🏀 KuBuckets Archive

@HighEliteMajor

HOWLING!

@REHawk

Coach, I know you know way more than me, so tell me if I read the situation wrong. I never fly under false flags about this stuff. I never played the game at a high level, but I was fortunate to have a father and brother that were pretty good and that taught me what they knew. My Dad wasn't good enough to play for Phog, but he hung around games and practices for a year at KU after having played a year at Washburn hoping to catch on at KU, so he had a pretty good knowledge base. And I had a high school coach that was way ahead of his time in teaching how the game was played. And I've done my best to read books by Phog, Wooden, Dean Smith, Knight, Claire Bee, Red Auerbach, and whatever articles about Ralph Miller, Frank McGuire, Larry Brown, Tex Winter, Sam Cunningham, Jack Gardner, John McClendon, Chuck Daly and Phil Jackson that I could. This is my background knowledge base. It isn't the best, but I've tried hard to become as knowledgeable as I could short of making it a career. Wish I had made it a career. I would never have tired of it as I have other careers. Anyway, what I love so much about this board and the previous board is the opportunity to exchange knowledge about the game. It has been a huge net gain for me. I just try to give back as much as I can in order to justify how much I get. I am often wrong, but I keep working at it.

@ralster

Great, great read.

Super recall on WSU backing out of playing KU originally.

I am in a similar boat.

I loved the Shocks till they started dissing KU.

Did it really take a consultant like Neinas to hire David Beaty?

Good lord!

What's next? Will Zenger use Neinas to consult with Beaty on which offense to run?

Chuck Neinas: offensive formation consultant.

Hey how about hiring Neinas as the chancellor's shopping consultant? It's near Christmas.

Or Chuck Neinas--Jock strap consultant?

Or maybe Shay Zeng needs an assist with athlete's foot?

Chuck Neinas--fungal consultant.

Next.

@ralster
Yes, I always think it's madness, each time they do not use a guy of Self's savvy to hire a football coach. He knows more about what it takes to win at KU than any one. We can't do any worse. Give our genius a try!

@wrwlumpy

Glad you saw that game. I did too.

UA is mongo long and deep.

Zaga is just long.

KU is Jack this season.

And there are 4-6 giants up the bean stalk.

@Lulufulu

A lot of these terms fairly recently coined by coaches to capture some new aspect of the game.

They usually sound accurate at first, but then reveal themselves to be pretty fuzzy.

Rim protect. What exactly does that mean? Does it mean blocking, or altering? Or standing in front of the rim and letting no one get right at it? I think it means all three. To do all three is to protect the rim from being scored in.

Explosive gets used a couple of ways too. I use it to describe a player's ability to go from guarding a spot to guarding beyond it. Good players can guard a spot, or a player on it. But it takes some special strength to explode out of one spot and onto a line, or onto another spot,where the action has shifted suddenly to. Svi is long and can run fast. But he is not yet strong enough to explode off his spot to help another defender, or block the shot of another, or go get a rebound away from the man/spot he is guarding.

Selden started out very explosive last season, but his knee injury reduced his explosiveness. He found it harder to get off his spots and stay with his men. He grew less able to explode out of his position and help stop another player. He lost his ability to explode up off his spot to block shots, and to get up and jam it at the rim.

Jam Tray, despite his limitations in some respects, has always been able, even at only 6-6, to explode out of position and get a block while helping on another much taller player.
whe

@Lulufulu

Good questions about Jam vs. Cliff and about Kelly.

In the closing minutes with a lead against a very athletic team and long team, you figure there is going to be some pressing, some fouling and generally an attempted come back. Scoring is a bit less important than trying to get up and down the floor for blocks, alters, and stops. You can afford to miss a FT or two with the size of lead KU had.

Cliff had been laboring long and hard against bigger players. He looked kind of tired to me. Also, Cliff plays defense a bit stiff legged. When he is guarding in close to the basket, its tolerable because bodying is the coin of the realm, not big time sliding on long passes. I think Self thought Jamari could get up and down the floor a bit better at that point. And he thought Jam tray had a bit more explosion left in his legs for altering shots and going for dunks. And though Cliff seems the better FT shooter, Jam had just made a clutch pair last game and, as I said, Self could afford for Jam Tray to miss one or two. Had he missed some, Self could have come back with Cliff, who would have had a quick blow. I can't recall the Big Red Dog's foul situation, but Self also wanted to make sure he had Cliff for an OT. And finally, Jam has more D1 experience than Clifford.

Next, Oubre. When you're going for stops, rather than scores, compare 6-7 to 6-6 Perry, who often struggles against bigs, with 6-7 Oubre with the 7-2 inch wing span. Oubre is march harder to shoot over and/or to pass around, than Perry. And Oubre's offensive strength is transition and going suborbital on the way to iron. Florida was really long. Had it been a one point game, Self might have stayed with Perry. But the extra points were a cushion. And so if you would have had to take a foul, it would have been better for Kelly to take it rather than Perry, whom you might want as unfouled up as possible for an OT.

Hope that helps.

Self is always a good team player, when it comes to KU football coach hires, but as in all things publicity related, Self always manages to encode some thing or other to KU fans, if they will make an effort at decoding.

We are not talking the German Enigma code, or anything, requiring Alan Turing, but the Self code is kind of tricky, nonetheless, being as it is a mix of of certain Okie-isms, some coach speak, and some fractured Self syntax. But I believe it is worth trying to decode in this case of the hiring of David Beaty.

If I recall correctly, Self was "excited" about Turner Gill's "Nebraska roots" and his "values" and his ability to "bring in players." Notice he did not say what kind of players. He did not say that Gill was smart as a whip and a chip off the old Osborne/Devaney block. Notice he did not say he was excited about what a terrific coaching talent Gill was. And Gill turned out NOT to be a great coaching talent, and while he brought a lot of players in, they were not the kind capable of winning much. Even those like me that say Gill should not have been run out of town on a rail, when he was, don't argue he was anything special. Self's code communicated as much from the git go.

Self's take on Charlie Weis was similarly illuminating in an indirect way. When Self was asked to comment on Weis, again, if I recall correctly, he said something like Weis had been a great NFL offensive coordinator and something approximating, "Coach Weis really knows how to hold court with the media." No comment about his ability to recruit. No comment on whether his intent to focus recruiting on Catholic high schools made a lick of sense, or not. No comment about whether the NFL offensive mind would translate to working with college kids in the Big 12 against Big 12 defenses. Looking back it was kind of like Self saying, well, if college coaching were primarily about talking to the media, Weis might have been peachy, but there was jest uh leeeeeeeeetle bit more to college coaching than chatting up guys from the LJW, KC Star and Wichita Eagle Beacon. And if this decoding of Self were accurate, well, Bill Self kind of lets us all in on Weis from the beginning, too.

