I wonder if any schools, KU for instance, itemize donations by donors for public consumption?
Anyone know?
jaybate 1.0
10346 posts
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Julian had very similar athleticism to Wigs and the same weaknesses at the time both turned pro.
And if you consider only Wigs games with Embiid, Julian actually probably had as many, or more beastings. Wigs has only scored huge without Embiid. Julian never had to play without his other impact men. Julian could easily have hung 40-50 in meaningless games down the stretch if Rush had gone out down the stretch and Self decided to force feed Julian 18-21 FGAs per game. People are forgetting how awesomely athletic Julian was that last season. I'm comparing them on the years they left.
The ability of either player to have good NBA career hedges on their long jump shooting. Julian never could get better, even though NBA GM's believed he would. Wigs future depends heavily on the same. Maybe he will shoot it better. But if he doesn't, the NBA IS WHERE YOU FINALLY HAVE TO BE ABLE TO SHOOT IT, unless you are a rebounding and defending freak!
Also, regarding rankings, RUSH WAS REHABBING A KNEE and voters were waiting to see whether RUSH WOULD MAKE IT BACK TO FORM. without Rush healthy that KU team was NOT a great team. He did not really reach peak form till late January, even though he played back into shape early.
No one, not even KU FANS thought KU could be great without Rush. But anyone that knew basketball knew that with Rush the team was the most remarkably athletic defensive team to come along in a very long time.
Defense wins championships.
KU could have and would have handcuffed the other champions. Florida had no one that could have out guarded and outscored Rush at the 3; that was their hole. Every where else KU WAS EVEN OR BETTER and DEEPER.
UConn was very good but our guard depth would have worn them down.
Rush, because he was older, would have eaten Kidd-Gilchrist for dinner.
And again, not one other NCAA champ in that decade had to beat two teams of the caliber of UNC and the Memphis Ineligibles.
Never consider national rankings by coaches or media in a comparison of this sort unless the KU coach has become a legend. In 2008 self was still the hick Okie that couldn't win the big one. Once he won the ring and 7-8 titles they recognize him and KU. KU will always be rated low by other coaches in recruiting hotbeds, because KU has to recruit by poaching their backyards. And the national media until the last 3-4 years has tended to under report and under rank KU for the obvious revenue reasons. Any other EST team on a 25 year roll like KU gets preferred coverage and ranking.
Is it a good year for private oligarchy (PO), or what? The Kochs and Buffets are highly seeded.
Even ancienne PO like Harvard and Stanford are in it!
BUT the oil-agarchs at SMU and Tulsa and Okie State are going to have to write bigger checks!!!
The big question is when are U Chi and Carnegie-Mellon going to get serious?!!!!!
Go PO, go!!!
Ahem. Just kidding around here. Right?
Seriously, I have no idea if any of these folks mentioned donate any money to the schools involved.
PHOF
Nova and ISU. Agreed, that one is going to make use of x, y, and z axes, and every manner of scoring, and some show downs between players that don't back down. Scrappy for sure.
Oh, I hate it when you respectfully disagree, because then you are almost always right!
We agree that you bring your A game for no more than one of the games in a two game set. And you try to make it through the first round with you B game.
We agree that the West is an easy one, because it lacks two teams the caliber of Florida and Syracuse (Note: I know you're not high on Syrxcuse, but I am), plus a third one the caliber of KU, if Embiid gets back 90%.
But the Midwest lacks a team as good as Florida, and maybe even as good as Syracuse. WSU is not the caliber of Syracuse and Florida in my opinion. And neither are all the other very good clubs. Basically, all the other good clubs in the Midwest are a little better than KU without Embiid. The midwest would have been tougher for KU to make it through the first two games, but the South is going to be much tougher to make ti through the second two.
My point remains that Syracuse and Florida aren't going to get beat. KU is going to have to beat both. The hardest teams to beat with your B+ games are the best teams. Since Syracuse and Florida are certain to advance, because there is only one other good team in the bracket--KU, KU has to play its A game twice in a row, because there is no one else good enough to upset Syracuse and Florida.
But here is how I feel about these disagreements with you.
Usually, you turn out to be right. :-)
I tried to answer the question as I understood it.
If I had been asked what the best two time champion, well, then Florida was the only one.
I don't mean to disrespect Florida and Donovan's most remarkable accomplishment in modern D1 history--winning two rings in a row. They were a great, great great team. If the question were asked differently, say, what was the greatest accomplishment by any NCAA champion, I would have said Florida and its two rings.
But I really think KU's '08 team would have cleaned the clock of either Florida team had their great seasons occurred the same season and they met in the Finals.
It gets very tricky to compare teams from different decades, because the game does change over time in many overt and many more subtle ways.
And the farther back one goes the more anomalously great teams one accrues.
That being said, I would have to go back to Tark's great UNLV ring team to find as good of a defensive team.
Then before that it would be Knights undefeated 1976 Indiana team.
I believe the '08 KU team and those teams would be about 50/50 who would win. Very even. The one huge edge that 76 Indiana team had that few recall was 6-7 Bobby Wilkerson at the 2. Wilkerson could just lock anyone down at the 2. It is a kind of defensive edge NO team before, or since, has held at that position that I can recall. So, I might have to give that Indiana team a slight edge, but not I really think we were better at the other positions.
To actually find a team that I think the '08 KU team could not guard, I would have to go all the way back to Walton's best team and Alcindor's best team at UCLA. Even our great '08 ring team would have had no answer for Alcindor and Walton and in their best seasons, those UCLA teams could guard ferociously. I know they were skinnier back in those days and our '08 team could probably have outmuscled them under 2008 rules, but under 1960s/1970s rules they would probably have taken us.
Anyway, this is why I don't like to compare teams across eras. But you asked and I was intrigued because so much of defense is want to, and so I took a stab at it. Further back than that you probably have to look at Bill Russell's teams, though I didn't see them. He alone was such a dominant defender who proved for his entire career that he could defend players like Wilt Chamberlain, so if Big Russ could guard Wilt Chamberlain, I have to figure he could put a real hurt on Shady, Kaun and DBlock.
Anyway, thanks for asking and making me think, and please don't hold me to anything here, because, as I said, comparing across decades is really tough.
P.S.: Under the virtually unlimited butcher ball rules the way the game was called in 2000, Izzo's Mateen Cleeves club might be the best defensive team of all time. They were like trying to score on a rotation of 7 Joes Fraziers. They just hit you and kept hitting you until you had nothing left. They couldn't score a lick, but they didn't need to.
I'm probably overly pessimistic, because I have had some nagging back problems over the years.
Regarding program valuations: these 'valuations" of these private not for profit programs by Forturne have always seemed kind of bogus.
They seem liike saying that Goodwill is more valuable than Salvation Army. It appears problematic to try to think about these organizations in capitalized business valuation terms.
Hey, Fortune, what is the capitalized value of Russia? USA? The Crown of Great Britain? How about Henry and Claire's foundation? How about Bill Self's Assists Foundation? No, let's just focus in on Henry and Claire's foundation. Then let's compare that with the Rockefeller's foundations, and the Mellons' foundations and talk about how much they are worth in capitalized value.
Athletic departments are reputedly particularly idiosyncratic in their book keeping and creative donation activities. What is the impact on capitalized value of an athletic department that has the donations in house, versus those that maintain a fire walled foundation? What is the value impact of a private oligarch being willing to donate mega bucks when he dies 15 years out in exchange for a lot of "influence" now, when compared to another school where the private oligarch writes the check now, not later. How do those differences wash out in a capitalized value? How do you account for the difference between an arena on university land owned by the university, an arena owned by an athletic department built on university land, it does not have to pay for, an arena built and owned by a private for profit entity that leases it back to the university, and each option already mentioned in which their is a 20 year ground lease on one, and 50 year ground lease on another, and donated land without a lease on another.
Details, details.
The valuation problem is not so much that athletic departments are not-for-profit, but rather that there is no standardized way of accounting for all the bizarre ways that donors can give money in pursuit of tax deductions and influence.
You don't have to do a capitalized business valuation to know that a larger arena triggers more revenues than a smaller one, assuming they both have the same percentage of corporate boxes and regular seats. Hey, speaking of which, how do you compare KU AD with Allen Field House that has no corporate boxes with some school that has some.
