Yeah, a thought.
But @JayHawkFanToo, er, I mean @Crimsonorblue22 has a point.
Did you see DRose over in the Canary Island tourney awhile back before the season started. Coach K was coaching him and Derek did not really look like his old, incredibly talented self. I haven't followed what all happened to him health wise, but apparently he has had a pretty tough go of it. He was quite a talent. I hated to see him get derailed.
Hey, I've got a thought. Ask @JayHawkFanToo to drag and drop her/his recent art work here for you. :-)
Ask her/him. She/he will probably remember.
Its really cool! :-)
Wink. Wink. Nudge, Nudge. :-)
Please post a list of subjects that cannot be made fun of, so I can get started making fun of the list.
Have you heard the one about @Crimsonorblue22 counting backward from ten and getting tripped up at 11?
And you are not Herbert Spenser. :-) Jmo
"Oh, grow up!" (Remember Joan's great old line to those in the audience that thought some joke was inappropriate.)
You probably fake NOT having an orgasm. (rim shot.)
C'mon, this is a comedy thread.
Surely you can crack some jokes instead of being a boor, right?
Write a joke and post in a backfill, phuleassse!
Spread some mirth.
No, no, no, Down's Syndrome is absolutely necessary. As Joan River's said, everything awful has to be made fun of to remove the taboo to stop people from doing too little to fix it. In fact, just for you I must add a hydrocephalus joke. :-)
Herb Ross' revenge on the world for not being Fred Astaire. Nearly killed Walken's, Bernadette Peters' AND Martin's careers. Was it Martin, or Bernadette Peters rouging nipples? Almost made me find an Oedipal broach and put my eyes out and I normally can find a place for my heart in ambitious misfires. Shows just how far great talent can go wrong, when writers tell persons how tough life is, when they already know and don't want to pay to experience twice.
Woke up in a cold sweat remembering Wayne Selden pushing the button on his right thigh stenciled "press to explode” and nothing happening.
Standing in a line at a CVS pharmacy, I flashed that the checker was a footer in a UK jersey that kept swatting my debit card into the card swipe and charging me a $100 bucks for $7.00 container of Somerset’s shaving oil.
While standing in line for a beer I hallucinated Cal pulling me a draft and saying, “Before we beat you by 40, can I have a hug.”
Flashed I was on "Dating Naked” and paired with Olivia Wilde and she said, “I don’t do Jayhawks any more.”
Late at night I find Coach K desperately rummaging through my hermetically sealed high school mimeo playbook from 1970 looking for something that might work against when Duke meets UK, and when I confront him, he says, “Kiss me, fool!”
Ashley Judd without make up forces herself on me.
UK fans with cracked teeth and Downs Syndrome tie me naked to a hot still and let the Wildcat mascot lick me with its big, scratchy tongue.
David Berst of the NCAA gives KU the death penalty for NOT cheating. Self is reduced to sobbing and saying that he did not know KU was not cheating.
Kate Upton and Gigi Hadid announce they were about to double down on me until they saw my Jayhawk tat and said they're Wildcat fans after the beat down.
Thought I saw the ghost of Naismith weeping in the moonlight by Potters Lake.
(Note: all fiction. No malice.)
Since Nike and adidas reputedly hold the lion's share of the college basketball and coaching contracts, would anyone like to watch a show-down All-Star game between the two PetroShoeCo giants during semester break?
Nike vs. adidas for bragging shoe talent rights?
Heck, maybe we could break new ground and make it the first best of five, best of seven all-star series.
Maybe call it the PetroShoeCo Duopoly All-Star Classic?
Or maybe someone else has a better name?
Vote here.
Cal's Nike-UK team goes 10 deep in Mickey Ds that are OAD/TAD types.
What if all of the OADs/TAD types currently concentrated on KU, Michigan, Louisville, UCLA, and Texas (I believe these are all adidas schools) were stacked onto just one of these teams, so that the team was 10 deep in Mickey D type OAD/TAD talent.
Does anyone think Cal could outcoach Bill Self with Bill having a 10-stack of adidas OAD/TAD types?
Rick Pitino?
John Bellein?
Steve Alford?
Rick Barnes?
(I haven't looked it up, but I recall all these schools being adidas schools. If not substitute the 4-5 top adidas schools.)
I would give Cal a slim shot at beating Alford and Barnes.
But I would give him zero shot against Self, Pitino and Bellein.
Vote here. :-)
(Note: the term "stack" here is not meant to imply anything illegal or otherwise inappropriate about UK's roster, or recruiting. Quite the contrary, it is assumed everything is on the up and up in Lexington. Stack just refers to being 10-deep in Mickey D type OADs/TADs.)
jaybate 1.0 News Service (jNS)
Dateline: Dimension Christopher Walken
Slug "jaybate 1.0 interview with Christopher Walken regarding upcoming Rider game"
jaybate 1.0: Welcome to the virtual hood, Chris.
Christopher Walken:
j: How bad do you think KU is going to put it to your Broncos?
CW:
j: I have to confess, Chris, part of me fears your Broncos. They've got a ripped out, bouncey perimeter--the kind that can stay with our guys.
CW:
j: And I predicted they could possibly upset KU coming off the UCSB and Kentucky games, just as I wrongly thought UCSB might catch KU not ready for a draft choice center this early in the season.
CW:
j: But after the two games have been played, and Self went for the split with a concerted effort against UCSB and a phone it in vs. UK, I am pretty confident KU will just play through The Designer and The Big Red Dog and get a W at home inside the old fashioned way. Perry is pretty good against guys his size. He just does the atomizer against L&As, you know?
CW:
j: You're unusually quiet, even for you today, Chris. Do you want to talk about it?
CW:
j: Did Scorsese turn you down for a part?
CW:
j: Is it true you are working on an Iraq War musical? What was the title again? Uh, "Boursing for Euros with Saddam, or Invading Countries with No Connection to 9/11," or some provocative title like that? I know you really love to hoof it and musicals are near to your heart. I hear there is a killer number where you dance across the roof of the British Museum of History in Bagdad, as its being sacked below by a hysterical crowd.
CW:
j: I also hear you are working on a sequel to "The Deerhunter" with Cimino called "The Elkhunter." Any truth to that?
CW:
j: I have always felt that you got type case as a weirdo back in "Heaven's Gate," which by the way will one day be recognized as a great film IMHO. I finally saw the cut that Cimino said was close to what he had wanted. It was brilliant. The arrival of James Averill with all of the immigrants and all the smoke and steam blew me away, as did the roller skating scene with the imigrants. It was elegiac. And I am now currently in love with Isabelle Huppert as she appeared back then. And the truth at the center of that movie needs no defense. My great grand parents came to Kansas on an immigrant train and what the movie portrayed about the harshness of the existence was not far off from the stories I have heard recalled. As Ghandi G said, the truth is the truth, Chris.
CW:
j: Well, I think Rider is going to give us a good game in Allen Field House, Chris, but I think KU's trey shooting slump is going to end in that game and the combo of Frank and Svi and Branden finding the range on the same day, plus The Designer rediscovering his spin move, and the Big Red Dog not having to guard the knee caps of footers, is going to result in KU looking dominant. The only risk I see is if the trey slump goes another game. If it does, and your good guards can get Frank fouled up early; then we have trouble distributing because of Graham being out, and Selden/Svi having to committee, while Rider just sags inside, and is big enough to guard our bigs with help. In that eventuality, KU could well be 1-2. Anything you'd like to say in closing?
CW: I really enjoyed talking the you.
(Note: All fiction. No malice.)
Bill Self, meet Mr. Bad Luck.
Now is why theMarines were invited in.
First White transferred.
Next Selden lost his explosiveness.
Then CF transferred.
Now Devonte is down.
And then there were two trifectates.
And neither can make any in games.
Will we see some zone?
