was deemed advantageous. Through 1100 miles of jungle they moved this way. At first the men were sure it would not work. They feared operating independently as individuals in dense jungle. Afraid of becoming lost. Desperate for the reassurance of the group. But over time and over endless repetitions, they Marauders learned to move this way reliably and confidently. They realized it made them hard to kill. Hard to ambush. Hard to destroy the group It made the realize that each one of them could be found if they just stayed on course and waited at an obstacle, or a point of injury, simply by a few of those in the converged group ahead back tracking the trail their buddy was supposed to have walked, but for some reason did not complete.

To move through the jungle this way was not pretty. There was no marching together in cadence and singing songs. There was for considerable periods no one to complain and bitch to. But it kept the unit alive. And a dangerous fighting force. it worked.

Time and again young men in jungle warfare for the first times in their lives went up against seasoned, hardened, tested, Japanese jungle fighters and prevailed in small skirmish after small skirmish. 1100 miles through mountainous jungle!!!!

Nothing is written.

@JhawkAlum

BAD BALL is very, very hard to love.

It is hard to trust new things until they are proven.

BAD BALL is not proven yet.

But it is incredibly successful already.

No other offense would have won any of the games the last two weeks that have been played.

We are doing SUPER considering what we are up against right now.

In the era of 9-10 OAD elite basketball, we are playing without one of our three measly OADs and we are playing without our lone 5-star, and we are conference champs and have already won the first round of our conference tourney in one of the toughest conferences, after playing the toughest schedule in the country.

Life is grand.

But to get to be a dominant, not just dangerous fighting force, we have to get our stretch 4 back at full speed.

Our guys are just waaaaaaay tougher than most other teams.

There is nothing tougher in a Madness than a team playing a different way and its shooters getting hot at the right time for a six game stretch.

We are approaching a six game stretch of poor shooting.

We are now in perfect position statistically to be the tournament team that shoots above its average for six games.

We have to get Perry back.

The Basketball Merrill's Marauders are going to Myitkyina with or without him, but without Perry they would require and improbable number of upsets of other teams in their region to get to the Final Four.

But with Perry back, this team only needs the normal number of upsets and lucky breaks that any champion gets to make a 6 game run.

It is going to get much much tougher.

It is going to seem much more hopeless than it does now.

But until we are beaten, this is now a very dangerous team. It is used to playing against impossible adversity.

It has normalized a level of adversity that most other teams in the tournament--especially the apparent Nike Stacks--have not even faced once yet.

On to Myitkyina.

TCU's Trent Johnson made the smartest move he's made since he got to TCU. He has copied Bill Self's BAD BALL. And in fairness to Trent, Bill's BAD BALL incorporates some of what TCU has done the last couple seasons.

Today was the first example of two teams PLAYING A FULL 40 MINUTES OF BAD BALL.

The skill level of the teams was asymmetrically in favor of KU.

But when KU plays BAD BALL, it neutralizes not only the superior athleticism of other opponents, but now we know it beats BAD BALL when the opponent has less skill and greater muscle in a half court game.

We already knew it could beat a less skilled opponent (WVU) that played a full court game.

The huge tests of BAD BALL are still to come, when we get Perry back for the Big Dance after this stupid conference tourney.

The next big test is going to be a hot shooting trey balling mid major.

The next step after that will be a Nike stack that is playing well. Beating apparent Nike Stack Texas was not really a conclusive test, because they just aren't glued together as a team.

But its clear that the second Texas game really juiced Self up, because BAD BALL dispatched an apparent NIKE STACK that wasn't playing very well'; that was a great stepping stone.

To beat an apparent NIKE STACK that is playing well, we have to be able to slow the pace to 60 possessions or less, get five plus FGAs, win a protection stat, and win a strip stat, while getting 30+FTAs to the apparent NIKE STACK's 20 FTAs. If we can get 40 FTAs we are in the clover.

We won't get any blocks against an apparent NIKE STACK, so it doesn't matter that our guys can't block. Blocking is their stat that we cannot deny them. Instead we have to turn the blocks into our second shots. We cannot rebound with the footers, except off blocks. But when we drive and shoot, it makes if very difficult for the footers to figure out where the ball is coming off.

If we can do the above, no matter how many shots of ours they block, we will be in the game at the end.

And the team that is most used to playing BAD BALL at the end in a close game has the ONLY edge possible against a 10 OAD/TAD apparent NIKE STACK.

Self knows this team cannot advance far without Perry and more continuity of offense.

