HighEliteMajor said:
Fear the refs.
PHOF!
jaybate 1.0
10346 posts
My feeling is Loyola, like Wichita State, should be in D-II.
They don't even warrant smack.
HighEliteMajor said:
And he didn’t even say thanks for Milton Doyle.
This is so PHOF!!!!
Double PHOF!
I want what you want.
But there would be quite a log jam in the paint, if Doke, Silvio, and the Lawsons, and whatever other bigs Self has signed were to fill the roster next season.
One dream I have had lately is that this log jam scenario does occur and Self responds by once again doing the unexpected.
My dream is while everyone else is following the recent trend that he too jumped on of 4-1 sets with rosters crammed with trey ballers that Self instead goes to a 1-4 with four bigs playing on the floor at one time--each within one to two dribbles from the rim on offense. One point guard just feeds these guys all game, by lobs, or by driving and dishing amidst the forrest of big trees. KU's FG% goes to an unprecedented record of 75% and KU beats every three point shooting team it plays by an average margin of 15 points.
On defense, this super team of 4 bigs plays a stretch 1-3-1 zone with the two wings blocking all threes taken within 25 feet of the basket; thus lowering all opposing team's trey shooting to about 25-30% from beyond 25 feet.
For good measure, Self rotates his two 5-star point guard recruits to keep them running full tilt and fast breaking with the Lawsons every chance, while Self occassionally rests both and goes long at the point with Lagerald Vick or Marcus Garrett.
But its only a dream.
(NOTE: this fake commentary was written AFTER Loyola beat KSU and demonstrates one possible future scenario of sports commentary.)
As the KSU-Loyola game approaches one is tempted to ask: which would be the greater Cinderella Story?
Well, one simple answer would be KSU, because Loyola has actually won a March Carney.
But the March Carney has become worldly (or has it always been so?).
So: more in depth wild, irreverent speculation and comedic commentary is required to fit this cockamamie anomaly of a tournament seeding committee wet dream.
Entertainment values would appear to dictate Loyola would defeat KSU, because it would be the bigger Cinderella story, and Chicago would stimulate more eyeballs and betting than Manhattan, Kansas.
Duke beating KU would be better for entertainment values, than vice versa, too, but bet balancing with Duke and KU is going to be a real problem. I am not sure the talking heads were redirected to hype KU soon enough to bring the betting into balance. On the other hand, tremendously imbalanced pre-game betting would be ideal for intelligence organizations to bet their drug monies needing laundering on KU, bring betting into balance, but this scenario would work only if KU were made to win.
Bottom line?
Loyola could never beat KSU in a million years despite Loyola's RPI being meaninglessly higher at this time of year.
Loyola beating KSU could never happen and would approach WTC VII falling in its own footprint without being hit.
Yet entertainment values make it all so very complicated now. What ever happened to the joyful innocence the days when Manhattan, Kansas, native son could write of Sky Masterson, Nathan Detroit, and Big Julie from Chicago. What happened to the days when Hollywood and Broadway rewriters could schlep out Guys and Dolls based on it with saucy, catchy, pithy lyrics like...
"Sit down, sit down, sit down sit down,
Sit down you're rockin' the boat!"
May the better teams win both games.
ER. UM. RETROACTIVE BULLETIN UPDATE:
Loyola beat KSU. Surprise. Surprise. Surprise!
(Note: all fiction. No malice.)
...
Under normal conditions, Sheahon Zenger would be the obvious choice, because it prevents him from picking the next head coach.
But WWIII could make this a moot point, unless KU has been selected as one of the two teams to be moved to underground installations for subterranean entertainment for the lucky few selected to survive, while the world's surface population is reduced via orchestrated pandemics and Directed Energy to 500 million.
(Note: all fiction. No malice. )
I am always flexible about post hijacking and try to go with it.
Ah how I pine away for the good old days of attack graphics and distraction imagery!
😀
Doke would be a scoring machine next season , if he had another off-season to work on his offense beyond dunking. The guy had an operation that kept him out most of last season. It is a miracle he is as good as he is, given how much time he set out. Before he injured his knee, he actually ran the floor faster than Embiid. He is a potentially great center, if he still has two good knees and can work the kink out of his shooting arm, which he will do, if he stays at KU. But his knee injury looks much worse than reported.
