Hypothesis: there is a positive correlation between the number of tats/player and tatted players per team and how deep teams go in Madness. 😄😞
jaybate 1.0
10346 posts
Shut off its access to supply?
What if the noncompliant cartel-like member finds ways around the shut off valve closure?
Oust the noncompliant member?
Next.
(Note inserted to help @JayHawkFanToo avoid apparent, or even just possible, leaps into reductionistic inferences of legal wrong doing being modelled: No intentional illegality or impropriety is assumed to be occurring in this hypothetical inquiry. :-) :-( )
A great big brawny, broad shouldered, short necked, long armed, cut pecked, washboard bellied, rip-thighed, high twitch-calved, grape fruit hung post. Congrats.
At the end, I don't feel any one or two of them can get us to ring land....in one year.
Next: you pose a good question: Why does Self recruit the super 3s so hard and effectively? i don't know...yet, but the truth will out.
The bigger question is: why, if Self has no bigs, aren't bigs beating a path to the door of Big Man U for PT?
Does anyone think that domestic recruiting is an unstacked PetroShoeco deck now?
Next: will Fratello/Hill deliver overseas again?
Great recall. I really think there is something to this creating a more positive exit environment for players so they can be more receptive at the instruction to follow.
Self is a quick study, when it is not in his blind spot. I wouldn't be at all surprised if he is already working on it.
Go Bill Go!
:-)
One thing a lot of folks are forgetting is that the moment a player enters the rotation, opposing coaches start scheming against his weaknesses and so those players always look good briefly and then appear ham strung for another few games while they learn how to escape the scheming.
Some players are fast at escaping the scheming and others are not.
Greene has just entered the rotation, once CF bailed out, and looked good enough after a couple games to begin to scheme to stop. So: Greene now looks suddenly awkward and dorky again. This too shall pass. :-)
Welcome to you.
Self really likes Wayne Selden's defensive game, with or without explosion; that is the conclusion I have come to.
Self played Selden with a bad knee last season; that apparently proved to Self that Selden was/is reliable steel one can build a defense on.
One lock down defender on the perimeter guaranties you a shot at winning in Self's book, if you teach your other players to help inside and out. One lock down defender on the perimeter means you enter each game knowing you can neutralize the other team's perimeter strength, or eliminate it. It means you get to focus everyone else on helping inside. It means you force the opponents lesser perimeter players to beat you, which they can rarely do.
Brandon Rush was the ultimate perimeter lock down.
That Mario Chalmers and RR were tremendous defenders made that '08 team perhaps the greatest college defense without a super center in the history of the game.
Travis Releford was a close second to BRush. And EJ with good knees would have been another.
So: even though KU needs to have two trey ballers on the floor to make a short team a champion, settling for lock down Selden guaranties Self a way to hang around and beat most teams other than UK, UA, Florida, and Texas.
Self appears pragmatic about such things. He will play for all the marbles if he has all the pieces, but he will simply play for most of the marbles if he only has most of the pieces.
Regarding Oubre and Selden and getting to the basket, it is increasingly clear that in today's game, getting to the rim is an activity for slick ball handling guards, not high ceilinged wings.
Think about Andrew Wiggins. He was perhaps the most athletic freshman D1 has ever seen. He could and did get to the rim a few games. But once he proved he could do it at will, then the logical counter tactic was to beat the piss out of him and floor him. And once they started it at least appeared that his handlers did not want to see him get injured doing the get to the rim thing and so he did not retaliate and he did not tend to keep going to the rim once the other team committed to violence. This in turn encouraged other teams to use violence to keep him from going to the rim.
My hypothesis is: any game at all, against any opponent last season, Wigs could have gone to the rim for 40 points, maybe 60, if he could have been protected from injury. But he could not be protected. So he only did it once or twice to make sure the NBA GMs and coaches knew he could.
The irony is this: the more able a great wing player is able to get to the rim in D1, the more it forces opponents to hurt him, and the more this forces his handlers and shoecos to say don't go to the rim.
So: we don't really know if Selden can or can't get to the rim, though it appears his knee injury has limited his explosiveness. And in the case of Oubre, he hasn't got a trey, and he has similar monstrous athleticism to Wigs, but we can't say if his foundation seems quite as high as Wigs was. But even if it were, and even if Selden had his explosiveness back, both guys would be such high draft choice projections that we can hypothesize that neither one's handlers and shoecos would encourage them to go to the rim for more than a few games a season in the interest of minimizing injury risk.
This is a very long way of saying that they may not be going to the rim this season because of limitations, but I doubt we will ever see them go to the rim very much even if they are completely sound and properly foundationed in the future.
Notice that UK's phenomenal talents take almost no risks. I just watched UA's nearly as deeply stacked talents play and they took almost zero risks.
Once you are dealing with highly valuable players in D1, I hypothesize that a risk/return matrix is always functioning. The risks they take tend to have commensurate returns. Shooting Js and uncontested dunking is how you get through a D1 season without an injury on the offensive end. On the defensive end, short slides and straight up jumping when others are jumping are how you stay healthy. Long sliding, which is required for good defense, eventually creates wear and tear and injury to ligaments and tendons. And aerial ballet work, i.e., jumping way forward and way side to side, sharply increases risk of coming down wrong and injuring knees.
Frankly, I think the real reason teams press less and less, and why KU presses way less than a short team needs to, is because pressing risks injury.
My guess is that the powers that be have basically decided that consistent pressing with OADs/TADs is NOT okay. Pressing once in a great while, when behind, or to change tempo a few possessions each game is allowed.
Pressing with super athletes against lesser athletes is a no brainer, unless the word is out that you are not supposed to.
At least that is my hypothetical thinking on the subject so far.
Again, welcome to the board.
Self says he likes to sign and coach characters. And judging by his players the last ten years, we can take him at his word.
But when Self gets his characters to AFH, Self appears to engage in a process of polishing the rough edges of his characters and expecting them to come off on and off the court in a rather business, un-flamboyant way. Once they are on the bench, there is quite a bit of camaraderie and players being their idiosyncratic selves. Thus the threshold of tolerance of individuality at KU seems to start on the bench. To and from the bench, and out on the floor, everyone is supposed to act similarly in demeanor. They are all expected to be similarly businesslike, and they are all expected to celebrate accomplishments similarly.
Watching Kentucky and Arizona reveals a slightly, but still significantly different threshold.
Cal and Stumpy do not, so far as I can recall, lay claim to preferring to recruit characters, but what I noticed studying both coaches and their teams up close once each this season is that their players are allowed to come on and off the floor pretty much however they please. Some are grinning happy go lucky at the crowds, others are shuffling, others are business like, others seem half a sleep, others seem to be humming tunes, others are in deep concentration, etc. There is great variety in the demeanors of the players walking on and off the court.
At first the players seemed too casual and flippant, but once I noticed that they were not all that way; that each one seemed to simply be being himself in the transition zones of coming on and off the court, I thought it suggested some method to the madness. And it seemed that both coaches, especially Stumpy, sharply limited any interaction with the players, especially coming off the floor. Each player, almost without acception, of prior quality of performance, was given a handshake or a nod, seemingly as thanks for the players best efforts at giving the team a contribution, whether it was good or bad.
In short, both coaches, but I would say Stumpy much more than Cal, kept the exit zone much less charged and much more positive than Self, or even Cal. But as I said, Cal seems to tolerate the restoration of individuality even if he injects more negative feedback about performance than Stumpy.
And it shows in the body languages of the players leaving the floor. They are very relaxed and not dreading their confrontation with a judgmental coach. In turn, I suspect they are better able to receive constructive instruction on the sideline once it comes, for they are farther along in the process of decompressing and NOT dealing with the sting of insult on the way off the floor. Whether or not the players performed well, Stumpy, and to lesser extent Cal, seem be able to start from the place that each player at least gave it his best, whether he sucked or not, and that what comes next is constructive instruction, rather than criticism, aimed at helping the player do even better next time. Given both coaches have committed heavily to OAD/TADs that are younger, and so logically more vulnerable to upbraiding, than third and fourth year players, I wonder if there isn't something to learn about here.
The idiosyncratic, but accepting positive vibe on the UA team is palpable in both the entry zone and the exit zones.
On the floor, the UA players perform with pretty much the same business like demeanor as opposing teams. Since I am only talking about a sample of two games, I cannot be absolutely sure what I am saying is the same all season, but I believe Stumpy is onto something here, if what I observed is at all indicative of the long season.
