🏀 KuBuckets Archive

Some times board rats wonder how Andrew Wiggins can be rumored to be awaiting some kind of mega endorsement deal.

Think about this number: 300,000,000.

That is the estimated number of human beings that play basketball on planet earth presently, according to the ever suspect Wikipedia.

Let's do the numbers, as market researchers like to say.

Primary Market: 300,000,000 hoopahs

Secondary Market: 900,000,000 (Ex Hoopahs and Hoopah wannabes = 3 x hoopahs)

Tertiary Market: 100,000,000 (wild guess)

Total Market 1, 300,000,000 potential buyers

1 pair tennies $100
1 clothes ensemble $100
Total sales/buyer/yr $200

Potential Sales/yr $260,000,000,000

adidas market penetration 10%

Effective revenues/yr $26,000,000,000

Now realize that the above sum estimates only the hoopah, ex hoopah, hoopah wannabe and related tertirary miscellaneous hoopah markets and does so with a very conservative 10% market penetration.

Realize also that there is a rather large, perhaps quite a bit larger non-hoopah market of persons that just buy tennis shoes because they feel better than other shoes. But let's leave these aside for the pros to worry about.

Now, consider if Adidas were to double its market penetration because they signed a phenom product endorser, say, oh, I dunno, say like, Andrew Wiggins. I know, doubling is a reach, but just to keep the calculations simple, let's say he could grow effective revenues that amount in part because of his charisma and in part because every year another couple hundred millions of persons reach the standard of living that allows them to buy shoes and a sports apparel ensemble.

Effective revenues/yr: $52,000,000,000

Investment bankers like to take a 2% fee for putting large deals together. $52B still qualifies as a large deal, I reckon, so let's say a product endorser that can deliver the goods and isn't any more risky than an investment banker and so "only" deserves a paltry 2% fee also, but since the shoe endorser makes it rain every year, let's say he gets it every year.

At that rate, the endorser could cut out about $1B/yr and still leave plenty of fat on the hog.

But of course, with endorsers, we are talking 'bout money, not talkin' 'bout wealth, as Chris Rock used to say.

Well, do you think Andrew would be worth the chump change of $100,000,000, or so, to up that market penetration for Adidas to 20%?

Andrew would be a bloody steal at that price, even just considering the hoopah market, even every flipping year!

And don't even get me going on the non-hoopah market he might be able to cross over into with the right kind of marketing. :-)

Still, talkin' 'bout money, not talkin' 'bout wealth.

(Note: just haven' some fun here on a kitchen napkin. Nothing binding here. My numbers could be way off both in the estimates and the calculations. God only knows what real numbers might approximate. But there are some big numbers floating around with an installed user base of hoopahs at anywhere near 300M I reckon.)

@HighEliteMajor :-) to your response to slayr above.

Yes, tell them Embiid and Black are questionable, but get in the Uncertainty Principle, too. :-)

@justanotherfan, you have just rocked my statistical thinking about the tournament structure to its stochastic foundations. This is just a fascinating insight you have shared; i.e., the one seeds are essentially playing in a 32 team tournament. It made my mind race to this: would you say this logic would also apply to the tournament back in the 32 team era? And the 16 team era (if that were what it were early)?

If the logic were linear and sound, then in a 32 team tournament, the 1 seeds would have been playing in a 16 team tournament and in a 16 team tournament the one seeds would have been playing in only an 8 them tournament!!

Perhaps the issue you have raised explains even more clearly why some of the accomplishments of the earlier eras are not duplicated.

Thinking about this leads into some dense thickets of trying to distinguish between randomize probabilities and biases from hot streaks that I am not able to unsnag yet.

Simpistically, the smaller the effective tournament, the greater the probability of each team winning it.

But if one introduces the bias of hot streaks, then as the effective tournament grows smaller, then the probability of any single one seed getting on a hot streak goes up, but so does the probability of any lesser seed, too.

Perhaps the small size of tournaments in earlier eras triggered even MORE volatility in what could happen, given the bias of hot streaks, or perhaps not. Can't clarify on this yet.

In an effective 8, or effective 16 tournament, each one seed only had to stay hot for a much shorter number of games and so perhaps every one seed was even more vulnerable to other one seeds, but also other lower seeds getting hot!

Maybe the larger tournament size of today and more games to win makes it less likely for any particular one seed to win it, but makes it MORE likely for the group of one seed to win it.

Maybe Wooden's 10 rings are even more remarkable in retrospect, because perhaps in the earlier smaller tournaments, there was more intrinsic volatility. Maybe he learned how to manage that volatility with the style he played, not just with talent. I don't know. I'm guessing out loud here.

Any one seed could get hot and win two, or four games in a row, whereas in today's larger tournaments, with more games, it is more likely to be the deepest, most talented team that tends to win it.

Maybe in an effective 8, or effective 16 team tournament, UK's 2012 team would have faced more risk from a lesser team only having to get hot and win fewer games?!

This is fascinating IMHO. Thanks for weighing in.

@globaljaybird Yes, to all, and about Forte, I had forgotten what a dead eye he was. The guy can gun.

"Some Ways to Get in Iowa State Fans Heads Before the Game"

~Insist on mis-spelling their school's name as follows: Eyeowa Steight Psiklonz.

~Tell them that Self-Stalking is caused by GMO corn.

~Remind them that corn-based E-85 has less energy density than 87 Regular.

~Constantly remind them about how LaFrentz, Hinrich, and Barnes played out of state.

~Constantly remind them that Bill Snyder, when an assistant at Iowa, would have been happy to take the ISU job.

~Remind them that Wheaties is the breakfast of champions and Corn Flakes is the breakfast of pig farmers.

~Tell them that despite inventing the electronic digital computer on campus between 1937-1942, they were never able to capitalize on it.

~Tell them that a state with Des Moines as its center of culture is not so much a culture as a series of interstate exits.

~Remind them that Floyd and Eustachy might get into the Basketball Rogue's Hall of Fame on the first ballot, if there were one.

~Last Final Four was 1944.

~Last Big 12 title was 2000.

~Cummulative W&L Statement: 1255–1256

~Mascot and team nickname don't match.

