Howling!
jaybate 1.0
10346 posts
The people of Winston Salem were almost ready to secede from the Union again, if he weren't replaced.
Thanks for the memory augmentation.
That I recall fondly. I am not a Tark lover. I just thought he was a great defensive coach.
Randall was a helluva player. One of my favorites. Boy could we use him this year.
I know the pain Buzzer, one of the high priests of the increasingly moribund Princeton, formerly head coach of Air Force, Colorado, and Wake Forest, places at which he hovered at mediocrity, or worse, used to assist in the NBA.
But after being away from the L for 9-10 years, coaching the Princeton in D1 weakholds, what can he possibly bring to an NBA team today?
Help me, help me, help me, I think I'm going insane.
Does he bring some rocket science QA ability, or what?
I am so glad you posted that tweet by Bill Self about Tark. Despite Tark's flaws, Tark was arguably the greatest defensive coach of all time. I always wondered if Self had met him and picked his brain, and he apparently did and Tark apparently treated him right. I don't recall KU playing Tark under Self. Did we? I sure would like to get my hands on some feeds of the games they coached against each other. They must have been defensive clinics.
If Tark were alive today...
"The NCAA is so mad at Kentucky that they are going to let Cal have 15 OAD/TADs on scholarship." :-)
Here is a recent story related to Dean Smith, Mike Evans and Jack Hartman. It is by Kevin Haskins at CJonline.com. It ran shortly after Dean Smith's death.
Here is the link.
http://cjonline.com/blog-post/kevin-haskin/2015-02-09/dean-smith-also-offered-assistance-k-staters ↗
My question would be: did Dean offer Evans to KU first? This story by Kevin Haskins does not leave an impression that he did, but it also does not assert anything one way or the other.
The thing I like about Tark is that he never channeled a player like Mike Evans to K state the way Dean Smith did. I also like that Tark never high jacked one of our coaches in a Final Four run. I also like that Tark never forced one of our coaches to recruit only half the country for 15 stinking years.
Other than that, I am cool with Dean Smith.
Wayne is coming off a knee injury and a remodeled shot on team without a center. It is tough sledding. Take away his hot Trey balling and no one would notice any improvement, but he is fighting through and should have a good season next year.
It is not easy sustaining the excellence Bill Self sustains. Just ask Kevin Ollie. UCONN is 15-9 , so he is guarantied a double digit loss season.
He definitely looked heavier. I'm not sure about height. But thanks for calling it to my attention.
At seventeen, it sure makes sense he might have another growth spurt.
Wouldn't that be awesome if he did?!!!!
I did notice that he is unfortunately still a step slow going over screens.
And his confidence seems kind of rocked.
But there was a player in their beginning of the season and that just doesn't go away, even when a player is going through some kind of a rebuild.
Let's keep our fingers crossed.
Okay, okay, it was just some jokes to get us ready for banging the Tub and getting us to Number 11. I apologize for ripping on the old home place. :-)
Fool's gold def., bread and butter
Inside move def., softness that gets blocked
Inside out def., fool's gold pass to the post
Trey def., gold
Outside in def., trifectation opening up the Pass to the post
Ball movement def., wasted passes instead of taking the Trey first
Offensive Rebound def., a chance to kick out for a Trey.
Defensive rebound def, a chance to transition for a Trey
Spin move def., what a 3 playing a 4 does when shooting on the blocks
Back to basket def., the way people used to play the game
2/3 2pt attempts and 1/3 3pt.attempts def., inefficiency
bolded text
A good game is building a 15 point lead with ten to go and spending the lead at 1 PPP to shorten the game and win by 5-10 with the opponent making 1.25-1.50 PPP.
At least this is a good game in today's game, where young teams have to play 40 games of defense and intense bodying for the first times in their lives. They have to play alot of 2 games in 3 days, and occasionally 3 in six. The season starts sooner, and runs later and finishes with 3 games in three days in senseless conference tournaments. Then good teams have to play March Madness stretching into April.
D1 is kind of NBA Lite instead of D1. Coaches and players are spending lots of time trying to conserve energy and play long benches and avoid high possession games frequently to keep gas in the tank for the Monday night game after the Saturday game, or what have you. And all the while they are doing this they are doing it with a bunch of critical contributors that have never been through the grind of even one NBA Lite season. And if you are lucky enough to have OAD/TAD grade players, those guys appear to be protecting the merchandize for draft day from the git go.
So: it just doesn't make sense to try to play balls to the walls, and a coach of OADs can't, even if he wants to, unless he takes a Nike stack of 9-10 OAD/TADs.
But there is another layer to this beyond NBA Lite and OAD/TADs protecting merchandise.
The game has come under the dominant influence of two really great coaches that believe in a highly controlled, highly efficient approach to the game descended from Henry Iba: Coach K and Bill Self.
They are coaching the game the same way.
They build leads and then spend the leads shortening the games to win.
Duke and KU both build sizeable 15-20 point leads and then spend the lead to win by 10.
Duke just played Florida State. Duke had 9 flippinging reputed OAD/TADs and walked away from Florida State, but then tightened it up, just like Self does when he has 3 OAD/TADs and is playing teams with none.
By the end of the game, Duke looks threatened by Florida State, who draws close, but can't get a lead.
Why? Because every time the lead gets under a certain point, Coach K, and Self, loosen it up and go to more productive offensive activity.
