🏀 KuBuckets Archive

JayHawkFanToo said:

@Hawk8086

I can understand why Huggins was so upset. The referring is inconsistent.

Inconsistent to Huggy as in...why are they calling all these fouls on us? We usually get away with the hacking and it is not fair the start calling them now. I better get a “T” or two now so I have an excuse for blowing a double digit lead for the 3rd time in a row against KU. :smiley:

Now you better be careful here.

Even with the smiley face someone might be tempted to mischaracterize your remark as part of a "narrative."

Or maybe even a "Conspiracy theory."

No, not "conspiracy theory;" that has had its cover blown.

But if anyone tries to smear you with spinning a "narrative", I will rush to your defense on this!

My hunch is that "narrative" will have its cover blown in a few years, after that you won't have to worry. :-)

@dylans

That's an interesting way of looking at it.

I wonder how many FTAs KU would have had under your new accounting system?

Still, your new accounting system does not change that in my 58 years of watching college basketball and five years of referee low level competition, I don't recall any team ever having a box score of 2 FTAs regardless of how many one and one's were missed and how many lane violations occurred.

But its still an interesting angle to be considered.

@JayHawkFanToo

Why do you ask?

Well, this is some really great news, isn't it?

I sure am glad everything is, and has been, A-OK with these fellas, because if it hadn't been, here is what I might have woulda did had I been hypothetical coach in such a hypothetical situation.

Hypothetically speaking, if I had a couple of important players that were not getting along, and it was spilling over into attitudes in games, and fans were even picking up on it, I believe i would spend some time pressing buttons to get them back cheerful like and on the same page. Coaches are still supposed to try to fix problems with team chemistry and interpersonal communications, aren't they? Its not to 20th Century a concept is it? I reckon not, so if that didn't work, and the problem was spreading to involve other players, then hypothetically speaking again I believe I might even have tried shaking up my starting roster as a coach of mine once did to a team I played on back in another century. I might even have kind of unfairly picked on one and not the other, oh, you know, I might have put one in a metaphorical toughening box and unfairly dissed on him a little, even a little in the media, in order to drive his teammates, including the one not getting along with him, to rally round him, because the bad old coach was uh bein' unfair with the players. And, well, then when I felt the interpersonal conflicts subsiding (of course this is entirely hypothetical, because we know now that there weren't ever any conflicts), well, I would kind of out of the blue just go back to the original line up without much explanation, and just say something like, oh, well, maybe that wasn't the right direction after all. And then after all that, when I was confident the two players were getting along, well, then I reckon I would get them out in the media displaying their newly adjusted levels of camaraderie and affection to make sure any media and fan speculation would be let go of, so then we could all get on with the season no more questions asked. And if i could find some old feeds of them getting a long famously before the whole tempest in a teacup came up, I would get word out there about those feeds, too. Appearances count in the contemporary world of D1. Why I even hear that some times media consultants offer advice on how to manage dicey situations that come up from time to time. So: I would want to make sure the program was wearing a nice big happy face and all was well, so they we could get on with trying to win a 14th title.

But again that's just me and that just only something I would have thought to do, if there had been a actual hypothetical chemistry problem with the hypothetical team. I wouldn't have thought to have did it, in this hypothetical case, if hypothetically speaking, there weren't any hypothetical problem at all. Capice?

But there wasn't no chemistry problem in reality.

In reality, ever thang was hunky dory.

:-)

@Lulufulu

The question remains: how did KU get soooooooo many other fouls called on it, if what you say is true.

Again, KU was whistled for FOURTEEN personal fouls.

WVU was whistled for 26.

It was not that the refs were not whistling fouls on KU.

It was that the refs were not whistling a certain kind of foul on KU.

That's where things get murky.

@BShark

The red flag to me is not size of the asymmetry. I have seen games where one team gets a ton more FTAs than the other.

I just don't recall a game in 58 years of watching, nor in all the games I refereed over 5 years, where one team only got 2 FTAs.

'Splain that one Lucy!!!!

@JayHawkFanToo

Good luck with the polishing.

Remember:

KU 35

WVU 2

Enjoy Europe when you finally get there.

Buffer 1

@JayHawkFanToo

It occurs to me that you enjoy the folk art of fecal mass polishing.

I am very tolerant of alias' pursuing idiosyncratic interests.

But could you engage in the fecal mass polishing without asking me to call it a precious metal ingot?

@JayHawkFanToo

WVU

2 FTAs

Next

What if Trae and OU lose to KU on Monday Night?

He is already no longer called Trae.

The recent slump in shooting and the 6-8 conference record for OU force me to rename him Deuce.

What in the world can I call him if KU beats them now?

Un?

@JayHawkFanToo

P.S.: Naa, na, na poo, poo.

I know more about what's going on in Europe than you do!!!

Howling!

JayHawkFanToo said:

@jaybate-1.0

Yada, yada, yada...

