🏀 KuBuckets Archive

Convent San Tanco Fighting Flying Nuns (San Juan, Puerto Rico), Big Nunnery Conference, Mother Superior Bertrille's (formerly known as Sister Bertrille aka Sally Field) first big hire since taking over the convent.

Hagia Sophia Fighting Constantines (Istanbul, Turkey), Big Eastern Orthodox Catholic Conference.

Truth or Consequences High School Fighting Uncertainties (Truth or Consequences, New Mexico), The Big Risk Interscholastic Conference.

Hell Highschool Fighting Blasphemers (Hell, Oregon), Big Netherworld Interscholastic League.

Industrial City Fighting Child Laborers (Industrial City, Indonesia), East Asian Kickbox-Football League.

BUCO JUCO.

Note: All fiction. No malice.)

@drgnslayr

I know you didn't mean to.

I haven't meant to either.

It is just how things appear to be, when you get down to brass tacks.

And it is never fun (or rewarding) to be the messenger of such things.

How much sense does it make to run the high-lo with short bigs?

Wooden ran the high post offense, whenever he had teams with centers 6-9, or under to keep the area near the basket open for the get-to-the-rim game and for rebounding. He ran the low post when he had great centers 6-11 or over (e.g., Jabbar, Walton and Washington). Wooden said he personally preferred the high post offense, but that a great, tall center had to be set up near the basket to get the most out of him.

Iba created the hi-low in the mid 1960s for his first Olympic team that Larry Brown played point guard on in order to have an offense that was quick to learn, and could make use of an abundance of big men he was able to draw from for a USA team. Brown took the offense to Dean and Dean added a few wrinkles and renamed it the Carolina Passing offense. Dean ALWAYS played with two tall bigs, because he could always find at least two recruiting in the heavy population centers of the EST back in the mid 1960s to 1980s.

Self has been able to keep the larder increasingly stocked with 3 to four fairly long bigs (at least if he exaggerated their height by two inches), either including one bonafide footer and rim protector, or a stretch 4 (e.g., Marcus Morris), or a stretch 5 (i.e., Kieff Morris). Stretch 4s and stretch 5s put so much pressure on pulling their men away from the basket that they are almost as good as having a foot rim protector.

One exception was Self's first year, when he went with Wayne Simien at the 5. Wayne was a super rare wide body that was super athletic and had a back2basket game that was such sure money on the low block that Self could use slender Christian Moody for helping Wayne double and take dishes from Wayne and get to an Elite Eight doing it.

The other exception would be this season, when Self has been talking about 6-9 (actually 6-7) Perry at 4, with presumably 6-8 (actually 6-6) Bam Bam backing up Perry, and 6-8 (maybe actually 6-8) Cliff at 5 with 6-10 (actually 6-9) Landen backing him up.

One could also make a case that Cole's teams had low standing height bigs, because it turned out 6-11 Cole was barely 6-9, and because Marcus Morris was really only 6-7 on a fully hydrated day. But...

Cole had incredibly long arms and long hands as his wing span measure in the field house display makes clear and so he played far taller than he stood, plus he was the quintessential mad stork with a Dodge Hemi Motor, when not injured in the knees. Further, Marcus was a stretch 4 and a stretch 4 with a rim protecting 5 is always a workable hi-lo combination. So: we have to count Cole's teams among the classic hi-lo teams.

There is considerable discussion about the '08 ring team having low standing height among the bigs. The team started actually 6-9 Shady and actually 6-8 DBlock and subbed with actually 6-10 man mountain Sasha Kaun. Shady continues to play in the NBA as a 4, so Shady by definition was/is not a "small" big. DBlock was an athletic freak with skinny bouncy legs and a massively cut upper body. DBlock has a physique that has made a couple of NBA teams try to develop him as a 4, but his skills are apparently to limited for The Big Show. Still the body and development were there to be called a very strong and formidable big in '08. Cliff seems to have more skills and similar athleticism to DBlock, but he is a freshman, and he lacks DBlocks freakish upper body strength, at least as a freshman. Cliff should be orders of magnitude better suited to play hi-lo post as a freshman than was DBlock, but until Cliff walks the D1 walk for a season, the logical inference is that Senior DBlock was a man fit to play the hi-lo game and Cliff is at most a young man trying out the hi-lo game.

Don't misunderstand me. You can play the hi-lo game with Herve Villlachaise and Miguelito Lovelace at the 4 and 5 and make it work. Self ran the hi-lo at Tulsa with some not-so-very-tall bigs and guarded, pressured, passed and shot their way to an Elite Eight. Self got to an Elite Eight with Big Wayne banging bodies and Bibles on the low blocks Self's first season at KU. It can be done.

But can you go 40-0 today, and win a ring, with a hi-lo with a bunch of standing height challenged, non athletic freaks at the 4 and 5?

Remember, Wooden ran the table (32-0) and won the ring with a high post offense without a player over 6-5. And he won a ring the next season without a player over 6-8, or a true center, running the high post again. And he won another ring or two with the high post with 6-9 stretch 5 Steve Patterson outside and 6-8 Sidney Wicks and 6-6 Curtis Rowe on the wings.

The high post offense's strength is four perimeter guys that can shoot the long ball AND slash to iron. It distributes ball handling between two guards (the 1 and 2) out front and two high wings (the 3 and 4) and puts a burly, or else extremely athletic short post man at the 3 point line near the top of the free throw circle. That high post man has to be extremely active and a fine passer for he as much as the point guard is making the entry passes to the wing cutters, the lobs, and on occasion putting the ball on the deck and driving into the paint. The high post played properly can put more pressure on a defense than any other offense going, because it eliminates ball reversal to get the ball to both sides. This is the great forgotten secret of the single high post offense and this is why is should come back into use.

The only virtue of ball reversal is that it makes defenders slide more than offenders.

The vice of ball reversal is that during reversal there is almost zero threat of scoring UNTIL the ball reaches the opposite wing. This means that for perhaps a third to a half the seconds of a possession, the defense is not being stressed with the immediate threat of being scored on. Anyone that thinks through a team energy budget understands that this is basically giving a good defensive team a long rest, because good defensive teams are in such good sliding condition they are unstressed when sliding during ball reversal. This fact is why Self has resorted to resuscitating Iba's old weave. Ball reversal does not deplete a good defense's energy budget the way forcing them to actively guard a weave which IS a threat to transition into a scoring attempt at any moment.

But the weave is spatially inefficient and taxing to the offense also. And it invariably grows riskier in its passes the longer it runs. So: while the weave is a good occasional wrinkle to throw at a team, it is a flawed tactical solution to the problem cascading from depending on ball reversal in the hi-lo scheme.

The high post offense solves this problem. The moment the ball bogs down on the wings it goes immediately to the high post and the high post man is in position to pass suddenly to a high wing (1) and a low wing (3) on one side, or a high wing (2) and a low wing (4) on the other side. This symmetry paralyzes the defense's ability to help. It forces one on one isolations. It enables all cutters to be cutting at 45 degree angles all of the time. Wooden studied for years and concluded that the 45 degree cut is the hardest cut for a defender to defend. Thus every second of every possession the ball can return to the high post and the suddenly 4 of 5 offensive players ARE IN SCORING POSITION.

The problem with the hi-lo is that unless the ball is in the high post hands, the offense is always moving to one wing, or the other, to initiate attack, and so is always attacking a defense always over shifted and in position to help. Basically the hi-lo creates a 3 men in attack position against a 5 man, overshifted help defense. It attempts to compensate with ball reversal but ball reversal is very flawed as a tactic for reasons discussed above.