But he also knows that the more KU puts their heads down and drives it, the more defenses are going to tighten it up and the more KU's offense can achieve some continuity.

This is a nip and tuck kind of offense; this BAD BALL.

But the key to making it really hard to guard is the stretch 4.

Switching between perimeter guys driving it and playing through the stretch four for periods of time can stress any kind of an opponent.

BAD IS BEAUTIFUL from here on.

And when our TREY ballers find the range again, and they will if we can just keep surviving and advancing, we can play this kind of game against anybody and keep it close till the end.

BAD BALL HUNTS.

It even worked for Trent and his Horned Frogs.

If they had had just a bit more skill, they could have clipped KU today, because KU was playing a make shift lineup most of the game.

Good for Trent. Embracing BAD BALL could save Trent's job.

• Carnage Ball with Trent's hoops thugs to follow.

• Trent apparently wants to be the next John Thompson 1.0 and young Huggie and Ratso Izzo. Life sucks, recruiting isn't fair. Coaching breaks bad, so you thug. If you can't find a low road, you make one.

• KU will be lucky to get out without another injury.

• I like Self's move to hold Perry out of a butcher ball game first round. If we are lucky we lose and losing without Perry won't hurt our seed and buy us the most days of rest.

• We are so fortunate to have ADIDAS make KU look like Louisville.

We can get through the first round of Madness without Perry. Beyond that who knows? It all depends on how good Hunter actually is offensively and how foul prone. There is a pretty good chance Hunter can bring as much or more than Cliff brought the last month, except against the brawniest guys. The scout on Hunter will be to attack him and foul him up on the low block so he cannot come across the lane to block.

Jam Tray could deliver if he had two legs, but he doesn't so this continues to default heavily to Hunter and Landen, who are our most complementarydefensive bigs, but limited offensively. Still, between them and Jamari they can probably scratch out 15-20 of Perry's missing points and Our perimeter players will have to pick up the rest. The dog will hunt, but it will turn more and more into a game of perimeter driving without a stretch 4 and big man stick backs, which should make our traditionalists more comfortable.

@REHawk

Very!

And imagine the room this mass exodus to the L would open up for a 10 OAD RECRUITING CLASS this September.

@Crimsonorblue22

DONE!

If the NBA Drafts Potential, the Entire KU Team Jumps!

• Frank Mason could become the toughest, quickest, fastest, best shooting, best defending, best ball handling Okie Ball point guard since Don Haskin's Nate "Tiny" Archibald burned up the NBA. Draft him 20th and get a steal.

• Wayne "emotional healing" Selden could become the toughest, strongest, best Trey balling, best defending, best getting-upping, 2 guard the NBA has seen in years, once he gets another year beyond the evil psycho-specter of his knee injury.

• Kelly Oubre is purty, a leader, a tough defender and already can be everywhere on a floor with a 7 foot wing span, so when he dials in his already solid Trey in the L, he could become a perennial NBA All Star. Plus you know true OADs only show 70% of what they've got in D1 (see Andrew Wiggins)

• Perry Ellis went so fast from spinning and finessing 14 PPG to stretch 4 MONSTERING 25 PPG down the stretch and from slump shouldered head shaking to swagger and laughing in a few weeks that a month more nonlinear improvement could see him lighting up the NBA.

• Jamari Traylor is able to guard, drive, strip and block as a 3/4 playing out of position at the 5 on a conference title rotation on only one leg. Imagine what he would be doing on two good legs with a dialed in J in two seasons!!!

• Landen Lucas just did 13/12 his first full game against a good OU front court. The guy is 6-10 and 245 and has not even filled out on top yet. When he dials in a jump hook at 255, he will do 26/15 next season, so you might as well get him now.

• Hunter Mickelson is already better than some of the 6-10 foreign projects the NBA drafts and Hunter has been riding pine at KU. When Hunter fills out on top, he could be at least a ten year journeyman backup. Pretend Arkansas is in the Balkans. Draft him on potential.

• Cliff Alexander? You are already going to take him on spec. Enuff said.

• Devonte Graham? Smooth handling, slick shooting, good defending, baby-faced 6-2 inch assassin that WILL bulk up from 175 to 200 the next three years, so you might as well take him now, too. Plus the name oozes star power.

• Greene? 6-7 45% try gun with defense and ball handling a half season from being ready to start for Self, which means he guards better than a third of NBA Trey gunners, so take him now too.

