This IS interesting. Thx.
jaybate 1.0
10346 posts
Slick'd'ville does have an appealingly frenetic defensive pace that keeps opponents out of comfort zones.
What I like about Rick's approach is that when you have the right pieces for a champion, you win the ring.
Rick may not be quite as clever at Self at doing a lot with a little, but when he has the pieces, he tends to get the kill.
Um, its like what Heathcote ran at MSU with Magic's team.
Its called a half court, or 3/4s of half court, match-up 1-3-1, Greg. They may not have carried MSU games to you in the Carolinas back in those days, Greg. Maybe you should get a kinescope, eh?
And calling Bill Self!
This zone works.
It is who we are, when we are this flipping challenged in front court.
Never, never, never, never, ever, ever, ever, let our front court guys play opponent straight up....EVER!.
It is a horrible habit for these guys to get into when they lay against weak teams.
Our KU bigs cannot guard L&S bigs straight up, so that is NOT who we are.
We are a bunch of leathernecks that don't play fair; that mass force wherever needed; that NEVER take on opponents one on one, unless all of the artillery and tanks have been destroyed, and unless all of the flame throwers and satchel charges are expended.
Our goal from here on should be for Perry Ellis (and all the rest of the bigs too) to NEVER guard ANY big without a double in m2m, or a collapse in a zone.
1-3-1 match-up zone 70% of the time with the other 30% of the time unexpected switches to 3/4 court 2-2-1 pressing falling back into m2m.
And on offense....
Artillery, artillery, artillery until their defenses crack and then Oubre putting it on the deck to iron, with The Big Red Dog sticking back.
So all the radio controlled monster trucks and robots that cannot do anything you really want, like clean up cat vomit under a Noble Fir, or wrap Hanukkah presents for 8 consecutive, excruciating days, or sew a Santa suit that actually fakes some one out that is not doing the Ray Charles, or that can do the mambo with momma so you don't have to miss a KU game, when the wild duty calls.
And I wake up this morning still clean.
Let me explain--without the OAD DTs I went through after the Temple game when everyone scattered to the wind for the holidays. I went a whole three days without mainlining any OAD hype, without any opiated wondering if they would go pro, when everyone that is clean knows everyone of the OADs will go pro if in the top 20. Period. Finito. End of addiction.
The OAD DTs are really tough to get through. I rent a furniture dolly and ratchet myself to it and have my significant other wheel me into the garage and padlock me to the work bench. I tell her to come back in 3 days--sometime before XMAS eve.
The hallucinations start out all good. I envision OADs living up to their hypes, which they never do...EVER. As the fever comes on they start saying they are done with legal, informal shoe endorsements protected by attorney client privilege, and that they will never again go 3/4 speed to protect the merchandise, or run from contact with 4 year prison bodies that their 4-year teammates have to expose themselves to. Then things break waaaaaaaaaaay bad. They start refusing to play defense, while applying Lush skin cream on the bench, while real hoopahs like Frank Mason go to war on both ends of the floor without credible threats on either wing, because it turns out the OADs and TADs can't hit the broad side of a legal, informal shoe contract protected by attorney client privilege from the three point stripe, while Frank drains them at 50% even playing through a bad ankle.
Don't get me totally wrong. There are a few warriors among the OADs. Josh played in a boot. and Wayne played on a bad knee.
But for the most part the OADs are reintroducing non contact basketball for all the wrong reasons.
Regardless, I am left with this one outrageous idea.
OADs are meaningless to the college game, whether they are the future of it, or not. Who the F wants to watch these lame-ohs act like deer caught in headlights half a season, then play adequately January till March, then play hard once against an opponent with a big EST branding footprint, and then phone the last two in in March and leave without really knowing anything about them, except some boiler plate fictions that some PR flack is paid to cut and paste into an email that is sent to a reporter loving reporting but having to take a stiff drink as he schleps out the least dull parts of the boiler plate with connecting paragraphs he could have written in third grade.
This is what OADs mean to me, once I am dry--once I am off the hype needle--once I am 12-stepping with a couple days growth and pale skin and broken blood vessels on my face from having heaved my guts out for three days after Temple to get clean in time for Christmas.
My family is ashamed of me.
My extended family is ashamed of me.
I look like Jeff Bridges in "Eight Million Ways to Die."
Hell, I bet some of you guys look like a combination of Denzel and Robert Downey Jr. in some post apocalyptic nightmare gig where they play act one and two with blood shot eyes and flecks of vomit in their three days growth.
I swill dank coffee and serially light Winstons as I sit before the plasma wall screen TV with 2000 channels but never more than one Budd Boetticher Randolph Scott western on at a one time.
I can't even surf to see if Shaft is playing on some blaxploitation encore channel, because I might accidentally run into an ESPN channel 'hood, where foppish men, and cheese cake, of every race, color, creed and educational background prostitute themselves promoting OADs with apparent legal informal endorsement agreements apparently protected by attorney client privilege, while real playuhs struggling to get old fashioned, 20th Century analog college degrees and a couple of years of pro pay scrambling Eurasia actually do the heavy lifting, actually develop skills, actually get better.
And if I see even one of these talking media-gaming complex heads interviewing Vinny the recruiting ranking mule, it is like I have been put back on an IV drip at the Big Shoe Hype Cartel's bent silver spoon, hype free-basing conference for OAD advisors and family.
I go all glassy eyed and floaty and nodding. I start talking about how this perimeter OAD's shot is going to dial in, which iy rarely will, or that interior OAD's rim and guard game is going to soon shine when he learns how not to foul by having 4 year guys start and shorten games for him.
I get a bunch of OAD-hype swagger where I start talking tough about March and about how this guy just needs more PT to play like Mike. I forget the Mike paid his flipping dues. Played at 11/10ths his whole career and when looking for play ground games with metal nets to try to keep his canine teeth sharpened. I completely forget Mike went through a phase where he too sharpened his finger nails to points for scratching the living be-jeezus out of anyone that tried deny him a lane. I forget that Mike played a long time before the legal, informal Jordan rules were instituted around the league.
Make me wanna holler, Marvin!
I love me some Cliff.
I love me some Kelly.
I love me some Svi.
I loved me some Andrew.
I loved me some Wayne.
I loved me some Jo-el.
I loved me some Xavier and Josh.
Like a junky loves his sugar!
But the bottom line on these OADs is that unless you've got just incredibly limited guys coming back at the positions they play, they really can't beat them out even up for half a season, and then are only half good the second half of the season, except for a few draft showcase games against a weak match up at their position that lets them hang 30 charging the iron.