The hi-lo is designed to compensate another way for the over shift. The ball goes into the high post, but here is where the high post becomes almost useless without a dominant low post player. When the ball goes into the high post in a single post offense, the middle is open and four men are in instant position to attack on 45 degree angle cuts. But in the high low, when the ball goes into the high post, the low post is clogging the lane and there is an imbalance of 2 players on one side and 1 player on the other side. This allows a defense to shift to help one side. But worse still, it means none of the cutters is in position to take his man to the rim without confronting the low post defender. And if you have a low post offender that is not a skillful scorer off the dish, then this is the worst of all possible worlds for a hi-lo offense.

(Note: now do you see why Self has insisted barely 6-8 5 Cliff Alexander learn to jump hook? If he can't get a shot off inside when his man moves to shut off the slasher to the rim, Cliff is absolutely useless at 6-8 in a hi-lo offense. And if the low post is not an offensive threat in the hi-lo, then everything defaults to the stretch 4 and sooner or later, unless the stretch 4 is a future NBA all star, some D1 defense in the tournament will have a lock down defender at the 4 that shuts down your stretch 4 and your hi-lo turns into a bunch of slow ball reversals and unopen threes mixed with occasional desperate slashes without screens to the rim.)

The dominance of the hi-lo depends heavily on MUA low post play, and great outside shooting. If you don't have both, it is, frankly, a stupid offense to play. It is stupid to play it, not because you won't win a lot of games with it, but because you probably won't win the big games against a team with dominant low post play and great outside shooting, unless that opponent just plays in the bottom third of its performance distribution, which is only a 33% probability.

When you have a great low post player, and 2-3 great outside shooters, the hi-lo is a marvelous offense for obvious reasons. It gives you the best of the low post offense and some of the best of high post offense.

When you don't have a great low post player, don't play it.

The high post is not without its flaws either. You have to have either a big burly high post that can pass accurately and pot the triceratop, or you have to have an incredibly athletic high post that can put it on the deck from 23 feet out and get up above the rim on the drives.

The high post also requires a lot of good perimeter players.

The talent on this KU team could play either offense and do well.

But the only way this team can win a ring, IMHO, is playing the high post superbly.

The team's vulnerabilities at the low post are going to surface sooner or later, most likely in March when there is no second chance, too.

So: my answer would be NO!

Rock Chalk!

Howling at myself!

fragments

help

cut

labor

Does

@drgnslayr

Thx for the take on Wayne and Cliff. I will rest easier. If those two can play like men now, and Kelly is on the conveyor for February/March; that would meet my heuristic of three nearly every game MUAs by March that can play the X-Axis AND the Y-Axis, and surely out of the numbers Self can come up with four more glue guys that will guard on ball hard, be gorilla glue one pass away, and generally play tough between floor level and 6 feet 6 inches in the realm now newly christened the "Dragonslayr Zone."

I had Wayne pegged for the art of manliness this season, but I've been worried about Cliff. Didn't know if he were tall enough to mix it up and stay out of foul trouble, as we will need him to do at the 5 if we are to optimize our guys.

Before the scrimmage, Self made it sound like Hunter was odd big out, because he was a better 4 than 5, and Cliff and Landen were duking it out for starting at the 5. Well, now that Landen is out two weeks with a stress fx/reaction, which Selfese means probably 4 weeks, then Cliff pretty much has the 5 to himself for awhile. And Hunter has a shot to show he can do more things than he has been doing. Landen's injury actually makes keeping people happy a lot easier for Self. Landen has to sit, because he hurts. Cliff gets to star like OADs expect. And Hunter gets a shot to show he is better than Self thought. Best case, Hunter shows well backing up at the 5, Bam Bam gets sole back up at the 4 for awhile, and Landen heals and has to wait for a Hunter to falter. Worst case, Hunter doesn't measure up, Bam Bam fills 4 and 5, Hunter has to admit he got his shot, and step aside for next time down the road.

Your remark about Perry's absentia doesn't worry me too much. Perry will be able to score, as Self said. And Self made clear that he is done dorking with Perry. Perry is starting out with what Self gave Jeff and Andrew, after he learned they were not able to change. And with Self able to bring Bam Bam, or Hunter, against the blue meanies, then Perry's occasional disappearances can be weathered. And if Perry has a crisis, then Bam Bam and Hunter are an adequate committee to glue for the three nearly every game MUAs.

Just between you and me: I have a hunch Self was sending a signal about Hunter. He said Hunter is a more of a 4 than a 5. From that moment, I have expected we would see some Hunter at 4, whenever the team needed some stops on defense. Hunter at 4 and Cliff at 5 could make a lot of sense under circumstances when Cliff was guarding a guy he needs a back side double to contain. I think how this may work is that whenever Cliff can handle his guy, Perry, or Bam Bam gets the job at 4. Whenever Cliff needs doubling help, Hunter becomes the guy.

@drgnslayr

I really hope it doesn't come to what you suggest, 'slayr.

It would be such a terrible thing for basketball.

@KUSTEVE

It certainly smacks of KU-adidas vs. UK-Nike.

Or maybe adidasKU vs. NikeUK.

:-)

What is the consensus?

Should we stand pat with "Late Night in the Phog"?

Or should we sell out for more shoeco money and change the name to "Late Night in the Phog with (fill in the highest bidding shoeco)"?

:-)

@justanotherfan

How about one signing period for shoeco leans...

And one signing period for guys with no shoeco leans?

You find out which shoeco leans you get...

Then you know how many non shoeco leans you have to patch with.

:-)

@JRyman

PHOF!

@DoubleDD

It certainly is a remarkable action by Rick Pitino.

Thanks for posting it.

@KUSTEVE
Howling!

This footer also picked Danny and WF over KU! 😡

@KUSTEVE
I want to believe, but 10 mcd's half with experience starting last season are a lot to overcome for guys that haven'teven learned if they are starting material.

Nov. 3 Washburn (exhibition)
Holes begin being dug by players that fail to pressure one pass away, fail to make the post entry pass, fail to protect, fail to make the easy play, and let missed shots foil their concentration. KU wins with sheer numbers.

Nov. 11 Emporia State (exhibition)
Corrections after the Washburn game that repeat in this game spell the end of several players' bids for rotation PT without their knowledge.

Nov. 14 UC Santa Barbara

It is good the game is at home. because it comes only 4 days before a road game with UK and the Gauchos are no slouches on the offensive end. Their defense has been historically mediocre under Bob Williams, but this team returns mostly intact and one would expect a significant improvement on the defensive end this season. Our freshman and our barely experienced sophomores could really struggle, if Self tries to prepare them for UCSB and UK 4 days later. I suspect Self knows the only must win of the two games is UCSB and he will let UK beat the snot out of KU. If KU were to be "upset" in pre-conference, this would be the game. The Gauchos are always underrated. Bob Williams has them playing strong offensive basketball and coming in first or second in the Big West 3 or 4 of the last 6 years. Most of the team returns. And Big Al Williams, a 6-7 senior center, who finished high in KenPom's kPOY standing nationally, will be a perfect early test for our "small" bigs. Williams walks the slayr talk of low CG on the block combined with long legs and short trunk. He can slide with guys much taller than him, get up and under, and cause problems on both ends. He is talented, skilled, strong, experienced and has a "good motor." If our small bigs can lock Williams down, we can rest assured that our small bigs can handle the small bigs they meet all season; then we need to find out if they can handle "big" bigs, which the following UK game will answer. But it is very likely that Williams will hang some numbers on our guys. Williams is the perfect guy to break Cliff Alexander in on...briefly. Williams will probably get Alexander fouled up in 3 minutes. Self will have so much depth inside, though, and so much advantage on the perimeter, that KU should win this one with defense, depth, and home court advantage. But if experience still counts for anything, KU better be very focused on UCSB.

