🏀 KuBuckets Archive

How to say this?

When Bill Self sees a looking glass, his idea of a good time, at least eventually, is walking through it.

Well, its not as simple as that!

He likes to try what is supposed to work a good deal, whether it works or not.

Gotta make sure its not just a learning curve obstruction.

But at some point what separated Old 82% Bill from the other 82% coaches with Nike stacks (e.g., Cal and K) and the 75% coaches with and without Nike stacks is that at the moment that everything seems hopeless from having tried what is tried and true but NOT working, Bill (and his coach’em up staff) see the same looking glass every one sees—the one that says look here nothing is working and its because you just can’t do it this way—and Bill says, “Look here, fellas, the looking glass is a map pointer into NEXT.

What Bill does that is so different from other coaches is that he creates some space around the looking glass, and then explodes into it. It looks like it would just break, but instead it turns out to be somehow porous, like a cell membrane, or maybe like clouds allusions Jonie and Judy and might recall. I know I’ve looked at clouds that way sometimes.

Anyway, he passes through the looking glass, like some big broad shouldered, white Pukka with a whistle and Nike apparel, in Alice’s basketball wonderland (he’ll even go down a few rabbit holes if it will work) and when he comes out on the other side what appeared an insurmountable weakness is now a somewhat mystifying, but strikingly effective strength.

To wit, when his standing height challenged, but nontheless still very athletic, team becomes the 98 pound weakling of college basketball by the start of the second week of the conference season, and derided by all for being blocked more than any team in the Self Era, Self after trying pretty much every other known remedy to being blocked in basketball history, finally says something approximating, well, being blocked isn’t so bad. It creates a situation requiring athleticism to respond to and our short guys are more athletic than their long guys.

On first hearing, this sounds like someone saying, “Someone hitting your left hand with a hammer is not so bad, because you are better with your right.” It is just not what one is hoping for in the form of a solution. But damned if it didn’t work for our guys in this situation.

They went and got nine, count’em, NINE shots smashed back in their faces, and played the best game of basketball I have watched a KU team play, against a talented opponent, for several years.

Self’s Jarhead Jayhawks, as I increasingly like to call them, reacted a bit like Marines reputedly do, when encountering adversity. Well, they’ve got our asses pinned down here and were getting the shit blown out of us. Now we can kill the bastards.

This is not war.

But it is basketball.

And teams do find themselves in seemingly impossible situations that they HAVE TO surmount if they want to survive.

Self’s guys attacked.

They attacked when the got blocked.

They recovered and attacked some more.

They didn’t stand their and exchange punches.

They didn’t fight fair.

They went on the move.

They ran the floor like they had never run the floor before.

Our bigs—the tiny Sherman’s of this season’s D1 basketball—lots of them, but thinly armored, small gunned, and with only speed, mobility and numbers on their sides—went against the big Panther and Tiger tanks of Texas, and out ran them and out attacked and out hustled and finally overran their enemies.

The team began to view being blocked as a tactical weapon. You have to force them into blocking you into order to be able get them to leave the flipping rim uncovered for someone else. We’re not trying to get blocked. We are trying to attack the basket to force their rim protectors to commit so we can pass it to someone that can then get the satchel charge, er, ball into the pill box, er, basket.

There is sacrifice involved.

There is sharing.

Through the looking glass is a “team” playing as a “team.”

It is not an entirely rational process.

Human individuals are not born sacrificing for team.

They do not grow up sacrificing for team.

They cannot simply be told to sacrifice for team.

They cannot be made to understand strictly through words and video and practice that sacrificing for team is the only way in any collective activity.

Great half time speeches, constant harping, endless repetitions, don’t really forge a team.

Loving each other does not create a team.

Teams are born through the crucible of adversity.

Great teams are born through the realization that there is no other feasible path to where they as a group of individuals desire with every fiber of their being to go.

Great teams do not necessarily have to get the snot beaten out of them and to become great teams.

But many great teams with seemingly glaring shortcomings have required to get kicked around, humiliated, and driven to the breaking point before not only they, but their leader, are forced far enough outside their comfort zones that they finally find a feasible path, a critical path through the crisis of a band of individuals and into a team with a mission and a way to achieve it.

Self finds looking glasses.

Self walks through them.

His players follow.

Teams emerge.

Great things are done.

We are fortunate.

@approxinfinity

They've got to get to two!!!!!!!! :-)

KU BENCH 31,

UT BENCH 8

Also...

KU 3PT DEFENSE 15-18

UT 3PT OFFENSE 3-18

TEXAS' VAUNTED OFFENSIVE REB.: 24

KU OFFENSIVE REBOUNDING: 24

(NOTE: EVEN ON TOTAL REEBS, TOO)

KU FT%: 78.9

UT FT%: 73

TEXAS +5 ON BLOCKS ERASED BY TEXAS +6 TURNOVERS.

KU +6 ON STRIPS

THE ONLY STAT KU COULD NOT MATCH WAS CHEAPS SHOTS. UT AS USUAL HELD A HUGE EDGE IN CHEAP SHOTS.

WHERE DO YOU WISH YOU'D GONE NOW, MYLES TURNER?

KENTUCKY BE FOREWARNED....YOU'RE NEXT!!!!

@wrwlumpy

Please post it in on the pics link.

@JayHawkFanToo

Thanks for weighing in.

@drgnslayr

HOWLING!!!!

Going to get a new keyboard!!!!!!!!

@drgnslayr said:

Heck yes! Along with an OAD Senate!

You're waaaaay hot today!