It makes some sense to me. At work, one likes to work hard for a boss that extends one the respect of assuming one is trying one's best, regardless of how things go. One is happy to learn new things, even to try harder, if one does not start from the corrosive assumption that one is some how suspect,or a slacker. Assuming one's employees are suspect, or slackers, means one has turned the managerial relationship into an adversarial one, rather than a collegial one, from the get-go. The only benefit of imposing an adversarial relationship on an underling is that it can keep one from being surprised by a knife in the back by a disloyal snake. But a good manager/coach/teacher ought not work with such persons any longer than necessary anyway. So: most, and whenever possible, all ordinate subordinate relationships ought to be founded on an assumption that the subordinate is doing the best they can, even when they are sucking, especially when they are sucking, so that the obstructions to learning how to get better are held to an absolute minimum. This does not preclude "toughness" and "demanding" attitude, but it does require it to be expressed within a social contract of assuming good persons are trying.
Self has had a genius for articulating getting better as a heuristic for coaching and playing. And several players have attested that part of his skill is that however stinging his criticism can be at the end of the day you feel you are part of his family.
But even Self has admitted that the players have struggled with just how much criticism and how sharp tongued he can be, especially in practices.
Perhaps Self could still be Self, maybe even be more Self, if he were to create some space in the entry and exit zone for the players to transition to and from the floor more as individuals? It can be embarrassing to watch at times, if UK and UA were reliable indicators, because few 18 year olds are very polished persons.
Regardless, where this apparent technique of Stumpy's may come in is in making getting better more operational by creating a transition zone in entry and exit onto the floor spanning the very intense subordination of self to team ON THE FLOOR to the individual space off the floor where players must necessarily be instructed as individuals.
What Stumpy's approach seems to convey is: I am grateful for your efforts at subordinating and contributing to our team, however good, or bad they were. As you come off the floor, I want you to become your individual self again, so we can set about coaching you individually how to better contribute to the team next time, since we can always find some way or other to get a little bit better.
I am not suggesting that Self should stop being his tough demanding self with players on the game floor, or on the practice floor, or even on the bench, AFTER the player comes off the floor. But I am starting to entertain the idea that treating the exit and entry zones of the game, and perhaps those same zones in practice, too, since one plays as one practices, as zones to be intentionally managed to encourage players to consciously revert to being their independent, unique selves, so that they are actually MORE receptive to the constructive instruction of coaching once on the bench.
I have been a strong critic of Stumpy's Xs and Os, and strategy, and tactics, and of some of his heavy handed resorts to muscle ball, and of his apparent Nike-advantaged recruiting, BUT I think he may be onto something in the entry and exit tolerance of individuality and the apparent coach-player contract that good, or bad, I believe you gave us your best shot, reception from the bench during the walk off the floor.
Its a very good question. I didn't know the answer, when I posted and still don't.
I just figure where there's a will there's a way.
Hunter could always play a season in D-II without sitting. He might graduate early a la Tarik. He might just enjoy being a useful practice player and get his degree. He might have a lower back injury that changed his expectations from being a rotation player to being a bench warmer, until his back heals. Hard to say.
The only things we know are:
a.) he is long player NOT in the rotation on a team that desperately needs length;
b.) he is not from a recruiting hot bed, so the staff has no incentive to play him to reinforce long term recruiting connections; and
c.) he has conspicuously not succeeded in beefing up.
The failure to beef up, plus his inability to bend down on defense, suggests he has been fighting some kind of lower back issue that has prevented him from becoming Hudy-ized to the point that he is at least not part of the plan this season.
Recalling two things brings what has happened to Hunter into some focus.
First, Self said early when he laid the ground work for rationalizing why Hunter would not be playing that Hunter was really a long 4, not a 5. He could block shots but was not a strong rebounder.
Second, Embiid was once supposed to be the anchor of this team.
A healthy Hunter would have been a nice complement, if only in a 10-20mpg capacity to Embiid with trey gunners like AWIII and Conner on the wings. Embiid completely altered what could be used at other positions.
But Embiid left and Hunter's back got stiff, and Hunter was not bulked up and so, even if healthy, he lacked the muscle to complement Perry.
Next season a footer is likely to appear. Maybe Zimmerman. Zimmerman, or someone like him, will need a muscular 4, not a long skinny 4 with a stiff back.
So: Hunter is odd man out, unless an injury, or a recruiting failure coupled with several jumps, or transfers occur.
Whether he leaves, or becomes a walk-on, or were forced back into the rotation by unforeseen circumstances, depends on what the recruiting cat drags in and who leaves, and who gets injured.
But then isn't that the way it always is. :-)
"There is no one thing that is true. It' is all true." -- Ernest Hemingway
Everyone has pointed out some truths.
Sorry I missed your q's. There is a good chance everyone stays. Nike's three stacks--UK and UA and Duke--seem to have the top 15 slots taken, so there is no branding advantarge to having adidas guys go early. As there was last year.
There are two big recruiting Q's.
Who will the rim protector recruit be?
Who will the Fratello/Hill recruit be from Eurasia?
Zimmerman was Self's goal for a footer.
Fratello/Hill brought Svi.
My hunch is that Hunter transfers to make room for Zimmerman.
And Brannen transfers to make room for a Fratello/Hill guy with lots of consonants.
Self and adidas seem headed toward rosters of 4 OAD/TADs and 2 Euros plus fillers.
@HighEliteMajor and @konkeyDong
One of you is talking about seeding error putting a superior team in an inferior bracket position that it was nonetheless good enough to overcome; this has to do with the probability of a superb team being able to overcome the handicap of an unfavorable seed. Clearly, the better a superb team is the greater its probability of overcoming an unfavorable seed. But that does not tell us about the efficacy of seeding bias clearing the path for the good teams to face each other near the end of the tournament.
The other is talking about probabilities given accurate seeding; i.e., a 1 seed tends to have an easier path to the title given accurate seeding. The purpose of the seeding is to maximize the probability that better teams will survive and get to play each other in the Final Four. Clearly, the tendencies of highly seeded teams to go far and win the tournament indicate that the bias of seeding works, though imperfectly. The imperfection (inefficiency) is attributable to the fact that seeding cannot take three major, often decisive factors into account. First, those seeding the tournament do not take into account position by position match-ups that can and do counteract the statistical tendencies of any teams that face each other. Second, those seeding the tournament do appear to favor seeding that leads to early games between teams that would be good draws; i.e., they let the desire for crowd pleasing water down the biasing effect of seeding based purely on excellence. Third, those seeding the tournament cannot account for injury and sicknesses that occur AFTER the seeding. Frankly, if these three factors were accounted for, I suspect 9 years out of ten the Number 1 seeds of the four regions would reach the final like clockwork. But I don't see those three factors ever being accurately accounted for in seeding.
I have thought a good deal about moving Svi to 4 with Perry/Cliff at 5.
Selden and Greene at 2 and 3.
Mason at one.
If Selden could ever get his act together, and gun the trey, which Self seems to be hoping for late in the season, this lineup could be killer for stretches.
But bottom line, the team isn't a very good trey shooting team, despite what Self says, and despite this little up tick in trey percentage.
To beat big teams, KU needs to shoot twice as many treys at it is shooting and when it does, its percentage is going to plummet.
Unless, Wayne learns to gun it, or Green learns to guard.
As I have been saying for 2-3 weeks now, Svi and Greene are the key to this becoming an exceptional team. Both have to be effective D1 basketball players. This team will win, or lose, on their three point shooting. Both have to be able to be in the games on both wings at least 10-20 mpg, and preferably more (even though the minutes will have to come from either Selden, for this team to reach its potential. Svi is already able. Self is trying to fake his way through this with just Svi, and he's hoping that Selden learns to shoot the trey by January. Great if Selden can learn it. But if not, Greene is the man, even though he is a very scary prospect. He is so wild and inconsistent on defense--like he sometimes just doesn't have the neural net connections yet. Mercurial. The obvious solution for him is to start doing transcendental meditation to calm him and even him out and integrate both hemispheres of his brain. If Greene started TM now, he would be grooved in three weeks, but no body really gets the athletic applications of TM yet. One way or another, Self has to get another trey gun on the other wing.