Part I
Della Street ( a 1962 Barbara Hale in a tight suit speaks through a husky purr): Perry, a Mr. Bill Self is here to see you. He says he has come from Lawrence, KS in 2014 to speak with you. He says he is a basketball coach. (penciled eye brows arch)
Perry Mason (the wide bodied, X-axis, 1962 Raymond Burr with the piercing black eyes and black hair to match the black suit and black tie relieved only by a white button down stands up): Send him in Della and really swing it when you go out. I never let the studio audience know it but I really like to watch you walk.
(Della slaps Perry hard and gives him a kiss).
Della: There's more where that came from, Counselor.
(Perry rubs the cheek she slapped and smiles.)
Perry: Tell Paul Drake to come up as quickly as he can. And tell him to go easy on the hookers down on Santa Monica Boulevard. I've gotten two bills claiming he was investigating hookers for me and I think its very unprofessional.
(Della nods, exits and returns with a worried Bill Self in his suit he wore at the UK beatdown in Indianapolis.)
Della: Perry, this is Bill Self, the head basketball coach of the University of Kansas in the year 2014.
(Perry shakes Bill's hand.)
Perry: What can I do for you, Mr. Self? You've come...a long time...to see me.
Bill: I'm not sure where to start.
Perry (Perry lights a cigarette and drags deeply and exhales): At the beginning. Always at the beginning, right, Della?
Della: Right, Perry.
(She slaps him again, gives him a peck on the cheek and sashays out.)
Bill (swatting smoke out of his face from Perry's last exhale): A year ago, during the NCAA tournament, I had a dream team, the center a coach waits his entire career for, and one of the greatest wing talents to come along in the game in a long time.
Perry: Good for you.
Bill: It didn't turn out so well. Frankly, Lady Luck took a big dump on me.
Perry: I see. Where were you born? Massachusetts?
Bill: No, why?
Perry: Your accent.
Bill: I'm from Oklahoma.
Perry: That's right...that's why I've heard it so much. Lots of Okies came out to California during the Dust Bowl. You ought to feel right at home here.
Bill: Could we get to my problem?
Perry (drawing and exhaling): Of course. You were saying...
Bill: The center injured his back and after making me think he would come back and play, he not only didn't come back to play in the tournament, he didn't come back for a second season. He just jumped straight to the pros.
Perry: Can they do that in the future?
Bill: Oh, yeah, pretty much all the good ones do, but I thought he wouldn't because we had...like an agreement...
Perry: Like an agreement? Was it written, or informal?
Bill: A handshake in a lion preserve with his father.
(Perry, lights a second cigarette and buzzes Della on the intercom.)
Perry: Della, where's Paul?
Della's Voice through the Com: He was investigating another, well, you know. On his office desk.
Perry: The Charles and Rae Eames desk I fronted him the cash for?
Della's Voice: Yes, Perry.
Perry: Tell him to get up here on the double. Come up the back way. Its faster.
Della's Voice: Ooooookay.
Perry (to Bill): Continue.
Bill: The kid was from Africa and had not played much ball. Its...oh, never mind, that's not what I wanted to talk to you about. The only thing the center has to do with anything was that I was building this years team around him and he didn't show up.
Perry: I see.
Bill: So, now this A-Hole board rat named jaybate 1.0...
Perry: I'm afraid I don't follow you. board rat? jaybate, uh...
Bill: 1.0...I forgot, you don't have the internet.
Perry: The internet?
Bill: In the future, they turn the telephone system into a digital information network, where everyone types and talks to each other interactively. They leave messages. And comment on each other's messages.
Perry (takes out a Bufferin bottle and pops a couple): Go ahead.
Bill: There's this jaybate 1.0 character, its his nickname on the internet, and he calls my team a donut with a hole in the middle because this big center did not come back to play. And he predicted we would be blown out by Kentucky, which we were.
Perry: Coach Rupp is still coaching in 2014? Coach Wooden over in Westwood despises him. Says he may have to start recruiting, to conpensate for all of the under the table stuff supposedly going on at Kentucky.
Bill: No, no, Coach Rupp is dead. There have been several UK coaches since Rupp. The current one is John Calipari, who now gets ten Mickey Ds on his team, when the rest of the top teams are lucky to sign three.
Perry: By Mickey D, I infer you mean?
Bill: Eh, they're the best high school recruits. He gets most of them. I don't. It sucks.
Perry: I see.
(Paul Drake rushes in breathlessly through the back entry door to Perry's office. Paul's zipper is down. His bizarrely white hair is rumpled. And he has two huge hickeys on his neck.)
TO BE CONTINUED...
Your best piece of writing yet.
Rock Chalk.
And I want to broaden this out just a hair.
KU has squandered major resources on hiring a football oriented AD, paying huge salaries and buy outs to two straight football coaches, and they have spent years of scarce time and financial resources focused on the football stadium since the 08 Basketball ring team, while Self and KU basketball are trying to recruit against UK which has during the same period massively spent on and improved every aspect of its housing, its arena, and its marketing techniques.
Thus as the recurring risk of recruiting apocalypse keeps rising, KU and KUAD have in their FINITE wisdom thought that adding a practice facility and some locker rooms and some freshening of poorly designed, hopelessly uncompetitive Jayhawker Towers was something that could wait.
It is very likely going to turn out that signing with adidas for the fat contract, plus winning ten straight conference titles lulled KU leadership into thinking that it did not need to exceed Kentucky's investments; that it did not need to compete with Kentucky, in order to continue the roll that KU has been on for 25 years; that the gravy train took the want-to out of them and seduced them into thinking football was how to really get fat.
Every month that goes by that KU does not work out a shoe deal that guaranties 12 Mickey Ds flow rate into Lawrence, and that a spade is not breaking ground on KU basketball housing designed explicitly to exceed Kentucky's is another month closer to roster apocalypse in the short term that is merely a precursor to long term mediocrity in KU basketball. It has been infuriating to watch and increasingly scary to contemplate.
(Note: With Scholies at 12, 12 Mickey D's on a team is where this is going to settle out as what is required to be an elite team. 12 Mickey D's every year to play for the ring. 2-4 elite programs will follow UK's lead, and the NCAA will have to establish some kind of rules that bias 2-4 elite programs getting these 12 Mickey D rosters. To much money is riding on it not to use regulation to ensure 4 teams with 12 Mickey Ds each season.)
Clear thinking. Powerful writing. Wish it didn't have to be on this subject, but ten Mickey D's on one team is not Division 1. It is Division 0--as in a division with UK and no one else. Imagine Duke in D-II. It would do exactly what you rightly forecast UK doing in D-I.
Divisions are created to put groups of teams together that will have several teams that can compete for the ring.
What Kentucky has done leaves the NCAA only one choice. Create a new division for teams with more than five Mickey Ds. UK can schedule the D-I teams, but it has to play in a Division 0 post season tournament. Division I goes on as usual except for no Kentucky, which, when I think about it, would be even better than not having Mizzou in the Big 12.
Rock Chalk.
Good take. Probably better than mine. I've tried to rethink Self's intentions in light of your take.
He probably did just tell his team to play it close to the vest because he knew they didn't have a prayer, and if they had tried to run on Cal, UK probably would have beaten us a 152 60, or whatever it was, like Roy beat UK when Pitino had been hired to clean up the Eddie mess there.
Self probably was trying to do the right thing, given what he has to work with this season. He was probably trying to scheme the lowest profile blowout he could. Better to lose 70-40, than 150-60.
Think about it: KU maybe go down as the last team to hold UK down to 70.
And I want to be clear: I'm not really grouchy at Self, or the players. I was let down that Self did not try to win, but you have forced me to think about why he did what he did and see it. At the same time, I knew there was zero chance any of our players could score on the kind of height they showed inside. Our guys have trouble handling guys an inch taller than them inside on either end.
I felt our guys played hard. I felt they ran the basic offense. I didn't feel they really cracked wide open. They just didn't have the tools to score on UK at all. And though we might have scored more points by pressing and running the margin of losing, as I have indicated, would have been waaaaaaaaay worse. It was a matter of picking which way we wanted to be killed.
Recall 'slayr saying after the 2012 finals that Cal pulled in the reins. I really thought UK could have held our team scoreless the entire second half had they wanted to. If UK had really gotten after it, I seriously doubt KU would have scored against the UK starters either half.
