I believe you nailed it.
jaybate 1.0
10346 posts
Well, said.
The only think I have been trying to do is to sort out exactly what violation, if any was committed. I am still trying to find some law, regulation, rule, or standard that was broken in all of this.
So far someone has said that maybe teaching the courses the way they did might cause an accreditation organization to jeopardize UNC's accreditation. Do you think this issue involving African and African American Studies that the UNC Chancellor claims was fixed around four years ago is going to jeopardize UNC's accreditation across the board? Wow! I mean Memphis played a bunch of ineligible guys all season and in the '08 Finals against KU and I don't recall anyone guessing that Memphis accreditation might be pulled across the board? Heck, I don't even recall anyone saying even a small part of Memphis' accreditation might be pulled, do you?
I keep wondering if there might be something special about UNC, UNC basketball, or the state of North Carolina, that would make it really desirable to unleash this type of a scandal.
I mean think about KU's Scalpinggate. There was some real, tangible law breaking going on there. Persons were making big monies on selling tickets and not reporting the income to IRS. Now that's a coherent scandal. I still can't quite get my mind around what the exact violation is, can you?
Can anyone go to jail for easy classes?
Does a university have a fiduciary responsibililty to provide hard classes instead of easy classes? or would it be just medium hard, or medium easy classes it has to provide to meet its fiduciary responsibility? Does it have to provide class meetings? to provide a service that checks to determine if a student is turning in his own work, or someone else's?
I am serious about this.
I really cannot tell where this is heading.
And when the lawyers get done with it, who will be able to document more damages? Players or schools? Or what about damages to athletic departments?
Or what if its all a media scandal; i.e., what if it were just to have a life in the media, but never go much farther?
I do think some player-lawyer combination will probably try to bring a complaint, but I haven't at this point a clue of what kind of a decision might result.
This seems really slippery terrain to a laymen looking from way outside at just the shallowest part of this so far.
C'mon non conference season!
I defy you to show me one article in major media that says KU football would not be better off with new housing?
I'm not asking for two stories here...just one lousy story that says KU football would not be better off with new housing....where a football player said better housing would not have attracted him even more to KU?
(Yeeeeee hawwww, I love this sort of exchange where we get to argue over which lint fiber is better.)
Do you see how easy it is to invert this sort of rhetoric you unsubtlely use?
I cannot say for sure why it is so easy to invert, because I have never studied it formally, but I think it is goes to the means of contriving it in the first place, don't you?
This is something they ought to teach at Camp Destabilization, don't you think?
It ought to be part of the core curriculum, don't you think?
"Don't contrive when one counter posts" ought to be a rule, don't you agree? And I suppose the same would go for thread highjacks and backfills and so on. Contrivance is like getting caught with one's technique showing. Bad form. Very bad. Awful. Leonard Pynth Yarnell really bad.
By god, ask for your money back @JayHawkFanToo, if you ever took such a class.
And if you really lived in The Towers back then, prove it by telling me the exact number of bricks used in your bedroom walls? Be specific! :-)
Conflation with irrelevant connections is another hoary technique that needs to be removed from the curriculum of Camp Destabilization, don't you agree?
Sometimes you seem poorly trained, @JayHawkFanToo , whilst other times you seem not trained at all. Which condition do you labor under?
Never mind, don't answer. It was an idle question, Jeeves.
Let's start a cracking good advocacy group for destabilization reform, shall we?
You can be the first Prime Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer. I, I, I, I will not even be a member. I would not wish to join a group that would have you (or me, or Groucho) as a member. :-)
Let's call it The Tonganoxie Group (throat clearing), even though it will have only incidental connection to Tonganoxie, as, well, as The Drake Group only has incidental connection with Drake University. Rather we will hold one meeting at a cafe there. We will talk about how terribly awful destabilization is taught for only a moment or two. About how young people are paying good money to take three day classes in destabilization and come away without a real solid education in destabilization, or with a mastery of its techniques.
Let's call a telly outfit, shall we? Maybe the BBC? Let's do so immediately after we finish our weak coffees and two day old cinnamon danish (as we pine away for some clotted creams and scones) and tell them we are sending them a presser.
We'll have you advocate for destabilization reform.
Are you up for it?
C'mon, @JayHawkFanToo, I'm just having some fun with you here.
If it makes you feel good to think the Towers are as good as we need, terrific. Think it and feel strong and air-muscled about it. Flex a little. Make a fist and pump it. Shake, pop and shoot one of your Colt 45 Malt Liquors. ;-)
But I think football (and basketball first) seriously needs new housing.
"Ram on, give your heart to somebody, soon, right away..."--Paul McCartney
Alas, I am not sure we have reached the nirvana of agreement though I am always fond of getting to that state. :-)
You appear to be retreating into some vagaries rather than just answering my humble little question of what specific law, regulation, rule, or standard has been violated , or saying you cannot; then you appear to try to make a virtue of doing so and resort to the old "its too complicated for your itty bitty witttttttle questions. :-)
Why exactly are you doing that and then essentially saying this may reduce to an accreditation issue? I do not follow your logic, so agreement, alas, cannot yet be said to be achieved and enjoyed. How can I agree with what is not clear enough to see the logic connect validly on? How can I make a reasonable analysis in order to agree with you? There is yet some burden on you. :-)
I have googled a bit so far, but not near as much as I would like and hope to. I am just getting into this--just asking the most obvious questions now. And it appears increasingly conspicuous that my rather basic questions so far appear not to be being answered with what one might describe as credible specificity; that sometimes foreshadows a need for more learning. Perhaps we will all learn something as this alleged scandal of "paper classes" continues. I hope I do. I am not taking a side in this so far. I am just trying to educate myself.
Be patient. We are just getting into it. I have a feeling the alleged UNC scandal is going to get still more interesting, but I cannot at this time say if it will necessarily do so in the way folks might expect. :-)
Capice?
One more thought on this stuff about students and student-athletes copying papers and turning them in.
My recollection is that when students cheat the way you describe, i.e., turning in copies of papers they did not write, that the student would be considered to be violating some kind of school ethic and would be, if found out, disciplined by the school. But I don't recall a situation where the school, or the instructor, would be found to have violated a student's rights by not catching them doing it.
And this is where I see some real problems with folks that are suggesting UNC violated laws, regulations, rules, or standards.