This has to be a transcept team to optimize and beat the long and strongs. No rocket science here. If you are short, you have to be able to for them outside to guard the 2, 3 and 4 positions, or you are toast. This KU team can play other ways and look great against the short teams, but against UK, UA, and likely Florida and Tayhoss, you've got to be able to pull that perimeter out, and pull one post man out to have a good chance of winning. It has to be an outside-in team to get the most out of the talent we have.
The only way Oubre can substantially change this situation for the better, and so play without hurting the team, as he did against UK, is if he learns to shoot the trey at 38%, so his probably vastly better defense (at least by season's end) than Brannen's defense, can off set Brannen's better gun.
THIS TEAM HAS TO PLAY FROM THE OUTSIDE-IN TO GET ANY OFFENSE AT ALL OUT OF ITS LITTLE BIGS AGAINST UK, FLORIDA, AND UA.
It can pretend to be an inside-out team, but it will be wasting its shot clock doing it against UK, Florida and UA. And maybe against Texas, too.
IT HAS TO HAVE 40% TREY SHOOTERS ON THE WINGS, even if only to bring in after Selden defends till he is tired.
Selden has to find the range, or Greene has to learn some D and take some of his minutes, or this team will be limited to looking good against short teams like MSU.
This is a transcept team, if ever there were one.
AND TO BECOME A GREAT, SHORT, TRANSCEPT TEAM IT HAS TO HAVE PERRY ELLIS, OR SOMEONE ELSE IN THE POST, BE A SERIOUS THREE POINT THREAT THAT TAKES AT LEAST 3-6 TREYS PER GAME AND MAKES 40%.
If Perry cannot do it, then Self may have to move Svi to 4, which frankly is what he should have done the moment CF left, and moved Devonte to one wing. But Self, and perhaps wisely, decided to gamble on Selden learning to gun it from trey the next three months. Self must have known Devonte was too frail to survive uninjured very long. And he must have looked at Brannen and said the neural nets might grow together during this season, as they did with Travis Releford and EJ late in their sophomore seasons, but they could just as easily not grow in till next summer. So: Self is letting it all ride on Selden.
Selden is the Self Defender that MIGHT learn to shoot the trey and turn this into a beautiful transcept team playing outside-in.
Until then, this is the KU Marines scrambling, improvising, and toughing out every game never sure of what the hell may happen.
I would bet the house on Greene.
Self would bet the house on Selden.
Sooner or later you've got to bet the house on someone and someone has to come through.
Otherwise you crap out.
Go, Wayne, go.
But my money is still on Brannen.
With Svi and Brannen on both wings, you've got a team that UK, UA, Florida, and Texas all will have fits trying to defend.
Add Perry smoking it at 40% 3-5 attempts per game and you have the ingredients of Wooden's great 32-0 ring team.
Mason is this team's Walt Hazzard--a hard nose, street wise guy.
The rest of the pieces are there if a couple of shooters come through.
The only wild card in all of this is Hunter Mickelson. Hunter must not be expected to get well this season. But if he did, that could tip the balance to a longer team inside and that could change things a whole bunch.
Thanks for weighing in as the REAL thing.
I absolutely agree that the way to understand this team's potential and limitations is through other top teams that went far without height.
Wooden's 32-0 ring team you refer to that started 6-5 Topeka Central High's Freddy Slaughter (who went to UCLA as a high jumper and only went out for basketball because Wooden was short handed) at center remains the definitive example. And I am massively grateful to you for posting that the UCLAN out rebounded Duke's long bigs in the Finals. I had forgotten that fact. That UCLAN team also beat a helluva a good KSU team with some length, too, if I recall correctly.
For what its worth, I have earlier called board rats attentions to Self's 2000 Elite Eight team from Tulsa whom this year's team resembles down to the single 6-10 reserve Self used to bring in for 15-20 mpg to his bunch of 6-7 to 6-8 Tulsa bigs. That Tulsa team is probably the real prototype for the current Jayhawks. It shot lots of treys, even though it had only one good trey shooter on the team.
I had hoped Self would emulate Wooden's high post and press, because I just do not see how a short team can get past the Elite Eight without pressing quite a bit.
But the current logic is that without the trey stripe, Wooden's 3/4 court 2-2-1 zone press forced teams to set up farther out than they otherwise would have and that lowered their shooting percentage and so made the press worth investing in. But the current logic adds that today the three point stripe actually incentivizes teams to set up far outside to take the trey, and so there is no need to expend the energy pressing to get the same distancing effect.
But here is the thing: the full time 3/4 2-2-1 press also forced the offensive team to play the entire 90 feet--something opposing teams were neither used to, nor in good enough shape to do. And the 2-2-1 made the other team expend more energy working the ball up court that the defense did defending and back pedalling. And it made it so UCLA could apply surprise pressure over a much larger area of the point and so they were much more unpredictable. This put opponents on edge and on their heels most of the time. And since great opposing guards are at their best dribbling, when the pressure starts, the zone press denies them their main strength of the dribble, because the only effective way to stay out of trouble against a zone press is to pass. The amazing thing about a the 2-2-1 press is that it forces great dribbling PGs to pass and it exposes all the players on the team that are not good passers on the move. Over 40 minutes against a 2-2-1 sooner or later the opponent cracks at least 2 or 3 times and if your team is trained to score in transition off the cracks the other team not only loses 2-3 possessions, but also gets rattled and then makes a second succeeding mistake 1-2 more times. This means you get anywhere from 3-6 more possessions per game and probably get your zone broken for an easy basket 1-3 times a game. So: at worst your are net even and at best you can be net 3-6 possessions ahead. Almost no team can beat an opponent that is a tenacious defensive team that rebounds effectively and gets 3-6 more possessions per game--even on a bad shooting night. This calculus was why Wooden was able to go undefeated so many times in his career once he began to use the 2-2-1 whether his teams were short, or long at the post. In fact, as Wooden made clear, it actually works better when you are long at the post, because having a rim protector anchoring a 2-2-1 means you eliminate the broken play baskets the opponent otherwise gets against a 6-5 center like Fred Slaughter.
But Self has decided that with the trey stripe requiring lots of pressure to defend well, he would rather expend all his energy budget on defending the trey stripe, rather than forcing an opponent to play 90 feet every possession.
Self's philosophy is NO EASY BASKETS. PERIOD! So no pressing, just guard the trey stripe and help inside.
Regarding offense, Self is not technically going to a single high post offense as Wooden often did, but he is increasingly running his high low with different starting formations that will, I anticipate, increasingly involve Perry in high posting and shooting treys. Self is being coy about this migration, because if Perry turns out not to be able to make the trey, he doesn't want opponents to discover it any sooner than necessary. Right now, opponents know Perry shot 40% from trey on low attempts last season, so they have to respect his step outs and assume he is in a bit of a slump. But if he goes 0-fer many more games they are going to just let go of him entirely when he moves beyond 12 feet. At that point, KU's inside offense will be completely choked off and this team will have to depend almost entirely on the transcept scorers--Svi and Greene; this is why the loss of AWIII, CF, and the injury of Graham are so bad for this team. Unless Perry can be a 38-40% guy from trey, the team is so short inside that it has to default to transcept scoring (two wings shooting treys and a high post at the FT line shooting 2s), which is not nearly as potent as all three guys shooting treys.
Because of how short the team is inside, you have to have two guys like Goodrich and, was it Erickson?, that can flat out shoot it from 25-28 feet in order to stretch it, so you can get it inside and score a tolerable amount.
You can talk about going inside first, and then outside, but the bottom line is that if you are short inside, and you go inside, you are not a threat to score against rim protectors, so there is no sagging off of outside perimeter defenders achieved by going inside first. As a result, you are just wasting attack time going inside first, so what in effect happens is you are an outside-in team, whether or not you go inside first. And you have to pop your treys first to get any daylight inside at all. And you need at least one of your two quasi post men to step out and take the trey. Taking 15 footers really won't draw the rim protectors away from the iron. They will let you take that 15 footer all game even if your making it and figure they will beat you with 60% inside on the other end, plus 40% treys which works out to an effective 50-60% on the other end from outside. They beat you every time this way. This has been the math behind Self's phenomenal 82-84% winning percentage the last ten years. This year is the first time he has had to move outside that offensive model.