Blown said:
Then again, two teams from Kansas in the FF Is bad for business.
Entertainment value: its fantastic!
Blown said:
The Zebras allowed KSU to win. So, we have a chance.
KSU is Nike.
KU is not.
I worked on a survey crew and construction crews in youth where a long steel rod with one flat end and one bluntly pointed end were called “bull pricks” as a term of art and no one either had a problem with mistaking one for a real bull’s genitalia, nor recoiled from usage. The bull prick was used with a 10 pound hammer to break up and pry concrete around old fence posts being dug up, or to crack certain kinds of stone encountered, while searching for survey monuments. “Bull prick” was colorful, memorable and quicker way to say “long metal rod for cracking rock.” I loved that term “bull prick.” Still do. I really regret how the American English language has been diluted and diffused by techno jargon, mil-int-engineering speak, legalese and psycho babble. But the living language moves on.
The viral spread of “fuck” too has killed a lot of the great old metaphorical nouns that once much more free Americans enriched their language with by borrowings from so many languages. Instead of saying with accuracy and efficiency, “Get me the bull prick,” now they probably say “Get me the fucking rod.” Just pitiful!
I would give 100 “fucks” in every day speech of today for just one properly used request for a “bull prick”!
Rock Chalk!
I like all the step fathers I have known, but I have only known six. none of them were sensitive about being called step fathers, in fact, they were proud of it and greatly appreciated recognition for having fulfilled the role. .
I love the name ‘Dick’.
And I never see why any one connects the name ‘Dick” with ‘a dick.’
No one ever says “Don’t be Dick!”😀
They say “Don’t be A dick!”
Does anyone ever confuse “cock a gun” with “drop your cocks and grab your socks”?
Flexibility is part of intelligence.
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JayHawkFanToo said:
I am sorry but...
This appears disingenuous. It doesn’t sound like you were really sorry. You can do better than that. Right?
😂
Insert attack graphics below the buffer!
Very few persons can think.
VERY FEW.
And until one works or studies with some legitimate thinkers, one really has no clue what thinkers are doing, can understand and operate on.
The coach above said it took him 15 years to learn to do the smart thing. Inference: he is a slow learner that cant think. He couldn’t think then and he can’t think now. He just copies what works, which keeps him ahead of some non thinkers that aren’t even smart enough to copy.
Only another non thinker would listen to him now, and think he understands better now than he did before.
The reason a handful of coaches succeed wildly well and 90 % dont is that the former group actually understand what they are doing, and are not just copying rote. And when they do copy, it is not monkey see, monkey do, but copying with insight into why the new approach works.
Self just flat understands more about how the pieces fit together and has a better eye and ear for tuning and fine tuning. It’s like race mechanics at Indy or formula one before the electronics algorithms overwhelmed the process. Some persons just get the complexity and no how to make an engine purr and recognize when it could feasibly be improved, and when you have to make do.
This UMBC COACH is almost thought free.
HE APPARENTLY DOES NOT GET THAT ALL THE DRIVING AND CUTTING AND BALL SCREENING IS BEING USED TO ACHIEVE THE DEFENSIVE SHIFTING, CONTRACTION, AS WELL AS STRETCHING ARE BEING USED TO ACHIEVE WHAT PASSING INTO THE POST USED TO ACHIEVE.
If you can think, it’s so obvious. If you can’t think, nothing is.
The difference between the great coaches and the UMBC coach is that the great ones understand the complex of drivers that result in the corner J being such a good shot. He is just a monkey see/monkey do guy spouting reductions, or he is not sharing what he really understands.
I agree with you that that is what went on from about 10 to 3 minutes to go.
I was referring to the last two minutes, especially the last minute.
Guys kept taking shots instead of running the clock down.
I can't recall now who it was, but KU player took a three point shot!!!!
This same thing happened against Seton Hall.
Whenever something anomalous happens twice in a row with a Self coached team, especially this late in the season, I suspect he has had some kind of an insight about how to play the game and he has decided to spring it on the opposition at a time of the game, or time of the season, when they aren't likely to have the time and resources to figure out what he is doing.
My hunch at this point is that Self has established a more complicated rule about when and where to shoot and not to shoot late in games.