I was referring to you statement:

"The British kicked the scoffing French’s ASSes until now when France is everyone’s bitch."

emphasis on the "NOW" and "IS"

How IS France NOW everyone's bitch when they have the second largest economy in the the biggest and strongest military in Western Europe?

You are still living in the 20th century and are painfully unaware of what is going on in Europe. SMH.

No, you appear categorically incorrect on this and you appear to know it.

Rock Chalk!

mayjay said:

What do you bet Trae Young gets to the line 12 to 15 times Monday night? That will be because he drives constantly, not because of an instruction to the refs to even up for yesterday's game, but some will no doubt see causation.

I will bet that I for one will anticipate no future appearance of wrong doing in D1, because I am fully satisfied by the amount of appearance of wrong doing I get without anticipating anything.

I will bet that Deuce Young will appear to get the usual whistle breaks "stars" that come prepackaged with hype appear to get in the apparently entertainment value-drenched D1 from time to time (note: this is not anticipating future wrong doing, because in the entertainment value-soaked D1 it appears such enablement of stars does not appear to be inappropriate activity, perhaps somewhat the same as enabling stars in the World Wrestling Federation would not be considered inappropriate.)

I will bet the Deuce comes out of his slump sooner or later, but that he remains a volume shooter.(Note: I don't think the refs have anything to do with his slump, or with him being a volume shooter.)

I will bet that Deuce tries to drive on Devonte Graham (to foul him up), because Devonte has no credible back up and so Self would have to play Vick and Malik as his point guards, which would then force him into playing Garrett on a wing regardless of matchup, something he would not want to have to do for a majority of the game.

I will bet that Self tells Devonte to take as few fouling risks defending Deuce as he can the first 30 minutes to keep his fouls down, although probably he will NOT tell the team to keep the other team's FTAs down to 2. :-)

Next, I will bet that when Deuce gets a couple buckets Self will proably have Devonte sit on Deuce's strong hand, pick him up much farther out and will probably tell him to get a hand in Deuces face if he shoots the three, or let him drive by with his weak hand, because Self has put Mitch, and/or Silvio in the paint for a stretch and they will contest Deuce at the rim and KU's wings will attempt to sag and strip Deuce as he drives down the lane.

I will bet that some one will try to castigate others for being skeptical about events that appear remarkably improbable and then make the nonlinear leap to suggesting that they will anticipate future wrong doing.

Regarding the 12-15 FTAs being related to referee bias, there are enough bizarre anomolies in the recent past that no one needs to anticipate any. They just keep coming without any anticipation. Its like Washington and the Deep State. You don't need to anticipate them doing bad stuff. You just set your alarm, wake up and they've done something else bad. No anticipation required.

But here's the really great part: because of the preceding, there is no need to insinuate others would EVER anticipate this sort of fecal matter in the future, when almost no one anticipates the worst, except Deep State geeks that probably know why Stephen Paddock died in Las Vegas a day after police found dead from suicide in his Mandalay Bay hotel room. No, regular folk just wake up, brew some java, and before they are even fully awake the bad stuff just comes in over the digital transom, as per mind control precepts developed with our tax dollars to be used for destabilizing cultures at home and abroad in the interest of regime change.

(Note: these will all, of course be gentleman's wagers involving no consideration of any kind, or value, and loss of which will only result in metaphorical consumption of crow.)

Rock Chalk!

@Lulufulu

I am glad to hear from you, even though we disagree quite a bit on this. But because you have made your case to me you have provoked me into thinking more about this and I may have an explanation of what may have happened. But before proffering my idea, I will address some of your points.

Driving the rim is not the only way to get a shooting foul. KU in several different seasons has mastered driving into guys 10 feet from the basket to get fouled on what I now like to call hard pull-ups. Certainly WVU guys were shooting pull ups and some mid range J's and those can be used to draw fouls also. But they weren't being called for sure after the first six fouls. I suspect Huggins thinks that sort of driving into people 10-15 feet away is not very manly way to play the game. He believes tire iron fouling is honorable.

Regardless, as I said, once you get past 6 fouls each half every foul is at least a 1&1 shooting foul, if I recall correctly. Again, WVU only got 2 FTAs.

Now, I fully agree that Huggins brought out the tire irons this game.

During the game I was utterly pissed off about all the "flagrant" fouls that were not called flagrant, and all the no calls that should have been called. I really feared that Huggie had tipped the game with the tire irons by forcing the refs to send KU to the line so many times for so much of the game. From about 15 to go, it was almost like the refs were getting resentful of Huggins for having his team foul so much and not pull them back when they started calling them on it. Refs don't like it when they call a bunch of fouls to get a game under control and the coach of the team that is doing the most egregious tire iron style fouling doesn't pull his guys back. I believe the referees thinking would go something like this: hmmmm, we've called a piss pot full of fouls and stopped the game endlessly, because of this sunnuvabitch trying to turn this into a football game, so let's see how he likes this: we'll just not call any shooting fouls on KU and see how long his guys can hang on to the lead, when his guys start missing as many as KU's guys have been, because of all the rough stuff. And, oh yeah, tough guy, we're going to keep KU on the FT line and the moment you blow up we're going to T you out of here!

