🏀 KuBuckets Archive

Me thinks it is fluid who the DSC will be.

Here are some analyses of a few guys.

Devonte: I think he is getting the treatment Frank Mason got last season. I believe this is how Self has decide to handle any freshman he knows aren't good enough to start most of the season. He pumps them up pre season. He says they are going to be hard to keep out of the rotation and are going to vie for starting. He says this stuff at this time and then later says it does not matter who starts, but who finishes, which is a massive load of perfumed dung. It matters who starts because it usually determines who gets the most minutes and who is part of the rotation when Self shortens the rotation to seven or eight. Any way, all the talk of Devonte starting is a smoke screen to get opposing coaches thinking they are preparing for a guy they have never seen, Devonte may even be given a few starts against XTreme Cupcakes to prove to him that he is not ready to make the easy plays, as super cocky Frank Mason was sucked into realizing. The objective is to let the newcomer's own failures temper his high school cockiness and make him accept whatever role Self decides to spoon feed him afterwards. This also lights a fire under the returning guys to come out blazing, plus keeps their new moves and new tendencies off the game tapes the opposing coaches will be studying a few games. Then boom, Self springs the real starter on the truly tough D1 team. If the first team we play is a really tough team, Mason, or Conner get the start, then Devonte gets the cupcake starts to prove to him that he's not ready to make the easy plays. Self is a master deflator of egos. He lets to newbie deflate his own ego. Devonte is an experimental aircraft that a conservative defense contractor rushed in as a replacement for a model that malfunctioned the last couple of years and the Pentagon sent back. Once in a great while and experimental aircraft is so good that you can print some stars and a USA on it and go kill bogeys in it. The F14 was like that from the beginning. But the F-111, the first swing wing was never ready even after it was fully developed. You can't rule out the possibility that Self is telling the truth about Devonte, but you can say it would be improbable and that Self has a whole lot of incentive to use him as a smoke screen to buy this team without a rim protector a few edges.

Frank: Frank gets his shot at being the team's PG against the first really tough team KU plays. This is not intended to deflate Mason again. It is intended to find out if has improved enough and has the right stuff to stay on the floor with some great players? He doesn't have to win the match up, but he has to prove that he has enough skill and moxie not to get run off the floor and to make most of the easy plays. If he holds his own, then he is worth developing for a full season for March. If not, then he's a backup, and maybe not even a first backup. He gets two early quality starts, maybe 3 to make his case. Screw up those three starts and he won't see daylight till next season and might get run depending on who far Svi comes in his stead this season, and on what the recruiting cat drags in. Frank is who Self wants to play the PG, but Frank is kind of like an F-35--operates at the limit with lots of bugs. The first generation didn't really justify the investment. This year is his second generation. He doesn't have to be perfect, but he has to become a usable combat aircraft through 35-40 regime change games.

Conner: in the midst of the manipulations of Devonte and testing of Frank, Self knows as usual that Conner can do what he can do and did last season late, when he finally got healthy and got a look. Conner is an A-10 Warthog, slow, steady, ground support with the ability to loiter into position , take a lot of hits without coming apart, and carries a GAU-8 automatic cannon from 3, that still needs some practice to site accurately.

Oubre: starts because OADs start and Self rarely lies about defense.

Greene: Anyone Self says has to learn how to go after every ball is not starting material. Period.

Alexander: went after every ball in high school and will start if he does so, and if Hunter can't cut it doing the block and alter chores for Self also, but not if not, and not if Hunter can B&A. Self is leaving a crack in the door for Alexander to sit, because Alexander is totally not ready to start, just as TRob was not, but he doubts that Landen or Hunter are going to be better in March that a learn by fire Alexander for a long season. In short, Self wants to start Alexander to keep the OAD valve wide open, but isn't sure he can stomach the learning curve and is shaping the battle field to now have to by: a.) comparing Alexander to TRob to help ease the blow to Alexander at not starting; and b.) recruiting some more bigs should Alexander get his nose bent out of shape sitting.

Hunter: My guess here is that Self is so sure he is going to have to start Hunter Mickelson and need to rely on him in the early big games to keep KU from getting blown out inside, that Hunter is experiencing something kind of unprecedented in Self's tenure. Self is putting Hunter in the toughening box BEFORE late night. Hunter's family jewels are being put in a vice that is in turn being placed in a pressure cooker on high. My guess is that Hunter is not sleeping well right now. My guess is that Hunter will not know which end is up until after the second exhibition game. My guess is that Hunter is going to experience a level of needling and yelling and hounding that unlike anything anyone has received since Self realized he had to relie on Kevin Young. Self loves blocking and altering the way George Patton loved tanks. Next to the spectacle of blocking and altering, all other forms of human endeavor in basketball shrink to insignificance. And Hunter is Self's only chance at B&A. And that means Hunter is Self's only chance at staying on the floor with UK and its fleet of footers. John Wooden proved you only need one rim protector and a high mobility attack to neutralize teams that come at you with a bunch of tall trees, but, really, you've got to have one. And he doesn't have to be Lew Alcindor, or Bill Walton. He can be Steve Patterson. Yes, Self will go small if he has to at the 5, if Hunter vaporizes. But if Hunter stands up to what is being done to him mercilessly before the season's first real game, the Self is set for the season. He can juggle everything else and make it work. Hunter is WWII aircraft carrier USS Lexington. He is an old battle cruiser converted to an attack aircraft carrier.

Landon Lucas: If Hunter plays, Lucas plays; that's my hunch. If Hunter establishes that KU can play with a rim protector Self is sand-bagging about by saying they don't have, then Lucas is the logical guy to sustain the standing height at the 5. I say he plays and releases Alexander to invest fully in learning the 4 to become a high draft choice as a TAD.

Perry: The Designer gets to swing 3/4, when Alexander plays 4, Perry moves to 3, and Oubre/Greene slide to 2 and Selden goes to 1.

Selden: Wayne is the streaky load that will post up 2s and 1s inside. Self said he doesn't care if Wayne only shoots 35% from trey, because one infers Wayne is going to be a kind of heavily armored and armed attack helicopter that is going to show up every where unexpectedly. This tells me that his explosiveness in no-step vertical jump is gone, but that he still can get up on the run, or in a back to the basket pivot. Without the no step vertical, his trifectation is never going to be 40%. But his strength and size and mobility is going to make him a kind of Aaron Aflfalo in crimson and blue. Basically, Self is going to move Selden to whatever position the other team uses a short perimeter player at. He could show up anywhere from 1 to 4, when some team tries to use four guards and center.

Given the crystal ball gazing above, any one or two of Conner, Hunter, Landen and Greene could go DSC.

Self has made it plain: no rouge smoking jackets. Its produce or disappear.

In the oad era, there is a new designated role: the DSC aka the designated shit can-ee, aka the guy who ceases to be worth developing with PT, because he is never going to beat out anyone and so likely will transfer. AWIII got this role last year. The DSC is usually praised sometime prior to the first regular season game, as someone that will contribute only to motivate a player that will be developed with PT. So: who wi it be this season and might there be more than one?