And sometimes players are now actually supposed to take shots, when in previously, they were uniformly supposed to milk the clock at the end.
If it turns out not to be planned, i.e., if it turns out that seasoned KU players are just getting too excited and shooting when they are supposed to be holding the ball, then this will very quickly bite us in the collective butt.
Another thing you might try is to have a talk with your pop in law and say, "Look, Dick, there is no connection be calling someone 'Dick' and calling someone 'a dick.' One starts with a cap and has no article. The other is not capitalized and is preceded by the article 'a'. "
I'm pretty confident that if you like and respect this man as much as you imply that he is bright enough to know the difference between 'a dick' and the proper name 'Dick.'
Sometimes, bro, a little communication with another loved one goes a long way.
But I admire you for being so considerate of his feelings.
Sorry bro, that's your constraint, not mine.
Of course, I always try to be helpful to a fellow Jayhawk.
Type "Don't Be a Dick" into your favorite search engine and you can quickly get a list of all the books, albums, and articles to try to keep out of his sight, and not mention, when he visits.
"Don't be a dick" is one of the hot slang terms in recent years.
You've got your work cut out for you.
But you can do it.
The board rats that were confident that KU would keep shooting over 40% after doing so five or so games before the Clemson game, just got a bolus of reinforcement in the arm after KU rather calmly shot 45.5% from trey for a sixth consecutive hot game!
Never one to look a win horse in the mouth, this was a good, unamped win against a good Clemson team.
Put another way, Self most definitely appeared to save the big amp for the second game this weekend.
And Clemson cooperated with the no amp, shoot hot strategy by shooting a miserable 30% beyond the trey stripe.
This has become this KU team's recipe for victory--shoot over 40% most of the time, and keep the opponents in the low 30%s from trey most of the time. And on the bad nights dunk with the Doke and try to win the disruption stats (i.e., strips, blocks and TOs). NOTE: an additional element of this strategy is to augment Doke with significant numbers on a per minute played basis by Silvio. Mitch contributes when the opponents bigs are smaller and more mobile.
KU played like a bunch of experienced tradesman. Nothing fancy. They built leads. They defended leads. Self did not appear to me to show any new wrinkles, which means he gets to save them for a rainy day to come.
Clemson's coach, a Jim Crews disciple, which makes him a Bob Knight disciple, couldn't keep KU from opening leads that it could then defend. Clemson's coach looked like the usual Self victim at the end; i.e., he looked perplexed at how they had been beaten.
Other specifics worth remarking on are few:
a.) KU continued to use its new (for Self) and counter intuitive (for me) "don't manage the clock at the end" strategy;
b.) KU had some trouble with Clemson's zone (KU has been noteworthy for NOT having trouble with zones this season);
c.) Silvio with 9 points and 6 rebounds, not Mitch, was put in at crunch time to close out the game (indicating Self is feeling more and more confident in a guy that should be getting ready for Prom instead of playing so well in the March Carney);
d.) KU won by only 4 in a game when it was hot and Clemson was cold, which leads dry washers about trough games, to worry about how badly KU would have been beaten by Clemson had the shooting percentages been reversed;
e.) Doke's leg got tweaked late in the game and looked pretty wooden walking off the court;
f.) Devonte isn't particularly sharp, but its hard to say if it was from the head shot of the previous game, or if it was Self no-amping this game;
g.) Malik still appears to be a knife with a keen edge but he had to play 39 minutes;
h.) Self did his equivalent of resting the players for the second game by having no one on the perimeter other than Malik play more than 36 minutes; and
I.) Svi impressed with his ups again, but was only journeyman on offense.
I have these takeaways.
First, its hard to gauge KU from a no-amp effort in which they try to play just good enough to win. They are likely to come out sky high for the Elite Eight game. Its best to say that this team is now good enough to go out and just play good enough to win and beat a pretty good team in the process. KU with an all out performance would have clubbed Clemson.
Second, each game that passes, the opponents get better, and the risk of a trough game from trey increases. KU is lucky it did not have a trough game against Clemson. It appears it would have lost decisively if the trey percentages were reversed. Most of the line score stats were similar but for the trey percentages in the Clemson v. KU game. With the game stats as they were, KU eeked out a 4 point win. Reverse the trey stats and Clemson hangs an L on us by a larger margin than just 4 points. But Self coached it right, and the KU players played it right, and there is no reason to second guess the Clemson game.