Now that you have made me process this again, I am starting to think that this must be what happened.

These refs have probably called a number of WVU games where Huggins and his teams have pulled out the tire irons the same way Tom Izzo and his teams do. We don't see all the other WVU games. We just see Huggie do it twice a season and some times, when he has no chance of winning, and out of collegial respect for a hall of fame grade coach, Huggie even pulls his punches with his team. But this was a must win game for both teams and Huggie knew he had a chance of fouling up the game so much that the refs would finally just swallow their whistles to get the game over; that would favor Huggie. So: Huggins just went to the trunk of his black 57 Chevy with the flames on it, pulled out a full array of tire irons, handed them out to his team and said something vaguely like: two go in one comes out. Foul'em till the refs can't call anymore fouls and then keep fouling; that sort of game we win for sure, even in Allen Field House, even with the home whistle. We aren't going to get a fair whistle at KU, so let's make them call so many fouls early they finally have to stop calling the fouls and let us play them straight up.

Well, my hypothesis is that the refs were sick of Huggie's strategy. They had seen it too many times before. They call it getting worked by a coach. Refs don't like feeling like they've been worked. They don't mind back and forth with a coach and they don't mind having a mistake called to their attention, but they hate it when a coach takes it into a level of roughness that they have used their whistles firmly to say, no, we are not going to have that kind of game today.

Maybe these refs had just seen Huggies act once too many times.

Maybe these refs looked down at the blue lettering on the court that spelled Naismith and they just decided they had finally been worked once too many times.

When I look at it this way, as an old referee, and when I think about the referees saying, look, we've made it clear to this guy, and we've cut him some slack, but he just doesn't get it.

Maybe they just decided to take the game into their own hands to keep Huggie from taking it into his.

Now that's something I can relate to.

Referees rightfully have great discretion in how to bring a game and its participants into line and to impose fairness on the competition.

Refs exist to make the game a fair competition.

Maybe the refs thought, so you want to take this junk to a point where we HAVE to swallow our whistles, eh? Well, we'll just swallow our damned whistles for you right now with 18 minutes to go and see how you like them apples, Bob.

And Bob didn't like it.

And they hung the Ts on him and sent him to the showers.

And did you notice that not one of the referees appeared to try to reason with their fellow referees to revisit what went on, and not one of them seemed the least bit ruffled about Bob's tirade, nor did they give him a second look as he left.

Hey, @Lulufulu, I'm feeling better already!!!!! :-)

Maybe this glass is half full, after all.

Rock Chalk!

@BShark

I think a lot of Lon Kruger. He's a good coach. A very good coach.

But Self is a great coach--a genius of sorts.

I am a big believer that young men and women need to take the opportunity to learn and be exposed to genius, if they have the opportunity.

Until you are mentored by, or taught by, or work under a genius, you just don't get this level of intelligence exists and what it is about, and how much can be learned by non geniuses from them.

Genius is not the be all end all of the world.

A genius is the first to tell you that genius is just an aspect of human talent and ingenuity and accomplishment.

Geniuses have told me that genius is NOT the key to their success, but instead a great trump card to have.

Genius is not a substitution for mastery of technique and tireless pursuit of getting better at what you do and certain god given abilities necessary for success in certain fields.

Self's basketball genius would not be near so helpful were it not packaged in a phenomenally hard working human being with a contagious enthusiasm and a winning smile and a true love for the game and a respect for his profession and for those in it.

But Self does have this basketball genius.

And I wouldn't really appreciate it and recognize it had I not had the privilege over the years to have been mentored by one genius, to have worked for another, and to have met several others in brief encounters of a few days.

Trae Young and his father were IMHO foolish to pass up the opportunity for Young to play for and experience Self's genius. In their defenses, perhaps they have never been exposed to genius before and so they did not recognize it in Self. But someone that understood sure as hell should have clued them in and given them a nudge.

Experiencing genius doesn't always lead to rosy outcomes. Geniuses are flawed and things don't always work out between them and others, same as things don't always work out between non-geniuses and other non geniuses. But once you experience them doing what they do with genius it forever changes your notions of where the ceiling of human accomplishment in your and other fields really is.

Until you experience a genius like Self in his field of activity, you don't know what you don't know.

I don't slobber and grovel toward genius. Its is not an attribute to be slavish, too, because one is just asking for abuse by the genius. Geniuses are like other human beings. If they are given an inch, they often think they can take a mile. I treat genius like any other human attribute. Until you have stood next to a 7 footer, you just don't know what tall is. Until you spend some time with someone that can sing professionally with great virtuosity, you just can't understand what being truly musical is like.