And the only reason they come back for a TAD season is because they've got an injury to work through that has usually cost them their pop.
And an OAD without pop is like a day in Aruba without sunshine.
Why go there and put on the sunscreen at all?
So, 'bate, what has this cleaned up OAD junky rant got to do with Ballbotics, or going beyond the Analog OAD?
Simple.
Ban OADs.
Let Tesla and Google, which are pioneering the driver-less technologies in their electric car prototypes, when Elon is not launching shizz into space and Google is not reputedly valving intel on us all, build Basketball robots that fulfill the roles of OADs now. It is already within our technological grasp. The OADs are not setting a very high standard for the robots to meet, or beat.
And the thing about robots is that they are a sunk cost that could be amortized over ten years. They could be part of the internet of things. They could get wireless firmware and software updates even during games to keep them cutting edge.
Every college would be allowed three robots and no OADs. The other spots have to go to 4 year guys.
And to keep things traditionally unfair, every elite program would be given 5 robots. But the rest of their rotation has to be 4 year guys.
The robots would be given four year identities, after which they would be given a new identity for another four years. We would all get to know and love them the way we like to do. They would get caught doing the wild thing with robotic coeds created for them. We might even program them to flirt with bee-bee guns their first years of play. They would never protect the merchandize. They would have no steep learning curve that bio-players had to shorten games for. Injuries could be simulated, or,my preference, completely eliminated.
Plug and play.
Rock Chalk!
And happy digital New Years.
Transition scoring is tough without dominant rebounding to start the breaks. Self is having to scheme to rebound with his PG and Wings, so he really can only release one guy at the most for transition.
Clearly Self hoped the team would be an accomplished defensive team that could strip and force TOs, but that has not happened.
This is a tough nut for Self to crack.
But he keeps working the problem and I still think he will find an identity for this team that works.
And reading your response did the same for me.
Let's keep this up and pretty soon we'll both be too smart and pretty for persons not to believe to us. :-)
Dang, okay, I will try to give up my gumbo for the good of the game. :-)
You offer an argument that can to some degree or another validly refute all deductive reasoning and all nonparametric modeling, and so so it is always worth considering your argument in terms of the degree of appropriateness in any given case of applying some deduction. So: good for you for raising the issue.
Now that being said I am going to try to assert why I think my use of deduction here offers some useful anecdotal, rather than statistically significant insight.
The key to effective use of deductive reasoning and non parametric modeling (simulations) is always the degree of fit between the principle and the deductive logic used to animate the principle in order to yield a non parametrically significant inference that is argued to be a major driver of phenomena, and to recognize when such is not a major driver and so a misguided inference, even if internally valid.
At the same time, when using deductive reasoning, we must also not fall prey to the error of discrediting deduction and non parametric modeling because it is not statistically significant, parametrically arrived at induction: that is, we must not discredit deduction of the very reason that we turned to it in the first place.
The only real justification for using deduction and non parametric modelling, or even just rudimentary heuristics, is that a particular phenomenon we want to study/control/predict exists outside a realm where induction verified by statistically significant (i.e., parametric) hypothesis testing cannot be reliably performed without violating the assumptions of the parametric model.
In short, we deduce, non parametric model, and use heuristics, because we CAN'T validly use Induction.
For this reason, it is generally not sporting to discredit deduction because it is not induction, i.e., because all other things in the system being studied cannot be assumed to be accounted for and controlled so that we can induce with high confidence effects of variables we manipulate.
So: to my use of deduction in this case.
My deductive principle, more less my a priori assumptions are:
a.) shooting percentage determines to significant degree how much you score (a given);
b.) the kind of shot you shoot determines what percentage you make (a more complicated and shaky given);
c) your average on a given night for different shots taken would remain relatively constant regardless of how many you take of each type (this is an XTreme oversimplification that I make with full awareness that number of attempts can alter one's percentage, but I make it because I figure the variation would not completely destroy the relevance of the logic as a driver of tendencies);
With the above assumptions, each of which may be viewed as variously compromised so as to prevent absolute confidence in the deduction, but on the other hand to reveal some relevant driver value, let us move to the mathematical calculation that animates the group of a priori principles above.
2PTA yield 2 points 32 percent of the time (what KU shot a relatively large number of N of)
3PTA yield 3 points 36% of the time (what KU shot for a relatively high N for a first half, thus I am extrapolating a relatively large N for a half to a relatively large N for a second half, which I realize has some likely variation, but which still seems to hold some relevant predictive utility.)
So far, so good, all is explicit, whether one fully buys in to the exact logics and exact mathematical calculus employed.
Then we get into the meat of your objection you raise: won't this change many other variables and won't that complex cascade of effects render your deductive inferences useless?
How I think about this is that yes this assumption would sharply alter some related activities that would have cascading effects, and cascading effects are always capable of triggering nonlinearities of change that are tough to forcast accurately. Also they might change a few things like FTA and FT makes that I have not explicitly accounted for, and which perhaps ought to be. But though you make get more fouls cramming it inside the second half , than shooting lots of treys the second half, when you do get fouled shooting treys the penalty is greater. And so, while this strategy may produce some net loss in FTs made, it would likely not completely wipe out the advantages of shooting way more treys the second half.
So: lets explore these resulting variations further. When I thought about it, here is what I thought those effects might tend toward.
Lots more long rebounds, which KU has traditionally done much better on than short rebounds. It is short inside and so rebounding short rebounds is tough with our short bigs. But KU is long on the perimeter, plus it has Mason, who has a knack for long rebounding. So: I thought the long rebounding would actually favor KU and contribute even more to KU getting more second shots, and so more trifectas and so create even more likelihood of being in the game at the end.
Many fewer KU Turnovers would result, because there would be less passing into congested areas and more safe perimeter passing and passing to players coming off actions to free them, so with fewer KU Turnovers there would be more 3ptas and more 3pt makes and so KU would again tend to get back into the game sooner and stay in it longer.
With more outside shooting, and more scoring, and fewer blocks and alterations of the short KU bigs, they would be less de-moralized (more confident) when they came down
the floor to play defense and so would have more energy and enthusiasm to get more stops by guarding harder and with more exploding out of position to make defensive plays that lead to stops and strips. This I reasoned would lead to allowing much less scoring by Temple, which combined with the increased scoring by KU described above, would result in a faster reduction in the deficit and a closer game sooner that would greatly energize the KU players.
So: while I think many variables would be changed by the deductive logic I proposed I thought the cascade would almost certainly dramatically favor us, if 3pt% of 36.8% were merely sustained. And there was always the possibility that a good outside shooting team like KU seems to be might have shot up to its average the second half.