I don't see anything wrong with folks saying UNC did not offer good education in these classes to some 3100 students. I could even see where accreditation programs might come in and say UNC has some courses where they are not meeting "our" standards for accreditation.
But UNC violating a law here?
Or UNC losing its accreditation across the board?
I don't know.
Maybe the proper legal angle is that some athletes were either coerced, or mislead into taking substandard classes, when their scholarships entitled them to a standard education that they were mislead from getting.
I don't know.
Whatever happens, I hope this propels the NCAA and all member institutions towards giving all student athletes a certain number of years of education after their playing days end to pursue their legitimate degrees with whatever tutoring assistance they need.
Regarding A and Bs being given usually, slightly over half the students getting the As and Bs you describe were not athletes, if I understand this correctly.
Dusting off the cob webs, what I recall in most grad schools is that everyone got As, or Bs. It was kind of an unwritten rule. If you got less, which almost no one did, you were dismissed.
Now, I know we are not talking about grad level work, but I wonder if the university has a rule at any level specifying that everyone in a class is not allowed to get As and Bs?
I admit that I've been away from university coursework and grading a long time, but do you really think they have a rule now about how many can get As and Bs?
Is there any proof presented so far that anyone took too many independent studies courses? Have you seen the actual rule that says exactly how many independent studies courses are allowed and cases where too many were taken?
Is there a UNC requirement that "classes" have to be attended to be passed? I recall attendance almost never being recorded in my undergraduate classes at KU back in the dark ages of the 20th Century. In fact, I don't recall a single teacher taking attendance in my years at KU. Is that something new in universities now? Is taking attendance mandatory at universities now? Now that would be an easy thing to document. Just go look at the class room attendance taken? But what if attendance is not recorded and what if it is not even mandatory to take it? What does it mean exactly to say that there was no attendance, when none was required?
Is there any rule preventing a secretary from grading papers? When I was in school I had computers grade some of my papers. I had grad students grade my papers. I believe I had a teach one time that had us grade each other's presentations?
I am not quite sure it is time to roll Bartles and James yet. :-)
Understand, I am not taking sides here.
What went on at UNC doesn't look like a high point of university education to me. Or even a mid point. :-)
But I keep sifting through this and keep coming up without specific violations of specific rules.
Hell, I would kind of like it if UNC got a fork put in it, because it might free up some recruits for us.
But, c'mon, surely you still have to violate a written rule to be convicted, or sanctioned, or whatever, don't you?
I mean, I know you don't in national security matters. If I understand that correctly, the President can just have you abducted, tortured and whacked, if the President says you are a national security threat.
But UNC curricula in African Studies and African American studies--that isn't defined as national security is it? :-)
I am just asking for someone to give me the specific law, regulation, rule, or standard that is written down and the evidence of its violation; that's all.
Is that too much to ask?
You should be feelin' fine.
Season's underway.
Global warming is bringing early snow.
Jeb announced.
Wainstein was a Dubya HomeSecAd.
C'mon, admit it.
The Drake Group is advocatin'.
You feel good....like you knew that you would!!!
Ha!
"Whoa-oa-oa! I feel good, I knew that I would, now
I feel good, I knew that I would, now
So good, so good, I got you"
--I Feel Good, James Brown
And yes I am FOR student-athletes being given 4 year rides, not one year contracts, and being given an number of years of support afterwards to finish their degrees.
Feeling a little unfulfilled, are we? :-)
Jayhawker Towers? There are certain limitations there that locker stalls can't compensate for. Or don't you get it?
Xcellent point.
And while I have been joking around, the real reason probably has nothing to do with Oubre, but rather with Frankamp's departure, Svi has got to get some work in, because Svi is much nearer to being needed now for his gun and dribbling than before Conner shoved off for Shockerville.
P.S.: Now we just have to hope Perry doesn't transfer down there, too, if the numbers go against him here, too. :-)
This was like day following night.
Marshall will have Frankamp raining treys at the Round House (do they still play in the Round House?) faster than you can say starting point guard. :-)
"Wainstein said his interviews revealed that basketball coach Roy Williams was "uncomfortable with clustering" in the African-American Studies department because of the optics that players were being steered toward that major. Early in his tenure at North Carolina, he asked his assistant coach in charge of academic matters and the basketball team's primary academic counselor not to steer players toward those classes."--Dan Wolken. USA Today, October 23, 2014
http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/college/2014/10/22/north-carolina-academic-fraud/17717243/ ↗
How do board rats interpret this?
I will read up. Thanks.
From the lack of responses so far, I guess we are right to be on neither side and seeking clarification.
Thanks for the heads up. That is VERY interesting.
If someone insisted on a day in court, I wonder if a university lawyer would argue that in fact the student committed the violation and not the teacher; that the teacher was fooled by the student.
And if a paper were turned in, I wonder if that paper might not be argued to have been sufficient to meet relevant standards?
This is why I am trying to zero in on the criteria for deciding if a violation were committed.
It could be something as little as Svi beat Oubre to a 50/50 ball and Self is inserting the needle into Oubre.
But to be prudent, let's round up the usual suspects in rank order, shall we: injury, defense, hustle, appearance.
Hmmmmmm. Lemmme think here.
Bring in the first suspect.
Mr. Injury, you seem always a possibility with an OAD. OAD's appear not to play through injuries. And, well, Oubre WAS wearing the dreaded black knee lingerie in the first exhibition, right? And as we know anyone that hesitates to lace them up with an injury less than a torn ACL, or a compound fracture sticking out through the epidermis, is viewed as some how not quite team-oriented enough by Marine Raider Bill.
Hmmmmm. If its an injury issue, we won't know about it for awhile. And it could be some seriously sore knees that an early rest might help, or something they are trying to decide about scoping, or not, or it could be an OAD protecting the merchandize and being treaded to the usual round of withheld PT for failure to man-up. Mr. Injury, you are released pending further inquiry. Do not leave town.
Next suspect.
Mr. Defense? Turn and face the front. What about failure to "buy in" to defense? Well, Self has enthused about Oubre's hustle, so, Mr. Defense, you are no longer a suspect. Have a nice day sliding and helping.
Next suspect.