The most Fortune can probably meaningfully say is that a school has some annual revenues, some annual expenses, some intermittent costs, and some donations with all kinds of weird structures and some kind of infrastructure sunk costs, and most of all of these probably have inconsistencies in accounting criteria from school to school.
And since these athletic departments so far are not sold that I know of, any capitalization, or discount rate, is made up. Since it is made up, then any capitalization, or discounte rate could logically be justified and each one would justify a different cash value with a sharply different magnitude.
But of course presenting a metaphysical value instead of presenting all the boring, disaggregated accounting lines and footnoting all of the ways in which each line item varies university to university, well, that would put people to sleep and not promote the name Fortune in the sports world.
But what do I know? I am just a laymen. Feel free to school me on state of the art of not for profit business valuation.
Bottom line on Louisville--they turned down the B12 and chose the ACC in order to optimize football TV revenues. No, wait! they didn't optimize TV revenues.
Bottom line on West Virginia, they turned down the B1G and the SEC to optimize football TV revenues. No, wait, they didn't.
Bottom line on Oklahoma--they turned down the Pac 12 to optimize football TV revenues. No, wait, they did not optimize TV revenues.
Bottom line on MU--they turned down the B12 to optimize TV revenues. No, wait, they didn't optimize revenues. They make less in the SEC than they would have had they stayed put in the B12, knowing what KU knew at the same time; that the most likely scenario was to stand pat after the teams left and take larger shares with fewer members.
Bottom line...well, you get the idea.
Many schools do NOT realign to optimize football TV revenues.
It was talking points PR all along.
Schools realign for much more complex political economic reasons.
It has always been naive to think that a university with a billion dollar annual budget, or larger, that has long since spun off its athletic department into 501C3 status for tax, revenue, and donative reasons has a TV check as the sole driver of why it realigns.
Does everyone grasp how tiny even the fattest annual TV check is in relation to a Billion dollar/year budget? It is chump change.
But of course please school me if you know something different.
Good question. I would say its 50/50.
Hope you are right, but I kind of doubt he plays again this season.
Again, the toughest bracket is rarely the one with the most good teams in it.
The toughest bracket is the one with two of the five best teams in it that are not upset that you have to play.
The toughest bracket is the one that guaranties you have to play the best teams in the country in the bracket even to make it to the Final Four.
In KU's bracket, because of the lesser teams in the bracket, KU almost certainly has to play beat Syracuse and Florida, the two best teams in the tournament outside of Arizona and Virginia, which are in separate brackets; this means KU is in the toughest bracket to get out of. It would have been way better off in the Midwest. WSU is the weakest of the good teams in the tournament. And the other teams are going to upset each other up so that which ever team survives it will likely only have had to beat 1 of the top 5, and maybe none of the top five teams in the country.
Again, it is actually easier to win a bracket filled with the most number of good teams, because in that kind of bracket, you get the greatest chance of the best teams in the bracket being upset. In turn, that means you probably won't have to face the two best teams in the bracket to win it, usually just one.
I know this seems somewhat counterintuitive, but I learned this from a good basketball man a long, long time ago.
It doesn't matter if you have to play a very good team in the second game, if you then get to play the teams that upset the best teams. Yours is a vastly easier path than the team that has two easy games followed by two games with the two of the best four, or five teams in the country that happened to get seeded in your bracket.
The toughest bracket to survive is almost never the one with the most good teams. It is the one with say the two best teams in the country and a bunch of lesser teams that make the two best teams least likely to be upset, and so sharply increase the odds of you having to meet and beat them.
Almost certainly one, or both, of the best teams in the Midwest bracket will be upset before anyone has to beat both of them, because of how many good teams there.
KU is going to have to beat Syracuse and Florida to survive. The probability is that it doesn't get tougher than that to get to the Final Four in any other region.
If defense wins championships, and it does, then there is no question that the 2008 KU Jayhawks were the best team of the last ten years. They were the best defensive team I ever saw in college ball by a considerable margin.
The only teams that could have stayed with them were the two Florida teams of Bill Donovan with Noah and Horford. But the final addition of the '08 team had every thing Florida had inside, plus three great guards instead of only two, and a vastly superior 3 with Rush.
Why didn't the '08 team win two rings? Because Chalmers did not learn to shoot the trey until his last season. Had he learned to shoot the trey the previous season, KU would have had two rings, even without Collins, because the prior team had Julian. UCLA and Aflalo would not have hurt us had Chalmer's been able to out gun him that game. In turn, KU would have turned Kaun, Julian and Shady loose on Noah-Horford and our depth inside would have shut down their inside game, and our superior perimeter would have kicked their asses back to Gainesville. But we were shy a trey gun and couldn't get past Aflalo and UCLA's hack'n'slap, which was new then, and so we had to wait a year.
Chalmers--two NBA rings.
Rush--a solid NBA player derailed by injuries
Shady--NBA journeyman
DBlock--Euro pro, NBA fringe
Kaun--Euro pro, who could probable ride an NBA bench
Russell--Euro pro
Aldrich--NBA bench
Collins--the only bust, weight problems
It was a great, great team. It fit together perfectly.
The only reason it is not considered among the best is that it had to beat a team of illegals (Memphis) to win the ring it won and could only did so in overtime. The Memphis team was ridiculously talented. Probably no college team since has had that much talent on one squad. Calipari was 10 deep in ringers, plus he had DRose, CDR and the other huge lug. His great UK team only had six guys. Hell, our '11-12 team almost beat his UK team without our team having any OADs, or Mickey Ds on it. That UK team was lucky to come along in a weak year.
'08 KU beat UNC in the semi finals and UNC was what many at the time thought was one of the best college basketball teams in a decade, or more. And in fact that UNC team came back and won it all the next year.
No other national champion in the last decade, maybe ever, had had to beat two teams of the quality of UNC and Memphis that season in the Final Four. Those two teams would kick the shizz out of any of the other teams that won the national championships the last ten years except for Donovan's two Noah-Horford teams.
If KU had played any legitimate D1 college basketball team in the 2008 national finals after the Titanic game KU played against UNC, it would have beaten them by 15-20 points. If KU had played Memphis without having had to play the second best team in the tournament, UNC, in the semis, KU would have beaten Memphis by 15.
As it was, no other champion of the last decade had to play and beat two such awesomely talented teams as UNC and Memphis were.
And NO NCAA champion had to beat a bunch of blatantly ineligible ringers to win it national championship ring.
Defense wins championships.
The 2008 KU Jayhawks were the best defensive team of the last decade.
They are the best team of the decade.
Next.
There, is that positive enough for you. :-)
(Sing to the tune of the Hallejujah Chorus of Handel's Messiah)
Hallelujah
Hallelujah hallelujah hallelujah hallelujah hallelujah
Hallelujah hallelujah hallelujah hallelujah hallelujah
For ball lord James omnipotent reineth
Hallelujah hallelujah hallelujah hallelujah
For ball lord James omnipotent reigneth
Hallelujah hallelujah hallelujah hallelujah
For the lord James omnipotent reigneth
Hallelujah hallelujah hallelujah hallelujah
Hallelujah hallelujah hallelujah hallelujah
Hallelujah hallelujah hallelujah hallelujah
(For ball lord James omnipotent reigneth)
Hallelujah hallelujah hallelujah hallelujah
For ball lord James omnipotent reigneth
(Hallelujah hallelujah hallelujah hallelujah)
Hallelujah
The Field House of this world;
is become
the Field House of our Lord,
and of His Game
and of His Game
And He shall jam for ever and ever
And he shall jam forever and ever
And he shall jam forever and ever
And he shall jam forever and ever
Coach of coaches forever and ever hallelujah hallelujah
and Phog of Phogs forever and ever hallelujah hallelujah
Coach of coaches forever and ever hallelujah hallelujah
and Phog of Phogs forever and ever hallelujah hallelujah
Coach of coaches forever and ever hallelujah hallelujah
and Phog of Phogs
Coach of coaches and Phog of Phogs
And he shall jam
And he shall jam
And he shall jam
He shall jam
And he shall jam forever and ever
Coach of coaches forever and ever
and Phog of Phogs hallelujah hallelujah
And he shall jam forever and ever
Coach of coaches and Phog of Phogs
Coach of coaches and Phog of Phogs
And he shall jam forever and ever
Forever and ever and ever and ever
(Coach of coaches and Phog of Phogs)
Hallelujah hallelujah hallelujah hallelujah
Hallelujah
--George Friderick Handelbate, class of 1703
Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg (1702–1703), BA
University of Kansas, M.S. 1898
"The day I start worrying about playing New Mexico is the day I have to wonder if I'm really a K-State fan. "
PHOF
Here, here, to hoping Wigs and Selden are huge in the League.