The coaches are dialing the action up and down the offensive productivity scale. Possession shorten when the lead gets thin. Benches shorten. There is more three point shooting, more transition squirts, more defensive pressure and trapping to force TOs and strips, and less playing to stretch possessions out longer at both ends of the floor.
Once the lead is restored, then they tighten it up again and begin spending the lead with lower productivity, longer possession offense, and less disruptive defense more focused on forcing the opponent into longer possessions.
When they are trying to build leads, they are lengthening the game into more frequent and shorter possessions.
When they are trying defend leads, they are shortening the game into fewer and longer possessions.
Duke could have blown Florida State out, but then Florida State would have been incentivized into putting Duke's runaway OADs on the floor, risking injuring them, same thing Self faces against B12 teams with no OAD/TADs.
If you let the lead narrow by lengthening possessions on both ends, it statistically increases the probability of you winning AND it saves the face of the opposing coach and takes away his need to get physical with your superstars.
It is not that we never have big wins. It is that they really only happen if we are shooting lights out in our tightening it up mode, getting a favorable whistle, and the opponent can't hit the broad side of a barn. Crushing oponents is not longer the goal of great teams. "Playing right," as Self said in stories yesterday, takes care of winning. Playing right now involves all of the things I have out lined. Playing right leads to building 15-20 point leads and then playing right leads to spending the leads to wind up winning by 10-15.
America is a different country now than it was 50-60 years ago. We don't declare wars and demand unconditional surrender any more, because we mostly fight asymmetric warfare, where we often have to resort to small foot print force structures fighting counter terrorist strategy with a lot of fighting dirty. To declare war, and to demand unconditional surrender in the nuclear age just wouldn't cut it. Unconditional surrender would often lead to nuclear war and everyone loses in that. So we fight counter terror warfare and we fight filthy dirty. And we don't want to declare war, because that would tie us to a lot of international and rules of warfare that would either prevent us from fighting dirty, or get all our leaders and soldiers charged and convicted of war crimes. So: we just don't declare the wars any more. And we don't try to win. We just try to convulse our adversaries into chaos, and keep them there for decades on end, and let them exhaust and defeat themselves.
Basketball isn't the same game it was 50 years ago, when John Wooden and UCLA sought to crush opponents with overwhelming force and win by 20 at the end. Seasons were shorter. The game was called tighter. Opponents couldn't resort to punking your superstars. Your superstars weren't always jumping in one season. Now most coaches just try to win and help the other coach save face, so he isn't provoked into calling in the Hurt Locker plays, or airing your dirty laundry.
Shoot the trey, transition when you can.
Build a lead, spend a lead to defend a lead.
Cal could have beaten KU 150 to 50.
He kept it 70-40, or whatever.
Don't let the close scores fool you, when the talent of the two teams is asymmetric.
The games aren't as close as the scores suggest.
Will Chollie be doing color for KU this season? As Self said, the guy can really hold court!!!!!
I thought Cliff was struggling with shortness outside till the team picture suggested he may be only 6-6 or 6-7. Whatever his actual standing height is he appears 1-2 inches shorter than Perry and that suggests he could have trouble in the L.
@globaljaybird and @RedRooster
I like to think these OAD relationships are negotiated before players arrive.
For 1 year half speed, you get 15-20 mpg.
For 1 year full speed, you get 30-35 mpg.
For 2 years half speed, you get starter but not go to guy.
For 2 years full speed, you get starter and go to guy.
The OAD and his advisors decide what he needs based on what his expected demand in the draft will be.
Things are renegotiated for the unforeseen by the end of the first season.
Cliff's draft rank seems independent of his performance just as Wiggins did. It can fall a few slots but not much and it only takes one 15 FGA branding game and 25 points and one recovers.
Oh, yeah, he was great one .
"Sweet dreams, baby
Sweet dreams, baby
How long must I dream.
Sweet dreamin' got me dreamin' sweet dreams
The whole night through..."
I have proposed it a few times back in early January when his migration out of the rotation began incrementally, but not in free standing posts, just in some remarks within other posts.
His parents reportedly came for a visit and since their visit, Svi has disappeared.
It could mean a lot of things.
What we know for sure, is that at 17, he is very young.
We also know that Svi could not shoot it well, when he was getting a lot of PT, and tapering off made it worse. His FG% from the floor is terrible, down in the low 30s. His 3pt% is only .333. Brannen and Devonte are sharply better at both, and Devonte can guard, and Brannen has improved from bad to shaky on defense, and has shot the lights out from trey.
Svi will probably get a look in Lubbock.
Broken record time.
As the conference lead dwindles, Cliff plays more.
As the conference lead widens, Cliff plays less.
Why?
To let Self develop Traylor and Lucas.
Traylor has to learn how to shoot it.
Traylor has to learn how to drive it.
Traylor has to learn how to pass it and catch it, if they are going to commit to 1-4 and driving to the blocks from the 1-4 formation.
Traylor is at the point that he has to do it in games for the team to move forward down the path of playing 1-4 a lot.
Traylor has to eventually learn how to be in the four man weave. And maybe a five man weave.
If Traylor can't cut it, then Selden's got to step up and be one of the four in the 1-4 (i.e., point guard out front and two wings and two high posts), or Self probably has to junk the 1-4 go back to the 1-2-2 and 1-3-1 and start running action to get shots.
Cliff's and Lucas' roles are set. They play on the block whether its the old 1-2-2 high low formation, or the old 1-3-1 high low formation.