PHOF 2.0

@JayHawkFanToo

That's great to hear that weed use is down in the NBA. I would have thought there was some additive you drink that would mask it in your urine and blood samples. But I think its great for the guys to stop. They will have a life time to smoke pot if they want after the game, and by then they probably won't want to anyway. My special interest thing is: it is a bad thing to do to your lungs on a regular basis. Its supposedly as bad as cigarette smoke for you, and I have lost two loved ones to hideous deaths from cigarette smoking. I am way against those bastards that built their fortunes in part on my family's lungs. I haven't lost anyone to pot yet, but its only a matter of time, I reckon, before those stats start surfacing, too. A little tar goes a long way in a human lung when injested in one's teens.

Off soap box.

On game.

@drgnslayr said:

And building all of those presidential libraries every two years would surely spark the economy!

PHOF!

@Kubie

Good thought. Maybe I should start adding a note at the end of my attempts at humor...

(Warning: comedy can be hazardous to your sinuses. Do not drink and read. ) :-)

@VailHawk

Yes, but it is this way for all fathers of anything. :-)

(Note: I just saw this over on CJONline under an @Jesse-Newell story and thought I better post it here.)

MEMO FROM THE DESK OF BILL SELF

TO: JNew

FROM: Bill Self, Head Basketball Coach, University of Kansas

Re: Requested Retitle of Hawkzone web page for KU coverage

Jesse, it has come to my attention that CJOnline.com calls the page that lists all stories about KU "The Hawkzone."

Use of the z-word might be okay for other programs you cover, but I think you know how Mr. Iba and I feel about the z-word.

I would very much appreciate it if you would request that the web page be renamed to something more fitting with our basketball philosophy here at Kansas.

My recommendation would be "The Hawkman2man."

Thanks in advance.

Best regards, Bill Self.

(Note: All fiction. No malice.)

@drgnslayr got me thinking about Kelly Oubre's and Cliff Alexander's performances vis a vis UK's hyped frosh.

(THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT, SLAYR!!!!)

Oubre and Cliff have taken major heat for slow starts and for supposedly struggling.

UK's hyped frosh, on the other hand of public relations, get nothing but testicular licks and sphincter kisses by the submissive national media. Let me upper case that: TESTICULAR LICKS AND SPHINCTER KISSES!

This fecal-oral fawning over UK by national media has gotten to the point, where I suspect that the spouses and significant others of major broadcasters will not suck face with their mates without insisting they use some kind of CDC-approved, Ebola Hot Zone-grade, anticeptic mouthwash to prevent sudden kissing death syndrome from all the private places these broadcasters have been sucking up to.

PUHLEEEEASE, as the pre-dead Joan Rivers used to say, CAN WE TALK?!!!!!

I eyeballed the numbers for mpg, ppg, and rpg today.

The numbers are so close--plus or minus 2 mpg, 2 ppg, 2 rpg--that if you index for the different tempos, KU's frosh and UK's frosh would probably be producing about equally.

OOOH, MAKE ME WANNA HOLLER, Marvin.

I know, I didn't go all KENPOM. I just eyeballed it. I didn't take the fifth derivative and grind it 10 decimal places. I was too infuriated.

And get this: here in standing upright reality (as opposed to down on all fours national sports media reality), Oubre and Cliff really have been playing not so hot...THINK ABOUT WHAT THAT IMPLIES ABOUT THE UK FROSH FOR A SECOND.

Oubre and Cliff haven't been playing so hot AND THEY'RE TEMPO-ADJUSTED NUMBERS WOULD PROBABLY BE JUST ABOUT THE SAME AS UK'S FROSH!!!!

And the KU and UK season RPIs are comparable.

And UK plays in that weeny basketball conference called the SEC!!!!!!

Quick, I don't even have to kiss the suck-ups and I want the mouth wash.

GIVE.....ME....THE....MOUTHWASH!!!

Get up off your hands and knees, national media.

Brush your flipping teeth.

Take off the latex undies, the nipple clips and the blindfolds.

You look ridiculous in this season long submission session with Master Cal in his size 30 Marlon Brando Wild One motorcycle outfit from B&D Costumes'R Us and his Gang of Not-So-Dominant OADs.

Olivia!

Help me here!

The bend overs in the national media need some proper power transference.

Throw on the Cat Woman Suit.

Oil the riding crop.

Teach these national broadcasters a lesson about objectivity they'll never forget.

Next.

Svi is impossible for me to read right now.

Great shooters don't shoot this poorly...unless there is an injury.

I don't see an injury.

His parents visited and it was reported they told Coach Self he is kind of up and down in his personality.

Great shooters with as many opps as he has gotten finally make them.

He hasn't.

Last game he came in and was so wild he smacked one off the backboard unintentionally and made it.

Great shooters don't do that.

Something is going on with Svi.

It could be the culture shock and living without being able to speak in your mother tongue for the first time. He is only 17 they say.

There are lots of things it could be.

But there is no more talk coming out from teammates, or coaches, about what a great shot he is.

Something is up.

He looked hellaciously good out of the blocks--like a can't miss phenom.

But then it all vanished.

Twilight zone stuff.

Until further notice, I am going to say I don't know and I don't get it.

@JayHawkFanToo

Very sad about Beasley. He was a great player for awhile. Maybe injuries caught up with him. So many guys in the NBA play at a high level on weed that it probably wasn't that. Still, I will never understand the attraction of the weed among great athletes that need their cardiovascular efficiency. Smoke in the lungs is smoke in the lungs, no matter what kind it is. Very hard on the efficiency.

@drgnslayr

The President is like every KU fan. He has gotten burned by some of our early exits and he is going through some fan dissonance we all go through.

But here is the thing!!