I for one am am very grateful that they came to KU. They are certainly among the best freshmen I have seen play at KU in Self's years.
Rock Chalk!
Yes.
Indubitably.
What makes a region difficult is not the total number of tough teams, because you can never play more than four because everyone knocks everyone else out for you.
What makes a bracket tough is how good the four you have to play are.
Syracuse and Florida are who we have to play once the going gets tough.
Syracuse is a tough out for a team without an 40% trey ballers.
Florida is a tough team with a time tested coach with two rings.
No other bracket has two tougher teams IMHO, plus, us of course.
But...
Ad astra per aspera...
I'm torn.
I see all these great things these players have done and can do.
But I see all these things the best players--Wiggins and Selden--don't do particularly well.
I see great team offense and defense from time to time.
But I see lapses into no offense and defense that isn't coordinated, when ever something goes wrong.
I see them going deep.
I see them going down to Syracuse.
This team has turned me into a Hamlet.
I am trying to stay scrappy and get back into John Wayne mode.
No one should ever complain when they have guys as good as Wiggins, Selden, Ellis and Black.
One should only pull one's hair out, when they don't play very soundly. :-)
Defense and run the stuff.
I think Tarik Black 2.0, or 3.0, or what ever version he is in, is now a solid enough presence in the center that if the team will just run the stuff with him getting to touch it on the low block, 2 out of 3 possessions for five minutes at a time, that the team will settle into a nice tempo revolving around Tar and the team will be able to defend and score and win against UNM.
If Tar gets double figures scoring an rebounding, this team is very tough to beat, same as when Joel does it. It does not mean the centers are dominating the offense. It means that the offense is expanding and contracting and expanding and that, coupled with some rapid ball movement around the perimeter, is what makes this team tough to beat.
Plus, we ought to be shooting the ball better the next two games.
But if Tar gets fouled up, look out, because things default to Wigs and Selden, or Wigs and Perry, and though it looks exciting, the team loses efficiency.
But as usual, ralster cuts to the chase to the most critical thing:
GUARD!
Great, I like agreement where ever I can get it. :-)
And I agree again that the key is the getting better gene. If Wig's has got it, then he should be gold, because even though he can't dribble much, and he can't trey ball much, and his protection concentration seems weak, and his arm strength seems a bit less than necessary for finishing against D1 LSAs, if he were to become proficient at all of these four, well, then this guy would be all pro because of his stride length and hops IMHO.
My question for you, Master Konk, is this: having watched Wigs a season now, would you say he has the get better gene, or is he just a monster talent without the gene?
Does he seem to you to be getting better at dribbling, trey ball percentage, turnovers, and arm strength this season? I am not asking if he has optimized at any of these things, just if you think you have seen marked improvement?
Much as I love watching Wigs play, and do the things he does, I cannot yet honestly say I can tell that he has gotten better at any of these things than say in November.
And part of the reason I am wondering is that a lot of folks have said that the big games that he has had recently are something that he could have done anytime Self gave him the green light, which suggests to me that, well, maybe he hasn't gotten better. Maybe he just had all this towering talent coming in, but maybe he really hasn't developed it this year.
Sam Mellinger's recent story talked about Self finally stopping asking him to change. It also hints that Self thinks Andrew has attaind some new level that allows him to get out and really mix it up finally.
But no one I read says, "See? His dribbling is better. His trey balling is steadily getting better. His turnovers are falling. Etc."
I really don't know the answer to this "getting better gene" question.
He is so good that I kind of assumed that getting better was just part of his package.
But when I stop and consider his play this season, it doesn't leap out at me. He just seemed pretty damned good from the beginning and Self has been asking him to do different things at different parts of the season. Can't tell if he is getting better or not.
So, if I understand you, we agree that your anecdotal info was not proving anything, but that you think Kobe was not a great, or even good three point shooter in the NBA. I actually thought Kobe was a very good trey shooter relative to other starting 2s in the NBA. I thought that average three point percentages among starting 2s were not sharply higher than what Kobe had shot over the years, given his level of 3Pt attempts. But if you say that his trey average as a pro in comparison to other pros at the 2 position shooting the same amount as him puts him at average or less, well then of course I trust you. Is that what you are saying about Kobe?
Yeah, I was definitely thinking that anyone that drafts Selden to play the two in the NBA would need him to shoot outside much better than he has shown. I was thinking why would someone gamble on Selden at 34% in D1, and hope he would get better, when they could take a a guy coming out of D1 shooting 40%. I was thinking there surely must be 10 NBA bodied 2s in D1 shooting 40% from trey each year, so I was was asking myself, "why in the world would a team want to draft a 2 that would not be appreciably bigger and stronger and shot 34% in D1.
Similarly, I was looking at Wigs and thinking how many times Julian Wright had beasted for probably as many big games as Wigs has had, and the pros thought they were going to teach Julian to shoot a long ball and be a 3, or short 4, but he never could shoot a lick, and never got better shooting it. And Julian seemed more physically mature than Wigs and appeared about as mentally mature than Wigs, and so I thought, wow, how many guys there are that get in the NBA with Julian's and Wig's height and weight, and numbers, but without quite as much athleticism as Wigs has, and crash and burn. I mean, every year, guys 6-7, 6-8 come out like dimes out of a dime slot. They are called tweeners and most of them become journeymen, or just wash out. And the ones that do hang on and make all start teams tend to be able to drill the long ball in the NBA and are pretty damned mentally aggressive. I just kept looking at Wigs and thinking, "As much as I like this guy, he hasn't lived up to his billing in D1. This guy plays on a 25-8 team that really hasn't gotten it going very well whenever Embiid was out and Wigs has had to take over. What is this guy gonna do in the NBA without a trey if they lay off him this much in D1 with a 35% tray?" That is exactly what I was thinking, ict. When you wipe away the 40 point performance in the game that didn't matter, and the 30 point OT performance and the 29 point performance early, a supposedly great player has lead a team to a 25-8 record with what is supposedly Self's most talented team ever. When you wipe away the hype, Embiid, who had only played, what, three years of college ball, is more crucial to a college team than Wigs is. And I thought, "how is a guy that is basically a highly publicized tweener without a great outside shot, going to dominate at the NBA level?" I want him to. I want him to be great because he seems such a good person. Maybe because he seems such a good person I AM worried as much as I am about him.
Next, to address your very informative stats on trey shooting of national champions, if I understand you correctly, Wiggins and Selden being the teams starting outside trey shooters have lead this year's team to shoot better from trey than only one of Self's other teams, is that correct?
Hmmmm. This was a little worse than I expected. I had said when I asked you and others if any other Self team had shot worse from 3pt land, that surely there must be one and you proved there was. But just between you and me I thought there would be 2 or 3. Thanks for digging that out.
Amazing to think that two OADs could drive our trey percentage that low, relative to other Self teams. I wonder if going into this season that anyone thought to draw a comparison between this team and Self's first team? I don't recall that team's record. I wonder if it was similar to this ones?
Well, wait a second. I will look it up. I'll be darned, I just looked it up and they went 24-9. Alas, they only finished second in the conference, but they got to the Elite Eight. Pretty good for having no OADs and the first year under a new coach. Looking at Syracuse and Florida in KU's bracket makes me think an Elite Eight finish would be a pretty fair accomplishment for this year's team with these particular OADs, too. But maybe they can catch a break if Embiid bounces back.
Now the most interesting season average for trey shooting that you did not mention IMHO is that 39,7% figure for the '08 ring team, especially when you compare it with that team allowing opponents only 32.8%.