• Svi? 6-8 17 year old guard from Ukraine that needs another year under Self practically defines an NBA draft choice on potential!!!!!!

Rock Chalk!!!!!

@drgnslayr

WVU, S.Carolina, and Auburn higher than KU? Amazing!

@wrwlumpy

Fizzourians could not tell which side to be on concerning slavery.

KSU has never appeared the same, since they reputedly became biological warfare researchers.

And the rich we will always have with us.

Good must be its own reward, or it will never be done.

@wissoxfan83

It is a major accomplishment. Many schools have come and gone and even come again and gone again the last century, the last 15 years.. Without being the darlings of national media, or reputedly local AAU coaches, we remain. Without the asymmetric talent stacks, we keep competing and winning more than our share. We have been upset, but not broken; investigated thoroughly, but never found in more than minor violation. We actually do graduate some players. We actually do expect guys to be teammates. We actually do have a legacy to live up to, rather than just a W&L statement to equal. Players actually do develop at our school and program. A President that is not a graduate and not borrowing the buzz of a ring actually did come to pay us his respect and tell us job well done. We actually are the good guys swimming with sharks, despite all our flaws and mistakes. We actually do have a coach that DOES win more with less talent; that DOES get more out of what he has, and that does win a ring even against a team full of ringers, when he has all the pieces of a champion. We actually are at the center of the greatest game ever invented, flawed and imperfect as we are, acting as a force for good, as it globalizes amidst powerful forces seeking to exploit the game for base reasons. Rock Chalk!

When I went to KU in the early 1970s, cheerleaders still did their cheers to students of both schools in AFH. I would guess a third to a half the crowd in those days were students. We occupied the entire bleacher section of one side line of the court, plus a half of one side of upper deck seats plus some of the end of the field house. The visiting team's students were in the upper deck on the other side. Some games, like KSU, the opposing crowds were big.

Cheerleaders actually had large numbers to lead in cheers.

Today, I hear there are no opposing team student sections and KU students are banished entirely to upper deck and end zone.

Question: who are the cheerleaders leading today? The alums? It must be kind of weird.

@DoubleDD

I respect your desire not to turn the college game into the pro game.

So: let's turn the proceeds from the conference tournament into a fund for post eligibility college education completion. Get all these guys BAs completed after they finish playing!!

This could give the conference tournies a positive educational function!

Rock Chalk!

Jim Boeheim.

Anyone heard if these violations have anything to do with the reputed molestation allegations involving a Boeheim assistant that apparently went no where a few season's back, or was that stuff completely separate? Was there some story the last year or so indicating that that mess was bubbling up again? I wonder if one scandal surfacing had anything to do with the other?

Wouldn't it be edifying to have Jim Calhoun and Jim Boeheim and John Thompson 1.0 do a sports talk show hosted by Bill Cosby?

Maybe call it "Mondo Big East Nostalgia Sports Talk"?

The Big East?

Ah, those were the good old days.

@DoubleDD

I would like to see it become a tradition that the conference champion be given a bye for the entire tournament and that it be reduced to a four team tourney of the second through fifth place teams. It should just be played by those that are trying to play their way into the Madness.

It should never be 3 in 3, because it prepares the team for nothing in the Madness. It should be 2 in 3.

The only alternative would be a 3 in 6 tournament where all TV and gate proceeds go in equal shares to each of the roster players that season of all 10 teams including the conference champ that participate, i.e., it's a fund raiser for the players, and a thank you from the NCAA, universities, Media, B12, Big Shoe, agents, agent runners, and Big Gaming for the players making them all so goddamned much money all season. I would especially like Big Gaming to give the Vig it makes to the players. Pay the players and call it a sports enterprise research and development grant to them.

It's insane how good he is!

Loses is only difference maker and still finds away to win a title!

Interview her and find out if Big Shoe Is part of the women's game?

Is he still able to recruit?

I wish I had a 15/10 rim protector that could hedge and stay on a spot.

I wish I had 2 years with every OAD.

I wish I had fewer plugs.

I wish I had a 15/10 rim protector that could hedge and stay on a spot.

I wish I had 2 years with every OAD.

I wish I had fewer plugs.

I could argue it both ways, but 3 in 3 seems to favor BAD BALL.

Imagine hoisting treys in the last half of the third game.

@HighEliteMajor

Nice job of putting Frank in context!!!

Question: he is performing so well, won't the NBA take him early, say end of next season?

@sfbahawk

Did not see the SI story.

Vomit Ball?