(Note: all fiction except for dates and W&L statement and mismatch of mascot and team nickname. No malice.)

@REHawk I hate it when you are so sensible, coach. :-)

@HighEliteMajor, I was never quite as pessimistic about Doyle as you, but that matters little here. I certainly did not see him as a huge add. I viewed him similarly to adding Tharpe and Mason, only longer, and clouded in the haze of Isaiah Thomas' shenanigans. And in any case, Tharpe (whom I have always found suspect defensively) and Towson-bound Mason (who most found suspect before he started playing at KU) have sort of put the lie to the idea that Self cannot mask low rated PGs and still play winning ball with a monster roster to go with them. So: boy, would it be nice to have a ball handling sophomore 6-4 PG/2, albeit with some limitations requiring masking similar to Tharpe and Mason, able to come off the bench to matchup with long PGs and 2s like Nova, OSU, Colorado, etc. Not necessary. Just another helpful piece in the puzzle.

@ParisHawk ooooooh, I forgot about Mickelson HAVING to sit due to transfer. Thanks for the assist. And I got pre-occupied with making due and completely forgot The Designer! Well, double bad on me. Nevertheless, subtract Mickelson and add The Designer and my point still stands and is stronger with The Designer.

@HighEliteMajor, after digesting it here is what I come up with: be very concerned that some kind of serious knee injury beyond a knee sprain has already happened. Be concerned that Joel was possibly sent back out in a blow out to fake being okay as best he could briefly in order to mask the degree of the injury for the upcoming game.

Joel appears a very tough young man. He has already appeared to play through pain. He recently played through what appeared a significantly limiting eye injury and he has appeared to be able to take a lot of obvious physical punishment already, so we can reasonably infer he has a high pain threshold. And we know Self has some history of masking significant knee (and other) injuries either through initial non disclosure, or understatement.

Kaun--knees that apparently needed surgery but were played through.

Aldrich--apparently some kind of leg injury that was apparently never really disclosed that I can recall.

EJ--some kind of knee injury that lead to a surgery that was apparently played through.

Rush--part of a knee surgery rehab that appeared to be played through.

Selby--reputedly playing in a boot.

Releford--reputedly playing in a boot.

Taylor--reputedly playing a season on a scoped knee only 10 days after a scope.

And this year, if I recall correctly, Selden had an early undisclosed knee injury that was apparently played through and now, after two blazing 20 pt plus performances, now may have recurred and induced a couple of muted performances.

None of the above encourages optimism about the potential mildness of injury to Black's ankle. Black missed an entire game with a boot on. We know guys in the past have played in boots. Plus that boot looked like the kind you get for a broken ankle, or some damaged ligaments or tendons to this layman.

Nor does the above encourage much optimism about the likelihood of Embiid having only a slight sprain. Would Self even mention a slight sprain before a big rematch with ISU other than to play around with Hoiberg? Probably not. Hence, my two hypotheses: a) playing around with Hoi; or b) something more serious than a slight sprain.

If the guys listed above were playing through injuries that needed surgery, some without missing any games, often with only being characterized as "a little nicked up," then seeing Black sitting out an entire game in a boot suggests something that perhaps cannot be effectively scoped, and something that could persist quite some time.

And Self just hinting at Embiid being worse than thought, when he was sent back out on the floor unnecessarily in a blowout makes me wring hands.

Time will tell one way or the other, of course.

But the truth remains: in a worst case scenario of Embiid and Black being finished, Traylor and Lucas and Wesley and Mickelson can be pressed into duty, and this can be turned back into a Kemba/Carmelo kind of team with everything going through Wiggins.

This Kemba/Carmelo kind of team would be much more encumbered by Selden having a serious, persistent and apparently no longer talked about knee issue.

So: if we see Greene's, or Connor's, or White's minutes ramping up precipitously the next few games, we can perhaps infer not only that Selden has health problems that are not expected to resolve during the season, but more significantly that Self is perhaps restringing the team into a Kemba/Carmelo kind of team in which the team is put on Wiggins back, and we play with bigs who's only role is defense and rebounding. That kind of a team would have to have a trey shooter on the floor at the wing opposite Wiggins that the present stringing of the team lacks with Selden (most games).

If I recall correctly, Carmelo's ring team and Lute Olson's ring team at Zona made due with long, non NBA grade bigs not sharply better (though probably more experienced) than Traylor, Lucas, Wesley and Mickelson, because they had a Carmelo, or a Mike Bibby on the perimeter and a couple of reliable trey dingers along side. Can't recall Kemba's cohorts as well, but maybe you can.

Anyway, the season started out depending mostly on how good Wiggins could be. So: in a worst case injury scenario with Black and Embiid out for good, the team merely defaults back to that.

Imagine the oddsmakers in Vegas sweating bullets about all this right now. They are the guys with huge bones at stake here. :-)

@TheDrunkenJhawk, until Foster and KSU beat KU, gotta pick him behind Tharpe. Tharpe could have the same numbers playing for KSU. Mason probably could too. Foster may even be behind the WSU PG. But Foster is having a good season. End is? He is good, but probably not sharply better than the KU, WSU and KSU guys. All Hype Team guys can never match their hype. Just ask Andrew Wiggins. It's impossible even when you play very well.

Hype kills.

Dagger time.

ISU, TEXAS, FAYLOR.

Win those three and beating out KU enters long odds.

@globaljaybird, the moment OSU lost Cobbins they had to start being tricksters to have any chance at all.

Ford can be annoying for sure.

But without Cobbins he has no choice but smoke and mirrors.

Nash seems the most danging indictment of Ford. Nash should be a great one. But he has not developed much for Ford.

Smart seems to be playing like someone that took a big gamble and lost. He is scrambling desperately. But he knows on some level he is sunk. Last season's confidence is this season's hollow swagger.

But OSU is still dangerous because of Brown, who has kept getting better.

The B12 is very tough to bluff through with a pair. Gotta have a full house.

This is conspicuous, because of Embiid's anomalous, unecessary return after injury in a lopsided win vs. TCU, plus Black suiting up in a boot one game and being 50% now.

It can be read at least three ways.