Mr. Hustle? Show us a profile, then face the front. Its always possible Kelly had an off day and is getting dinged for it. But Oubre seems pretty intense. Mr. Hustle, you are released from custody, but do not leave town without notifying us. We may wish to call you in for further questioning.
Mr. Appearance? Hey, you! in the big ugly mop of half processed protein. Front and center. You know Mr. Appearance, right? As in shaved sidewalls and Monster Truck sized high profile protein tread on top? As in outside Self's traditional range of tolerance? As in longer than Wayne Selden? Longer than Frank Mason? Longer than Perry Ellis? As in longer than Cin?
Mr. Appearance, you are under arrest for violating Self Ball criminal code 8793425.319. This violation involves wearing an outrageous hair style, then playing okay, but not stellar, and then talking to a journalist about the 'do being a branding technique in promoting your career. There will be no bail. You are sentenced to a week in the toughening box and a visit to a preferred list of barbers that Fred Quartelbaum will provide you gratis. But you have to pay for chop.
The minute I read in the recent human interest/OAD-hype story about Oubre admitting that his hair was a branding thing, I figured he was already in the jaws of hell--already on the way to the toughening box--that log enclosure under the guard tower out by The Bridge on the River Kaw. Self promotion BEFORE performance, I have a hunch is an OAD no-no after Self's recent OAD experiences.
And I have always believed that Self has an unwritten rule about appearance, whether it be hair, beards, jewelry, tats, or what have you. I believe Self will never order a player to get, say, a haircut. But what he will do is hold it against you the moment you don't do everything just right. It is the old coach's way of teaching players that life is a lot more unfair than some pencil-necked high school biology teacher grading you down for spit wads.
I suspect Oubre confused that it was okay to wear a new coiffure to Late Night with it not being okay to use hair as a branding tool once the bullets start flying.
The story indicated that Father Oubre picked Self precisely because he wanted a coach that would set limits with his son.
I believe we may be witnessing the first limit setting.
Or, maybe Self is just testing different lineups.
Sure.
And Jeb Bush could be running, because he plans to bring peace to the Middle East and close the torture prisons.
But seriously, I do think it is a bit too soon to tell.
:-)
Someone help me here.
I am not on either side of this issue.
I am on a mission of clarification.
Thanks in advance.
I am not taking sides here.
I am on a fact finding mission.
Just what the heck is the legal meaning of a "paper class" at this time?
Are you happier dodging? :-)
My happiness does not depend on KU football.
Does your happiness depend on KU football?
Or does it depend on Clint Bowen?
Or does it depend on backfilling? :-)
"paper classes" appears so far to be a difficult term to pin down.
What exactly does it mean?
Is it a term with legal meaning? Does it refer to a court case precedent, or to a law or regulation, or to term of art in an accreditation standard.
Where exactly does it say a "paper class" actually is a violation of a law, a regulation, or a university, or accreditation standard?
I am not taking a side on this.
I am in fact finding mode.
Usually, to be found guilty of something, you have to have violated a specific law, or regulation, right?
For a "paper class" to be found in violation of an accreditation standard, I would reckon there must be a standard of work load that the alleged "paper class" were a violation of, right? What exactly is it? How far did those classes fall short, if at all?
I don't recall seeing this specific accreditation standard posted that says "no paper classes," nor do I recall seeing a specific allegation of how the alleged paper class failed to meet minimum standards.
I am not saying there is no problem here. I am saying I have yet to read anything that specifies exactly what laws, regulations, and standards the alleged paper classes violated and exactly how they violated them.
I am trying to find out if there is such a thing as a "paper class" that is an illegality, or a violation of a standard, or if it is something that certain persons wish were a violation of a law, or a standard?
I could see where this might eventually lead to a court case by a student, or student-athlete, alleging he/she had paid for an accredited education and did not get one. But until we see the criteria for violation, I am in the dark as to assessing what kind of trouble UNC might be in.
Nothing more?????????????????????????????
Just positive changes?????????????????????
Not enough.
Next.
Let's pull this down out of the ethers.
Is a paper required?
Is a test required?
In the age of online classes and online degrees, and old fashioned correspondence courses, does the class have to meet? If so, how many times to get how many hours of credity?
I have not been able to find a legal definition of a "paper" class.
You know, the statute, or case law precedent, the specifies a paper class is a legal violation.
I wonder if it really exists? I kind of doubt it.
Anyone that knows it, please post it here.
I am not sure how you are able to look at this as not an extension of what Weis started????????????????????????????????
IMHO, Charlie Weis appeared to be used as a broom--a guy late in his career they could trust not to cheat in exchange for a healthy salary, perhaps one who was looking to square away his retirement and devote himself largely to coaching and faculty relationship building, not the almighty recruiting and fund raising brass rings at the heart of dynasty building. He was also not someone to be ashamed of either. He came from assisting at Florida, right? and he had a respected record as an NFL OC, even though his .500 stint at traditional power Notre Dame suggested someone that did not have all the requirements to succeed as a D1 head coach. It probably appeared a nice fit, from a bureaucratic strategy angle. He at least appeared to me to be hired by CBernie and Zenger to buy them some extra time they perhaps needed to continue discovery and disinfecting of KUAD and the foundations, after Scalpingate and Lewgate, and Lew's hire of Gill. Or maybe just to buy them time to figure out the infrastructure issues. Weis appeared a guy willing to take the brunt of marking time, and of remediation and infrastructure deliberations, i.e., while CBernie and Zenger made absolutely sure there were no more bodies in the swamp, got the stadium and housing financing in order, and generally got things ready for the hiring of a high energy, high quality long term guy with the kind of brand the university could develop. To get that sort of a guy, one logically would have had to undertake and complete the remediation process. Private 501.c3 athletic departments and related foundations appear to comprise an organizational complex built up in a regulatory grey area floating on possible legal ambiguities of unknown extent that tempt abuse. It might have taken several years after Scalpingate to really drill down and do more than take bore samples; i.e., to really remediate the situation and move forward with bureaucratic confidence.
It seems likely that Bowen won't be hired, if CBernie and Zenger believe remediation (i.e., they have discovered all the buried bodies and problems) is complete and they are at long last ready to move forward with the phase of creating the long term program, of which football is just one very substantial part. This has appeared always about more than just football.