In addition to discharging his political obligations at Anshutz Pavillion, he went to see the team and Self. HE DID WHAT ANY TRUE KU FAN WOULD HAVE DONE. He tried to meet them and make sure they knew he believed in them, to make sure he had done everything he could to help them get in the right frame of mind to beat Texas now, win conference later, and make ring in March!!!!!!!

I will bet you any amount of money that President Obama late at night, or early one morning, when no one but a Secret Service guy is around, puts on Wayne's jersey, throws on his favorite hoodie, goes to the White House gym, and has his own private shoot around, where he whispers to himself, OT, KU tied 80 up with Kentucky, 4 seconds to go, National Final, Selden shakes loose and catches at the trey stripe from 28, 3 seconds, pump fake for @drgnslayr, 2 seconds, trigger top of jump 1.5 seconds, arch, swish, buzzer...confetti flies and fans rush the floor.

The ball rolls quietly across the baseline.

He turns and high fives the Secret Service man.

"Time for the meeting on the Tarim Basin."

@BentonASmith

If?

When.

Next.

I really liked the pic of Clinton and Dole with our team posted by @approxinfinity. I hope someone has a pic of President Obama with our team. I vaguely recall one with Dubya, too. And then there are the ones with celebrities. My only request is that the famous person, politician, or celebrity be pictured WITH one, some, or all of our Jayhawk coaches and/or players at a KU basketball function, not just pictures of famous persons sitting in a field house seat, or punching golf balls around a celebrity fund raiser, or buddy hugging at a concert. A celebrity sitting at a game in the field house is just like any other fan. They got a ticket and went to see what it was about. Nothing special. What I hope this thread to be is a small gallery of public figures that have made an effort to be with our coaches and/or players, for whatever their reason. And I don't want any belly aching about their politics, or their morality, or religious persuasion, or who they sleep with, or what they ingest, and so on. All famous persons have their selfish reasons for wanting to be seen with our Jayhawk basketball players and coaches. I am interested in such pictures of them being posted precisely to create a chronology of such appeals, on the one hand, and on the other a gallery that overtime shows that those appeals are inconsequential and that it is the living myth of KU Basketball that lasts and perhaps redeemed them slightly in the same small way that it redeems the rest of us slightly that participates in it. Having listened to many celebrities public comments and heard about private comments of one or two second hand, I believe that these famous folks come to these meetings, and photo ops to get something, but are often touched for the better in some way themselves, by experiencing the living myth of KU Basketball. KU Basketball is not on the way to anywhere secularly consequential. The state has its wealthy king pins and its geostrategic and geopolitical importance, but you don't have to visit KU Basketball to exploit those. Visiting KU basketball is rather like making a pilgrimage to a monastery in Tibet. It is NOT on the way to the halls of power. They tell themselves they are being clever from a public relations standpoint, or their handlers do, but deep down they know they are coming to touch something real, something alive, something they can't touch in Washington, New York, LA, Chicago, Chapel Hill, Raleigh, Bloomington, or Lexington. They have all been to those places. They have played the exploitative sports photo op many times. The picture @approxinfinity posted elsewhere that I have taken the liberty of using to start this thread captures perfectly what I am discussing. This is not Cal and Drake and Lexington. This is happy monks in Tibet that know and live something that two strange visitors from afar have come to experience outside the spotlight. It is different than going to the other basketball programs around the country, or other sporting events, or political and charity fund raisers, or infrastructure spade turnings, or evenings honoring "X", or posthumous tributes to dead somebodies , or celebrity roasts, or chicken dinners for grass roots organizing. There is a there there to KU Basketball--a living myth. It is bigger than the famous persons. It wants nothing from them. It will go on happily after they have gone. It is a reality and experience the famous cannot get elsewhere. Camaraderie without anyone wanting something from them. You can see this showing through the diabolical cleverness and world wearyness of expression underlying the smiles of two men who have played the game at the highest level for a long time and have the scars to prove it. They are the brilliant, searching wanderers in the presence of those in touch daily with what the wanderers realize has just been kindled, or rekindled in them--an awareness that there really is something good left with no end beyond itself. You reach out to it, even selfishly, and it reaches back. We cannot change the world with KU basketball, but we can change a few of the people in the world that do change the world, when they are willing to come to us. Maybe it won't do much good. But it might. Put their pictures here.

!dole_robert_13_t640.jpg ↗

@Lulufulu

This is such a great question and it will take me some time to respond. But I will.

@mdm7eb

Thanks for responding. I had no idea any history departments had a sports history focus. How great is that!!!! Will they take a aging Ph.d. candidate addicted to aricept and KU basketball? :-)

Totally agree about cultural history's illuminating aspect.

Go for the triumph of capitalism angle, but as someone that has read quite a bit of economic history, try to recognize that capitalism has been evolving along three tracks:

1.) from a diverse producer market capitalism to an oligopoly producer market capitalism;

2.) from globalization 1.0, to Regionalization 1.0; to Globalization 2.0; to Regionalization 2.0; and

3.) from an owner centric-capitalism to a management-centric capitalism.

If you track the evolution of sport down these three simultaneous tracks from about 1890 to present, you will have a very informative book.

Sneaker Wars I read.

@wrwlumpy

Seems kind of a non sequitur. Did I miss something?

@wrwlumpy

Howling!!!!!

American Hoops: U.S. Men's Olympic Basketball from Berlin to Beijing (2009) by Carson Cunningham

This is the best non muck raking basketball I have ever read by several orders of magnitude. This is the game's Rosetta Stone.

Cunningham played college basketball and in the CBA.