IMHO a person should never turn down an opportunity to be with a genius, if the situation does NOT impede a person from developing in the way he needs to develop.

Trae Young did not need to develop as a volume shooter. He already knew how to do that by high school. He can learn a lot of Okie Baller basketball from Lon Kruger, same as he could have from Bill Self. But no matter how swell it goes for Trae Young in Norman, he is not going to have spent his year of college ball with a bonafide basketball genius. He is going to enter the NBA not knowing how high is high in basketball IQ.

If Trae Young is lucky, he will meet a basketball genius to play for in the NBA, but basketball geniuses are rare at any level of the sport during any period a player plays in. In the NBA, there was Red Auerbach, there was Jerry West, there was Phil Jackson, there was Pat Riley (maybe), there was Popavich, there was Red Holzman (maybe), there was Chuck Daley (maybe). Maybe Steve Kerr will turn out to be such a coach. Players are drawn to him in that sort of way so far.

Trae Young turned down a certain opportunity to play for a basketball genius in order to show case his game more with Kruger, in hopes of getting drafted higher. In turn, he has a slim chance of winding up with a genius sometime in the NBA.

I'm VERY big on money.

VERY. BIG.

But part of making money involves knowing what you are up against--knowing how high the ceiling really is--knowing its strengths and weaknesses.

For this reason, I am also VERY big on playing for, or working for, or being mentored by, a genius when possible.

They get it.

And they can help you get it.

Regardless of what you do afterwards.

BShark said:

@jaybate-1-0 6 of WVU's 61 shot attempts were at the rim. Not a recipe to get to the line and something we were bemoaning about the current KU team recently.

I appreciate you doing some digging and bringing that to my attention. Still...

How many games, during the time that we were moaning, did KU get 2 FTAs in a hard fought, 40 minute game against a physical defense?

I am REALLY not trying to be a dick here.

But trying to justify these 2 FTAs is something even my old hero, Gerry Spense, attorney at law, would have been daunted by.

You have to be very careful with trying to argue that these calling only these 2 FTAs were justified.

I thought about it a significant amount before I posted about it.

I thought of many of the things other posters have suggested as explanations, but I just couldn't persuade myself of any of them.

I don't like posting about what appears biased officiating, especially when it comes out in our favor. :-)

I used to officiate a little and so I am quite sympathetic to the referees' situations.

But I don't recall ever calling a game myself, where one side had 35 FTAs and the other had 2 FTAs. And I wasn't a whistle swallower and I bounced a few coaches out of games. Granted this was junior high and city league officiating and so it doesn't really compare with D1, or even high school officiating in standards of excellence of officials. But I took my humble officiating duties seriously and I tried my best to be fair. And I never refereed a game where I had an ax to grind with a coach. And I never dished 35 FTAs to one team and 2 FTAs to another over five years of doing quite a lot of games (sometimes six in one day), while working my way through college.

This appears really a very hard, globular chunk without a very good explanation, other than a random statistical anomaly.

This is why I suggest the game be reviewed by the appropriate oversight group.

If it review suggests it is a statistical anomaly, fine.

If it were not, D1 should not tolerate this sort of thing.

This sort of thing did not even happen against KU in Columbia Missouri that I recall.

BShark said:

I will be surprised if he doesn't have a LONG NBA career.

My advice to the Deuce is to jump to the L as soon as he can.

He doesn't want to come back to another season like this one.

OU is 6-8.

He appears a 6-2 volume shooter without much muscle.

If the NBA will draft him now, go NOW! Take the money.

Another season of the team at .500 and being a 6-2 volume shooter is not going to push The Deuce's draft rank higher.

He appears another classic case of a very good high school player being "marketed" and the following happening:

Reality < Hype.

This doesn't make him a bad player.

It just makes him a volume shooter that cannot even keep his team above .500 in conference play.

Again, can he go off for big night against KU and sink us? Yes. He's a good shot. Just like the guy that took us down for UM in the tourney a couple years back.

But can The Deuce take OU to a conference title, the way that Michigan point guard did, and then win a few in the March Carney based on the kind of player he is right now?

As father jaybate 1.0 used to say:

"Wake up and smell the coffee, son, I taught you the difference between hype and reality quite some time ago. The kid can play, but we're not talking about a guy leading NBA teams to rings. We're talking about a guy failing to keep his college team above .500 in conference."

Devonte lost Billy Preston and he has somehow got his understaffed team tied for first.

The Deuce lost a player and he has somehow got his team under .500.

Chopped liver he ain't.

But steak tar-tar he ain't either.