So: what has Bill Self to say of David Beaty. Well, Self says something to the effect that though Beaty has been on KU's football staff not once, but twice, during Self's tenure, he doesn't know David Beaty too well. He says Beaty has a good rep as a recruiter. And Self says Beaty is as "excited" about getting the head coaching job as Self was when Self became head coach of KU basketball. In fact, Self says Beaty is so excited about coaching KU football, that Self wants to go to his press conference and see if a little of the "juice" rubs off on Self. Uh-oh, the press allusion again, similar to his Weis encoding.

Now let's think about the above a little. Self at least seems to be saying he doesn't know the guy and by implication that he had nothing to do with hiring him. Ooooookay. What else? A good rep as a recruiter. Hmmmmm. That's not quite the same as saying he is a good recruiter. And there is no mention of his coaching chops again. And remember that Self had been a head coach at three different schools before he got the head basketball job at KU, whereas, Beaty has never been a head coach in D1, and only briefly been a coordinator.

Regardless, Self says he is fired up about Beaty.

So I am too.

Whatever that means.

(Note: I did not go back and hunt through actual quotes for Self's actual comments. I worked from vague recollections. And if my recall sucks and you recall it differently, or if anyone else were to, then I would of course defer immediately to your properly documented version of all of this. Just trying to stay entertained before John Thompson 2.0 obstructs our path to getting better.)

@KUSTEVE

Selden was trying to run the show. He was calling or the ball and also getting open so the ball would come to him. These are the two things you have to do at crunch time to be "the guy" on a team. One or the other isn't enough. If all you do is stand around an call for the ball, you teammates that are trying to keep it moving are saying why don't you join the team suckah. If all you is try to get open, the ball may, or may not come to you if someone else is trying to get open.

Get open AND call for the ball.

Calling for the ball is not always, or even mostly, shouting for it.

Calling for the ball happens with body language. When you move, you move not just to fill spots at learned spacing, but instead you are moving in for a kill. Your teammates that are not really good enough to create the space to get a shot against whomever they are up against are desperately looking for someone that is moving like they intend to score.

Selden's problem all season is that he has not been moving in for the kill. He got it in his head that waiting for the game to come to you involved filling spots and not letting the ball stick. But when you are the man on a team, when the team needs a basket, you have move around the floor like a shark looking for the kill, so your teammates are thinking, "Yeah, KUSTEVE IS ON THE PROWL. He wants the ball. The minute he separates I'm getting it to him." Players familiar with each other can feel when their "go to guy" is on the prowl, when he is moving like it is time for me to do something for the team. Michael Jordan wasn't a dangerous killer only when he had the ball. I bet if you asked a lot of defenders that guarded him they hated it more when he did not yet have the ball. When he had the ball, at least you knew where he was coming from, even if you did not know which way he was going. But when he was without the ball, he was moving you around like a cat moving a mouse around before he pounces. And you were never sure when the ball would be delivered to him and what angle he would try to attack you at. Selden has not, until the second half of the Florida game, played without the ball like a predator stalking his prey. So: teams have just hung back and jumped into advantageous positions on him, as he started from his heels when the ball came to him. The second half of the Florida game Selden was stalking his opponents without the ball. He was looking for positions he could kill them. When one does this, one starts not on one's heels, but already in a dangerous direction moving to the kill zone. It makes you very much harder to guard. And the more you play this way the more you can then occasionally step back and get your teammates involved because everyone has begun to watch out for you. Back and forth it goes. Predator after prey, then involve you mates, then back to preying without the ball, then more kills, then involve your mates. Selden was doing none of this before the second half of the Florida game. I have no idea why, except that he may have been unnerved by how much explosiveness he had lost. Frankly, he wasn't very explosive against Florida that second half. What he was was incredibly strong in his moves. Self even described Selden that way. He said something about Wayne being one of the strongest 2s in basketball. Self has been trying to get Selden to play strong, since his explosiveness has diminished. And in Self's mind, strength was probably always Selden's long suit anyway. But Selden has had to change the way he thinks. And that is once of the hardest things for one to do.

@JayHawkFanToo

I don't recall it, but it sounds terrific.

@Lulufulu

Do you recall playing when you were young and guarding an opponent that could tie your feet up, because he was so quick you had to honor his first move. He could get you going one way with one foot beginning to slide say to your right and then he would drive straight at your trailing leg? Once you start the slide you are very vulnerable to someone driving hard off your trailing leg. When Self put Svi on Kasey Hill, he was trying to see if Svi's length could slow Kasy down. But I believe Donovan had studied Svi's footwork and learned that he tends to use his long legs to cut persons off by making a really long first slide with the direction he thinks the opponent is going. Donovan probably just told Kasey Hill, or perhaps Kasey Hill just knew to do it instinctively, to fake or lean right and then drive right to the side of Svi's trailing leg in the slide. I saw Svi get caught in that position four different times. Two with ball screens I believe, and two without. Hill would get him moving and then drive on his trailing leg. Without the ball screen, Svi got tripped up and would turn and burn to try to catch up but Hill was already in position to dish. Svi was long enough that Hill did not attempt to pull up and shoot J's for fear Svi would untangle his feet and swipe from behind with Svi's greater height. But when Hill did this off a ball screen, not only did Svi's feet get tangled, but then Hill scraped him off and took some wide open looks. The problem was not so much Svi's strength, but his footwork. Great defenders like Chalmers, Robinson, Rush, Releford and Selden are so strong and quick that they can short slide the first slide and actually be able to drop step even when it is a fake and the opponent tries to drive on their trailing leg. The minute a perimeter defender relies on a long first slide against a great put-it-on-the-deck perimeter offender, he drives on the trailing leg. Svi just ran into some perimeter guys that were very quick and whose first moves he had to honor. When he honored them with long slides, because of how quick they were, they drove on his trailing leg. It is a move as old as the playgrounds. And as old as Claire Bee. Maybe it goes back to Phog and the farm yards, I don't know. But I know that Svi was falling for it every time, because Kasey Hill was one incredibly quick guard that was so ambidextrous that Svi could not hedge him either way. So: that meant Svi HAD to honor that first fake. And the moment he did, Hill drove on his trailing leg and Svi's feet got tangled up trying to adjust. Really, if Frank Mason could ever get to where he was as ambidextrous on the bounce as Hill, Frank could do the drive on the trailing leg move at will. One day he probably will, but Hill seems one of those guys that came down the birth canal watching the lead leg and driving on the trailing leg.

@lincase

Sorry about that damned pneu. Those things suck and nag. Take your ABs even if its viral, because they will control the ancillary infection, according to jaybate's almanac and patent medicine dictionary. :-) Get well soon.

I really think at Gainesville, without the Phog and with Donovan getting to give the butt chewing at half time, the game would have favored Florida that second half. They are a way long team inside, and down the stretch an angry long team with raw rumps just seems like it would have been too tough for our guys in the second half suffering from overconfidence from a great first half.

But it is a counter factual scenario, so your take is just as defensible as mine; that's for sure.

@brooksmd and @Lulufulu

For what its worth, as the BufSpring used to title, "there's something happening' here/what it is aint exactly clear..."