Hmmm. I wonder what this year's team with the OADs compares with the '08 ring team. Lemme see. Uh, ah ha, here it is. This year's team with Wiggins and Selden leading the charge is shooting 34.5% and allowing 35.9%. Very interesting.
Let's go back and check out the '11-12 runner up team. Bear with me. Let's see. The team without any OADs and without any Mickey Ds shot 34.5%, from trey, or just about the same as this years team with the OADs, but the '11-12 runner up team allowed 34%. So: if I get this correctly, the '11-12 runner up team with no OADs and no Mickey Ds gave up a slightly lower percentage of treys, and made about the same percentage.
Well, this is very fascinating.
Let's summarize.
With Wiggins and Selden leading the 3pt charge only one KU team, Self's first with no OADs, has shot worse from trey.
Next, with Wiggins and Selden leading the 3pt charge, the '08 ring team with no OADs shot way better than the Wiggins and Selden lead team and held the opponents to shoot a much lower percentage with no OADs. Hmmm.
Lastly, with the Wiggins and Selden led 3pt charge, the '11-12 runner up team with no OADs and no Mickey Ds shot about the same trey percentage, as the Wiggins-Selden lead team, and actually held opponents to slightly lower 3pt percentage shooting than did the Wiggins-Selden team.
Now, I am starting to be able to get a much better insight into the Wiggins-Selden lead 3pt shooting accomplishments vis a vis these three other exceptional KU teams.
Even though one might expect otherwise, the reputedly most talented team in Self's tenure, and the team with the most OADs (including two leading the three point shooting charge), only shoots treys better than one other of Self's teams, but shoots about as well as a ring team and a runner-up team, though this Wiggins-Selden lead team cannot guard the trey nearly as well as the ring team, or the runner up team, despite neither the ring team, nor the runner up team having a single true OAD.
And to put this in still more context, the '11-12 runner up team had a first time starter at the the 2, Elijah Johnson, that shot 34%, roughly the same as Selden, and Conner Teahan swinging 2-3 and putting up 150 3PTAs, as compared with about 125 a piece for Wiggins and Selden so far, was shooting about the same percentage, at 33.6, rounded to 34.
Now, I have to say that realizing that Wiggins and Selden are able to shoot the trey ball about as well as first time starter Elijah Johnson and the legendary Conner Teahan did puts into meaningful perspective about how well Wiggins and Selden have handled trey shooting chores. And what does it matter if the likes of EJ, Travis and Conner combined to guard the trey only a little bit better than Wiggins and Selden, right?
This has helped me get a lot more insight about this, ict, so thanks again.
What would Bill Self have gained for KU's seeding by pulling out all the stops to beat ISU?
Before we even try to answer, let's consider what Self might have done differently against ISU in terms of pulling out all the stops?
He might have zone pressed intermittently during the first and second halves.
He might have routed more of the offense through Perry Ellis, who was 11-12 from the field instead of continuing to route offense through Andrew Wiggins who was 7-21. He might have played Frank Mason a lot more for a sputtering Naa Tharpe. He might have not wasted all those minutes on Brannen Greene. He might have played through Black a lot more offensively. He might have used the identical low-block, double teaming scheme he used on OSU the day before on ISU the day after, especially the last 10 minutes when ISU quit shooting treys and went almost entirely inside. He might have spent the last ten minutes in his preferred hybrid 3 player m2m and 2 man zone to control the rebounds and deny Niang's preferred back to the basket game down the stretch. Those are some no brainers that Self might have done. :-)
And I bet Bill Self could have thought of a whole bunch more, because it the best coach of his generation and amazingly able to find wrinkles that give his team an edge...when he wants to win the game. :-)
Now, let's come back to the question: how would beating ISU have helped KU get better than a 2 seed in the South Region starting at St. Louis, leading to Tar's home town, Memphis, leading to Big 12 country in Arlington, TX? Sweet, no?
Which 1-seed would KU have shouldered aside by beating ISU?
Hmmm.Virginia in the East? A midwest team as the 1 seed in the East? Not gonna happen.
Florida in the South? A team that beat KU? Not gonna happen.
Arizona in the West? The number one team in the country and a western team to boot? Not gonna happen.
Wichta State in the Midwest? The only undefeated team in the country and a midwestern team that was in the Final Four the year before? Not gonna happen.
Ooookay, so would beating ISU have gotten KU a better 2 seed in another region?
First, as I said, a 2 seed in the South with stops at St. Louis, and Memphis is just about ideal for KU locationally. And, well, there are as many tough outs in the east and West as in the South, so those would not have been a step up, regardless.
Which brings us to the Midwest. It might have been better to be a two seed in the Midwest because it means getting to play Wichita State which hasn't beaten anyone worth a damn and so has never really been pushed by a series of tough opponents, which is what the Madness is all about starting second and third rounds.
But...
There are just two little problems with the Midwest. The committee put the most tough teams there. And Michigan is the number two seed there. Michigan is 25-8, and KU would have been 25-8 had it beaten ISU. But then KU would have had another game to play. And so KU would either have been 26-8, or 25-9. So let's think about this for a minute. At 26-8 there was a good chance KU would have gotten the two seed in the Midwest, and then played Texas, Duke and one of Wichita State, UK, or Louisville. Compare that with playing UNM, Syracuse, and Florida? My hunch is that winning all three in the B12 and landing in the Midwest would have been an easier row to hoe. But to get that easier row, KU would have had to play 3 games, have to play on only 4 full days of rest on 3/20/14, because Michigan, the current 2 seed in the Midwest has to play on 3/20.
Next, had KU beat ISU but lost in the B12 final, then KU's record would be 25-9. 25-9 would not have pushed Michigan aside and so KU would likely have wound up back where it already is, without having to play an extra game.
Self got the best of all possible worlds from the standpoint of what his team needed most. It got the maximum time to rest and scheme, because it plays first on 3/21/14 not 3/20.
KU gets a pair of teams in Eastern Kentucky and UNM (which it beat previously with Embiid) that it can reasonably beat by playing well with Black, instead of Embiid. This buys KU the chance to get Embiid back. If it gets Embiid back, then it gets Syracuse and Florida. If Embiid can play at or near his best, and with Black and Traylor providing much more bench, KU could handle Syracuse, by funneling its PG to Embiid inside, and by collapsing the zone with Embiid and Black to create scoring opps for Wiggins and Selden. I know Florida is good and beat us early, but with Embiid, we are so much better now than then that even Florida is in our grasp.
If Embiid cannot come back, then I think we might still upset Syracuse with a great effort, because it will just have had a knock down drag out with Ohio State, but then the the future would stop with Florida.
Could Bill foresee any of this with specificity? Probably not.
But could he see that it would probably take winning the B12 conference tourney to make things better than what KU got losing to ISU? Probably.
So: Self played the ISU game conservatively, knowing ISU would too. Self was trying win the ISU game, but only without over extending his team. The only way an ISU win would have been worth it was if enough gas could be left in the team's tank to win the next game, too.
Short of that, the best gamble was to lose to ISU, maximize your days to rest and prepare, and leave it all on the floor the first round in hopes of getting Joel back.
Well played, Bill.
Thanks for chiming in as always.
Comparing him with Lebron in shooting forces me finally to think about the Lebron analogy generally, something I have not posted much about, except to say I thought intuitively it was not a valid comparison.
In short, I am not sure, after watching Wigs a year and against D1 competition, that comparing Wigs, even anecdotally with Lebron, on any stat, can tell us much. There just doesn't seem to be much comparison between Lebron and Wigs. Lebron is on some higher athletic level than Wigs. And I like Wigs. Some time in the next few days I am going to write at length about what a terrific basketball player I think he is. But Lebron? Wigs would have to go through a nonlinear transformation to become better than Lebron in the NBA. I am in slayr's camp on this: if Wigs devoted himself monomaniacally to turning himself into the next Kobe, I could see him achieving that IF he could ever become a great jump shooter. Kobe was a great, great jump shooter from the beginning. Wigs is an average jump shooter.
What Lebron proves is that the greatest perimeter athlete in basketball at least since Jordan, and maybe back to Oscar Robertson, and arguable of all time, can make himself into a proficient NBA 3pt shooter.