But more importantly he got a Ph.d. in history at Purdue and an MBA at DePaul, so he has the research, writing, and business administration research skills to research, document and write about what he was caught up in as a player. I learned more basketball history in one chapter of his book about the 1964 Olympic team and an extended discourse on Hank Iba's career in the game tha in all the other basketball histories I have read.

He writes clearly. He knows exactly what matters and he miraculously went to the horses mouths that knew who did what when and where. Just his discussion of Phil Knights' Stanford graduate school research, awareness of knock offs of adidas shoes in the orient, trips to Japan looking for a cheap way to produce a shoe, his discovery of a Japanese company with a patent on a suction cup sole already making the shoe with the cheap labor he envisioned, and his alliance with that company, help put Big Shoe in a vital new legacy perspective.

Carson Cunningham has made a huge contribution to the game.

Click here for a summary of what else Cunningham has written.
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3116150.Carson_Cunningham ↗

@joeloveshawks

Wayne.

I know he has not had an OAD/TAD career so far, but the injury last season, and the recovery this season, combined with what I expect will turn out to be a combination of over-coaching and a slump this season, have kept him from playing like one.

But the guy is an absolute stud waiting to happen. It is hard to say when it will all come together for him. Tyson Taylor went from a serviceable 2 not asked to do much his freshman year, to a sophomore slumped 2 his sophomore season, to a bungling and incompetent point guard in on floor training his junior season, to an absolutely superior point guard his senior year.

When things get fouled up, it is harder to get them back on track and harder to predict when they will get back on track. But Wayne has shown these flashes of brilliance last season early and once this season that cannot be denied. Self apparently has not unlocked the mystery that is Wayne Selden. We haven't either. But when guys can do amazing things sometimes, and have NBA bodies like Wayne, or unprecedented speed like TT had, a coach has to take a deep breath and decide whether he can afford to commit to the long march of finding out how to birth the player into an every night monster. It can be a long, bumpy unpredictable ride as Tyshawn proved. It could be a long bumpy ride for Wayne, too. But before the knee injury last season, Wayne was a site to behold--a diamond in the rough.And after the injury, he was still so good he could start and play for a team that won a conference title, even on a bad knee.

I think Self has to go with Wayne at least 25 minutes a game, even with his problems, because the upside is so huge.

Devonte is progressing so rapidly that he might shortly be taking 20-25 minutes from Wayne. Wayne could get sideways for awhile. He also has Brannen breathing down his neck with his trey gun. Both Devonte and Brannen are very, very good. But Wayne is a load for a 2 guard and loads like Wayne don't come along often. If he could ramp up his performance 15% he would become the quintessential Self combo guard.

He is playing about as lackluster as he can now offensively and he is still a cornerstone of a Top Ten team in first place in its conference. Imagine how good he has to be to be able to play this poorly and still have the team accomplish what it is. Imagine what the team will become, if/when he finds his game.

But time waits for no man, when he has bonafide competitors all around him.

1. Guys over-corrected to the point of over-thinking.

We saw this last season with Andrew Wiggins. There came a point where Self said he had to let Andrew be Andrew and quit trying to make him a more emotional player. Andrew began playing more and thinking less about how he was playing. We see it repeated with Cliff Alexander. Self is a perfectionist from the Henry Iba School of Perfectionism. Its a hazard of the coaching style that in "coaching'em up" you can foul them up to the point of not being able to do what they ARE good at, too. We are probably near to an admission by Self that Wayne Selden may have to go back to his old shooting form, and quit thinking so much, also.

1. Unreported injuries.

This recurs like that feed you posted of Self pounding the advertising board during the OU game. Tyrel Reed goes inexplicably from a 46% trey shooter his junior season to a 38% trey shooter; then it surfaces he needed a bone spur removed surgically from his foot. EJ's outside shooting falls way off his junior season, then we find out he has a shoulder separation. EJ's mobility falls way off his senior year, then we find out he has not recovered from his knee surgery. Kelly struggles early, then we learn he has been wearing a knee wrap hidden under knee lingerie for months. Cliff struggles then we find he has sore legs. Now, Jamari suddenly falls waaaaaaay off from his recent uptick in performance; now we learn he has a hip flexor injury.

Though we live in a probabilistic, even quantum reality, at certain realms, effects still have causes. :-)

@globaljaybird

Well said. Bevo it is!!!!

Really, I think there is a lot to be gained for the game and KU Basketball to sort this out.

The game is in transition from a sport governed by rules of late 19th Century amateurism ethics to something new. That seems the whole point of the NCAA's move to autonomy for the Power 5. It is quite possible that what has been going on in the background relative to agency and agent runners was a proper thing to have been going on along and that it used to work fairly efficiently, i.e., without such great asymmetries, and that it is only during a perhaps awkward and uncertain transition that these asymmetries are resulting. It is possible that the roles of agents and agent runners will rationalize, normalize and standardize in coming years into something they should always have been. I have no idea. But until we figure out how the system works, we can hardly understand what to support and what to discourage.

Regarding the AAU coaches and juco coaches, they should, conceptually at least, be no different than high school coaches in the potential for positive contribution to players development in basketball and in life. Unless the incentive systems have some how been forced underground and compromised, how can AAU coaches and juco coaches be anything but positive contributors to the game?

Agency in Hollywood has gone through many phases where certain talent agencies got incredibly powerful and began to broker such a large shares of the talent that they were able to gouge quite a bit out of the participants. They could make, or break, persons careers before and after they became stars. But these agencies have over time equilibrated in a handful of big agencies, plus hundreds of small ones, rather than 1 monopoly agency, or hundreds of fragmented agencies. There seem to be certain equilibrium tendencies in scale that emerge over time that reconcile more than just the greed of one agency, or one production company.