Nov. 18 vs. Kentucky (at Indianapolis)

UK playing in Indy is like KU playing in OKC, or St. Louis. Not a big edge, but some edge. And UK is a team that doesn't need ANY edge. Long Cat Strategy again. Cal's favorite kind of team. Substitute length every where for skill and transition for precision, play above the rim on both ends, add mousse and watch the other team get too intimidated with the unprecedented length even to hit what few open looks they get. Cal won it all with the Davis super team that really only had six players. This UK team is ten deep in Mickey D's and this early in the season none will be disgruntled with lack of playing time. I expect Cal to substitute constantly and to break KU wide open and win by 30 or more. KU fans are going to be XTRemely disappointed after this game. No Victory. No moral victory. No close game. A brutal beat down by a superior team, with more depth and more experience and more talent. If Self were to find a way to win this game, then he ought to quit and be declared the greatest coach of all time.

Nov. 24 Rider

Rider from New Jersey at AFH is a win. But playing Rider Head Coach Kevin Baggett is one of those coaching curtesy/EST recruiting exposure things you do in preseason on the lesser half of your 12 pre conference games. Self has a thing about Phillie ball and Baggett played for Jim Boyle at St. Josephs. And when Boyle disappeared from college coaching Baggett became one of those hard luck disciples without a working mentor that wander the basketball wilderness trying to pay the rent and find a new mentor. Baggett scrambled awhile and attached himself to Tom Dempsey of Rider for several years only to see Dempsey slide out of favor with Rider AD and former head coach before Dempsey, Don Harnum. So: Baggett is a guy with recruiting connections in Phillie, Maryland, and New Jersey. The concrete reason for scheduling Baggett's Rider Broncs is that this Rider team is significantly bigger, and stronger, than KU, on the perimeter, and plays a muscular brand of Phillie ball albeit in the Garden State that should harden up Self's haricot vert perimeter to the realities of smash mouth in D1. UK, you see, will have dazzled KU with overwhelming length and finesse, and though it will have handily beaten KU, UK will not have actually spent 40 minutes, smoking KU's eyelids and punching KU's cigarette, to paraphrase Bob Dylan from "Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again." KU could lose this game too, if it were too demoralized by UK, but I suspect KU will win this one and we will find out who our real point guard is in this game.

The scary thing about this early part of the season is that KU could conceivably start 0-3. 1-2 is a significant possibility. But 2-1 is the probability.

We are going to learn in the UCSB game how good Self believes this KU team is out of the gate. In a normal season, with the talent levels he has had since 2006-2007, Self would NOT amp the team for a team like UCSB. He would NOT put in any wrinkles unless absolutely necessary. He would show a press briefly on defense to make UK practice for it and it would not be the press he would run against UK. He would let the team labor against UCSB and focus everything on going for a win against a top team, like UK. But I suspect Self understands this KU team, at least at this early time in the season, has no chance against UK. And I suspect he realizes he does not dare risk an upset loss at home against UCSB. So: me thinks Self will amp them for UCSB, and hope energy brings home the W, so that he can keep as many wrinkles and looks concealed versus UCSB, so that he can at least confuse UK a little with surprises...and maybe limit the blow out.

This is life without three every game MUAs, one being a rim protector.

@drgnslayr

I expect Bill Self to be greater than John Wooden.

Not because it is probable but because it is possible.

Greatness is a process.

Wooden did not start out great.

Nothing he learned or mastered was inevitable.

Each choice he had success and failure in its distribution of possible outcomes.

I met him.

He was human.

His greatness was a path.

He bids everyone to follow not him but the path--walk down it--walk farther. He knew he had only walked as far as he could. He knew there was more ahead.

If not Self, who?

If not now, when ?

Self is farther down the path than anyone in his generation than Donovan.

They are the only two with a chance this generation.

Stevens threw it away.

No one can be anyone else.

But anyone could walk farther down the path.

But they have to get to the end Wooden reached before they go beyond it.

@JayHawkFanToo

As a matter of fact, it was that game. Vaughn ate him alive. It wasn't that the rest of the team was so much better than Santa Clara. Nash didn't didn't look like he had a particularly bad game at all that day. Vaughn was just too much for Nash to handle on both ends of the floor.

And the really interesting point you make is that Nash started out as a "completely unknown and unrecruited Canadian high school player."

Recall that Frankamp was strongly recruited, well known, and showed very well in international competition.

Starting from a much higher base to begin with entering college, there is frankly significant reason to think Frankamp could become every bit as good by the time he is a senior, as Nash was the day Vaughn ate him alive. Nash played for an extremely conservative, but extremely knowledgeable mid major coach in a mid major conference lacking in top talent to challenge a guy like Nash IMHO. If Conner had gone to Santa Clara the same year Nash started out at Santa Clara, no one would probably even know who Nash was, because Conner probably would have smoked his shorts and blown him out of the gym. Heck, if Conner had gone to Santa Clara, he likely would have won the awards Nash did.

And had Nash come to KU, he likely would have never started in place of Vaughn and so he would have either had to have transferred, or ridden the bench mostly.

This is really a very much more interesting parallel now that you make me think more deeply about it.

Thanks.

Nash really did improve massively in the pros. And I suppose Nash got with the right teams and came into the L at a time when John Stockton had recently resuscitated the idea of the short, extra quick point guard in the NBA. Prior to Stockton and Nash, you have to go back to the chain starting with Nate Archibald and then the micro guards like Mugsy Bogues and so on. And before Archibald, you had to go back to someone like Cousy. Short quick
guards come in and out of fashion in the NBA. The timing has to be right for them to catch on and become stars.

lately we've had Rondo in Boston.

Oh, well, as I said, thanks for making me return to this issue. Interesting.

P.S.: I never mind judging a player by one game, especially late in his career. One game is usually all it takes me to assess how good a player is at the time of observing him. What one can rarely tell from one look is how much better a player can become; that takes a lot of close study under various situations to break down weakness that could be improved versus weakness that are structural.

Rock Chalk!

@drgnslayr

I attended a tournament game Steve Nash played in his last year of college and I frankly was unimpressed with Steve Nash, as a college player. He transmogrified as an NBA player. Steve did what you describe. Connor may have it within his grasp, if CF can become a great dribbler and passer. The game is there for the taking for everyone. But you have to get insight on a deep level right away about what you are capable of improving at and then improving.

@Statmachine

If they could do what you are suggesting he ask them to do they would be big minute players. My point is that these specialists, especially the young ones, don't have well rounded games yet. Brannen didn't. Conner didn't. They just cost you too much in the floor game most of the time to leave them in for more than a few minutes most of the time regardless. What the specialists are good for is giving your big minute players a blow. To give them that blow, you want to get something out of the specialist in order to make up for his weaker floor game. A three point bomb will at the least make up for a three pointer on the other end and it will give you one up on a two pointer at the other end. And if shooters think too much about what they actually are not very good at--floor game--then that most certainly will make it difficult for them to shoot with confidence. At least that is how I am thinking about this, whether or not I am correct. :-)

P.S.: Self said in his presser with regards to Conner, that it went unsaid that if Conner missed his first shot he would come out, but that the experience of being pulled came to be an expectation that put a lot of pressure on him.

I have a suggestion for how to reduce the pressure for Conner, if he is in the same role, and for future Conners.

What you do is tell Conner from very early in the season, i.e., from the moment Self decides this will be Conner's role, and in fact you tell all your specialists regarding their activities, that you are going to pull them immediately if they don't produce and not to worry about it. Tell them exactly the statistical explanation I gave above for pulling them with a quick hook. Tell them that in these specialty roles we are looking for the guy that is in the good part of his normal distribution of games. Tell him that this is something beyond his control (if Self insists on staying with this normal distribution approach, which I personally am not fond of, but which has worked pretty darned well for Self in his career) and so he should go out loose and relaxed and ready to pull the trigger the minute he gets a good look. If it goes in great, if it doesn't that's great too, because we are just looking for the guy that is randomly in his good range of normal distribution. Tell him that the only way he can get in trouble is for taking a shot that is not open, or one before the ball has been into the post. Otherwise, he has a green light and you believe he is such a good shooter that this is the way the team can benefit the most from him until the rest of his game rounds into shape as you expect it will the following season. Tell him not to worry about playing a lot of minutes either. In other words, no matter how well he shoots it, this is his role this season until further notice. If he were to get hot, he would still come out shortly, unless he had a particular MUA that game. This completely removes all the onerous expectations and pressure off Conner, and also any of the negative consequences of the ball not going in. By doing this, you protect Conner's confidence throughout the season and build him up for next season. No negatives. And you tell him that if you decide that his shooting is not getting it done in this role that you will come and talk to him and tell him that it is time to wait for next season. No uncertainties. NO negatives. NO mysteries. All certainties. All positives. All knowns. So the shooter can focus entirely from a positive place when he does pull the trigger.