1. Self is yanking Hoiberg's chain as payback for Hoi playing games with Kane. Embiid is ok. And Black is too.

2. Self's luck with having play-through injuries the last few years with low depth teams appears to have ended. Embiid really is injured worse than thought. And Black really is slow to heel.

3. One player is much better than Self is making it appear and one is not.

I'm glad Hoi has to figure it out and not me.

If both guys really were injured, KU would be in serious trouble.

So serious Self would have to be already thinking about Mickleson taking off the redshirt.

Injuries!

Why guys jump when they can.

@Crimsonorblue22 Imagine how useful Milton Doyle would be about now. It is striking how many of these players that sign with Self and then depart for greener pastures (less competition) would have fit in well had they just been patient.

"Life itself is a quotation." --Jorge Luis Borges

"Short sentences drawn from long experience." --Miguel de Cervantes

"Patch grief with proverbs; make misfortune drunk..." --William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing, c.1598

"A wise word is not a substitute for a piece of herring. --Sholom Aleichem

"The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. But the opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth." --Niels Bohr

"The proper proportions of a maxim: a minimum of sound to a maximum of sense."--Mark Twain

"I often quote myself. It adds spice to my conversation."--George Bernard Shaw

"I really didn't say everything I said."--Yogi Berra

Excellent delineation and it distills to this.

Conundrum: "Does coach Self coach to get better for March, possibly losing a game or two by playing with an eye on the prize? Or does coach Self simply coach to win every game on the premise that the #1 seed is the first, most important consideration in winning the title?"

Self Solution: Do both.

Self will keep splitting the difference in order to do both.

First, Self will continue to create big games for different impact starters to grow their cojones. Frankly, I think Self is very calculating and methodical about this. Wayne gets two setups. Tharpe gets two set ups. Embiid gets two setups. Now Wiggins gets another after two early setups. Wiggins will probably be given a bunch of touches early against ISU's banging ways to see if Andrew's cojones have grown and hardened enough to go Kemba/Carmelo on the 'Clones yet this time. If he falters, Self will route the game through someone else better able to take the injury risk of bang ball, rather than lose the cojones-enlargement entirely of the TCU set up.

Self used ridiculously big minutes for Andrew versus pitiful TCU to beef up Wiggins' numbers probably to keep the brain trust and Adidas marketers happy on the one hand, and also to let Andrew raise the bar for himself. Notice Self said something close to, "He ought to be playing that way every game" afterwards. Self has tried raising the bar for him to become a Kemba/Carmelo without success, so against a nothing opponent he let Andrew raise his own bar, something he has struggled some to do against the good teams. Even super stars need confidence injections at times.

Self has clearly sent Perry Ellis into the toughening box starting two games ago. This is not going to be fun for Perry at all. But he will come out hardened steel as sure as god makes little green apples ripen. You don't put Perry Ellis in the toughening box if you are not willing to take at least a slim risk of an L. But Self is trying to get the Ws and develop the saplings. Self is a both guy. So Self may let up a hair on Perry for ISU, but the next weak team, oh, pity, poor Perry. Toughening box again.

What about Embiid? Self can't really count on any wins with this team without Joel carrying some bricks up the ladder. Self does not really have to put Joel in a toughening box either, because opponents are beating the living shizz out of him physically and he is fighting back and feisty and getting better still. It also sounds like Self went off all over Joel before the season ever started, and that Joel may have gotten his time in the toughening box back before the games started. Joel's likely in-season time in the toughening box will not come till next season. Joel should come back just for that! :-)

Where you really Self doing both, though, is with his back-up bigs and his backup trifectates.

Self keeps playing his backup bigs no matter what, no matter how the first half goes, because it buys his starters fresh legs with ten to go; that is going for a W if ever there was such a thing as playing to ensure a W. Two backup bigs get 10-15 mpg come hell or high water now. Get the W. Get better. Both!

The three trifectates--Greene, Frankamp and White--are the most brutal approach to BOTH! Each guy each game gets called one at a time to lay his green manhood out for all to see. If the first guy gets 15 the second guy gets 5, and the third gets 0. if the first guy gets 10, the second guy may 7 and the third guy gets 0. If the first guy bombs, the second guy gets a shot. Any mistakes and all and the next guy gets a look. Good play, or mistakes aside, anyone who shows anything but an upward trend line starts losing minutes and the third guy starts getting a short look. Getting better is allowed. Maintaining is not allowed. Maintain and you get fewer minutes. The combined effect is that the sapling trifectates are not allowed to make enough mistakes to imperil getting a W, but at the same time they are getting cruelly intolerant course in getting better. Self gets the W and Self gets 2 of 3 trifectates getting a littler better all the time. It is painful to watch. It is grindingly slow. But by March, two will be able to do a certain minimum role and flush treys for the task master on demand without making TOs. Get the W. Get better. Both.

Self is walking a tight rope between playing for the Number 1 seed, which he is always queer for (because he knows the numbers you have presented here), and playing for a developed team with a Kemba/Carmelo named Andrew.

Either way it breaks, he is putting KU in position for a ring.

Bill Self eats both for breakfast.

Bill Self eats both for lunch and dinner.

Both is his co-pilot.

Both is his mantra.

Both is his prayer.

Never position for one, or the other, when you can position for both.

A man is born with a pair--with both.

He plays with both.

He gambles with both.

He wins and loses with both.

But mostly he wins.

Rock Chalk!

@drgnslayr Believe! I say a little prayer every day to make it happen.

I really do think your Kobe metaphor is crucial for Andrew's brain trust to buy into.

If Andrew were to retool along the Kobe model, there would be no reason not to come back. Injury risk down in his extra year of college. Injury risk waaaaaay down for his NBA career.

With a Kobe style ball handling and shooting, then all of the incremental edges he seems to hold over Kobe in terms of length and athleticism would become next level advantages for a career.

All this takes is belief in Andrew's capacity to redirect his game beyond the rather raw leaping and bouncing athleticism he shows effortlessly now into a polished craft refined to a highly specified role ideally suited to the L.

P.S.: I meant no disrespect to Selden for forgetting him. I would foresee him coming back and splitting with Oubre.

Deck. Stacked. Pot of gold won.