I suspect college basketball is caught up in one of these kinds of fluctuations as college basketball seeks to reorient itself to a new kind of amateur status more indicative of the forces and revenues feeding into the game.

But we have to know what the heck is going on, before we can advocate for the best interest of KU Basketball.

Rock Chalk!!!

@globaljaybird

If I recall correctly, a New York newspaper--not the NYT--maybe the Daily News--ran a sports page story about Norm having struggled to sign local players because of some local summer game and juco coaches finding him uncooperative. I recall it was linked and discussed some at that "other site."

Anyway, I want to find out how this works, so that KU can start getting a competitive share, if this is the way it has to be and its legal and in conformity with the college basketball rules and regulations. We have this marvelous coach and coaching staff. And we want them coaching on a level playing field if we can.

And right now I can't even figure out what is causing the asymmetry, much less how to solve it.

@jayhawk-007

My take is that Cliff's problems are a constellation.

He had early injuries.

At some point Self committed to this green team running an offense as complicated as what a normal veteran team runs. That overwhelmed a lot of players, but particularly Cliff. It took him awhile to deal with information overload.

When they tried to get him to stop fouling, they and he reigned him in so much that he quit being as aggressive as he needed to be.

Then other coaches studied his game footage and schemed to stop him with his weaknesses. It worked.

The length and intensity of the season began to hit him as he has now played as many games as a usual high school season. And AAU games are just show cases, not rigorous team activities.

Then Cliff just got overwhelmed and demoralized from the cumulative stress.

I don't believe there ever was any attitude problem.

There was an a confusion problem and a stress overload problem.

When Self sat him, it broke the cycle.

It was not really a punishment, rather it was throwing a circuit breaker to reset the system.

He will play more and better, but there will be more backslides too.

The more he plays the more the opposing coaches can find his chinks in his game in the game feeds, and scheme against them.

Each new chink discovered requires some adjustment. Some adjustments are easy to make quickly, while others can take time.

All in all, Cliff is really not very far behind what everyone should have expected of a 4 being asked to play 5 in his first season of D1 on a team without a bushel of OAD/TADs to help him out.

At KU, Cliff is one of three OAD/TADs, and if he is going to play, he has to be one of the cornerstones of the team. That requires a lot of savvy, good fundamentals and reasonably good health. They are going to scheme against you when you play with only two other OAD/TADs. IT makes it very tough to develop, when they are paying attention to you even coming off the bench.

At Nike-UK, Cliff would have been one of 11 OAD/TAD types. When he came in the game, no opponent would have been able to scheme against him in particular. He would have just had to do what he was already good at, play the 4, and play some AAU dribble drive for awhile, and depending on how well he did, jump, or come back for one more season of the same and then jump.

But at KU an OAD/TAD has got to be a cornerstone to play. He has to learn a ton in a very short time, because he is only one of three OAD/TADs.

The advantage to coming to KU is that Cliff really is going to be a much, much better basketball player at the end of this season than he would have become at UK, whether or not his season averages in all the numbers show it or not. It will help him in the pros, when he gets there.

Something triggers Nike-UK to have a reputed 10 OAD/TADs, while adidas KU and Nike MSU appear to have less than half that number.

Something triggers Nike-Duke to have a reputed 9 OAD/TADs, while adidas KU and Nike MSU appear to have less than half that number.

Rick Pitino's recent reputed comments suggest that agents and agent runners have something to do with it, and that he reputedly understood the NCAA thinks there was nothing wrong, so he did not either. But that doesn't really explain the mechanism of what makes it happen.

Norm Roberts reputedly got forced out of St. Johns, because, at least I recall, that it was reputedly reported in a NY newspaper that he would not play ball with some summer game and juco coaches. What playing ball meant was never made clear as I recall.

So: let's collect certain agents and agent runners, and certain summer game coaches and juco coaches, into a category called "hypothetical triggers of recruiting asymmetry."

I can kind of see how this hypothetical category might "enable" recruiting generally. If they get to know and be trusted by players, players and/or their families would likely get to know and associate with them in order to find trusted summer game teams, trusted college programs, and later trusted agency and endorsement relationships.

What I cannot understand is how this hypothetical category would trigger these recruiting asymmetries noted above and others.

How does this system work?

Is there an organization--formal, or informal--that is bringing an order to recruiting that is triggering recruiting asymmetry?

Notice: I am not assuming anything illegal is going on. I am not asking for any explanation that hinges on illegality.

I am assuming that things are legal and in conformity with the rules and reguations of college basketball.

I am only looking for a legal explanation that is in conformity with the rules and regulations of college basketball.

I have considered the hypothesis that Drake and general recruiting hipness and facilities have converged to trigger the recruiting asymmetry. But that hypothesis does not explain Duke, which Drake does not seem a fan of, and whose coach is never described as being incredibly now and nutty. So: I have had to reject that hypothesis.

I have considered the hypothesis that it is just coincidence. But coincindence does not explain the steady trending upwards in Nike-UK's recruiting, and for that matter in Duke's recruiting. Variance is not the same as total coincidence.

I have considered the hypothesis that it is driven by location in an eastern standard time zone. But that does not explain all the teams in the eastern standard time zone, some with good coaches and traditions, that get the same level of recruits as Nike-UK and Nike-Duke. Location is rejected.

I have considered the hypothesis that it is PetroShoeCo brand driven. This does not explain why so many programs with the same PetroShoeCo brand as Nike-UK and Nike-Duke do not have similar large clumps of OAD/TAD recruits. I have to reject the PetroShoeCo only hypothesis.

Someone help me here?

Probably old news to Kansans, but when you live away sometimes you catch on a little later.