Hiring Neinas appeared a signal that they were ready to move ahead with the permanent football program building. Why hire Neinas if the swamp weren't remediated? But as long as the football program lacks first rate housing to attract recruits, and first rate locker rooms, also, for the same purpose, they might have a struggle landing the right coach. Stadium size appears largely irrelevant in the media-gaming-shoe complex age IMHO, especially with a basketball program that lays its share of golden eggs, also. But improving the
For this reason, hiring Bowen, if they trust him to keep NOT cheating in recruiting so as to advance his career (apparently a big temptation for young coaches, or coaches that are in the first third of their careers and getting probably their only shot at headcoaching at a D1 major they are likely to get), then Bowen could be an expedient step to take. Use him for two years, while the new housing gets built, then with it all fresh and pretty, get back to Neinas. Or if he proves a recruiting wunderkind, move forward with him.
Eventual action would probably significantly depend on whether the marquis coach would be expected to rather control the specification of the housing or would rather have it in the ground already.
Interesting situation, regardless.
Shizz, I have tried to be objective about this UK game and come up pessimistic. But reading your post makes me drop my objective mode and jump down in the fox hole with you!
"We need to own the tempo. "
This seems to be the ultimate test of Self's adaptability. Who we have been under Self is "let them set tempo and we beat them playing it their way."
But I agree with you that the way for this team is to come fast sometimes and come slow other times. And in between after that. Use your twin ball handling guards to control the tempo.
An second key is every time UK goes to three seven footers, 3/4 zone press them. Force the footers to handle the ball in open court.
A third key, long pass it up the sideline to keep the UK bigs from having time to set up where they like.
I know little about the x's and o's of D1 football anymore, but I know this program needs continuity and Bowen to me represents an extension of what Charlie Weis started. And that is about as close to continuity as we can now get.
You read it here first.
God I love it when someone does what appears to be the impossible!
And not just a win, but a decisive win!
Congratulations, Clint Bowen.
Congratulations to every guy on that KU football team top to bottom.
Everyone won yesterday.
We fans owe you our respect and gratitude.
Mr. Neinas, your services will not be needed.
P.S.: Charlie Weis, please accept my apology, Coach. All your hard work finally paid off. I got disillusioned when the powers that were forced you out for many reasons. I wanted you to get your five years. I have no idea why they wouldn't give them to you. And I have made some cracks in that disillusionment. But you will be a part of anything good that happens the rest of the way in this rebuilding job at KU. I for one will not forget your contribution. You tried it every which way you could. You stepped outside your comfort zone and outside the safe moves for a head coach and it eventually cost you. But I will now always believe that Bowen's win, and whatever success comes next will always depend somewhat on your willingness to break the mold and take risks looking for something that might work. Success is always built on the foundation of intelligent failing. I had my doubts about you from the beginning, but I just don't believe Bowen could have reached down for the emotions of this undermanned team without you having tried everything else first. Thanks, Coach Weis, and I hope in time that KU fans come to appreciate your role in this, as I have.
Since I am out on a very thin limb here, lump :-), I said there is a significant chance of an upset by UCSB, because UCSB is a team with a VERY good center, and an experienced cast of less talented players that early in a season give teams that have to play OADs big minutes fits.
On the other hand, UCSB is the kind of team where Selden, or Perry, could run wild, while UCSB's center is looking after Alexander, or Lucas/Mickelson. But the minute Self tries playing small ball with Ellis at the 5, and Oubre at the 4, the UCSB's center shuts off Ellis, UCSB sags completely off Oubre and says beat us with the trey, and they double a lot on Selden and say, "go, ahead, beat us with Devonte Graham if you can."
UCSB is going to test KU's trey shooting, and UCSB has been playing small ball forever. It will be completely comfortable with what KU will do, because it works on it every day in practice.
If KU's guys are on from 3, and our bigs can help and shut down their post man, which few have been able to do, then the athleticism of Selden and Oubre and Greene will eventually run wild over UCSB. But if KU shoots to their likely 35-36% 3 pt average for the season, and UCSB just keeps sagging more and more, and taking it inside again and again to their big center, then I definitely see a risk of an L. Never want to bet against KU at home with a mid major, but as we learned last season, playing young talented players in new ways they have never had to play before at D1 speed and violence levels is a recipe for the unforeseen early, middle and late.
If basketball were only about talent, then KU could phone in a W regarding UCSB, and UK would win rings 3 years and UA would win every 4th. adidas feeder system has apparently seen to that vis a vis non-elite teams. And Nike's feeder system has apparently seen to that among elite programs. And as slayr more or less indicated, UConn would NOT have won last season were talent totally decisive, though they looked pretty damned talented from 6 feet 3 inches downward, as slayr likes to say.
But hoops are a combination of athleticism, necessary pieces fitting together well, 2-3 reliable MUAs, and experience at playing "together."
(Note: pieces fitting equal--a PG never more than stalemated, a 2 guard that stretches the spandex and locks down, a 3 that locks down and either scores inside, or outside, or both, a 4 that can guard, enforce, glass vac and stick back, [and once in a very great while a 4 that can also pot the trey and put it on the deck], and a post that can guard and either rim protect or score. You can be light at anyone, or two, of these categories, if you can overcompensate in another.).
UK will simply guard the trey stripe with 6-6 to 6-8 inch guys and let KU's trey shooters drift out 2-3 feet farther to take their open treys and depend on the percentages to favor them. Self's strategy of shooting a lot of long balls to get long rebounds by his own relatively tall perimeter guys (though several of their heights seem substantially inflated), will be sorely tested by footers with long reaches and UK's own long perimeter players.
The one thing KU has over UCSB and UK should be the "toughness" factor. Self did not invest heavily in the toughness stuff for no reason. He knew it was the only way to have a hope of avoiding a disastrous season. and maybe surviving long enough to come together as bunch of hardcore Marine Raiders down the stretch.
Self is also gambling as usual on FINDING two trifectates. He is praying someone transmogrifies the way Releford did and that Greene can become what he is supposed to be.
It could all happen. I can see a 2000 Tulsa team here, but not for quite awhile in the season; that 2000 Tulsa team had been together awhile.
In conclusion, no on here will be happier to jump on the wagon of a winning small ball team, but I am still not seeing it. And it worries me, because I could see all the other teams doing much of what they did from the beginning. Last year's team fooled me only in how they came to have the double digit losses I expected.