By sticking to a half court game, what Self is proposing is that he can guard the trey stripe hard enough to reduce that trey rate to 20-35% with pressure and trapping (this is the basic Dean and Roy model of defense, which both learned over time that you had to increase the offensive tempo sharply in order to be successful statistically at playing), pick up 3-4 transition baskets off that pressure (Dean and Roy would try to pick up 6-8 in a faster tempo), while doubling bigs enough to force the kick-outs to the pressure trey attempts.
Bottom line here is that Self is going off into uncharted waters (except for his Elite Eight Tulsa team) of Okie Ball by combining a slow tempo with a half court trapping and pressure defense hoping to win games in the 70s. Okie Ball has always thrived with the big men in the middle able to reduce an opponents shooting percentage to 35-45% and pinching the first two feet of the trey stripe, too. Self's current approach has to stretch 4 feet beyond the trey stripe and do a ton of doubling down low. If KU is even a little inefficient on the defensive end, at a low tempo, they are statistically out of the game. This is why he has to play Selden all the time even though Selden is in an offensive funk. Essentially, low scoring percentage defense is the coin of the realm now more than ever despite how short our team is.
My argument is and has been since before the season started that to play a trapping pressure half court defense, you have to ramp up the number of trips down the floor as Dean and Roy did, in order to compensate for the number of easy baskets that result from breakdowns from trying to both double in the paint and half court trap and pressure 4 feet beyond the trey stripe, all of which are necessary in a half court game to hold down the opponent's scoring percentage.
And this only works when you have long bigs on the secondary break that can make easy baskets inside to boost your own scoring percentage. KU lacks those kinds of bigs, so Self has opted to play a half court game. Logical as far as it goes.
Against low talent, short inside teams with good guards, like MSU, this approach will work okay. It will produce close games that Self's team can use its particular combination of perimeter length to go get baskets and free throws and win its share of close games.
But I argue that Self has to do something like go to full court pressure defense to take the fight to the opponent against long teams like Florida, UK and UA, for examples, in order to force long opponents out of their comfort zones and into more mistakes. It is not enough to rely on the three point stripe to incentivize teams into long shots that you guard hard. A short team has to force the ball out of the good opposing team's point guard's hands and into other super players hands that are not such good ball handlers. And the only way to do that effectively is with zone pressing. Short players have some mobility advantage in the transition zone, and very little as the pace slows down to half court.
To not try to compete in transition with a team with superior size and to let that team choose their best player to handle the ball and distribute is nuts.
You have to find the opponent where ever he is that he is most vulnerable and you have to attack him there. My philosophy comes back to finding the enemy, where he is, attacking him at his weakest point with greater force and moving on. Zone presses "find" the opponent as soon as he enters the field of play. They concentrate defensive force and move on again and again and again.
Guarding longer bigs in half court has to be done. But it is foolish to do it more than you have to. And trapping in half court is stupid, when you could be trapping at three quarter court. All the outcomes are better at 3/4 court than in half court. You are close to a score if you get a strip. And if you break down you have more time to recover. And you create a much longer struggle for the offense before they get to start running their offense to score. Man to man presses are for suckers. Zone presses are forms of offense. They are the way to find the enemy and make him bear your attack.
Hope so. This is a chance for another great win. First MSU. Then Florida. At the turn of November and December. GOD I LOVE THIS GAME.
Is it a mystery why Conner Frankamp left KU?
No.
The obvious answers are Frank Mason and Devonte Graham.
They are as good, or better than Frankamp, and come from recruiting regions that are more important to keep the tap open to, than is Frankamp's high school.
Simple.
No mystery at all.
So why the heck are people mystified by Kelly Oubre struggling at KU?
Talented as Oubre appears to be, at the 3 spot, Oubre is stuck behind 6-8 Svi, a 17 year old near wunderkind from Ukraine, with a trey and good ball handling skills and sound defense. And Svi has played against better competition than Oubre has faced the last year or two.
And Oubre hasn't got a trey gun.
And Oubre is taking longer to learn the offense that Svi.
And Svi is playing out of flipping position at the 3; that's how flipping good Svi is right now.
Svi has a high ceiling, but not quite as high as Oubre's IMHO.
But Svi has a high foundation--about twice as high as Oubre's right now.
So Oubre is beaten out at the position he was groomed and branded to be the next Andrew Wiggins at, by someone better than he is now, and likely to be better than he is at the end of the season, because there is no reason to think that Oubre is instantly going to discover how to pot the triceratop.
Self tried to head this situation that he apparently saw coming quite aways off, when he tried to talk Oubre into becoming a 4.
Alas, Oubre apparently could not learn the 4 any faster than he can learn the 3, and at the 4 he has to match third year man Perry Ellis' scoring and defense and low TOs and quiet man, hard working ethos. No hope there from and AAU savant from Vegas.
That left Oubre at the 2. NOPE. Selden is there and though Selden can't get untracked offensively, Wayne can handle the ball some, can guard a lot, and protect; this leaves Oubre an OAD out in the cold.
Oubre does not seem to be a PG, or a center type, and in any case the Big Red Dog and Lucas are manning the post.
People need to cut Oubre a whole bunch of slack including Kelly himself.
This situation is really no worse than what happened to BenMac, when he was probably the best player on the team as a freshman and had to sit because of academic issues.
No one went to pieces and started impugning BenMac for sitting a season.
No one should impugn Oubre for sitting a season (if he in fact does).
There is no shame in getting beat out by the kind of talent that is beating him out.
There is no indication here that Oubre is a bad actor.
He just needs a season to get a slot to fit into.
His only problem is that as I have been saying since he was signed, he hasn't got a trey gun, and L&As without trey guns are extremely vulnerable to being displaced by lesser physical talents that can drain the trey. It is the nature of the game in the three point era. Period.
So: national media yaks, wake up and smell the basketball coffee.
Kelly will be a terrific basketball player.
He just got caught in the numbers, like Conner and AWIII, and others have.
And he may yet break out and dominate, if someone gets injured, or if his game comes together.
None of this would have be happening right now, had he put in the hours on his trey that it needed.
So put in the hours.
And watch him go off like BenMac as a freshman.
Remember how good BenMac made himself that year he sat out.
And how good he made our starting team by smoking them in practice every day and making sure their heads never got too big?
Go, Kelly, go!
You are a helluva player that got caught up in the numbers briefly.
Nothing more.
One injury, a 40% trey, now, or a few departures next season, and you are the hub of the team.
Rock Chalk!
jBIA MEMO
TO: KUBUCKETS BOARD RATS
FROM: jaybate 1.0, D-jBIA
SUBJECT: Undercover Reconnaissance Report
As soon as yours truly discovered the recent Turkey Tournament would offer the Jayhawks no length test, I left the commentary, forecasting and analysis in the eminently capable hands of fellow board members and went undercover to Gainesville, FL, in order to embed deeply into Gator Basketball, where various paid informants of jBIA indicated consensus that diminutive (in a manly way instead of the pip squeak way of Travis Ford) Billy Donovan had assembled length that could test KU's possible Achilles Heel of length. Before getting to what covert ops netted, let me just remark briefly on Frank Mason and KU-MSU.
Frank Mason, or as I think he now warrants being called, KU's "Old Brown Eyes," aka "The Chairman of the Long Boards," has, after the normal crucifixion by the basketball gods in his first foray to the Mt. Olympus, against UK, nearly completely vindicated @drgnslayr 's forecast for him, and nearly completely refuted my despair with him after the UK beat down. To grab 10 glassvacs from the PG position against Ratso Izzo's Tire Iron Defensive Spartans, even in a down year for MSU, and even with a front court about as height challenged as KU's, was nothing short of Medal of Honor stuff. Who was the last KU PG to grab 10 reebs against a major-major? Frankly, I don't ever recall it. Surely someone can, but 10 reebs from PG has to be one of the most stellar pre conference accomplishments of a KU point guard I can recall.
Next, regarding the VICTORY over Ratso Izzo in the MSU game: I saw it in rerun and it was as sweet as watching Ness get Capone, and about as bloody. As usual, Ratso brought a gun to a knife fight. He didn't bring a lot else except a couple of guards and a bunch of club fighters with the fist and forearm equivalents of tire irons. It was the least talented MSU team I've seen in awhile, but it was Izzo to the core in terms of mean spirited, engineered roughness. It was the quintessence of the difference between the way the game ought to be played and the way Ratso plays it.