Third, BUT there is reason to note that the hot shooting streak is now up to six games with three games to go. Who thinks KU will shot >40% from trey for 7 straight games? for 8 straight games? for 9 straight games? Nine straight seems extremely unlikely to me. I previously noted the shooting stats for the last 14 games. Add Clemson and you have 15.
Right now, my best case scenario is KU and Duke shoot poorly, say 25-30% from trey, and KU eeks out another win, because Self has figured Coach K out. Next, KU shoots >40% in the semi finals and finals and KU wins the ring and AFH gets another banner.
Worst case?
Any game KU falls to 35% or less and the opponent shoots 35% or better from trey.
The only thing that kind of haunts me about the upcoming game with Duke is this: the Clemson coach ran a lot of what Duke will run. This could be bad or good.
Through a pessimistic lens, Coach K will have just had a terrific laboratory game to watch how KU operates on both ends of the floor against a Duke clone and it will undoubtedly let Coach K fine tune and find wrinkles for weaknesses.
Through an optimistic lens, Self will have had a laboratory game to find out what did and didn't work well; i.e., kind of a practice game for what Duke will do some.
What to make of this odd situation?
I am going to say that the KU players will be more comfortable with the Duke approach, after having just seen it versus Clemson, and the edge will go to KU.
What a flipping great strategic game its going to be!!!!
Everyone pay close attention to the details.
These two coaches know one helluva a lot about basketball and they are not going to be keeping any wrinkles in reserve.
WE ARE ALL GOING TO GET AN EDUCATION, IF WE PAY ATTENTION.
ROCK CHALK!
GO KU!
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Howling!
wissox said:
I'm worried that @jaybate-1-0 will write a war and peace rivaling post about the greatness of Bill Self when we win.
Man, you WORRY too much!
Just in this long winded post of yours alone that I clipped the above from, you wore the callouses off your palms with dry washing.
EASE. THE. FLIP. UP. :-)
What I am so happy about with Bill Self is that he has been so good that even I have underestimated him.
Really, I and other have been calling attentions to Bill Self's basketball genius for so long, and he has been winning conference titles and going deep for so long, and has won one ring so far, and 14 consecutive titles so far, that I have been flabbergasted at how long possibly literal morons have taken to warm to him.
Of course, literal morons are slow to take to most new things; that is largely what defines them as morons, is it not?
Shills, of course, one should not be surprised about. Shills are impervious to change. What was that wonderful wisdom? It was something like it is hard to change a person's mind, when his/her income depends on not changing it.
Watching the slow uptake by some about how truly great at coaching Self is has nevertheless been among the most astonishing things I have ever witnessed.
Rock Chalk and enjoy the wins when they come.
Buffer !
Man, it took you a lonnnnnnnnnnnnng time to come up with a retort about "the Buffers."
That can't look good.
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My, you are easily impressed with building technology, aren't you?
Actually, I did read up, but just a tiny bit. Apparently enough to see what you saw.
Whew! Lucky for me.
Again, you really are easily impressed!
And I found it unimpressive and overhyped, even for back then.
Remember how the French bureaucrats enthused about Minitel? Would you have been having intellectual orgasms about Minitel, too?
You appear slightly incompetent some times. I no longer trust you are an engineer. If I were your boss in posting technology, I might send you back for more training.
Howling. All in fun.
Next.
wissox said:
Did you ever consider that disgusting term is actually the first name of people that some of us love?
Yes, I used to consider that sort of thing back in high school, but after deliberation back in those days...
I just don't see accuracy as objectionable when combined with flexible thinking.
I've never had a problem allowing "dick" two different meanings. I've never been able to understand others inflexibility on the issue. And I have a couple of Richard-type Dicks in my life that I'm fond of.
I don't see a problem with "cock the trigger" vs "drop your cocks and grab your socks" either.
Or any of these sorts of words.
I am increasingly a believer in "flexibility" training in both mind and body development.
While one does physical stretching exercises, its good to do mental stretching exercises, too.
