🏀 KuBuckets Archive

Dooley was the QA guy and a guard relationship guy. It seemed like Snacks and others replaced the relationships. What was not replaced was the analysis of tendencies--ours and theirs.

Self is a genius if he knows what to adapt to and change from. QA is the great edge in identifying such things. Dooley ran the numbers before games and at half time. Dooley found the weaknesses. Self created the exploits. Dooley probably created some too. But there were many games where there were no weaknesses found before, or at half of games.

Self also had inexperience and an absurdly tough schedule converge with injuries and the loss of Dooley. It was, if you will, a perfect storm and Self still won a conference title. Any other coach except maybe Pitino would have fallen to an NIT, or .500.

Be the above as it may, four things killed last season:

1.) Embiid's injury;

2.) Selden's injury;

3.) Wiggins protecting the merchandise most games; and

4.) Tharpe's cracking under the pressure.

Self found many, many fixes and had the audacity to put the team on Embiid's back to compensate for the next Lebron protecting the merchandise.

Self's brilliant early innovations to de-emphasize pressure defense and steals in pursuit of denying 3-PT plays inside and out and focusing on holding down FG% foremost, while winning by maximizing inside FG plus FT style 3pt plays became copied by most coaches by March.

Self's faced a perfect storm that washed away his chance for a ring season.

But this season will be a much bigger challenge because he lacks MUA at almost every position most games against good teams. He has to know this. Last season misfortune bit him, but this season he is going to be facing beating people without sharply better players.

OAD inflation has set in every where. The Harrison's, Julius Randle and Aaron Gordon and Wiggins proved most OADs can't win rings. Experience still has to be blended in in most cases.

Selfs OADs--Oubre and Alexander--will not flat out overwhelm any other Top 20 team. Not gonna happen. Thus, they are at most complements to the returning players and among those there is not one every game MUA among them, unless Selden's explosiveness is 100% restored and so far it appears it is not. Thus, this KU team will be lucky to lose less than 10 games again, unless Svi turns out to be a super freak, which his FIBA play suggested he was not.

It will take great "team" play for this bunch to win 30.

But Self is at the right stage to coax it, if he has solved the QA problem and the team stays healthy.

“Ask not what your rim protector can do for you. Ask what you can do for your rim protector.”

—jaybate 1.0

“The mid range game is for suckers.”

—jaybate 1.0

"Football is a head injury in a helmet happening to every player on every play, so that money can be made and autumn enjoyed at a tailgate.”

—jaybate 1.0

"Sunk costs in often unnecessary enterprises that keep a half percent of humanity rich make the world go round…a circling drain."

—jaybate 1.0

Svi: the Ukraine Migraine--for opposing defenses

Frank: the Racin' Mason

Wayne: The Ton from the Sun--for the way the big guard skies and comes crashing down to dunk

Perry: the Post Doc of Dunk--our brainy big

Jamari: Maximum Security--no one escapes him

Brannen: Long Gun

Conner: TN--short for. Theater Nuke

Kelly: First Strike

Cliff: Homeland Security

Landen: On Yo Head--as in Landen On Yo Head

Hunter: Bounty

At least we are not getting MU feeds.

I judge KU's talent level by what adidas recruits are not coming to KU.

Nike players go to Nike schools.

Adidas players go to adidas schools.

Rarely an OAD shifts alliance and school/shoe affiliation presumably for a better informal endorsement plan downstream.

Otherwise Nike to Nike and Adidas to Adidas are my hypothetical assumptions.

Thus ask where are the Adidas players going?

Alexander came to KU to play 4, not 5. He figured share with Ellis one season, and blossom at 4 the next. The other Adidas bigs at the 5 went elsewhere. That means that they thought Lucas and Michelson were solid at the five.

@Crimsonorblue22

Yes, "this" football game IS very depressing.

I fear the next coach will not have enough players left to run off a third of the team to establish his authority.

I also fear KU is running out of religious oriented football sects to try to hire football coaches to tap into. Gill and fundamentalists did not hunt. Weis and the Catholic high school feeder system did not hunt. What is next? A kosher feeder system? Hindu? Shinto Buddhist? Presbyterian? Do we dare try to hire an atheist to tap into the non believers?