It was also the quintessence of the way Self plays it: anyway you want. And KU took some and dished some without losing sight of playing to win. And that was the greatest news of all. They walked the fine line of absorbing blows, dishing them, and continuing to try to grind through. This is what Ellis, Mason and Selden can be. None of them is a thug. None a superstar. But each of them perseveres "through" adversity. Each one endures. They endure through severe beatings and having their heads handed them by a vastly superior UK team. They endure through a less athletic team with similar standing height, and enough black jacks to compensate for the athletic disadvantage. They endure through slumps. Through injuries. Through lost explosiveness. Through abandonments, through defections.
"Who we are" has emerged. We are the team that endures; that keeps crawling on the X-axis in the face of towering mountains, on rushing floodwaters, blinding blizzards of offensive schemes, and below the belt jack hammering. We get the shit kicked out of us frequently but we keep coming.
This is "who we are" if we can stand the filling rattling experience of being it.
My father used to talk about his fellow Marines ofWWII this way: "We were hard to beat because General Vandegrift organized us to go after the enemy, and just keep going after the enemy until he was dead or surrendered. He didn't send us in with any stars in our eyes about out finessing anyone. We came ashore right at them. If they wanted to fight in the jungle, then we went in to the jungle and killed them. That was "our" strategy. They wanted to fight at the beach. We fought them on the beach and killed them. They wanted to fight in caves. We went in the caves and killed them wherever we found them, or blew the caves closed and flamed them with napalm to make sure they suffocated--not just let them find another way out of their labyrinth of caves. Where ever they wanted to fight, we fought them there, and we killed them. Kill was the operant word. We went in to kill every last one of them. They wanted to fight on mountains. We went up the mountains and killed them there, too. We took casualties. But we found them, and then we killed them."
This approach seemed so obvious to me once, until I read about strategy and tactics until I was nearly convinced that there was always a way to outmaneuver the enemy. But then I came up against, as all serious students of strategy eventually must, the writings of the greatest, most versatile general of all time, and the rightful descendant of Scippio Africanus, and, as my father said, "a dog face general"--Ulysses S. Grant, from back in the US Civil War.
"The art of war is simple enough. Find out where your enemy is. Get at him as soon as you can. Strike him as hard as you can, and keep moving on."--U.S. Grant
This sounds simple, but to carry it out means you must be able to take blows, and dish blows, without becoming distracted, as you are finding, striking, and moving on.
You can never stop, or you are beaten.
Many can find them. Some can strike at him. Few want to keep moving on after the horrors and fatigue of combat.
And, as usual, there was a corollary by Grant, also.
"If men make war in slavish obedience to rules, they will fail."
--U.S. Grant
Even Scippio Africanus, who defeated Hannibal, could not say it this distilled.
Grant rewrote the book on military logistics, some say without even reading the first edition of it.
But he never let his logistical brilliance get in the way of finding the enemy, killing him, and moving on to find and kill more.
It was what he did. It was all he did.
Grant was a real terminator, before there were cinematic ones.
Lee knew how to fight war brilliantly.
But Grant knew that, while that brilliance made Lee dangerous and hard to defeat, it was not the key to victory.
Grant fought the U.S. War of the Rebellion, as he knew it to be called, every which way.
Grant was inflexible about only one thing.
Find them, kill them, keep moving...until the last one that wants to fight is dead holding his hands up without a weapon.
To quote my father, again: "The difference between the Marines and other fighting forces was that other fighting forces focused on how to fight the enemy, which strategy, and which tactic, and what weapons, and what advantages would work best, and how to unnerve the other enemy. While they were thinking and doing that, we focused on finding them and killing them. Find them. Engage them. Kill them. Move on. We didn't worry about how to kill them. We knew when we found them, the most effective way to kill them would be obvious. And if it weren't immediately obvious, then it soon would be."
I want you to understand that my father was a peaceful man. He opposed war for the most part afterwards on the grounds that most wars were unnecessary. But, like Vandegrift, Holland Smith and Grant before them, and Africanus before them all, There was no question about the art of war once it was upon them.
This KU team is not worrying about height now. It is not going to take a lot of steps to get around being short. It is going to shoot quite a few threes, and we are, as I argued before the exhibitions even started, going to play a lot of what amounts to a Wooden high post offense out of two formations: the high low 1-3-1, and the 1-2-2; that is about the only concessions to height this team is going to make. All that talk about moving Selden here and there, and pressing, and shucking and jiving, and so forth to try to make up for being short is like Vandegrift and Smith creating the Marine Raider Battalion and talking about diversions, and behind the lines ops and so on.
After a few operations, Vandegrift and Smith basically turned the Marine Raider battalions into just another Marine battalion. The mission was find the enemy, hit them hard, and keep moving. It was a waste of time and man power to engage in any activity other than killing enemy wherever he was, in whatever numbers he was there, and despite whatever strength he possessed.
Find them. Kill them. Keep moving.
The only time you vary is once you get in a stalemate.
Stalemates have to be broken.
Tactics then become strategy.
Take casualties to take real estate.
Digging in takes time away from killing.
Dig in just long enough to find a way to attack.
Along the way, don't fly apart, don't lose your purpose, don't EVER stop finding a way to find, kill and move on, even if the going is slow.
KEEP GOING.
Self did the right thing after the UK loss.
He remembered what the Marines almost certainly taught him and his staff and his players.
Find them where they are. Go destroy their strength with whatever you have. Then move on and destroy whatever else remains.
The US Marine Corp: when it absolutely positively has to be destroyed tomorrow.
Unless I see Self opting out of Marine mode, I am going to return to this theme repeatedly this season.
Find the enemy each time KU comes down the floor. Attack where you find them. Move on.
This is easy to say.
But it takes nerves of steel and a reservoir of relentless focus on the business at hand, when the enemy is as good or better.
Perry, who has seemed not very ferocious, not a rim rammer, is the perfect young American to be a KU Marine. He may have disappeared in the past, and may a few more times this season, but he now knows what he is. He is part of an outfit that doesn't try to wow'em with ability, or smash'em with militaristic sizzle. This is about finding, attacking and moving on. It is the art of war for a serious young man. Same for Mason. This is no longer about dazzling anyone with speed. This is about finding the enemy, ganging up on him at a spot, and scoring on him...anyway we can. This is what it was like on the mean streets when he was littler than everyone else. Whatever it takes. Whichever way you can. When they are looking, or when they are not. No style points during the fight.
Though there will be surprises and wrinkles, the finesse is all behind this team now IMHO.
When the going got tough, Self went to his six toughest players THAT NIGHT.
Who does not yet have battle fatigue will vary some game to game.
Ratso, you want to reduce this to a six man tire iron contest, then we are going in to to it and we are going to get you.
KU took some terrible beatings at times and made some really bad choices as all the non Marines in board rat-dom are quick to point out. The second half didn't go well at all. But Iwo Jima went hellishly badly for a few weeks after Mt. Suribachi was taken the hard way. No success guaranties easy victory afterwards. Good can go bad. Bad can go worse. Worse can turn into a living hell. But you keep moving. T
In the hell that was Iwo Jima, after Surabachi, the remaining Japanese went deep into the cave networks and machine gun nests of places on the other end of the island with names like Cushman's pocket. Shrapnel from exploded ordinance on the airfield grew to waste deep, so deep you could not walk on the airfield without getting cut to shreds. But the enemy was in the craggy ravines and caves beyond the airfield and many months of naval and air bombardments and a week or two of mortar and ground artillery on shore had not cleared them out. The Marines never even hesitated once it became clear what needed to be done. They went hole by hole, cave by cave, and decided each moment whether satchel charges, or napalm, or 30 caliber lead, or something else was going to be the best way.
And they took casualties.
They looked bad doing it to the great brains of strategy in the US Army and the British Army and Lidell Hart and all the others that used strategy and tactics "so skillfully" to the point Germany and Japan had begun to see a real chance at joining their tyrannical hands in the Persian Gulf and cutting off the free worlds maritime trade and oil flow by 1942. Sage diplomacy, and savvy strategy and tactics had enabled two of the nastiest corporate-military dictatorships every to make two maritime empires--Great Britain and USA--look like chumps about to be subjected to the accomplishment of an indigenous EurAsian centerpoint hegemond.