Performance is not all about building muscles and building vocabulary.
Performance also requires flexibility of those built up muscles and built up vocabularies.
Flexibility empowers the strength in muscles and vocabulary.
I look at Dick and dick as two meanings for the price of one word.
Efficiency is a plus, not a minus.
Besides, how could anyone named Dick worry about the admiralty of their great names with the term "Richard the Lion Hearted" overshadowing all usage of Richard, or Dick?
Dick is a great name.
I wish I had been named Richard.
One of my favorite persons in the world was named Dick and he used to call "jerks" by the slang of "dicks" some times.
Great guy.
Imagine two literal phalluses coaching two very average college basketball teams and one phallus-coached team somehow loses in spite of entertainment value referees fouling out three players on the other phallus-coached team.
That was the KSU-UK basketball game in a nutshell.
How did John Calipari lose to KSU, when the refs fouled three of KSU's mediocre players out of the game at the end.
What does John Calipari need from entertainment value referees in order to pull of a victory in the March Carney?
Does Cal need the referees to gouge out the eyes of ALL the KSU basketball team in order for Cal to be able to figure out a way to beat the Tower of Mediocrity--Bruce Weber?
Could Cal have won a single game this season with KSU's roster? It seems unlike.
And what about Phallus #2 aka Bruce Weber?
Bruce Weber's players give him the biggest upset victory of his career at Silo Tech and he can't even get his players into a handshake line.
One jock just isn't big enough to hold these two coaches.
Isn't it about time for Rick Pitino to follow in Bruce Pearl's footsteps at Auburn?
JayHawkFanToo said:
Unfortunately, Hock Auditorium burned down in 1991 and was rebuilt in 1997 and the interior does not resemble anything like the old building; it was rebuilt at the time as a state-of-the-art teaching facility.
How sad. Thank you for the memory augmentation. Regardless, it is spelled Hoch. Now the cob webs are starting to clear. They kept the facade virtually intact, so you can't really tell any change as you drive down the boulevard. They did make the subtle facade change in the relief inscription from Hoch Auditorium to Hoch Auditoria and then called it Budig Hall, or something, out front, right? Ugh. Time marches on. A "state of the art teaching facility" sounds like one of those phrases like national security, or department of the interior, or department of defense, that mean anything but what they appear to denote. Hoch Auditoria is really just comprised of several large lecture halls behind the old facade, plus a few smaller ones, too, right? Yea. Nothing much state of the art about large lecture halls. They have been part of universities for a looooooong time. They are where the poor freshman and sophomores are sent, before they have paid enough tuition fees to justify getting a small enough class to have a meaningful relationship with a tenured professor. :-)
I'm glad. Ask others about the early field house days, whenever you can. And know that my father waxed nostalgic not for AFH, but for old Robinson Gym and Hoch Auditorium which were used prior to the building of AFH as the home of the Kansas Basketball. One cool thing is you can still go into Hoch Auditorium up on Jayhawk Boulevard and imagine the basketball court that was once inside it. Note: I could be wrong about Hoch. I'm sorry, I can't swear to it. But I recall they played some seasons there. Kansas basketball has been played in more than AFH regardless. It had to create its importance. It didn't start out important. It had to build its legacy. It did not come with one. What distinguishes KU basketball from all other programs, is we know our daddy and our daddy was the game's daddy--James Naismith. Don't ever let anyone ever tell you this doesn't matter. It is THE difference. Daddy's name is on the sacred wood for a reason. It is not just there to copy some other university naming their floor after a good coach they had one time. It is named for the guy that invented the game that has spread round the world and broken down at least to some extent racial, ethnic and cultural barriers. This is not hype. This is not PR. This is not speculation. This is not folk tale. This is TRUTH.