(Note: normally I would not be writing about an opposing player even this much, but The Deuce made a big deal out of saying he chose OU over KU, because he wanted to end KU's 13-title run; then his dad appeared unnecessarily to passive-aggressived Bill more or less to effect that he liked Bill and KU, but that Bill just wouldn't ever have let The Deuce play the way he was capable of. Self (and KU) didn't deserve that junk.)

jayballer73 said:

Wow -we played unbelievable defense. - -Yes there were calls missed. - - -Sorry but yes even with all their 3pt attempts- - - and as much trouble as we have had defending all year -WOW what a quick turnaround. - - We all know now that we have just added a fresh 50 gallon barrel of fuel about how we get the calls. - Yep missed calls both ways - -But man don't care how you twist it - -TWO free throw attempts for an entire game? TWO? kind of hard to absorb.

Then if you were to watch at half and listened - you would of heard Jay Williams little shot - -" can we get some fouls called - - can we get some fouls called " - -doesn't take a Rocket Scientist to figure out what he was talking about there. - I fully understand about the 3pt shooting and agree - BUT yet with the physicality on the inside there had to be more then 2 attempts for the game for WV. - this for sure gives us a yet another really bad look for games at Allen Field house and favorable calls.

Now on the other hand for all the WV fans that cry about how KU pays off the officals - - umm news flash - -The Conference assigns these officials - -not KU - -KU has nothing to do with who is assigned to these games so get over yourselves on that. - - -ROCK CHALK ALL DAY LONG BABY

Until/unless this game is objectively reviewed, by an appropriate oversight body, all I can say is: SOMEONE appeared very sore at Huggins and WVU, and appeared to have a score to settle, and appeared to settle it with a swallowed whistle.

But I am a reasonable board rat and am the first to admit that statistical anomalies can happen, and that freakish occurrences can be reviewed with 20/20 hindsight and objectivity and be revealed to be exactly that--statistical anomalies.

So: if appropriate oversight were exercised and a review of the game tapes reveals that it was just some freakish anomaly that can occur over more than a century of college basketball, well, okay, then I am okay with what ever is decided.

In any case, this game should go down in Ripley's Believe It or Not!

And be included in a video called "The Ten Freakiest Anomalies in College Basketball History.

And if it weren't to be found to be one of the 10 freakiest anomalies, then I sure as heck am interested to learn the other ten.

Rock Chalk!

@JayHawkFanToo

I disagree.

KU 35 FTAs

WVU 2 FTAs

These are apples and apples comparison.

Unconflated.

Completely in context of FTAs.

Completely unconflated.

Next.

@Fightsongwriter

I would modify your comments this way.

Live by Two FTA refereeing, then die by it.

kjayhawks said:

For people that actually know the game of basketball it’s not surprising, KU had several games early in the year here at AFH where they shot single digit Fts. Why? Simple they settled for jump shots and weren’t driving to the goal. Just like WV did tonight, according to the KC star, WV attempted just 6, yes only 6 of their 61 shots at the rim. They are lucky we didn’t shoot more with the obvious fouls Bilas pointed out that were misssed, honestly I thought KU got away with 2 fouls.

Hmmm, how to put this?

I know the game some and I can do basic math, too, which it appears that some persons that imply they know the game apparently cannot.

2 FTAs is ONE THIRD as many as 6 FTAs!!!!!!!

ONE THIRD as many FTAs stands out a statistical anomaly IMHO!!!

But of course that is not the crucial comparison, is it?

The crucial comparison is:

KU 35 FTAs

WVU 2 FTAs

I have been following the college game since about 1960. What year is it? Ah, I remember, its 2018. That's about 58 years, or so.

I don't ever recall a D1 game in which one team was awarded 2 FTAs and the other was awarded 35 FTAs. I am not saying it NEVER happened, because never is for suckers, and I can't recall all the D1 games ever played during that time. But I am saying I don't ever recall one game with that distribution of FTAs.

WVU got .057 of the FTAs KU got!

And here is the case against your argument probably being correct, except in some universe of phenomenally remote statistical possibilities like the one where WTC VII fell because planes hit other buildings.

First, KU had 14 PFs called on them, so its not like KU was not guarding hard and engaging in a lot of contact. It was more like they were guarding hard whenever a foul would NOT trigger a FTA, but not guarding hard and contesting shots, whenever a FTA would be triggered. Hmm. I just don't recall a Self Defense team not contesting shots to this great of an extent, do you? I mean, as you say, even on a really lax day of defense, KU, or other teams, commit 6 fouls triggering FTAs, right?

Second, WVU took only 26 treys out of 61 FGAs; that means WVU shot 35 FGAs inside the trey stripe. Let me repeat that: THIRTY FIVE FGAS INSIDE THE TREY STRIPE. Wow! Did KU's Self Defense really contest so few of 35 FGAs inside the stripe that they only triggered 2 shooting fouls?

Third, KU often takes between 20-30 treys and never gets only 2 FTAs that I recall. Doesn't this put this event out in the Archon Alien realm of statistical anomalies?

This refereeing appears to deserve some review by an appropriate oversight body in the mind of at least one person that knows at least a little something about the game. Me.

But then I am old fashioned. :-)

@Fightsongwriter

Yes, that was what I was thinking of.