I don't like tossing pizzas, so the term does not work for me.😄

Seriously, I don't see the college game deteriorating In any regards except rising physical contact, rising reliance on short timers and recent talent asymmetry apparently stemming from perhaps a SHOECO-AGENCY COMPLEX dynamic as yet inadequately understood.

The rest to me seems like "change."

FWIW, I do not recall a young KU team developing and evolving as much as this one has in a single season.

Defense and offense seem to oscillate in prominence.

I think anything new is hard for folks.

I believe BAD BALL is new.

@sfbahawk

I presently am content with our assistants even though I don't know their daily duties.

I hope Snacks is finding another outlet for stress and can lose some weight for his heart's sake.

I suspect fundamentals taught are changing as the game changes.

My dad was taught a sliding two hand set shot as a fundamental in the 1930s. It ceased to be taught in a game taken over by jump shooting.

@wissoxfan83

Landen Lucas, Portland MSA, pop. 2.3 million

Hunter Mikelson, Jonesboro, AR, pop. 71k

My guess is that Portland produces more players than Jonesboro. My guess is it helps Kurtis recruit PORTLAND if Landen is playing more than if Hunter is.

Next what if Devonte and Conner Frankamp were about equal? Devonte comes from a basketball academy highschool that produces several D1 prospects each season. Conner comes from a highschool that infrequently produces 1 D1 prospect each seAson. Who do you suppose might help you gain access to recruiting players?

Same hypothesis for Jamari and Hunter.

Same hypothesis for Cliff and Hunter.

Regarding Big Shoe, Agents and Agent runners,re-read what Rick Pitino reputedly said about agents and agent runners reputedly influencing recruiting in some way related to shoe companies and schools.

@HighEliteMajor

I started the season thinking this was a team lacking all the pieces it needed to be very good. It has never seemed like a talented team, it seemed like a team with slow to develop 5-star 4--our own LeBryant Nash, two OAD's, and one injured TAD. The rest were projects and long shots. When one of the OADs did not pan out, and we had no 5, It seemed potentially worse than the 8-10 loss team I expected initially, IF things broke good with injuries and players developing. Injuries broke bad. Development broke bad and good. To me, if Self hadn't invented this new way of playing we would have 12-15 losses.

@wissoxfan83

I'm surprised anyone doubts this hypothesis. Why would you play a guy that wouldn't get you more recruits instead of one that would, if they were about equal? And as I said, it's not just about SHOECO-AGENCY COMPLEX dynamics, but about basketball factory academies and AAU and highschool coach feeder systems, too. Who plays IS recruiting!

@DCHawker et al,

This team compares well with no previous team, because no previous team has ever been this weak in the front court, only one was this young on the perimeter, and no KU TEAM has ever played Bad Ball.

This is a new frontier and that is why Self is so juiced, despite the frustrations. This really IS a new challenge!

It might never happen again if a bumper crop of OADs signs. And if they don't it is the blue print for next year.

@Lulufulu

If he is not bumping any one that will offend the recruiting supply line, then he will always play quite a bit. But never when he is IMHO.

@KUSTEVE

It grows increasingly apparent that Hunter could not be allowed to play, because anyone he might replace would be offending either the SHOECO-AGENCY COMPLEX, or the big recruiting markets. Neither of sources of recruits will supply further recruits if any of their guys sit for a player NOT from those two recruiting supply conduits. It seems increasingly apparent that Hunter was as good as Landen (Portland), Jamari (Chicago), or Cliff (Chicago and SHOECO-AGENCY COMPLEX for OADS). Self has to play the guys that will get the recruiting supply conduits to supply future players. Hunter sitting has apparentlya had zero to do with his ability. He rebounds better than Jamari and as well as Landen, guards as well as both, runs the floor better than Landen, guards the post as well as both, hedges as well as both, and blocks as well as both, and shoots better than both. But playing him does not contribute to recruiting, so he has to sit. Hunter would have to be sharply better. If Hunter had grown up in a recruiting hotbed, or gone to a basketball factory academy highschool, he would have played 20 mpg easy. But with his background, tie goes to those the enable future recruiting. End the naivety about this issue. Next.

P.S. This has zero to do with skin color IMHO and everything to do with which recruiting context you come out of,

BAD BALL: ITS OFFICIAL, THE DOG HUNTS

Shrinking impact space is so simple.

It's so Joe Frazier.

We already knew it mostly worked against one of the toughest non conference schedules in the country, even when we were green wood rubes learning to play it.