It occurs to me that a lot of dog lovers play football and are fans.

Desperate times call for desperate measures.

It may be time to hire Cesar Millan.

Or it maybe time to keep Coach Weis and sign KU FOOTBALL up with NIKE! I hear Nike has a pretty good feeder system. Isn't Duke aligned with Nike?

Maybe Adidas makes sense for KU basketball, but Nike makes sense for KU football.

Forget the religious angle.

Maybe recruiting access is all about Petro Cleats!

Is that Robert E. Lee Pruitt up at the Campanile at lights out blowing taps for Charles Weis?

I see tears running down his cheeks in the moonlight as he pauses and turns the megaphone away from the Union and toward Memorial Stadium to blow another round of Taps.

Finally, Pruitt finishes and wipes his tears away on his khaki shirt sleeve and walks into the darkness from there to eternity.

Some came running, but they were all Blue Devil ball carriers, not Jayhawks.

The beating never stopped. Duke just ran out of time. KU was saved from death by a whistle.

Last season Coach Weis fired himself as offensive coordinator for poor offensive performance.

This season he has to fire himself as head coach for hiring John Reagan as offensive coordinator and for not changing defensive coordinators.

Or perhaps he will have to fire Sheahon Zenger for hiring him.

This is anything but a merry month of May for Coach Weis; this is like going to the widow maker without a pistol. There is a touch of danger to this season of one long and endless ice cream headache.

It gets to be a thin red line about who to fire.

It's lonely at the top.

Even with the $3.5 M bones per year.

(Note: this is jaybatean 1.0 literary sense and nonsense.)

@HighEliteMajor

Again, who plays PG depends on who plays 3, assuming Selden is a given.

Why did Naa have to play so much last season? Because NOBODY could stretch the spandex and Naa could at least be a credible threat from trey on the nights when he was not too spent from auto-photography.

Why did Frank see less and less PG time? It wasn't just that he didn't finish at the rim. It was that he never became a credible threat from trey and Self had NOBODY else to stretch the Spandex.

This spandex stretching shooting weighs heavy on an Okie Ballers mind, because without spandex stretching shooting, an Okie Baller's beloved hi-lo high percentage inside boogie is always in danger of being stymied.

And without an inside game, then opponents start crowding the three and one's W&L statement is essentially reduced to double digit loses from over reliance on the low 2 point J in between game.

So the amount of time that Conner plays PG depends largely on the following:

1.) Can Conner alternatives make the easy plays;

2.) Can Conner alternatives stretch the spandex;

3.) Can who plays the 3 stretch the spandex.

IF Frank and Davonte can't make the easy plays, THEN GOTO some new hi-lo improvisation built on tail dribbling, even though you are quite right that Self prefers speed balling at the PG, ELSE NEXT.

IF Frank and Davonte can make the easy plays AND stretch the Spandex, THEN Conner only sees PG PT at the end to shoot FTs, and PT at the 2 when Self can go small and needs Spandex Stretching from the 2, ELSE NEXT.

IF Frank and Davonte make the easy plays, but they cannot stretch the Spandex, and if neither Oubre, nor Greene can stretch the spandex at 38-42%, THEN Conner becomes the starter at PG, and maybe even Svi moving into the mix and you will witness a clinic in tail dribbling hi lo offense innovation unprecedented in Self's tenure, until Svi can get accustomed to D1 muscle ball and combine forward dribbling with long balling from the PG.

So much of what happens at PG depends on Greene and Oubre at the 3. Can either make the easy plays AND shoot 40% from 3?

If you yearn to see Frank and Davonte, and dread tail dribbling, then you have to kneel and buff the rosary for either Greene, or Oubre, to make the easy plays and trifectate at 40%.

Unless they do, this season has a lot of Conner and Svi at point written all over it.

My underlying assumption, of course, is that Selden can get his trey balling up to 38% with a lot of 3pt attempts.

However, if Selden turns out not to have gotten his explosiveness back, which I suspect is a 50/50 proposition, then his trey ball percentage will at most be 35-36% and that will put even more pressure on Self to play a spandex stretcher at point guard, even if he can't dribble forward a lick.