CJONline.com's Sherman.Smith, a political news reporter, is doing a live blog from the Anschutz Pavillion for President Obama's speech to be delivered there this morning on campus. Interactive cometh, baby!!!!!

I just asked Sherm to see if he could get JNew to sit in and deliver real time Political QA!!!!! :-)

There will be a live feed of the speech also.

Live blog link (works same as JNew's):

http://cjonline.com/blog-post/sherman-smith/2015-01-22/live-blog-president-obama-speaks-university-kansas ↗

Live Feed Link (speech doesn't begin till 11:20am Larry Time):

http://cjonline.com/news/live/obama ↗

Gotta be on good behavior. KHP and OlathePolice posting on the live blog, so it feels surveilled. But that's no different that police officers being at a game, or speech. We are a nation of laws. So: we have law men.

Also, lots of photos from around the campus, which is kind of fun.

@KU62

Agreed. U r now our free throw coach!!!!

Jerrance, you're like two votes. Call Jenny.

Its tough on the road--I could cruise missile Bramlage; that would be one less road game, right?

Kurtis, don't even think about Michelle.

Norm, say the word and those summer game and Juco guys in the triboroughs...they go on my executive action list.

Fred, hair club for men...NOW!

Bill, I am glad you are hiring all these African Americans here, and Michelle is amped about your woman weight coach, but where are my people--the Democrats?

Bill, I need the number for your rug man. 'shelle says I thinned out.

Hey, you guys need a jock washer next season? I could send you my resume.

I could recruit Chicago pretty well. And I eat half as much as Snacks.

I got some big oil base too. How many OADs ya need?

Any 8 foot rims around here I can dunk on? My springs are from my mom's side.

Yo, CBernie: Lemme know if you need some cover on that Chapel Hill thing.

Think a Prez can get a shoe contract?

Bill, this inside out shizzle...it's gotta quit.

I post Biden up every morning on the White House court. I own him five and in.

Bill, tell my man @drgnslayr I hung some metal on the White House rims. He can bring Perry in any time.

Hang an L on McConnell's Wildcats in March, and I'll give your whole staff Presidential medals.

That point guard, Frank Mason, he can ball.

(Note: all fiction. No malice.)

@wissoxfan83

I will...

ask Zenger to blackout ALL the KU games then force myself to watch Duke reruns.

release Olivia Wilde from her moral obligation to attend another KU game wearing nothing but a see through letter sweater.

register Republican and attend a human hunt club fund raiser for Jeb Bush thrown by Dick Cheney.

enter the Convent of the Immaculate Clank and change my name to Sister jaybate 1.0.

get a job at a fast food stand and put strychnine in the drinks of persons driving cars with Missouri Tigers stickers in the rear windows.

get my hair cut like Bruce Weber; then create the part with an M-80.

get man-boob implants modeled off Bob Huggins; then run naked through Burning Springs, West Virginia, shouting, "Robert Lee and Karl Marx once spent the night together."

join Melvin Weatherwax for a stalk on the wild side.

get my shins surgically shortened so I can see eye to eye with Travis Ford standing on T. Boone Pickens shoulders.

trade all of KU's OADs and TADs to Kentucky for Ashley Judd without make up and an agent runner to be named later.

watch endless loops of a feed of Scott Drew and Kenneth Starr having a threesome with a bear.

lock myself into a sarcophagi for premature burial with Melissa McCarthy AND Oprah.

watch more clanks.

(Note: all fiction. No malice.)

@KUSTEVE

Also, don't forget to take in "Still Life with Longhorn"!!!!

It really made me feel good composing it. :-)

@KUSTEVE

Glad you could make it. @drgnslayr and I have been having a thoroughly irreverent late afternoon and early evening!!!!!

@JayHawkFanToo

So hope you are right!!!!!

@wrwlumpy

Yum Yum!

Burn me a thick one, Lump!

!LH.jpg ↗

Self vs. Self:

He had this season with the flipping Marines coming to talk to the team.

This has been the hardest year ever for me to keep up with him--to figure out what the heck he has been trying to do. This is the most complex, sophisticated job of coaching he's ever done at KU.

He won me over when he decided to make this team learn and run as much offense as a veteran team. Clifford has suffered the most because of this choice, but The Big Red Dog is finally starting not to look like a second semester Ph.d. student paralyzed with information overload. He is going to be a load when his brain throws off the circuit breaker and resumes firing normally.

Self won me over hitting the sign vs. OU. I wanted him to hit that sign. I liked every hit. No man can coach on this complicated a level without getting deeply frustrated. He has had find more interim fixes and wait for more late blooms, and see more early blooms die, and has had to make do with more guys that weren't anywhere near ready than any other two years combined. This years incomers make Wiggins and Embiid last season seem like ten year NBA veterans about game savvy.

But god do I love this team NOW!!!!!!!!

@Lulufulu

You are right to be very concerned about all those you mention.

For some reason, WVU concerns me the most, even though I know they were recently blown out and have suspect shooters.

Every one of the teams you mention could tattoo us in their own places, if Kelly's FT% and FG% keep trending down, or if when Frank hits his slump, which he really hasn't had, or if Cliff gets handcuffed by opposing coaches before he can really get untracked.

But what I have been trying to point out is that KU's real Achilles Heel--its lack of height inside, may not really be exposed in conference play the way it was in pre conference play. The Big 12, except for Texas, is about as short this year as KU, luckily for KU. And bottom line we probably do have more good players than other teams, and so we have to start thinking about this in terms of Texas and 8 other teams our size.

And if we get Perry, Cliff and Kelly playing well together, that means we can probably handle the 8 other teams home, or away, if our young players keep playing smarter on the road.