@JayhawkRock78

Someone like Anshutz could probably get it done, but he would have to cut through a lot of deep pockets that don't, plus a Chancellor and her AD that have no clue, or have unseen agendas that marginalize solving the football coaching problem.

Which ever constellation of persons hired Charlie Weis to be head football coach of KU just didn't know diddledy spit about management or football. That was obvious from the moment he was even under consideration. From the moment he was mentioned as a candidate, I was waiting for him to disappear quickly from consideration, because he didn't come close to the template I described. When he was hired, I was certain from that moment that either no one then involved at KU knew what they were doing, or else, they wanted a broom for two years of house cleaning during a discovery period where they went looking for further skeletons in the closet. Now, I still don't know which it was. We won't know until the next coach is hired. If the next coach does not fit the template I described, it means it was just ignorance and inexperience. Oh, god, I don't like football because of the head injury issue, but, oh god, how I hope BGL and Zenger surprise us all with a coach that fits the template.

@globaljaybird

Wilt challenged Al Oerter in practice.

Wilt took on Bill Russell and the Celts for 10-15 seasons.

Wilt loved 20,000 women.

Wilt averaged 50 ppg.

Wilt averaged 30 rpg.

Wilt scored 100 points.

Wilt nearly boxed Ali.

Arnold ?

Wilt would have turned him into a Vienna sausage in seconds.

@brooksmd

Any man that will help a woman through statistics without knowing statistics himself is an absolute man, and must, with a 95% confidence interval be viewed by her as an exceptional lover, as well as a life saver. My hat is off to you, brooks. Tell that woman that if she ever lets you go she will be making the biggest mistake of her life.

@JayhawkRock78

It is hard to explain. KSU began a long, fitful climb to football success by signing an absolute Caliban of southern football in Vince Gibson. "We gonna win" was embraced. And Gibson brought the deep south approach to KSU football. He reputedly built wooden chutes with chicken wire over the top. Football players were placed at each end and told to fight each other crawling on hands and bellies with not enough room side to side to get buy. One player had to climb over the top of the other. And the one that made it over the top of the other was said to have won. The coaches reputedly stood on top of the chutes and screamed and yelled and spit down on the players for not fighting hard and dirty enough to get by each other. This was in the Lynn Dickey years, when KSU climbed out of the Doug Weaver decade of winless seasons. They built a football stadium for Ol'Vince and he got them o 6-4, or something and they beat OU at Manhattan once and they thought they had died and gone to heaven. Then they slid down hill and there were some more lean years, because Gibson was basically judged to be the sadist that he was rumored to be. He finished 33-52. I left the state not so long after that, so I looked it up and they went through Ellis Rainsberger (27-42), an old KSU guy with little D1 experience, Les Moon (one season), Jim Dickey (a guy that had been coordinator at KU and went 24-52 at KSU), Stan Parrish (who had missed his Marshall team's plane crash and survived only to come to KSU and go 2-30), then hired Bill Snyder who had been the OC for Hayden Frye at North Texas State and then at Iowa.

The thing to glean from all of the KSU futility before Snyder was that they hired a long series of coaches to rebuild their program that had never been part of a successful rebuilding program at a D1 major. When they hired Snyder, he had already helped an eventual Hall of Fame Coach, Hayden Frye, rebuild North Texas State and then rebuild a poor Iowa program in the then rugged Big Ten.

For some reason, someone at KSU realized that if you want a coach to rebuild your program successfully, you ought to hire some one that actually knows how to do it.

If you wanted to rebuild your home after a tornado blew half of it down, would you hired a cabinet maker that had never rebuilt a house, or would you hire a contractor/builder that had built a lot of houses and maybe even rebuilt some from storm damage?

This is not rocket science.

Fruit doesn't fall far from the tree.

You want to rebuild your D1 Power 5 program? Hire a guy that has done one or two successful rebuilds, or been a coordinator in successfully rebuilding one or two.

There are many things to know about successfully rebuilding a football program and one very important thing is where and how to get players that can enable you to rebuild successfully. Why is this so critical? Because you cannot rebuild with the best players recognized by all the recruiting combines, because 90% of those guys are going to long established programs. This means you have to understand the kind of second tier players you can coach up and the kind of schemes those kinds of players need to be successful in. And you have to have been recruiting lots of those kinds of guys for several years, so you can take a healthy number of them with you when you leave your old job. This is just common sense. You don't want an assistant that has only been at a Nebraska, or Florida State, USC, and OU, and Texas, because they have been recruiting nothing but the top tier guys for years and they won't be able to bring those guys with them. And they won't have had to learn to make due with the second tier guys. And they won't been recruiting them. And they won't know how to coach 'em up in what schemes.

Intelligence is not as vital as experience, when rebuilding a program, but intelligence and experience are an unbeatable combination, if the Chancellor and AD will spend all their time supporting the coach and giving him what he knows best that he needs.

KU hired Mangino, who had come up with Snyder's rebuilding program. He just pit stopped at OU. He knew how to win with second tier players. He knew what they looked like and he knew where to find them. Mangino learned from Snyder, a genius, who had learned from a genius, Hayden Frye. the Fat Man wasn't much to look at, but he knew what he was doing, knew where to get second tier players and sloppy seconds from elite programs, and knew how to scheme for their lesser abilities.

Why can't KU get its act together? Because there are not enough persons in key positions inside and outside the university that are realists that can think clearly about what kind of candidate to hire. They don't know successful football. They don't even know they need to find a coach that has previously successfully rebuilt, or been part of a successful rebuilding of a D1 Power Five program. It is embarrassing. No one at KU really undersands what you need to rebuild a D1 Power Five school in a hop, or Turner Gill would never have have hired. He didn't know shizz about successfully rebuilding a D1 Power Five school. And Perkins had never successfully rebuilt a D1 Power Five school in football himself. And guess what? Sheahon Zenger has never successfully rebuilt a D1 Power Five football program before either. And he apprenticed as assistant AD at KSU at a time, when KSU was long since rebuilt. Zenger has no experience of what Snyder went through early. None. Zenger learned to be an asst AD in a successful program. You hire Zenger to maintain a successful football program, not to build one. And Zenger has no insight into building a winning basketball program, because KSU wasn't a successful basketball program when he was asst AD.

KU has to go find an OC, or DC, that has assisted in a couple successful rebuilds, at least one at a Power Five D1 school, and he has to have recruited in an area that he can attract to KU. They guy has to have a recruiting pipeline brimming with second tier talent that he can bring in in large numbers immediately. He has to know how to scheme for them, not for super stars. He has to be a very demanding person in order to quickly build a culture of excellence. But he has to know how to set achievable goals for his second tier talent so the team wastes no time with unrealistic goals that are self defeating exercises.

KU doesn't lack any financial resources.

It is fighting ignorance.

It needs player housing.

The stadium can wait.

It has a lightweight AD that has never rebuilt anything. It probably needs to replace him with an AD that has rebuilt a D1 Power Five program. It then needs to let him hire a football coach that fits the template I have outlined.