This situation is a study in linkages among positions, which is my favorite subject of analysis in basketball. A team is a tapestry of abilities woven for optimum net benefit and elegance of performance. Pull the string here, something changes there. Change the color of the string, or its tensile strength, or its elasticity, here, and something else changes there. If your 3 can't shoot the trey here, then your 3 position guy has to shoot it there. And so on.

Coach speak seems the tendency.

@JayHawkFanToo

My poopdeck pappy wore an. Open Road, so using Stetson in the joke was outtadah question!!! But thanks fer the Garth scoop.

Self and Garth should form a duet called The Brooks Brothers featuring Garth and Barth Brooks.

Nah!

Just one of those thoughts that pops in and then pops out again.

Like "William and Billiam Sing Side by Side by Sondheim at the Ponca City Bowl!"

Or...

Garth and Barth join Joe Piscopo in a Club Piscopo Tribute to Francis Albert Sinatra featuring a Nelson Riddle Orchestra arrangement of "It's 3 AM and I'm All Alone in Tulsa with the Ava Gardner 'I've Got You Under My Skin' Jersey Shore Blues."

Or...

See Rachel Ray Cook Naked Apron Style with Garth and Barth in Owen Wilson's "Full Metal Spatulas in Bartlesville."

Or...

Garth and Barth sing "The Fishing Channel's Greatest Hits" including "Lazy Ike Blues," "Me and My Rapala," "I'm a Daredevil But She Spit the Hook, " "It's Another Saturday Night and I Ain't Got No Mepps," "Snagged on You," and many more.

Or...

Interstate 35 Framboise Blues: the El Dorado Sessions of Garth and Barth.

Or...

Garth and Barth: Live at the University of Tulsa Cyber Warfare Virtual Commencement Gala

And so on.

@Statmachine

Fresh approach and worth tracking expectation vs. outcome to assess predictive effectiveness. But...

This approach might not have worked very well Travis and EJ's second seasons on the team.

This is my way of saying that Self seems to vary more in how fast he brings guys along than other coaches.

If Frank can make the easy plays, he is so fast he has to start.

But can he?

Self will be finding out right away.

If Frank can make the easy plays, then Self gets to stretch the spandex with Selden and Greene, or Selden and Svi, or Seldon and The Designer.

Conner lets Self play a non trifectate at one wing and still stretch the spandex. The non trifectate would probably be Oubre.

How important is starting Oubre to keep the OADs coming?

I just don't know.

Self has tended to start all of his OADs, even if he felt they needed 20 mpg of back up.

Can't say about Davonte, but Self said Davonte made the team a whole lot better the moment he signed.

I would say we are going to get early looks at all three to see if each can make the easy plays and to see how well the unit that each plays with does when the live rounds are being fired.

Then he chooses and one becomes a little seen commodity waiting for an injury, or screw up by one of the other two.

ESPN: NCAA rules UCLA freshman Bolden ineligible

JSPN: Alford’s Top Ten Recruiting Class Suddenly Top Twenty...or Thirty.

ESPN: Illini PG Abrams tears ACL, out for season

JSPN: Senior Abrams swaps 22 for 23 the hard way

ESPN: Texas suspends Walker after assault charge

JSPN: Texas loses a sub to an alleged jealous rage involving 4 alleged punches of a woman after she reputedly went to happy hour with her boss--what allegedly happened to reputed manhood?

ESPN: Memphis recruit reclassifies for Class of 2015

JSPN: Pastner signed one 6-7 Lawson brother without hiring poppa as a coach, but then hired poppa and signed his 6-8 second son. Linkage? We don't need no stinking linkage!!!

ESPN: Villanova gets No. 22 Brunson

JSPN: Snacks loses an Illini prospect to Jay Wrong: what is right with this picture? Absolutely nuthin'! Say it again.