But I don't believe anything illegal is going on.

They have good lawyers and deep pockets.

So: I infer they can play without rule breaking.

I just think we are witnessing the legal power plays of duopoly players.

Really, they have no reason, or need, to act illegally in these issues.

The rules are probably such that there would be no need.

So: as I have been writing lately, the game being played may not work out in our favor all the time, but I do not think there is anything illegal going on.

@drgnslayr

Yes, I noticed what you are describing. Donovan is a good defensive coach, and could apparently recognize and scheme against some rules that KU's defense has been apparently relying on for help. Donovan seemed to position his players on the floor in seams of uncertainty regarding Self's defensive rules. Self then faced a choice: adjust during the first half and give Donovan something to adjust to at half time, or limp into half and make the adjustments during half time, so Donovan would not know what they would be to start the second half. It was a big risk to wait till half time considering how far down we were, but Self has often been an all or nothing gambler when he is finally forced to gamble. By waiting to adjust how they handled ball screens at half time, Self bought his team the best possible chance of getting out of the blocks fast and regaining some self respect...AFTER A BUTT CHEWING. :-)

I have seen Self make this choice a number of times. In the heat of the moment, I sometimes forget that that is what he does. If we went back and looked at the UK game, I suspect he suffered the first half in order to conceal the adjustments he intended to make, also. But UK was just to experienced and too talented for the adjustments to be executable for his guys. Or Cal guessed right on the adjustments Self would make and reschemed the second half and so just completely blew KU out of the water. Self probably understood there was no hope for going into the huddle with a demoralized young team and trying to get them to change tactics a second time in the second half and just decided to slow things down, and keep the score of the blow out as low and unspectacular as possible. It was bad, but it could easily have turned into 120 to 50 had KU tried to up the pace, and change defensive schemes in a huddle, when his young team barely even knew how to do what he had already asked them to do.

I sometimes think Cal is underrated in certain ways. Cal is not as sophisticated a tactician as Self IMHO, but I do think he learned from the same old fox--LB--about how to counter what others do, or will do, and when. Donovan learned his game from Pitino, not LB, and while Rick Pitino is brilliant in his own ways, I just don't think there is another fox quite as clever as LB, who learned his stuff from Frank McGuire, who outmaneuvered Wilt Chamberlain for a ring, and Dean, who outmaneuvered an entire university bureaucracy to build an informal fiefdom we might call Carolina Basketball INC.

Fruit doesn't fall far from a tree, as the saying goes.

1. No direct translation for butt chewing in Ukrainian.

2. Donovan clearly schemed to run ball screens on him no matter who he was guarding on the perimeter. Translation: Donovan found the flaw in Svi's armor. Drive on him and scrape him off on a ball screen. Svi tried hard, but at 17, he just wasn't up to the challenge without preparation. Between now and Georgetown Svi and the coaches will be practicing him nonstop on how to handle a ball screen.

Two is a perfect example of what I have been saying about Greene and other players. As video builds up of a young player, each succeeding coach has a chance to find weaknesses and scheme to exploit them. It then takes a couple of weeks or month for a player to develop that weak link in his armor and begin getting better overall again. Self was trying to make sure Svi's confidence did not get wrecked by exposure to something he had not been specifically prepared to handle. Good for Self for sitting Svi. And Devonte was apparently suitably well adapted to handle what they were doing. Now, coaches will find a chink in Devonte's armor and go after it next game. Its the nature of getting better. This is why experienced teams so often fair better than inexperienced ones, even if they have a wee bit less talent. They have fewer chinks to scheme against.

@VailHawk said:

and go on to be one of the worst GM's in league history?!?!

PHOF!!!

@VailHawk said:

Devante was 6' when he signed and now 6'2" at KU

HOWLING!

@brooksmd

Thx, brooks, I needed that. :-)