Thanks for fleshing it out.

He really was terrific.

@Fightsongwriter

Copy and paste.

JayHawkFanToo said:

@jaybate-1.0

You are taking two numbers and looking at them out of context. Look at my posts on the other threads and you will see the numbers are not that unreasonable or out of the norm.

No I am not.

Next.

@JayHawkFanToo

Nice of you to weigh in. Alas, you are obviously conflating my remarks about England's and France's differing approaches to enabling their respective industrial revolutions in their respective domains with what is going on currently, and at that you appear not to have much grasp of the current French economic situation in the global economy. These are easy mistakes to make: discrediting one argument with unrelated circumstances. Perhaps I wasn't clear enough, or perhaps you just made a mistake in your reasoning. What ever, I will try to square you away.

Yes, yes, its been widely studied and written about in histories grinding differing agendas regarding the industrial revolution. Education was one of several decisive factors in the Brits getting a leg up on the French during the industrial revolution. The British bet correctly on broadening educational access to increase and accelerate identification of innovative thinkers and so succeeded in speeding industrialization and naval architecture advances. The Brits did other things as well, but broadening of educational access was one of them. The French liberalized educational access much less, because they viewed themselves as larger population and a land based empire with Naval linkages, rather than as a naval empire with ports, and trade routes, and so the French felt more in need of maintaining their legacy feudal descended agriculture economy far more so than the British. One put it this way: the French were landlubbers that sailed to export their ag goods, and the Brits were sailors that came into port only to trade. The French bet the existing French upper classes, if well educated, could supply all the knowledge and advances they needed to stay on top. Alas, the failure to broaden educational access, as much as England did, bit them in the ass. The French upper class just could not produce the quantity of educated brains that England did by opening up education to more of its underclasses. This is old news.

USA took the British lesson and chose education on steroids and leap frogged both of them. Well it was a bit more complicated than that. USA tried to emulate both English and French approaches to curricula and emphasized early ID in all social classes of high IQ types and focused educational resources on skimming high IQs from ALL classes that then current prejudices would permit. Again, old news. Can't believe you haven't read about this.

Now if you want to talk 20th and 21st Centuries, then there were different drivers and objectives and goals and its not remotely germane to my remark; this was a different era, one when the Anglo-American alliance sought to (and did) take over Europe from the old orders and turn the European nation states inexorably into vassal states of the Anglo-American alliance. The old orders were far more complicated that we need to get into here. Suffice it to say the Anglo-American alliance was focused on breaking down ANY orders capable of resisting the alliance's growing trading influence on the continent and in the colonial regions those continental powers held control of. WWI is really the place to start for this sort of thing, but few accurately understand its underpinnings at all, and besides it would be a digression from the basic point which is this: I was referring to the British leap frogging the French in the industrial revolution by using more liberal access to education. You were conflating with irrelevant, illogical connections to today.

That should just about do it.

@Fightsongwriter

The wall implies something to break through.

Doke hit the wall about five games ago.

He is still making a friend of pain. He is learning to fight through the wall.

The trouble for Deuce is that his team is strung to need him to hang 25-30 points against solid teams for OU to win.

When a team like Texas has a rim protector that allows their defenders to stretch out another 2-3 feet than normal on the trey. Shooting percentage on the trey drops significantly with each two feet farther out. If a player is short and relies on his springs to get up to shoot over longer, stronger defenders, his shooting percentage drops even more.

So: to get his points, then he has to drive inside and try to shoot short treys against Bamba. When he starts going inside, his young body and lack of 2-3 years of college grade weight training combine to get him really beaten up and to rarely make the basket on the drive, so then he only gets two free throws. He's a great FT shooter, but 2 for 2 is still not a short trey, or a long trey. Over time, Bamba and some prison bodies makes it very discouraging inside to a youth body, so he gets into driving from 2-3 feet farther out--a longer drive--and then has to usually shoot off balance on little pull ups. Pull ups are the worst of all worlds: 2 points usually off balance and no foul and free throw. No stopping of play. No resting for a guy being asked to take 21 FGAs per game.

Yes, Deuce could easily get hot and go off for 30 against us. Devonte has already proven that Deuce is a little too quick for him. But Devonte will adjust. Self will get more help. And Devonte is now in shape to play this insane 40-minute man stuff. Deuce is still the skinny freshman having to fight through the wall. Odds are we make Deuce miserable. But odds don't always prevail. The Deuce has extra motivation vs. KU. There is something about Deuce's dad telling Self that Self would never showcase Deuce the way Kruger will that gives Deuce a little extra juice to prove Self wrong and prove Daddy Deuce right. Deuce Juice may be the very thing that helps Deuce get through the wall. But...the odds are against it on the back end of a 2 in 3.

Today, against lowly Tayhoss, Deuce went 7-21 and 3 of 10 from trey.

In his previous game, Deuce went 0-9.