@drgnslayr, Wiggins has the kind of length, reach and slide, that he can cause headaches wherever you put him. But putting him on top guaranties that the opponent can never really get away from his storking!

@wrwlumpy, I truly hope Eustachy has turned his life around, because the guy could build very, very tough teams and seemed a good coaching mind on the wood.

@drgnslayr, yep, when they do it they are unscrupulous and when we do it we are wily! :-)

@Lulufulu85, regarding "if zone was so tough, why isn't it more often used?"

slayr's explanation captures much of the answer. If you are not very talented, i.e, if most opponents hold MUAs on most of your players, then playing m2m means you are getting beat one on one all over the floor, regardless of how hard you guard. So: with less talent, you play zone to try to force a superior opponent to have to play inside 20 feet against almost constant double teams that result from zone defense. Further, keeping your inferior players packed in tight in a zone makes it much tougher for more talented opponents to control the glass on you. Playing a dense pack zone leaves a team with superior talent with the option of trying to beat you outside, which depends on variable hot hands at shooting. Next, for all the lesser teams you play that are at your level of talent, or below, then you probably want to play some man, and some zone to trigger some recognition problems, and so that you can handle the more frequent mismatches you face various ways.

But playing zone when you have a lot of talent risks two undesirable things: a) telling the opponent exactly where his MUAS will be on the floor; and b) a greater fatigue factor playing a zone optimally.

First, is the point I have been trying to make in my discussions of late. Suppose you have MUAs at 4 of 5 positions, but the 5 th position the other team has a huge MUA. If you play, say, a 2-3 zone most times down the floor, then a coach like Self is going to have his team play hot potato side to side to get your guys expending energy to move the zone rapidly in a big arc of sliding, while Self's guys are mostly just staying put and zinging the ball around the perimeter. Doing this time and time again down the floor burns up your energy budget more than Self's team's energy budget. And while your zone is sliding side to side, Self is weaving his one guy with MUA again and again into the part of the zone where his one guy holds maximum MUA. This means that once the ball gets to that guy with big MUA, at the always known location, then the zone has to collapse from several directions to shut off the sure score, and at that point, one quick pass to several locations can result in a quick score. Playing a zone means you are telling a coach like Self exactly where the vulnerability is every time down the floor and his guys can get very comfortable playing for that MUA and exploiting it. And of course Self can also pass it inside, collapse the zone, and kick out to a relatively open trey. A patient, sound passing team, with just one or two positions with MUA can basically surgically cut even a very good zone apart AND tire it out.

As I was schooled by an old alias named 100 several years ago, to really play a zone optimally, all the players have to keep their feet chopping non stop so as to be ready to move the zone around quickly in response to quick passing. This constant chop over the course of 40 minutes means a zone defense team is actually burning up more of their energy budget than does even the hardest guarding man to man defense. This is critical to a coach like Self, who's philosophy is: create the space for impact players to make impact plays when needed, especially down the stretch. When a Self team plays a zone team, unless the zone team is sharply more talented at most positions, or unless the Self team lacks good outside shooting to keep the zone team from dense packing its zone, Self's impact players are going to be a lot fresher and more bouncy at the end than will be the zone team. As a result, Self's impact players tend to win the game down the stretch.

So: the answer as to why more teams don't play it goes something like this:

a) if you are blue blood with a lot of talent aiming for rings in March, you tend to want to play man to man so that your talented impact players are fresher than zone teams and as fresh as man to man teams in order to win the impact game whenever talent is very evenly distributed among both teams; and

b) if you are a mid pack, or an also ran, you want to play a lot of both zone and man--zone against the superior teams, and man against your equals and lessers.

@Lulufulu85, the triangle and two that I referred to is a half court zone defense, not a press. When it sets up it often looks like a standard 3-2 zone of the kind that Trent Johnson and TCU tried on KU last game. However, I think triangle and two is not the correct name for referring to it, so I am sorry if I confused you. Alas, I can't recall the proper name.

Note: a classic triangle and two is a half court zone-man hybrid, but it uses three guys guarding zones in a triangular configuration in the paint--two guys baseline and one in the middle of the paint, while the other guys are assigned to chase the two best scoring threats man to man. The box and one is another half court variation of this. Four guys form a square--two baseline, two out at the free throw line, while one chases the best scorer man to man.

With the above clarified, the 1-1-1-2 is a 3/4 court zone press.

The 1-2-1-1 is also a 3/4 court zone press, that is sometimes also played full court. When played full court, the object is to try to draw the offensive team into inbounding the ball near baseline to either side of the floor, So that the point defender and the wing defender can immediately trap him. From the moment the trapping starts, then all other defenders are trying to anticipate desperation passes down the sideline and intercept the pass down the sideline. The offense is trying either to get the ball down the sideline before it can be intercepted, or get the ball back out into middle court and away from traps. The defense, if it does not get an interception, then is racing down the court to stop the long pass and the easy basket.

The 1-1-1 part of the 1-1-1-2 is in I-formation. When the offense commits to one side or the other, the defense follows rules about which of the next two defenders will confront the ball. If the ball is dribbled right or left, then the point defender will force him one way and then either the second or third defender may play for a trap, or play to strip the pass. If the ball is immediately passed to a wing, then the I-formation may morph into something close to a 1-2 formation, backpedaling and looking for a trap on the wing.

Regardless of what kind of zone press you play, the idea is not necessarily always to trap, but to trap sometimes and other times to back peddle and contain and try to get the person with the ball to pick up his dribble, THEN rush to him and trap. And still other times the zone press may just keep back peddling until it is just behind mid court and then it tries to trap at the point where the sideline and the mid court line meet. And still other times the zone press is just a long accordion that never traps but rather backpedals until the ball reaches a few feet farther than the offense normally likes to set up, applies some pressure to get the ball handler to initiate farther out and then the press melts into a man to man.

@wrwlumpy, Gola I never saw much. Of course I know he was supposed to be great, but you need to fill me in on what you remember about him. But Bob Petit? Yeah, I have flickering memories of him. Petit was one of my dad's and my older brother's all timers. I just can't remember enough of him to really write much about him.