The worst thing you can do to Conner, IMHO, is to NOT tell him how your system is supposed to work, because then he is struggling inside something that is unfamiliar and that he doesn't understand and when the human mind does not understand a new situation it tends to default to negative interpretations of the possible implications of what he is doing. Then the player puts tremendous pressure on himself to shoot better to stay in the game.

Regarding shooting, Self has big minute guys that are able to give him most of what he wants most of the time, and he has to weather their normal distributions of good games, bad games, and average games.

But Self also uses small minute guys to give him specific things ASAP on entry. He has energy guys like Jamari. Bring me energy, or get out of the game. He has trey shooters. Bring me a trey, or get out of the game. He has penetrators, like Frank, that are supposed to bring him a lay up and a FT quickly, or get out of the game. Call all of these guys his specialists. Specialists are not well rounded and their net benefits are not as great as his large minute guys, so when he goes to them, they get a quick hook if they don't provide their specialty quickly.

Put another way, if he wanted to wait for a guy to hit a trey after several misses, he would just leave his big minute guys in the game. They would be generating greater net benefits, while missing a couple to make one trey.

The key thing to remember is that Self is not looking for an extended contribution from his specialists. He is just looking for a quick lift.

What vexes a lot of fans is this: why pull Conner after he misses one? Isn't he then closer to making one, if he stays in?

To answer that you have to try to understand Self's statistical world view. To Self, who is devoted to the normal distribution of human performance, the probability is that if someone misses their first one, they are not in the third of their distribution that is a good day. They are probably in the average, or bad, portion of their distribution. Self seems to figure that pulling Conner after one miss, to find out if Frank happens to be in the good part of his normal distribution of performance, is a high percentage play than waiting for Conner to miss enough to hit one on one of his bad days.

Lets think about this. The best a trey shooter can do is around 40 percent and this involves runs of hitting 4 of 5. and 1 of 5, plus 2 of 5 runs in between. So: when CF misses one, in two thirds of his normal distribution games he is going to either make 2 of 5, or 1 of 5. When he misses his first one, Self gambles he is not in 4 of 5 mode. He gambles he is in 1 of 5, or 2 of 5 mode. In either of those last two modes, there is a strong likelihood of him missing another before making even one.

So: I suspect Self figures there is some randomness to who is going to be having a good day, an average day, or a bad day shooting. So he figures, if CF misses the first, and is likely miss the next, then why not try Frank, who might randomly be on a good day and make his first. And if he makes his first he might likely make his second, too. And if he misses his first, well, then Frank is probably on an average, or a bad day, like Conner, and so he might as well pull Frank and bring back his starter, who brings greater net benefits.

I believe Self has thought this through a good deal and figures this is the optimal way to go, so long as he wants to stick mostly with his big minute players, and does not view Conner or Frank as big minute capable players.

@drgnslayr

You are so right to note that the last two KU teams under-performed in March; i.e., seemed to play beneath their abilities and levels of performance earlier in the season.

Self has clearly NOT learned how to control when a team peaks and he has talked about trying to design and develop a team to be ready for the tournament, so we know he is trying to get the hang of it.

Wooden decided that the best way to get a team ready for the tournament involved the following:

1. make the team believe, regardless of level of talent it possesses, it will be the best conditioned team all season long and in the tournament;

2. create an offensive scheme that it runs to perfection from the beginning of the season, regardless of who it plays, in order to get the team focused not on what it is doing, but how close to perfection it can get doing it (be so predictable to an opponent that occasional surprises invariably work);

3. eliminate all non-goal oriented activities and behaviors during the season during practice (no joking around during work, keep practices short and densely active);

4. focus all minds on the UCLA way in pursuit of singleness of purpose and focus and elimination of distraction;

5. eliminate victory as the measure of accomplishment for one can win playing badly sometimes;

6. the criteria of success for each person and the for the team is did we practice, or play, to the best of our abilities that day;

7. use only players with fire in their bellies for only that fire can drive players to focus all season on being the best they can be every time they step on a court (being the best they can be every moment is not viewed as an impossible ideal, but a goal always within reach for those willing to work);

8. all activities related to basketball must contribute to the team goal of the players becoming the best each can be in their roles of making the team the best it can be; thus there can be no stars, only great players; thus great players must be shielded from the star making system; thus the players on the team that contribute the least must be equals as teammates of the greatest contributors for the only way the team can become its best EVERY practice and EVERY game is for EVERY player to work to be the best that he can be at whatever his role is;

9. hard work at becoming the best a team can be is the litmus test for potentially great teams;

10. competitive greatness is the acid test distinguishing potentially great players and teams from great players teams.

11. standard is "at your best when you need your best and you need your best every day."

The key to Wooden's greatness was that he trained his players every moment of contact with them to be their best and to make their team its best. The normal distribution of human performance was known to him. I believe he thought that the way to win was not to accept the normal distribution as something to scheme around, but rather that the entire normal distribution of the individual and the team could raised upwards dramatically over the course of a season by habituating being at your best when you need our best and recognizing that you need your best every second in order to reach your best.

Players "with good motors" is a modern euphemism for players with fire in their bellies. Thomas Robinson had a great motor. Tyshawn Taylor discovered he had a great motor his last season. Sherron Collins had a great motor that unfortunately drove him to eat to escape it. Kevin Young had maybe the greatest motor of them all. Tyrel Reed had a great motor that did not pass the eye test. Joel Embiid had a great motor until he was injured. Frank Mason so far looks like a guy with a good motor.

But here is the critical difference between Self's KU teams and Wooden's UCLA teams. Every player on Wooden's teams--at least those one saw in the rotation, but likely even those on the bench too--had a great motor. They had to have one, or he would not take them.

Wooden was reputedly attracted to African American players in the beginning, because they were a group of players not being used because of prejudice (he was a young coach looking for an edge), and in part because he reputedly believed they experienced so much adversity in their lives that if he found one with ability and enough fire in his belly to survive the pernicious effects of racism, that that player probably had competitive greatness hard wired inside him. One can debate whether this implied a subtle kind of racism in Wooden, but one cannot plausibly debate that he knew how to recognize and attract players with competitive greatness. People often forget that Wooden played over the years many African American and many Caucasian American players that were not considered "better talents" than what were on opposing teams. But I can never recall a Wooden player being outworked and out hustled, and very rarely was their competitive greatness exceeded either.

Compare Self's teams, where about half the players on Self's teams have good motors, sometimes less than half.

Therein lies a key difference between Bill Self and John Wooden.

Bill Self has found a way of playing the game that has let win a higher percentage of his games and many more conference titles and one more ring than John Wooden won in the first half of his career. It is a heady, remarkable accomplishment by Self. It is to be respected and applauded and praised to outdo the greatest coach of all time in the first half of one's career.

But to put it in perspective, Wooden's first half of his career was spent in the back water programs of Indiana State and UCLA, which was converted juco and inconsequential commuter school and ugly sibling to Cal Berkely through out the first half of Wooden's career. Wooden NEVER got to coach at an elite program, as Self has done the last ten years. Wooden had to create his own elite program the second half of his career. He had no tradition to "sell" as Self likes to say. And the first half of his career, he didn't even sell what he had to sell: SoCal climate, Hollywood, Beverly Hills, beaches, and babes. Guys contacted him to play for him, He did not contact them. When Wooden finally started using Jerry Norman to recruit the very same way elite programs did, i.e., with alumni booster money under the table, Wooden began winning titles AND rings, first with lesser talent, then with greater talent. Never forget Wooden's first two ring teams had distinctly lesser talent than the elite teams of the country at that time. Never forget that one of his lesser talented teams went 32-0.