Cliff's minutes have to be held down whenever possible, so Self can afford to get Traylor and Lucas as far along as we can get them before tournament time, and for next season.
Cliff sits when Jamari is trying to learn the outside role in the 1-4 formation.
Cliff sits when Lucas is trying to learn to play the 1-3-1 and 1-2-2 formations.
I just don't see any thing else going on.
Cliff is being a good teammate and going along with the program, because he's going pro regardless.
Not me.
For me, its gotta be Buddy.
P.S.: Buddy made everyone want to sing their own way from Lubbock to Liverpool.
(subsequent add for @JayHawkFanToo below.)
As I recall it, Waylon was born in Littlefield, TX mostly spun vinyl in Lubbock, and played joints part time and got picked up by Buddy's label briefly before the Iowa crash. Tried Nashville on, and then bounced around, Texas, but spent more time in AZ than Texas and finally spent retirement and died of diabetes there.
I don't recall Vernon, Texas born Roy ever being much of a Lubbock guy, having grown up in Ft. Worth and Wink, but almost everyone blew through Lubbock during and after Buddy briefly. He sang a little with Buddy, so he had to have blown through briefly. Odessa? Yes, briefly. But mostly he went Nashville and then late Traveling Wilburys.
Hoss? I forget where he was from. If you say Lubbock, I will go along to get along.
The NCAA has always seeded with an eye to eyeball catching match ups, and to salting the Final Four with Big Eyeball attractors.
In the last 10 years anyway, KU's experience has always been if it has one of the four best teams, then the NCAA is sure to load KU's regions with as much upset potential as possible.
If KU has a lesser team, then it always goes into a region with two teams ideally suited to beating KU.
Seeding has always been about ranking the teams according to goodness, and then leaving the ranking system loose enough to allow rationalizing seeding for good ratings.
Now that Big Shoe is apparently wagging the dog, the above has to be achieved while also apparently favoring the teams Big Shoe appears to stack. Hypothetically speaking, of course.
Just to be clear, some of us still think Self is brilliant and has KU in first place for the 11th time in 11 years. :-)
Mason ought to be All B12, but won't be. His slump will hurt is bid down the stretch. I suspect Forte will make it instead, or one of ISU's, or OU's guards.
Two KU players will come on strong on the back nine: Perry and Oubre. One will make the all B12 team and push one of your picks off. Not sure which one.
Other things equal, the objective of Big Media is to get KU out ASAP and to make absolutely sure it does not reach the Final Four.
Further, it doesn't matter which seed they give us, or which region they put us in, they are going to make us face a region with at least two teams with four 6-10 to 7-0 players.
UK, Duke, UA, Louisville and Gonzaga are those teams.
Depending on our final record and whether we win the B12, we will wind up in one region or another and we will have to play one footer stacked team to make it to the final of our region, and then another footer stack in the regional final.
If we get by these obstacles, then there is nothing else they can do, or would want to do, about keeping us out of the Final Four, because by then we would be good copy.
But they WILL do that.
And unless we get a lot better this month, avoid injuries and get hot in the tournament shooting the trey, we WON'T get by those two footer stacks.
This is Self developing Traylor and Lucas for next season, because:
a.) Cliff can already do what Self needs him to do;
b.) Self signed Bragg; and
c.) Cliff is leaving.
Cliff will play more now that our lead has shrunk.
And he will play a lot in however many games we have in the NCAA tourney.
The only thing we have to fear is flu itself.--Franklin Delano Roosebate 1.0
IAMCQ 1: What are persons that live in Lubbock called?
Possible Answerers:
a.) Lubbockites.
b.) Lubbockians.
c.) Persons without bus fare.
IAMCQ 2: What are persons that love Lubbock called?
Possible Answers:
a.) Lubbockisti.
b.) Lubbockophiles.
c.) Persons fond of Federal subsidy.
IAMCQ 3: When you visit another town and it reminds you of Lubbock, what do you call it?
Possible Answers:
a.) Neo-Lubbock-esque.
B.) Lubbock-like.
c.) Buchenwald.
IAMCQ 4: What do you call a party in Lubbock?
Possible Answers:
a.) a hoe down.
b.) a shindig.
c.) a contradiction in terms.
IAMCQ 5: What do Lubbockites call sustainable pumping of the Ogallala Acquifer?
Possble Answers:
a.) a desirable goal.
b.) a political agenda.
c.) a joke.
IAMCQ 6: What do persons from Lubbock call a basketball?
Possible Answers:
a.) a ball used in an indoor game.
b.) an inflated spheroid.
c.) an inflamed bull teste.
(Note: all fiction. No malice.)
Some times the way to know a place is list its opposites.
Lubbock Monaco
Lubbock Gauguin
Lubbock Frozen "Haute" Chocolate at Serendipity 3, New York City
Lubbock Dior
Lubbock Net Federal Surplus
Lubbock Olivia Wilde
Lubbock 1978 Henri Jayer Richebourg Grand Cru
Lubbock Bugatti Veyron
Lubbock Basketball
(Note: all satire. No malice.)
Leave.
My number one superstition of the don't walk under a ladder, or break a mirror, because it bad luck is this:
Don't wear helmet hair and follow Bill Self around!!!!!!!!!
Hooo haaaaah!