Its that simple.

Why it doesn't happen is due to a complex web of persons contributing to the decision making process and their collective ignorance about what kind of man is required for the job.

The above is my opinion, anyway.

P.S. I am frequently juiced and rejuvenated by the return of words, so long as they are not loaded with racist and sexist, and other prejudicial baggage.

I never liked it when African Americans resurrected the N-Bomb, as we were trying to extinguish its use among Caucasian Americans, even though I instantly got the point of it.

We all have a responsibility to keep the language lively and alive and evolving, but also ought to continually prune out the prejudicial and the insensitive, pointlessly vulgar stuff.

I am not perfect at this. Neither is anyone else. It is an objective to pursue in hopes of pushing us closer and closer to our goal of being a country that lives up to the greatness of our Declaration of Independence.

But I am not a prude about this stuff, nor am I an advocate of language police, or language vigiliantes. I like individuals to have a pair about it and do it themselves. But if they insist on saying stuff that contributes to keeping people down a notch, I am fine with political correctness enforced within the limits of our first amendment.

I used to be more hard line on free speech. But as I have aged, I have come to have no fear at humans finding creative ways around Big Brotherism in speech. What I have found intolerable is a single individual just trying to go to school and being called a slur day in and day out. That kind of language abuse just can't be tolerated in a free society seeking to educate citizens equally to think lucidly and to speak their minds.

If everyone calls you a white devil all the time at school, when our society gives you no choice but to be in school at an early age, the epithet becomes a form of verbal hitting that one can only defend one's self from for so long before one begins to loath one's self for not fighting back. We cannot have our fellow citizens subjected to this. We owe each other common curtesy in our schools and our work places so that we can focus on pursuit of becoming the best we can be.

@Crimsonorblue22

Weird it is, then. :-)

I am actually loving the resurrection of the word "weird," also.

It fell into disuse for a decade or so, after the 80s. Now it seems to be enjoying a resurrection. Its weird about weird.

@approxinfinity

Some how I have deleted my own post and moved it to the bottom. My ineptitude has reached herculean proportions. :-)

@Crimsonorblue22

The picture on the right of Chamberlain is iconic. It should be the NBA logo. He was an remains the greatest athletic freak on the planet in human history. HE was a demigod in sneakers. He was original. He beyond awesome. He redefined what was possible for a human being.

Here there is no untraceable bail out money but only alumni deep pockets,

Deep pockets and no untraceable monies and a yellow brick road,

The road winding above among red roofs on Mt. Oread

Which are mountains of alumni deep pockets without untraceable bailout monies,

If there were untraceable monies we should hire a coach in a wink,

Amongst the alumni deep pockets one cannot stop or think.

Thought is cheap and feet are made of clay,

If there were only untraceable bail out monies amongst the alumni deep pockets,

Mt. Oread mouth of dead oligarch's teeth that cannot spit.

Here one can neither wink nor hire nor obfuscate

There is not even silence on Mt. Oread,

But slippery track grease without skill .

There is not even solitude on Mt. Oread,

But red, liquor swollen, tail gate faces sneer and snarl

From doors of mud cracked SUVs.

If there were untraceable bail out monies,

And no alumni deep pockets,

If there were alumni deep pockets,

And also untraceable bail out monies,

And monies without strings--

A spring--

A Chicago Merc laundered fund, a pool of black capital
among the

alumni deep pockets,

If there were the sound of untraceable bail out monies only,

Not the cicada of alums,

On dropped tail gates singing,

But sound of untraceable bail out monies over an alumni deep pocket,

Where a sweet bird of asymmetric bail out sings in the elm

Tree growing only for the rich with friends at the central bank,

Untraceable, untraced, valve on, valve off, valve on, valve off, on, off, on, off, on, on, on, off.

But there are no untraceable bail out monies...

Not for KU Football.

(Note: my apologies to T.S. Eliot and "What the Thunder Said.")

@bskeet

I really didn't recall either coach winning even that many games!

Besides, asterisks need to go by those wins, because they were really nothing more than exhibition-grade opponents.

Legitimate D1 cupcakes always beat Weis and Gill.

I will always view Turner Fish Gill and Charles Never-in-Charge Weis as winless.

I will remember them as standing on the sidelines with black sunglasses, tin cups and canes begging for wins.

Coach Weis was especially pathetic, because he was old enough to have known better and apparently so willingly debased himself for the bones.

The two bookends of losing won a few exhibition games; that was all.

Next.

The litmus test for the next KU football coach is can he bring in a large number of talented players immediately that can stay eligible and off police blotters.

Players first.

Then charisma.

Then schemes.

It is so simple.

Just do it.

No, we're not a Nike school: can't say that.

What is adidas slogan?

"Impossible is nothing."

The hell you say, adidas.

Many things are nothing.

We don't want nothing!!!

How about: "With our money backing you, you can be a champion NOW!"

:-)

@Lulufulu

I hope so, I hope so. I think about him a lot and always when I hit the submit button. It is not so much that I am trying to please him, for from what I understand of him, he would probably not have approved of my sense of humor and the liberties I take with taste and orthodoxy at times. But I try always to be true to his humane spirit and to his guiding principle that basketball is a game to channel boys' (and now girls') aggressive, competitive tendencies via a set of rules prohibiting as much contact as possible and channelling those energies into motion and teamwork on a wood court with a rectangle painted on it ,and further with two goals on each end substituted for pounding another human being into a bloody, concussed mess.

(Note: I know basketball has much contact in it, but the rules are clear that the contact in it is either sneaky violation, or flagrant, and in either case, all involved understand that the physical contact that occurs is still child's play compared to the designed, maximum impact contact of, say, football.

James Naismith's game always points to a deep truth; that whether or not human beings choose to, they have the ability to pursue opposing goals without resorting to designed violence to attain them; this is the deep humane meaning that the game teaches almost without most participants knowing it. Further, when participants do pursue opposing goals without bludgeoning each other to death, they realize that they can enjoy the thrill of the competition, savor the victory, endure the loss, learn from the victory and from the loss, and gain respect for both the winner and the loser, no matter how ferociously they compete, and then walk away from the competition closer, rather than farther apart from each other afterwards. And penultimately, the game gives them repeated chances to come to grips with each other in this civilizing way, if after any given competition bad blood remains. And ultimately, if the bad blood can never be overcome, with the respect and admiration that usually accrues from fair competition, the two teams can agree never to play each other again. And so in the end, the game of basketball ensures from best case, to worst case, that the competitive, aggressive tendencies of young men are channeled in constructive, not destructive ways, and our culture grows just a tiny bit more functional and friendly with each game played.

Or so it seems to me.