Bottom line, in D1 you can mask some core weaknesses for parts of a season, but sooner or later core weaknesses get exposed.
Self has the mirrors and smoke machine out early for a reason this season.
I I hate being pessimistic about Self and the Hawks, but, despite the tradition and the individual talent (apologies to T.S. Eliot), I just don't see enough pieces of a team for single digit losses, nor do I see a team capable of taking on 10 Mickey Ds with 5 of them having a year's experience playing in a Final Four.
UK already knows how to play together as a team. KU is just learning.
I know KU is going to look vastly more explosive against UCSB and UK than in the exhibition games, when Self will give some rest and some wrinkles, but I still say...
UK by 20-30, if KU tries to run with them, unless their is an Ebola outbreak in Lexington between now and then.
UK by 15, if KU uses up the full clock every possession, and devoutly adheres to the 45 degree angle of attack on the X-Axis.
Those that are ranking KU high are doing so only because they have gotten burned repeatedly in the past by under ranking KU.
I suspect they are over-ranking KU this season for the same reason they have under-ranked them so often in the past. Most of them really are unable to detox from their own media hype long enough to actually evaluate realistically how many pieces Self has, and how well the pieces fit together.
To reiterate from other posts, top teams require 2-3 every game MUAs and the right pieces, plus a good defense.
Self says they could be a very good defensive team eventually, which means they are not yet. It seems a stretch to think they will develop defensively in time for UK at Indy.
They seem to lack bigs that can play UK's bigs even.
It is not yet clear how Mason will respond to be smothered by guys 6-7 inches taller.
It is not yet clear if Oubre, or Greene, can pick up the scoring slack, when Ellis shuts down against L&Ss.
It is not yet clear whether Selden can play premier guards even up.
It is not yet clear if KU can rebound, when Alexander is on the bench.
So: what? me worry?
Yup.
It seemed organic on a number of levels. ;-)
Plus the parks need every ounce of revenue they can get. :-)
"...a Sport penal facility..."
Howling! PHOF!
Looking at that picture of Travis Releford does even more for me.
Travis had a wild hair. Travis thought he could bounce the ball off backboards and get away with it. Travis thought he was destined to be god's gift to slashing 2 guards and instead he got his butt set on the bench, where it belonged.
Along the way he took a rouge smoking jacket and remade himself into a Self Baller and then hesitated to play on a bad ankle and saw the door of opportunity slam close again on him with Self losing respect for his manhood.
Travis could have quit like Conner, and quit like that weeny that went to Washington state and that guy that bolted for UNLV and got lost in the shuffle there too.
But Travis had character. He had manhood. He had balls the size of that rock rolling after Indiana Jones in Raiders of the Lost Ark. He had strength. He had explosiveness. And played through. And he developed a 42% trey. And he guarded better than any 3 in KU history I ever saw except for Brandon Rush, and there were games where he was better on defense than Brandon.
Travis Releford's last two seasons, whenever he was healthy, he was the quintessence of Kansas basketball. He was the guy I would have wanted to play along side more than any other in the Self era. If KU were ever to create a logo with a player on it, the way the NBA did with Jerry West, Travis Releford's silhouette is who I would want to be on that logo.
He was all "it."
He was the point of it all in basketball.
Rock Chalk!
Looking at that picture of Reed and Morningstar reminds me of 40% trey shooting, Self Defense, protection, assists.
It reminds me of 30 win seasons on the up side and always less than double digit losses on the down side.
It reminds me of getting better and high foundations.
It reminds me of help defense.
It reminds me of the same mix of early outs and deep runs before and after their 4 years.
It reminds of all the guys they played with that played the same way.
It reminds me of eye tests.
Post the picture any time.
It helps me forget last year.
I think you're thinking of this version.
"Engineered Rain After The Directed Energy Apocalypse" by jaybate 1.0
For @JayhawkRock78 and Denzel
(Note: this image is intended solely for the noncommercial use of being viewed exclusively at this reputedly noncommercial site--KUBuckets.com--in this thread only, for as long as @approxinfinity operates it as a noncommercial-web site. Other use of this image is expressly prohibited without the expressed written consent of the board rat--jaybate 1.0--that created it from an image appearing to be in the public domain at the time of its creation. If it were subsequently discovered to not be based on an image in the public domain, and the legal owner of the original wished this alteration of it to be removed from the sight without further viewing, jaybate 1.0 would intend for the KUBuckets.com administrator, @approxinfinity, to remove it ASAP and destroy the file. Any reproduction of this image file and the image it contains by copying, screen capturing, photographing, or otherwise emulating it by any technique is expressly prohibited. Attachment, emailing, or other rebroadcast, or retransmission in any digital, or analog medium, or other non-electronic format and medium for any purpose is expressly prohibited. Its a freebie to KUBuckets,com given entirely without receipt of any consideration in any form, or expectation of such, out of gratitude to and for the community's on-going existence. And besides, its too grim to be marketable. :-) Rock on and Chalk on till the next game!)
Counter factual: What if Chuck Neinas did not help KU find a new football coach? What then might the future of coach selection have been? Who might Zenger have interviewed without Neinas?
Here is a guess about such a horrifying alternative future. After consulting crystals in Sedona, my best guess is that Zenger would have gone back to the NFL well once again, because bad choices often become habituated in life. I surfed the net for the Ten Worst NFL coaches of all time. Several lists by several different insipid e-listing sites came up. I randomly chose one with a link I have already lost.
- Brad Childress
- Bobby Petrino
- Rob Marinelli
- Mike Singletary
- Rex Ryan
- Jim Caldwell
- Romeo Crennel
- Rich Kotite
- Norv Turner
- Cam Cameron
It is to coaching what negative interest rates are to European central banking, what untraceable bailouts and quantitative easing are to Federal Reserve central bank management of our economy--admissions of abject systemic failure of their central bank centric management ideology. But I digress. Imagine KU being coached by any one of these hole diggers for two years before being fired with three to go. I think any one of these guys could keep KU down at the level Gill and Weis dug down to. The worst one might even frack us down a little deeper. But how could Zenger pick the worst man off this list? What possible criterion could reliably identify the worst of the worst? It might have taken an auction in which the coaches bid on how many players they would run to establish "respect" and "fear" among the remaining players. Bidding might have started at the very Weis-ian level of 30. Do I hear 35? 35-40? Do I hear 45? and so on upwards. The high bidder, or the first coach to bid running all players off the team and starting with none, might have been hired immediately.