Great take. He has a fine shot. Comparable to Ben Mac's, plus his height makes him even more able to get it off. But if Jerry West could have an off night from 20-30 feet out, so can Brannen. Its going to hit. It is just a matter of when. The only possibility it won't is if we argue that his early shooting sucked, which it did briefly. Otherwise, the young man has to slump. It is part of the yin and yang of basketball.
Frank just finally slumped. Nobody gets through without a slump. Remember Tyshawns that started in the conference tournament and carried through March, even though he had been unstoppable all season? Frank has slid into his slump. It will go on a few more games. The good news is he will be coming out of it in March. The real problem is that Devonte is entering his at the same time. This is why I said Selden and Perry have to steady and save us now.
The TTECH game should see Cliff play more, and I suspect Svi will get thawed for a look to replace Frank and Devonte's slumping trifectation. Lots of Trey balling as Tubby Ball focuses on closing driving/passing lanes to basket and gives the Trey.
What we have to fear is Brannen's slump.
It's coming sometime.
Self views everything as a new problem to solve, a chance to get better.
He was actually happy during the late game at OSU. Ford had exposed a weakness that had nothing to do ith want to. Ford had showed Self the next crack to patch in his new way of outside inside out--attacking the block from outside, and Self clearly thinks some practice can spackle it. He wAs happy because he can fix it before madness, and that made up for losing. He can play Cliff 30 mpg anytime he wants. He knows that. He is experiencing the intellectual challenge of trying to win, while developing Traylor and Lucas. He would be bored after 25 years, if he didn't create these hoops to jump through.
Just read where Coach K has reduced his objectives to leading and teaching. Like Wooden he has shifted focus off winning. He is bored by anything but these two things and probably made sick by trying to win.
Great coaches have to create their own inner games to keep coaching the outer game.
Whether Cliff is going or staying, he seems completely happy with how much Self is playing him. His wear and tear and injury risk are kept low. His draft status stays high.
The pros get what is going on or they wouldn't still want him. This is the same deal as at UK, only Self is doing it without out 10 OADS/TADs. Same as with Wigs. Self is protecting the OAD/TADs for draft day in a couple months, or a year.
Another thread sometime, yes, but not this one. The man who contributed as much to integrating basketball to all persons, for all persons, deserves nothing here but our gratitude. You have to remember how much he had to lose in 1948 in Topeka, or 1958 in North Carolina, how many DID NOT do what he did, in the kinds of places he did it in, when he did not have to do it, to understand the esteem he is held in, by so many.
He endangered himself, his family and his career doing the right thing for his players, his profession, his schools, his communities and his country, at a time when he did not have to, and when many did not.
This takes the greatest courage of all, even when there is potential selfish advantage in doing so.
Doing good others fear they might not have the courage to do rightly earns respect and gratitude.
The way racism in America has always worked is by terrorizing good people among blacks AND whites into complying with its unfairness. For doing the wrong thing, for complying with the evil of discrimination, you get to live, and have a family, some kind of work and something to eat; less if you are black, more if you are white, For doing the right thing, you are threatened with loss of all these. Racism victimizes everyone in pursuit of asymmetric distribution of costs and benefits of human life for a few.
Dean Smith didn't go along, when a lot of whites and blacks were going along. What is so hard to remember now is that MOST good black and white persons in America never marched , or protested, or organized, or donated money. Most good persons--white and black--free road on those who did do those things. That is the ugly truth of all movements that have advanced the common good. Mostly a few have taken the risks and paid the price for the many.
It is not that he was first. He was not.
It was not that he was a leader of a movement, for he was not.
It was that he was an extraordinary ordinary man who simply acted honorably when it made a difference.
It was that he acted at all.
Rock Chalk!
Sometimes the good don't die young.
I had my bones to pick with Dean's treatment of KU.
But about his loyalty to UNC and his brilliance and contribution to the game, he stands out like the evening star.
He learned from a great one.
He became a great one.
He taught two great ones.
He schooled the game's greatest 2-3 swing man.
Rock Chalk!
This is a tough situation.
To be honest, I never played on a team that could not score back to basket on the blocks AND from outside. And I've never seen one that could only score from outside before. I've seen teams that struggled with one or the other, but I've never seen one that just gets shut off inside.
As the season has continued, I am beginning to think that what happened with Kentucky was not so much about Kentucky, as it was with us.
UK had four footers. Check.
UK had played 7 games before we opened with them. Check.
But we have trouble scoring on the blocks against second division teams sometimes.
Self has tried more different ways to score inside than I have ever seen a coach try.
He is on the right track.
But the OSU game exposed the very deficiencies of driving abilities that we thought were getting cleared up.
I think part of this has to do with limitations in our players, but also has to do with how young our players are.
I have said this before.
Each time we come up against a smart coach, and we are playing young players, he is going to find some holes in their games and scheme to stop them. In the pre OAD era, it could take players 2-4 years to work all the holes out of their games. In the OAD era, we are trying to expose the holes and plug them much more rapidly. So: as the season goes on, and we are developing the ability to play the way Self has blue printed us to play, there just ARE going to be MORE times in a season, when smart opposing coaches find chinks in our young players' armors, than say an experienced ring team like 08.
What I am trying to say here is that Self's plan for this team still seems a winning plan, despite our complaining about wanting him to do more of this or that.
We lost by 5 on a night when Ford figured out how to really expose and exploit our weaknesses driving.
Our guys will learn from this and get better. Maybe not great, but better.