(Note: the strategic use of violence in the game is why I am so vigilant and outspoken about the frequent drift toward XTReme Muscle. All the practical good of the game in the long term, ranging from boy's and girls learning to compete within physically safe limits, to the infrequent cases of some few children finding a way to education and prosperity, and to the therapeutic effects of the game on our nation, all of these hinge on the lesson of how to compete without winning by physically beating the opponent to a bloody, concussed pulp. Basketball teaches and reinforces this lesson again and again despite the TV contracts, the Petro-ShoeCo contracts, the monies under the table, the fixers, and so on. Basketball stands as one of America's few noteworthy contributions to civilizing persons. We should all be very proud and protective of it, as we are the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and art. These these are most worthwhile contributions to our posterities and to humanity. Basketball has changed many Americans for the better, despite the corruption that often seems so repugnant. It appears to be changing many persons overseas, too. And if its virtue is defended against those that would barbarize it, or turn it into some only accessible to elites, its potential for improving human relations over the long term is very large in deed.

Blacks and whites (aka Caucasian Americans and African Americans--the reversal of order is intentional to signal as much race equivalence on my part as I can) have learned to play together through basketball and though we have much progress to make in this regard, it is a start, and in basketball, as I have suggested, we have a never ending process and progress going on in the right direction. And unlike so many of our attempted solutions in this direction, both sides want to participate, because doing so is fun and costs neither side much they cannot substitute for another way.

(Note: for every white kid that cannot jump, slide, or shoot, there is skateboarding, or myriad other options. And never forget that for every black kid that can jump, slide and shoot, there are many more that cannot and so have to substitute other sports, also. One reason economic equality is imperative is so that many humane, civilizing can be viable alternatives to basketball. The key IMHO is for our culture to recognize and study the great benefits of basketball; i.e., team sports aimed at non-contact competition, and invent more of these games for our children, not just stand pat with basketball and baseball. Naismith's game points the way to more sports that therapeutically improve our culture without us even feeling we are trying to achieve such an end. It is the beauty of games that they can do this.)

I will return the Soap Box, now. :-)

A quintessentially nuleafian post

@drgnslayr

One of the most brilliant outside the box insights I have ever read!!!!!!!!!!

It can take a generation or more to see through the blinders of the past.

It may take another generation for coaches to get and process and implement the juxtaposition you just wrote about. But as sure as God made little green apples, your idea has to be tried because it is probabalistically determined to work . Time to get a coaching job, slyr!!!!

Your

"Coaching KU football is a license to print money losing."

-- jaybate 1.0

"No one ever got rich coaching winning football at KU, but Charlie Weis and Turner Gill got rich coachinglosing football."

--jaybate 1.0

"Beating Kentucky is like beating a crooked dealer in Vegas at 21. You shouldn't have to, but it feels good."

--jaybate 1.0

"You can lead a horse to water, you can't teach him to rebound."

--jaybate 1.0

"Coach Weis ran 30 players without so much as a handshake.

KU runs Coach Weis and he gets millions.

Is this what our soldiers sacrifice their lives to protect?"

--jaybate 1.0

"The toughness and cohesiveness of a Bill Self team equals the number of weeks of boot camp times the square of the trash bag liners."

--jaybate 1.0

"The KU football coach is someone that signs for 5 years to work for two years for 4 years pay. Hence, KU will never have trouble finding the next new coach."
--jaybate 1.0

What I always try to remember is that a really hard day is not enough to eat, or a loitering drone targeting you!

@jayhawkbychoice

Hard days sometimes make our writing sloppy, but a modest amount of struggle often deepens one's insight if only to escape it. 😄

Your argument seems reasonable.

@jayhawkbychoice

Your take on Conner's ages explains a lot about last year and signals promise for this one!

@HighEliteMajor

Bill Snyder.

Bill Self.

Bill Belichick.

Bill Walsh.

Bill Cowher..

Are there any good young prospects named Bill?😄

Since the untraceable bailouts, money is never a limitation. The limitation is the ability recognize a great coaching prospect, hire him an support him till he wins. Why does KU HIRE GOOD BASKETBALL COACHES SO OFTEN? Because there are a lot of folks around KU that know what a winning basketball coach looks like. Not so with football. We are fighting ignorance here. That is why I advocate hiring Self to find the next football coach. He is the best shot we have to recognize a good young coach. Together, he and Zenger could solve the problem easily. But the deep pockets have to tell bGL they will support the choice.

I want the job!

@Crimsonorblue22

No, I can't explain it, but I bet some one that has lived their culture more than I have could. It probably goes back to usages a century or more ago. Who knows? I could also be wrong! Maybe I think I hear a different emphasis on the word blessed and it isn't really there; that's where science would have to weigh in. I am responding on a poetic level. I know this is not about racism, because I am sensitive to these sorts of things in most subcultures, plus my ear picks up these sorts of distinctions in languages I do not even speak fluently. In Baja, Spanish is very hard and stoic and definitive. In the Carribean, especially Cuban folks, it becomes very sing songy. I have heard Baja Mexico folks laugh about Cuban accents and love how sing songy they are. And of course we hear sayings and phrasings among folks from the south of USA that delights our ears, whether or not we can emulate and use them correctly ourselves, without seeming ridiculous. I love "Y'all." But I have lost my ability to say it without affectation. More's the pity.

@RockChalkRedlock

I have been interested in how and by what rules teams move around the floor from an early age. Dancers also fascinate me in the same way, but I had no dancers in my family. :-)

I learned about basketball offenses very generally from my Dad around the age of 8. I learned about a specific offense, Bruce Drake's Shuffle Offense, at age 10 from my brother, who was learning it from his high school coach. I became kind of obsessed with basketball as a result of trying to figure out why Wooden and UCLA could beat everyone, especially my Jayhawks, all of the time, whether Wooden had a bunch of guys under 6-5 that no one had recruited hard, or when Wooden had some of the most talented teams of all time. Remember: he had undefeated seasons with both kinds of teams.

My ability to learn from others about offensive and defensive schemes has been there from the beginning. If you would tell it to me, I could spit it back with just a bit of insight about it. But, frankly, few either knew, or cared to teach me as much about it as I wanted to know. For most of childhood, I had no idea why I wanted to know so much about spatial activities and seemingly few others either wanted to know the same things, or didn't want to share what they knew.

So I pretty much played the game just for the love of it, and kept all the thinking about it to myself. Alas, I wasn't very good, so I didn't get to play long. I got cut my senior season for a lot of reasons, and limited talent was certainly a contributing factor. :-(

But once when I was young and broke I took a job surveying to try to save money to finish grad school. The guys on the crew were some of the roughest sons of bitches you could imagine. An Army Vietnam vet back in country three years with alcohol and anger management problems and post traumatic stress was my crew chief. Another guy was a Mexican illegal that had worked on a survey crew in Mexico before coming to America the hard way. Another guy on the crew had been a lumber jack in Idaho, fled a hit and run and had come to the southwest to lay low. Only the crew chief had been to college and he had only had a year. But all of these poorly educated, maladjusted, borderline crazy guys could use trig, a theodolite, a line rod, a chain, and maps, and find their way from brass caps at the edge of town 10-20 miles into the mountain wilderness, work as a team, and find a section corner marker on range and township baseline buried maybe since the railroad surveys of the mid 1800s and get back again without getting lost. This impressed me and, after first thinking they were a bunch of yahoos, I desperately wanted to be accepted by them as someone who could be relied on to hand signal right, calculate the expansion of the chain, and contribute to closing a square within an eighth of an inch going around the perimeter of a section, or two, while watching out for snakes and scorpions. They could do it, but I could not concentrate steadily enough. I was too sloppy. I day dreamed. I was thinking too much. Finally, they threatened to kick my ass as a group and leave me out in the desert if I didn't get my shizz together. I did. And was shortly accepted, though never respected because I was trying to save my money to go back to school. School was for pussies that could not cut it in the real world. Anyway, what I learned from these guys was that there was a small subsegment of human beings that are spatial attuned. They can think spatially, even if they can't read a detective mystery, or a newspaper. They can read maps and they can teach themselves trig, even though they can't, or won't, balance their check books. Out in a 108 F desert holding a line rod I learned that I was a spatial person that had been trapped in schools learning reading, writing, and arithmetic and some grossly oversimplified history all divorced from space. It was a big moment for me.