What I am a little annoyed at is all of our KU fans, which I hold in high esteem as sharp basketball people--not a bunch of UK yahooooos--letting the hype machine make them think there was a serious team capable of a run in March. This is Self's down season. He switched gears to OAD ball and this is the year he pays for the making the transition he made last season. Its a new game. New way of recruiting. New way of getting the meat at the market. Its going to take a couple of years to get the stars to align this way. Remember Cal has volatile downs.
What Self has to work with is a lot of somethings, but not enough of anything.
KU will win 20-25. They will look very good some games against teams with significantly less talent than KU has.
I want everyone to love this team as much as any KU team. I do. The boys deserve it. They have busted their buns already just to get in position to beat UCSB, which was a huge win for a team with this many holes and this young.
But I want our fans to get off the lotus blossoms.
This is a very average talent wise.
They shouldn't be savaged by we fans just because too many of us fell for the east coast set up--the hype that somehow Self could work miracles with big holes and lots of modestly talented players.
I'm ready for an exciting season.
All I want is to see this KU team try to get better. I am not interested in holding it to high standards yet. I'm looking forward to it fighting KSU and winning. I am not looking forward to them whipping UK.
I never thought predicting a 30 point blow out would be too conservative.
But I nailed this one cleanly.
And board rats that think KU played poorly against UK are not letting in just how incredibly talented UK is and how many pieces this year's KU team is missing.
UK would be KU by 20-30 10 out of 10 times as things stand now.
KU did not shoot poorly, because it was having an off night shooting.
KU shot poorly, because KU has so far weak three point shooting, it runs no action to get three point shots, and even if it had guys that could gun the trey ball and even if it had run some action, UK was too long and KU was too short inside for UK not to simply stretch out as far as KU wanted to run the action and smother KU's shooters.
There is no way to hide KU's short inside players, each one with limited skill sets--not in a half court set.
Notice that UK was very happy to play it slow on both ends, because it fed directly into the enormous advantage of their overwhelming four near footers.
So: how did I know it was going to be such a blow out, when no one else, at least that I recall, predicted the same.
Because I recalled how much one footer like Withey, and then Embiid, transformed former KU teams with quite a few pieces, but not nearly enough, into formidable teams that could play top competition at least competitively and could win titles, and with two great players like TRob and Tyshaw, could milk it to a Final Two.
Multiply the effect of one footer (either Withey or Embiid) times four and add that Perry doesn't like to play the 4 against anyone longer than him, and Jam Tray is only 6-7 even with the hair, Cliff doesn't know D1 Speeds and violence, Lucas is a project without offense, and Self won't let Mickelson near the wood, and it was a million to one shot that KU would not be blown out. Never has the point spread made clearer that the point spread has nothing to do with what the score will actually be. It has to do with how many suckers believe how much hype and which way the hype is being heaped on.
Let's cut to the chase.
Mason isn't a D1 point guard.
Graham showed he doesn't really know what he's doing yet and that's why Mason got the start.
Selden is not a go get a basket guy except against guys smaller than him. B.B. King's thrill is gone. Selden's explosiveness is gone, as I have been speculating since last summer.
Oubre was a non-stop embarrassment. It was clear why Self had been hiding him. He didn't want Cal to know Oubre was sushi not even remotely cooked and ready to play.
Perry? Next.
Cliff could be something by January against inferior players, but it will be late January before he is ready just to play an all-league type even up.
Traylor? Next.
Svi looks great not making anything, but the bottom line is that most of the games we got feeds on from Eurasia, showed him shooting it just like what we have seen the first four games this season. He would be a great glue player if we had any impact players. But so far, Svi has shown nothing as far as a trey. Just a bunch of rim shots. And I think he is going to only be able to shoot a high percentage against guys he's taller than, or that cannot jump.
Greene was a huge disappointment for the second straight game. He is playing like he hasn't got it. Really, don't blame him. He's an ordinary player. He's not going to be ready for D1 till his junior season and then he will have a nice season and a Travis like senior year, if Self doesn't run him for OADs.
Lucas was 6-10 and couldn't even stay with their 6-10 guys. Next.
Mickelson? Self apparently feels he has to let Cliff, Oubre and Perry convince the fans and the players handlers that they suck and aren't ready before he is going to give Mickelson even a sniff of PT.
Bottom line: this KU does not have a single player on the team with the kind of talent and fight required to play an equal or better even up. This team is filled with guys that will only look good against players they are significantly better than.
There is not one Sherron Collins, or Mario Chalmers, or RR, or Travis, or even EJ that can go up against guys as good or better and out fight them for a win.
Could this change?
Yes, but not likely.
What this team desparately needs is ten games against inferior competition so it can learn how to run more than the first 20 pages of Self's play book.
I would not be at all surprised to see Rider clean their clocks even though gambling odds are that a badly beaten good team always comes roaring back. But i don't see this as a badly beaten good team. I see it right now as a badly beaten mediocre team at most.
And Self's performance?
Self contributed absolutely nothing.
He did not even need to make the trip.
It is the only time I can recall where he was useless as a coach.
If I were Self, I would be way more worried about what I did in Indianapolis, than what my team did.
What makes a great coach approach any game that way?
I don't know.
I'm not even sure I want to know.
Next.
I love you.
Or paste it here.
Or maybe both places.
Or remove it.
Hmmm, I mAy have saved it for you. 😄
Paste your recent artwork of your alias icon driving the jackhammer into the head of a screaming chap with jaybate across the forehead. I think it will help you, don't you.
I love you.
Please paste that recent art work of yours again right here. Backfill with it. Wouldn't that prove your point conclusively? Do you want me to paste it here for you?
I love you.
I feel your pain.
Now, tell me about your favorite social and instituional policies of my favorite President of the USA in the 20th Century.
Let's work together to laud his greatness and venerate his memory.
You first.
Hey, how about you shoot yourself in the foot again and drag and drop your last bit of art work?
Howling!
Mr. Site Administrator, Mr. Assistant Site Administrator, members of the site and the possible inauthentic aliases lurking:
Yesterday, November 18th, 2014 - a date which will live in infamy - the University of Kansas was suddenly and deliberately attacked by TADs and OADs comprised of 10 Mickey Ds of the Empire of Kentucky.
The University of Kansas was at peace with that nation, and, at the solicitation of Kentucky, was still in conversation with its chancellor and its athletic director and head coach looking toward the maintenance of peace in college basketball.
Indeed, a few short hours before Kentucky tank companies had “bum-rushed" through the neutral arena in Indianapolis, Indiana, the Kentucky Head Coach--apparently without his player-relations associate of sorts, World Wide Wes--delivered a formal address about Kansas basketball, which is still played by a normal distribution of D1 Players. And, while this statement indicated that Kansas had a storied tradition, it contained no threat or hint of total basketball war, or of apparently Big Shoe-stacked attack, or of anything other than an ordinary Division I college basketball game being imminent.
It will be recorded that the distance of Indianapolis from Lexington, and the UK fan base presence, makes it obvious that the attack was deliberately planned many days or even weeks, or even years ago. During the intervening time the University of Kentucky has apparently deliberately sought to deceive the University of Kansas by misleading statements and expressions of hope for continued peace in the game of Division I college basketball, that they were fielding a conventional D1 team, all despite its now apparently unmistakable strategy of apparent Big Shoe-stacking its team with twice as much talent as any other Division I team, and so in essence, creating its own Division 0 in which it in effect plays exhibition games with Division 1 teams, not unlike the Division I University of Kansas playing Division II Washburn, but with the dastardly intent of recording the victories as Division I wins, which they most assuredly are not.
The attack last night in the neutral arena in Indianapolis has caused severe damage to Kansas starting and backup forces. I regret to tell you that very many Jayhawk hopes have also been crushed. In addition, Jayhawk fans have been reported derided and ridiculed in sports bars between San Francisco and New York City.
Yesterday the Kentucky basketball program also launched continued attacks against future OAD and Mickey D recruits.