What I like so much about having played ISU early is that our freshmen and sophomores that have never been in D1 rotation combat before got to see road conditions as bad as they get in Ames. This means our young players no longer have to go through the shock of the new. They just have to learn to deal with the known.

Also, we have reason to think Cliff becoming a force inside will have a ripple effect with Perry and Kelly and Wayne. If Cliff were a threat inside, then the guys guard Perry, Kelly and Wayne would have to honor the pass fake inside, which would make it a lot easier for all three to take and make treys BEFORE the ball goes inside. This would allow us to play outside in more reliably.

I realize you are right; that it is very tough even for a seasoned KU team to go into the Octagon of Rheum and get a W. But if Cliff were to suddenly be able to bank with KSU's big man, plus run him end to end, then I think the rest of our players are good enough to go in their and steal one.

But here is the thing: what I am saying hinges on Cliff having the wheels stay on. It hinges on Kelly putting his wheels BACK on. It hinges on Wayne breaking out of his slump. It hinges on Frank NOT going into his slump BEFORE Kelly and Cliff get it going. It hinges on Branden continuing to guard a little better each game and continuing to be a reliable shootist.

A month ago I was predicting a 9-10 loss season with probably five conference losses, a loss in the B12 tourney, and a loss in the Madness fairly early.

What I am really saying here is that for the first time this season, I have begun to see a way to getter done.

It is fraught with peril.

It would take incredibly effort by these guys based on having finally found themselves and strongly resenting how much sand they have had kicked in their faces.

But I can see the path.

And walking it has more now to do with becoming better at what we now are, rather than still searching for what we are.

Rock Chalk!!!

@drgnslayr

"Yeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
--Oedipus, after putting his eyes out

But howling!!!!!

@drgnslayr

You have just given a kind of concerning thought.

The Big Jayhawk at center court does have large SHOES!!!

Would Zenger, or anyone else dare sell the rights to the Jayhawks shoes to be repainted as a shoe brand?!!!!!!!!!!

I mean, what if KU were offered $10 Million for the Jayhawk's shoes to be painted some shoe brand?

HOLY COW, SLAYR!!!!!

No other school really has a mascot with SHOES so prominently displayed and the mascot so prominently displayed at center court.

Having a shoe brand on the Jayhawk's shoes would be like non stop advertising for 40 minutes of game time and probably another half hour or so of breaks.

Imagine what the might be worth?

@wrwlumpy

I admire your linking of my sickness, with anger and broken LCD advertising screens.

Well done!!!! :-)

@Careful-you

I admire your paradoxing technique of juxtaposing "sling it" with "uplifting."

Well done!!!!!!! :-)

@drgnslayr

ALIEN PALEO-HUMANOLOGY REPORT: star date 3001

TO: Zeldar, research project director, paleo-humanology

FROM: Beldar, field researcher

EARTH DATA MINING SUMMARY: voice recording found in subterranean salt mine data storage installation under once inhabited paleo human city called Salina, KS. voice transmission sourced to paleo human life form from extinct subspecies--hom0 basketballis coacherator. Subject name: Rick Pitino. Subject assertion: paleo recruiting pool for ancient game of paleo basketball was shrunk for a time by some unexplained lower life forms called agents/agent runners/summer game coaches.

COGNITIVE ANALYSIS: HYPOTHESIS--SHOES-->BLACK MATTER-->RECRUITING ASYMMETRIES

BLACK MATTER: HYPOTHESIS--->AGENTS/AGENT RUNNERS/SUMMER GAME COACHES/JUCO COACHES

PALEO CULTURAL APPROPRIATENESS LEVEL: UNKNOWN.

CONFIDENCE INTERVAL-->INSUFFICIENT DATA

End of transmission.

:-)

@RedRooster

Absolutely this was entirely about basketball.

@KUinLA wasn't sure we watched the same game. ;-)

That HAD to be established beyond a reasonable doubt, before further discourse could be possible about the KU-OU game. :-)

How about you @RedRooster? Do you think the NCAA and KU Basketball should be concerned about the role of agents, agent runners, summer game coaches and juco coaches with regard to what Rick Pitino reputedly remarked upon? And with regards to what reputedly happened to Norm Roberts at St. Johns possibly recurring at other places in college basketball?

@KUinLA :-1:

Come on, were we watching the same game or what?

I am pretty sure we were. :-)

Also, Agents, agent runners, summer game coaches and juco cocaches--what do you think? What's their role in recruiting? Are they anything for the NCAA and KU basketball to worry about?

@KUinLA :-1:

Perhaps you really do not understand which game I was watching. That is most unfortunate, since the post was written in the hope that anyone that made a good faith effort to understand it would be able to. I am stricken with a sense of having failed you. Hmm. What to do for you?

Ah, I've got it. You require a bit more specificity. To wit...

The alias @jaybate 1.0, witnessed virtually the KU-OU B12 conference game of Division I NCAA basketball that tipped off at 8:00PM EST, 19 January 2015 CE (that would be Common Era) on James Naismith Court (that's the wood basketball floor KU plays on) in Allen Field House (that's the building KU plays games inside) in Lawrence (that's the town KU is apparently circumscribed by), Douglas County (that's the county Lawrence is in), Kansas (that's the state that Douglas County is in), 66044 (that's the U.S. Postal Service zip code that Allen Field House is within), USA (that's the constitutional republic that the state of Kansas also with a constitution and a bicameral legislature is in) at the following coordinates:

Latitude: 38.9553221
Longitude: -95.2529378

These coordinates are on the planet Earth, @KUinLA.

Earth is the third planet out from the Sun (the sun is the star at the center of our, well, at least, my solar system).