Over the years I have gravitated toward activities that have required an aptitude for spatial analysis.

Over the years I began to think more and more about basketball as a spatial game, rather than just a fun game, and about offenses and defenses as kinds of complex, high speed, surveys through space and time; things that might even be translated into mathematical algorithms.

Then I got a dose of feasibility and statistics in another grad school. It was all greek to me until I found a statistics professor that translated statistics into a probabilistic study of spatially distributed data points that in combination constituted a topology that was in effect a topographic map of quantities in place and time. Voila! Statistics all made sense suddenly! No more boredom. Relevance. A way of dealing with the uncertainties that crop up in spatial relations.

Then I got a dose of game theory along with informal strategy and I made the connection between spatial distribution of stuff, the movement of that stuff, the probabilities associated with the movement of that stuff, and the ways strategy and tactics could alter an opponents ability to anticipate and match up with that stuff, and the connections between topologies and topographies and so on.

It all hurt to learn each step of the way, because I kept having to surrender thinking I understood things, decide I did not, and then learn some more.

Learning hurts. Don't let anyone fool you.

But man does it feel good once you do learn it. :-)

Each step of the way, I have been able to see a little deeper into the game, even though I was learning that stuff for other things. I have been able to recognize more and more what coaches and players are either intentionally, or accidentally doing on the floor.

I am still bumfuzzled a lot of the time, just like anyone else.

But I have the spatial tools to analyze what is going on and eventually get it, if I keep after it.

I don't know if non-spatial persons can do it or not.

I only know that I am a spatial person and that if I work at it, with the tool box I have, I can wade through and get it eventually.

But let me tell you: it helps a whole lot to have other folks around contributing their bits and pieces of insights. Sometimes they say something in just the right way, something you have thought, or heard, a hundred times before, and you just go, aha, that' the missing piece I have been looking for to fit into this bigger, or smaller puzzle I have been thinking about.

What I like so much about Self is that he throws out a few bones to all of us arm chair analysts about what he is doing. He is probably almost a savant like spatial thinker. Way the hell over my head in that regard. I would bet that he actually has trouble saying exactly what he knows about certain parts of basketball, because basketball is a spatial activity with a lot of n-dimensional simultaneity to its processes, where as language is a very linear accretion of subjects, verbs and objects. A spatial thinker talking about basketball is kind of like a musician talking about music. He can sort of explain what he is doing and thinking musically, but not really. Same with a mathematician. Unless you speak math, some of it is hard to relate in English. Same with translating any language and way of thinking into another language and way of thinking. Some things get lost in translation, but maybe the big picture gets through, if the person doing the translating works hard to get the essence through.

So, the answer is: I could always do this some, but I have gotten better at doing it as I have learned more tools for dealing with space and what goes on in it.

Hope that helps.

Rock Chalk!

Back fill here.

@JayHawkFanToo

Pursuing Kansas talent is not an either or proposition.

You are right that KU cannot get by on Kansas talent alone.

But that just means that KU has to get its share of what top talent the state does produce in order reduce its dependence on foreign oil, so to speak.

Seriously, over the years, the state of Kansas has produced some great football players, just not in great numbers.

KU's modest football legacy would be drastically diminished without John Hadl, John Riggins, Bob Douglas, Nolan Cromwell, John Zook, and many others more recently that went on to have dominant, and sometimes Hall of Fame pro careers. KU cannot afford to let the great ones get away, even as it depends heavily on foreign oil.

I just love the evolving uses of languages and adore trying to adopt them in all kinds of ways and occasionally call attention to those uses that I think are being under recognized and under appreciated for their liveliness. Being receptive to the language use of others is like being a glue player on a basketball team. It means you keep the usage from sticking. You catch it and move it on. It makes the language feel so alive. And spreading the use of language is one of the small ways anyone can make our culture more inclusive. One of the great virtues of English the last few hundred years is its

In contradistinction, your use of the word 'weird" is so hackneyed, contrived and lifeless in its application to my post. :-)

JK to borrow from you, if I recall correctly. :-)

@Crimsonorblue22

Money became very cheap to a certain level of wealth during the untraceable bail out years.

But not to worry.

Fools and their monies are soon parted, as Grandpappy jaybate 1.o used to say.

@justanotherfan

Really a level headed, top-notch analysis. Bravo.

Still, I cannot help but wonder about the following: was Weis apparently perhaps never anything more than a broom--a manageable guy at the butt end of a career that would do exactly as he was told to do for a couple of years, for the retirement bones, while Zenger went through a long discrete process of deliberate, controlled discovery. Were there perhaps issues and risks of issues that had to be resolved before it made sense to decide on the super dynamic guy it would take to turn it around? Such super dynamic guys would have reason to steer clear of an athletic department that was not yet totally disinfected.

BGL and Zenger were perhaps riddled with fears about what kinds of skeletons were going to surface for a few years after Scalpingate and LewGate and ManginoGate. Those three scandals made KUAD and KU football possible, if not actual, athletic superfund sites. As the saying goes, you have to stop digging the hole deeper before you start trying to really fix things. Was Weis apparently a care taker that stopped the digging, while Zenger and BGL undertook risk management activities to achieve a comfort level with proceeding to the actual rebuilding? Maybe. Look at all of the athletic programs that have had big scandals in football and/or basketball. A care taker coach is almost always hired for the initial phase of clean up; then when the higher ups that expect to survive the clean up process reach a comfort level that all of the discovery and cleanup is complete, out goes the caretaker, and in comes the Phase Two remediation of actually building a sustainable winning program.

One can argue, as you and I have at times, that firing Gill after two seasons was the wrong move, and that hiring Weis was the wrong move from a narrow point of view of building a winning team starting at time zero. But perhaps BGL and then Zenger believed (and perhaps rightly) that they had to think in broader terms of a potential super fund site clean up. The university's billion dollar budget is so vastly much more important than KUAD's significant, but tiny in relation, budget that KUAD and the fund raising foundations (i.e., all the private 501.c3s) had to be gone over with a fine tooth comb to make sure they created no further blow back to either the Chancellor, or the vast budget the Chancellor perhaps owes her ultimate allegiance to managing. Really, KUAD is small potatoes to the long term, dare I say institutional, players. Its only relevance to them is keeping the lights on in the minor sports for compliance purposes. Its only big risk appears to be as a possible back door exploit by possibly predatory private oligarchs seeking to leverage athletic department influence into university and state political economic influence.