I cannot praise Billy Donovan too highly. Each season I am more and more impressed with his character and his skill. Each season that passes, it becomes more and more apparent that his back to back titles were accomplishments of a great basketball mind and man, and that he is a credit to the game and so to Rick Pitino, his oft misunderstood mentor. Billy Donovan hired Norm Roberts when Norm was radioactive in recruiting. Billy Donovan turned down the Kentucky job, and the NBA, apparently the two greatest temptations of the soul of any college basketball coach. Billy Donovan has built Florida into a respected name in basketball. Billy Donovan is the only coach in the post-modern era to win back to back national titles (and he did it without a super player and that is what everyone forgets). Billy Donovan walked into the Phog with a flipping bitter pill in his past having played on the UK team that was thrashed mercilessly by KU back before Roy knew better than to kick an opponent, when he was down. If ever there were a coach on this earth that would have been tempted to pulverize KU in last night’s game anyway possible, Billy Donovan was that man, and last night’s KU-Florida game in Allen Field House was that moment. And for a half it seemed that Donovan’s Gators would stage Kentucky 2.0 on Self’s outmanned Jayhawks. But then everything that could go wrong for UF did go wrong. A huge half time lead evaporated not so much on KU’s defense, or the greatest sixth man in basketball—Allen Field House fillled to capacity, or KU’s butt chewing restoration coach—Bill Self, or to the ghosts of Jimmy, W.L., Phog, Dick, Ted, Larry, and Roy, or to Wilt reaching down from basketball heaven and rim protecting that second half, as he most assuredly did, but to a now typically young and talented elite team getting over confident at the same moment that the iron at its end of the floor grew small as a bull’s butt at fly time, as the ‘Bate’s beloved Marine Corp Major father used to like to say to the chagrin of the the “Bate’s dearly beloved and departed Miss Priss mother. Anyone, anyone, and I mean anyone can be gracious and professional in a win or a moral victory. Even Coach K leaves the XTReme Cheap Shots in the old olive green, US Military Academy machete scabbord he carries under his Brooks Brothers suit coat, when he wins. Ratso Izzo can and does keep the brass knuckles and black jacks and shivs pocketed in a win and afterwards grins his every-good-boy-deserves-favor smile and says, “Thank you, father for this bread thou hast bestowed upon me and my boys.” But when either of those basketball pirhannas gets ten down with ten to go, their lips stretch back tightly over their gums and reveal fangs that look a cross between Count Dracula, a coiled Diamond Back, and a lathered Doberman. And then the cheap shotting and thug stuff starts until either the other team and referees are intimidated back under ten points, or five, or three, depending on how near the game is to the air, or the referees blow whistles and their opponents MAKE a slew of FTs and put the game completely out of reach. Not Billy Donovan. Not Bill Self either. If the opposing coach pulls out a gun at a knife fight, then Donovan, or Self, will eventually answer in kind, if the refs don’t put a stop to it. Billy Donovan is tough as nails. You can see it in his demeanor, you can hear it in his voice. He is everything good about the words “ferocious competitor.” And there is no doubt that his Irish can get up on him, even when he wishes that it would not. But he appears able to control himself, to direct himself toward "the right way,” win or lose. I have never learned more from a coach that lost than I learned from Billy Donovan last night in KU’s miraculous come from behind victory. Donovan has a super team. It is a team sure to be there at the end of the season. He is an absolutely dynamic point guard. He has length. He has strength. His only problems are youth and some slightly slow footed bigs and he will remedy those issues by March. And in an era, when the klieg lights and the Big Brother arena scoreboards heat up the desire to win at any cost to attract the next bunch of overhyped, OAD wannabes, most of the old and many of the new coaches, when down with five to go, suddenly stand—after a huddle--with arms folded, blank faced, and watch as their players carry out violent acts--in the greatest non-contact game ever invented—in order to intimidate their ways into a win they could not get otherwise. Bob Knight’s teams appeared to do it. Coach K’s teams appeared to do it. Rats Izzo’s teams appeared to do it. Rick Barnes teams appear to do it. John Thompson 1.0 and 2.0 have appeared to do it. BUT NOT BILLY DONOVAN’S TEAMS. AND BILLY DONOVAN’S TEAMS HAVE WON MORE RINGS BACK TO BACK THAN ANY OF THE COACHES JUST MENTIONED. Billy Donovan is a man’s man. He is a coach’s coach. If he were an Irish Catholic, which I suspect he is, he would be a credit to Irish Catholicism and a man doing good work, who, if he keeps it up, ought to be considered for basketball sainthood, anyway. Donovan had every temptation last night that a basketball coach could have to order a series of cheap shots to turn Bill Self’s kiddy dwarfs into crying school boys that would have allowed Donovan and his ice cold Gators to walk out of Allen Field House winners “the wrong way.” And there is no doubt in my mind that had Bill Self used such tactics when KU was down at half time, Donovan would have brought out the team machetes and left a couple KU players in the morgue. But Self did not, and Donovan did not, and their is basketball (and human) honor in this beyond any victory, or loss, that the “wrong way” men can glean by gaining victory, or averting loss, with basketball black ops. What we witnessed last night was not one coach out coaching another. What we saw were two "right way” coaches—the two greatest “right way” coaches of their generations—coaching painfully young teams through the outrageous fortunes that painfully young teams are heirs to. Each team played a superb half and an abysmal half. A young Florida was on the road in one of the toughest arenas to win on the road in. A young KU, still largely oblivious at the start of the game how hard D1 players have to play to compete against the best, came out as Self said, “like spoiled brats.” Not quite like “babies.” They weren’t quite that pathetic. But Self knows his similies and his team well. KU started as if it knew what it were doing, when it did not. Florida started as if it knew what it should do and did it. And then the half came. And though we were not privy to the exactitudes that occurred in the ridiculously posh locker rooms, we can reasonably infer that the Great Donovan—for that is what I shall call him henceforth, and deservedly so—counseled firmly, but positively, to stay focused, expect a furious rush from KU’s soon-to-be-butt-chewed mighty mites. And of course his young team listened but could not process the gravity of his counsel. In the other locker room, Bill Self, the other middle aged, increasingly wise and sage coach in the building last night, did exactly what Donovan would have done had their positions been reversed. He flew into a blind, red-faced rage threatening the body parts hanging uselessly suspended between his team’s until then essentially untaxed defensive legs. Self, the other “right way” coach in the building, apparently nearly infarcted as he contemplated not only not playing The Big Red Dog, but also sending him and Snacks both back to The Windy City to let the Almighty Hawk blow both into the backward flowing Chicago River in a snow storm to die of exposure and heavy metals poisoning. Both young teams came out exactly as young teams do in such circumstances. The second half played out exactly as such halves can play out on those rare occasions where the stars of two “right way” men meet head on with youthful talent blowing hot one have and ice cold the next. The only rare thing about how this gam played out was derived from the fact that not one, but two “right way” guys were coaching. Neither coach resorted to thug ball to “get a W”—to sign the next Lebron—to sign the "it" kid. The two right way coaches “let them play” the right way…the whole game. No thugging. No face punching. No stiff screens. No Adam’s Apple chops. No wind pipe smashes. No tripping. No up-ending at the rim. No flopping and lying to the refs. Just the usual contact among great athletes moving at high speeds at impossible angles for mere mortals to comprehend. A few mistakes from competitive fury unleashed by youth. A little ref baiting to counter act the few unintended excesses. Two great fight managers managing two young fighters with potential—neither one giving in to the guys down town with the bent noses and strong arm palookas asking everyone to take a dive or else. The Great Donovan staring down the short end of randomness and refusing to give in to his baser instincts—I will carry it with me the rest of my life and I will tell it to my son, and I will recall it to every young man I meet. The Great Donovan did NOT give in. To put this in final and proper perspective, had the situation been reversed, had the game been in Gainesville, had KU come out and played an insanely great first half, and laid an unpolished turd the second half, Florida would have won this game for sure. Because The Great Self would have played it exactly the way The Great Donovan did in Lawrence. These were two young teams still searching for “who they were.” Florida had way more talent inside and as much outside. But they got overconfident the wrong half. The only way they could have won on the road that awful second half was to cheap shot and thug. As Knight and Consonants would surely have done, and would surely have walked out of Allen Field House with a W. But not The Great Donovan. Not the man who has won back to back rings, and who will win some more. Not the man who respectfully declined to wade into the muck at his own alma mater. Not the man who turned down the mega bucks offered by The Association. Not the man who hired Norm Roberts when he was radioactive. College basketball was the real winner last night. Not KU. The Great Donovan and the Great Bill Self kept the machetes in the scabbards and all of college basketball ought to take note. Hell is in session in college basketball. Talent is distributed with absurd asymmetry. The wrong way types are preening. They are confident that they have won, as they always are, when they cast their black shadows on the greatest game ever invented. But the right way guys just held a clinic last night in Allen Field Lawrence, Kansas—the basketball equivalent of the Catholic Monasteries of Ireland, where, through out the Dark Ages, the wisdom and intellect of ancient Rome was kept alive in ancient scrolls constantly being copied by dutiful monks until the next renaissance. We know now that the monastery in Lawrence, Kansas, is not the only one. We know now that there is one in Gainesville, Florida, too. And so we dare suspect that there are still more out there we do not know about yet. To The Great Donovan I send this Irish proverb: a friend’s eye is a good mirror. The Jayhawks are friends of The Great Donovan and his Gators, even though we know it will sting like hell, the next time he and they beat us, as surely as it did the last time, and as surely as they must sting this morning. Rock Chalk, Billy, rock chalk!!!!!!

@KUSTEVE

That was a win that STILL feels good the morning after!

That should be a new placard hung over the front door.

Texas and Kentucky.

It was like choosing between scooping dog and cat poop. 😃

Seriously, two good teams.

What I noticed about UK this game was their Four near footers have slow feet.

Caullie-Stein especially.

Texas and Florida's bigs seemed to have the same problem.