ESPN: Sources: Calipari planning UK-only combine

JSPN: Who stacked Cal’s Nikecats with 9 Mickey Ds, including a front line of footer Towns, footer Cauley-Stein, and 6-11 Dakari to go with the 6-6 Harrison twin guards plus power forward Pothyress. Was it adidas? It would appear unlikely. Was it Under Armour? Hmm, seems unlikely. Who could it be then? Hmmm? Who could stack the Nikecats with that much talent? Is there more smoke here than a three alarm fire, or is it a one in a Graham Number random chance that all this talent shows up in a single season attracted to mousse? Even Coal Miners Canaries and Car Assemblers’s Ostriches with Heads in tar sands and fracking cracks have to watch their breaths around this roster.

ESPN: New Mexico coach gets $5.7M, 6-year contract

JSPN: Craig Neal can’t crack an even mil per year in the Land of Enchantment. What is enchanting about that?

ESPN: Two men want Boeheim slander suit reinstated

JSPN: You can't keep a good scandal down!

ESPN: Wake Forest adds NFL star Crabtree's brother

JSPN: Danny signs his fourth. Go, Danny, go!!!

ESPN: Austin Peay PG Smith gets half-season ban

JSPN: School apparently does not disclose cause of 14 game suspension. Disclosures? We don't need no stinking disclosures!

ESPN: Christie: Casinos, tracks can take sports bets

JSPN: Prez candidacy in trouble, Christie Lobs One to Big Gaming, so Big Vinnie and Vito get out the deceased vote? Gee, I wonder if that's why Lebron went to a team owned by a guy that owns casinos? Its all too complicated to figure out, isn't it?

ESPN: Attorneys: Wojcik, Charleston reach settlement
JSPN: School apparently says what Woj didn’t do, not what Woj did do, then settles. Hey, who needs to know anything about anything in the Post 9/11 era, right? Shizz happens, then you settlement.

ESPN: Marquette names Scholl new athletic director

JSPN: AD Sholl leaves Ball State after a year and a half for Marquette, but players have to lay out a year and lose a year of eligibility--makes sense to me--in a parallel, flipping, inverse universe maybe.

(Note: all satire. No malice.)

@globaljaybird

Sometimes it comes down so hard...

!Hat Rain Hard.png ↗

But you've got the right stuff.

And Bill will coach 'em up and the boys will play.

Rock Chalk!

@jayhawkbychoice

Let's win 40!

@jayhawkbychoice

Thx, but I am just the resident doddering old fool around here now.

The torch has been passed and if you've been reading for a few years, then you know the usual suspects one needs to round up to be an informed Jayhawk fan these days.

Rock Chalk!

@VailHawk

Ribs at Freddies? :-)

@DoubleDD

LOL!

Thanks for the title change.

You are showing good humor that makes KUBuckets great.

Rock Chalk!

Don't let the facade of Kansas basketball fool you.

We are a front organization for aliens from an exo-planet called Mas Hoopahs.

We are researching primitive oligopolistic competition between producers of hydrocarbon based foot covers you humans call adidas and Nikes.

We have George Raveling in a green tractor beam being lifted right now up to our mother ship.

We are personally responsible for the seed monies for X-Files and House of Cards and the Today Show.

Keep our secret and you may surf here as long as you like.

Betray us and the ghost of Sterling Hayden will drain your bodily fluids.

(Note: all fiction. No malice. And welcome.)

@globaljaybird

We come from the same time capsule.

We can recall the time when the only divided four lane high way in the state was Ike's Kansas Turnpike.

We an recall when the interstates were new.

We can recall when American iron was the best.

We can recall 3.2 beer joints, restaurants without mixed drinks, and bottle clubs at the edge of town.

We can recall when Kansas was Main Street Republican.

We can recall when Presidents rode in open cars and didn't get assassinated and when Presidents couldn't assassinate whom they pleased.

We can recall antennae's on roof tops that could be turned to make a blurry B&W picture a little less blurry.

We can recall the Civil Defense tests and the neighbors digging bomb shelters.

We can recall the Civil Rights Movement before it reached critical mass.

We can recall Laika, or at least can recall people recalling Laika, the Russian dog launched into space.

We can recall when Nike referred to missiles in silos near Gardner/Edgerton Exit on I-35, not petro-shoes.

We can recall Sputnik, Echo and Telstar.

We can recall the Yuri Gagarin and Alan Shepherd.

We can recall Little Rock and Selma.

We can recall Francis Gary Powers and the U-2.