And what was the down side?
The downside was that our 3pt% might have declined. But since we shot only 32% or less from 2pta during the game, it seems like even if our 3pt% had fallen to 32% our effective percentage would have been better than what we shot relying so heavily on 2pta.
So: when I analyse this, it almost seems like a slam dunk that we should have continued our trey ball assault, even though it left us 10 down the first half, because middling case scenario, it would have left us ten down the second half, instead of 25 down.
And best case, as I said, we probably would have ended the game neck and neck, and maybe have so demoralized them in coming back with the 36.8% trifectation, that we might have gotten a W.
And had we heated up from trey, we would have kicked their butts even on a night when our intensity and focus were not very good.
Artillery is superior to man to man combat.
Only fight man2man when you clearly have superiority in man2man combat.
KU will never have clear superiority in m2m combat this season because of its small bigs with limited scoring and rebounding abilities against long and strongs.
Use artillery on offense.
Use help in zone and man2man in half court, so that you are never relying on one man on another man inside; that is deadly for KU. And press in a zone so as to engage the superior enemy inside in regions of the floor where their size is not a strength.
Simple, Watson.
KU didn't shoot very well inside or out, but it shot a higher percentage outside.
I converted all the 2pta to 3pta.
I assumed they were made at the same .368 rate KU actually made treys for the game.
If I calculate right, KU wins by 1.
Even if I calculate a bit wrong, KU is in the game.
Modern artillery began the change of warfare from a man to man combat to a long range combat. Air power exponentially increased the change. Accuracy from digital targeting completed the transition.
The Trey is artillery.
It is now the decisive force.
The inside game is what you resort to after the opponent has been pulverized and separated from by long range force application.
Self gave up the artillery barrage too soon.
At half, KU was 10 down shooting treys at a high percentage.
It SEEMED logical to try something else--an inside game.
But you don't give up the artillery barrage and air attacks until you have applied decisive long range force that so wrecks the enemy he cannot defend the coming ground attack.
Then you go inside on the ground, only if you have to.
TRey balling teams don't win high percentage
Anyone that expects to be taken seriously claiming that Gilbert did more illegally for UCLA than what was being done at several major programs of the time, simply has no choice but to document that MORE was being done. It is so simple to do, if one has the evidence.
Just type it.
Everyone fan of every other elite program wants to read it.
Pleeeeeeease type it.
Next, it doesn't matter a whit when someone shoots messenger a messenger with all the facts already typed down. If the truth is out in black and white on the screen, then the messenger can be shot repeatedly and the evidence stands irrefutably.
But of course, anyone can see that there is no sign of messenger shooting going on in this thread, so its kind of an irrelevant rhetorical point.
Next, anyone that claims Gilbert at UCLA was doing more illegally for UCLA than what was being done at several other major programs of the time, also has to square this claim with all the evidence documented in other books indicating that corruption during recruiting and during enrollment was widespread throughout the Gilbert boostering UCLA era.
Anyone should read "College Sports, Inc." (1990) by Murray Sperber, because it is a superbly documented account of the scale, breadth, and long duration of recruiting corruption and will likely lead one to a conclusion that what went on at UCLA was the tip of an ice berg called college basketball sports corruption. Sperber made it shockingly clear how widespread corruption was in college basketball and football of the era.
And no amount of reducing the discussion to Gilbert and UCLA to taint UCLA's run of rings can change this. For if one wishes to say that UCLA could not have won those rings without Gilbert's improper activities, then one is similarly stuck saying that, at the very least, many of those that won rings before UCLA's run only won them because of their boosters' inappropriate activities, and after the Gilbert-UCLA era also. North Carolina State and Norm Sloan interrupted UCLA's streak and they reputedly had recruiting improprieties. And think of all of the runners up to UCLA over the years. Quite a few of them probably did not get to where they got without improper booster activity, at least of "College Sports, Inc." was accurate.
The apparent situation of that time, until someone produces irrefutable evidence to the contrary, was that many, if not most programs were cheating like hell, Wooden eventually went along, wittingly, or unwittingly (and it really doesn't matter which for he was responsible either way), and kicked everyone's asses on a frankly pretty level playing field of cheating. And that's what really irks so many persons. It sure used to irk me.
But anyone that can produce irrefutable evidence to the contrary of this summary of the time should do so immediately and should expect my warmest thanks and gratitude for doing so.
Why?
Because I used to love believing that UCLA was cheating way worse than everyone else and that that was the only reason Wooden and UCLA won all those titles.
It was so easy to believe that.
It meant college basketball was not pervasively, structurally corrupt--only Gilbert and UCLA were.
But books like Sperber's took that naive fantasy away from me.
Anyone that can give me that naive fantasy back to me at this late date, please do.
Quick! Document Gilbert and UCLA were cheating way worse than many other programs during Wooden's ring run, and then again during the rest of the 70s and the 80s.
Anyone doesn't have to even address the 1990s, naught decade and our current teen decade.
Just document for me that Gilbert and UCLA were cheating way worse than others in the 1960s.
No one's done it yet.
I'm beginning to worry that no one ever will.
Jesus, anyone out there, please do it quickly.
I haven't got forever on this mortal coil.
Document how fantastically much more Gilbert and UCLA cheated than many other top programs of the time.
Please, do it.
Right now.
I am so wanting my fantasy back.
Restore it.
Pretty please with sugar on top.
Just type all the evidence that Gilbert and UCLA were cheating worse than the other major programs.
Do it.
Do it.
Now.
Rock Chalk!!!!!
That's very good to know about Lafayette. Thanks for looking that up. Appreciate it.
You're right as far as you go, but you don't go far enough.
The College Basketball Industry--the aspect of it dealing with OAD/TAD talent distributions--is about:
a.) getting eyeballs and clicks for games for advertisers;
b.) getting branding for endorsers in big shoe and apparel buying markets once the OAD jumps in 12 months;
c.) spiking betting volumes both now and in 12 months when the OAD jumps to an NBA team.
What the colleges and coaches divert off this revenue river is just a cost incurred in setting up a through c, which are were the real monies are.
But of course you know that, so I am itemizing these for others that may not be familiar with the college basketball industry, which regarding a through c, is a marketing continuum and not really as separate game at all --at least from a basketball industry perspective. The basketball industry deals with the colleges and college coaches early and the NBA and NBA management later. It is a through c that matter across the continuum.
Now, once board rats understand this business model and market regime underlying what is called college basketball and what is called NBA basketball, then the issue is how does one serve the marketing continuum to greatest net benefit.