Last night Kentucky recruiters probably attacked Jaylen Brown.
Last night Kentucky recruiters probably attacked Malik Newman.
Last night Kentucky recruiters probably attacked Stephen Zimmerman.
Last night Kentucky probably attacked Ivan Rabb.
And this morning Kentucky probably attacked Antonio Blackeney and Carlton Bragg.
Kentucky has therefore undertaken a surprise, unprecedented supra-Division I offensive extending throughout college basketball aimed at apparent Big Shoe-stacking of the deck by means that do not appear consistent with, or achieved by, any known, conventional, previously used, legal means of Division I recruiting, at least as so far argued for on this web site. The facts of yesterday and today speak for themselves. The team fielded by the University of Kentucky did not remotely resemble in combined talent level and depth any prior Division I basketball team in memory. The people of the University of Kansas have already formed their opinions and well understand the implications to the very life and safety of our basketball program, our nation, and the greatest game ever invented.
As just another board rat of this Jayhawk Nation, I can only ask that all measures be taken for our defense, that always will our whole nation remember the character of the onslaught against us.
No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated apparent Big Shoe deck-stacking, the Kansas people, in their righteous might, will win through to absolute victory.
I believe that I interpret the will of the basketball program and of the nation when I assert that we will not only defend ourselves to the uttermost but will make it very certain that this form of treachery shall never again endanger us, or the greatest game ever invented.
Hostilities exist. There is no blinking at the fact that our people, our legacy and our interests are in grave danger.
With confidence in our basketball players and coaches, with the unbounding determination of our people, we will gain the inevitable triumph. So help us God.
I ask that KUBuckets.com declare that since the unprovoked, dastardly, and apparently Big-Shoe stacked, supra-D1 attack by Kentucky on Tuesday, November 18th, 2014, a state of basketball war has existed between the University of Kansas and the Kentucky Empire.
Board Rat jaybate 1.0 - November 19th, 2014
(Note: All fictional satire and homage. Apologies and due respect to FDR--the greatest US President of the 20th Century. No malice.)
jaybate News Service (jNS):
Dateline: Indy...Champions Classic
Slug: Sveeling it
jNS stringers embedded in the KU locker room indicate that Svi has entered a deep transcendantal meditative trance. The report is that Professor Andrea Hudy has combined weight training and transcendental meditation and is connecting Svi to the deep unified field that underlies everything. Svi will come out of the meditative state approximately 30 minutes before game time and will see the basket more clearly than ever before in his life. He will go 6-7 from trifectaville.
(Note: all fiction. No malice.)
Self: This is why I recruited you two years ago.
Mason: Right.
Self: You are faster and tougher than their guards.
Mason: Right.
Self: Cut off the head.
Mason: The body will die.
OOD: All planes fueled and on the flight deck, sir.
Spruance: Signal all ships, 30 degrees right rudder. Begin turning into the wind.
OOD: Pilots are in the lockerroom making last minute checks of their gear, sir.
Spruance: Let's get on with it.
OOD: Yes, sir, Admiral Spruance. Pilots report to the flight deck on the double!
Operation Relentless Onslaught.
Jayhawks in the Pentagon have already racked that.
Its in the quantum computer underground somewhere.
Its filed under SLAYR!
I just got back and turn on the tube and see Consonants and Ratso grimacing, and Michigan State running a SELF WEAVE!!!!!
Everyone copies Big Bill.
EVERYONE except Cal.
Comin' at ya Cal!
Comin' at ya WWW.
Comin' at ya Kaintuck.
Marine Raiders comin' to call.
Marine Raiders...when it absolutely positively have as to be destroyed by tomorrow.
Rock Chalk!
Damn, I was just leaving and then you had to go and make me split a gut with throwing the carcass!!!!!!!!!
Rock Chalk!!!!
for a few hours. Someone else take it to the next level!!!!
I want this place sky high by game time!!!!!!
OMG! How did I overlook THOSE!!!!?
You have the hang of this better than I have.
I must confess some disappointment that we two are the only ones into the Hype/Counter-Hype game so far. :-)
Let's see if I can come up with another one.
HMMMMMM...
Cin has better hair than Ellen.
Tyler could take anyone of Cal's kids to iron and score on them.
Kurtis Townsend has fabulously superior cuff links to any UK assistant.
KU's best bald player, Danny, was vastly better than UK's best bald player.
Wilt was better than any two Kentucky players.
A Jayhawk is a cleaner, better looking mascot than a Wildcat.
Self could get Brown a job and Cal couldn't.
Self could take Cal today in a game of one on one, even if Self were wearing a blindfold.
I love you @JayHawkFanToo
First, oh my, you do have a pathological need to talk about pathology pathologically, don't you?
Next it would be mastering the obvious to remark on the connection of my post to yours. :-)
Next, I respond to you to try to help you, because you appear to need help regarding the things you post to me, or when you back fill.
I want to help you become a more knowledgeable Jayhawk fan.
I love you and I am here to help you with this stuff as time permits.
To wit...
Height undeveloped is like weight.
Weight can be developed with muscle.
Height can be developed with muscle.
And certainly both height and weight can be used skillfully or not.
Most tall players do not know instinctively how to make the best use of their height without coaching.
But I do agree that height and weight are often viewed first as something else than skill.
So I understand why you apparently misunderstood what @justanotherfan was saying.
And as always, I love you and am enjoying trying to help you get better this season. Peace in.
Bravo!!!!!!!
I think that is one of the most stimulating ideas yet.
Running out of time right now, but hold that thought!!!
Let's hope someone comes forward with some link or something that might reveal some answers to that.
Ah, great to hear you back at the hypothesis positing and testing bench. This is quite thought provoking and fun.
Let's see, if I understand you correctly this time out, you are posing a couple of hypotheses.
First there is the "Cal is better at keeping up with trends" hypothesis.
Second, there is "The Max Deals" Hypothesis.
Of the two, the scientist in me vastly prefers the second hypothesis, because it is rather more empirically verifiable.
But to minimize my bias and in the interest of systematic inquiry and love of our Jayhawks, I will test both.
Let's see, lets go with the "Cal is authentically better at keeping up with trends" hypothesis.
This one is very, very, very tough to test. Personal trendiness is very elusive to rank or quantify.
I mean, I can say Cal appears trendier than Coach K, but I am not sure how I can say he is trendier than Kurtis Townsend, who recruits for KU. And just between you and me, Cal seems like a completely unathletic, relatively un-with-it little dweeb compared to Self, when I see them both letting their hair down. And, frankly, Bill seems a helluva lot more fun to be around off the floor. But maybe Cal is trendier on the floor.
But really, neither of these guys are exactly Denzel Washington, or Brad Pitt, in terms of outward personal trendiness, are they?
How about Cal versus Kevin Ollie? Why do I have a feeling that Cal is not quite as cool as Kevin? Why do I have a feeling that Cal does not quite grasp the Urban Dictionary quite as well as Kevin Ollie? Why do I get the feeling that maybe Kevin understands and speaks the language of the hood urban and a leeeeeeeeeetle flipping better than Cal? But Kevin flashing a ring and his trendiness both did not net 5 Mickey D's after last season and is not leading Cal this season.
So: I don't really think Trendiness alone, or even decisively, or even to considerable degree is driving this. For one reason, if trendiness, especially authentic trendiness were the key to recruiting, then basketball coaches would long, long, long ago have been naturally selected toward incredibly trendy fellows and as we look around the coaching ranks, while there are certainly a lot of men that stay younger than they might otherwise stay, while coaching, we are not seeing Denzel and George Clooney attracted to the coaching ranks in significant numbers.
But due to the degree of difficulty related to measurement of the authentic trendiness hypothesis, I must not dismiss it out of hand. I must give it another try.
If Cal were authentically better at keeping up with trends, we would probably expect to find a lot of players posting about how impressed they were with Cal's knowledge of contemporary music, movies, clothing, designers, cars and other examples of youth culture, especially of the youth sub cultures that these players come from.