We can recall Jim Brown, Ernie Davis and Floyd Little one right after the other.

We can recall Mick and Say Hey.

We can recall seeing our first Volkswagen and then going to see Chevy's Corvair to see if it was better.

We can recall dream cars.

!3080730.001_1029super2.jpg ↗

And dream buses.

!1953-gm-futureliner-motorama-dream-car.jpg ↗

We can recall Parnelli Jones almost winning at Indy with the first STP Turbine car fielded by Andy Granatelli.

!iu.jpeg ↗

And the second.

!iu-1.jpeg ↗

We can remember Carroll Shelby dropping a Ford 260 V8, the same small block I ran in my '64 Ford Falcon, in an AC Bristol and calling it a Cobra.

!iu-2.jpeg ↗

And the 427.

!12.jpg ↗

We can remember the police dogs and fire hoses in Alabama.

We can remember rockabilly and rock'n'roll.

We can remember the Sun Sessions.

We can remember Chuck Berry blue printing rock and roll the way people used to blue print a 409.

We can remember when America had never lost a war.

We can remember when America waited to wage war until it was attacked.

We can remember when the music was still fun.

We are survivors that rode a very long wave with a very big face and avoided the break that took so many others down.

We are here.

And for whatever reason, we get another basketball season.

To those that aren't from our time capsule, all we can do is smile real big, cue up J.J. Jackson, and step one two cross, back one two cross, all the while spinning our arms and fists like an old reel mower, oh.....

"You don't know how I feel

You'll never know how I feel

When I needed you to come around

You always try to bring me down

Oh, but I know, girl, believe me when I say that

You are surely, surely gonna pay, girl

But it's all right all right girl

You can hurt me but it's all right

Hey now, one day ah, you will see

You'll never find a guy like me

Who'll love you right both day and night

You'll never have to worry 'cause it's all uptight

Oh, but I'm tellin' you girl and I know it's true

That I was made to love only you

But it's all right, all right girl

You can hurt me, but it's all right

Go on, yeah

Oh, oh, yeah

My my my baby, wow, yeah!

But it's all right all right girl

Hey, say it's all right all right girl

Now there's one thing I want to say, hey, yeah

You'll meet a guy who'll make you pay

He'll treat you bad and make you sad

And you will lose the love you had

Oh, but I hate to say I told you so, but

Baby, you gotta gotta reap what you sow

But it's all right all right girl

You are payin' now, but it's all right

So goodbye, now, goodbye, girl

You're payin' now, say bye-bye

You hurt me once, you hurt me twice

Oh, but-a baby, that don't cut no ice

Hey, goodbye, baby...."

P.S.: I'm in good with god regarding dogs, and he tells me in no uncertain terms that your dog is sitting at his right hand and happily waiting to resume being your loyal friend when the time comes.

And so I will quote from "Soldier in the Rain," as I sometimes do.

"Unitl that time Eustace, until that time."

@wissoxfan83

Now, wait a damned minute.

Misery and Silo Tech are not technically universities.

They are more what you might call Instititutes of Advanced Beastiality and Sudafed Chemistry.

They are, therefore, strictly off limits.

(Note: Forgot to mention--just kidding around here--about KSU. )

Because Svot is Lov is long, skinny, young and not playing against a lot of prison body leapers, there is lots to question about his game.

He looks likely to have a lot of difficulty staying in front of D1 guards. Frank Mason would shoot by him like a crotch rocket Yamaha down shifting past a Dodge Sprinter running on three cylinders burning unrefined cooking oil from a Mexican restaurant.

And yes, the Svotster's trey is very suspect after the FIBA games, where he was having trouble getting it off with a height advantage against zero ground clearance types.

But...

There was something unmistakably mouth watering about this game that does not at first jump out at you. Svi has what most great point guards and slashers and penetrators have. He has a sixth sense about how to move his body to get an edge on a defender and put himself between the basket and the defender. He even slows up and forces the turn and burn defender trying to catch him to run into his back, before he commits to taking the ball to rim or pulling up and shooting. This is something YOU CANNOT TEACH EVER. This is something only natural scorers do. It is the unspoken part of putting space between yourself and a defender. It is getting the angle on the defender and then sliding in and delaying so he has to slow to avoid hitting you and as he slows, you explode up for the shot--lay up, or J. Magic Johnson is the only other XTREmely Tall ball handler I have ever seen with this gift. Because Svottie has this rare gift, he is worth developing as a ball handler, whether he be a 1, 2, or 3. Like Tyshawn Taylor's rare speed that made him worth putting up with his often painful development arc, Svi is going to be worth teaching him to guard his position, which this feed makes appear that he cannot not do consistently.