I probably missed Gola and have only flickering memories of Petit, because my pop was never one to heap much praise on anyone but Jayhawks. His list of greats beyond the Jayhawks was: Bob Petit, Oscar Robertson, Jerry West, John Havlicek, Larry Bird, and Magic and Big Russ. He would have been a big Michael Jordan fan had he not gotten so much flack for talking about Jordan rationally. My dad really never did grasp the power of the hype machine to bend person's minds, because it never bent his. He always wondered why Jordan hadn't been allowed to be Jordan, rather than being hyped into the greatest player of all time, to which my father would always respond: "Jordan is so great. Why can't they just say he was the greatest 2, or 3, there ever was by a long way? He is a consummate ball player, good, or great, at every aspect of the game you can be good, or great at. Why do they want to force comparisons with him and Big Russ and Wilt. Big Russ won more rings and even player-coached one ring, so Jordan can't be better than Big Russ at winning. And Big Russ won more NCAA rings, too, so Jordan can't be better at winning in college ball. And Jordan can't be better than Wilt in any individual statistics pro, or college. And who would you take in a one on one game? Wilt or Jordan? And Jordan can't be better than Oscar, or Magic, at point guard, because Jordan never played point guard, and Oscar, or Magic were the greatest point guards that ever lived. Period. Why can't they let Jordan be what he actually was: the greatest 2, or 3, ever? Isn't that great enough?" To which I always had to respond: "Right on, pop. When the hype machine is off MJ for a decade or so, that is how he will finally begin to be remembered. An incomparable 2 or 3. Probably the best ever at BOTH positions."

Tell me about Tom Gola, lump. Download your memories.

Though it flew under radar, as in almost no one seemed to comment, Self deployed that rarest of rare zone presses, yes, a 3/4 court 1-1-1-2.

SAY WHAT?!

Yep the one and only time I saw it was against Arizona State a few years back, when that little known Okie Baller was interim head coach and was assisted by some connoisseur of weird defenses. Both names I now forget. They ran the 1-1-1-2 and it gave KU some problems beyond simple surprise and recognition. Why?

The three 1s deploy based on matchups the offense cannot anticipate. The two 2s play like a pair of free safeties. It is only loosely a zone press at all. It is akin to Self's weird triangle and two, where the triangle plays something halfway between zone and m2m and the two play zone. In the 1-1-1-2, the 1-1-1 play something between zone and m2m, while the two play zone.

Why does Self go mostly for the weirdest of the weird in zones? The common thread is choosing zones where KU STILL PLAYS SOME M2M.

Why does Self lean to m2m even in zone? Fetish or reason?

First, Self likes his zones to be a surprise. He mostly plays m2m. Part of the surprise is playing zone at all. But another part of the surprise is deferring as long as possible the recognition of his zone. He masks its deployment. as long as he can. When he is in it, you are not sure he is in it. Further he likes zones that can be played various ways from the same initial "formation;" this seems to track to Self's Okie roots in football. Football has long relied on single formations out of which several possible plays could be run; I.e., the sameness of the formation masked the point of attack, or defense. And here is where the 1-1-1-2 press comes in.

The 1-1-1 part is like an I-formation in football from which many kinds of zones, or even m2m coverage can emerge. The symmetry of the I-formation even discourages an opponent from guessing which. Even when you recognize it you cannot be sure what it will do. In fact the two men at the back can even be decoys masking an actual m2m press all the way.

Self is a wily devil that masks what he does. He is happy at KU, but. Black is fine till he shows up in a boot. Zones are not who we are, till we play them, er, till we appear to play them.

The 1-1-1-2 is a zone press till it's not. And even when it is, you can't be sure how it will deploy.

Does Self wear a rug, or cut his hair that way, so if he ever does need to wear a rug, we won't recognize it?

Eisenhower was like this at Normandy. Even when he finally committed to invade, and the Germans saw them coming they were not absolutely sure what they were seeing, i.e., of what was coming next.

Keeping an opponent guessing about what is happening even as it is happening is one of the greatest tactical advantages of all. Just ask the Confederacy as Sherman began a march to eviscerate the heart of the South and at any moment he could march in any direction and accomplish his mission.

The 1-1-1-2 might never be seen again. But if opponents were to see it again, opponents would not be able to be sure of what it would actually do.

@REHawk, agree with you that we are going to see something emerge on the half court zone front. My guess is that it will be a zone that masks the general defensive weaknesses of Tharpe and Mason in front, and situationally with Perry against the particularly strong L&As that give Perry trouble. One other possibility is a zone designed to trigger some TOs. Self needs to find a bit more half court disruption on demand.

@Crimsonorblue22 You bet. Forgot about Jam Tray. He could do it for sure.

@Crimsonorblue22 LOL!

SOME POSSIBLE UNDERHANDED HOIBERG STRATEGIES FOR THE LAWRENCE REMATCH

~Hoiberg sends ISU stalker fan down to follow Bill around until Bill can't sleep the night before the big game.

~Hoiberg will bring back Johnny Orr to sit on the bench and talk endlessly about how Orr used to torment Larry Brown into making mistakes, while yelling intermitently toward the KU bench that Bill Self is just like Larry without the wanderlust.

~Hoiberg will bring back Tim Floyd to walk around behind the KU bench with a brief case full of money and whisper subliminal suggestions about transferring.

~Hoiberg brings Larry Eustachy back and tells Larry to try to party hearty with KU players' girl friends at the Wheel the night before the game, thus upsetting the concentration of KU players.

~Hoiberg plans to ship the Atanasoff-Berry Computer replica, a replica of the world's first electronic digital computer that was invented at Iowa State between 1937 and 1942, and that is now housed in Durham Center, at ISU, down to AFH to be placed behind the ISU bench, so that Hoiberg can keep track of how many time outs he has left.

~Hoiberg has added Nobel Prize Winner and part time ISU faculty member--chemist Dan Schecter--to his staff to covertly cover the soles of KU's Adidas basketball shoes with no stick material made from Schecter quasi-crystals, in order to make KU players slip and fall. Schecter, an Israeli citizen, will take time off from his campaign to become President of Israel, to give KU what some wits in chemistry call the Linus Pauling slip.