We learned it could beat Hoiberg's pro approach to long ball offence.

We learned it could beat long teams once you learned to play it well.

We learned it could win even when you went 0-fer from three.

We learned it could win conference.

But the litmus test of any strategy is does it work, when everything is going against you--when you get caught in a perfect storm?

KU lost by a couple at the buzzer against a good OU team with a very sharp coach playing for its life in a meaningless game to KU!!

The team was as besieged by adversity, as any team in Self's KU tenure. Only seven scholarship athletes suited up. Four of those were reputedly playing injured. Two players were suspended, one just before the game. A road game. The team shot 24% the first half.

It lost, but only at the buzzer, and only because of a defensive breakdown.

Make no mistake.

THE DOG HUNTS!

BAD BALL is the new good.

NO OTHER OFFENSIVE AND DEFENSIVE SCHEME IN THE HISTORY OF COLLEGE BASKETBALL COULD HAVE COME WITHIN A COUPLE OF WINNING THAT GAME!

NOT ONE!

The team is for real.

The scheme is for real.

Call it what you like.

The players are for real.

The Merrill's Marauders of college basketball are for real.

A skirmish was lost in the village of Norman, but skirmishes are often lost in brutal campaigns. Frankly, the Marauders will be even bolder, even more cocksure after his game in which even the backups and walking rounded proved themselves up to the task of competing with another team at full strength. Every member of this bailing wire bound and chewing gum stuck together team belongs in the heroes hall of fame.

It turns out a handful young American boys CAN be turned into hardened jungle fighters on hardwood.

Tactics CAN become strategy.

You can hear it in Brigadier General Frank "The Self" Merrill's words and tone.

HE BELIEVES NOW.

He knows he has something waaaaay special here, if he can just hold it together a little longer--just get some guys healed up some--just get the suspended reinstated.

He has a better mouse trap.

He has the right guys with the hearts of lions.

Everyone doubts it can be done.

But he knows it can be.

Will be.

The slog to Myitkyina continues.

@HighEliteMajor

A team can get hot from three up to about 3-4 games, more often shooting shooting back to average every other game. So: I think a trey game would have the best chance of winning 3-4 games, but only IF we were coming off a bad stretch, which we will be. Anything beyond 3-4 games and the odds favor Bad Ball. And whenever there is a power outage from trey, odds favor Bad Ball. And this is why Self is playing this way. He samples the trey water ever game and if no one is hitting, then it is BAD BALL. If the guys start hitting treys the first half, you will see a 20 3pta game very shortly.

There are always guys like Hield that blossom beyond expectations, especially for a coach like Kruger.

What was Hield ranked?

Kruger comes out of the Jack Hartman give me one great guard and some lugs and I will beat you.

Hartman was the greatest of all the Okie Baller disciples at one player-ing teams to death.

He always found a one dimensional complementary guard to go with a great guard, and then went lug-city in the front court. His lugs never passed eye tests, but they were always sound fundmentally. They could do something or other well.

When Hartman found a Walt Frazier, Mike Evans, he rode them till the cows came home. Heck, Hartman rode Kruger, and Kruger was just a good guard, not an all timer.

Lon absorbed the lesson.

He got lucky nabbing Mitch Richmond out of Moberly Juco and road Mitch like a jockey bolting out of the coaching gate.

Once the Madness starts, Hield's touches and numbers will go way up.

Unlike the Eddie Ballers of the Okie Baller School, Hartman and Lon love to massively increase the touches for a guard they decide to ride.

Self is almost the opposite.

He will only ride a big man.

Even when he had Sherron, Sherron never really went much beyond 15 FGAs that first season he ran his own team. I would have given Sherron 20 FGAs down the stretch every game, and so would Hartman and Kruger.

But not Self he keeps it spread around, unless you are Simien, or Perry, on teams without much other firepower.

It is an interesting distinction.

And Self has won 11 straight titles.

And a ring.

@Crimsonorblue22

Does the per square inch cost of the tats go down as the total square inches of the tat goes up? If so the two non-coach's sons must have gotten some good deals.

@drgnslayr

Sorry about that. Some how I got it in my head you had walked on at KU and sat on the bench a year or so. My bad. I recalled most of your background as you describe it otherwise, but got that KU part dead wrong.

It will be interesting to learn definitively how this team actually does what it does.

It is quite remarkable however it is being achieved.

There wasn't much big man talent to begin with this season, and now with injuries and suspensions there is hardly any at all that would start at many D1 majors, and with Ellis and Alexander out, none that would even make the rotations at other Elite programs.