I believe the Chancellor perhaps learned a very chastening lesson from Scalpingate. Assuming the Federal investigation really did not discover any higher ups involved (i.e., assuming that they did not find higher up connections, or serious organized crime involvement, that the Feds simply could not find enough evidence to prosecute), then the Chancellor probably had to look in the mirror and wonder, "OMG, if a bunch of amateurs could rig a scheme like this for so long, imagine how easy it must have been for some really professional bad guys to have insinuated themselves into all of these 501.c3 spin offs. Holy cow! There could still be stuff buried out their that hasn't surfaced. And that means more potential fiduciary liability for me and more risk to the university budget!!!!"

Looked at from this broader perspective, BGL has perhaps just been doing her job skillfully and conservatively by playing the Phase 1 remediation process very close to the vest, before moving to Phase 2 remediation. Firewalling phase one and phase two, if such were done, might make some sense to pros in a way that laymen like us cannot fully appreciate.

Of course, we are on the outside looking in in our speculations and so it could just be rank incompetence. But over the years I have come to believe that most high ranking officials are not dummies. They frequently get out maneuvered and abused early on in their tenures, as others try to cost shift some of their dirty laundry onto the incoming newbie, but if they are decisive and quick processors, which they often are, then the actions they take that seem suboptimal on one level, take on a look of considerable astuteness when viewed at the broader level of the problem they are likely working at.

But as an outsider looking in from afar, I cannot yet tell what has gone on with a high level of confidence. I can only point out that the Gill firing and the Weis hiring and firing do not appear to make much sense from a narrow perspective of simply building a winning team, but do possibly make some sense from the perspective of managing unknowns in a troubled athletic department and its related fund raising foundations that might have been vulnerable to even more problems than those that surfaced.

Rock Chalk!!!!

@KUSTEVE

Self apparently picks his lesser talents for the roster based on a fellow possessing some phenomenal raw athleticism, or skill, and then tries to "coach up" the rest of the players abilities to minimum standard, so that he winds up with a bonafide specialty weapon that can be inserted without paying a huge price in the basics. Doing this gives Self "options" to play it anyway they want, and to create mismatches, and stretch defenses situationally to torn fabrics.

Self picks a guy like Mason to develop up to minimum standard to get the "Quantum T" type speed to apply to an opponent that brings in a slow steady type at PG, or a long range gunner at PG that isn't particularly fast, or as a response to an opponent inserting a lightening fast water bug to mix metaphors. FRANK MASON GUARDING AND OFFENDING EFFICIENTLY AT WARP FACTOR ONE FORCES OPPOSING COACHES TO GO WITH THEIR FASTEST DEFENDER ON POINT, WHO OFTEN IS NOT THEIR BEST SCORER OR BALL HANDLER, AND WHO IS OFTEN MISTAKE PRONE. THAT IS MONEY IN THE BANK FOR KU, IF ONLY FRANK CAN STEP UP TO THE NEXT LEVEL.

Self picks a guy like Conner to develop to strrrrrrreeeeeeetcch defenses down the middle. Any time Conner can stay on the floor defensively, handle the ball without TOs, keep it from sticking, get it to a wing reliably for wing initiation, toss a well placed lob, and be a threat from 28-30 feet, it is like automatically eliminating an opponent's ability to stop our bigs on the blocks from scoring at will. Their wings have to look to help on Conner. Their bigs have to stay on their own bigs because our wings will go to uncontested iron backside for a rim feed from Conner whenever they try to double down front side. And their bigs also have to anticipate long rebounds, which means that if they hold a standing height advantage that that advantage means significantly less, because they have to go horizontal to get the long rebound. And so on. Fans that say they don't care if their PG can drain the trey just don't recall the Trey Burkes and Sherron Collins enough. The trey balling PG is gold that can run. I cannot recall a team with a high percentage trey baller at point and some solid bigs that did not give teams fits.

Finally, there is the physical, jack-of-all-trades, Swiss Army Knife, Multi-tool, Jason m!@#$% f!@#$% Kidd kind of point guard. This guy can so physically and mentally intimidate other point guards with an XTReme Combination of physical and mental toughness and cat like quickness that the opposing point guard, even though he knows the guy doesn't shoot it well from outside, winds up a mentally intimidated, physical submissive by about 8 minutes into the game--the type that is looking at the clock frequently and praying he makes it to the end of whatever half he is in. It appears there is hope, expectation even, that Devonte Graham might be, or become, that kind of player. THIS IS THE KIND OF PLAYER, IF HE CAN MAKE THE EASY PLAYS, YOU START FOR SURE, BECAUSE EVERY OPPOSING POINT GUARD KNOWS HE WILL HAVE TO SPEND THE GAME THINKING MORE ABOUT HOW TO STOP BEING ABUSED THAN THINKING ABOUT HOW HE GOING TO CREATE THAT DAY.

And then there is that rarest of the rare point guard types--the standing height freak point guard--the Earvin Magic type point guard--the point guard that can do all the things the ordinary point guards do but just happens to be 6-6 to 6-9 standing anywhere on the court. This type of point guard makes ordinary coaches appear to be exceptional. This kind of player makes Jud Heathcote look like Albert Einstein playing an occasional game of soccer. This kind of player makes Pat Riley look more savvy than he actually was as a young coach. This kind of point guard means a coach actually has to actively LOSE a national championship.

Guess what. Self has Svi who everyone swears could never play a minute at point guard ever in his KU career, just as everyone that had not followed Magic closely doubted Magic's ability to keep succeeding at every level as a PG. Of course Svi lacks the combination of strength and athleticism and basketball IQ and ability to get better that Magic had, but so has every other point guard in the history of basketball. But a standing height point guard freak does not have to be as good as Magic to be a phenomenal "option" for a coach like Self. Oh, and Svi has reputedly been playing point guard most of his career already!!!! I know Svi did not look very good in the FIBA feeds we saw of him, but the fact is he was staying on the floor with international level competition at the age of 17 as skinny as he was. Add Hudy, stir, and Svi becomes a dream option. How long did it take you to muscle up? That rate is a combination of maturation timing and want to on the weights and agility drills. Svi could easily be maturing as we speak and three months of Hudy could make him quite ready to dominate by February. Or Svi might not mature, like Elijah did not mature, till his junior year.

Among this bunch of "options," Self basically has a coaches wet dream of possible choices, but he has to wait for the season to find out which are premature fantasies, which can go live under the lights, and which sadly just don't have what they appeared to have.

KU would be "blessed," with an emphasis on the word blessed, as African Americans often say it, if any of these four options came to full fruition. They would be killer point guards were they to achieve minimum standards and bring their unique XTReme skill to bear.