Clearly you are right to say that there is some benefit to having the elite, 10 OAD/TAD college programs outside the big cities where the NBA franchise operate.
For one thing, you don't want to brand an OAD too closely with a big city, if he is going into another big city, because you have a draft in the NBA that often makes unpredictable where the OAD will eventually play. You want him to enter the NBA as a hyped product ready to be put on any store shelf as a desirable marketing addition with minimal rebranding needed. A UK player is ready to go on the shelf in any EST NBA franchise without any rebranding to specialize him to that market. Boom! UK. We get that brand. They are gourmet draft choices we can get juiced about immediately.
Compare this with a KU player. KU? An EST fan says, oh, yeah, I've heard of them, they are a bunch of heartland hicks that had Naismith for a coach once. I don't recall an of their players names. I've never even watched a game with them. No, I saw them play once two years ago. A KU player going into an EST NBA franchise is just short of drafting a guy out of New Zealand. Lots of branding work to do on the guy before you can get an EST fan juiced about him.
At the same time, you clearly want elite programs located in markets outside the major cities that pull major market viewers to the OAD during his year of branding and hyping in D1. So you want them at a place like Duke, UNC, that can pull the eastern seaboard viewers from Maine to Florida. And UK is great, because it gives you both the eastern seaboard, some of the south, and Indiana, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania viewer draw.
KU in contrast unless it were marketed as America's team, just has no similar appeal for the college NBA marketing continuum. BoWash corridor folks just will not watch KU the way they will Duke, UNC, or UK. Neither will Great Lakes states.
KU's only hope for marketing relevance is tailor itself to be marketed to Texas and that is a very difficult sell, that Texans will only work at enabling in order to keep the Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas oil and gas alliance intact for other reasons. Self is a very good fit as a coach for Kansas because as an Okie, he plays well to Oklahoma and Texas. Hire a guy with no accent into KU and the Oklahoma-Texas marketing angle drops dead asap. For this reason, it is going to be very tough for KU to hire an African American head coach next time, like Danny Manning, or a northern white coach. Self and Beaty are the future of all KU coaching hires in sports that have to play the marketing game. KSU will never achieve critical marketing mass with Snyder and Weber in Texas and Oklahoma. Not gonna happen. So: if African American and all colors of KU fans think it would be a good move to hire an African American coach to KU, one needs to be found with a high profile in Texas and a high Q rating with Texans. But I digress on coaching, which is a facet, but not THE facet of what we are discussing here.
So: the logical move is for Nike to turn UT austin ASAP into a 8-12 OAD/TAD stack program and leave KU at 3-4 OAD/TAD level and slowly marginalize KU. The college-pro marketing continuum just doesn't need the Naismith/father of basketball angle for optimizing net benefits. KU always has to be alert to this and they always have to be investing massively in marketing monies to try to counteract this effect, or the program will be marginalized in just half a viewer generation.
As far as rooting for underdogs and casual fans, all that really matters in college basketball is to brand OAD/TADs to likely fans in major NBA cities and to those that bat at home and abroad on college basketball.
Those rooting for underdogs are a tiny segment of the eyeballs, clicks and bets that are the bread and butter of the basketball industry across the college-NBA continuum.
Lump, you have weirded me out completely. And THAT takes some doing. :-)
I have always thought that comparisons of shooting percentages would greatly benefit from weighting the shooting percentages of relative teams for their oppositions. I reckon KENPOM does something like this, but I have never looked to compare. A team that plays ten KU level defenses will have one 3pt shooting percentage and overall shooting percentage, and the same team playing 10 ordinary defensive teams would have another pair of shooting percentages, likely much higher.
To make comparisons convincing, one needs sufficient similarity of context and dynamics to make deduction, at whatever level of abstraction, valid.
UCLA rose to power with a team of 4 year guys under 6-6 and with less overall talent than several other programs.
UK has since Cal's arrival, boasted sharply more OAD/TAD talent than other teams.
UCLA's early champions involved very little recruiting at all.
UK's first champion under Cal involved heavily systematized recruiting.
After two rings, when Sam Gilbert entered the UCLA scene and reputedly began helping UCLA recruit via reputedly illegal assistance to players, there has never been one shred of evidence indicating that Gilbert did anything but bring UCLA up to the level of illegal recruiting assistance already long found at most of the elite and major programs of the time.
UK and its advocates boast of many legal resources being applied much more intelligently by UK to achieve UK's extraordinary recruiting classes that is reputedly not being done at other elite programs.
UCLA competed during the age of the Converse basketball shoe monopoly in college basketball. There was to the best of my recollection no other shoe maker supplying shoes to teams until very near the end of Wooden's tenure. Converse offered no huge endorsement contracts to coaches, or schools, that I recall either.
UK competes during an age of a Nike dominated shore/apparel producer oligopoly of Nike, adidas and Under Armour with endorsement/marketing agreements in the millions to tens of millions of dollars with schools and coaches and with OAD/TAD players receiving multimillion dollar endorsement contracts within a year to two years of signing with UK.
Perhaps most importantly of all, UCLA won 10 rings in 11 years with rarely more than 2-3 players turning pro and 4 of those 10 seasons having equal, or inferior, talent to the elite programs in the country.
Conversely, UK has so far only won 1 ring competing with talent generally equal to, or sometimes sharply superior to other elite programs.
All of the above makes me doubt what insight can be gained in comparing Wooden's ten year ring dominance with what UK has done so far, and what UK is likely to do.
IMHO, and somewhat ironically, as UK seems to be operating in an era of larger scale talent concentrations, and effectively unprecedented Big Shoe-Agency-TV-gaming revenue inputs into the process, that what seems to be happening, based on the early results of UK operating with sharply rising and increasingly asymmetric talent advantages that, the importance of actually winning rings is diminishing. UCLA with a few dominant players--Alcindor and Walton, completely dominated the championship process for 6 years. UK with its steadily increasing stream of superior talent can only win one ring...so far. Without putting too fine of a point on it, showcasing, rather than winning rings, increasingly seems to be the function of UK basketball. And this makes some anecdotal sense. If the bulk of the incentives of college basketball lie increasingly just 12 to 24 months ahead for a team of 9-10 OAD/TADs, and winning a ring does not sharply alter the NBA contract size, or the Big Shoe endorsement size, what really matters most is getting the most season long branding and promoting exposure on TV for a 40 game season. Winning a ring would be nice, but it is hardly crucial, for a team with 10 OAD/TADs at all to accomplish the branding sought by the Big Shoe-Agency-NBA complex. But getting to the Final Four, and preferably the Finals is pretty important because it implies a lot of additional hours of prime exposure in media.