And some how, the Okmulgee Kid has won a title in a power conference, when the rest of the coaches could not get it done. Imagine this team with Baylor's, or Texas', or OU's bigs!!!

Or Embiid and Myles Turner. :-)

Winning a title with the front court talent is easily the greatest coaching accomplishment of his career.

I know Perry is good, but at 6-7 (non KU inches), he would probably have been playing 3 other places, so in a way he doesn't count as a true front court player.

Look at the rest of the bigs and tell me how he won a power conference title, except by inventing this ridiculously weird BAD BALL.

I mean Rick Barnes cannot even stay in contention with a full Nike stack.

And as good as Fred's offense looked at times, in the end they were just a bunch of trey ballers balling hot and cold.

Even Lon Kruger, whom I hold in high esteem, as a Hartman Okie Baller, and someone about as sharp as Self, could not take significantly more talent (even if not the OADs), and send up with a better round robbin record.

AMAZING!

@DCHawker

First of all, everyone is right to question my hypothesis of this team's version of playing the game.

All I can do is be as clear about what I am hypothesizing as I can be.

In the spirit of clarity, what you watched both halves of the games you refer to was BAD BALL, as I define it.

BAD BALL, as I define, is playing to shrink the impact space on both offense and defense.

BAD BALL can be played in any offense, in any formation within that offense, and within any set of actions within that offense designed to shrink the impact space at the point of attack. By point of attack, I mean the point at which the shot is taken.

Bad Ball is not defined by attacking the rim, though rim attack is part of Bad Ball. It is attacking the opposing defender on the way to the rim to try to force the defender into defending in a way that negates his advantageous athleticism, height, weight and skill, in whatever combination he possesses them.

It is the opposite of trying to create greater impact space to make a play in.

It is shrinking the impact space in which to create an impact in.

Frank Mason can drive his defender into a tight situation from 19 feet out in the high low formation, or he can call four corners and start 25 feet out drive his defender into a tight situation. Wayne can drive from 24 feet out on the wing, or he can take a feed on a cut at 12 feet and drive into his man 8 feet from the basket, or he can come into the block and take a bounce pass and get in tight on his man and go to work. BAD BALL is about taking the ball in tight on your man, rather than playing for a fade curl, or a fade away jumper, or running screens to try to get wide open looks. You are trying to deny the opponent the use of his athleticism in hope of getting a basket and or a foul and some FTs.

BAD BALL is counterintuitive to a lot of persons, but if you have played pick up basketball and had to go against someone taller, stronger, and quicker that you , you quickly discover you only have two choices. Either you have keep your impact space super sized and shoot far far out and away from him, or not at all, or you have to in and get so close to him that his height and athleticism cannot run wild over you and make moves that get him to commit that allow you to get a shot off.

One of the reasons @drgnslayr has been so frustrated by this team is that it is playing something quite like what he used to play, because he was usually shorter at his position that his man, at least according to him. He was like all short guys. He learned to get in close on his man, where his defender had to commit, and he used a variety of fakes to force commitement that he could drive around, or shoot around, etc. Why @drgnslayr has been so frustrated is that KU's players have not been using fakes. They have just been getting the ball crammed back in their faces. The appear not to know how to fake. I believe they have been being taught not to fake, but rather to take angles that draw contact. I believe the players do not fake for the same reason Self does not have the team running screens. Self WANTS our guys to get fouled, whenever they shoot. He wants all of their athleticism used to get a shot off AND get fouled.

I frankly don't understand the logic of what Self is doing regarding not doing faking. @drgnslayr's advocacy of fakes seems a great way to get a shot and a foul. My best guess is that Self thinks that longer, stronger, quicker, more skilled players can block fakes at this level without fouling. I am hardly qualified to take sides in this dispute. Both Self and @drgnslayr played college basketball in a similar era. Self now coaches it every day. @drgnslayr follows the game closely still and ought to know what can and cannot be accomplished with fakes. In today's game you see very little faking. Maybe it could work, but isn't being tried out of habituation. Or maybe there is something about today's athleticism that makes faking ineffectual. I just don't know, but in any case this is a bit of a digression into some of the arcanity of how BAD BALL might be played more effectively, rather than keeping focused on why what you saw in both halves of say the KU-WVU game WAS BAD BALL.

So: let me get back to the business of shrinking space as the defining characteristic of BAD BALL rather than what you do once you have shrunken it.

To wit...