Players like Robertson, Jordan and Lebron can do super human things. They have super human want to. They have super human abilities to improve at what they are weak at. They are so good throughout their careers that noone finally can handcuff them.
I still have seen no sign of this astronomical level of drive. It may be there, but I haven't seen it. Robertson showed it from the start. Jordan took a few years before it showed. Lebron showed it from the start. Maybe Andrew will be like Mike.
The only reason for going over all this is response to your cursory remark about Lebron making himself into a good trey shooter, and Andrew starting out significantly better, is that a variety of factors enabled Lebron to make the improvement.
Lebron is so fricking strong that no one can really afford to get out hard on him, or he will blow by them and then finish even against the biggest baddest big in the NBA.
This meant that Lebron had a built in 3pt shooting cushion from the git go. Lebron HAD to be left open, whether you thought he could shoot, or not, because of how bad he could hurt you on the dribble.
Andrew seems unlikely to ever have that kind of cushion to shoot treys freely from.
Andrew seems like he could have the kind of cushion that Kobe creates and that slayr wrote so perceptively about mid season, when Wigs was bogged down.
Andrew has the kind of awesome, Kobe like combination of length and quick bouncyness that could allow him to create a space most anywhere on the court. Kobe, a great natural shooter, learned to create that space and he was deadly. If Andrew can become a great shooter, then he most definitely become as deadly as Kobe.
But the difference between Andrew and Lebron, and even Kobe and Lebron, is that Lebron does not even have to create the space. It is there the minute he catches the ball. because of what he can do to even the best NBA defender, on the dribble.
My point here is that it is easier to turn yourself into great open shooter, than it is to turn yourself into a great get yourself open shooter.
So: I'm not confident in comparing Andrew's shooting prospects with Lebron's.
And I think Kobe was so much better of a natural shooter that Kobe never had to make the huge improvement Andrew will have to make.
Frankly, I like comparing Andrew to Michael Jordan, because Jordan was not a great natural shooter and in fact was not a very good NBA outside shooter for several years. Andrew could do alot of what Jordan did. He had a similar college career to Andrew's. Plus he's probably a little taller than Mike and maybe has an even longer first step. What we have to hope for here is that Andrew has the kind of mental drive that MJ had; and that we will not understand for another few years. Jordan seemed pretty calm and centered in college when I watched him. I did not see this fury in tennies appear until the NBA. He did it, so Andrew might be able to. But a lot of other guys with great athleticism have not. Nothing is written. Either way.
ict,
Thanks for your anecdotal list of shooters improving year to year. That is interesting. That makes me think more about this issue of Selden and Wigs mediocre first year trey shooting that is anecdotally speaking, only bad in comparison to certain other starting and reserve trey shooters on ISU and OSU that have played more years.
We could certainly add Mario Chalmers and Travis Releford to that list, could we not?
But you know how thinking is. One thing leads to another.
Do you suppose we could build an anecdotal list of perimeter shooters that do not improve so dramatically? that say are tried and found wanting? that say are beaten out by better trey shooters because they do not improve fast enough?
Do you suppose we might even build an anecdotal list of perimeter shooters that stay about the same, or even fall off?
Do you suppose we might even build an anecdotal list of perimeter shooters that cease being perimeter shooters, because after being given trials as outside shooters, their skills are found so wanting that they are assigned other duties, or that they become bench warmers, or that they transfer?
Next, if we were to build these anecdotal lists, what would we then be able to infer validly about Wiggins and Selden's chances of becoming 40% trey shooters in D1, or in the pros? Would we infer that there was no way of knowing from these anecdotal lists whether Selden and Wiggins both were likely to become 40% trey shooters? or would these anecdotal lists let us infer something else?
I know you know the answer: we can infer nothing statistically significant at all from these kinds of anecdotal lists, right?
Right.
Thinking about inference can be such a bitch some times.
Still, I am intrigued with your notion. I wonder if anyone else, could enlighten us here as to what percentage of D1 freshmen acting as their team's starting wings and with a comparable number of first year FGAs to Wigs and Selden, improve from shall we say the 35% level to the > 40% level after 4 years of D1, or, harder still, after three succeeding years in the L?
Surely there must be a significant failure rate regarding freshman anything going to the NBA, over a four year stretch.
My hunch would be that the percentage that do achieve 40% might be rather significantly less than all. How about you? And of course this introduces the significant chance that Selden and Wiggins might not, doesn't it?
Hmmm.
Now, what if that percentage were not merely statistically significant, but say, oh, I don't know, say, approaching 50/50; that 50% did not improve to a level comparable to or better than the average percentage for NBA sharp shooters over 4 years?
Might then we be justified in saying that Selden and Wiggins could be risky to draft as 2s for the NBA because they start out shooting only 35% in D1--a league where Selden and Wigs will shoot treys much farther out and against playerss of much greater length, strength and quickness at the 2 than they have faced in D1?
I know, you were only talking about D1, just as my original post was only talking about the risks of Selden and Wigs being able to successful trifectates in the NBA. I'm just trying to keep both issues in the stew, so to speak.
Even just assuming a normal distribution of success and failure at reaching >40% 3pt shooting for D1 shootists that start as freshmen shooting 35% with the number of FGAs that Wigs and Selden have had, makes me considerably less than confident about their chances for achieving 40% after 4 years of D1, much less reaching the NBA average 3pt shooting by NBA 2s, doesn't it you?
I mean, I think its great that Brown started out a lousy triacetate and became a good one, but is it really indicative of a central tendency that most guys that start out shooting 35% from trey as freshman are necessarily going to get to 40% in four years?
I don't know. I'm not sure I can follow that logic with confidence.
Regardles, thank you for taking time to stimulate me to think this through a bit further.
Ooops, I almost forgot. Do you think this is the worst 3pt shooting team in Self's KU tenure?
Surely there must be another one or two that shot this poorly.
I just can't recall them off hand.
Rock Chalk!
So good to have you back in the offense. Not much to add to your usual illuminating insights, except to add one thing about Releford.
Travis shot 40% plus from trey in addition to being a very mentally tough player hardened by 5 years of D1 ball (two largely watching, one redshirt, one learning an old man's game, and one finally being do do it all). Travis Releford was one helluva basketball player the last season. To be blunt, we have no one on this team that can bring what Travis brought. You could assign him someone, no matter how good, and know that Travis would be +4 to +10 on him in points scored and have two fewer TOs and probably 3 assists. And he was strong enough to finish at the iron. Often too tentative? Yes. But he could do all that while helping and inspite of his tentativeness. And despite his wonky form, he could trey ding at 43%!!! The truth is: players like Releford are few and teams need one. Imagine how good this team could be with Rellie at the 3 and Wiggins at the 4, or 2. Rellie was an every game MUA, or wash. Wiggins, great as he is, cannot yet do very often what Travis did every game. If Wigs stayed 5 years, he could blow Rellies numbers away, maybe just two, but Wigs shoots 35% from trey, struggles with assist, once he starts shooting, and though he is a defensive octopus, he only lately is coming into his own. None of this is to knock Wigs. It is saying that fully matured, well rounded players like Releford are damned hard to replace by even a great one like Wiggins. Selden also cannot fill BenMac's shoes yet. BenMac poured in the points AND the crucial buckets, while guarding everyone just as well as Selden does. Again, no knock on Selden. Next year, if there were a next year for him, he could be the same kind of monster that BenMac was. But even if Wigs weren't here and Wayne were taking his FGAs, I just don't see a 34% trey shooter this season filling BenMac's shoes this season. Next season, Wayne might get his trey gun sited, and sorted, and we could be talking about who was better. But now? Not even close. Ben had a year to practice D1 and mature for a great second season. Wayne got the sink or swim treatment that Wigs has gotten, and it has been hard on him. Know Wayne could do more, if needed, but until he works on that trey, they're just going to sag and shove when he goes by.
Life is tough for freshmen. Even the great ones.
Thanks for the SyrXcuse recall. I dislike them so much I repress them from time to time. :-)
Syrxcuse makes clear there are exceptions to rules and anomalies among tendencies. Outliers in scatter plots.
The key for analysis is to grasp the dynamics of the outlier and see if the dynamics that triggered the outlier can trigger our situation, or if our situation drives us to the tendency.