Bill Self found a way to win 60-70% of his games at lesser programs with lesser talent. He found a way to take lesser talent to an Elite Eight. It got him a shot at coaching Illinois, where he won a heady rate; that got him to KU where he has been brilliant in winning 82% of his games, ten titles and one ring.

But the last two teams, which have fallen short of expectations due largely to injuries, have also not played up even to the abilities of the talent that remained. Bill Self said last year's team was not tough enough, as if that explained the flame out last year. But the team the year before WAS tough enough, yet it was not at its best when it needed its best either.

When Bill Self met UK in the finals and lost to a vastly more talented team, he had no trouble diagnosing the problem and the Petro ShoeCo dynamics enabled him to shift gears to recruit vastly more talented players--OADs to be exact.

But the last two seasons indicate that he faces another obstacle to pursuing becoming the best he can be.

He does not have enough guys on his team with good motors, with fire in their bellies, with competitive greatness.

And whereas it took Bill Self only one loss in one game to recognize he needed more talented players, it is taking him (so far) two seasons to recognize that he needs more players with good motors in the rotation, more players with competitive greatness, more players that are at their best when they need their best and that understand that they need their best every day in order to habituate that into being reliably produced under the severe conditions of March Madness three weekends in a row, two games each weekend, under the withering spotlight of Big Media.

And it concerns me that Bill Self has concluded that toughness was what was lacking last season.

Toughness can only take you so far.

Toughness can take you through the one third bad games, but it cannot raise the level of performance in all of your games, so that KU's one third bad games are not only sharply better than other team's one third bad games, but also sharply better than their average games. And toughened talent alone cannot condition you to be at your best for six games WHEN YOU NEED YOUR BEST!

From my fan's iSeat, SELF HAS TO RECOGNIZE THAT COMPETITIVE GREATNESS IS NOW THE UNDER-SUPPLIED INGREDIENT IN HIS TEAMS OF VERY TALENTED CHARACTERS.

It may be his greatest challenge so far in his career, because it is quite likely that he, as a player, had great work ethic, great toughness, was a great character, and had a brilliant basketball IQ, and charisma, to boot, but lacked competitive greatness, or never played for a coach that had it and so did not know how to bring it out of him, and coach him up to it, when he was a player. Competitive greatness may be a blind spot in Bill Self.

(Note: it apparently is in John Calipari and Stumpy Miller, for though they are getting the best players in the greatest numbers both coaches' records so far indicate that while they can win a lot of games and go deep in the Madness, winning rings remains largely a randomized event for Calipari, and a mystery to Stumpy.

Mind blindness is the greatest obstacle of all to getting better at anything. Mind blindness means you cannot even see and conceptualize what it is you are not doing. Mind blindness means when someone tells you you are not doing something you need to do to get better, you cannot even grasp what it is they are talking about. Mind blindness means that even when someone tells you what to do you cannot understand it until they find a way to visualize the problem for you. Mind blindness is like looking at Vanna White pointing at a bunch of boxes with not letters showing and having no clue what even MIGHT be the word. Mind blindness means you just keep mistaking probable solutions, and randomly trying solutions.'

But the great thing about mind blindness (at least the part that means one does not need to feel hopeless about it) is that if you can find someone that knows what it is you cannot see, because they can see it, and they can stop telling you what not to do, and stop telling you what to do, and start giving you a visual image of what is actually in the block of bad pixels in your Plasma TV in your head, suddenly your brain will burn in the nets and you will henceforth see what you have not been seeing, and then begin to use all of your formidable abilities, skills and experience, to supply what those bad pixels had been obscuring from, and supply clearly resolved solutions.

You know you have mind blindness about something when you do not make the logical inferences about what is the problem, so you are never able to look for the fitting solution.

This applies to and works with everyone at any age in any activity.

Never tell a person what they are doing wrong.

Never tell them what they ought to do right.

Find out what they cannot see and visualize it for them.

The get the hell out of the way and watch them solve it themselves.

Many things have contributed to champions of the past: great talent, great coaching, willingness to sacrifice for the good of the team, exposure to great teams and players during pre Conference, exposure to same during the conference win or lose, exposure to some great teams that were beaten instilling belief in a team's ability to conquer the best, and so on.

But the only constant theme through all the champions I have witnessed and can now more or less recall are two or three players with every game MUA, a team full of guys with great work ethics and a rotation full of players with competitive greatness.

This is what I hope some great coach living or dead through words spoken, or written down, can help visualize for Bill Self.

Play the guys with the great motors and competitive greatness, even if they have a little less talent.

Let Kevin Young be your guide.

They can be frustrating.

They can be out matched some times physically.

But the game is won inside a triangle with a corner at each ear and at the heart in the chest. Somehow this triangle includes competitive greatness. An outward indicator of it is a good motor. Talent is ante to any activity. Equal talent is required to play for the big pot. Competitive greatness decides who can survive the losses and surmount the obstacles of learning to and finally be at their best when they need their best during the long pursuit of the ultimate prize. Rings are not one in one game. Rings are a long process of winning many battles, overcoming all obstacles, winning every necessary battle, and winning the last battle.

Fill a rotation, or better yet a team, with players of equal talent to opponents and triangles brimming with more competitive greatness, and that will raise the normal distribution of your team's performance above the normal distribution of your opponents, and your teams will reach 99 percent of their potential, and in combination these will lead to winning rings without even listing doing so as a goal.

Rock Chalk!!!

@drgnslayr

First, Wooden's teams won ten of eleven rings and about the same number of conference titles. Therefore we can infer that winning titles is not an insurmountable obstacle to winning rings.

KU's '08 team won a title and a ring.

But there are also examples of teams, like KU's '88 ring team, where a team is wracked with injuries, or sickness, then gets well and then seems to go on a tear making up for lost opportunities.

I really don't think it helps to lose a title in pursuit of a ring, unless the team loses because of adversity it did not create, and somehow bounces back.

Teams that win championships are motivated by adversity that they do not create.

But winning while playing well breeds self confidence and breeds awe in opponents.

Many teams were beaten by UCLA "before" they played, because of the UCLA mystique of winning everything.

I really think champions are born when the pieces needed for a fine basketball team happen also to be extraordinary competitors; i.e., happen to have what Wooden defined as competitive greatness; i.e., being at your best when you need your best.

IMHO, all great teams, all great performers, all great leaders, have "competitive greatness." They do not win, or prevail, because they are so much more talented than their opponents. They win because in the decisive moment, the decisive game, the decisive battle, the decisive campaign, they are at their best, when their best is needed.

Champions win by being teams that have enough talent to beat anyone else and then are at their best when they need their best as a group.

The flaw that I see in Self's approach is that he always comes back to talent

Self apparently always believes you have to have the most talent to win before you can coach it up to winning.

Self in talking about why he doesn't like to press referred to Eddie Sutton saying something like if you have the team with the most talent, which is better winning 100-79 pressing, or 80-60 playing half court. Self said the answer was no one knows. It was a strange answer, because Self usually plays to win 80-60, or 70-50, which I call 70 point take what they give us in half court. But I believe what he means is that the most talent wins and so the goal is not to beat yourself by increasing the number of possessions and so increase the chances for mistakes to tip the outcome away from your greater talent.

The problem with this approach is that it assumes a normal distribution of performance; i.e., it assumes that a team of players cannot reliably be at their best when they need their best. It assumes that they are randomly good a third of the time, bad a third of the time, and average a third of the time.