But by late February and early March, 1945, US Marines, who had for a couple of years found the enemy, where he was, fought him the way he wanted to fight, killed him mercilessly, and moved on, knew the barren island was needed for the fighters to escort B-29s to burn Japan to the ground, and invade it, if Tojo and his shogunate military junta that he hid behind, while calling the shots all along, proved utterly divorced from reality. And the Marines knew where the Japanese were. And they went where they--a little volcanic island that was a gateway to Okinawa, an island big enough to stage an invasion from, and began killing them. And they kept killing them by the thousands till early March until, to be blunt, there weren't any left that had not been slaughtered, or sealed and suffocated in caves. Could Japan have been blockaded and besieged? Of course. Like Vicksburg was and many other parts of the South were besieged. But in the end, some one was going to have to take the real estate, not just lay siege to it.
Remember, the art of war is simple enough. Sooner, or later, some where, or other, the killing and the taking have to occur, unless someone is willing to settle for a negotiated settlement.
FDR and Churchill and the great fortunes they were agents of wanted unconditional surrender.
So, sooner, or later, some where, or other, the killing and the taking was going to have to occur.
The place was Iwo Jima. the time was 19 February to 26 March, 1945.
The Japanese decided to show the Marines how many of them they could kill, if they fought without trying to win. The Japanese decided that if the Marines were willing to fight this way, then the Japanese would try to turn it against them. If the Marines were willing to go where ever the Japanese went and kill them, then they would go not where ever they could win, but where ever they could kill the most Marines.
Marines that had fought many different ways from 1941 to 19 February 1945, and had gone where ever the enemy had gone, had found them, applied overwhelming force and moved on against an enemy trying to win, finally faced an enemy that meant only to kill as many of them as they could. It was the perfect counter strategy to the Marine way.
My father said the Marines very shortly after D-Day, probably by D+3 or 4 understood what it was about. It was about finding out if the Marines were willing to "take casualties" to win a war that was already won. Were they willing to go where the enemy went, engage him, kill him and keep moving, when they had already won the war, and it was only then about the terms of victory. Would Marines keep fighting as they had, knowing their own casualties no longer meant the difference between victory and defeat--just between the kinds of victory.
My father was there. He did not take his boots off for two weeks. He slept in holes with the dead. He watched friends cut off at the waist so that their legs stood a short while, before falling over. He ordered many in his motor transport battalion, already fighting because the combat was everywhere on the island, to reinforce rifle companies at whatever was the front, to replace rifleman where the casualty rate among rifle units was a 150-200%. They kept finding the enemy. Shooting him. Burning him. Blasting him. Suffocating him. Slashing him open with knives. Shooting him when he was down. Smashing him with rifle butts in the face and abdomen and testicles. Disemboweling him. Taking the gold from his teeth. Stacking him as human sand bags to be shot to pieces by Japanese machine guns. Blowing his face to goo at close range with 45s. Calling in naval fire that literally made hills disappear, platoons turn to gravel sized bits of flesh blown into indistinguishability with flecks of earth erupting skyward and falling commingled in volcanic ash.
The Marines did not care that the Japanese had that was better, or worse. They did not care that the Japanese had the better strategic, or tactical position. They did not care that the Japanese could not win. Or that the Japanese could not reinforce their own troops, or that the Japanese were starving. The Marines did not care that the Japanese often had the shorter interior line of communication.
The Marines were there.
The Japanese were there.
The Japanese had what the Marines wanted.
The Marines found them.
They killed them.
And they kept moving sometimes only yards, but they kept moving.
As I always warn when I talk about such things....
Basketball is not war.
We are, thank whatever god in heaven you believe in, not talking about killing, when the ball is tossed up by the referee.
But there ARE strange similarities.
There is no negotiated peace at the end of a basketball game.
There is only an agreed upon end of competition, of sports hostilities, if you will.
Two go in.
One comes out...ahead. One behind. No ties.
Play someone like Ratso Izzo, and he will try to beat you bad, if he has more talent. And if he does not have more talent, he will try to take you into a war of attrition, to see if he can make you give up from fear and fatigue. And if even at the end, it seems hopeless, he will still take every last risk.
When board rats say they do not understand why Self left Jamari Traylor in at the end of the game to take and make the two free throws that iced the game, they do not understand the Marine way, or the Izzo way it was up against.
Self looked at Greene and knew that--playing by the rules--Greene most certainly was the correct tactical move to take the certain foul and free throw.
But Self knew that Ratso would not be playing by the rules; that the tire irons would surely come out if Self put a great free throw shooter in the game. Putting Greene in at that moment was the same as putting a red X on his forehead and saying, "Go ahead, Tom, send one of your guys out with a tire iron and put Greene out cold on the floor with a blow between the eyes." Greene is a stick. Greene is a hot head. Greene has never slept in a car for six months or a year and had to try to stay alive when he was cold and hungry. Greene is from Georgia. Not Chicago. The only American place as tough as Michigan, at least the parts that Ratso Izzo came up through, is Chicago.
Of course, Jamari Traylor had to shoot those free throws.
Jamari Traylor was the only guy on the team tough enough to take what was likely to be dished out by Ratso's boys and then still get up and go to the line and remember what he had come through in life to get to that line.
It was a brilliant, rule breaking move by Self.
"If men make war in slavish obedience to rules, they will fail."
Jamari Traylor sank not one, but two.
Traylor will remember those two free throws the rest of the season, when sacrifice must be made, and for the rest of his life.
The bad free throw shooter iced the win this bunch of belly crawling, X-Axis KU Marines had to have. They had been in the grinder for 40 minutes. Had they lost that game, their toughness would have been in doubt the rest of the season. It might have been permanently tenderized.
No, they are not done yet--not fully who they are yet.
They are going to take some severe casualties yet.
Florida may take them apart the same way UK did.
Florida has 6 guys 6-8 or over, and 3 of those are 6-10 or 6-11.
Two of their 6-10 types are 245 and 266 respectively.
Welcome to LengthandWidthville again.
Inside and out.
But not three footers.
But they can muster quite a bit of length on the perimeter.
And quite a bit of depth has Master Donovan reassembled from last years stacked remnants and new bodies.
This is the kind of team that could give the KU Marines some serious headaches.
They can play long or short inside, and long or short outside.
It is a bad team for Wayne Selden to hope to come out of his offensive slump against, because they can put a lot of guys on him that are a couple inches shorter that will really make him slide, and they can put a couple of guys on him that are as long, or longer.
Most all their guards are a little longer than Frank and they can try water bugs on him and they can put some muscle on him.
And Svi may be the guy that attracts the most attention, because it looks like they could run quite a few forwards from 2 inches shorter to his own size.
This looks like a team where Lucas may have to do more than buy The Big Red Dog some extra minutes.
And the Big Red Dog is going to get another taste of looking up, as he does at Lucas and Mickelson in practice.
But Florida just isn't as talented as UK and so Florida could be a very, very, VERY good team for this bunch of short KU Marines to have a war game with and try to learn how to attack a long bunch head on.
I should think KU would be a slight underdog.
But this is the game the KU Marines are ready to go out and face a bigger opponent and learn how to learn to beat a big team.
Notice I said, "Learn how to learn."
I think KU should lose this game by about 10-15 points, rather than be blown out. But this would be great progress. It would imply KU had learned how to hang around a long team, but then get into and lose a foul shooting contest down the stretch, rather than be blown out.
I happen to think KU"s three point shooting is now suddenly being waaaaaaaay overrated.
I happen to think Graham's shoulder is in a bad way will get worse before it gets better.
I happen to think Mickelson can't bend over.
I happen to think something is seriously wrong with Selden.
I happen to think none of it matters with this bunch of KU Marines, because this was what they were prepared and built for.
I happen to think that from that MSU game on, The KU Marine Raiders have been abandoned and the plain, straightforward KU Marines are taking over.
They are going to take casualties learning how to beat taller teams.
It may not happen now, or even in January.
It may be late February before they figure it out.
They are going to look great against mediocre teams, and courageous against tough teams with short man's syndrome inside, as they did against MSU.
But, short, or not, now, they are going where the enemy is regardless of his size, and regardless of their size. They are going to engage him on his terms where ever he wants to meet them. They are going to persevere and find him and bring as much force as they can to bear.
Some times they may take awful pastings.
But they now know "who they are" now; they are a team of small d democracy types--they are going to hang together, or they are going to hang apart.
It is going to be ugly intermittently for awhile longer.
But never count the KU Marines out.