I googled the following: "What do players think of John Calipari?" Many links came up, but the first ten pages of links down I found not one link that mentioned about how trendy Cal's knowledge was, of how great his knowledge of youth and popular culture.
But I did find one really remarkable quote about what makes Calipari such a successful recruiter that really had nothing to do with Cal's trendiness, or lack there of. And I really think it is worth calling your attention to. This was a
"Calipari's honesty with his players transcends his own ambition, and by doing so, he opens up a huge pipeline to other players with NBA aspirations. Players no longer need William Wesley to tell them that Coach Calipari will deal fairly with them. His reputation is already known, already understood."
http://www.aseaofblue.com/2010/6/23/1531891/kentucky-basketball-john-caliparis ↗
What particularly interests me about this quote and article includes;
1.) it makes no mention of Cal's trendiness;
2.) it says that the most important attraction of Calipari is that players trust that he will not hold them back from going pro; and
3.) players used to need William Wesley to convince them that Coach Cal would not hold them back.
In attempting to downgrade the important of World Wide Wes to Calipari's attraction to players, the obviously sympathetic article to Calipari, calls attention to notion that Cal's attraction to players is a kind of trust transferred to Cal by World Wide Wes.
So: the obvious question is: why did players trust World Wide Wes, and why do they no longer need to trust World Wide Wes, but can instead trust John Vincent Calipari?
But I digress.
Oops, let me digress just one bit further on this. I found an even older story about Cal written when he first came to Memphis that goes into Cal's personality traits and into his family and so on. It portrays a man who is decidedly NOT trendy by Cal's own self-description.
http://www.memphisflyer.com/memphis/john-calipari-the-man-of-the-hour/Content?oid=1116753 ↗
So let's consider "The Max Deals" hypothesis, which I intuitively have a lot of hope for. It seems to lend itself to empirics, or at least the hope for them with some digging.
The nub of the max deals hypothesis is that Rose, Wall, and Cousins, plus Walker as a bun in the oven soon to be baked, constitute a series of high profile players with such huge NBA contracts that Cal can point to and say something like, "See you can be rich like that if you play for me."
I like this hypothesis, because it even attempts to account for KU's Andrew Wiggins and Joel Embiid going 1 and 3 last season, and Self not getting 5 Mickey Ds afterwards, by saying that see, here, KU with those two and Ben Mac and so on could be on the same track a few years down the road. This has the incentive of hope. :-)
But I see a problem here. Do Rose, Wall and Cousins really overwhelm the Max Deals of Duke, Syracuse, UConn, UNC, Louisville, Ohio State, Michigan, Michigan State, in each case by a factor of 10 Mickey Ds to significantly less than 5 Mickey Ds; that is by a factor of TWO?
Now I think the Max Deal Hypothesis maybe holds against KU, But I am not sure that if one goes back starting Rose in 2008, or say rounding it to 2005, if Cal's MAX Deals exceed by a factor of two the max deals of say, Duke, or UNC, or Uconn, or Syracuse, or even UCLA and Ohio State.
I have to plead some inadequacy of memory here and request that you, or someone else, quantify that Cal's Max Deals exceed by a factor of two all of the Max deals of these other programs.
But I will tell you this.
If you are right about Cal's Max deals exceeding all these other programs Max deals, then I think that if we combine that with Cal no longer needing World Wide Wes to assure them that he will not hold them back, then we may be on to something and it may be worth forming a new hypothesis including both.
Rock Chalk!
You are preaching to the choir about the benefits of snap shot, so stop already. I am the one that was giving you strokes for it. Take praise gracefully. :-)
Now, let's go with this again.
I like the idea of aggregate basketball resources being a possible explanation. Money, money, money! Infrastructure. IT. Etc. Etc. All inclusivo!
It poses a problem of how to account for everything, so we will just have to talk in the aggregate and in generalities.
Fine.
What you are proposing is "The Cal Has More Aggregate Basketball Resources at UK Hypothesis".
Fine, let's not get defensive. Let's go with it.
Why was Cal able to out recruit Bill Self for Derek Rose at Memphis, when Self had more aggregate resources at KU than Cal had at Memphis?
Why was Cal arguably able to out recruit some elite basketball programs that had greater aggregate basketball resources than Memphis had?
Why for so many years were North Carolina (Nike), and Duke which have just as many aggregate resources as UK, able to attract about the same number of Mickey Ds and in the gravy years of UNC fewer?
KU has enormous basketball resources.
Michigan State under Izzo has enormous basketball resources.
Hell, John Bellein at UM has enormous basketball resources.
Tom Crean at Indiana has staggering basketball resources.
Oh, my gosh, here is a great example. Louisville in the same state after Crum and Pitino coaching at Louisville have fabulous basketball resources. Louisville's latest adidas contract actually dwarfs UK's Nike contract of late.
I just don't see how the sum total of "aggregate basketball resources" can plausibly come close to explaining why John Calipari has 10 Mickey D's and the other schools and coaches with enormous basketball resources have half that many.
Can we argue plausibly that UK having less than twice the aggregate basketball resources that all of the other top programs possess should come up with twice the Mickey Ds?
I don't see how to do that, at least if aggregate basketball resources are the drive of Cal's Mickey Ds.
I mean that would violate logic, wouldn't it?
You would at the very least have to come up with another hypothesis explaining why there is a conspicuously nonlinear relationship between aggregate basketball resources and Mickey D's. And this is all BEFORE snapshot and even independent if one had any effective notion of what snap shot were? :-)
No, I'm afraid aggregate basketball resources, which I admit to have had some hope for, does not adequately explain why Cal has 10 Mickey Ds and the other top programs have far fewer.
The quest for why Cal has 10 Mickey Ds continues.
look, I still love you, and I am going to keep working with you. Call it constructive engagement. I never give up on a Jayhawk.
Brown is 74. He is in his second season (or is it third) at moribund SMU. His one star recruit--Mudiay-- left before the season started for pay overseas and Larry said the kid had to do it. Brown ain't complaining about getting stiffed last season by the NCAA. Brown, who is a great, great basketball coach, is continually giving back to the game, when he could just get behind a mike and take. If you are African American, and even if you aren't, you should care very much about Larry Brown. He hired the first African American Assistant coach at KU, if I recall correctly. He learneda a ton of his basketball in the ABA from John McLendon, the first Africa American coach (at least that I know that had an unofficial relationship with KU) that wrongly didn't get to coach at KU. Brown did something to right that wrong. He is a man of deeds. Not a saint. He helps kids eat. He ain't complaining that UNC has never hired him, though they should have at least twice, and they should hire him now if Roy were forced out. He gave basketball its two most dynamic and influential coaches right now: Bill Self and John Calipari. He won an NCAA ring and an NBA ring. Anyone that closely watches him coach for even a single season can learn more about coaching and basketball from Brown than from any other guy i have EVER watched for a career. He is a basketball teaching savant. Open yourself to him.
And Brown ONLY lost to Mark Few 72-56--to Mark Few who inherited a completely successful mid major program a decade or so back, a program someone else had already built up, and who has kept it very well oiled and ranked year in and year out, even if he can't win a ring like Brown has.
Good for Coach Brown! Any lesser coach would have gotten beat by 35 points in that situation.
...just sayin'.
Pound for pound, The Big Red Dog, Clifford Alexander, will be the best big man on the floor. Not one of UK's footers is better.
Kelly Oubre will unquestionably be the greatest athletic freak on the floor. No UK 3/4 man has his wingspan, or his in the air game. Not one.
Svi is the next Larry Bird. None of UK's freshman are going to be as good as Svi will become. He doesn't just have a high ceiling, he has a 60 story sky scraper on his foundation.
Frank Mason is going to eat Tyler Uliis alive. His is then going to pick his teeth with one of Tyler's skinned metacarpal filanges. (Note: all you still billies down their with shared genes. Don't think for a second that cracked toothers and inbred gun rackers send any chill down the backs of Marine Raiders Battalion Jayhawk. We are trained to take real estate and destroy what gets in the way. Fear is not part of our equation. We are not trained to take prisoners, and we have not provisions for doing so. We are a basketball expeditionary force come to kill enemy and take a 90 long piece of real estate.) Seriously, Mason is going to suffocate Tyler defensively, then take him inside and score on him until Cal pulls him out, and then when Cal sends him back in, Mason is going to flat behead him.