It is both exciting and mysteriously perilous. The team needs for two to become street legal D1 point guards to spell each other. One reaching that level seems very likely in terms of probabilities. Two is more of a stretch. My guess is that Self will get one to blossom, and then have to mask the back up spot with some committee play that plays the leper with the most fingers in any given tactical situation.

Rock Chalk!

Based on what you are describing, it seems quite plausible to me that a Petro-ShoeCo that helps bring an OAD to a school that it has an endorsement contract with, and to a coach that it has an endorsement contract with, might put a great deal of pressure on a coach to play that OAD, and use that OAD in a particular way, expected to be most beneficial to the player as a future product endorser.

It also seems plausible that if a coach resisted playing the OAD in the amount and way that the Petro-ShoeCo wanted, that that might lead that Petro-ShoeCo to route players it has cultivated relationships with to other coaches and schools that would play them add they wished.

Do you see Petro-ShoeCo contracts eroding the autonomy of the coach to play the players as he wishes?

For instance, do you think coaches might be asked to let OADs protect the merchandize for stretches of the season?

Do you think Petro ShoeCos that have a relationship with a great point guard prospect might insist that a coach play that prospect at point guard, rather than at the 2, or the 3, or not have future OADs channelled to that coach?

Or do you think a PetroShoeCo's interest in the players and coaches and schools focuses only on getting them to wear uniforms?

Starting at point guard in D1 takes a pair, not just talent and skill.

Last season the pressure of starting at PG for Bill Self finally cracked Naadir Tharpe wide open.

Frank Mason was given some early starts and folded under the pressure.

Conner was injured during an early season period where he might have gotten a start or two to see what he could do. When his knee came around, KU was busily looking unbeatable and headed for a ring run. Folks forget how great KU looked for awhile last season with Naa and before Embiid got a spinal adjust meant from the thuggers. Conner didn't really get another serious look until Naa cracked. Conner showed okay. Nothing fancy, just got it done for a short stint.

But starting at PG for a season takes an XTReme Pair.

It is brutal out there. Everyone is trying to wreck you everywhere you go. All the coaches are studying video of your every flipping week. Every little flaw you have is identified and schemed against. The wear and tear is XTReme. The psychological stress is XTReme. The starting point guard requires the resilience of some kind of super alloy.

When we point out guys that start as freshman and perform the duty adequately, we are talking about rare birds. Aaron Miles did it. But really, who else? Even Sherron did not start as a freshman and he was the toughest nut outside of Miles I ever saw as a young PG. The more time that goes by the more amazing what Aaron Miles did as a freshman becomes. Miles was freak IMHO. A man body with a man mind's toughness in a teenager. It was like Miles came out of the womb as hard as titanium. Mario Chalmers actually took years of toughening by Self to get him to be as hard as Miles started out. I don't even recall Self having to put Miles in the toughening box Self's first season. Miles by then would have kicked the walls out of Self's toughening box, taken the ball, and told the first year coach to stuff a sock in it and let us play, Coach. Miles lacking certain skills like shooting, so he could not go onto as great of a career as his toughness warranted. But Miles was a rock.

It is unfair to expect Devonte to have that much toughness in my opinion. But if he has it, well, then KU is lucky as hell.

What is more important is that we really can't infer much about the toughness of either Frank, or Conner, based on what each did last season, at PG. We only can say they weren't up to the challenge last season. We know both probably have enough of the basics to be given a look at the job this season. We can suspect that the odds are that one of them can grow into the job this season, but perhaps not both. But there is no way but trial by fire to see if either has the right stuff.

There is a reason Self looks after players and holds them out of deep water so much longer than a lot of fans wish he would.

Tharpe to me was an example of what happens to a player that gets in over his head for too long. Tharpe desperately needed another year of seasoning. He just wasn't ready mentally for the challenge. But no one else stepped up and so into the chamber he went and the bolt was thrown closed and the pressure of explosive competition proved too intense for him.

Young men can break if put under too much pressure. And there is no greater pressure than point guard for a 35 ti 40 game season at a program where expectations run high as Mt. Everest.

We as fans need to be viewing these three young men as possibilities. Maybe as a committee that might cope with a season and develop to a point of competence by the end of the season. We need to remember that none of the three is really going to be ready to go until the following season; that the biggest thing will be trying to keep all of them from cracking under the pressure.

We don't want another Tharpe. We don't want young men cracking. We want young men growing and getting better and better over time.

Rock Chalk!

Being John Reagan tonight could be a little like John Cusack playing Craig Shwartz entering a portal into John Malkovich's head, and finding that inside John Malkovich's head was a bizarre playing out of The Maltese Falcon in a KU football mystery melodrama.

John Reagan leaves a semi-successful situation to return to KU to try to put some offensive spark in Charlie Weis' floundering KU program. He does so reputedly to be near his family. There is speculation he might be the heir apparent to Weis, if they turn things around.

Enter the portal now, John.

Instead, the program goes from circling the drain to going down the drain. Weis is dismissed. And Clint Bowen, not Reagan, is named to replace Weis. It appears likely that Clint Bowen will be an interim head coach. The inference inside the portal is that John Reagan will not be the next KU head coach and that John Reagan likely as not will not be on the KU staff next season, unless rumors about re-hiring one Mark Mangino were to come true.

(Note: decided to remove the head shot of Mark Mangino that appeared here briefly, because I felt too lazy to go look up a proper recognition of the source of the photo.)

Inside the portal, it seems, John Reagan nee John Cusack, nee Craig Schwartz, is about to find out how much of a Snyder man Sheahon Zenger really is. Inside or outside the portal, Mark Mangino appears a Snyder protege gone east of Eden. But hiring Mangino would seem to be a kind of expedient in the current storm, unless the character doing the firing and hiring were unreeling a planned three act cinema verite about football. Such a cinematic premise would bring a wronged Snyder man out of Nod and give him a second chance at redemption Sam Peckinpah style, though Sam Peckinpah has no real thematic connection with this drama outside, or inside the portal, so forget about Sam. But screenplay would allow John Reagan to keep doing what he has done well in the past, plus stay with his family.

But this is where the Neo-Post Modernism thickens (or is that congeals?) around the sport of KU football.

Could the Casper Guttman of college football get a magic back that he was already in the process of losing as he was dismissed by one Louie the Perk Perkins?

"I'll say it right out. I am a man who likes talking to a man who likes to talk."--Casper Guttman aka The Fat Man from "The Maltese Falcon," written by John Huston and based on the novel of the same name by Dashiell Hammett

But is the former fat man of KU football now able to talk politely enough to players for Sheahon Spade and Bernadette O'Shaughnessy to take him back, to avenge the wrong done his career? And would John Reagan want to play Joel Cairo, or Wilmer, to The Fat Man again?

Mangino and Reagan made a cinematic football classic at KU with that Orange Bowl team. But classics are hard to reshoot without losing the magic. Mostly they blow up in the faces of those that try to repeat them.

Sheahon Zenger has a chance to do something fresh and good outside the portal. Outside the portal, it is time for Sheahon Zenger to hire someone that is a good fit, rather than someone that is an expedient fit. Weis was an expedient fit and expedience blew up in his face the way trying to repeat a classic probably would.