They are going to play through the games that would shatter the confidence of other teams.
Self has now let experience convince them that there is no calvary coming. The fleet has sailed. Each game is an island and they are on it...alone...left to their own devices.
All the geniuses are back in Pearl, or Washington.
Out here there is just the KU Marines and the enemy waiting on islands with names like Gainesville, Ames, Austin, Norman and so on.
Find the enemy, regardless of how tall he is.
Attack him wherever on the court he chooses to play.
Apply as much pressure where ever he is as they can apply.
Take casualties.
Kill whatever enemy they can.
And keep moving.
For what its worth....
Steven Stills and Erin Andrews are Gators.
At least according to the UofF Wiki page.
Yeeeee hawww! Wayne is well and just knock kneed!
Or maybe just camera angle.😄
Go Wayne, go!
BASKETBALL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY MEMO
TO: @VailHawk, Special Agent, BIA
FROM: @jaybate 1.0, Director, BIA
SUBJECT: Selden's knees
No, black knee lingerie!
Maybe Wayne has made it through rehab.
Or maybe WS is struggling with trusting the knee and they have tried removing the knee wrap to see if that will help him "trust" the knee.
Regardless, here is a question:
Why are WS' knees in these positions on a basketball floor?
Sliding? No.
Rebounding? No.
Slashing? No.
Coming off screen? No.
Weaving? No.
Exploding? No
HOPE WAYNE IS HEALED AND EXPLODING AGAIN. But keep an eye on him.
Good for Turg. He needed to catch a break!
Ah, yes, and do you recall EJ not missing any practice for his shoulder injury that wasn't even mentioned . Slayr had to point out his shot suffering because of it. I missed that one. Graham's sep converted to sprain is nothing? I wonder.
Watch him try to guard in the paint. His back is so stiff he cannot even bend over, or lower himself into a position to slide and guard. i don't recall him lacking this flexibility in feeds of him before this season.
Shoulder separations usually wreck a trey shooter's stroke, so KU is down to Svi and Greene, as serious threats. This explains Self green lighting Oubre. He is desperate to get some one untracked. It won't happen, probably. With Kelly.
So who?
The best trey shooting team we can field is Svi at 1, Greene at 2, and Perry at 3, with Oubre at 4 and Cliff at 5. Perry shot 40+ last year on low 3ptas. He would also be great for beefing up perimeter boarding and posting up short 3s. And any time he struggled on D he and OUBRE could just switch on defense. This should be the team that comes in with 15 minutes to go in each half and fills the arena with treys. It will break an opponent's back.
Just do it Bill.
We will see Svi start at PG for sure if Graham's shoulder sep stretches out to a month, Coach. Not far fetched.
And action, like ball screening outside with our big guarded by their tallest defender follows like day after night.
@HighEliteMajor layed down another power post and he got what I am getting at.
Start strength.
Position weakness where it could score if open.
Originate attack with strength.
Let strength force help.
Pass to weakness that help leaves open.
Weakness scores as if it were strength.
Repeat until help stays with weakness.
Crush with strength.
This works in every competitive game I have played.
Ergo even though your outside shooting may not be great, if it were stronger than your inside game, then you start attacking from your outside shooting to make your weakness inside into a viable strength.
It's the same thing you do when your bigs are stronger than your outside shooters.
Inside out.
Or outside in.
It depends on where your strengths are.
And this why I keep harping on Svi AND Greene being the keys to the team. They are tall and good shooting wings--the only strengths we have that could make our weakness--our little bigs--into strengths after help shifts.
@joeloveshawks
Thx, joe, enjoy your joe this fine morning.
Rock Chalk!
In the old days, when KU had guys that couldn't pass eye tests shooting treys, 35% from trey was an off night.
In the even older days, when KU had a team full of guys bound for a ring that Self said he would not let in the same building with his daughter, 35% from trey would have been cause for a butt chewing by then still youngish coach.
In the more recent days, when Travis Releford seemed to take on the look of a muscle bound, triple jointed contortionist on Ed Sullivan to take a trey, and averaged 42% for a season, shooting 35% from trey would have seemed an ice cold night.
But this year with a team supposedly brimming with trifectates capable of shooting the ass out of a gnat at 24 feet, 35% from trey versus Rider made KU seem positively self-immolating hot, a balsa wood house afire, a fracking sink full of natural gas flames.
Brannen Greene, at 2-4, seemed like Reggie Miller with a flame thrower.
Svi Mykhailuk, at 2-5, seemed like Larry Bird going 10-11 from down town.
I mean 35% seems hot with this team, Roosevelt.
What's the trey weather like out there against Rider?
"It's hot. Damn hot! Real hat! Hottest things is my shorts. I could cook things in it. A little crotch pot cooking." Well, can you tell me what it feels like? "Fool, it's hot! I told you again! Were you born on the sun? It's damn hot! I saw... It's so damn hot, I saw little guys, their orange robes burst into flames. It's that hot! Do you know what I'm talking about?" What do you think it's going to be like tonight? "It's gonna be hot and wet! That's nice if you're with a lady, but it ain't no good if you're in the jungle." Thank you, Roosevelt. Here's a song coming your way right now.
"Are We Ever Gonna Get to 40?" by Martha and the Vandellas. Yes! You know what I mean!"
(from "Good Morning Vietnam")
All chase. Not even a "cut to". Great.
I was in and out of watching the game and focused mostly on what Svi, Greene, Selden and the bigs were up to when I was in. I missed a lot of the Third Frank Mason's team topping 29.
Different persons saw different things from Frank. He seemed neutral to me. Some of the posters on JNew's blog found him okay, others echo your sentiments.
Looking at The Third Frank Mason's line score indicates 4:1 A/TO and a block. His decisions still seemed iffy to me, but Self clearly told his perimeter guys to go get on the boards here is what Self is going to be telling his team tomorrow: "Frank is 5-11, well, he's 5-9 really, grabbed five reebs. He tied with 6-8 Svi, well, 6-6 Svi, for the lead in rebounds with 5. Okay, let's see here. Eh, Landen I start you and you're 6-10, well, 6-9 and you get one less board than a 5-9 guy. Hmm. Perry, Frank, our 5-9 PG was +2 on you, our 6-8, well, 6-7 power forward. Jamari, I know you're not 6-8, not really even 6-6, really just 6-5, but, well, you're our post man and Frank was, um, +3 on you. Let's see, who else do we have that we call a big? Um, Cliff. You're a great big 6-8, well, 6-7 and 245, well, 235, and our 5-9 PG was +3 on the glass against you. Hell, Cliff, and Jamari, Hunter Mickelson whom I pretend doesn't even exist because the bottom three disks in his thoracic vertebra don't even let the guy bend over, or get in a squat to jump, tied both of you in only 5 minutes of PT. Think about that Mister OAD and Mister I Slept in a Flipping Car Human Interest Story! Even I had given that alabaster ivory cane in shorts over there your 34 minutes of PT, let's see, lemme think, uh, Hunter would have grabbed 13 rebounds! How shall I put this? Frank may not know when to dish flipping hush puppies in a famine, but at least Frank can clear 5 rebounds in a game; and that's something my big men CAN'T DO!! Now hear this you bunch of miserable maggots in boy shorts, I am hard but I am fair. While Lance Corporal Mason is sleeping in tomorrow, most likely along with Sviatslov whatever the flip his last name is, and while the other perimeter players are getting foot massages from Hanoi Hookers in heat, the KU Big Men will be having a 5AM rebounding practice, do you hear me, little big maggots?"
Big Men in unison: "Yes, Sergeant, we little big maggots hear you, Sergeant!"
Sergeant Self: And don't worry, my little big maggots, this not punishment. Nooooooooooo, the sergeant does not believe in punishing little big maggots to help them learn. This is just because you did not get some things finished during the game, and so Sergeant Self has to make sure that you little big maggots get your work done. (pause) Do you hear me?
Big Men in unison: Yes, Sergeant, we do, and we will be on time."
Very strong bar mitzvah post on KUBuckets.com.
After having a bit of a dobber below sea level moment after the UK game, I am slowly being brought around to what you and ralster and some others have posted.
I still see some real holes with this team that I did not in prior teams.
A lot depends on whether Self has scheduled this slow ramp up, or not. After I heard him grousing post UK that the Stillcats had had 16 more practices, I kind of decided that, yes, he has been being more deliberate with developing this team, which means the team will come around.