Wayne Selden will guaranty that on of the Harrison Twins gets ZERO open looks. And he will hurt the pussy with manly contact and ripped out strength, while doing it.
When the other sissy Harrison Twin is in, Brannen Greene will mad stork him into submission and Brannen, while being tall enough to completely draw the blinds on his open looks, will in turn launch a torrent of threes that he has been saving up till Self gave him a green light.
Svi, who at 17, is already use to playing with grown men, will laugh at the effeminate twigs that UK calls its Mickey D backups, and proceed to wing distribute and drain treys in ways the little wet behind the ears UK freshman will wet their diapers trying to stop with straight legged defense and amateur reaching.
KU's version of Rodin's Thinker, Perry "I Score, Therefore I Am" Ellis, will slide off the lines and slide off the spots and spin for scores and drawn fouls almost at will against the big slow footed clods like Willy Cauley-Stein.
Jamari "Plastique" Traylor will explode into their faces, into their chests, into their air space, into their passing lanes, and in their heads. Not one of these UK weenies is going to have seen a 6-6 post man run the floor, and dust the top of the back board, and bring blast effect all over the faces of the UK children like Plastique can bring.
Lucas and Mickelson are ten painful fouls in the trenches, where UK thinks height makes right, but where UK is about to learn that hurt makes right. Welcome to the 21st Century equivalent of John Salley and Bill Laimbeer--the Baaaaaaad Boys 2.0. They are out to damage the OAD merchandize that we KNOW the UK OADs' advisors will have ordered their OADs to protect all game, because we know how that shizz works.
And more counter hype will follow if needed.
(Note: of course, this is all just counter hype to counterbalance the UK hype. No malice.)
Yeeeeeee HAWWWWWWWWW!
ITS GAME DAY!!!!!!!
Bring us the head of the Kentucky Wildcat mascot pithed on a spike, afterwards, so that @drgnslayr can at least get a hint of what Meso-American Ball once was like!!!!
(Note: just kidding, UK fans. I really like animals and always want the best for your critter.)
If the pay is good, I'm in! :-)
Seriously, though, there are quite a few aliases here that would strongly disagree with you. And I'm not even entirely sure some of them indicate different persons all the time. :-)
Cal arguably knocked it farther out of the park at UMass when he brought that level of talent there (including Marcus Camby) than what he has done at UK.
Cal bringing the level of talent he brought to then moribund Memphis was arguably knocking it farther out than what he has done at UK.
But the point is not how far he has knocked it out of the park relative to his past stays.
The point is that he has 10 Mickey Ds at UK and no one at any other elite program does.
And Snap Shot, while it is a great innovation, does not explain the 10 Mickey Ds already at UK.
To reiterate, unless i have misunderstood you and you are arguing that Cal and UK have been using Snap Shot the last few years recruiting, Snap Shot absolutely is NOT one single reason why Cal and UK ALREADY has 10 Mickey Ds on this year's roster.
But it is an indication of his, or at least his program's, willingness to try innovate.
Rock Chalk!
Cal, like any coach with an extraordinary winning record and a ring, and a disciple of Lawrence Brown will adapt to any situation exactly as needed.
If Cal needs his five most experienced players to beat KU that is exactly what you will see and he will worry about keeping his other 5 Mickey D's contented until exactly 40 minutes after tip off.
But will he need his five best players for 40 minutes to beat what Self calls his youngest team in terms of basketball IQ ever? The odds are he won't.
But here is the thing we all need to remember about Cal and his 10 Mickey Ds. It IS a great problem to have.
The part of Cal that I love is that he is an outside the box guy and always has been.
The part I detest is that once outside a box one still has an obligation to not be oblivious to wrong doing in a way that invariably favors you.
One of the things all persons have to learn about being successful at anything is that one has to embrace the new and its uncertainty two ways. First, one has to devise a system that minimizes as much of the risk as possible going in. Most focus all their time on this. But second, one has to develop almost an artists antennae and creativity for anticipating the unforeseeable and train oneself to be accomplished at responding to it effectively in ways that you cannot articulate before hand. This is very unnerving to most persons and few ever master it.
Larry Brown's greatness lies in being both highly knowledgeable of how to prepare for an opponent before the game, but then how to adapt not just to the foreseen options one can anticipate an opponent taking, but to what one did not foresee.
I have known and worked for two persons that were masters of the unexpected. They saw me handwringing endlessly about preparations, and about analyzing and anticipating the possible counter strategies and both said to me to worry like hell and sweat the details on that for them, while they focused on being ready for what we could not anticipate. After a time, when I had learned by nuts and bolts, and some more sophisticated things, they took me by the hand into the arena and reassured me on the way in that things are going to happen we cannot foresee and we are going to find marvelous solutions to problems neither of us could have dreamed possible before hand. It was intoxicating at first. I thought they were crazy. I thought they were just hypnotizing themselves not to think about themselves and their fears. I wanted to flee the room. I wanted to get more ideas, more solutions, more techniques, more innovations, helmets, body armor, titanium nut cups, more allies, a helmet that covered my entire body, histories that revealed secrets that explained everything, and so on.
But they said, "Nope, all that preparation that could be done has been done, Now is the time we go into the moment, into the action, and it is in this moment, this action where all sorts of wondrous opportunities are going to be revealed to us if only we will remain courageous enough and calm enough and sufficiently possessed of our faculties in the heat of the battle, that we see the obvious path open up before our very eyes and take it. Each one said it is amazingly easy to gain victory in the moment. The hard work is the preparation. In the moment, when one sees the clear path emerge, it is there for the plucking, like a fog lifting and revealing a pass between two mountains. What needs to be done becomes so clear at certain moments, if only we will see it, that victory feels almost inevitable. And it is. Both men said there are a number of these moments in a battle, or a game, or a competition. All we have to do is let go of our fears, do our jobs, and see and act upon them as we go. Winning takes care of itself.
To reach and operate in that state of inner calm and balance, while competing at a high level is the path to victory, especially for the team that seems outmanned and outgunned. Larry Brown's '88 team was outmanned and outgunned except at one position. His team took off unexpectedly without him. The fury of the moment was overhelming, and yet Coach Brown, the master of seeing paths in the moment, saw and did not hesitate to take the path that he did not create. Because we know Brown is a genius, we can infer there were probably many more moments like this in the game. A victory is a string of these moments of unexpected path openings being recognized and taken.
There will be paths and opportunities that will open against UK.
One never HAS to be the team with the most men and the most guns to win, if one sees the most opening and paths and if one takes them before they pass.
No coach, no system, no level of talent can stop all the moments, close all the pathways in a game with as much emergent complexity as there is in 40 minutes of basketball.
Where there is a will there is a way.
One need only become accomplished in the art of recognizing and seizing a stream of foreseeable moments that will be unforseeable in their specifics, but completely clear in the moment.
Larry Brown became very good at taking such paths.
John Wooden became the best.
The Snapchat Hypothesis. I really like this one, too, because it is dealing with something real and something new, so it most definitely could have an impact that we need to adopt.
I dealt with it indirectly above, but I want to address it directly, because I think it is such a fitting hypothesis.
It clearly does not explain the past advantage Cal has achieved, so we can reject it outright as the explanation of why Cal has 10 Mickey D's now. But...
By positing this hypothesis, which does NOT explain Cal's prior advantage, you have opened up a path around Cal's advantage. And this is often just as important as explaining his advantage.