If I still recall my Dad's remarks, Old Robinson Gymnasium and then Hoch were where Kansas basketball were played prior to Allen Field House. But don't trust me. Read up on the legacy yourself. Remember: Phog's legendary career and James Naismith's years as coach and then AD all occurred BEFORE a spade was turned on Allen Field House. When you walk through the portraits of early greats of KU basketball, remember that Adolph Rupp, Dean Smith, Dutch Lonborg, and Ralph Miller (all future Hall of Fame coaches), Paul Endacott, Bill Johnson, and Clyde Lovellette (Hall of Fame players), two-time Olympic Gold Medalist Bill Hougland, Ray Evans (an all-American in basketball AND football I recall) and even former United States Senator Bob Dole never played a game in Allen Field House. Just the first 50 years of KU's basketball legacy is wildly more amazing than the entire history of places like Duke, or UNC. KU had been great at basketball for nearly 4 decades before UCLA even opened its doors as a four year college and KU's former chancellor, the great Franklin Murphy, is the guy who built UCLA into a world class university. Its an amazing legacy. Simply amazing. And its goodness rubs off on all that love and cherish it. This is the greatest legacy of the greatest basketball program of the greatest game ever invented.
Rock Chalk!
P.S.:
If one goes to the Kansas State Historical Society and reads some bound volumes of recollections of Kansas history, particularly a volume published in 1901, or so, one reads many dozens of by then old timers recollections of life in Kansas in the late 1850s, 1860s and early 1870s. These accounts were often written by persons that had spent their years of young adulthood (i.e., their 20s and 30s) in the wild formative years of the state of Kansas.
Their recollections were often written from far more civilized big city surroundings on the East Coast, or from Kansas City, when it had become a city of some size and infrastructure. The recollections generally express great, great fondness for those rough and rowdy days and a sense that, if you weren't there back then, it was very hard to help one understand how wonderfully liberating the experience of frontier was, despite all the rough edges and occasional misfortunes that came with such experience.
In some ways this is how I feel about my early years at Allen Field House from 1959 (my first game) to the late 1970s. Note: no I was not a professional student all those years. I was a little whipper when I attended my first game. AFH was new, but not at all slick. Big but barely landscaped. Its visual effect was a cross between something dropped from space by aliens and an effect similar to viewing huge grain elevators in the distance on the Kansas prairies.
Two generations that had survived the Great Depression and WWII had combined their ambitions and hopes and dreams to create what for a time seemed Phog's second white elephant (his first was Memorial Stadium, which he had a huge hand in the politicking to build also). AFH was a REAL, and HUGE, equivalent of what was fictionalized as the baseball diamond in Field of Dreams. It existed as a surreal but joyful juxtaposition against its surroundings.
All the years of my early youth, one went wondering if one would ever see it filled up. Note: my dad only took me to pre-conference games, when the tickets could be purchased dirt cheap out front before tip off. The phrase that fits the field house best in those early years was "If you build it, they will come," even though the phrase would not be known to me for many years to come. Wilt filled it several times the first year or so, but I was still to young to go to those games. When I first went in 1959, there were some lean years, when Harp struggled some. Nolan Ellison. Jerry Gardner. Wayne Hightower. Bill Bridges. It is still hard for me to understand how they did not do better with those sorts of players, but they just did not have enough good players for Harp to make it work.
In these very early years for me, I used to ask my dad, "Why did they put those bleachers waaaaaaaaaay up in the high four corners of the building, Dad?" because I had never seen anyone sit up there, even after going to games for a couple years. Dad, who was pure WWII generation, always looked down at me and said, "Oh, they filled it a few times when Wilt was here, but this was built for the future, son. It was built for the 1970s to 2000, when the state's population will be big enough fill it every game. This place was built by men with vision." Some men in high places still had vision in those days, not just ambition and a reach exceeding grasp.
What he said above used to thrill me so much (and frankly still does) that I would ask him practically the same question every game went to. I just wanted to hear him say the same thing, again and again, which he did. This was my exposition starter: "Why is the floor dirt, Dad? Why is the court so high you have to lift me up on it?" He always gave a short scoff and said it was because "the goddamned football team demanded to get in on the action for indoor practices, and the track team wanted to train in winter also." He clearly was annoyed at KU basketball being compromised by insignificant sports like football, though track he harbored minor respect for due to his abiding respect for Glenn Cunningham, Al Oerter and Billy Mills. "Why didn't Phog just tell them no, Dad?" Dad would look away, then back and down, and say, "Phog was getting too old and sick, and the greedy alumni in Kansas City and Wichita forced him out and were fighting for control of KU basketball," he would say. He spoke as if a bunch of disreputable pagan gods on Mount Olympus overcome with pestilence were sneezing lighting bolts and shitting thunder at each other, and compromising something sacred to we mortals. Then he would shrug the anger off. "But it doesn't matter," he said, defiantly, "the game and this field house are bigger than Ray Evans in Kansas City and those knuckle heads in Wichita." One day, he continued, confidently, "They will pull out the rolling floor, pave the dirt and put in a beautiful wood floor and build a proper hall of fame for Phog, Naismith and all the greats that have played here that you didn't get to see. You'll see. By the time you have kids, this will truly be the Monarch of the Midlands."