You increase the impact space when you have superior height, weight, athleticism, and skill, because the more room you have to maneuver, the more opportunity you have to exploit your matchup advantage to the maximum. You want room to maneuver, if you are bigger and more athletic than the other guy.

You shrink the impact space, when you have inferior height, weight, athleticism, and skill, because the smaller the impact space is the less chance the superior defender has to use his superior athleticism to stop you without fouling you.

Defined and specified this way, you can "run the stuff" in any of the high low passing offense formations, including: 1-2-2, 1-3-1, 1-4, and 4-1. And you run ball movement passing, inside out, outside in, 3 man weaves, and 4 man weaves. In essence you can run what you saw being run in the first half of the WVU game attempting to create impact spaces that our offender then plays at point of attack by shrinking that space to deny the defender a stop with superior match up advantage and draw a foul.

What has confused board rats about the first half of the WVU game was how badly we executed. That first half is what BAD BALL looks like when we are "running the stuff" and executing BAD BALL poorly. We were executing poorly partly because we were having a mental let down from having won a share of the conference title the night before, and party because WVU's full court pressure and half court zone were forcing us into turnovers and confusing us about how to get to a point of attack where our players could shrink the space and either score or draw fouls. That was occurring, because Huggie is a very good defensive coach that apparently understands what Self is having his players do.

Self reportedly challenged his players at half time, to play tougher defense (which involved getting further into--shrink--the impact spaces in the WVU screen oriented offense), and on offense to view every where on the floor in half court as point of attack and to try to drive the ball on WVU first, rather than "run the stuff." Put another way, get into the formations we call, but then the minute you get the ball try to attack by driving it, or passing to someone who can.

But regardless of the half, and regardless of the different ways of attacking first and second half, the objective was Bad Ball. Shrink their impact space, whatever offense you are running, and on defense, stop just chasing them through the screen but shrink their impact space MORE once you get their.

I am not smart enough to know for sure, if what they did better defensively in the second half was responsible for WVU's sharply reduced scoring. I know playing defense this way tends to muddy opposing offenses up, but does not always make them shoot worse. I suspect it did not make them shoot worse. WVU is a crappy shooting team that has been very streaky all season against most opponents. It is not at all unusual for WVU to suddenly not be able to score for extended periods. What KUs BAD BALL defense does, though is muddy the opponent's offense up to the point that they HAVE to shoot it well, because they are not going to be able to use their athleticism on KU.

On offense, the adjustments from first half to second half worked very well, because WVU prides itself on playing aggressive, physical defense with a lot of contact. When KU started shrinking the impact space at point of attack everywhere on the floor and driving it, it created a steady flow of temptations for WVU's thug ballers to hammer and smash KU players. It was a repeat of what Butcher Barnes Butcher Ballers did the second half in the KU-UT game. And when teams choose to play this rough on the road, against players endlessly driving into them and shooting, the home whistle over time favors the home team, and as the fouls accrue, the butcher ballers either have to play more conservatively, which they are not well trained to do, or they have to keep fouling. If they keep fouling, soon we have a huge edge in FTAs and they are in danger of fouling out.

This is my hypothesis of what KU is doing, and why it looks so different than simple grind ball in prior years.

It is an expansion of to all players on the floor for KU of what used to be done by just one or two players. It is teaching what Sherron Collins, and then Tyshawn Taylor, became so good at doing, on the drive to the rim, not just to the guards, but to the whole team. Shrink the impact space by getting way in tight on the opponent. Don't try to get away from the opponent. This can be done at point of attack after the stuff is run, or by directly driving the ball into defender.

@sfbahawk and @HighEliteMajor

I see substance to both your takes.

I wonder if there term skill might be obscuring things.

What if not only three point shooting, but attacking the basket shooting were skills?

What if we were pretty good at both?

What if that were the choice?

Then the choice might come down to a tabulation of which form of attack offered the most net benefits.

THREE POINT SHOOTING BASED ATTACK'S BENEFITS AND COSTS TEND TO BE:

BENEFITS
~0-50% makes (based on this year's extremes)
~3 points for each make.
~an occasional foul and FTs
~more long rebounds for our good perimeter rebounders
~reduced offensive fouling on our best players
~less injury and wear and tear
~better trey shooting percentage in the first half of 2 in 3 day game sets.

COSTS
~100% to 50% misses
~More scoreless possessions most games
~greater dependence on perimeter rebounding, where our advantage tends to diminish as the opponent improves
~worse trey shooting percentage in the end of 2 in 3 sets and 3 in 6 sets.