The thing about Kentucky is: they are flattered by what low esteem people hold them in. 😄

@DoubleDD

I did not think they would lose. I thought they would get pulverized.

Way to stay positive.

@KUSTEVE

Ellie Mae, too!

@KUSTEVE

Hell, yeah, Jethro.

Let's throw granny in the ceeeeement pond to celebrate.

Self just learned "who we are" tonight.

We are the team that likes to have our butts chewed.

We like to bend over bare assed naked in the locker room and have a Stihl string trimmer laceration episode.

We are the team that never meant a coach with a lawn mower it didn't like.

We are the team that walks around junkyards looking for Dobermans to take a bite out of the backs of our pants.

We are THAT team.

Coach Bill Self, who once was a butt chewer par excellence in his 40s, but who seemed after his mid-life crisis to decide to put the string trimmers and lawn mowers away, just dusted a couple off in the Florida game, at half time, after a first half that can only be called Kentucky 2.0.

It was so bad that a die hard "Bill Self is a genius" type like yours truly, went into a kind of post apocalyptic million mile stare and said on JNew's Live Blog that this was going to be a bigger blow out than the Kentucky game.

If Mother "Bate were alive today, and not turning in her grave at my loss of faith in her beloved 'Birds, she would be washing my mouth out with one of those wire brush shotgun barrel scrubbers dipped in nitro solvent and lilac. She was that kind of mother.

Anyway, it was all quite a magnificient turnaround to behold. And Wayne Selden suddenly came out of the offensive stupor he has been mired in since the season began. Just say: Wayne gunned the trey, shot the pull up, took it to the iron, and generally acted like the kind of 2 that could pump life back into a corpse. The speculation would be that fully half of Wayne's ass is some where in shredded pieces on the floor of the KU locker room.

Frank Mason? Frank, after fertilizing everything he touched with some of the foulest compost ever witnessed in the first half, began to sew seeds of moves and dishes and gunning that made one bless the child that finally got his own.

Perry Ellis, after doing the Houdini in the first half, apparently materialized long enough in the locker room to feel his own arse reduced to a bloody pulp and came out and basically played guys a half foot taller even up.

Clifford "The Big Red Dog" looked utterly unfamiliar with the game of basketball the first half, and the came out with half an ass and suddenly seemed to have a Ph.d. in hoops.

Devonte Graham was especially impressive down the stretch handling the ball when Mason tried to play through what appeared an ankle hyper extension of some kind, only to discover that he could run but not well. Devonte did not bother much with clock management down the stretch. One could almost see the swarthy Frank in a big sombrero saying, "Time clock management? We don't need no stinking time clock management!" Rather he seemed to resort to the old adage that if you don't lose it and score a few points along the way that that is as good as playing the clock like an upper classmen would.

And one could go on.

But bottomline, Bill Self, post-male menopausal Bill Self, old post midlife crisis Bill Self, who probably was looking to settle comfortably into his golden coaching years letting his assistants chew butts, suddenly found that he needed a Briggs and Stratton 12 horse at least, and maybe a 15-20 HP, to really awaken the desire to play in his team of sawed off squirts.

It looks like newly chewed butts is "who we are."

Forget about a post. The headline says it all.

@nuleafjhawk

I read Kevin Haskins story and he has a side bar that shows he has coordinated a year at Rice and shared offensive coordinator at A&M, so maybe he is better than we at first realized.

@Lulufulu

Thx. I used to love Elks and it just suddenly popped into my head: a Tesla S Elk. I hope Elon reads this. They guy can seemingly do anything.

Ugh!

I have the same uneasy feeling about this one that I had with Gill and Weis.

The goodness stops at Aggie recruiting coordinator with Dallas connections.

A receivers coach?

Never a college coordinator on either side of the ball?

Played NAIA ball.

Uh-oh.

I know talent is king, but, surely, head football coaches are still supposed to have some coaching expertise on one side of the ball or the other, right?

This feels like another two-year program, unless Beaty can bring in 30 immediately, then 30 next year and find 20 already here.

And two coordinators to coach.

And he has a whizz-house load of brains about the game that he has been storing up.

@DoubleDD

This is sooooooo good I have to create a new wing in the posting hall of fame. The new wing will be named the "@DoubleDD Image Posting Hall of Fame."

So here it is....

IPHOF!!!!

@HighEliteMajor

Thank you, sir.

(Note: The Surgeon General indicates that this post has allusions to politics, economics, and lust that could cause certain board rats to backfill with faux righteous posts. The Surgeon General warns such faux righteous posters to stop reading immediately and click back to posts by others solely concerned with basketball. Scientific research also indicates that this post may cause cancer in certain strains of lab rats. Reader beware. )

I wish for a 15 point victory over Florida tonight. (There. That wasn't so bad, was it?) :-)

I wish for there to be a sale on 40% 3pt shots and that I can buy Wayne Selden a full season’s supply that he will start unwrapping tonight against the Gators—kind of a 3pt advent calendar kind of thing.

I wish everyone at AFH would buy lots of t-shirts, jerseys and hats now that Ed O’Bannon et al have hopefully encouraged the NCAA and member institutions to distribute more fitting shares of the proceeds to the players, whose likeness and performances are reputedly being exploited for big bones.

I wish the Petro Shoecos would come out and jointly announce that they support a 3 OAD limit through out Division I. :-)

I wish for a hand held foul counter and atomic game clock accurate to milliseconds tracking Cliff Alexander that Bill Self watches so closely that he can squeeze in a few more minutes of PT for The Big Red Dog.

I wish for no false flags. As the economy worsens globally, sputters domestically, and Putin drops the South Stream Pipeline in favor of a straight out joint venture overland with Turkey, that parallels the western oilcos pipelines, and which simultaneously strengthens Putin’s hand with perhaps our most pivotal geostrategic ally inside the realm of the old Ottoman Empire, and vaporizes our rationale for saber rattling about the South Stream Pipeline, well, the temptation increases to do false flags and blame stuff on others, so war can be made to liquidate a lot of the hopeless-to-repay central bank notes. Put another way, a good old fashioned false flag can take Covert WWIII public to Overt WWIII, so that some really HUGE no bids can be let and debt can be swapped by force for natural resources, right of ways, and control of the Eurasian center point.

I wish Frank Mason were to become the first PG to average 10 rebounds per game for a season.

I wish they would change the name of Black Friday to Warm and Friendly Friday.

I wish for Sviatslov to be voted first team All American and to lead KU to a national championship, in no small part because I want to see them try to fit his last name on a jersey hanging up on the wall in the field house.

I wish four footers would commit very soon to adidas-KU, so board rats could begin credible strategizing about how to beat down Nike-UK next season.

I really wish sexy, friendly women will be everywhere in the department stores when I tell them I am happily married and they begin to flirt with me precisely because they know I mean it. One is never too old for flirting, or for being happily married.