If I understand you correctly, you reason that our situation (talent set and scheme) drives us to the tendency (not a serious contender), rather than the outlier (SyrXcuse champion), unless we modify our scheme (if it is not too late), since it is too late to change our talent, beyond getting Embiid back, if we survive round one.
To reset, I agree with your desire to try new strings, but think that Self's way of retuning the strings has worked in the only recent non Embiid game that mattered (OSU)--frankly quite to my surprise.
One thing all of us that try to out-think Self occasionally run into is: we tend to underestimate just how much room there is for retuning the hi-low instrument Self plays. Self's approach is as global an approach, as Boeheim's, or Roy's, or Consonant's, or Brown's, or Knight's, or Dean's, or Wooden's.
Global approaches are like using themes to write with. If one is a globalist, and a gifted writer, the theme determines every narrative choice one makes in every aspect of story telling. Good writers tailor diction, sentence form, paragraph content, order of information, tone, metaphors, and so on to the theme. What goes in and what is left out is driven by the theme. Done correctly, the theme disappears to the reader in the moment of experience of the artifact. And only after the fact does the reader begin to appreciate the thematically informed architecture.
Self crafts basketball much as great writers craft novels. Each season, like a novel, eventually has its own thematically informed architecture. Over a period of seasons, recurring themes occur with variations that explore/exploit different aspects of the game as then instituted and evolved according to the institutions, as well as what the coach/author has then to work with in terms of players.
Great coaches are master craftsmen for the most part. Winning is the litmus test of how well their thematically informed architecture (team) holds up in competition and what else it may need to hold up better. Elegance and beauty in addition to mechanical execution enter into thematically driven choices.
Time and again Self has found ways to retune in ways that never occurred to me before hand, when I have been advocating an outside the box suggestion. It is, I believe, partly that he knows his his hi-low instrument much more deeply than I do, and so knows where several tweaks can be inserted that have a cumulative effect that is nonlinear in benefit.
Another part of it is that Self just can some times, through the level of trust he builds up in his players over a season, and his charisma, just tell players that if they just play a little harder and a little smarter, then they can beat the other team. His is, like so many great coaches, so overwhelmingly observant and able to spot large and small mistakes in real time among many players simultaneously, that it has to be a huge inspiration, when he comes to them cheerfully and positively and says more less, this is the moment we've been building you toward and I just want to tell you that I am pleased with you are ready to go out and do it.
I believe that if he gave into the temptation to restring he, at least, would become too lost to then coach it well.
Very few architects give up the form language they were trained in no matter how much they appear to change and grow.
Self is an Okie Baller that has evolved his own form language we call Self Ball. It is an evolving body of work, but it has a continuity and a legacy that it must stay connected to in his mind. "That's not who we are" speaks volumes.
The great coach can find incredible numbers of "adjustments" within "who we are" in order to achieve an effect you and I might soundly seek to achieve by moving outside the box, or outside "who we are."
Sometimes a great coach can briefly jump out side the box for a brief tactical victory. Boeheim played m2m against Self and KU for an entire second half one game and beat KU. Self has played his 3-2 hybrid zone at times to gain a tactical advantage, but both Boeheim and Self quickly abandon such afterwards, because it is "not who we are."
Where does "that's not who we are" come from? It comes from an ancient Greek saying often attributed to Socrates: "know thy self."
Nothing is perfect. Socrates wound up a victim of hemlock, even though he knew himself. But knowing thyself tends to work better than not.
Self may go down to basketball hemlock this season, because he does not break with his tradition as you have suggested, and as I have suggested.
But in his mind likely he has a much better chance of surviving by making tweaks that he has deep insight into and a strong feel for how to implement, than in venturing into another man's legacy at this point in his career and at this point in his season.
My concern is that Self's ability to tweak his system with deep insight and skillful net benefit has been sharply diluted by the loss of QA geek Joe Dooley. We see game after game now how powerfully revealing the QA of KENPOM and other sites are to aid mere fans to get in the ball park of the tendencies of opposing teams. Self can probably access this level of insight without stats and without Joe Dooley. But there is a situational level of analysis of opponents that takes a subtle combination of basketball IQ and QA skill that is pretty rare in all fields, and probably exceedingly rare among basketball coaches. This level of analysis not only explores Selfs powerful thinking about an opponent's strengths and weaknesses, to support or refute him, but also discovers other often counter intuitive insights about the teams studied, and about its tendencies. These two things would feed back robustly into Self's thinking and cause him to come up with still more tweaks creatively he had not even considered the first time. This is the real power and advantage that results from good QA. It is not that the QA finds the solutions. It is that the QA frees one up to see relationships that were previously unseen and so lets human ingenuity (creativity, intuition, reason, daring) have a second cut at operating in a way that an opponent is unlikely to be able to anticipate unless the repeat the same research methodology.
Ah, but I am getting off on a tangent and telling you too much of what you already know. Apologies.
Succinctly, my point is: Self may be suffering a bit from losing Dooley in a way that he did not suffer losing Danny. A lot of what Danny knew and did could probably learned through observation over the time he worked for Self. QA is different. Some get it. Some don't.
These next two games, if we are lucky enough to win the first one, are going to pack within them some of the most fascinating insights into how Self does what he does, if only we can unpack them afterwards.
As always, thanks, HEM, for making my brain work the piddling amount that it still can.
Thinking anything at all fresh about the game remains one of the great joys of my life.
Great contextualization of defense.
Applause.
Now more foreground.
No 40% trey shootists in rotation.
Limited rim protection sans Embiid.
Add contextualization on following.
Effect of rule changes and SOS on 3pt shooting?
Effect of rule changes and SOS on importance of rim protection?
Not trick questions, just lobs.
Go.
Just a super effort at thinking through restringing the fiddle. I was thinking along these lines when I posted before OSU that we needed to go to an attack and transition game with lots of emphasis on secondary breaks, but you broke it down much better and gave it a comprehensible frame with Roy Ball that I fell far short of doing.
After OSU, it seemed Self found a way to keep on with his strategy by asking players to play better and by finding tactics to play better within his strategy. Versus ISU, coming off asking them to play better and them responding, there seemed no more emotional " play better" reservoir to ask again for. With no off day, there was no off day to scheme special tactics.
My heart and head are with your approach, and I believe he is stretching your direction by turning Wigs and Ellis loose to take and make as often as possible. Andrew shot 21 times and Ellis 12. He also seems to be stretching the offensive spacing to let all the players try to impact 1 on 1 more; this seems why assists by most individual players have fallen. Self seems to be reducing TOs by stopping asking them to run complicated set plays (except lobs) and saying go get a basket. More players are attacking the glass too, which keeps us net positive on rebounds, but leaves fewer breaks.
What I am suggesting is: he is not restringing as you and I might prefer, but rather retuning. I suspect we will see more play and opponent specific scheming like we saw against OSU from here on and less let them labor as against WVU and ISU.
The team has no trey shooting. See current stats. Wigs and Selden are terrible at it. Tharpe's slump and finger dislocation mean he can't hit. This makes big man scoring very tough. Jamari was even being doubled opponents have to guard our trey bAllers so little.
The team cannot handle much offensive complexity or they bake pop tarts.
Their scorers don't like contact. Their contact players don't score much.
The defense can be very good, or very bad.
The team shows flashes of greatness for one game then can't guard the next.
The team seems not quite baked.
But Wiggins and Ellis are coming alive. Get Selden untracked and add Embiid and they are world beaters again.
If no Embiid, add a pinch more scheming.
Bake three more days, then let rest two days.
Win two in 3.
Ice with Embiid.
Serve piping hot.
Voila!
(Note: the soufflé could fall without Embiid and Self sounds less and less confident about his return.)
As of the end of the B12 tournament, these are the 3pt shooting percentages of KU's perimeter players.
Wiggins 35%
Selden 34%
Tharpe 38%
Mason 35%
Greene 33%
Frankamp 28%
White III 32%
Compare to ISU.
Kane 40%
Long 40%
Compare to OSU
Forte 44%
Brown 38%
Smart 30%
Clark 41%
Looking at Wiggins and Selden, I have to ask: how do these guys expect to play in the NBA given that that level of 3pt shooting against D1 players. The NBA trey is farther out. The NBA players are vastly more athletic and much taller and stronger than D1 players. Really, I fear for Wiggins and Selden in the NBA. They seem destined to be two more Julian Wrights.