Svi needs coaching up, if ever a player needed coaching up. But man could he become a great weapon once coached up.

@wissoxfan83

Love your response.

But hell no you cannot stop talking Bucky Ball. I was just having some fun. Self and Bo are the two bonafide successful right way coaches.

Alas, I fear they maybe in ten years the hoops equivalents of Joel McCrea and Randolph Scott in Ride the High Country. Oh, I hope not.

Regardless, I was just having some fun.

Beside, perhaps you recall I went to grad school in Mad Town and so I have some strong affection for what Bo has done and will do there.

And last year's Badgers did more to reinvent the X-axis and the art of shooting than any team in a long time.

But if KU and UW meet, then: "BRING ME THE HEAD OF ALFREDO BO GARCIA!!!!!!"

I hugely appreciated this feed being posted. Thanks. But could we change the title of this thread to "building up Svi" instead of breaking down Svi? 😄

Ah, yes, hoops season nears. And @wissoxfan83 is posting about jaybate 1.0's posting not involving KU basketball and posting about LSU and Wisconsin football!!!!

Yeeeee hawwwww!

Bring me the head of Alfredo "Bo" Garcia!

Bring it next March.

Bring it to Allen Field House on a pike after cutting it off in the NCAA tournament and proving that the Wisconsin girlie men and their hockey puck fans are pretenders at the greatest game ever invented.

(Note: one can be a dual fan in the off season, but NOT during the season!!!!!)

Here, once the season starts, there are no dual university loyalties. There is no love for State Subsidy Street connecting the pork of UW with the pork of the state house. Ice fishing and ice sailing cannot buy dual loyalties except in the off season.

Here we trap Badgers, and cook them on cotton wood spits to be fed to pound dogs in Desoto.

Here we consider "On Wisconsin" a chain gang song sung by pasty whites that said, "Yah, sure, Marge, see ya soon," to wives, after being sent to Club Fed for fiduciary fraud in insurance hustles.

Here, Badger red is only a symbol of their blood running after a Jayhawk administered beating to a bloody pulp.

Here, Jayhawk rings exceed Badgers rings. Here Jayhawk total wins exceed Badger total wins.

Here, wheat beats barley, and oil beats hops, and Cobalt beats Mirrocraft.

Here, it is not enough to have a few teeny custom cheese makers to offset Kraft, a few custom gut casing stuffers, to off set Oscar Meyer, and a few good breweries amidst all the decades of Schlitz and Old Milwaukee and PBR being foisted of unconscionably on beer drinkers as gussied up hops infused cat piss.

Oh, my, yes, the season of the greatest game ever invented approacheth.

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the basketball lord!!!!

:-)

Ah, any day I get an LOL from "The Leaf" is a good day. 😀

Try to find a store that sells ammo that actually has 22 caliber shells for sale without having to buy a cheap rifle to go with it.

Watch Sam Peckinpah's "Ride the High Country" again to see Joel McCrea get gut shot at the end and say, "Don't let them see this," referring to two young kids as McCrea begins to die. Hear McCrea add, " I want to go alone;" then hear Randolph Scott say to his dying friend as Scott prepares to leave him to die: "See you later."

Try on a pair of canvas Chuck Taylors and a pair of adidas and thank the basketball god for modern basketball shoes.

Fly to Honolulu, get up very early, and go to Eggs and Things and have their deservedly legendary banana pancakes and coconut syrup and then walk along any beach with "IZ" Kamakawiwoʻole's "Over the Rainbow" on your Nano and realize perfection can happen.