And if one were a shoeco legally supplying talent to, say, 3-4 elites, all that would really be important would be that that all four reach the Final Four, and after that it wouldn't matter a whit which one won the ring.
Or so it seems.
I cannot say whether high predictability of four elite teams making it to the Final Four each season would be good, or bad, for fans. Fans are not always easy for me to read.
But here are the points that I can make.
-
If I were Nike and could sharply increase the probability of Nike teams dominating the Final Four, I would think that were pretty good for business.
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If I were the media-gaming complex, and the four elite teams that reached the Final Four each season were likely to maximize my TV ratings, my click levels, and my betting volumes, I would think it were pretty good for business.
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And if I were all of the above and I could depopulate the field of even traditionally exceptional teams from weak markets ASAP in the tournament, I would think that were very good for business.
I am very interested in @justanotherfan 's idea that we are migrating toward an era of high concentrations of OAD/TAD talent at elite programs; that UK is a harbinger of future talent standards that the other elite programs will soon compete to join.
If I understand @justanotherfan his alias assumes/reasons/hypothesizes that Big Shoe is probably NOT the driver behind the recent, so far anomalous concentrations of talent at UK, and forecasts elite programs to joint UK at the level of 10 OAD/TADs, give or take a few depending on the season and circumstances.
Among Nike contracted schools, Duke is already at 9, and UA trails not far, if at all, behind.
If I understand correctly, at this point no adidas contracted schools are at the 10, or 9 level.
If I understand, @justanotherfan, an adidas KU program is way down at 3 OAD/TADs, and is just not applying enough resources wisely enough to attract 10 OAD/TADs give or take a few.
Again, if I understand @justanotherfan, his alias also suggests that elite programs will achieve 10 to 10+ levels of OAD/TADs by applying further resources to attain these levels of OAD/TAD talent.
@justanotherfan did not specify what these resources would be, but I guess that @justanotherfan believes these will be resources fitting with rules, regulations and laws (lets call this FRRLs) relevant to D1 and D1 recruiting. So: let's call them FFRL resources.
I would like for @justanotherfan, and others that support this hypothesis to enumerate these FRRL resources that KU will have to apply to move up ASAP first to the 10-level that UK is at, and next to the 12-level, which is where such competition should reasonably be expected to limit out at given the limit of 12 scholarship athletes. (Note: I suppose it could rise to above 12 to include walk-0n OAD/TADs with the right level of FRRL resources being applied, but let's just lay out the resources and the steps of their application needed to get KU first to the competitive standard of UK (10) and then to next likely limit (12) both UK and KU and other elite programs should be expected to rise to under @justanotherfan's expectations.
And I want to pre-empt any unnecessary discussion of UK not staying at 10 OAD/TADs consistently. It is assumed that UK will fluctuate +- 2 around 10 the way Duke is now at 9 and could be at 10-12 next season, or down to 8, depending on uncertainties (the error factor in recruiting, player failures and injuries, and early jumps). Put another way, FRRL resource applications, injury and unexpected events will trigger an average of 8 to 12 OAD/TADs as elite programs apply the FRRL
So: what are these FRRLs (Fitting with rules, regs, and laws) resources and when does KU apply them?
I mean, even last year with arguably KU's best recruiting hall in ages with Wiggins, Embiid and Selden, KU was far,far short of UK,and has been steadily behind the UK curve.
Under this hypothesis, KU does not need to shift shoe contracts from adidas to Nike to join this party and feast on the OAD/TAD recruits. All it has to do is apply FRRL resources.
If that's all it takes, lay it out and let's go.
Great Q.
It certainly looked bad.
But I've heard zip.
Why 9 games in against a team with a weak interior presence, when Lucas supposedly had a good week of practice?
It's a darned good question.
I haven't got a good answer yet.
Hunter looks awfully skinny and pale though.
That would be correct. I believe no one gets an OAD footer just on the coach's ability to melt a mom's heart.
Cliff is the perfect complementary 4 to a Zimmerman 5.
We've got to get Cliff out of the 5 at all costs.
I know we've got Perry at the 4, and I don't know how to solve that, but Cliff cannot be wasted the way Sullenger was at Ohio State playing 5.
P-O-W-E-R F-O-R-W-A-R-D!
No matter how good Cliff becomes offensively, he will always get eaten by a good footer in March. It is wrong to build teams around undersized guys if there's a choice. There is a choice. Find the footer and figure find a scheme for what to do with Perry.
Cliff needs a footer like TRob needed Withey/Kieff.
Cliff could be an all timer at power forward.
Self and Big Shoe have to get him one.
Every picture of Cos makes me sad now. I keep hoping allegations will all be refuted I looked up to him from the time I heard his first comedy album when I was 8 at neighbor's house on their Stereo HiFi spinning a 33 1/3 rpm vinyl of young Bill--early 60s. Never connected with his TV show much, but knew it was doing a lot of good for a lot of persons. Every comedian, Richard Pryor said, if I recall correctly, is working from a huge painful hole at the center of himself that was created by some tragedy in his childhood. They are all that way I believe. So since they all don't do what Cos reputedly did once he got famous, we can apparently infer that his reputed problem tracks to what he may have let fame do to him. Can't let this one go any easier than I can let the priests off the hook. God will have to forgive him, if he were proven guilty. I couldn't. I have great sympathy for him, but not nearly as much as I have for his reputed victims.
John Cheney? He appeared to be one of the guys that turned the game into thug ball. But what I admired about him was his willingness to fight for his players. Like Self recruits characters, Cheney appeared to recruit guys that often had never had anyone willing to fight for them. I believe that was his secret. He appeared to know how much it meant to have someone actually not just believe in you, but fight for your chance to make it. It is such a big difference.
Cheney appeared to try to intimidate any opposing coach. He seemed to feel he owed it to his players, who were apparently kids scrambling against long odds in a society that was often stacked against them. I liked that about him. And I would have taken a metaphorical baseball bat to him in a game in a pico second, because I feel exactly the same way about persons I try to help. Nothing personal. I just would have tried to KO him before the game started, same as he would have me.
John Calipari at UMass appeared to believe he could coach a slick game against Cheney with some of Cal's players (one that in the end led to vacated seasons), and Cheney reputedly decided to show the green coach that you don't slide things by a Philly guy. Cheney and Cal reportedly squared off. Both were reputedly held back from fighting and I believe both men were embarrassed at how they had acted...but only to some extent.