I wish Angelina Jolie decided to make a basketball film set in Lawrence, KS in which she played a women’s basketball coach that lost her passion until she met a fanatically passionate KU basketball board rat that reignited her love of the game. And I wish she would let me be the stand in for the board rat in the love scenes.

I wish that Christmas spirit and no bid contracts fill enough defense contractors with compassion and lucre that they count their bones for awhile and let the diplomats find some negotiated solutions to the really big problems that bang-bang has not.

I hope I find a basketball coaching book for Bill Self that shows a way for 6-6 guys to guard 6-10 guys in the paint and hold them to 35-45% on 2 pt FGAs, plus grab 10 boards a piece.

I wish for a Tesla S AWD that does zero to 60 in 3.2 seconds and is chopped into an El Camino-style electric with a righteous pickup bed. Further, I hope the custom body work is finished at the same time the Tesla giga battery factory spits out enough supply for Elon to start doing 3 minute battery swaps at his charging/service stations (as the Tesla has been designed for), so that once and for all the myth that electrics cannot compete goes onto the petro-ash heap of history. Go, Elon, go!!!

(Note: All fiction or satire or spoof. No malice. Prepare to SHOP!!!!!!)

I know I for one got my Christmas wish regarding Tarik.

I asked Santa back last summer for Tarik to skip the NFL and play in the NBA.

There really is a Santa Claus!!!!!!!!!

Go, Santa, go!!!!

@wrwlumpy

I have a hunch that Withey changed the way rim protection is done across the country.

I watched UA and none of their footers were leaving the floor much at all on defense, just on offense.

Before Withey, the game was for guys like Anthony Walker to leap and knock it into the second balcony. Lots of one and two step and jump to swat.

After Withey, the standing swat has taken over.

The standing swat takes away that driver's edge. He drive into your chest and if you are a footer you just reach high and its not very annoying at all. You block, alter, or take a charge.

@KUSTEVE

Good question about The Big Red Dog. Maybe Self thinks fouling is a habituating thing. Start fouling and you get in a bad habit?

@BeddieKU23

Boy, this is really good news about Florida struggling. This is exactly the kind of long team our short team needs to play in order to learn how to beat length. Yeeeeeeeeee haawwwww!

@HighEliteMajor

I also think we are going to see Self pick up the tempo a bit, whenever Jam Tray is in.

KU cannot score inside with Traylor and Ellis when the other team has L&As in the half court.

Self also admitted in his presser that this team just is not quick enough to wreak havoc. It guards very well, he implied, but it cannot beat anyone with disruption.

So: if you can't score inside, and you have to start a perimeter that shoots the lights out from trey (maybe good, but not great trey balling), and you can't dominate the boards for quick outlets, and you can't steal possessions with havoc, what can you do to outscore teams with L&As (UK, UA, Duke, Florida, Texas)? I mean, even if you guard them great, you have to find some way to score more points, right?

My thought distills to this.

Play them even on the perimeter. Maybe even hope for a small edge on scoring there on a good trey night.

Prevent all fast breaking and secondary breaking by the opponent; this is a really tall order, but achievable if you aren't frigging away time and energy pursuing half court disruption, which when you are small, leads to as many easy baskets for them as extra possessions for you.

Shift your rebounding as much as possible to perimeter rebounding, and ALWAYS release one of your two small bigs on a break.

PUT ONE OF YOUR BIGS THAT CAN'T SCORE IN THE HALF COURT ON THE BREAK EVERY POSSESSION. CHERRY PICK TO HIM. RELEASE GUYS WITH HIM. BUT GET HIM OUT AHEAD OF THEIR LONG BIGS AND IN POSITION TO GET TO THE RIM AGAINST THE OPPOSING TEAM'S PERIMETER PLAYERS THAT ARE BACK TO STOP THE FAST BREAK.

If you buy my approach, then Kelly needs more time at the 4 and Perry needs more time at the 5 popping treys that yield long rebounds to the guards. Release Kelly on the break, and release Perry on the secondary break and rebound with our long perimeter. When Cliff is at the 5, if he can run, then release him too.

Score with our little bigs in transition.

In half court sets, take nothing but treys.

@HighEliteMajor

Yes. Its "who we are." We might as well come out of the closet on being an outside-in team.

A 6-6 post (Traylor) and a 6-6 4 are not an inside-out bunch.

The only reason I can see for throwing it into the post first is as a means of shortening games, which may be exactly what Self intends.

But no one should think that the throw into the post is about threatening to score inside, or about opening up a look outside, because if you don't have guys inside that can "Score the ball" against L&As, the perimeter defenders are not going to sag to help. UK never helped once that I recall.

You throw it inside to stall a few seconds.

Then the ball goes outside where you become an outside-in team.

Totally with you on the 3ptas.

@wissoxfan83

Clear thinking. Sage take.

I would add only that Mickelson should remain in the unresolved mystery category for the time being.

The more time goes by the less hope there is for him.

But there remains too much we don't know about him.

Is he injured? If so is he going to heal this season, or is going to be of use next season?

Is he just sitting because other players offer better OAD and recruiting factory connections? If so, if some of the current unsigned recruits begin signing elsewhere, he could become viable. Brannen seems in much the same situation, but he has the critical trey shooting the team needs so much after CF and AWIII left, and Oubre's trey did not materialize.

Funny things often happen during "the week of getting better" straddling December/January. Players suddenly learn how to play much better. Sometimes it has to do with hard work, but sometimes it apparently has to do with shifting commitments to and from players.

The other nonlinear change in player PT comes during conference tournament and Madness time. Around that time, much of the uncertainty of which recruits will be coming the next season appears to seems to reduce and the staff often throws some bubble players a bone, as happened to CF late last season, to incentivize their return, when it is finally deemed that recruiting will not replace them the following season.

Mid January may be a reasonable time to write the pre March assessment book on the future of Hunter and Brannen.

Oubre seems likely to get another very serious look against Florida and barring injury I would expect Hunter to ride the bench against Florida. Cliff has to play as many minutes as his fouls permit. And Lucas is from the Oregon/Washington recruiting market, so he apparently has to play over Hunter who is from the low recruiting market profile Arkansas. Hypothetically speaking, the pre-conference rule seems to be that the OADs and recruiting hot-bed players have to play in the nationally televised games for recruiting and shoeco promotion purposes.

Basically, my hypothesis is that big TV market games against elite teams in pre-conference require the guys that can do the most for future recruiting to play, whether they are actually capable of playing at elite levels or not, by that time in their first season.

The pre-conference season seems increasingly to be product branding and recruiting driven.

@globaljaybird

Yes, and then there is the tobasco sauce variation, also. :-)

@JayHawkFanToo

Most producer oligopolies and producer cartels depend on raw material inputs that are sometimes sourced from still other producer oligopolies, or produce cartels. They also sometimes face what you might call consumer oligopolies and monopolies (e.g., Walmart/KMart) downstream.

Producer Oligopolies and Producer Cartels over time either vertically integrate to control raw materials up stream, or to use their buying power to impose a regime of submissive producers upstream.