!220px-Quasicrystal1.jpg ↗

(Note: Obviously, this is all fantastically, satriically fiction. Absolutely lacking in malice.)

@drgnslayr and @HEM, the 1-3-1 matchup that Heathcoate ran with Magic and Kellogg was the greatest single half court defense I ever saw in college basketball. Boeheim has strung together a couple of great 2-3s but I don't recall either of them being quite as stifling as Jud's 1-3-1.

The keys to a great 1-3-1 is a fast, tireless 1 man on the baseline and size on perimeter capable of stretching out and pressuring trey shooting. Wiggins could be the ultimate baseline defender, but it would waste him for the offensive end. If you have a guy like Embiid in the middle then it would be brutally effective.

But the problem that persists is that even with all the trapping and all the perimeter pressure and rim guard of an Embiid, if an opponent has an MUA against any one of our guys, into that zone he goes and then its just a matter of passing to the uncovered man exposed when the zone deforms to stop the guy with the MUA.

Now, if he will just take another year to perfect it at KU. :-)

Wiggins and Oubre on the wings. Embiid in the middle. Perry and Alexander splitting the 4. Tharpe and Mason with experience at the point. Greene, Frankamp and White to spell the wings. Lucas and Mickelson to spell Embiid. 40-0. RING!

Next.

@drgnslayr Regarding Welsh, I was impressed with him too. And Shroff set him up well, too.

I want ESPNU to hire John Riggins to broadcast a couple of KU games. I know he didn't play basketball, but now that he is clean he is fun guy with a great sense of humor and understands what athletics are all about.

Thanks to everyone for indulging my flight of fancy.

Now back to hoops. :-)

@ralster Have always agreed with your at-large comment postings, especially about EJ; that's what I have always thought was useful to do for all the players Self asks to play out of position--Mario at the 2, Russell at the 1, Brady at the 3, EJ at the point, Jamari at the 5, and now Perry at the 4. These guys that get heavily criticized for short comings in performance that track directly to playing out of position, need respect and understanding, rather than scorn and criticism of inadequacy. I mean think about Jamari Traylor, at a true 6-6, or 6-7, having to play backup 5 to a footer before this! Now, Jamari gets to play a 4, and he is slowly growing into the position, rather than just endlessly having the fact that he lacked the basic equipment to play the 5 exposed when he played.

I never get down on Josh Selby, because he was a PG that played out of position at the 3!!!!!!! I mean the guy was by definition about the team. He didn't ask to be born poor. He didnt get to pick who his mom befriended when he was young. He didn't get to pick that his mom and her advisor apparently early on picked Bruce Pearl, as he and UTenn were imploding. At least they picked right once, and chose KU as a safe port in the storm. If Josh needed to go to the L to put food on the table and get mom a roof, what is wrong with that? Heck yes, Selby could have probably had a better pro career had he stayed at KU another season, or two, but he sacrificed for his family, whether it was the wise thing, or not. Sacrificing for your family by definition makes you an above average guy, whether or not it turns out to have been the wisest choice in the end. I know I don't recall another point guard that played out of position at the 3 for D1 blue blood. And yet Selby endlessly got grief for unfulfilled expectations.

Same with Brady. The guy was a natural born 6-3 2 guard with a 40% trey gun and a very, very sound defender, so sound that until his last season, he almost always took the toughest opposing perimeter player. He typically guarded guys 2-4 inches taller than himself. And yet fans endlessly said if this guy weren't playing the 3 KU would be so much better. Nuts. The point was that he was playing out of position and sacrificing for the team, because the team DIDN'T HAVE A 3 THAT WAS MENTALLY DEVELOPED ENOUGH TO PERFORM AT A HIGH LEVEL. And then Brady plays backup 2, back up 1, and backup 3, so that KU could better back up and absorb the TOs made by the guys Self put ahead of him at 1, 2, and 3 has last two seasons? And people want to complain about a guy that absolutely would have been better off parked at the 2, and shooting 40% treys, and guarding other 2s.

How did people dump on EJ, Brady and Josh just to name three for most of their careers? Its always been incomprehensible to me. Sure, people hyper ventilate after a big loss, but what has always amazed me is that so many keep it up through thick and thin for entire seasons, for entire careers.

Andrew Wiggins isn't playing out of position. He just got over hyped and miscast. He didn't ask his brain trust to enable the over-hyping and miscasting. He was just a kid playing the game and letting his brain trust do what it thought best. He came out of high school early, maybe too early. Maybe that was his choice, but that decision has never been a precise one. And at least he chose a right way program. But Andrew Wiggins has never been started out of position by Self for a season the way Mario, Russell, Brady, EJ and now Perry have been for multiple seasons. What would happen to Andrew Wiggins's fan response, if he not only had to put up with falling short of hyper-hype, but also had to play out of position at point guard, or center? It would be even more brutal than what he has had to put up with.

I love KU fans and how knowledgeable they are. But if I could wave a wand and change one thing it would be to make them more grateful to the players that play out of position--to be more tolerant of their shortcomings when they do. Self would not play these guys out of position, if he did not think that doing so was the only way to get the most out of the team.

Rock Chalk!

@REHawk, thanks for the good idea and positive thought, but I never mix business and love and I love my Jayhawks and Edward Hopper. This is all recreational and has to stay that way. Same with my posts. Sometimes alias suggest I ought to collect them, but that would be entirely contrary to my purpose of contributing them to a KU basketball online community. The game's the thing. But it sure as heck would be easy for someone else to contact the Hopper heirs for a good cause and do their own rendering in order to try to raise money for a good cause. Rock Chalk!

@ralster regarding the Maginot line, that is exactly what I was trying to say. The Maginot line takes a lot of grief as a fixed fortification that failed to save France. But in fact it was quite effective as a tactical fortification in channeling the German advance. The problem was that French leadership did not correctly estimate the probabilities of where the line would channel German advance and so concentrate forces accordingly. No defense, neither fixed, nor mobile, neither strategic, nor tactical, is effective without correct estimation of how the battle field is reshaped and how the opponent will act on the revised shape.

History is littered with fixed fortifications that have appeared to be disasters, but that in fact achieved their tactical function, only to have leadership misread the enemies tactical response to them.