Years later, he was FURIOUS, when they put in a synthetic floor. "I'm all for progress," he said, "but playing on goddman naugahyde isn't progress. Wood is the ONLY material for a basketball floor. And not just any goddamn wood. The right wood gives and prevents players from having such bad shin splints. The ball bounces true, with none of the dead spots that rolling floor has. Finished correctly, wood, even in winter, has the perfect temperature and traction for tennis shoes, especially these new Pumas and adidas. God I wish I could have played in those new tennis shoes instead of the old canvas Converse things." Note: my recollections are jumping around some from the late 50s, to the 60s to the 70s. Its the nature of recollection long ago.
When I finally got to college in the 70s, the Field House was still not dolled up and refined as it is today. It was rough around the edges, but even showing a bit of age. There were some weather stains outside. Some cracks were visible some places. Coats of paint were building up a little too much. Bathroom trough fixtures were looking a little antiquated. The field house was starting to show some age, at least to me. It was showing signs of needing to take the next round of freshening, or maybe something even more extensive. There were some other venues as big, or bigger by then. I believe it still had a raised floor, when I got to college, and then they put the synthetic floor in the last year or so I was there. I was there for a BA and a year of grad school. Don't hold me to the timing. Things run together, especially when you still harbor anger about something bad that was done to something you loved. The synthetic floor was a terrible thing. It was like making Angelina Jolie wear a Carhartt jump suit to tango in Mr. and Mrs. Smith. It was like forcing Jennifer Lawrence into Coleman rain gear for a ballet number in a musical she will sadly probably never get to make. It was BAD. REAL BAD!
Anyway, my fondest years at the field house were when it was its most unrefined and youthful--the rolling sectional basketball floor on the dirt. Every time the kids started stomping their feet in the pull out bleachers dust rose up and interacted with the field house lighting at night, or the afternoon sun shafts in day games, to give the whole place not just a look but a smell and a taste like nothing else, save for maybe a live stock auction barn arena full of--not ranchers bidding--but beautiful women and nubile coeds on the arms of lucky men and boys intoxicated by their sweet perfumes. Jesus, what I wouldn't give to see and smell that all again!!!!
I know its all so much better now, but it was all so much more raw and real and visceral back then.
Like the old timers talking about territorial and early statehood Kansas, I can recall Allen Field House for you in its youth, but I can't make you really know what it was like. You had to be there then.
"If you build it, they will come."
Most certainly they have.
I only hope what they recall when they get old will be as sweet to recall as Allen Field House in its youth.
Rock Chalk!
What you wonderfully describe was pretty much how it was in my time a bit earlier, also, though I heard from my brother, who attended many games in the Brown era, that student behavior had improved markedly from my time. :-)
People have forgotten Larry Brown's phenomenal 1986 team (Manning's first season) falling short primarily because the '88 team helped them forget. But ouch! That was a terrible disappointment, because KU appeared easily the best team in the country, and by a considerable margin, too. Heck, someone in coaching, maybe it was even Brown himself, said it was one of the best teams ever assembled. It had an array of outside shooters quite comparable with the current team, plus it had two future NBA bigs, one a future selection on the Best 50 players of the second half of the 20th Century, or something. It was just an awesome team. How they got upset I still cannot figure out.
wissox said:
@tis4tim The first known appearance of the Duke whistle 1986. Awful awful game. That team of ours was so great. Really one of the two NC's gifted to coach K, the other being in 2015.
PHOF
BeddieKU23 said:
FYI Mo Bamba declared for the draft.
Also Lindell Wigginton has decided to enter but will not hire an agent. I think he'll get invited to the Combine which can help him. I have a feeling he returns for his Soph year on what should be a better ISU team and leaves after next year.