Cal was quoted in an article when he took over Memphis, if I recall correctly, that he was embarrassed about squaring off with Cheney on a floor, but Cal said he knew that if he had let Cheney bully him off the floor, his players would have quit on him and his career as a recruiter and coach would have been sunk. If I recall correctly, he said I couldn't ask my players to fight for me, if I weren't willing to fight for them. He implied that he probably would have gotten his clock cleaned by Cheney, but that he didn't care if he lost. He just knew he could not back down and face his players. Cheney seemed the same way, but Cheney was probably too old school ever to even talk about it.
I don't ever want a coach to fight another coach. It is the antithesis of what basketball is about. But I also don't want any coach to back down from another coach trying to bully him either.
I like Bill Self's approach, because he appears hard nosed, and unafraid of opposing coaches. But at the same time he appears to make them pay by outsmarting them as soon as they try to bully them, rather than waste a lot of time jawing at them.
But John Cheney (born 1932) came from a time and a place where things were different. Cheney, interestingly, was reputedly born in Florida and went to Bethune-Cookman and came north to coach in a Philly high school before coaching at Cheyney State in Pennsylvania, where he won an NAIA title before taking over at Temple. Cheney was apparently a hard case. Period. But his players reputedly knew he was fighting for them, leading them, not using them, IMHO. It was why Temple was always a little different kind of team, when Cheney coached them. There was a deep contract between he and his players. Cheney was NOT a saint. He appeared a fighter. And tough guy looking for an edge all the time. The Philly 'hood culture was not Cheney's culture as far as I can tell. It was what his players came from and he was the guy that had grown up in something even tougher down south--Jim Crow culture. There was no BS with him and his players. He apparently coached the zone, because in the zone groups of guys could gang up and maul an offensive player. Temple basketball was during his day something like what Izzo and Michigan State are today. Bring your brass knuckles to play, because they are bringing theirs. And if they got you down, they went ahead and kicked you in the metaphorical head. But Cheney built teams. And they played a certain way. And you had to want it bad to win, because they did.
The game survives guys like Cheney and Izzo, but only if the right way guys fight to save it.
But guys like Cheney and Izzo help a lot of young men that need someone to fight for them to make them realize they can make it in the world.
life isn't simple.
Whew! Glad its good bidness. Now, I don't have to try to figure out how to kick someone's ass that can kick mine. :-)
Its about damned time you dusted off the holiday blues, or whatever had has kept you quieter than usual.
This board is a day late and a dollar short without your initiating and impacting.
You've done the deed.
It makes you different whether you want to be or not.
Same with REHawk.
I apologize for any distracting pissing matches with others I may have caused in case that has kept you lower profile than usual.
And if you endured a loss, then please know we are all with you in spirit.
And are here to kick your ass out of it, when you are ready. :-)
Your take on dehydration may seem minor to you, but it is exactly what we can't get elsewhere.
You are the real politik of basketball.
Rock Chalk!
@highEliteMajor asked what HM and Perry playing together might imply?
It's too soon to conclude, but not too soon to hypothesize some possibilities.
Hypothesis 1: This could have been Self picking a weak opponent to give HM a showcase game to help make him be marketable in transfer. AWIII Redeux. This occurred to me first, because what little I could see HM did not seem very joyful, and his and Self's body languages did not seem very warm and fuzzy. But I couldn't see much. Maybe others saw more. Also he might not be able to transfer with eligibility remaining any where but D2.
Hypothesis 2: HM suddenly rejoins development mix, because maybe an OAD big prospect just declined. Recall AWIII seemed to go in the deep freeze, when Oubre loomed as a Wigs replacement. Maybe if Oubre had gone elsewhere AWIII would have been thawed out? Maybe analogous situation with HM?
Hypothesis 3: Self is testing a specific outside-in scheme on weak opponent. Double high post with HM and Perry, with Oubre at 3 and Selden at 2. The idea is use double high post shooting/driving threats to draw bigs out high to open driving corridors for Oubre and Selden as Wings, when the double high posts are not shooting or driving.. This would be borrowing from Hoiberg and adapting it to high low. Brilliant. It is a way of using abilities of Oubre and HM, too, more fittingly than conventional high low.
Hypothesis: 4: HM is finally healthy from a never announced ailment. Self picked weak inside team to break him in on.
Too soon to tell which one, or combination fits best.
Fascinating anomaly; that's for sure.
Hope it turns out to be a positive for HM whatever is going on.
He sure seems to be trying like heck.
Rock Chalk HM!!!
BIA MEMO
FROM: jaybate 1.0, director/janitor, Basketball Intelligence Agency, Langley, KS 007007-007
TO: Most Board Rats
RE: Mickelson psy-ops coming out party
Dirty informants brain washed in a hog wallow outside Desoto, KS, have fed BIA information once believed to have been stove piped, but now confirmed: Hunter Mickelson was thawed today from cryogenic coaching suspension in time for the Lafayette game and went basketball quantum. Mickelson played pretty much the way he was expected to play when he transferred to KU from UArk back in the mid 1990s. True, the decloaking device used to materialize him after thawing was not applied against a major, or a super major, or a hyper major, or a petaflop major, or a endorsement holding tank major, but it was still a very encouraging performance nonetheless. Some BIA staff genetic engineers and CBW specialists speculate that Mickelson may have had his DNA altered for the game, or alternatively that he may have finally recovered from an unreported kind of single nucleated, kissing-contracted disease that makes young men grow pale and fatigued for periods of time in college. These are only wild, ridiculously absurd speculations, of course, but bottom line, the kid balled today.
PHOF
I will put it this way.
We need Perry to be a 40% trey dinger so badly that I am joining a Jewish Temple, a Catholic parish, and a Baptist Church with a pond, so that I can pray for it on Saturday morning, go to mass Saturday night, and get dunked Sunday morning in hopes of persuading the almighty to give The Designer a triple blessing.
Hypothesis time:
Nike UK reputedly has 10 OAD/TAD apparent Nike leans.
Nike Duke reputedly has 9 OAD/TAD apparent Nike leans.
Nike UA reputedly has a huge bunch of OAD/TAD apparent Nike leans.
Is it time for adidas to pick one team and up-stack it to 13?
Adidas appears not to have enough OAD/TAD apparent Adidas leans to stack three programs.
But it does appear to have enough to up-stack one program to 13.
Should KU agree informally to be that team?
If Adidas and KU do not informally stack the apparently informal Nike way, is Texas about to become the apparent Nike informal stack in the Big 12 to marginalize Kansas in its own conference?
Very tough decisions for BGL, Zenger and Self may loom.