Could Neinas do any worse than Gill and Weis? A Mollusk could do no worse. Let Neinas try, unless he is selling us out to something really corrupt. Then keep Bowen. Bowen at least appears to like the job. And I would prefer to waste the money on a KU grad, if it has to be wasted.
Next.
Father of a celebrity seen at Allen Field House: Few KU fans know that Alfred E. Neuman's advertising/folk art father, Barnett K. Neuman. attended the first game in Allen Field House. Barnett attended KU from about 1930-1945, when he graduated in the bottom ten percent of his class with a BA in Zoology. He supposedly worked on many of the dioramas at the natural history museum on campus and reputedly twice fathered illegitimate children back stage during Rock Chalk Revue with wives of faculty. Here is a picture of Barnett Neuman taken during a summer break sometime during those student years. Barnett worked a summer job for 4 straight summers during one stretch in Longview, TX in order to be near his sweet heart, a KU coed and fellow Zoology major from Longview, TX, Eunice T. Needham '39. This photo of Barnett was on an advertising postcard for a Longview auto parts company that Barnett did some modeling for one summer in exchange for bus fare back to Lawrence. Alas the actual photo of Barnett taken the night of the first game in Allen Field House, which he made a special trip back to Lawrence from his home in Brooklyn, NY, to attend, was lost during the burning of the KU Student Union many years later. (Note: the unaltered version of this postcard is supposedly located in the Boston Pubic Library, where Barnett accidentally left it in a volume entitled "Mosasaurs of Cretaceous Kansas" on a visit to Boston to watch one of his heroes, Ted Williams, play in Fenway Park. As Satchmo sang, "What a wonderful world...)
(Note: All fiction. No malice. And I believe someone else used this recently, so that's an allusion to connectivity. :-))
Possible location:!Alcatraz11.jpg ↗
College basketball needs a hall of fame to honor coaches found not responsible for infractions at schools penalized by the NCAA.
These coaches are among the most special of the college game.
These are the coaches that are able to coach ineligible players without knowing it. They are able to coach without knowing alumni are egregiously breaking recruiting rules. They are able to coach without knowing that their players are taking classes that do not meet and getting grades for work they do not do. They are able not to know about illegal player-agent relationships. They are able to coach without the knowledge of their assistant coaches breaking recruiting rules to bring them players to coach. These coaches are able to coach without breaking a single rule in the midst of their players being paid cash under the table, being given cars, and being supplied illegal drugs without their knowledge. And they are able to move to new jobs and leave behind coaching under the penalties they did not know about to other coaches.
These are VERY special coaches.
I am sick and tired of these coaches being under appreciated and overlooked.
They deserve a hall of fame.
In what ways?
I always think the beneficial way to handle when to shoot for the shooter and the team is to teach the guys where the team needs to shoot the ball to be successful. Drill the players to shoot at those spots in practice and set a percentage as the green light percentage. If you can shoot this percentage from one of the spots we need as a team in practice, then you have the green light to shoot from there in games, but not if not, and no where else. No team has ever been hurt by a player passing up a shot at a spot where his percentage was low. No team can do sharply better having one guy that shoots 38% from one spot have pass up a shot for someone else to shot 39% somewhere else. Boom! Stop thinking about whether you will be pulled for missing. You will only be pulled for taking a shot off your spots. And you will be pulled instantly and indefinitely for shooting off your spots. This was Wooden's approach and it worked beautifully. It takes all the pressure off the shooter. No looking at the bench after misses. No celebrations after misses, because you were expected to take and make the shot.
RE: shooting more threes this season--they have no choice from a rebounding stand point. Self's Elite Eight Tulsa team only had one decent trey shooter. But the team filled the air with 3pt attempts. Even Wooden's short '64 32-0 team back in pre-3pt stripe days did the same. It had Goodrich that was a great long baller and then they were pretty modest elsewhere, but they took a lot of long shots. Why? The explanation is two fold.
First, if you're players are short, your short bigs will get few open looks inside even if you run plays for them. If your short bigs are athletic, then what you want your guards shooting long balls for your short bigs to outrun the opposing team's tall big to get. Long rebounds are crucial when your bigs are short. And because your bigs are short, opponents will be stretching and guarding farther out, which means your perimeter guys are either going to have to shoot from farther out, or conversely shoot off drives into gaps. But again, you don't want your perimeter guys driving into iron because when they dish your bigs will be too small to make a high percentage with the opponents bigs rotating to cover them even after the dish. So: you may want to run a lot of action outside to get the outside shots to get the long rebounds. And whenever possible, you want to pull your short bigs out to shoot long shots and move your perimeter guys inside that have an edge in rebounding against their men.
As usual, @HighEliteMajor has pressed my think button on another thread entitled the First Exhibition: Mason Was the Star. The trigger was one of his late adds to the thread he started. And as usual the thinking sends me off on a tangent he, and others, may, or may not find value in.
Self, you see, is an interesting (and rigorous) mix of adaptability and tradition. In fact, if I were to write a basketball coaching book based on our KU head coach, the title would be "Bill Self: Adapting Tradition."
I have written recently about either of his proclivities--his adaptiveness and also about traditionalism, but have left implicate how they interplay.
Self ALWAYS redistributes roles and duties based on the material he has on hand, as do most coaches, and he always does it in pursuit of achieving that season's expression "of who we are," as do most coaches, though his 82% winning percentage and ring indicates he does both, at least in the aggregate, better than most.
What most distinguishes him is the rich depth of his insight about the past, something he does not dwell upon, but rather acts on in myriad ways, often without calling attention to doing it. But on important occasions, like AFH;s 60th anniversary gathering of a staggeringly unprecedented group of coaches at a single school, he essentially cannot resist the temptation to say, "Hey, look here, I know some of you folks are pretty busy with your everyday lives but LOOK AT THIS TRADITION a moment." This is too important to overlook, he seems to say, even though its only basketball and you are worrying about the next paycheck and what your kid is doing out late at night. Good traditionalists are like this. They don't lord the past over you. They call your attention to in once in awhile, when you may be straying from it unwisely. They mention it to remind us the past is implicate in the present; that it teaches, enriches, and sometimes even saves us from our worst enemies. They don't ever substitute, however. A present with a myopically understood past, is worse than a present with a past forgotten. A present with a lie for a past, or worse an evil for a past, is worse than no past. Traditionalists, I like to think, are progressives with a good memory and a working knowledge of principles of the past and the conditions under which they operated. To be a truly effective progressive, you have to be a traditionalist, because most effective change involves retrofitting old principles to new technologies and materials. Conserving parts of the past has its place, but it is not way to get on with the business getting better in the present.