The Sun is a G2 main-sequence star that contains 99.86% of the solar system's known mass and dominates it gravitationally. It is a massive object in a state of hydrogen fusion reaction that emits light (among other emissions) which have characteristics of both waves and particles. Note: never look directly at the sun, @KUinLA, but trust me it is always somewhere over your head in the day time.

This graphic may help you with visualization of which game I was watching by locating it within the inner and outer solar system.

!solarsystem.png ↗

(Reference: I got this from a wikipedia page at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_System) ↗

Don't worry about the Oort Cloud, or the orbit of Sedna. These are not essential points of reference to grasp which game I was watching.

Of course, the solar system is located in Local Interstellar Cloud, Local Bubble, Orion–Cygnus Arm, Milky Way Galaxy; and that would be in the known, reputedly expanding universe.

The known, reputedly expanding universe appears to cosmologists to be a subset of what is theorized (dissenters might argue hypothesized) to be an entire universe.

There is some debate about whether the entire universe is a one off deal, or one of several universes. Things get pretty speculative at this point, but that's okay, because this ought to give a pretty unambiguous understanding of which game I was watching.

Regardless, this is the best I can do for you, @KUinLA.

If you still just can't understand which game I was watching, I just don't think I can help you see it.

Now, what game were you watching @KUinLA? Some interactive online game called: HOW AGENTS, AGENT RUNNERS AND SUMMER GAME COACHES SHAPE RECRUITING IN D1? :-)

Just joking.

So: were we watching the same game?

:-)

@Shanghai_RCJH

A couple thoughts:

Wigs played 2/3s speed to protect the merchandise, and still approximated Kelly going balls to walls.

Kelly's effectiveness is falling fast as coaches realize he cannot make FTs and so are roughing him up to crater his three point stroke.

Kelly is vital to our team's improvement. He is pivotal. When he played well for a stretch teams could not scheme solely to stop Perry. Kelly's activity levels on both ends make other guys do more too. He is a natural leader.

But if he doesn't make his FTs, they will rough him up more and more and his Trey percentage will keep falling and that will close down his inside game and KU WILL STRUGGLE.

Frankly, Kelly desperately needs Cliff inside and Wayne backside to step up and taken the pressure off him.

Regarding Wiggins, he just was/is a monster talent--off the charts. But his dad has apparently taught him to conserve his talent to make it last. So: we never saw more than half what he could do.

Even in the pros he is holding back to minimize wear and tear and injury risk.

Only when he makes it a round or two into the play offs will we ever see what he can really do.

Talent wise, he is on another planet than Kelly.

But I like Kelly on my team way more, because Kelly playing full speed is almost as good as Wigs at half speed, and Kelly makes everyone better because he is aborn leader, and Wigs is not.

KU's Achilles heel is low standing height. Fortunately, the B12 is short. Outside Texas, and maybe WVU, KU is plenty big to hold rebounding edge or be even every game with Cliff coming around.

KU should win out in the short B12 based on the following: three OAD/TADs, plus an all league point guard, plus a swing 1/2 good enough to start, plus a stretch four, plus all this shooting, plus solid rebounding, plus the new found ability to build a lead outside in and defend it inside out.

No one else has three OAD/TADs. As the the season wears on, they become bigger and bigger advantages. They start weak, but improve MORE than other players. On the back 9 they should be an insurmountable edge. Fred was right to short six us in Ames, because our OAD/TADs will be too good by the back 9. Selden is in a Brady Morningstar sized slump, but with an NBA body defending top dog on each opponent. He will be post slump on the back 9 and an every game MUA.

No one now in the B12 has a better PG than Frank. It's not that Frank is head andshoulders better. It's that he is the equal of the others and getting better. By the back 9, barring further injury, fuggeddaboutit.

No one now in the 12 has a better 3rd combo than Graham. Greene by the back 9 will be the best 4th combo. He may already be the best trey specialist. Svi looks lost now but could become the best 5th combo on the back 9.

Few teams in the B12 have stretch 4s, much less ones as experienced as Perry. The guy can trey ding! Put it on the deck. Spin on the low block. And grab his share of boards. What he can't do is be a beast, or handle double downs. But with Cliff now playing properly motored, the burden to beast is lifted and the doubles will lessen. Traylor is also slumped and will bounce shortly. Opposing coaches stopped his new drive game and his dobber is down. He will be given a new move and cheer up soon. Traylor is limited, but is big enough for the B12.

KU really does have more Trey balling firepower than most in the B12 and Trey balling is the key to building leads. Self can now put 4 credible trifectates on the floor at a moments notice. Infantry in trench warfare inside defends leads. Aerial acrobatics on the Y axis are necessary to deny air superiority to opponents but are not finally how leads are built and games and campaigns are won. Three point artillery and some transition create the leads against all sizes of opponents that can then be defended in the trenches.

KU out rebounds most in the B12. A solid defensive team with good artillery and +5 on the glass should win most games.

Finally we shoot FTs well.

We have looked bad because Kelly and Cliff were completely unprepared to play well and take pressure off Perry, and Wayne lost his pop and slumped. Perry is a good player, but not good enough to excell without help. He has some now and should get steadily more. He has also learned to keep scratching, when he can't score.

No one else in the B12 has this many pieces. No one else has played as tough a schedule. The Big 12 is like swinging one bat after swinging two in nonconference.

TEXAS may clip us once with height, if we don't shoot well; that would be 16-2.

But I think we sneak by them on a big effort from Cliff; that's 17-1.

Remember: this is a team that has had sand kicked in it face several times. It hurt them bad. They are going to love dishing it out. They won't get overconfident for quite awhile.