The KU fan base CAN influence the future of KU Basketball. It influences and shapes it ALL THE TIME by continuing to love and support its traditions and its present. When a new score board goes up, or a new uniform is tried, or a new logo goes on the court, it is the response of the KU fan base that determines whether the logo stays, or the scoreboard makes any positive, constructive, lasting contribution. We are not yet so large that Self and Zenger and CBernie are like the U.S. Presidents that complain of getting sealed off from the people the love and sought to represent, by becoming ensconced in a national security bubble once they get to the White House. We don't have an election once every 4 years. We have 40 games a season. We have 15-20 home games. We have a robust and active internet feedback loop. They know what the KU fan base is feeling without QA. Self shows repeatedly that he is sensitive to what fans are thinking. He is not a CYA coward standing around with his wet finger up to the quantitative wind sampling to see if we like everything he does, but he is out there in the arena every time the team is. He knows the difference between the fan base and the hyping of the fan base. He can feel the crowd. He can feel when he and the crowd are in synch and when they are not. He gets feed back every game. Zenger and Bernie get it more indirectly when the attend, but what the KU fan base thinks and its collective mood is there behind the hyping of the sound system and the lights. But Self above all knows. He has walked out on to floors in Tulsa, and Champaign. This is not knock on those places. But there is a difference. He has been both places. The fans at KU care AND understand the game. They love the tradition, BUT THEY ALSO love the now!
The few rich alumni may be so infatuated with their own influences that they do not feel it, but I believe most of the rich alumni are of above average intelligence and have lived full lives and they've been to Paris, and STILL they are planting their butts in the seats in Allen Field House. They ARE part of the fan base and so they too know the fan base is EVERYTHING. It is the foundation that the entire structure and superstructure rests on. Without it, KU Basketball is Texas in blue.
Roy said it.
Bill said it.
Everyone that has coached anywhere else, gone to school anywhere else, supported any other sport, knows that it is the fan base that is different at KU.
This web site is part of the KU fan base and that is why this web site is different. @approxinfinity and @bskeet are simply smart enough and generous enough to structure a web site that lets the KU fan base be and do what it wants.
The other web sites are part of the KU fan base. When they let it be what it is and wants to be they benefit from it. When they don't, they don't. Same with this web site.
It is the KU fan base that endures and sees beyond the momentary failures, the memorable successes, the missed shots, the made shots, the bad calls, the hideous uniform tries, the great new uniforms, the momentary goofs, the momentary mistakes, the brilliant moves, the visionary risks taken, that are part and parcel to any organization continually trying to compete and flourish, save what needs saving ,and invent anew what must be reinvented.
And it is the KU fan base that is the gate keeper that must approve what is invented, must be smart enough to recognize foolishness, must be wise enough to recognize exploiters vs. those that are trying to take KU basketball to the step.
This hypothesis you have put forth is sign of intelligent life in the fan base. And intelligence is critical to taking the next step, to proposing it and to assessing it, and to either persisting against obstacles to its implementation, or to reject as the wrong move.
Hell, yes, we need insta chat, but we need something that would have ensured we had used instachat. KU basketball needs an ASSISTANT COACH IN CHARGE OF INTERACTIVE RECRUITING, and a marketing professional on staff with the title Director of Interactive Marketing, as surely as it needed an asisstant in charge of weight training, a director of PR. KU Journalism and maybe the marketing department in the Business school need majors in this too. Things have grown beyond tired definitions of advertising, public relations, broadcasting, mass media. and sports journalism. Sport reaches both recruits and fans through digital connectivity, interactive media KU basketball cannot rest.
Tomorrow is already the past.
Forest Allen understood this when he got Memorial Stadium built LONG BEFORE it was needed.
Forest Allen understood this when he called for an NCAA and an NCAA Tournament to leap frog the inbred stupidities and mendacities of eastern media's tail wagging the national dog of college basketball.
KU Basketball understood this when they built Allen Field House at a large size long before it was needed.
KU Basketball is not ABOUT tradition.
The TRADITION of KU Basketball is the tireless pursuit of GETTING BETTER, GETTING THERE FIRST, TRYING EVERYTHING BEFORE EVERYONE ELSE.
KU BASKETBALL has no meaning beyond THE TRADITION OF INTELLIGENT SPORTS INNOVATION.
Universities that only store knowledge without advancing it perish.
We live on the brink of the game going viral around the globe.
Even the buck sucking, copy cat, inside the box thinking CEOs of Big Shoes and Big Media understand this and are scrambling desperately to get to the head of the line at the hog trough.
KU Basketball fans must never lose sight that they are BOTH the
guardians of the past AND of the Discovers and Explorers of the Future.
We are both.
That is the message of Bill Self.
He is at his best when he is both.
We are at our best when we are both.
KU Fans must not be satisfied with aiming slightly ahead.
No competition is won by competing for tomorrow, because tomorrow is already too late to act upon. We build for half a century past tomorrow.
Tomorrow is for suckers.
The future is for those with the courage to step waaaaaaaay into it.
Rock Chalk!
@MoonwalkMafia and @justanotherfan
Ooooookay, what we have here are really two hypotheses: a superior UK season starter hypothesis combined with a The World Series Wrecked the KU Season Starter Hypothesis. Well, okay, let's unpack them and analyze them.
First, "The Superior UK Season Starter Hypothesis": For this hypothesis we would expect to read mainstream reports of comments by parents saying they liked all of the season starters but UK's was the best by far. We don't find these. We would also expect to find lots of internet posts and tweets and so forth by recruits indicating how hopelessly out of date the KU season starter is. We don't find these. We would also expect for guys from outside the country that have no comprehension of arcane American basketball traditions like season starters to much more receptive to UK's reputedly state of the art season starter, But in fact, Andrew Wiggins of Canada, Joel Embiid of Cameroon, and Svi of Ukraine all chose KU.
Second, "The World Series Wrecked the KU Season Starter Hypothesis:" Well, this hypothesis could explain some of this current recruiting gap between UK and KU, but, alas, it does not explain the current recruiting gap between UK and other elite schools that did not have a World Series conflict with their season starter. Further, this hypothesis does not explain why UK has 10 Mickey Ds this season from its 5 Mickey D recruiting haul from last season.
Thus, the search for how Cal has 10 Mickey D's continues.
Rock Chalk!
In essense, what you are proposing is that
You just gave the reason that some coaches don't do it.
But in any given population distribution of coaches there almost certainly will be many more willing to do almost anything to win rather than that stand on principle and accept defeat based on the principle you have enunciated. It is simply human nature. It is why we have so much adaptation, copying, innovating and cheating. Far more coaches want to win than want to stand on principle at any given time. And athletic departments and universities and Big Shoe contracts and Big Media contracts constantly and hugely incentivize this tendency, and constantly bias the population of who becomes a coach to be, among other things, persons particularly prone to looking for competitive advantage, which of course, your hypothesis assume a player centric model creates.
Thus, the search for the reason Cal has 10 Mickey D's continues.
I still say that when he told that Wichita reporter he was branding with hair he was toughening box bound and Self probably called his dad and told him so.
I am very glad to hear you think Kelly's knees are okay and that black knee wraps are just a preventative, or a fashion statement.
My hunch is that Oubre is going to see a ton action versus UK; that he and Alexander and Svi are likely to be Self's three flat tops out northeast of Midway.
That Frank and Selden and Graham and Greene have one mission and one mission only: cut off the head so that the body will die.
Tyler Uliis, 5-9 155 is the head.
Tyler Uliis, welcome to a world of hurt--D1 violence and speed NOW, the second game of the season. You are going to have contact like you never dreamed.
I keep saying that Self gave this team a Marine Corp indoctrination for a reason and it was not just to take a beating, but to deliver one, too.
This KU team is really two parts: it is a Marine Raider battalion of Mason, Selden, Graham, on the outside and Ellis, Traylor. Their job is to go in an wreak havoc, absorb force and engage a superior enemy. Sustain violent contact. Operate in a world of hurt. Improvise tactics. Focus force on the key point. Cut off the head in this case.
But there is a larger battle space, where the decisive blows must be struck.
When you are outgunned and outmanned you have to confuse with Signal Traffic, which Self has been doing, and you have to hide your best pieces and where they will attack from.
Alexander, Svi and Oubre are this expeditionary forces decisive weapons. These are the big weapons that come in when the Raiders have stunned them. Not all three will be successful, but for one, or two, to be successful all three must be hurled into the enemy at the decisive hour.