Producer Oligopolies and Producer Cartels attempt to do something similar downstream, also.

For instance, if you are an Oilco refining producer oligopoly, you work to create crude oil producer oligopolies and cartels like OPEC to control crude supply/price feeding into your refining oligopoly. And you work to create a variety of oligopolies/ cartels down stream to shape the valving of various stages of developed product. And when you refined product begins to grow food, make plastics, and power machines and appliances directly or indirectly, it maybe desirable to establish consumer oligopolies, etc. The game is to create as much "predictability" of supply and price as needed to ensure that revenues will not fluctuate so much that expenses and sunk costs and profits in controlling and operating the production/development/marketing stream are not threatened any where along the stream.

The idea of a consumer is mostly used to describe folks at the end of a product development stream that buy and consume the end product.

But its okay with me if you want to use it as you did. :-) :-(

Post Script: I want to make it explicitly clear that whether or not @JayHawkFanToo apparently alleges cheating, or not, @jaybate 1.0. hypothesizes above (and assumes that) that NO CHEATING or improprieties probably go on intentionally in the realm that I am hypothesizing about, though of course I have no insider knowledge one way or the other. Why @JayHawkFanToo would even draw such an insight, or make such a comment, puzzles me. Maybe he/she has insider information that I lack. For one thing, I do not recall seeing evidence suggesting that anything illegal goes on regarding the relationships involving schools, athletic departments, and their PetroShoeCo sponsors in the realm of activity that I am inquiring hypothetically into. Further, it would appear to be foolish to me for such organizations with such enormous sunk costs in such a system, and plenty of legal resources to approach interactions rationally, to behave in any way that was patently and intentionally illegal. I don't understand why @JayHawkFanToo suggests that that might be the case. IMHO, it betrays a kind of naivety to leap to judgements about cheating and other improprieties regarding such organizations, simply because they are participating in a system that recently appears to yield asymmetries in talent distribution that do not seem to be readily explainable. Though a layman, I doubt that producer oligopoly, producer duopoly, or cartel-like organization is patently illegal in the case of NCAA, or NBA sports industry activity. If it were, this layman would assume it would long ago have been found illegal, for these organizations hardly operate in secret. IMHO, it also betrays some possible lack of knowledge about the nature of modern economic and political economic organization at the scale of the organizations involved in D1 College Basketball to somehow suggest that oligopolistic competition, or cartel-like regimes, or duopolies, or public-private associations and so on are some how fundamentally improper and illegal. They appear to this layman as simply certain forms among many forms of organization found in modern economy and political economy. They don't seem illegal to me, rather they seem to produce certain asymmetric tendencies in distributions of net benefit and talent. It surprises me that @JayHawkFanToo reaches the thoughts that he/she does and that @JayHawkFanToo is apparently willing to dispense with hypothesizing and analysis and instead prefers to play judge and jury. As one layman to another board rat, I kind of doubt the wisdom of doing that. But I am sure am not going to tell another board rat what one can, or cannot post.

Post Post Script: In the interest of posting clarity, I am even going to revise the title of my post to try to help @JayHawkFanToo along with this issue in the eventuality that my initial post lacked clarity.

:-) :-(

I vote yea.

KU is a long perimeter team with a short interior.

When KU played a long perimeter team with a long interior (UK) it got pulverized.

When KU played UCSB, a team with a average perimeter and one long big (a draft choice), KU separated but could not kill.

When KU played Rider, a muscular avg sized perimeter with one long, but un-athletic footer and nothing else, KU dominated.

When KU played UTenn with average perimeter and interior, it performed well.

When KU played MSU with a shorter, but equivalently athletic perimeter and less athletic, but like sized interior, KU hung on for a close victory.

It appears that KU's recent improvement since Kentucky hinges on playing teams that cannot threaten the hole in its middle with L&A big men.

Hmmm, let's look at Florida: 6 L&As 6-8 or over including 3 6-10 or over.

Looks like test time.

I know AFH is worth some points, and so is the timezone change from EST to CST, but we are stuck back on the same question: if Perry Ellis cannot score on L&As, and cannot rebound with them, who will supply his 14-17 points he scores against lesser bigs?

Which three of our players will score 5 more ppg each to offset Perry's shut down?

Frank? Very tough for him inside against this kind of length.

Wayne? They can go short and long and foul him with depth.

Svi? He seems like he could get 7 more on a good shooting day.

Lucas? Doubtful?

Cliff? They can put one of two guys on him that either match his weight and size, or outweigh him 20 pounds and out stand him by 2 inches. Cliff will be fortunate to get his usual points.

Oubre? Unless Self is willing to clear out the side for him, I don't see Kelly adding the other seven.

The KU Marine way is for every guy to get 2 more the hard way, find a weakness during the game and drag them down into a hole and fight ugly.

I watched UA play Gardiner Webb recently. Gardner Webb could hang with UA as long as UA did not get in transition and secondary break with UAs 4 long bigs. Once those L&As got in transition and dunking off breaks, it turned into a 20 point game in a hurry.

Advice to Self and KU.

Its probably good for KU to run some.

But under no circumstances let the Florida bigs get into secondary breaks. Deadly.

@JayhawkRock78

:-)

I never cross The Coach, i.e., @REHawk, because by definition he knows more ball in one of his hang nails than I know in the entirety of my body and soul and memory trunk.

But sometimes I move to the side and whisper, "Yes, Coach, but you know how reliable your first impressions have always been."

:-)

What I am thinking here involves a wee bit of hair splitting, which when moving even slightly counter to @REHawk and @HighEliteMajor is always strongly advised.

Greene's neural nets were way behind last season; i.e., his neural nets were still young and largely unconnected.

Greene's neural nets have grown together some, but he still has a ways to go, at least to play fluidly and make consistently good choices.

But he HAS improved and shows it whenever he is not put under a lot of stress.

What has happened of late is that he became just good enough to perform sufficiently well to help us in the Rider and UTenn games, where he was not stressed by the opponent, or the opponent's coach scheming against him.

Alas, in the MSU game, Ratso Izzo had some feeds of the new and improved Brannen, saw that the improvement was only partial, and schemed against him; this stressed Brannen beyond his comfort zone. Brannen reverted to bad habits, as we all do when stressed.

Brannen needs the rest of this season to cement his good habits, just as Travis and EJ and Tyrel did their sophomore seasons, when they showed limited improvements intermixed with backslides.

Old habits die hard, right?

Anyway, Ratso Izzo, one of the most cunning of D1 coaches at finding weaknesses in players and at devising schemes that in effect stick a needle deep into the medullas of opposing players and pop their bubbles of confidence, popped Brannen's bubble but good, at least that is my assessment. Brannen was vulnerable to the popping also, because he is an excitable guy who got a little overamped to start with; then when he felt himself stifled by Ratso's scheming, he popped like a Double Bubble bubble inflated by a truck tire pump.

But...

There is a bit more to the issue of Brannen's future than just playing through the growing in of neural nets.