Fly to New Orleans and walk through the French Quarter with the ear buds full of Satchmo singing "What a Wonderful World" and realize that even though Clay Shaw was finally exposed for being an intelligence asset, President Kennedy's brain is still missing, and no one has been found that could make the shots with the magic bullet Oswald made with the Manlicher Carcano, that yes, its a wonderful world.

Go buy a red '60 Chevy Impala convertible with a white top and moon hub caps and bullet taillights and late at night drive to the last place you parked with a girl when you were in high school, forget that its all changed, park, put the top down, crack a tall cool one and plug in the ear buds and play Unchained Melody" and "You've Lost that Lovin' Feelin'" by the Righteous Brothers. Then whisper as you look up to first the Big Dipper and then the Belt of Orion the Hunter: Its been a sweet, sweet, sweet ride and I wish it could never end.

Go for a walk in the old neighborhood you haven't seen for 30-40 years and stand on the exact spot where the one that got away last held you and play "Stand by Me" by Ben E. King and feel the old pain shoot through your pumper as achingly as it did way back when you had no idea you would carry this with you your entire life.

Then go home and lay down in bed and play "IZ" Kamakawiwoʻole's "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" one more time on the Nano before you close your eyes and whisper to yourself: it was all so incredibly awesome and add in a whisper, hey, big bro, up their in heaven, I got lucky, I got really lucky, I got another basketball season big bro, its just around the corner, coming just like the winter comes, almost before you know it. See ya later, big bro, see ya later.

Light the field on fire between warm ups and kick off.

Student sprint car racing on the track at half time with lanes divided by fire.

Plant microwave crowd control device on the opposing team's bench and turn it up to maximum burning sensation.

Skin and barbecue a real wildcat during the first half on an open pit fire in the KSU end zone.

Frack underneath the Oklahoma bench and toss a lit match into a settlement crack.

Let Garth Brooks and Bill Self duet a slide guitared, country version of "Light My Fire" by the Doors wearing nothing by Resistols, RayBans and Luchesses.

Field a good team.

(Note: all fiction. No malice.)

Confidence.

I like it.

@bskeet

thumbs way up for home and away skins for game days.

BG has a great opportunity. He has the experience and a gun.

But Oubre has a great opp also. He's got the OAD genes and Self could use another OAD draft choice to keep the OAD recruits coming.

Each has two crucial to be determined characteristics.

Greene has to prove he has plucked his wild hair and can ding the trey dependably.

Oubre has to prove he can adjust to D1 velocity and ding the trey.

Out of the block, Greene probably has an edge and will probably start early. But Oubre's got the OAD genes and so he is likely to start some after the first few weeks.

But over time, the one that dings the trey the best should play the most.

"Waters capacity to find his own level" would have been better.

Also...

"Waters floods corners and safeties with passes."

"Smooth Waters runs deep."

Etc.

Yawn.

But my favorite headline will be: KSU 0-13 AFTER SNYDER RETIRES

What crowd?

:-)

You say Svi

I say Svat

You say see

I say what?

Svi is lov

Svat is lov

Svi is lov

Svat is lov

Let's call him Ma-KILE-uk now

:-)

I just read where a bundle of four recruits that will be at Lat Night will also go as a foursome to UK's tepid equivalent of Late Night. I think it is something called Cracked Teeth and Still Juice in the Night, or something like that. Anyway, it occurred to me to wonder if Nike and adidas were perhaps in a bidding war for this foursome? Does anyone know if the foursome are going to go to an Under Armour school's Late Night equivalent? This type of cluster recruiting/marketing of endorsement talent could get very interesting.

I have a suggestion for CBernie, the AD, Self and the Dean of the Journalism/Advertising school. How about KU creates a degree path, or at least a major, in "Global Product Endorsement"? It could be in advertising under the marketing rubric. Or stand alone. Players take a curriculum geared toward preparing them for the techniques, enterprise science, market economics and law of global and regional product endorsement. Players are trained not only how to engage in product endorsement as endorsers, but how to then move into management and regulatory and policy making roles in the product endorsement field. Product endorsement is a huge specialty field within marketing and advertising.

KU could "develop" endowments and attract grants to an Institute for Global Product Endorsement Research.