Go, Kelly go!
Go Big Red Dog!
Go Svi!
The Raiders go in just after dusk.
You will attack soon after.
40 seconds over Tokyo this is not.
40 Minutes Over Indy.
Some may not return.
Attack with surprise.
Attack in waves.
Attack in force.
Stop them here.
Stop them now.
And the tide of the season will be changed for ever.
Great, let's go with this. Suggestions like this are exactly what we need.
So: let's say Self has not adapted to a player centric model, and let's say that it happens, because, despite Self's signs of adaptability (embracing hack'n'slap after being beaten by Howland and UCLA, adapting Coach K's cheap shotting after K's last ring, etc.) and willingness to pioneer (let the other team set tempo, personally sign with adidas,etc.), let's say Self is kind of a high sphincter-toned type about control and he is set in his high sphincter-toned ways and that this player centric model is at least as obvious to other professional coaches at every stage of the coaching profession as it is to you. Let's even say it is obvious to Self, who just has FU money, and is old enough, and determined enough to think he can find another way.
Let's even extend this explanation to Coach K and Izzo and Rick Pitino, and Billy Donovan, and Rick Barnes, and so on. Let's say that these baby boom coaches and some on the frontier of the Gen X crowd, constitute a high sphincter tone generation of coaches that John Calipari has left the program on. Let's say Cal is a pioneer.
We know why Self and all these Boomers and border line Gen Xers aren't copying the model.
But why isn't anyone younger copying the model? Coaching is reputedly such a competitive profession where everyone is looking for the edge in everything, there just have to be a whole bunch of Gen X, Y, and Z coaches out there ready quickly adapt the Player Centric model? And by lots I mean hundreds of them. There are something like 300+ D1 programs.
Why isn't Kevin Ollie copying the model? He has a more recent ring than Cal. All Kevin would have to do is go to every OAD and Mickey D and say the magic words: "Player Centric Model" and tell each player you will be playing 20 mpg guarantied, it will be easy, it will be fun, we can keep you in school as long or as short as you want, you will play a dribble drive offense, and the defense will be a simple m2m that is driven by athleticism, not complicated help schemes, and you will play with a bunch of great guys. It seems to me that Kevin Ollie after a ring, and with Shabazz jumping, should just about be able to snap his fingers and make the change. The timing was perfect.
And if you say, well, but Kevin is a high sphincter tone guy, who just never happened to care much about UConn's abysmal graduation rate, well, then where are all the other young coaches jumping on this player centric model that let's them leap frog Self, Donovan, Pitino, and so on?
This player centric model is XTRemely easy to adapt. It is probably the easiest thing to adapt in college basketball that I can imagine outside of maybe a Sex-centric player model where you promise each player unlimited amounts of sex if he comes to your program. :-)
So: where i am headed here is that we are just not seeing the wide spread adaptation of this pleasurably simple to adopt player centric model, which by the way, Cal has embraced at least back to Memphis, which means about a decade now. So: it seems like a decade of successful recruiting and high winning percentages at a lesser program like Memphis and an elite program like UK would long since have caused a stampede among coaches at all manner of programs to the player centric model, if that were actually the way that Cal has over the years loaded his teams with a growing share of the OAD/Mickey D talent pool until this season, when he has 10 Mickey Ds.
The search to unlock the mystery of Cal's ten Mickey Ds continues.
Rock Chalk!
@justanotherfan said:
The fact that the Harrison twins, Dakari Johnson and Marcus Lee are all back as sophomores and Cauley-Stein and Poythress return as juniors makes it difficult to believe that UK's guys just stop going to class second semester, otherwise they would all declare regardless of draft standing.
I am so glad you posted this. This gives us a chance to posit that they are doing it the right way and to ask how are they doing it?
What classes are these players in?
Are we seeing a trend, which might correspond with logic, that OAD/Mickey D type players are starting to learn from recent past experiences; i.e., they are recognizing what has for sometime been noted here and elsewhere--a high risk of such players actually not flourishing at the NBA level; that injury and development are hard to predict; that developing a year or two extra may be advantageous; that education is a smart advantage to acquire along the way?
Is Caliper perhaps LEARNING say, from Bill Self, that these OAD/Mickey D types, at least more rather than less of them, CAN be properly educated within the rules (assuming Self to is doing the right thing)? And is Cal perhaps learning that this approach to education creates even more of an attraction to whatever else Cal and UK are doing to attract large numbers of such persons to their program?
Adding such insight, @justanotherfan, is real learning.
And it leads to further a further insight, which is what connectivity in a community is supposed to do.
What if Cal has learned from Self, as Self has appeared at times to have learned from Cal; that is, what if Cal has learned to take a laudable approach to education of these UK players (heck, let's also suppose another scenario in which he has been doing it the right way all along), so that he and KU are doing approximately the same thing education wise--what then is leading to the great asymmetry between the number of ten Mickey Ds at UK and the number of Mickey D's at KU? And why aren't Self, and Coach K, and Rick Pitino, and Tom Izzo, and Tom Crean, and Kevin Ollie, and Larry Brown, not adopting this model? They have had a few years to do so.
So: the point here is that the more one tries to explain away an acute anomaly, the more one finds oneself staring the acute anomaly straight in the face, especially if one is fair minded and grants Cal that he is doing it the right way in most things we can observe.
And this is good and fair to do IMHO.
How can Cal have 10 Mickey Ds, when it looks increasingly like he is doing all the apparent legal and admirable things so similarly done in other programs?
Forget about what he might be doing illegally, or unethically; that is not our jurisdiction.
Let's stay focused on what legal things we have not yet thought of and hypothesized that he may be doing better to get the favorable distribution of talent?
And let us analyze those too.
What action, or combination of actions, that Self, Coach K, Rick Pitino, and Tom Izzo are not taking, that Cal is taking allows Cal to have 10 Mickey Ds and not them?
Please try to remember, and note the significance, that I do not intend to deal in theories, least of all conspiracy theories. Theories of any kind to me are proven explanations of phenomena. I don't have the time, resources, or expertise to deal in theories about basketball programs, universities, accreditation organizations, sports reform organizations, agents, agent runners, summer games, Big Shoes, Big Media, Big Gaming, etc., and I doubt most of the rest of us do. I try to pose, and encourage others to try to pose, hypotheses, and to amend and develop them with what logic and limited evidence that may be currently available, so as to point directions toward more hypothesizing, more evidence collection and more applications of logic to get us closer to better fitting hypothetical explanations. Hypotheses are possible explanations, not proven ones. Further, I try to pose possible explanations that I believe could be consistent with law, regulations, rules, and standards. I do not intend to, nor do I wish for this community to, act in the role of judge and jury. I have come to believe that if we can pose hypotheses that might be consistent with law, regulation, rules and standards, and refute or support them, then we are usefully narrowing the scope of the possible and leaving interpretations of what remains to others properly tasked with considering such things further. In short, if we can take what they give us and refute, or support it, or expand on it, we are becoming a more informed community little by little. And it is my hope at least that more informed fans contribute more to the positive development of the game and KU Basketball than less informed ones over the long haul.
Put another way, we are hopefully an online community trying to understand what the heck is going on a little bit better each day. Being an informed community should be our goal. Not dispensing opinions of guilt and justice, even though a certain amount of outrage at acutes, sometimes seemingly egregious phenomena, provokes us toward such.
This is why my original question ASKED: was it Cal's charisma, or something else, that enabled Cal to attract 10 Mickey Ds?
All we have to do is pose how he might be doing it consistent with laws, regulation, rules, and standards, especially by considering how he says he is doing what he is doing, then analyse it. If we can see that it is valid and fitting within apparent constraints, then we can expect our program to emulate it. If we can't, well then maybe someone else can explain what we are missing. And if they can't, well then maybe it isn't something that can be emulated within constraints and it will lead where it leads without us slipping into acting as judge and jury. let us keep the focus on the issue and not on us.
Rock Chalk!
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