And so the next time they play a team that tries to exploit those chinks in our armors, instead of losing by 5, we'll win by 5, or 10.
Its a process as they say.
Rock Chalk!!
I believe what we witnessed against OSU yesterday was a trial by Self, against a team he believed they could get away with an experiment with, attempting to "develop" Traylor for a role as an outside in attacker and Traylor not responding well at all (6 TOs). Bad as it went, I would still not be surprised to see a second attempt, because we are playing a weak team next. And here is why.
To play the high-low post offense, you need two post men that can do pretty much the same things in tandem. Traditionally, one post is the better low block player, while the other post is a better stretch 4 type. But Self recalls how tough KU was to guard when Kief and Marcus could both shot it from outside.
So: if KU cannot play inside and B2B with any of our post men this season, and the outside in game is The Tao this season, Self really has to try to develop two posts that can at least show an outside shot, AND drive it.
You are right that Jamari Traylor hardly seems a likely candidate under normal conditions.
But these are not normal conditions.
This is a Jarhead Jayhawk platoon in a campaign with no turning back, and no other apparent options.
Cliff might be able to do it, but Self would still need a back up.
Lucas can't even shoot bunnies, so he is out of the running even under emergency conditions.
Traylor has to be tried, just like a scrawny little guy to weak to carry a BAR in combat, sometimes has to pick one up and labor with it when everyone else has been killed, or wounded.
The idea I would like to see Self try is Wayne at 4, and Perry at 5, at least for 3-4 minute stretches.
I used to love Jim. Used to go to his joint in the Gaslamp District of San Diego. What an incredible talent and what a huge loss for him to go so young. His kid has carried on the legacy and added to it. RIP Jim.
If I were Self and Cliff were going to jump, and I had Perry, Traylor and Lucas returning, plus Bragg committed, but all the other OAD bigs possible but not probable, I think I would just play Cliff about half time, and develop Traylor and Lucas as much as possible for next season. If Cliff were to commit to next season, he would be playing 30 mpg. But the harsh reality of this OAD stuff is that OADs are using coaches and coaches have to use OADs. I just don't see anyway around it. Self has no choice but to deal in what appears to be the current system: adidas apparently cannot deliver OAD stacks the way Nike appears to be able to do. So: since he is not really in the running for most of the OADs bigs, he has no choice but to work with what he has. Who he has right now now are Ellis, Traylor and Lucas now and next year. He has Cliff now. Cliff is more productive, but if Self can use Cliff for 15 mpg to subsidize the development of Traylor and Lucas, he pretty much has to do it. We know that there is a way to use Cliff to make this team net better. It is not b2b. and it is not attacking from outside on the dribble. It is running him end to end and beating the opposing team's bigs for a few open seconds on each end. If he keeps Cliff fresh Cliff can do that at the end of the season AND Self can develop Traylor and Lucas for next year. For Self to do more with Cliff he would have to develop Cliff a bunch this season without a payoff next season. It is hard, but it adds up to me. Self owes a player nothing that isn't coming back. And what was Cliff's alternative? He was going to go to UK and play half time as a backup, too. For all we know, it was part of the deal of Cliff coming to KU that he would only play 15-20 mpg, same as it was apparently part of the deal for the OADs going to UK. It increasingly appears that OADs don't WANT to play 30-35 mpg their first seasons and leave it all on the floor. Injury risk is not something they want to take what with a certain pay check in less than 6 months, if uninjured. The only question in my mind about Cliff, however, is injury, or sickness. Every time they show close ups of him, his eyes look puffy and his skin color looks a bit odd. But the possibility of injury and/or sickness seems low probability. The more likely dynamic is Oubre has committed to coming back and Cliff has not. Oubre is worth developing and Cliff is not, or so it would appear. Once Bragg signed, unless Cliff were to commit to another year, what Cliff can give you without further development over the next two months (and he probably can't improve much over the next two months), he can give you whether you develop Traylor, and Lucas, with 20 of his minutes, or not. The productivity numbers indicate that Cliff would be playing if other things were equal. But as I have laid out above, other things are not equal. Self has gotten the team to 19-4 and in the lead of the conference, developing Lucas and Traylor and playing Cliff sparingly. To Self everything is increasingly about concentrating on winning, not on other things. If you can win with Cliff only playing 15-20 mpg and develop Lucas and Traylor for next year, you would be a damned fool not to do it, when you've got Bragg committed to replace Cliff. KU might have beaten OSU yesterday with Cliff playing 30 mpg, or Cliff might have gotten fouled up, or made more TOs than Traylor under pressure. We won't ever know that counter-factual. But what we do know is that KU had an off game, that it lost by only 5, that its still in first place, and that Traylor and Lucas got a bunch more PT and they both sure as hell need it, with Perry coming up soft again, Cliff apparently leaving and Bragg and other newbies probably needing half a season to get their acts together.
My guess is we will see Cliff's minutes go up sharply whenever KU's lead in the conference standings shrinks appreciably, as it just did, and shrink sharply when that lead increases. Just as Self spends leads in the scores of games to shorten the games, I believe he now spends conference leads with increasing player development minutes. You only need to win a game by one point. You only need to win a conference title by a half a game. Next season always has to be prepared for, as surely as this season has to be played.
It seems to me that Travis Ford kind of gets Bill Self in a way few coaches do. I would say Fran Dunphy does too. Always a good game even with less material.