There are a couple OAD recruits in the mist and, as Brady Morningstar learned, a guy like Xavier can come in and marginalize even the best preceding year's performance mere mortals are capable of putting on.

For Brannen to stay at KU, he has to be willing to do what Brady did. He has to be willing to become a 15-20mpg backup rotation guy next season, if Self signs an OAD, or a Fratello/Hill (FH) Euro guy.

And then he has to remember what Brady confronted after he played so well that he stole 20mpg from Xavier once season. Self went out and signed the No.1 player in the country at PG, Josh Selby, and moved him to the 3, so Brady had to play behind him, too, his last season. It was brutal what Self put Brady through, but that guy had more resiliency than flubber!

The question is: does Brannen?

I still believe that Brannen with the neural nets fully grown in is capable of having a Travis Releford kind of season tipped slightly in the direction of BenMac's gun, but without the defensive lock down ability of either of those two. His neural net development could complete next season, or the following. Travis need three seasons to really burn them all in and quit being a wild hair. Self gave him a redshirt because he loved his muscular potential to be a lock down guy. Self has not given Brannen the same luxury, maybe because Self has now gotten confident he can drag in at least one perimeter OAD/TAD type each season. Also, Self has Kelly Oubre, another neural-nets-in-progress type with a reputedly higher ceiling hanging around in limbo.

I hate to say this but what this Brannen vs. Kelly thing really comes down to is:

1) Jaylon Brown;

2) a mystery FH signing; and

3) which recruiting connection is more important to Self--Brannen's high school/AAU affiliation, or Kelly's?

If Self signs Jaylon, or an FH Euro on the perimeter, then Brannen is in worse than Brady country; i.e., he will be backing someone backing someone up.

If Self doesn't, and Kelly stays, then he is in Brady country. He will play 20 MPG backup, because in college what he does (gun the trey and be long on D) is more important than what Kelly does (dunk lobs and lock down), but OADs have to play 20 mpg to keep the OAD valve open.

If Kelly goes and Self signs an OAD, or an FH Euro, then Brannen has to be a 20mpg backup, because, well, because, OADs and FH guys gotta play sooner or later in a season, or that valve gets turned off for more.

Increasingly, the heuristic for whether a freshman/sophomore plays is this:

a.) if the neural nets are grown in, and OAD, then play;

b.) if neural nets not grown in, and OAD, and important recruiting valve, 15-20 mpg to keep the valve open;

c.) if neural nets not grown in, and OAD, and unimportant recruiting valve; then sit;

d.) if neural nets grown in and not OAD, and important recruiting valve; then 15-20 mpg backup;

e.) if neural nets grown in, or not grown in and not OAD, and not important recruiting valve; transfer waiting to happen pending signing of next OAD, or non OAD with important recruiting valve.

The point here is that if you are not from a recruiting valve that Self wants to keep open, your chances of getting starting PT are XTRemely slim, and your chances of becoming an OAF, or a 2AF, or a 3AF, are XTRemely high.

All young high school players that want to play for Self should transfer as soon as possible to a high school and an AAU team that is considered a necessary recruiting valve to maintain.

Conner Frankamp, even with all his limitations, would either be starting, or a 20 MPG rotation backup, on this team, were he to have come from, say, Brewster Academy, or any other program like that.

Coming from a high school that produces few D1 recruits, ensures you will be marginalized by any equal, or even slightly inferior player from a recruiting valve program that needs to be maintained.

The only way that I can rationalize Naadir Tharpe having started even one season at a D1 Elite program is that he came from a basketball hot bed.

I know Self was very hot on Brannen Greene when he signed him. It seemed to mean a lot that Brannen came from what seemed a fecund new recruiting region for KU--Georgia.

A significant amount of Brannen's future probably depends on whether that Georgia recruiting connection has evolved into something as important as the recruiting connection in Vegas that has produced EJ and Kelly.

At least that's how it seems from the outside looking in.

Wouldn't some insider info be great? Fly on the wall stuff?

But of course if one were an insider, one would perhaps not be willing to speculate about such things.

@KUSTEVE

Made me laugh. Thanks.

@approxinfinity

First, I am not talking about John Calipari, Sean Miller, Coach K, or any other actual coach here, or any actual shoe company here, or even the actual NCAA D1 college basketball industry, or whatever one should call it. I am speculating hypothetically about a hypothetical cartel regime (not specifying as basketball) in which distribution of net benefits to cartel members stemming from acquiring, developing and marketing a raw material, or alternatively, a human resource, serving as a basic input to a good or service, involved a member, or members, electing not to cooperate with the cartel's agreed upon parceling out of that raw material, or human resource, because that distribution was asymmetric, and so less net beneficial to certain members that as a result, have grown noncompliant, or at least partially so.

In short, I am hypothesizing a non specific cartel in order to try to explore and understand cartel dynamics first, before seeing if they might have any feasible fit coincident with college basketball recruiting dynamics. I am not yet sure that they do.

Regarding a hypothetical coach talking directly with hypothetical shoecos about hypothetical talent distributions, I would doubt such would occur. My doubt results from a college coaching system reputedly dating back several decades involving a reputed tradition of coaching "motion plays" (see "College Sports, Inc." by Murray Sperber, Professor Emeritus, Indiana University, 1990) to avoid, or manage, sensitive issues related to recruiting, etc. Recall this is reputedly a system in which head coaches are sometimes found not to have known about rather egregious infractions. So: in this hypothetical cartel thought experiment, if you will, it seems improbable to me, if we were to try to specialize it to college basketball recruiting, that head coaches and shoecos would directly discuss such things as hypothetical talent distributions. But as a layman and an outsider looking in at the reality of D1 college basketball and its recruiting processes, I would have no way of knowing.

Regarding distinguishing between "cutting off supply" and "ousting" in this hypothetical, "cutting off supply" would involve reducing, then shutting off the supply of a raw material to a noncompliant cartel member, whereas "ousting" would imply removal of that member from the cartel.

Again, at this point, I am not even sure that a cartel model has a feasible fit with D1 college basketball.

It is just somewhere to start hypothetically to begin to try to search for a fitting explanation of recent recruiting phenomena.

Oligopoly models might also be hypothesized.

And other models as well.

I picked cartels only because of the rather sharp asymmetries in distributions that to me seem strongly counter intuitive to a market with a flat playing field and one determined mostly by available rotation PT and coaching record.

Were there a level playing field, and were the coaching record decisive, then for one example, one would now expect domestic OAD big recruits in the 6-9 to 7-0 range to be flocking to KU this season, because KU has none on the team this season, none signed for next season, and has a coach and program known for producing top big men that get drafted and make good livings in the NBA.

It could be that all the long bigs waiting may in fact flock to KU in the late signing period, but a recent analysis by @konkeyDong, if I recall correctly, suggested that did not seem the case so far, anyway. So: it prompted me to hypothesize a bit. Hope this helps.

Like a rim protector?