Also, fixed fortifications are often constructed in ways that start out tactically effective and grow obsolete in a tactical sense. The Maginot line probably was very effective in its tactical channeling of German force before military technology change enabled an order of magnitude leap in speed of movement by the time of the German's actual out maneuvering of it. In this sense, fixed fortifications need to be not such deep sunk costs that one cannot afford to abandon, or revise them, as military flanking capabilities evolve.

Some ask why USA has scattered dozens or hundreds of tiny bases around central Asia that could probably not individually be held under concentrated attack. That would probably be because their tactical function is to force opponents to have to divide forces to attack them, and to make them relatively inexpensive, so that as circumstances change, there is little sunk cost in their abandonment.

I hope so. Hopper is a hero of mine and IMHO the greatest painter America produced in the 20th Century, even allowing for America's other manifold and towering accomplishments in the various genres of regionalist, modernist abstraction, and post modern. It was a great century of American art and Hopper always spoke most deeply of all to me. I could not resist humorously and affectionately fusing these two things I love so much in a paintograph: Hopper and The Legacy of KU basketball. It gets at the idea that it can be lonely waiting for something, being a fan, even when one is amongst many other fans. It is a shared loneliness this waiting. But better than not waiting together, as the darkened realm beyond the cold, but brightly lit diner makes clear by juxtaposition. Oh, yes, and Hopper's ironic and existential undertones remain, also.

Rock Chalk!!!

!Nighthawks99B.jpg ↗

Not for rebroadcast, reproduction, re-transmission or re-distribution in any form. Not intended for commercial exploitation of any kind.

@twocoach, good question.

Answer: freshmen

John Wall was pop tart factory for two thirds of his freshman season at UK.

Freshmen make mistakes.

Why do Freshman make mistakes?

1. Never played so fast before.

2. Never faced so much contact before.

3. Never played such long games before.

4. Never had to concentrate so much before.

5. Never been away from the mother's milk so long.

6. A freshman's neural nets, no matter if he were Andrew Wiggins, or Brannen Greene, in terms of talent, has much less development. Full neural net grow in does not complete on average until 23. Freshman are playing with huge gaps in their nets. They can't concentrate. They can't focus. They can't think so much. And so on. Extreme youth is a structural problem.

Take away the freshmen TOs and you would have a respectable TO rate.

@drgnslayr There are structural reasons why Self teams commit high TOs and they are foundationed in the kind of offense they run. They get open mostly with footwork, not with screens. They mostly pass to optimal impact spots known to the defenders. Self apparently views a half court as a largely fixed array of attack spots that players must occupy and receive passes from without screening as much as possible. Screening is a tactic, not a core strategy. Screening tends to concentrate offenders on the ball, which means one offender setting the screen is not in position to attack , or rebound. It means two of five offenders are NOT in position to go get the rebound. It means 3 players of 5 players cease to be attack options. It means defenses are clumped which makes it easier for them to help, if the shot off the screen is not taken. The object of Self Offense is as often as possible to pass the ball to single player on a spot that makes a defense unable to stop a score from, or have to help to stop a score. Screening can get a guy an open look at a spot but never leaves numerical advantage off the ball. Every time a Self Baller gets in scoring position without a screen, the defense has to help, or give up the score. If they have to help, then KU always holds numerical advantage off ball. The game goes from 5 on 5 to 1 on 2 around the ball and 4 on 3 away from the ball. Hence, there is great incentive to risk TOs to get the ball to attack spots and there is great awareness of defenders knowing where those spots are and that KU will try to use length and athleticism alone to get to them and to receive passes there. In short Self trades off higher TOs to get to attack spots without screens most of the time in pursuit of, first, the on ball scoring opp from an MUA on an attack spot and second the ensuing 4 on 3 advantage off ball. When defenders are fresher than offenders, they are hard to shake without screens, and so passers practicing quick ball movement have to make many high risk passes to wings and into paint. Why do it Self's Way? Why does it work? Self probably figures on most nights only half the shots go in no matter whether you screen, or not. That means half the shots come off. That means that if you shoot without screening and while forcing help on an MUA play from a high percentage attack spot, then you get to play 4 on 3 off ball as the misses come off the rim. This means you can choose between releasing some back for defense to stop easy transition baskets (note: ever notice how few transition baskets most teams get on KU), or crash the offensive glass 4 on 3 ( something KU does from time to time).

All of the above is why Self Ball suffers high TOs. It is trying to get the ball to heavily defended, known attack spots for huge benefits beyond just an open look. When all that is needed at a key moment is a sure open look, then he will run a screen play.

@HighEliteMajor, here is a heuristic expressed as a Boolean logic for when not to zone an opponent

"If an opposing team were talented and skillful enough to put its players in your zones where they hold MUA consistently, then no zone, else zone."

@globaljaybird, of late I am trying to get back in shape after my health problems, and so I am probably writing too much to try to push myself back into shape. But I just really don't have my old zip. What I am doing now is all grind it out. Everything used to be effortless fun. Such is life.

Thank heavens the game is still the thing. :-)

@REHawk, aging sucks, not being old. aging is losing the tools that enable you to savor and live life fully. being old is just getting better at what you know. But the aging, man does this suck or what, coach? :-)

@globaljaybird, partly I mine wiki pedia google topics a little and partly I remember odds and ends i happen to know about such places. This was mostly compliments of trivia in wikipedia. But that museum. It is a real special building that brings Kahn's concept of "bringing silence to light" into clear focus for layman to appreciate and experience. Look at pictures of enclose spaces, especially those that are essentially open air, and he accomplishes his unique obsession beautifully. Kahn was a great, great genius that transcends the modernist movement in architecture. He went beyond modernism into something that no one else has really yet caught up with. It is scary good at times. Transcendantly good. Citizen Kane good. But you really have to go to one of his buildings to get it, then you can look at pictures of what he did and get it just from the pictures alone. But the first experience of it is necessary to really see silence. Even narcissistic and self promoting Philip Johnson said Kahn was playing at architecture at another realm above everyone else. Post modernism, which I like a lot, too, has so far not produced anyone as singularly extraordinary as Kahn. Kahn was an architectural freak. When in San Diego, Torrey Pines, go take a walk on the patio between the buildings comprising the original portion of the Salk Institute. They screwed the front up with a bad addition, but the patio with the long linear water feature survives. Stand at one end and look at it extend out toward the ocean and sky and you will instantly understand why I call him a genius. But I am running on now. Excuse me.