In contrast, it seems Fred Hoiberg doesn't get Self so much as Fred can scheme things Self doesn't get.
Ford is always a pain in the neck even when we win.
He seems always to know what Self is doing to succeed with a team, find the weakness, and stick a needle in.
The second time around Trav knew to use Nash and Cobbins to take away our big man attacks from the outside and play our bigs straight up inside. This left our two point guards and Selden back where they were early in the season: no place to pass to. He puts three gnats on our 3 perimeter guys with no where to pass to, and, voila, turnovers flow like manna from heaven, because our point guards and Selden are not good improvisers. Game. Set. Match.
Oh well, Self just has to get better at Travis..
It's the end of my prediction,
As we know it.
It's the end of my prediction
As we know it,
And I feel fine...
--R.E.M.bate 1.0
😄🎱
Lost by 5.
18 TOs.
That is 18 times we didn't even get a chance to shoot!
DEFENSE STARTS WITH OFFENSE!
Even a great defensive team cannot get 18 stops to make up for 18 TOs.
TURNOVERS ARE OFFENSIVE STOPS.
@Jesse-Newell, your stats got you a solid prediction on this loss. It is time for spatial QA. It is time for some SPATIAL QA.
We need a TURNOVER MAP.
Where do TOs occur on the floor and let's not go there. Let's go some where else?
Are playing two point guards helping this?
Do we need to play 3 when another team goes small and pressures us, or just use one PG and go long and overhead pass it around the floor where they can't reach high enough to strip or pressure is into bad passes?
MAP....TURNOVERS....NOW....PLEASE!!!
I just lost my win out prediction.
The Emperor is buck naked and facing an angry @REHawk!! 😱
Map me a TO map, please!!!!!
😀
You don’t roller-skate in a buffalo herd.
You don’t shave with a rusty blade.
You don’t shine your shoes with barbed wire.
You hit a baseball injected with nitroglycerin.
You don’t bungee jump off the empire state building with a 10 pound test monofilament line.
You don’t play air guitar with running chain saw.
You don’t swallow scorpions.
You don’t suck on a firing machine gun.
You don’t clean your family jewels with a string trimmer.
You don’t push the button holding a nuclear bomb.
You don’t smoke and water ski on a gasoline lake.
You don’t try to jump across a black hole.
You don’t tell your secrets with a laser on your window.
You don’t sit your OADs if you want to sign more.
You don’t get elected President and print your own currency interest free.
You don’t lose the disruption stat on the road.
You don’t try to win games on the foul line on the road, because the refs will never give you a favorable whistle.
You never, never, never, never, never, never, EVER stop shooting treys when you are 1-7 in the second half on the road with less than a 15 point lead.
You don’t pull the mask off the old lone ranger.
And you don’t mess around with Jim.
Oh, and you don't try to limbo under Travis Ford.
Those are big don’ts I try to observe.
Now let’s list a couple things that weren’t the cause of the loss.
Rebounding was irrelevant at 35 a piece and even on offensive and defensive rebounds too.
Shooting 52% from the FT line was not the problem. Had KU shot 70% from the FT stripe, it would only have made 3 more free throws and that would still have left KU down 67-65 at the buzzer.
Shooting 40% didn’t help but it didn’t guaranty the loss. Darby O’Gill and the Little People shot about the same.
What killed us was making six more TOs and getting 4 less strips, and playing to win the game on the foul line on the road and instead getting 7 less FTAs than OSU.
Why was getting significantly fewer FTAs such a big deal?
Because we could have been shooting treys with those possessions.
But those are just the things we did wrong.
The question is why did we do them wrong, when we didn’t have to?
Self went into the Iba tabernacle and began to feel guilty about playing “outside in;” that’s why.
The ghost of Henry began taunting Self.
He said, “Man-up and play us inside-out, or you are not one of my disciples.”
And so Bill manned up and ended the outside in game that worked so well.
And lo he played inside out.
And knowing his bigs could not play Nash and Cobbins that way, he tried to win it by getting into the one and one.
But it did not work, because the referees gave OSU all the calls that all referees give all home teams, when the road team is trying to play the way ghosts want them to.
But to put the game into perspective, playing exactly the wrong strategy for fully one half the game the team only lost by 5.
In a backhanded sort of way, that shows how much better than OSU KU is. OSU could not possibly have lost by only 5 playing exactly the wrong strategy even at home.
But such metaphysics get us no closer to an 11th title.
Time to think next, steal a win the next gam on Tuedsay, and begin planning for trying to win games sick with flu in 7-10 days after exposure to Forte.
Next.
The weave, including the new 4 man weave, is "outside in," the way I use the term, but the term is still young and evolving, and wrapped up in Selfian "Both-ness," as I will try to make clear subsequently.
Anything where the ball goes inside (to the blocks) first to collapse the defense to defend a high percentage inside shot is "inside out," again, as far as I can discern.
Anything where the ball is shot BEFORE it makes it to the blocks, or is driven to the blocks, or is passed to a player cutting from outside to the blocks for a shot, is either outside in, or a hybrid of outside in and inside out.
I qualify my definitions here, because, so far, "inside out" appears to be a term of art from Bill Self's basketball terminology. And he has not specifically defined it in the media for us, as far as I recall. I had never heard "inside out" used before he did this season, though I recall all the way back to my childhood coaches teaching to pass the ball into the post, collapse the defense, and look to pass it back out to an open man, if the post man could not get a shot off.