But you see Wooden's less talented teams, and his uber talented teams, and Knight's uber talented '76 team, and his less talented other ring teams, suggest that talent alone is not decisive, and Wooden's string suggests that normal distributions of performance are not inevitable.

Teams capacities to be at their best when their best is needed, can be skewed by having players that HAVE competitive greatness.

I believe it takes someone with competitive greatness to know someone with competitive greatness.

I believe most great coaches are very smart, very hard working, very knowledgeable, good recruiters, and know how to fit the pieces together to make exceptional teams.

But I think only a few great coaches have and so recognize competitive greatness in prospective players.

I believe Self recruits talented characters, as he said he does, because he enjoys and understands characters. He feels he was a character and he feels he knows how to coach up characters.

But talented characters do not necessarily have competitive greatness, too.

And when talented characters lacking in competitive greatness come up against talented players with competitive greatness the latter group wins most of the time.

So: what it will take for this year's KU team to be ready to win a ring is not just talent, and not just being characters, and not just being Marine Corp tough and Marine Corp resourceful in terms of tactics.

Self has to wind up with a talented seven or eight man rotation that fits together well by March and that has competitive greatness in each player.

The guys on the '88 ring team were an incredibly bunch of human beings that were at their best when they needed their best. They went on to have extraordinary professional careers after basketball. They were a special group of human beings that ran into adversity they did not create, fought and scrapped to survive it, and then seized the moment and became a team for the ages.

Talk of losing to win, having been explored, must cease.

To loosely paraphrase Patton: we cannot have talk of losing intentionally stinking up this field house of brave men.

And to quote Churchill directly...

"Even though large tracts of Europe and many old and famous States have fallen or may fall into the grip of the Gestapo and all the odious apparatus of Nazi rule, we shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this Island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God's good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old."

I so hope all of your are right, but I still think this team lacks the every game MUAs at 3 positions that a team needs to get to single digit losses. I know our schedule is some what easier, but our conference seems like it will be tougher. A lot of it comes down to Perry Ellis. If Perry cannot keep from disappearing, when the blue meanies show up, I think the team lacks the high trey percentage shooters among its top three perimeter players and the above average rebounding among its bigs necessary to get to single digit losses.

But if someone makes a nonlinear improvement the way Thomas Robinson did, then I can see us getting to single digits. However, that is a big if.

Make me wrong, basketball gods, make me wrong.

@Crimsonorblue22

Thank you for posting this. The random meeting and deep connection of Oubre and Svi from different worlds and is one of the greatest things about sport. Young men are receptive to new friendships at that time and when they form they are life changing and last a life time often.

I hate to break wind in church, but I forecast a 10+ loss season.

@drgnslayr

don't call it "small ball, "call it "low ball"! 😄

And it is very zen that the lower you play the more ready you are to explode into a jump, once you develop the muscles for jumping the no step jump from bent knees?

Once I learned to play both ends and in transition with bent knees, I taught myself to turn my toes inward right before I jumped. Pigeon toed and bent knees gave me the most lift without having to straighten up and take a step and jump. Give me a team of basketball players that can slide and explode straight up out of bent knees, without straightening and stepping to go up, and I will rule the basketball season.

Among the Ukrainian chaos, the South Stream pipe U.C. under the Black Sea, the Russia to China pipe, the China Pivot, resuming massive, long term bombing of Syria, the Ebola case in Tayhoss, and attacking the ISIS guys we reputedly created in the first place, I desperately need Bam Bam to explode out of position ASAP and XTReme Slam one on Cal's fleet of footers to reassert the right way.

We need the right way now more than ever.

I didn't understand why I suddenly needed to write torrents about KU basketball again. No clue.

UK is sailing at us like the Imperial Japanese fleet at midway.

Chester Self has to pull out all the stops. He has to tell his Marines they have to keep doing the impossible against impossible odds in impossible places. Chester Self has to deploy his naval forces--his greatly outnumbered fleet--in ways that draws UK's fleet of footers in close in search of a kill that then enables a concentrated strike administered by lesser numbers from an unexpected bearing.

He has to faint about pressing. He has to talk about the lack of standing height and position his aircraft carriers unexpectedly. He has to send out deceptive communications that focus the enemy on Devonte.

Chester Self has no choice now but to prepare against the odds to send his fleet into harm's way for a victory.

No wonder Self called in the Jar Heads for some discussions about the Marine way.

I have been living in denial about Kentucky, displacing about health and personal issues, loved ones, pets, "Empires of the Sea: the Siege of Malta, the Battle of Lepanto, and the Contest for the Center of the World," and Roger Crowley.

I have been lolly gagging around writing, painting, bicycling, hunting for a good boat with hand laid fiberglass, or a plate boat.

I have been thinking about cooking the perfect rack of lamb, and marveling at the ancient Aztec dish called Molcajete.

I have been repeatedly watching Budd Boetticher westerns with Randolph Scott.

I have even been stewing myself in the anti-heroic futilities of "Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia" and "Chinatown."

I even briefly thought about KU football. Gads!!!

None of it matters.

All that matters now is...

Kansas versus Kentucky.

adidas versus Nike.

Right way versus wrong way.

Good versus evil.

"Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the lord..."

@HighEliteMajor

See @drgnslayr 's eloquent response to my fumbling one.

And thanks for making me think. It hurt. But I did it. :-)

@drgnslayr

I just ready your other post on Brannen first.

Hell, yes, Frank can do it!

So can Devonte.

So can Connor.

Hell, so can Christian, Evan and Tyler!!!!

This is flipping Basketball Tibet.

The beauty of an X-Axis game walketh the razor's edge of low CG.

"The sharp edge of a razor is difficult to pass over; thus the wise say the path to Salvation is hard."
--Katha-Upanishad

And under a five foot ceiling!

!200px-RazorsEdgeNew.jpg ↗

@drgnslayr

"Bend your knees" is one of those phrases that every player hears and thinks it only means something literal, which it does, but it is actually one of those directions pointing a player toward a deep transformation from person to player. Bend your knees is a road sign to basketball salvation, not just to playing better defense. It is almost like one of those sayings that exist in the martial arts intended not only to teach the would be samurai how to stand and be ready to react to blows, but also how to conceptualize ones point of view and existence also.

I'm pumped. I'm juiced. Damn, I thought I was too old for it to cohere more deeply, but it just did.

Thanks.

@drgnslayr

What makes all these players so mouth watering as recruits is what they COULD become if they learn to play the game as you describe. What you describe captures the evolution and then near transmogrification of Travis Releford that last season.

Travis Releford could have even limboed under a three foot high ceiling and still have locked players down, made the easy plays, slid, helped and exploded out of his position when necessary he came so far as a player.

When players discover what you describe and what Self puts them beyond their comfort levels in order to coax/force them to discover it is one of the most magnificient transformations one can observe. It is literally a kind of metamorphosis.

Rock Chalk!

@drgnslayr

PHOF! to the whole post.

"I'd love to build a 5-foot ceiling and put it over the court in AFH. Make the guys play under that ceiling." --slayr

Easily one of the ten greatest lines about basketball I ever read.

Gosh it sucks me laboring to try to get one of these posts out of my craw and then someone saying it so much better!!!

But that's what so great about connectivity and community. One board rat's fumbling and stumbling can precipitate another's eloquence worth recalling.

Thank you so much.

Self used a memorable phrase recently, when he said some had some doubts whether Svi could stay on his lines in D1.

Self immediately raised the counter argument: Svi was the only one of our guards that had been playing against 28-30 year olds and maybe staying on his lines.

A few days after the novelty of the comment wore off, something occurred to me.

Can any of our guards stay on their lines?