IMHO, Zenger needs to stop listening to all the football people inside and outside the portal, especially the possible John Huston fella inside and outside the portal--one KSU head football coach Bill Snyder. No one understands KU until they have been on the inside of it, least of all Snyder. Better that Zenger covertly enlists Bill Self outside the portal of Being John Reagan. Better Sheahon Zenger enlists the most coaching savvy KU insider there is presently, in the search process. Doing so he could make a strong ally of Self, and in the process increase exponentially his chances of picking a football coach outside the portal that would be a good fit for KU.

Finally, then, Zenger could make a stamp on the KU program by hiring his own man, inspite of who Little, or the deep pockets want and are undoubtedly already pushing on him. Until he does hire his own man outside the portal, Zenger is Little's man, Little's Wilmer inside the portal. Zenger's career and reputation are about to be made, or ruined, by what he does next.

Zenger now appears to have used Weis to sweep the program clean and expose any remaining skeletons on a timer fuser from the Perkins years. S-Canning Weis now suggests he might have planned to use Weis as his broom from the start, and planned to let him go early this season to give Zenger plenty of time to find the man he wants right on shooting schedule, if you will.

The only real question now is whether he brought John Reagan in to pave the way for returning fellow Snyder disciple Mark Mangino aka Casper Guttman aka The Fat Man to head coach status, or whether he let Weis bring Reagan in to keep Weis from getting wise to his soon to be disposed-broom status. The latter scenario could mean it would suck being John Reagan right about now. The former scenario could mean it would not.

Much as I admired John Reagan's offensive prowess, and empathize with Being John Reagan, and hoped he would become KU's head coach one day, I hope Zenger finally hires the guy he really wants outside the portal.

No more expedients.

But things are all equally up up to you inside the portal, Sheahon Spade, as well as outside the portal, Sheahon Zenger.

A football, especially as it relates to winning program putting butts in the seats, is like the Falcon: "the stuff dreams are made of."

The football is in your possession for the moment.

But the real question inside the portal is: are you going to do anything about what happened to Mangino aka The Fat Man? Does Mangino being a Snyder man mean anything to another Snyder man inside the portal? Is Mangino really a kind of Miles Archer to you, Sheahon Spade, or is Mangino just The Fat Man, just Casper Guttman?

If Mangino were Miles Archer to Sheahon Spade, then:

"When a man's partner is killed, he's supposed to do something about it. It doesn't make any difference what you thought of him. He was your partner and you're supposed to do something about it. And it happens we're in the detective business. Well, when one of your organization gets killed, it's-it's bad business to let the killer get away with it, bad all around, bad for every detective everywhere."

And for every Snyder football man, too.

Watch out, though, because football inside the portal, like the Falcon, makes some persons do desperate, foolish things.

And footballs take funny bounces inside or outside the portal.

THE END

FADE To Crimson and Blue.

(Note: All a neo post modern fiction. No malice.)

@globaljaybird

Truly you are correct. For much of the conference season, you need to be two deep for Saturday Monday games, given the ebb and flow of injuries and flu.

But in the tourney, when the level of competition ratchets up the final notch, going two deep is often a luxury one cannot afford to exercise, or does so only sparingly.

Recall that Self only used Aldrich significantly once in the 08 ring post season. But it was crucial to have him there when he was needed.

The fantastically high level of talent in the tourney after the first round means you mostly have to play through your best 7, often just your best five.

But the fascination of the game is that there remain a few situations where some one between 8th and 1oth on the depth chart has to come in an play the game of their life for you.

Its part of the great inherent drama of the game.

@Crimsonorblue22

It would appear Self shared some of your concerns about Conner, or he might have waited to bring in a higher ranked point guard on scholie than Devonte.

It will be very interesting to see any of the three can defend at a high level on a team lacking a rim protector and so absolutely in need of a point guard that can really guard hard and effectively.

This entire KU team has never had to play without a rim protector at the D1 level. It is going to be a scary new experience for them. No more over guarding tendencies and relying on the rim protector to cover the blow byes.

This season, it is going to take old fashioned Self Defense--the man-up and guard and help kind--to survive the campaign as either one of Self's conference title winners, or as a team with single digit losses, or both.

The objectives are clear for the group as usual: title and single digit losses.

The goal is a special season.

Rediscovering the verities of Self Defense, even if it costs us some FTAs for the other team, seems crucial.

I can hear the sliding sneakers right now!!!!!!!

Rock Chalk to you!!!!!!

Bill needs a point guard bad and he knows it.

He is pushing all the buttons to intensify getting better by Mason and Conner.

Self knows he needs someone that can dribble, make entry passes, protect, and make the easy plays ASAP, or Bill is looking at double digit losses for sure again.

Might as well break out the Nomex suits for Devonte, Frank and Conner, because Self is going to use everyone on everyone to some how win another conference title with Self's standing height version of Darby O'Gill and the Little People. :-)

Reserved for back fill at a future date. :-)

Now is the time for Bill Self to ask for another raise and settle for player housing.

Go, Bill, go!!!!!

Man, the silence from those that wanted to run Gill and wanted Weis is deafening.

Success has many fathers.

Failure is an orphan.

Early buyouts are immaculate conceptions.

Clint Bowen for five!!!!!

No more bailouts!

:-)

Truly disappointing. More money that should be spent on basketball housing going to ensure football coaches get early retirement.

Bad management by the AD in the Weiss hiring, tenure, and dismissal.

Weiss = symptom.

Zenger = cause.

Treat the cause, not just the symptom.

Looks like its time for an AD hire.

I nominate Bill Self for AD.

No scratch that.

I don't want to lose him as basketball coach.

I nominate Bill Self to hire the AD.

And then I want Bill Self to work with the AD to hire the football coach.

It takes a good coach to recognize a good AD and a good coach, if your Chancellor can't recognize a good AD.

One does not have to be in the same sport to recognize a great coach, or in the AD profession to recognize who would be a good AD, if one is a coach.

Self is our best shot at finding and recognizing a competent AD and head football coach and we ought to be using him right now.

He won't come cheap.

He will require new player housing.

He will require higher salaries for his assistants.

He may require a new hair club for men expense account.

But he will get it done and get it done the right way.

Rock Chalk!

Post Script a day or so later: I am going to modify this take to say that unless Chancellor Little and AD Zenger have been basing hiring and firing choices on a broader plan, like some sort of planned remediation of potential problems remaining in a recently scandal ridden athletic department, the way they have handled the Gill and Weis tenures seems is difficult for this layman to understand, much less appreciate. But as I have posted on some other threads here, it seems at least a possibility that the handling of the Gill and Weis tenures might possibly reflect some kind of on-going remediation process that we outsiders lack the level of training and inside information to appreciate. So: I want to cut Mr. Zenger, and all concerned, some slack and I hope some day that circumstances permit them to bring some more insight about this process to those fans like me that find this all rather puzzling and suboptimal.

Backfill space also reserved here. :-)

Back fill space reserved here. :-)