And this could bleed over into Beaty and football.
TRob playing post in the L for a footer.
Oh my!
Hoping Phil trades for TRob.
Great points.
And I believe Evan can play some.
Every team evolves into needing certain things. Look at Devonte's role: he wasn't shooting many treys at all. He was helping and gluing and sharing ball handling. Evan could probably do all those in a pinch. On ball defense seems where he might run into some trouble, because of how fast and rough things get.
But never bet against a Manning.
And the contribution the walk ons make seem extraordinary in the time, work and focus they bring daily, plus studying, with slim chance of breaking through.
I always remember the big red head some years ago that also was getting his architecture degree. What an awesome person he appeared to be!!!
Self appears in a bind.
He says his go to guy is Perry, because Perry can shoot the face up J from outside, and drive it; that appears Self's formula for a stretch 4 which Self has said is probably the toughest kind of player to guard in D1.
But there is one problem: Perry is shooting .267 from trey on low attempts.
Hunter may have a crack in the door at the 4, if he can make set shot treys at .400. But that seems a long shot--pun intended.
I doubt he cares about board rats.
If he does, then he is doomed, because the PetroShoeCo-agency-summergame complex couldn't give a hoot about us.
But he is probably getting skittish about the recruiting gurus shagging him, because they do apparently spin some mock draft illusions that make it harder for him to close on a prospects.
My guess is Hunter is being mentioned again, because some OAD big Self was hoping for has just flushed KU, which means Hunter will have be made use of next year.
Was it you that said that Self was hand wringing about how short they were inside at the start of the season?
Is he perhaps still worried?
But I think a rotation of Cliff and Lucas on the low block, with Perry and Hunter squeezing the trey ball 4-6 times a game combined, plus Greene bombing from trey, plus Frank popping the occasional trey, will open up the backside and baseline action for Selden.
The future maybe Selden and the Cliff/Landen committee to learn to play with each other along the baseline while the others rain it from three.
But that starting team, which seems like the one in harmony with the stars, would have only one credible trey shooter--Mason at .50 on low attempts, two wings cold at treys and icy at overall shooting percentage, and there in lies the rub. Selden is at .367 from trey and an icy .342 overall. And Oubre is only.375 on low trey attempts and an icy .348 overall.
Perhaps Self believed when he signed Oubre that Oubre could learn to shoot the trey this season. I even recall Oubre talking about how he was working all summer long on his trey to get ready to play the three position. But it apparently has not happened for Kelly yet.
Curiously, Self has continued to talk about how the light is just about to go on for Kelly. Kelly appears to be getting more comfortable in his minutes on the floor.
But I increasingly suspect that what has kept Kelly off the floor is what has recently kept Svi off the floor: a low percentage trey gun and an overall inefficiency scoring.
Self took a big gamble that Svi was in a slump. But Svi shot .286 from trey and .333 overall. Self finally just could not afford Svi any more once Svi's weakness defending ball screens got exposed. Self can use him as a sub, because Svi protects decently, but until Svi goes on a hot streak and figures out how to defend a ball screen, it appears Self just cannot use him.
(Note: why Svi is having so much trouble shooting is a bit of a mystery except that we saw some sign of it in his summer play overseas. I wonder if perhaps he got injured overseas and it has carried into this season. He will probably get untracked though.)
Self also has not been able to afford Kelly either. Kelly is shooting.375 from trey on low attempts, but as I said above, only .348 overall. Plus he has made a lot mistakes.
Self is starting the only guy that makes sense now--Greene, who is shooting a scorching .462 from trey and .457 overall.
And Self is FINALLY letting Perry shoot the trey, though I recall his stats are only .267 right now on KU's stat site.
And Self at least made a possible allusion to thawing Hunter Mickelson out and letting him do at the 4 what Perry is trying recently--some outside shooting.
Self seems determined to keep The Big Red Dog and Lucas rotating on the low block full time. Perry's days pounding it in on the low blocks against L&As seem done. Any team that is 6-8 or less at the 4, Perry will go down low and spin for his points. But >6-8 and its out to the top of the free throw circle for some Threes for The Designer. and maybe Hunter in relief.
If you have no family or friends you trust that will take pets, it is a very tough call about what to do.
Many parts of America have shelters that are night mares, while the dog is alive and death camps due to slim chance of adoption.
Owners like this woman mean well. They don't want the dog to suffer in their absence. They figure they will find someone to take the dog before they go and the will is just a worst case scenario. But as persons get old, their dog becomes their sole source of comfort, and their world shrinks and their minds dement, and before they know it they don't trust anyone and it is everything they can do to just muddle through dying themselves.
At least this woman cared enough to specify one outcome, or another.
The world is full of dogs that just get abandoned, left on a side of a road somewhere, or are just not fed until they go wandering a way looking for survival.
I am very sad for Bela, but her mistress may well have done the best she could do.
The thing here is not to blame the late owner, but to find a remedy.
I do not know one yet, but I will think on it and I know others here will to.
Hypothesis: What we are learning about Self's players in the pros is that there are a lot of flipping idiots in the pros that cannot figure out how to use fundamentally sound players that have one or two strong suits.
The only guys 3/4s of NBA management can recognize as players are guys that infants still overworking pacifiers could recognize to be players; i.e., superstars.
I am serious about this.
Jordan used to talk, if you read between the lines, about how utterly stupid the Bulls owner and GM were about basketball. The only correct thing they did was hire Phil to replace Doug and that took the same kind Basketball IQ it would have taken to hire Wilt to replace Vlade Divac.
Seriously. Seriously.
SERIOUSLY.
NBA management in three fourths of the franchises are morons that couldn't figure out how to sell water to thirst crazed tourists lost in the Gobi desert.
Everyone of KU's guys has struggled at the start in the NBA.
Maybe it has to do with our guys being adidas guys and the NBA being a big Nike brothel where all the Nike coaches have to shaft our guys for the good of Duopoly Wars, or something.
But I really think the NBA managements are just idiots.
Self's guys generally have to float around a couple of years until someone knowledgeable gets invovled before they get their time to show they are rotation players.
I mean, its insane. Aldrich even went to a team originally that was supposed to understand him, and those idiots reduced him to a D-leaguer.
Then they do the trade around thing. You know the NBA trade around thing; that's where owners and GMs that can't even figure out what personnel they need trade players to manage the payroll. Idiots trading with idiots.
Once Cole finally got off the Conveyor Belt of NBA GM Stupidity, surprise surprise, Phil Jackson becomes President of the Knicks and picks him up and tells Mike Woodson to send him to the Erie Jayhawks to find out if he's sound, then kicks him back up to the L to buy him the breathing room to cut a moron (Odom), marginalize a head case (Chandler), give a real player (Amare) fighting injury a decent backup (Cole).