Perry Ellis is currently our best trey baller. He is 8-16 from trey. It is time to turn the trey attempts over to Perry and see if he can keep it at 40%, or better.
The Impaler it is.
One more thing: this team's three point shooting is very weak. Perry is the only guys with a decent 3pt shot. He is 8-16 for 50%. It is time to let Perry take over the trey shooting until he shows he is worse than the other perimeter shooters. Period.
I feel juiced about the team, because...
• On no day of rest after an OT game, KU without its star center, with its star forward shooting 7-21 FG, and shooting 27% from trey ville, ALMOST BEAT A RANKED TEAM that played its best game of its season. This means KU is very good without Joel and ring grade with him.
• Perry Ellis had a great game with 30 and 8 against a ranked team proving he is out of his slump.
• Tar had another double digit rebounding game.
• KU almost almost beat a ranked team with Self failing to make sound defensive adjustments (no doubling Niang, no zone) at the end when ISU OBVIOUSLY lost its trey shooting legs. Zone was the right call against ISU the moment ISU started missing treys with ten to go and Hoi started running only inside stuff. Self won't make that mistake again.
• Self got fooled by Hoiberg's intermittent box and one zone on Wiggins--at least that's my current best guess as to what it was. Never adjusted. Thanks, Doc. Won't happen again.
• The loss buys KU a hugely advantageous extra day of rest and preparation for the only thing that matters--scheming to win two in the first round. OSU win guarantied a 2-3 seed. The difference between a 2 and 3 doesn't matter as much as the extra day of rest and prep.
• Self says KU's defense is intermittently good now even without Joel; that it was good vs. OSU. If I recall correctly, JNew says the defensive efficiency is now 28th nationally with Joel missing several games and Self's never had a team finish below
25th. The difference between 25th and 28th is not very important and probably explained by SOS and Joel's absence of late. This is a good young defense that is vulnerable, when it cannot scheme on no rest day. Guess what. There won't be any no rest games in Madness.
• JNEW said Tharpe's finger was dislocated vs WVU; that explains his poor shooting and unaggressive ball handling. He should be much better by Thursday or Friday.
• Self knew the next game could be as early as next Thursday. He knew a win vs ISU meant a game Saturday. A game Saturday meant as little as only 4 full days of rest and prep for 2 in 3. Without Joel, with Tharpe's finger, with Selden's knees, with Black's ankle, and with the incredible load being placed on Wiggins (17-21 FGAs per game plus rebounding), losing guarantied at least 5 and maybe 6 full days of rest and prep; that just coincidentally was the best way to win two without Joel in the first round. Self will never admit it. No one could ever prove it. But Self did not make the obvious defensive adjustments down the stretch. If he really did botch it, then it's one lucky botch.
• Go Bill, Go!!!!!!
This game is a bit tricky to analyze.
Self clearly decided that the surest way to win the game was to:
1) score through Perry;
2) speed ISU up;
3) run lots of weaves to make them slide;
4) sub freely the first half;
5) play Brannen a lot to keep the pace up the second half in order to save your bigs for the stretch;
5) try to tire their legs out to drive down their trey percentage the last ten minutes; and
6) go big the last ten minutes and wear them out inside with Wigs, Perry and Tar.
KU executed the plan pretty well, but was undermined by KU's poor shooting inside and out in part due to ISU intermittently running a kind of zone defense I was not familiar with and that the KU players seemed confused by too. Still, KU went into half time with a 2 pt lead largely because ISU got tired and missed its last six shots of the first half.
During half time it was clear what Hoiberg would have to do. He had to send his players out balls to the walls at the start of the second half in hopes of building up a lead with a mix of trey shooting and Niang's inside game BEFORE his team lost its trey shooting legs and had to narrow attack to close to the basket. Self knew this and played it close to the vest, hoping to keep it close until ten to go when KU would put its bigs back in and grind an exhausted ISU into defeat.
Alas, the second half went as scripted by Hoiberg. ISU jumped out to a lead that grew until it was double digits with 12 to go and KU had to turn on the gas to keep it from getting away from them. But KU turned out not to have a lot of gas in its tank to come from behind. By ten minutes to go, KU had barely narrowed the ISU lead. But as if on a time clock, ISU's three point game dried up at the ten minute mark as Self apparently maneuvered to have happened. It was at this point that something very strange unfolded.
ISU without its trey game had to go inside to Niang. Niang is a short, but exceptional post player and none of KU's bigs could handle him one on one. It was at this point that KU was logically supposed to do one of two things.
KU could either start doubling Niang, as it had OSU's big so well the day before.
Or KU could go zone, knowing OSU had lost its trey shooting legs, and use the zone to cut Niang off entirely from the basket down low.
Either ploy would have worked. Close off ISU's inside game, when it had no trey game, and on the other use Wigs, Perry and Tar to cram the inside offense down their throats, and KU would be a winner. And it would be a winner even though it had shot poorly. In most other stats of the line score, KU had played ISU nearly even.
But instead of doubling down on Niang, or going to zone, KU stayed in m2m, and let ISU spread it out wide and then it shushed repeatedly to the iron for high percentage two point shots and a FT on a foul.
For reasons beyond my ability to explain, Self seemed not even to consider either doubling down, or zoning. Zoning frankly, was the surest way to shut of ISU's inside game and force it to try treys on tired legs. Even Self's 3 man m2m and 2 man big man zone would have worked.
Instead Self stuck with m2m and watched Niang slice KU to pieces.
Game. Set. Match.
Clearly KU's over time game against OSU had sapped its energy budget for ISU.
But just as clearly, KU could have won the game had it been able to deny ISU some of its easy baskets.
Such was not to be.
And now it is back to the drawing board to try to figure out how to win two games in three days in the first week of the Madness, regardless of what seed kU gets,
And then hope Embiid can get back.
Howling!
Black Death and Bam Bam.
As I wrote elsewhere.
Poetry.
PHOF.
Perry needs a new name, because since I hung The Designer on him he has not flourished and become the natural that he should be.
I herewith proffer a new handle.
Rodin.
For Auguste Rodin.
And for his "The Thinker."
Perry thinks too much.
Rodin was a great, great sculptor.
The Thinker remains one of the most iconic sculptures of all time.
Rodin will remind Perry of his own greatness, and The Thinker will remind him constantly that he has to lighten up.
It will also remind him to add 20 pounds or so.
Rodin.
Pronounced here....
http://www.howjsay.com/index.php?word=Auguste+Rodin ↗
Yo, Rodin, flush the mutha!
Black Death and Bam Bam.
Poetry.
PHOF.
I missed the first few minutes where KU opened up our early lead.
From then on the game looked like one where both coaches were trying to balance not letting the other team run away with the game, while simultaneously trying to conserve energy for the next game in the 3 in 3 tournament.
OSU particularly appeared to be playing much more conservatively than it did in the previous game, when OSU had played at the edge of its energy budget from the tip off.
The first half OSU was not pressing and it was not playing a half court trapping zone press much and only turned up the pressure briefly when it fell behind by ten. OSU appeared to turn up the pressure just enough to get it back under ten at half. OSU's first half offense was ineffectual inside and outside much of the time. They shot a poor percentage inside and out. Neither Forte nor Brown really got untracked the first half.
KU's early first half looked like Self was for a short while switching between m2m and triangle and two to trigger some recognition problems, but then seemed to me to settle into playing m2m most of the rest of the half and game. Most of KU's improvement on defense in this game was attributable to sharply more skillful double teaming inside than in other games since Embiid's departure. They strangled off OSU's close game. The first half they were tremendously effective and even pretty effective the second half despite OSU adjustments. Offensively, KU ran the stuff the first half, depending on inside buckets, some lobs and but suffered from weak outside shooting that never really heated up.