NET BENEFIT INTERPRETATION

Three point shooting offers a much higher high and a much lower low, both because of the one point greater reward from a make and because of the much wider observed range of variance in percentage made. The effective shooting percentage, or effective points per attempt would offset some but not all of this variance, because of still lower low in observed three point shooting makes than 2 point shooting makes. The long rebounds exploit our good rebounding perimeter, but at a cost of in effect creating more stopped possessions for the opponent during the course of the game. These stopped possessions would be off set by more possessions where we scored three, but that edge would be diminished significantly simply by the opponent coming down and getting a 2 point basket, so that the advantage on that possession would tend to approach 1 point, and that one point the opponent could expect to tend to be made up on each possession that the 3 point shooting team missed entirely. In conclusion, the 3 point dependent attack, even with KU's very good shooters, seems a structurally volatile form of attack that good defense would struggle compensating for at the low end, and hardly be needed at all at the high end of thee point shooting effectiveness. Reduced wear and tear and injury would be a very significant advantage late in the season. All of this is wrapped up in a dynamic of better three point performance early in sets of games and worse performance later in sets of games, which in effect contributes to volatility. Also, because trey shooters are a limited commodity, it may be difficult to long bench opponents and maintain a high level of three point accuracy.

ATTACK THE 2-POINT BASKET BASED BENEFITS AND COSTS TEND TO BE:

BENEFITS:

~30-55% makes
~Lots of FTAs for a good FT shooting team
~a significant number of short treys
~quick attainment of 1+1 means more FTs
~Clock stopping which disrupts opponents runs
~accrual of fouls on the opponent, which makes his best players have to play less aggressively on both ends.
~Mostly short rebounds that our weak big man rebounders and good perimeter rebounders can grab, either when our stretch 4 pulls one of their bigs out and our other big successfully blocks out their 5 leaving the rest of our rebounders in the advantage for the rebound.
~about as effective in both games in sets of 2 in 3

COSTS:

70%-45% misses
~dependence on a favorable whistle which is rare on the road when road wins are critical to winning titles.
~short rebounds that our bad rebounding short bigs cannot handle unless the attack carefully pulls one big away from the basket and blocks out the other.
~huge wear and tear, and significant injuries, especially late in the season.
~a tendency to give up early leads that can be a struggle to come back from
~a tendency for close games regardless of the opponent being good or bad.

NET BENEFIT INTERPRETATION:

The two point attack the basket offense is something that minimizes that size and athleticism advantages of most opponents, holds down opponent runs, and is relatively less volatile in percentage makes, accrues fouls at home, and to lesser extend on the road that force an opponent with greater size and athleticism even on an effective percentage basis. This reduced volatility comes at a price, however, of closer scores even against weak teams. This means there is less margin for error and so the significance of floor game statistics of TOs and Strips and blocks become greatly increased, and these become even more significant on the road, where the home whistle further reduces the number of FTs and this cascades into letting the home team play more aggressively for more minutes of any road game. That increased aggressiveness translates to making KU turn it over more, and possibly strip less. So: this 2 point attack the basket based offense is best at home, vulnerable on the road, not as volatile relative to trey based attacks, less variable between games in a 2 in 3 set, and conducive to long benching, where effective attackers are often (but not always and not necessarily with this KU team) less scarce than trey shooters.

CLOSING REMARKS:

I do not wish to weigh that one or the other of you are right, because you both make your cases better than I can, and this is not a black and white decision. And I believe the fact that Self has played some of both ways this season before making his decisive move into BAD BALL with a stretch 4 indicates that he felt there were strong arguments for playing it either of the ways you two propose. I think Self chose the approach that he thought solid defense could help the most. And I think Self chose the approach the offered the best potential for compensating for KU's lack of size and skill in the front court, on off shooting nights. This does not mean that either of your approaches are wrong. It means Self was the boss, and after looking at both ways, and evaluating his sunk costs, and the costs of retraining, and which players he wanted to depend on most, he opted for Bad Ball with a Stretch 4, because it meant most dependence on Perry, Kelly and Frank. Playing three ball would likely have lead to increased dependence on Wayne and Brannen and Svi. And he decided if the call was close, and the bench was going shorten over time, and in big games in the Madness, on neutral courts, where the AWAY WHISTLE would be a diminished factor, Self would rather gamble on Perry, Kelly and Frank, and a less volatile attack that his Self Defense could be more of a difference maker.