I don't know if "inside out" is widely used in college basketball, or not. Self doesn't define these terms, so that is left up to us. Perhaps some of our fellow board rats that are out coaching in the trenches, or otherwise associating with today's coaches and players, can fill us in.
Interestingly, I do not recall "outside in" being used publicly by Coach Self, until AFTER we here at KUBuckets.com had been using it to describe what we thought KU ought to start doing instead of playing "inside out."
I believe that use of the term "outside in" started with me, or @HighEliteMajor, here on KUBuckets.com, but hardly precludes the possibility some other board rat here used it before either of us. It seems to me that it was a term I coined, but I have learned not to be certain of such things. Language is a living, fluid thing and word emergence is particularly prone to simultaneity at times when groups and activities are experiencing what seems a period of significant crisis, or change. When we get new emotions, think anew, and get new words from interesting persons like Bill Self, and new insights get triggered, each one of us begins needing new words to think and write with to describe the new way of looking at things. It is a most natural phenomenon for humans, for thinking and language go hand in glove for we humans.
Further, even if I, or someone else here, coined the term "outside in," it also does not mean any of us necessarily coined it before others elsewhere did. We can say we coined here for sure for our usage. But it may have been a term of art for some time with Self and other coaches and players and just never used in public by them, until, perhaps coincidentally, after we here began using the term here.
All I can say is:
a.) I first recall hearing "inside out" from Self in a story, or interview, earlier this season, when talking about "who we are," and how we were going to play regardless of our lack of "standing height;" and
b.) I recall thinking I, coined the term "outside in" to try to give a name to what @HighEliteMajor had been reasoning for sometime Self ought to do, and what I believed Self had started trying to do. But he might recall an earlier usage of outside in than me and I would trust his memory more than mine at this stage of my life. :-)
@HighEliteMajor will probably be able to shed light on things, as he seems to be much closer to those that are actually playing and coaching the game today than I, an old fuddy-duddgy, am. I am all fan now. He probably has a sharper short term memory. And perhaps, if anyone actually were curious to clarify this point, @approxinfinity, or @bskeet, could do a text search of our stored content and find the first usage of "outside in," or "outside-in," two ways that I have written it, and that others might have.
I have no vanity or sense of possession about the origin of the term "outside in," only an intellectual curiosity about etiologies of words generally within online communities and in interaction with mainstream media and coaches and players.
My recollection is that @HighEliteMajor had most of the season been posting about the short comings of our strategy of playing inside out and that his reasoning dated at least back to the Stanford loss early in the tournament last season, and possibly some before that.
My recollection is that I came to be interested in thinking through and trying to understanding this issue of basketball strategy of play first by Self's discussion of "inside out" as his preferred way of playing, then in response to both the problems KU was having trying to play this way, and particularly from @HighEliteMajor's on going and insightful discussion of how we might alternatively be playing through our three point shooters much more productively.
At some point, I joined up with @HighEliteMajor on the issue of initiating offense with treys from outside, and not going inside first at all.
Next, I leaped outside the box and briefly reasoned that the potential productivity edge of the outside trey was so great in time the outside trey would come to be the way to attack first all the time. I then shocked and appalled even fellow outside-the-boxers by reasoning that KU ought to shoot not just start attack with more treys to start more possessions, but on ALL treys on every possession!
At that point I crossed the threshold of being a three point crank! :-)
But I am very confident that basketball will migrate to at least 75% of offensive possessions with the first shot taken being an outside 3pta, and that once there there will be experimentation with 100% of offensive possessions commencing with treys. The more the shot clock is shortened, the more the tendency to initiate shooting with treys will occur.
But @jaybate 1.0, you are asking about right now, what about the damned weaves that I asked about in the first place?
Well, I wanted to lay all that out, so that there was a specified terminology and context to fit the significance of the weave into.
Until this season, the weave was Self's answer to the need for outside "action" (i.e. designed plays) to get guys an open look either outside in a pull up jumper, or on a drive it inside to the rim. The choice was the players and the coaches and the choice depended on the circumstance. If we needed a trey, the weave was run to get someone a look outside. Who took the shot depended on which guy in the weave got the first open look and the first good matchup from a switch by the defense. If we wanted to get a high percentage inside look and a possible FT that would stop the clock and hang a foul on one of the opposing players, the player searched for the open look outside, but the moment a defender over played the outside, one of the guys on the weave drove the lane to iron. This weaving all involved out perimeter players, our 1, 2 and 3 men. And it could occur either after the ball went into the post or not, but it tended to occur before the ball went into the post, and in situations where there was a lot of pressure being put on outside. Thus, it tended to be "outside in" play, but at a time when Self had not to my recollection talked publicly about "inside out," or "outside in" ways of play. This notion of the weave and this context held for say, 2008 to last season.
But in 2014-2015, Self was faced with what he called a deficiency in "standing height," which was being partially masked by saying guys were taller than they were. I say partially, because even their exaggerated heights (KU roster inches, if you will) were indicative of a standing height deficiency. Then Self's concerns became empirical outcomes as good teams, and bad ones, on the pre conference schedule began blocking and altering our players at unprecedentedly high frequency.
Self responded to media queries by insisting that KU had to learn to play "inside out," even though we were didn't have a lot of "standing height," because "inside out" was "who we were."