Its amazing how Self's guys flourish when they connect with someone that really knows what they are doing...REALLY.
Give Self Kevin Durant and three years and he would win an NBA title that that light weight at OKC never will.
There is no substitute for real intelligence and Basketball Knowledge!
Rock Chalk Phil!
Rock Chalk Bill!
Rock Chalk Jayhawk pros.
Self confirms Lucas had a good week of practice, but The Big Red Dog gets promoted ahead of him. Its interesting to, because on a per minute basis, Cliff is not outpacing Lucas large amounts. except scoring. Scoring is taking on greater importance to Self, it seems.
Self confirms Svi had a good week of practice, but Greene starts. Greene's defense looks pretty awful still, but he is playing hard and he exploded out of position at the end of the Utah game and those explosive plays imprint on Self like nothing else other than Cin saying, "Take out the trash. I don't care if the house is 23,000 square feet, or not."
Self confirms Oubre had a good week of practice and the light is going on, but the OAD draft choice still isn't good enough to start...at any position, even after part time starter Devonte Graham goes down, even after Selden's explosiveness seems to implode more each week, even after Self brandished Evan and Jam Tray as perimeter backups. Self explains Oubre's slow start by saying they have been asking him to do things at guard he had not done in high school. Like play 4?
Self confirms Perry is the team's go to guy, because he can shoot the face up jumper from outside AND drive the ball, despite calling Perry making 3-3 outside the first half against Utah Fool's Gold. One potentially valid inference is that what he means is that Perry is the team's Fool's Gold Go to Guy. Another potentially valid inference is that Self is just doing fool's gold comments.
Most interesting signal--sort of the basketball equivalent of SETI picking up a string of radio waves from deep space that might be a sign of intelligent life, but then usually turns out not to be--is that Self said some player named Hunter Mickelson had a good week of practice and was shooting it well. This is coincident with Self apparently conceding the team is NOT going to keep preparing to be a penetrate and pitch team with Devonte out, and is instead going to become a pass and shoot team. Inference: Hunter may have been thawed out of cryogenic status, and given some love, because Self has decided this Fool's gold stuff from the 4 may be just what this team needs more of. Perry starts and gives fools gold for five minutes, then Hunter does fools gold for 3, then back to Perry who does fools gold for another 5, then back to Hunter and so on through the half. Fool's gold requires fresh legs, you know. Its harder to make fool's gold on tired legs than on fresh legs. And notice that Jamari Traylor is not really a fool's gold kind 4 with fresh legs, or not. So what we could be seeing here is the beginning of a much more offensively sane approach to the game that will no doubt please @HighEliteMajor, if it were to happen. Perry and Hunter do the fool's gold stuff at the 4. Clifford and Lucas do the incredible hulk schtick at the 5 with the Fool's gold room created from Perry and Hunter stretching things from the high post, while Selden, Greene and Svi rotate on the wings, letting Selden to alternate between PG played at a walking pace, to give Frank his rest, and Selden sitting to give Selden a rest. This dog might hunt.
Whither Jam Tray? Ah, here is the part that may send @HighEliteMajor immediately back to Infarction Junction: Jam Tray may really swing 2-3-4-5 as a defensive jack of all trades.
@HighEliteMajor shouts: yeeeeeeaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh, I am Oedipus, where is mom's broach. Its time to put my eyes out!
The Jam Tray can explode out of position with the best of them.
The Jam Tray guardeth.
Why not let the Jam Tray guardeth for a speciality and leave aside his offense for the time being.
If 6-7 Bobby Wilkerson on Indiana's 76 undefeated team could lock down from the 2 any position on the perimeter, maybe the Jam Tray can too, whenever he is not being required to backup the 4-5 for defensive purposes.
Maybe the Jam Tray will never toucheth the ball as a ball handling combo.
Maybe the Jam Tray will just locketh down and keep it from sticking on the other end.
Maybe he will even receiveth some lobbeths.
Yeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh.
Box.
Outside.
Think.
Or maybe not.
Self threw the last cryogenically frozen Jayhawk, AWIII, some road salt occasionally, only to leave him in the deep freeze and send him packing to Buffetsville.
Double speak.
Part biblical.
Part present day vernacular.
Even a little of Greek antiquity.
Let the double speak continue.
:-)
Mason--Given
Selden--Given
Greene--Bill knows offense is officially a problem
Ellis--usual big game against a lesser opponent
Cliff--time to see if he picks up two quick starting against a lesser opponent.
Svi--continues to recede. Is it because he's already shown he can play and Self is trying to bring Greene up to speed? Or is there something going on behind the scenes? The historical tendency is injury, when guys that have shown they can play suddenly stop playing.
Oubre/Jamari--going to be interesting which one plays where, when.
The man who will use his skill and constructive imagination to see how much he can give for a dollar, instead of how little he can give for a dollar, is bound to succeed.
--Henry Ford
Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably the reason why so few engage in it.
--Henry Ford
:-)
@globaljaybird is the king of candor and gentleness/generosity of spirit--probably the rarest combinations of virtue anyone can attain. He is among those I have to look in the mirror each day, regarding my writing here, and query the reflection in the shaving mirror that is so much older than I feel myself to be, and say: did I do The Legacy justice, or not?
Ugh, I could not bring myself to watch Nike-Duke Coach Consonants and his apparently stacked band of Blue Cheap Shotters.
His post game little Jack Horner, what a good boy am I interviews in which he tries to be "Knute Rockne" of basketball seem disingenuous to the point of insult, given the tactics on the floor, and in recruiting that he appears to be using.
Next!
Dang, its hard getting this bushy tail properly tucked between my legs, but I will do it for you and The Legacy and Santa.
:-)
One time I recall KU faltering seriously, because of injuries and so on. It was 1988. :-)
What if Devonte is done for the season?
What if Selden's knee never restores, worse, gets sore?
What if Evan twists an ankle?
What if Svi has something wrong that isn't going away?
What if Jam Tray really can't dribble?
What if this is all a father-son myth playing out?
What if this winds into Tyler having to save his father?
Life is so amazing.
"When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be."
Lao Tzu
I love quotes, and I love this quote by Henry Ford perhaps more than any other.
"Don't find fault, find a remedy."
It says it all.
In sports, you simply aren't considered a real champion until you have defended your title successfully. Winning it once can be a fluke; winning it twice proves you are the best.
--Althea Gibson