The second half I expected a furious attack by OSU to get back in the game but OSU chose instead apply a bit more pressure and take its time closing the gap. KU refused to counter this strategy with disruption, so gave up few easy baskets that OSU could start a run with. OSU was also contending with a game long inability to rebound effectively. KU wound up an awesome +18 on the glass, and that edge seemed to build steadily over the entire game. OSU could never really get runs going off the glass, so the pace stayed controlled. Both teams seemed to be playing with an eye towerd the ten minute mark as the time cut loose and try to win. Alas, at around the 12 minute mark, KU's lead squirted up enough that OSU felt it had to launch its attack then rather than wait for the ten minute mark. OSU's pressure defense made KU struggle just as it had in Stillwater, but KU seemed to have a workable strategy for bringing the ball down either side line under the pressure. Still KU's lead dwindled. From ten minutes on both teams increased attack. Wiggins, who had played exceptionally hard all game, increasingly became an offensive force. Selden, who had been mostly concentrating on defense came a live for a short burst. It was close with Markel Brown and Forte finally coming alive for OSU offensively, but OSU was victimized by some poor shooting choices by Smart, and could not close the game in regulation, despite things looking bleak for KU a time or two. Wiggins, Selden, Black and Ellis came through the last few minutes of the game. Black played increasingly well down the stretch.
Overtime was neck and neck briefly, but the KU began to make some offensive plays and amp up its defense, even getting a bit physical with OSU. What broke OSU's back finally was the loss of Murphy (if I recall his name correctly)--OSU's only effective big man. From that point on, KU's edge inside cemented board control and ground down OSU resistance. OSU finally seemed to crack and begin making desperate choices, despite not being totally out of the game. And then it was over.
Neither team had shot well from outside. Both teams shot about the same FT%. OSU had protected exceptionally well. KU had protected better than normal and pretty good for as much pressure as OSU had applied down the stretch and OT. KU beasted the boards. Wiggins dominated KU's scoring with 30 from 50% FG from the field and 90% from the FT line. But the rest of the team had well rounded high single digit scoring. Interesetingly, though Wiggins had some highlight lobs, his scoring was so much within the offense that it was a little surprising he had 30. Selden got 14 the hard way.
What we learned today is that if someone finally tries to shut Wigs down, the rest of KU's players should fare pretty well on open shots.
Hope this helps some with the game.
Great take away.
Self never quits being who he is for better or worse, and 84% of the time its for better.
He just said let's play better. Let's be better at being who we are. Let's guard the baseline better and with more timely doubles. I really didn't think it would work. I really didn't think it would work even down the stretch of the game. I just don't understand how you can kill yourself with TOs and win these close games.
But Self's answer is you can win any game when you hold them to 37% FG by denying the high percentage shots inside and the high percentage treys outside. If they can't get good trey looks close to the trey stripe, they can be beaten. It was amazing how few of OSU's trey attempts seemed to come from within a foot of the trey stripe. Look at that 3pt % for OSU: 29% and Forte and Brown are absolute trey shooting guns with good range.
Oh, and one more thing: KU was +18 on the glass!!!!!!!!!!
I thought there were two ways for Self to play this: either play it as they have been, only better; or go on the attack on defense. I didn't think they could keep playing the same without Embiid. I still doubt it against a team with a lot of length and muscle, like say, SDSU, but they did it against OSU. They did it. Self squeezed out the W. And they really only needed that 1 W from this tourney. But now in the best Self style, they are in position to steal another W from ISU!
He is the most amazing coach, and he finally has, a after being a most patient and trusting believer in Andrew, the remarkable player so many hoped for.
And he's got Tar playing.
And so on.
Just get out of this tournament without further injuries!
Please.
They ran the stuff and everyone stayed plugged in. And 14 TOs against that kind of pressure was solid.
Wigs walked the tight rope between over impact and under impact. He stayed plugged in beginning to end. He had 30 and 3 assists and was on AWACs radar screens for three or four get-ups. Still think he can and will get 30 with 5 assists, and when he does it, KU will super nova on someone. Regardless, his defense and boarding was what stood out the most to me. He just guarded the best he has guarded all season and didn't just grab boards with hops, but he got in and mixed it up on the glass on lots of plays. Still wish to heck he would look for two more dishes to anyone and two more post feeds for Tar, but he was plugged in beginning to end. But man did I love that defense he played, especially early in the game. His 5 TOs were excusable this game considering how well they were guarding him and how much we were asking him to work in traffic. 5 is high, but if we ask him to shoot 17 in traffic AND handle against that much pressure, and rebound, its probably the best we can hope for. And look at those 3 steals and a block!!!! Sweet.
Selden just played so hard, as Self likes to say. He wasn't taking on much air, but his strides were so long and he was guarding so hard. And he would get it going for timely squirts for 14 points on an off shooting day that might have caused him to disappear earlier in the year. But not today. He was a major part of this game. And only two TOs under a lot of pressure.
Tarik is so near and dear to my heart. He is such a pure big man. The team struggled grooving around him the first half mostly, because he labored after a good start. After the good start, his energy was not great the rest of the half. He seemed a step slow trying to protect against fouls. His hedge defense was decent though. But the second half he really came in and gave us several lifts and the team really played around him down the stretch and then again in the OT. Only 7 but they were timely and he did his duty on the glass with 12, and his help and hedge defense were as exceptional the second half as they were ordinary the first half. Also, no TOs. And I forgot his sense of getting the ball out of the defensive paint an on the move was quite good the second half and OT. Quick, not fast, as Wooden used to say.
Perry was very quiet, but then he got into the game down the stretch and came away with 9 pts and 8 glassvacs, which we can live with every game. I know he had a couple nothing stretches that got him pulled, but he didn't get his dobber down and when the chips were down down the stretch and in OT, Perry Ellis was there.
I want to just heap praise all over Jamari Traylor. Jam Tray looked the best I have ever seen him in terms of being on an edge every time he came on the floor and for as long as he was out there. 6 points and 9 boards. Those boards were huge glass vacs and his defense was constantly setting the tone for the rest of the team. With that kind of defense, rebounding and energy (two blocks) coming off the bench, we can afford for Perry to work through his stretches of issues.
Landen got a look and bought a few minutes, but could not get into the flow, but he did not turn it over.
Brannen did not accomplish a lot and turned it over twice, but by playing a little pick and pop 4 gave OSU a little different look that seemed to distract them. If we can get Brannen untracked shooting in that role, that could really help us in the Madness. A 4 that is a serious threat from trey could really open it up for Wayne, Wigs, and Tar.
Frank got in and got a trey, but Self seemed determined not to take the game away from Naa, even though Tharpe was struggling on and off.
Naa I saved for last because he fought for his life out there and got us 8 points and 7 Assists and a steal on a 2-7 shooting day and 0-3 from the floor. Think about this for a moment. Naa was responsible for 22 points on essentially an off day, against the kinds of guys that were hardest for him to play against. He only really got super shaky briefly in the second half when OSU was really turning up the heat. You could see the shakiness in his eyes one huddle, but Self stayed with him and didn't ream him and he marshaled his emotions and focused and slogged it out. Naa guided his team frequently and made only 2 TOs against a very tough perimeter defense. Why? Because Self schemed him lots of off centerline screens out high that he seemed to be able to work with better than the on centerline screens, or no screens, of previous games. I loved Naa for this game. It wasn't pretty, or perfect, but he got the job done under very adverse circumstances coming off that WVU game.
And to answer the man's question: they all stepped up for you, slayr. You should be very, very proud of these guys. They won a game your way, as a team.
And it would have been a team performance to build off from even if they had lost it. And this was in stark contrast to the WVU performance which would have not been a great team performance to build off from even if they had won.
If we get Tar for both halves, on a day when Tharpe is making his shots, and Wigs adds two dishes on penetration and two feeds to Tar for assists, when he calls for them, then to repeat, this team will have a supernova game.
Finally, it was sooooooooooooooooo good just to see Joel Embiid walking and smiling and wearing the silks. It was like seeing the dawn that first morning after I took sick awhile back. I was sooooooo grateful just for the sun to be up and today I was so grateful just for Joel to be up and there and be smiling.
Rock Chalk!
And I forgot in haste to add: I try never to be a peckerwood, or an antagonist, and neither do you. Its not who we are. :-)
Oh and they praised the lord and they passed the ammo, GJ, and they played like a team and they won like a team.
Just beautiful.
That's what I'm doin', GJ, that is what I'mma doin'.