But over time Self's short bigs inability to score efficiently inside, and his teams rising proficiency with trey shooting, lead Self into more and more trey shooting, and more and more initiating the offense not point to wing to post, but point to wing to point to back side wing for a trey, or even just point to wing for a trey.
And then Self started pulling first one post man out to two feet beyond a free throw lane elbow and taking taking just enough treys to enable driving in which the ball never went to the low blocks until it was driven their on the dribble by the one big.
Next Self brought both post men out to 2 feet beyond the elbows part of the time and shots were taken without the ball ever being passed into the blocks. The formation began to look like 1 point guard out and 4 players--two posts and two wings--on a transcept spanning the court about 2 feet beyond the elbows of the free throw lane. This was an old offensive formation that my high school team ran one season, but it ran on the principles of the High Low Offense, not on the old timed action of my high school team offense. It ran like Fred Hoiberg's offense at ISU, but was easily morphed into and out and back into the traditional 1-2-2 high low offensive formation for switching modes between playing outside in as the 1-5 allows and inside out as the 1-2-2 allows. It can also morph into a 1-3-1 which is the formation of the High Low post offense most familiar to most fans, and what can be run either against man2man, and what is always run against zones.
But the key here is that the "outside in" mode of attack (shooting before the ball is passed into the post on the blocks) began to take precedence because necessity was an inventing mother, to vary the cliche.
And so Self found himself inventing ways for his short bigs to start attacking outside either: a) with a trey; or b.) with a drive to the blocks to condense the defense, after which a kick out could at lest theoretically occur and be called a variation of playing "inside out," rather than always "outside in."
But then with the short bigs increasingly operating outside and with Perry especially being highly mobile (in effect a 3 playing out of position at the 4, when on the blocks), it occurred to Self to include Perry into the weave. He ran a few 3 man weaves with Perry in the games before the second ISU game to get Perry used to doing it.
Then in the ISU game, Self pulled out the 4-man weave with Perry in the weave, because he is already outside and the team is trying to figure ways to get him the ball for attacking the blocks and the rim from outside anyway.
So: now the four man weave is an integral part of the "outside in" approach to play that has evolved this season.
But one has to realize that part of "outside in" play is varying between taking the outside trey, and driving into the block for a face to the basket inside shot. And Self thinks of this as a way of playing "inside out" with the abilities of our current short bigs.
The coolest thing about the 4 man weave is not readily apparent, but here it is as best as I can explain it presently.
The three man weave has always been about shaking perimeter guys loose for an outside look, or a drive to iron. It never really forced the opponent's bigs to chase. They might have to help differently, but they never really had to leave the rim and slide and chase.
But now with Perry running in the weave, the opponent never knows whether what is being created is an action for perimeter guys, or for a big, like Perry. Thus they HAVE to send once of their big men chasing and sliding, and the weave can then force not just guards to have to switch, but guards and bigs to switch, which create create an enormous MUA for Perry.
THE FOUR MAN WEAVE IS A WAY TO BEAT A TALL TEAM, BECAUSE IT PRIES AT LEAST ONE OF THE TALL TEAM'S FOOTERS AWAY FROM THE RIM.
And when the opponent is left with only one footer at the rim, then we can challenge him to commit to stopping a driver, and dish off to guy that can get to a rim with no rim protector!!!
If Self can get Jamari, or any other big do develop a credible trey, or even just an 18 footer, Self could go to a five man weave, and completely wear down the opposing team's pair of footers!!!!
I doubt we see the five man weave, unless Self goes maybe one play really small with Perry as the 5, and Frank, Devonte, Wayne and Brannen on the transcept, but that bunch could not guard a pair of footers on the other end.
The killer discovery however is for the future: find two mobile post men that are truly 6-8 to 6-9 that can shoot trey, to go with a 1, 2 and 3 that can shoot the trey, and run the five man weave and traditional footers, even a four man Nike stack of them, can be run into the ground, and actually become a disadvantage.
So: to distill things, Self has retained the high low post offense, added formations that allow our short bigs to line up outside, and either shoot from outside, or run and jump at the blocks to accomplish an inside game that keeps teams from overgrazing our trey shooters, AND now frequently goes into outside in mode to shoot first without passing it inside to a post man on the blocks. Finally, the weave is expanded to a four man weave that enables us the option of either shooting it outside first, or attacking the block first, with either post men, or perimeter players.
This puts Self in the position he has always preferred: take what they give us.
Create space with ball movement and weaves that avoid congestion, and force opponents to commit to stopping us outside, in which we choose inside, or to stopping us inside, in which we choose outside.
In the end, we will play take what they give us, and if they play us straight up, we will try going inside first with passes to the post on the block, and if that is ineffective, then with attacking the block from post men moved outside.
At some point these two forms of attacking at the block, force the opponent to try to take away our inside attack, at which point we go outside in full time until they choose to take that away, and then we go back inside.
And when we can, we squirt out in transition for a basket.
Whew! Sorry for going on so, but it was the best I could do right now.
Howling!
It feels like a game day here for sure!
KU Basketball has room for all kinds of sites and we all need to be friendly.
AND...we all need to be grateful for our gracious fellow Jayhawk fans that put this site up, keep it going, and give us a place to cheer from in the way we like to cheer.
Rock Chalk!!!!
🙌 A Maser, some well placed clouds ✈️and a humidifier might also do the trick without ever moving the coffin?
Amazing what Leon Theremin started.