Is Deuce slumping, or has he been exposed?

Many first year players play impressively for awhile until opposing coaches discover their weaknesses and scheme to stop them.

Some first year players also come up against freshman fatigue in late January, or February, when the number of games played starts to exceed the number they have ever played in a single season high school season.

And sometimes first year players are exposed for not being quite what they have been hyped to be before arriving.

Which are we to believe describes Deuce Young?

Let's start with his height?

Is Deuce really 6-2? I'm not buying anything over 6-1, more likely 6-0.

Next, Deuce is listed at 180. Its possible. But he seems pretty slender, slight even. Let's guess he is really 170.

Next, has Devonte ever had to play this many games against guys that are way longer and stronger than him most of the time? No. This is all new to him. Earlier in the season, Deuce was a very springy, water buggy type of player that was squirting all over the floor and opening big impact spaces to shoot very effectively. Now in February, Deuce is starting to look a step slower.

Next, opposing coaches are starting to understand what Deuce's opponents can and cannot do, as well as what Deuce can and cannot do. Deuce seems to be being kept more and more out of doing what he likes to do. That is tough on any player, especially a young player that has been a big start most of his career and never been stopped and forced to adapt to the larger players and the increased defensive abilities of opponents.

Where is this going?

Deuce may just be having a slump and he could come out of it against KU for 35 points. That would be bad for KU.

But it could just as easily be that Deuce is struggling mightily with not being long and strong enough to do what he likes to do. And opposing teams may be making it doubly tough to do what he likes to do. And the Deuce may just be destined to be more of a distributor at this level of the game, and less of a scorer. But on this OU team he is being made more and more to be a volume scorer. He scored 26 points against Texas, but it took 21 shots to do it.

Texas had a big shot blocker that allowed Texas perimeter players to stretch out their perimeter defense a few extra feet. Apparently that extra two feet is a much bigger deal in February than it was in December. In December, Deuce just stepped out two feet farther and gunned in the threes. But in February, apparently Deuce steps out and the old stems just aren't finding it as easily to get the shots off accurately.

KU has a rim protector also, plus an assortment of perimeter players capable of stretching out beyond the trey stripe.

Its going to be interesting to see if Deuce can regain his efficiency against KU, or if Self Defense can force him farther down the path of being exposed.

WVU 35 FTAs

KU 2 FTAs

These are the facts that matter.

Huggins has nothing to prove. The burden of proof is NOT on Huggins.

Its the referees that have some explaining to do.

How could this happen?

Maybe they can explain it.

Maybe they cannot.

But IMHO the Director of Big 12 officiating ought to review this game, and ask them to explain it, if only to clear the appearance of stench away from this game and the Big 12 conference?

I went out on a limb this past week and predicted KU would tie for first and so win its 14th consecutive title.

KU 10-4 and Texas Tech10-4 are tied for first.

Surprise, surprise, surprise.

I still think KU will lose one more game.

But we are going to beat Texas Tech in Lubbock.

It. IS. Going. To. Happen.

I am willing it here and now.

I can feel the limb growing in diameter under my feet as I type.

KU is going to win its 14th.

I don't know what the heck is going on in Division 1 college basketball regarding rumors of a big scandal, as was reputedly reported in Yahoo and CBS.

I don't know what the heck is going on in Washington, D.C. with Deep State.

But KU is going to win a 14th Consecutive title.

And it will be the most amazing Coaching job of Self's amazing career.

Rock Chalk!

Udoka Azubuike played like an absolute man today.

Doke got 21 points, 2 steals and 3 blocks. He was force on both ends of the floor and altered quite a few more shots than he blocked. Best of all, he was guarding the post and hedge defending at a level of intensity and effectiveness I doubted he could achieve until next season.

Doke did pretty much everything you could ask of a big man short of rebounding. As usual, he came up a little light with only 5 rebounds in 31 minutes of play. But when you've got a point guard that can grab 8 caroms three other wing players that can grab 4-7 apiece, well, guarding the high post setting ball screens 25 feet from the basket is frankly more valuable than grabbing a few extra reebs.

But as the head line of my post suggested, what Doke really deserves perhaps the greatest praise for today was making 7 of his 10 FTAs. 70% is a good night at the charity stripe for most big guys. High five to Doke! He made some BIG free throws, too. Some ice water in his veins free throws. Congratulations to a player turning into a marvelous big man right before our eyes.

What a great day for Doke to have a fine game on many levels. We needed to eek out our win today for sure. But beyond that it was very cool that Doke brought great post play on a day when Cole Aldrich was honored and on a day when both Aldrich and Sasha Kaun, two of KU's most memorable post men from the past, were in the stands cheering him on.

This one was for the bigs!!!!

They are a breed apart!

Rock Chalk!

Two Free throw attempts for a visiting team in 40 minutes of hard fought, physical Division One basketball with the home team coached by a hard nosed, defense first coach, desperately trying to get his team a W to try to find a way to stay in contention for a 14th consecutive conference title.