Imagine how much money adidas, or Nike, or Under Armour would be willing to allocate to endowing such an institute. The institute could over time become a research and policy generating and promoting organization focusing on regulation and standards in global product endorsement. It would quickly become massively influential. The institute should be set up to address product endorsement beyond just sports. Huge!!!!!!!!

Players would come back and finish their undergraduate degrees in Product Endorsement and then go on to graduate degrees and affiliation with the Institute.

Cha-ching!!!!!

Rock Chalk!!!!!

@drgnslayr

P.S.: Burrow down to the low blocks, Wayne Selden, and post up some of those Y-axis girlie man 2s.

slayr, I'm telling you, you have nailed a personae for this team.

Now every where I go, I am going to be thinking of these KU players as tunnel borers. The floor under the opponents is going to be riddled with X-axis tunnels. Eventually the opponents will be falling in holes and tunnel cave ins will bring them to standstills.

Borough towards Bethlehem, boys!!!!!!!!!!!

@drgnslayr

Just a kick-ass post.

I loved it.

Eh, SEMSU was a "good" match-up for KU.

Duke is a mountain with hiking trails for this team to climb.

OU, KSU and Texas will be Himalayas.

@JayHawkFanToo

Fingers crossed for big Wayne to find his passing gene.

@HighEliteMajor

Copy and paste.

Add: the untried option I want added, when Selden has MUA is: when the wing dribbles baseline to throw it cross court under the basket to the other wing, instead of arcing out of play then to the corner for a quick catch and shoot from the corner, I want Selden to dribble base line. make the cross court pass to the opposite wing, the low post clears up to screen for the high post, while Selden fakes corner but instead posts up on low block for quick return pass from opposing wing, and has option to turnaround J, or dish to high post cutting to rim, or turn and follow high post to rim like an I-back following a fullback and cram it. And if Selden opts to dish to cutting high post, Selden follows to finish any miss by the high post.

@JayHawkFanToo

Maybe schedule Missouri Baptist next season? If SEMO can hang 77 on them, surely KU could break 80!!!

It appears KU's defense is not quite where it needs to be against cupcakes.

But a win is a win.

Next.

!KUBTruth2.png ↗

:-)

@Crimsonorblue22

Oh, good, that way the interns from Tulsa won't have to waste time on Cox and they can get back to ESPN. :-)

(Note: Just joking again here.)

@JayhawkRock78

Be sure to eat some Edam and Gouda for us. And stay out of any drinking establishment with a guy named Jean-Baptiste Clamence at the bar. :-)

MEMO: HISPN ACCESS TO DIGITAL SPORTS CONTENT

CLASSIFICATION LEVEL: FHACTS (Fantastically High Above Commercial Top Secret)

TO: Nuleafjhawk, Professor, Will Rogers Chair of Laughs and Letters, KUBuckets Institute for Advanced Basketball Wit

FROM: jaybate 1.0, Anchor, HISPN

SUBJECT: As the newly hired anchor for HISPN, I am going to break a personal rule and actually watch a football game--specifically, this KU vs. SEMSU game. I am doing this not because my contract requires me to do so, because it does not. I am going to watch this match up of future head injuries for three reasons:

a.) because the athletic department will not quit fielding these football teams and so are a continued risk both to brains and to poaching basketball revenues due to CRS (aka coach-running syndrome);

b.) this could be the only win of the season; and

c.) because I love this year's new football uniforms!!!!

Will the game be on Cox around the USA, or just in Kansas outside the Lawrence blackout? Please notify me using a secure channel at the following link:

www.HISPN.continuityofgovernmentandcorporatepork/jaybate1.0.org

Without putting too fine a point on it, HISPN has taken on a bunch of interns from the University of Tulsa cyber-spying degree program and so they are able to hack me into digital communications around the globe without any of us being sent to Gitmo, under a rubric of interns' training, so long as only sports programming is hacked into.

Please advise.

(Note: All fiction, except for the part about wanting to know if Cox will carry the game around the USA? But of course, sans malice.)

I agree that Ellis makes this a real option.

Ellis made it a real option last season, too.

The Morri made it a real option when they were twinning in the hi-lo.

And I agree its just a question of whether he uses it or not.

The answer, if past were prologue, is that he will talk about it and then decide not to use it.