@JayhawkRock78, sorry, there I lost track of this thread. Thx for letting me know you got a laugh out of it.

@HighEliteMajor, a mighty fine commentary, sir. Just between you and me I have long preferred your reasoning and favored what you favor, that 1-3-1 Magic's Michigan State team ran so long ago now. However, I had not developed my thinking enough to include two different zone presses, also.

I played on a high school team that used the 1-2-1-1 and can vouch for how much havoc it could create, but it drew down our energy budgets a good bit doing it. And we mostly only used it when behind.

My devotion to the 2-2-1 zone press is the closest thing I have to an ideology in my life. It is good to play it if you have talent. It is good to play it if you don't. It is good to play it to force half court offenses to initiate farther out. It is good to use it because sooner or later, though its primary purpose is not to force turnovers, it always does force turnovers. It is good because opponents hate playing against it for an entire game. It is good because it can be played with green eggs and ham, Sam I am.

The 2-2-1 was instrumental to Wooden winning ten rings.

The 2-2-1 won rings with a 6-5 anchor.

The 2-2-1 won rings with footer for anchors.

The 2-2-1 won rings with tweeners for anchors.

But that is all pressing stuff.

The half court logic remains that if you run a zone, I may not like playing it, but I know where your chess pieces are, and I know you won't move them during any single possession, and so I know where to put my guys to create MUA.

And even if you do move them before each possession, my guys can make a couple of passes to find out where they are going to be.

Now, HEM, here is where you and I might revolutionize the zone and so revolutionize defense in basketball.

If we were to come up with rules for switching defenders from zone to zone during a possession, then we would have some thing that could avoid the mismatches.

The "switching zone."

Not a switching man to man.

But a zone where if I move Perry Ellis to the other side, then Cory Jefferson's zone moves over to the other side.

Hmmmmm, I like that!

THINGS TO DO IN FORT WORTH BEFORE THE TCU BEAT DOWN

~Try to visit all 1,000 natural gas wells tapping the Barnett Shale formation under Fort Worth. Each well site is a bare patch of gravel 2-5 acres in size. City ordinances permit them in all zoning categories. Some wells are secured by masonry fences, but most are secured by chain link.

~Skip the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History and go straight to the adjacent National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame. Women already in the hall of fame include Georgia O'Keefe, Sacagawea, Annie Oakley, Dale Evans, Enid Justin, Temple Grandin, and Sandra Day O'Connor. As you view the honor to Sandra Day O'Connor recall It was reputedly at the 1985 National Press Club's Salute to Congress at 529 14th Street NW in Washington D.C. that Riggins drunkenly told Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor to "loosen up Sandy baby" because she was "too tight" when the two reputedly met at dinner.[29] Riggins then reputedly fell asleep under the table.[30] The incident created a national stir.[citation needed] The next time Ms O'Connor and John Riggins reputedly met at a function years later, she reputedly gave Riggo a dozen roses.[31] {The above was found at John Riggins wiki page.}

~Though it is off season, it is probably worth popping by Fort Worth Cats minor league baseball stadium. The Cats were a minor league baseball team from 1876 to 1960,when the team was merged into the Dallas Rangers. The Cats were resuscitated in 2001 and have been a local hit ever since.

~Definitely pop by American Airlines corporate headquarters in Fort Worth so that the next time your American flight is over booked, you know exactly who is responsible for your luggage destined for home winding up in Heathrow.

~Never hurts to take in Bell Helicopter headquarters just outside Fort Worth to see if you can get a look at the V-22 Osprey tilt rotor craft--one of most remarkable aircraft answers to a question no one asked.

~Net geeks have to sneak into Fort Worth's two big internet radio shows: "DFDubbIsHot" and "Thre Broadband Brothers."

~Get all Tayhoss Progressive by finding a copy of Fort Worth Weekly, an alternative newspaper that serves both Fort Worth and Dallas.

~You'd have to be crazy not to drive by the Federal Bureau of Engraving, one of only two Fed Debt Note (aka paper money) printing facilities in USA. As you gaze upon it realize that it prints all the fiat money for the privately owned Federal Reserve's San Francisco, Dallas and Kansas City branches.

~You'd have to be bat guano flippin' crazy not to drive by Federal Medical Center, Carswell, a Federal prison and health facility for women that is located inside the Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base Fort Worth. The major attraction is of course the federal death row for female inmates. Not many Big 12 university towns can boast Federal death rows for female inmates, eh?

~You absolutely must ride Molley the Trolley. It is a free bus the encircles Sundance Square, a 35 square block retail, apartment and happening district for swinging singles.

~Try to avoid walking in Fort Worth, because it is ranked the 47th most walkable city out of 50 major US cities.

~For live music, you should either go to the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra or Billy Bobs.

~Lastly, if you have survived the rigors of all the above, all joking aside, you really should take in the Kimbell Art Museum designed by famed modernist architect Louis I. Kahn. It is one of the great museum buildings in America and it houses a fine collection masters ranging from Michelangelo, Caravaggio, El Greco, Velazquez to Gauguin and Cezanne. They also have one of my personal favs, Theodore Gericault, though alas, not The Raft of the Medusa.

@icthawkfan316, wish I were being rhetorically cunning, but alas, I'm just getting forgetful. Thanks for recalling Kidd-Gilchrist. What a stud he was for a freshman. Lamb could shoot the rock, too. As time passes I am more able to think about the UK team independent of our loss to them in the Finals. But when ever that games comes into my mind I hate them as much as ever. :-)

Bravo, bravo, bravo, slayr.

All getting better has a mechanical origin and a contextual origin.

Mechanical origin: value the ball more in practice,as Crimsonblue22 suggests, by concentrating on the variables you suggest.

Contextual Origin: Turn practices into fierce contexts of disruption, so as to get our players more used to the speed, contact, chaos and anticipation, that valuing the ball must occur within.