This is just as well. Shaka seemed not to know what to do with such a great match up advantage.
There appear two ACCs.
One includes Duke and UNC. When we play this ACC, we are also playing the refs.
The other ACC includes the rest and we usually play them without the refs.
ACC and overrated kind of go together.
Didn’t you mean Un and Done?
And my guess is OU will get quickly better without Un.
Time will tell.
Dan La Batard appears a dubious judge of incompetence, since he appears to have been able to broadcast all these years without leading a sustained charge against the kind of reputed widespread corruption in recruiting that the FBI is reputedly investigating. If Dan has not been able to lead a sustained charge on this degree of corruption all these years with a mike in his grille almost daily, how can we ordinary Kansas fans take his credibility seriously on this issue of KU football?
In turn, the group that paid for the board appears dubious in their judgement of giving him their approval.
We need to fix KU FOOTBALL and forget Dan La Batard and the the group under his spell.
If the sign board group were serious degenerates, they would have gotten Francis McDormand to kick little boy and girl actors in the genitalia, as she did in character in “Three Signboards in Ebbing Missouri.” I guess we can take some microscopic solace that they so far have not copycatted that part of the movie.
I agree. He was not at peak before the impact. After, he appeared unable to clear the cobwebs fully.
We are in some trouble if he has a concussion, which is how it appeared.
Again, it took Malik 2-3 games to really recover from his apparent concussion.
We may not see the real Devonte again until the Finals, if we make it that far.
This team has faced so much adversity!!! It is just amazing.
If it wins the Carney, it has to go down as tied with the '88 champs as the most remarkable team in KU history.
I'm even tempted to say its more remarkable, because the '88 team had Danny Manning as the hub and Manning was one of the 50 greatest collegiate basketball players of the second half century of the game.
This team is somehow doing it without a Manning.
These players are really, really admirable and special in the character department.
And it is a reminder to us all that you cannot judge a book by its cover.
I can remember when many of us, me included, were doubting this teams' toughness.
Even if they lose the next game, this team will rank in my memory as one of KU's toughest ever.
I don't recall another KU team overcoming this much adversity without a single superstar on the team.
They are just the most amazing bunch of individuals I have had the pleasure to watch play the game in a long time.
I so hope they can become champions, so that their incredible accomplishments so far, will be etched in memory for all time.
Buffer 2.
Buffer 1.
Those that imply those that follow the NBA realize this is not about money appear patently absurd.
Note: please place smears after the second buffer. :-)
All the following are comments about appearances and no assertions of facts.
Wiggins has never appeared to have had the burning competitive desire to be great. It appears no great competitor could have reputedly turned down Self’s offer to put the team on his back. It appears no great competitor would have apparently played as he did against Stanford. He has apparently approached basketball as a business, appearing to be careful to never give more than he got. He has always appeared to try to conserve himself in order to get to the paycheck and keep the paychecks coming as long as possible. The idea has apparently never been to be the best. The idea was apparently always to make the most money for a career. It’s certainly his prerogative to do it this way. But this appears the kind of career that results from doing it this way. He has apparently never developed his skills as much as he apparently might have either. Some great talents squander their chance to be the best there ever was by self-destructive behavior. In contrast, Wiggins appears to have never sought to be the best. Instead, he appears to have chosen to see how many seasons of pay he could get instead. With as little wear and tear as he puts on himself, he might be the first guy to play till he is 60. But he will likely never come close to becoming the best there ever was this way.
Regarding his spat with the T Wolves, I doubt it has much to do with being third option. It appears it’s been part of the business plan to move to a larger market, from the moment Lebron stiffarmed him to the tundra. He appears to be making a designed stink to get him to a bigger market. LA most likely. This appears mostly about money.
But there is nothing wrong with not wanting to be the best there ever was. And Wiggins does not appear to short change employers. He appears to give them what they pay for, just not more.
He seemed to move around pretty well, but he was wearing a big ugly strap on his knee. I did not see him limping, but he was not getting up and down the floor nearly as fast. Has anyone read anything to indicate that he will need surgery, or are they sticking with the knee strain story?
Gorilla72 said:
I hope the next trough hits against Ft Hays in our next pre-season...
PHOF