Good to see you here. You will soon recall many posters here. They carry the mail now. I am just a peanut gallery.
The problem with Selden at 2 or 3 is he can't trifectate.
The only place to use Selden is at the 1. Svi and Greene at 2 and 3. Svi handles it under pressure, Selden handles when no pressure.
Trey balling is the only way to free the little bigs.
Outside-in.
First, that 2012 team was very talented. It just got injured down the stretch (Travis an ankle and EJ a knee) and Tyshawn hit his shooting slump in March. That team would have beaten this year's team by 20 points early, middle and late. Conner, the shakiest talent on that team, would actually be starting on this team, unless Self felt he had to play OADs to recruit OADs.
What is going on in D1 is exactly what one should have suspected once Nike and adidas started stacking talent.
Lots of the majors just don't have enough serious major grade talent to be called majors anymore. Its all on UK and UA.
This is just a mirror of wealth distribution in our society.
Understand one and you can understand the other.
Anytime you redistribute a lot of wealth/talent upwards, the middle and bottom grow much closer together.
In essense, you are describing the end of the middle class (the majors--not the high majors who are still being stacked) in basketball.
Some Tried and True:
~It will focus us.
~What doesn't kill us makes us stronger.
~Its not how far you fall, but how high you bounce back.
Some More Recent:
~Being crushed to the size of a thimble in a Mafia scrap yard and then dropped into a zinc acid bath that once dissolved Jimmy Hoffa focuses your attention.
~Being depatterned at Gitmo and then shot 6000 times by the GAU-8/A Avenger on a Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II at close range makes each player take stock of himself and work harder for success.
~When you inhale the contents of a fuel-air bomb, swallow a lit kitchen match, and incinerate from the inside out its a lesson you never forget.
~Nothing teaches like the experience of having an Abrams tank tread rolled back and forth over your head, while a directed energy weapon turns you into a withered stump in front of circus clowns.
(Note: All fiction. No malice.)
E-L-E-C-T-R-O-C-U-T-E........T-H-E.........S-H-O-C-K-E-R-S
I so hope you are right, wise and sage globalmaharishijaymaheshbirdyogi!
Chita State ranked higher?
That does it.
Schedule them and beat them into a parallel universe.
B-R-E-A-K .............T-H-E ..............B-R-O-N-C-O-S !!!!!!!
~Write President Obama a signed letter requesting to be put on his assassination list.
~Write FEMA COG and tell them that a REAL state of emergency now exists.
~Cancel secret rendezvous in Coppola's Belize resort with Olivia Wilde and write Jason Sudeikis a note admitting its all over with Olivia and he's the better man. (Totally kidding here, Jason, and rock chalk on with the little one!)
~Take a piano wire string from a baby grand piano, tie into a hangman's noose with the classic 13 loops, and auto-hang from the eave of a self-serve funeral home.
~Stand at lighted intersections offering to exchange window washes for being put out of your misery.
~Triangulate between despair and madness by juggling three eye droppers full of nitro.
~Practice Transcendental Meditation from Here to Eternity.
(Note: All fiction. No malice.)
Self seems to be trying a lot of new stuff outside his comfort zone, i.e., trying to do for himself what he does for his players.
The offense is the same, but Self is different.
Self is apparently trying to motivate with more controlled toughness this year, but with less angry fury. More DI and less pissed off coach.
He talked in his presser about anger and how it was not really useful for teaching; that the early practice was not punishment; that it was to finish up "some things they didn't get done."
More controlled hardness and less wasp tongued cracks is what I would call it.
It wears down persons. Real boot camp in the Marine Corp transformed my father from a brash good looking college kid of June 1940 pictures into a stunned looking, but squared away Marine after boot camp and then into a brash 2 Louie after OCS.
This team appears to act like a post boot camp bunch that is in the middle of the head rigors of OCS.
There is going to be a nonlinear jump in performance and self confidence coming but Self is signaling its a few weeks away yet. That tells me OCS is still in session.
There are players like Oubre talking about having to trust Self, because of his long past success. That is another way of Oubre saying he still likes Self, but Oubre has never seen anything like what they have been through; that he and the team don't know whether to defecate or stand up. This all smacks of Marine training.
There is going to come time where they come out like a band of razor edged fanatics, but that is still some 16 days away.
Why 16?
Because he mentioned UK had had 16 extra days of practice; that's why.
Self had APPARENTLY thought everything through, EXCEPT FOR UK GETTING A 16 DAY HEADSTART AND WHEN HE REALIZED IT A MONTH OR TWO AGO IT WAS PROBABLY TOO LATE TO CHANGE THE PROGRAM. OR MAYBE HE REALIZED IT ALL ALONG AND JUST DECIDED THAT AN EARLY GAME DIDN'T MATTER. I SURE THOUGHT HE WAS BUILDING FOR IT BEFORE THE GAME, BUT IT DID NOT LOOK LIKE IT EVEN A LITTLE DURING THE UK GAME.
UK was apparently treated as a practice game to stem wind them.
This is a new way of coaching.
Only God knows if it will work
Jamari Traylor is listed as 6-8 on one roster I looked at; this is what he was listed at last season, too.
Perry Ellis is listed as 6-8 on that same roster; this is the same height he was listed at last season.
Most of us have noted since last season that those heights have seemed inflated.
We have even come to talk about KU inches, or Self units of measure.
But I don't recall Bill Self ever remarking on these numbers last season, or this season, before the latest press conference. I don't recall him calling these two players 6-8, but I also don't recall him saying they weren't, either.
Yet starting early in the second season of these players being listed at 6-8, shortly after being annihilated by 40 points by Kentucky and its four near footers, suddenly Bill Self has characterized his two "bigs," referring apparently to Traylor and Ellis, as 6-6 and 6-7, respectively.
Let me repeat that.
Last season, Traylor and Ellis were 6-8.
This season Traylor and Ellis are 6-6 and 6-7.
I understand why you might inflate their heights. You might want to make your team feel a little bigger, and you might want to send a signal to opponents, that your team is a little bigger than it actually is.
But why do you stop?
Why do you tell fans and opponents these players are actually 2 and 1 inches shorter than they are listed?
How exactly does that help the team?
These two players?
Or Coach Self?
The best I can come up with is that it is reducing expectations a bit.
Jamari Traylor, at 6-6, was fully 6 inches shorter than UK's footers.
Perry Ellis was 5 inches shorter.
Have you ever stood next to someone that was 6 inches taller than you?
It is like you are looking up at a skyscraper.
How exactly are you supposed to deny an entry pass to someone six inches taller?
How are you supposed to outbound the guy? Even if you block him out fully, you still both have to jump for the carom. How are you supposed to out jump him, when your butt is backed up and under him?
How are you supposed to go up and jam on him?
Sure you can beat him around the X-Axis, but sooner or later the ball comes down the Y-Axis. What then? Nail the footers Nike's to the floor?
Guys 6-6 and 6-7 are supposed to be playing the 3, maybe even the 2 on occasion.
To put this in perspective, Svi, a point guard playing some 2 and 3, is taller than Traylor and Ellis.
How do you score on guys 5-6 inches taller than you in an offense that does not believe in screening?
But of course this is not really the question I started out to ask; that question was: why is Self admitting to how short these two truly are now?
Answer: to reduce expectations.
So: get ready KU fans.
Welcome to reduced expectations.
What is it about horse racing, parimutuel betting, and whiskey distilleries that make UK so attractive to basketball recruits?
--jaybate 1.0
Insert: @RedRooster regarding the above story/joke.
HOWLING!!!! You made my day!!!
Recruiting brings out the best in the worst.
--jaybate 1.0
Signing one Mickey D is good luck. Signing 3 Mickey Ds is hard work. Signing 10 Mickey Ds is a joke.
--jaybate 1.0
Alumni can fool some of the coaches some of the time and John Calipari all of the time.
--jaybate 1.0
Most famous quotes were originally stolen from someone else, so if you want to be quotable, steal from the best and deny it.
--jaybate 1.o stolen from Murray Romanov, who stole if from H.G. Fartwell, who stole if from Marcus Tata, who stole it from Echo Sommerston, who stole if from Seaman Hornsby, who wasn't feeling too well at all.
As in no you're NOT done.
Couldn't resist.
And a very funny post by the way by the King of Bayou Cheese Curds--Wiss.