Devonte is 6-2 and 175. Self compared him favorably with Aaron Miles, but Miles was built like a brick outhouse for a point guard as a freshman even. Let's put Devonte in perspective: Evan Manning is about the same size and weight as Devonte. Maybe Self was just saying that Devonte had the intangibles of mind that Aaron had. But staying on lines requires more than mental toughness. It takes serious strength in today's D1. Brady Morningstar was about Devonte's size and no one ever said Brady was the Incredible Hulk, when it came to staying on lines. He had to finesse his lines, and even then, everyone said it was just a matter of time until he ran into someone he could not finesse, even when he was filling at 2 and 1.

We all think Frank Mason is a tough cookie and somewhat similar to Sherron Collins, but Frank is 5-11 and 185, and Sherron was 5-11 and 210 or so, if I recall correctly. Sherron could stay on a line. Sherron could run through walls. Frank is faster than greased lightening when he accelerates, so when he can out accelerate someone he can stay on his line, but what about when one of Ratso Izzo's big guards steps in front of him, or shoves him going by? Can Frank really stay on his line?

Conner Frankamp is 6-0 and 165. I am not sure Conner can stay on his lines against Devonte and Frank, much less one of Ratso Izzo's big guards.

Svi is 6-8 and 175. This is string bean territory. And I don't have to raise a question about him, because Self already has.

Honestly, Christian Garrett, at 6-3 and 185 pounds of Hudy weight appears to be the line running stud of this bunch.

Even Tyler Self at 6-2 and 165 tucks in somewhere in this bunch.

All I can say about these haricot verts (i.e., XTRemely skinny French horticultural bean varieties) is that they better go meet with Kevin Young, who wrote the book on what kind of fury and intensity it takes to play light in D1.

And meet regularly with Andrea and her movable iron.

Test post.

As usual, @HighEliteMajor and @drgnslayr and really every one here forces this tired old coot to think more clearly and try to find a concept and fitting words to explain what Self says he just wants to be, like Garbo, left alone to do. :-)

Here goes.

Agreed, @HighEliteMajor, that Brannen Greene has to adjust. This HEM said sagely in a recent post in another thread, when talking about Brannen having to adapt his game to Bill Self's way or face paltry PT, or worse, the highway.

Greene is listed 6-7 and 215; that is the same size he was listed at last season. This means he is probably 6-6 and 205. Guys who are in this size range have to have a whole lot of explosive athleticism, or they have to have cat-like anticipation and quickness, or they have to bulk up and become bruisers. Note that Wayne Selden is 6-5 and 230 with broad shoulders and a thick neck, and Travis Releford was very formidable also, and Brandon Rush was just a barrel chested stud by his senior season.

Last season, Greene was kind of awkward. He played hard, but a bit out of control, and he had a bit of a wild hair. He also did not sink a high percentage of his treys. Like Conner Frankamp, he did not live up to his shooting reputation all season long.

Now there are a lot of persons, including Self, talking about how shooters have to get comfortable and how you cannot expect guys to come in and make shots with the pressure of coming out if they miss one.

I happen to agree that any good shooter gets better as he gets to shoot more FGAs.

But I think there are a very few great shooters and a whole lot of good shooters, the latter of which get better with more FGAs. The former, those few great shooters can shoot about the same percentage, what ever role they are asked to play. I believe great shooters shoot better on fresh legs than on tired legs. I believe great shooters really don't care much what coaches think. They don't think much about pressure. They frankly don't care if they miss, or not.

I believe great shooters are like snipers. They are naturals that practice their skill. Snipers may get sharper as they shoot more, but they start out able to do the head shot on the first squeeze; that's how they get to be snipers. Merely good snipers don't live long. If you miss, and they see where you fired from, you are dead, because a whole bunch of persons open fire on your position and at least one finds the mark.

Great snipers know where they are accurate and where they are not. They practice a lot, but so do merely good and so merely soon to be dead snipers. Great snipers are cold blooded about their job. This cold bloodedness, and the fact that he is still alive, too me is part of the definition of a great sniper and of a great shooter, too. The greater shooter is still in the game after the first shot. The good shooter is out of the game. The great shooter makes the first one. The good shooter often misses. The great shooter doesn't feel the pressure. If he misses and gets pulled, he comes back and has about the same percentage probability of making it, because he IS a great shooter. The merely good shooter need lots of FGAs to show how good he is. Great shooters, like snipers, will take their shot without hesitation, no matter what, if those are their orders. So will good shooters, but they are tight on the first release.

Based on my criteria, Conner and Brannen were revealed to be potentially good, not potentially great shooters last season.

What I think Self is trying to find out by recruiting these alleged great shooters (and no one can be more than alleged coming into D1, so don't think I am picking on Brannen and Conner), and then putting them in for a few minutes, when they are shaky in other parts of their games, is whether or not they really are great shooters at the next level, or just guys that need a lot of shots to be good shooters at the D1 level.

What I think Self learns most times is that great high school shooters are NOT great D1 shooters, and this only makes probabilistic sense. The higher you rise, the fewer the persons can cut it at that level. Most are just good shooters that need a lot of minutes to be good shooters.

So: Brannen (and Conner) need to learn this ASAP, because it means that Self can get "good" shooting out of most any of his perimeter recruits if he gives them plenty of minutes.

The foremost question, then, becomes, which guy is the best all around player, not which guy is the best shooter in practice, or even in games. Most can give Self 35-37% if Self gives them a bunch of minutes, or he wouldn't have recruited them in the first place. Some of them, if they really get strong and comfortable in their floor games, and learn to shoot only from their sweet spots, can get enough minutes and FGAs to become 40% plus trey shooters, as Travis Releford did, even with his funky form.

You see, we fans are looking simplistically for which player can give 40% out of the box, and which player can be the best shooter, among those shooting less than 40%. It appears that Self figures there is more net benefit from a guy with a great floor game that shoots, say, 37%, than a guy that dings 39-41% with a weak floor game. I infer this because time and again this is how he decides on PT as the bench shortens over the season.

To translate Bill Self, which do you want to be Conner, and Brannen, a great shooter with an average or weak floor game that means I can only leave you in when you are draining the trey, or do you want to be a complete player that can stay in all the time and so let me add your good shooting touch to your net benefit bottom line?

That's the essence of it.

To we fans, this may seem a simple, logical calculus, almost a mastery of the obvious, once it is articulated as I just have. But to a player that has been a "shooter" from kiddy leagues to senior year of high school, being a shooter first is deeply engrained. Such a player is trying to get better in all facets of his game, but he doesn't really know how, because he has never been forced with benching to become a better floor player than a shooter. Always before being with Self, the great school boy shooter getting burned on defense, or turning it over, could compensate with a trey on the other end and his coach loved him for it. But at the D1 level, where so many can shoot 37% and play a great floor game, a great high school shooter cannot distinguish himself by shooting perhaps even 40% with an undistinguished, or flawed floor game. And shooting 32-35% with a weak floor game, he may as well tell the coach he has Ebola and expect the coach to give him big minutes so he can shoot a better average.

The guys shooting 37% with strong floor games are doing so many things all over the floor to enhance their cost benefit, i.e., their net benefit bottom line, that the great high school shooter needing big minutes just to shoot his 40% from trey cannot apparently off set his costs of from his weak floor game.

Think about it. When Travis, or Brady, were on the floor, they were so good on ball and giving so much help that they were locking down their guy AND strangling off another good scorer by being able to lend help that channeled that other good scorer out of his sweet spots. Great floor players like Travis, or Brady, probably deny about 10-20 points per game just on defense, when they are not completely outmatched, as Travis was by Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, especially when Trav had a bum ankle, or when Brady would run into an L&A that could overwhelm his short height and slight build (which in fact happened infrequently enough (not usually until the competition got super good after the first, or second round game in the Madness) to enable his teams to win 30 a season, or so.

And remember, neither Travis, nor Brady, were nearly as able dominate in this way as Brandon Rush could do. Regardless, these were three players that sooner or later could play great floor games AND shoot 38-42%. What the hell chance, in rational net benefit analysis, would Conner, or Brannen, have against Travis, or Brady, or Brandon Rush, or any KU perimeter player with a good floor game and able to shoot above 37% from trey, until they too had a solid floor game?