Bill Self is to me a traditionalist. And while he may view himself as a conservative, or be viewed as that by others, to me he appears really to be a progressive with a memory. Getting better is progressive. Getting better by finding principles in the past that can be retrofitted to the present is traditionalism.
Too many coaches copy the past. Self sifts through it and finds the still useful underlying principles of the past and adapts them to present circumstances. Certain great craftsmen in the arts and crafts, in the sciences, and in many professions, possess this rare skill. It invariably aids them in their success.
Something as avant garde and superficially unorthodox as late 19th and early 20th Century Modernism was fundamentally an act of going back, often waaaaaaay back to before what the then status quo approved of, and discovering the underlying form language principles of forgotten, or misunderstood past eras, especially of classical antiquity, abstracting those principles into forms with modern technologies, and claiming to have "made it new." Some it was good, and some of it was bad, but all of it was built on at the very least attempted better understanding of excavated ancient principles.
Most noteworthy movements in human thought and action in fields I am familiar with have ransacked (and repeatedly do so) the past for inspiration and insight in order to escape the straightjacket thinking of the present.
But, again, there appear to be two approaches to this borrowing, or stealing, from the past in order to find a way to remake that present, which if not broken free of, leaves one a prisoner of repeating within the confines of the Leavenworth of one's own recent penitentiary experience the immediate past with which we are encumbered, and so blinded by, regarding the emerging opportunities of the moment. And the moment IS where we have to act.
You can borrow the underlying principles, as modernism did, or you can borrow the surface forms, as post modernism did. (Note: you can also flat out copy the past to hope to preserve and perpetuate it, or you can work from a clean sheet of paper, or even process everything through the randomizer of a Dada lens and not really care what comes out, but Self seems pretty clearly an archaeologist of basketball principles who tooth-brushes them off meticulously, studies their dynamics given their obsolete materials and techniques, and then reapplies certain of them with modern materials and techniques).
Borrowing underlying principle is not necessarily more successful than borrowing the surface form, because success is really driven mostly by degree of feasible fit of either borrowed surfaces, or principles, with circumstances of emerging complexity in a way that yields attained tactical objectives and an achieved strategic goal.
But working from underlying principles requires deeper understanding of how things actually work, not just how they fit with the present. It takes a lot of brain case horsepower to do both. Its not for everyone. Hence, those that do it betray a more powerful, searching intellect encumbered with less cynicism IMHO. That is not to say they are bigger winners--winnning is an end, just that they are willing and able to execute more complex means.
The borrower of surfaces IMHO also doubts there is a depth worth knowing about. The borrower of underlying principle suspects a resonant, empowering continuity under life and an advantage with connecting to the past that goes beyond just not wanting to reinvent the wheel. It goes all the way to a belief in seeking transcendance over the tyranny of time, of seeking a door through the perception of a fiery confining moment into a freeing, liberating universal moment.
This can mean the difference between giving up and finding a way through.
It is, frankly, the quest of the classical hero myth, of how to slay the dragon when their appears no way to slay the dragon to the ordinary person unwilling to walk the hero path to underlying insight.
To be sure borrowing surfaces can be under certain circumstances another kind of hero myth, but it seems a more limiting one. To borrow surfaces is to concede the unknowability of depths. It takes a kind of heroism to operate without knowledge of depths. It is the kind of heroism required to jump into an ocean to save another drowning human being not knowing if the water is full of hungry sharks, or not, to say it does not matter, to say that the drowning person is worth the risk and must be saved by surface knowledge alone. There isn't time to understand the depths, gauge the risks and find a fitting way to save what needs saving without getting eaten trying.
But outside such emergency examples, to be satisfied with surfaces, as I said, betrays a peculiar kind of childish narcissism--a kind of arrogant indifference to the depths that can only be partially known--a child like petulance suggesting that if the depths cannot be absolutely known to guaranty success, then to hell with understanding them at all. The virtues of Keep It Simple Stupid and of Ockham's Razor can become vicious, stupid vices in the hands of of the petulant, impatient narcissist.
Self has a boyish layer for sure, albeit it one that is being steadily burned away by harsh experience, and the voyage into middle age, but he has never evidenced the childishness of a surface borrower.
Self seems a student of the past. He seeks the principles of workable solutions to a dynamic present from the basketball past--a past that he was fortunate enough to be richly steeped in from early on (as too were his apparent influential mentors Paul Hansen, Larry Brown and Eddie Sutton), and Self tries to retrofit them to the present, rather than invent something new. Inventing is not really Self's style. It is not that he will not invent. Inventing rather is not his predilection and it appears he relies on assistants for the new thing, which is necessary utility at the margin, but not the frame work upon which he chooses to build a team capable of exploiting such fungible utility of the new thing along the margin.
To wit: this year's team is being formulated in the spitting surface image of his Elite Eight Tulsa team, right down to the three point shooting emphasis and the back up 6-10 big for the short starting big man. One might also say he was borrowing a small surface of the 2008 ring team (Kaun behind DBlock), but if you want a broader surface for what he is doing with this team, see the Tulsa team and forget the 2008 KU team. Swap the Tulsa and KU uniforms, and discount 25% for athleticism, and the teams share virtually the same surfaces. Short. Efficient. Controlling defense without a rim protector, not gambling defense. Great perimeter offense with money on the blocks some times and not others. Lots of trey shooting every game without many great trey shooters. A doughnut team masking its hole in the center.
But Self is not just borrowing surfaces. He is borrowing the principles of the past he knows so well in order to fit them with the talent he has now.
We are witnesses to a go-back by Self from the Iba High-Low and its immediate descendant the Carolina passing offense in which the goal was pass the ball, dribble and screen as little as possible, and so force the defensive team to spend more of its energy budget sliding on defense chasing the pass and so have less energy for offense, while at the same time trying to get the ball into the hands of great athletes with passing-triggered impact space to make a play.
Now we are seeing Self excavate an older principle, or at least a different principle from the past and apply that principle yet within the high-low offense. The principle is efficient passing aimed at each pass moving the ball to a higher and higher percentage shot--an incremental-shot-improvement passing game, if you will. It is subtle to the eye at first, but it is unmistakable when studied a bit.
Previous Self teams have always loved the long pass that forces the whole defense to shift, to react, to slide--to move the defenders off the spots you eventually come back to by pass than they can slide back to. Around the perimeter and back. In and out. Around the perimeter and back. In and out. Minimal screening. Action only AFTER the other team has been forced to slide side to side and in and out, to give his team's legs an advantage over the defense's reacting legs, to put his team's minds on the offensive and theirs on the defensive, when we finally decide to "run the stuff", the action, and only then if the long passing itself will not create the impact space needed for "an open look." (Note: the truth Self Ball is in his language for sure.) And then the action itself is usually long--long fade curls, long wing to baseline drives with cross paint and cross court passes to shooters coming off backside picks, long wing cut alley oops, etc. Long action gives more steps that greater athleticism can use to create more space to shoot more open looks with. Space equals increased shooting accuracy in traditional Self Ball.
But then was that.
And now is this...
The efficient pass to the next higher shooting percentage spot., or to the next line being run to the next higher shooting percentage spot, is the new heuristic. Each pass must raise the scoring risk to the defense a little higher. No more passing for the sake of moving the defenses this way and then that with the ball moving among positions offering the same degree of scoring threat. If the scoring threat does not increase, don't make the pass. Make another pass that does increase it. Or put in on the deck under control and move with not more than 2-3 dribbles into gap in the defense that is a more threatening spot to the defense from which to take a shot, or look for the next pass to the next higher percentage shot.
This is Bob Knight with out the screening. Recall the grabbed jersey and the shaken player. Recall the order: pass the ball to the next higher shooting percentage you dummy.
But it goes farther back.
This is John Wooden in 1964 in a high low set. Lots of long shots, because when one is short the open long shot is apt to be the highest percentage shot your team will get. Lots of long shots to enable long rebounds that favor the X-axis mobility of lots of springy midsize players. But when ever you do pass, or whenever you do cut, the pass and cuts should be on 45 degree angles, always moving inward to the next higher percentage spot from which to threaten the opponent. This was Wooden's greatest secret of all he discovered that he never really kept a secret. He told anyone that would listen that the 45 degree angle was the key to basketball; that it derived from the rectilinearity of the court, and the location of the goal at the midpoint of the baseline of the rectangular court. The 45 degree angle movement was the golden rule of basketball. It was Euclid speaking to us down through the years through the Indiana rubber man that had bothered to excavate the game as it was back to what it had been under Iba and Allen and Lambert, because he had played in their eras and for Lambert. Yes, the running, zone pressing, UCLA way was based substantially on the excavated principles of Iba (Wooden said so), who had long had to contend with Allen and had had to find ways to play uber talented Kansas, and others, with many (but not all) teams that were from the doughnut with a hole in the middle mold. The 45 degree angle. Look at the old footage of UCLA. Everyone is always squaring up to shoot, or cut, or pass, at 45 degree angle. It is especially apparent among his teams without Jabbar and Walton, who Wooden bent the rule for when expedient. (Genius understands rules have exceptions). Then look at the old footage of Iba teams. The weave distracts and fools you. Look at what the weave leads to: a 45 degree angle cut to a picker and often another 45 degree angle cut off the picker for the layup, or the dish.
The most efficient path to the next higher percentage spot is the 45 degree pass, or the 45 degree cut, or the 45 degree dribble, if you do not have bigs so tall that play can go in and out over the tops of opponents. The 45 degree pass, or the 45 degree cut is the most efficient path to the next higher percentage spot, if you aren't trying to move defenses to buy space for players with overwhelming physical MUA, or overwhelming 3pt shooting accuracy to impact with space.
The 45 degree pass and cut are ideals. Every pass and cut are not exactly 45s. Every pass and cut cannot always achieve the next higher percentage scoring position either. Defensive pressure and emergent complexity enter in and make the pursuit a praxis, not an ideal type. The 45 degree angle is the Euclidean principle abstracted as a heuristic for decision making within what ever formation you choose to operate from, with whatever action you try to act with, and whatever context your face and try to act within.
This team is going to be Self sticking to his philosophy of taking what they give us, but the controlled, efficient 45 degree angle of attack principle is a change.
To become a controlled, 45 degree angle cutting and passing team, in an age of dribble drive, ball-screening, just good enough defense, and hyper athleticism of OAD stacked teams like UK and UA, is to recover the principles of Iba against Allen, of Wooden against the world in 1964 and 1965, of late Indiana Knight against the stacked North Carolina and Kentucky teams, of Self's 200o Tulsa team against the world of elite programs. And almost certainly of certain Claire Bee teams I sadly did not get to know.
But it is to recover the principles, not just the surfaces.
Sometimes the surfaces look similar,
But then was that (I twist to make the point)
And now is this.
And in the authentic hero quest, the one not yet succumbed to cynicism and surfaces only, the underlying principles still matter.
Have to matter.
In order to try to make up for the asymmetries of ShoeCo stacking.
Rock Chalk!!!
Note: Too long, so I moved this to its own thread.
The Pentagon’s Department for War Names (DoWN) named the campaign against ISIS and Chorusan et al Operation Inherent Resolve. In turn, jaybate 1.0 News Service (jSN) has asked the DoWN for names for the 2014-21015 NCAA basketball campaign. Here are some proposals For Official KU Bucket Eyes Only.
KU: Operation Inherent Title
KSU: Operation Intrinsic Failure
Texas: Operation Incessant Waste
ISU: Operation Recurrent Stalker
OSU: Operation T. Boone Frustration
Texas Tech: Operation Free Tubby
TCU: Operation Ardent Pointlessness
OU: Operation Resurgent Eyebrows
Baylor: Operation Coachless
West Virginia: Operation Frequent Flyer Miles
PHOF! for driest humor yet.
@VailHawk and @nuleafjhawk and et al
Howling!