Self quantified it for us. Selden's floor game is so valuable, that he can shoot 30% from trey and no one is going to beat him out. So: I suspect in Bill Self's algorithm net benefit goes negative, even with a great floor game, when a perimeter player shoots less than 30% from trey.

Self puts these guys with great high school treys to see if he can squeeze a quick trey out of them; that's all they are good for until they can play a good floor game. He said it himself. Bring them in to stretch the D a little. If they miss, they are gone before their floor games can drive their net benefit acutely negative and cost the team a W.

There is no question that playing most any once great high school shooter a bunch of minutes his freshman, or sophomore season, in D1 will increase his shooting percentage. The problem is: the things that go into a good floor game apparently take a lot of time and a lot of work in practices and in weight rooms to develop. Lots of PT in a single season doesn't produce good floor games. And there in lies the point that a lot of folks have missed.

Good floor games area kind of paradoxical. Most KU recruits can be "coached up" into having good floor games. But if you don't come with one from high school, it is going to take a couple of years of work and drilling and practicing before you can do it.

Brannen Greene and Conner Frankamp could have played every minute of every game last season and their floor games would probably still have had huge holes in them. The reason I infer this is because even after an off season of working on the problems, and after a freshman season of being given repeated shots at showing that their floor games had developed, their floor games are still being questioned by their coach.

It was the same with Travis and Elijah early. Fabulous impact players and reputed good to very good high school shooters. Such fabulous impact players and potentially good shooters that board rats wrote again and again that the only reason they weren't playing was because Self loved Tyrel and Brady too much; that he loved experience and was phobic of young players. But now we have another group of players ahead of Conner and Brannen and the same thing is going on. Self has won 80% of his games, so he can't be stupid about this. It is the net benefit calculus and the kind of schemes he believes in running and the kinds of players in the numbers he can attract that makes him do it. He favors the trade of good floor game and slightly lesser shooting percentage, or slightly lesser athleticism, or both, versus high trey percentage and high athleticism and weak floor game.

There are a few great athletes that have developed their floor games, so they can step in and play D1 and not hurt Self's teams. Wigs could and so he played even though his trey was very weak. Brandon could, and he had the team put on his back because he could while also dinging the trey from the beginning, where as Wigs could not not and there was a better option in the paint in Embiid for carrying the team.

And if these kinds of great high school shooters, happen to be OAD types, and play for a coach like Calipari that schemes to emphasize outscoring opponents and intimidating them with length and athleticism, and isolating on them offensively, rather than emphasizing team defense, and team offense, then a larger number of young OAD types can flourish, that is, produce net benefit, and so play D1 out of the box for Calipari.

But if your coach schemes toward team defense making use of a lot of skills beyond length and athleticism, because he cannot, or does not want to, sign only large numbers of OADs, then you have got to have good floor game to be a net benefit.

Should Self switch over to Cal's solution? Only if Self has reason to believe he can sign more and better OADs than Cal. If not, then it makes sense for him to stick with his current approach, even though it takes more time to develop floor games and team schemes.

And it apparently takes a couple of seasons to develop a good floor game for team defense and team offense schemes that do not rely mostly on length and athleticism.

To borrow from Slayr, if you want to play and win on the X-axis, you better bring a helluva good floor game out of the box, rather than just length, athleticism, and/or a great high school trey.

This is why I think Slayr talks about adding some isolation game, while at the same time retaining great X-Axis play and team schemes. Slayr and Self are trying to iterate into a mix of slightly more isolation and slightly less rigid team schemes, in order to fit in more OADs, but still not entire teams of them. Why? Because realistically speaking, Cal is gathering his OADs from a Nike feeder system that is probably several times larger in numbers of players than exists in Self's adidas feeder system. So: Self cannot really hope to recruit more total and more better OADs than Cal, if Nike were to put its full feeder system behind Cal, and adidas were to put its full feeder system behind Self.

The plan appears to be to find a blend of isolation and team play that produces a greater net benefit every few seasons than playing all OADs would given the two feeder systems.

Or so I hypothesize and speculate.

Rock Chalk!

P.S.: when you can generate huge betting amounts in the EST with hype, you have to create counter hype in the CST balance the betting.

Shepherds need sheep.

Managed Bettor Expectation Hypothesis:

Big gaming needs suckers.

Big media creates suckers.

Suckers betting as they are told enable more changing the line to get more informed betters to bet.

More betting by informed and uninformed equals more "vig" sooner.

More "vig" sooner equals house solvency and minimum yield reached faster.

House solvency and minimum yield reached faster means more time and opps for rigging game spreads with refs for big kills in betting against media shaped expectations to achieve profit maximization.

@drgnslayr
There are just so many ways to spec this team. Yours accounts for refs and so makes the most sense. I will back off my takes and go with yours.

@jayhawkbychoice

One thing is as sure as Ray Charles having Georgia on his mind: Brannen Greene is not going gently into that DSC night.

Brannen had a wild hair. Wild hairs are a no-no with Self. Travis Releford had a wild hair. But Self believed in him. And broke him down until Travis the freshman people thought would start wound up having to give up his high school game as a glamour two, take three years of retrofitting, and play two years as old man's game 3. I am not sure Brannen Greene can learn an old man's game 3. I always knew Travis could learn it, it was just a matter of when he was willing to do it. Greene I am not sure can convert to the old man game. But clearly, Self is signaling that the only way Greene is going to become a starter, or even a big minute rotation guy is if he commits to being a lock down, old man 3, and he's got to do it without a red shirt, if we are to believe Self, which I do not.

I believe there will be a red shirt. I believe it will be Brannen. I believe Self has decided that Brannen is going to become an exceptionally tall version of Travis Releford and Brandon Rush, or he's a transfer.

I believe Brannen will get the lock down religion and decide to take a red shirt, bulk up, and become indispensable to Self the following season.

Note: I realize I am ice skating on frozen cellophane with some of these forecasts, but Self is basically inviting everyone to crab a thin limb and let him cut it off with whatever he eventually decides on. So: I'm willing to play along. :-)

@Statmachine

Fingers crossed.

Throwing eye of newt over right shoulder.

Hoping for the best.

@Crimsonorblue22

That may be the way you see him, and you are not wrong in your description, but to go with @globaljaybird 's Tony the Ant analogy, Bill "The Crimson Ant" Self likes one soldier that is loyal only to him; that will do ANYTHING he asks him to do; that will get it done cleanly and without complaints; that doesn't make excuses; that has a cold hear about his work; that was Brady; and that is Jamari. The Jam Tray just passes a different kind of eye test.

@globaljaybird

Let's start calling Self "The Crimson Ant." :-)

@globaljaybird

LOL!

Self did look really hard and bitter, didn't he. He was not even letting quite a few of the reporters finish their questions before jumping into answer. He has had his manhood questioned by we fans the same way he has questioned other's manhood, and he didn't like it.

Time for Self to wear a Borsalino with his wide pin stripe suit.

Go, Bill, go!!!!!!!

P.S.: Jam Tray is the wild card. Jam Tray is the energy bringer. Jam Tray is the guy that can make a press effective. And Jam Tray is the guy Self is most invested in emotionally. Jam Tray is the Brady Morningstar of this team. Jam Tray is going to play a lot of minutes, because a lot of guys are going to fold under the pressure, or not be able to make the easy plays, or not be able to guard hard and explode out of position to make plays, or not be able to help. Jam Tray has learned to do too many things too well to keep him off the floor. Self is conspicuously not talking in specifics about him. We can infer he is going to start out as the bringer of energy at 5 minutes, but at which position is not yet clear. It depends which position needs the most energy brought to it. But anyone that lets down a beat, Self is going to give their minutes to Jam Tray. Jam Tray will find 20mpg in scraps and pieces over time, as the newbies slowly hit their freshman ceilings.