Who believes Coach Self stood in the locker room before the game and said, "Boys, I've got a new strategy for the game tonight. Don't foul them. Don't put them on the FT line. This is the key to beating WVU. Don't foul them. Well, maybe two FTAs, but absolutely no more. Don't get after them. Don't foul them. Don't guard them if it means fouling them and putting WVU on the FT line. DON'T DO IT and we win this baby by 6-10 points easy."

It seems a bit of a stretch to me. Self has done a lot of audacious things in his time. But who really thinks Selfian audacity explains the 2 FTAs WVU was awarded?

Scully, baby, I wanna believe!!!

But I just can't.

Two measly free throw attempts for West Virginia.

Fugggeddabout Huggie getting bounced out of the game at the end, as if to put a coup'd gras on the home job.

Two measly free throw attempts.

In 40 minutes.

I have never looked a gift horse bearing a much needed win in the mouth before, but I have to do exactly that, after watching this second, apparently farcical, near professional wrestling grade, come-from-double-digits-behind, utterly preposterous KU win over WVU.

Anyone that thinks for a picosecond that this appeared to be a fairly refereed game likely also believes that Marine radioman and CIA fake defector alum Lee Harvey Oswald rocked that Mannlicher faster and more accurately than trained snipers could; that the WTC VII was NOT dropped in a controlled demolition and was instead dropped by pigeon droppings; and that the Pentagon was hit by an airliner that archived NSA and Russian spy satellite imagery will one day co-confirm, if we are not all destroyed by nuclear war before then.

Just two lousy free throws for West Virginia University?

Well, that was some kind of incredible KU defense, wasn't it?

We can't blame it on the WVU offense, because, well, because the WVU offense played pretty well.

Self needs to bottle this new KU defense.

And then use it EVERY game.

This new KU defense is the stuff of legendary, come-from-behind victories.

Let's commemorate it to posterity as the "Two Free Throw Defense" aka the TFTD.

Everyone, me included, has said this team has had an incredible run of bad breaks and is about do for some good luck.

Well, it got a heaping, stinking, Allen Field House sized pile of luck today.

Two FTAs for the Mountaineers.

Self once famously and rightly said, "Amazing things happen in this building."

Well, its time to update and amend that memorable quote of his.

Now, its time to say: "Ridiculously unbelievable and preposterously improbable things happen in that building, too."

The Two Free Throw Defense happens in that building.

Quick, someone, help me out from this mountain of scepticism that weights me down.

Tell me that, oh, once or twice a season, visiting teams in Allen Field House are only granted two charity tosses in the Monarch of the Midlands. Tell me it happens every year.

Ready, set, go...fill in how many times a season opposing teams get 2 FTAs in 40 minutes?

Like Fox Mulder, I want to believe.

The TFTD is so staggeringly effective that an opponent can shoot 26 treys and make 50% of them, while KU shoots 22 and makes 31.8% and KU can win!!!

The TFTD is so darned effective, KU can shoot nearly the same FG%, actually be -3 on the glass, and still win it.

Well, I don't want to oversimplify. Nooooooo.

KU was in fact +5 on steals, +1 on blocks, and made 5 fewer TOs than the Mountaineers.

Yo, Huggie, what in the hell are you complaining about?

KU got 35 FTAs and your team only got 2 FTAs; that happens all the time, doesn't it?

Huggins and the Mountaineers didn't just get homed.

The got MacMansioned.

Hell, they got subdivisioned.

They got high-rise condominiumed!!!!

What did Bob Huggins do to deserve this sort of treatment of his team from the refs in Lawrence, Kansas?

Is Huggins under investigation by Bob Mueller for collusion with the Russians, now that nothing appears to be turning up about Trump and the Russians?

Is Huggie under investigation by the Fibbee agent/agent runner shizzle?

What would make referees see and call only two shooting fouls in a fast paced, 40 minute game in which they saw and called enough fouls for 35 FTAs for KU?

Did I say I am flabbergasted?

I am also frankly ashamed that something so apparently bogus occurred on a court named for the man who invented the game in the greatest arena in college basketball on an ESPN game day. Well, wait a minute. ESPN is irrelevant.

I love beating Huggie. I love bitching that his teams play too rough and try to intimidate opponents too much. I love beating his strategy with Self Ball.

But how can we say we beat them, when the game was refereed like that?

As always, one can say the referees made bad calls both ways. I can think of another 5-10 plays where KU was butchered and got no calls.

But the bottom line is that WVU faced nearly an entire game of no calls.

Disgraceful. Just disgraceful.

The game was de-refereed.

At least that is how it appeared to moi.

@mayjay

You response reminds me a some of the French scoffing at the British that greatly broadened compulsory and higher education to lower classes to tap into more brain power expressly to surpass the French in science, economic productivity and military force applied to grand strategic ends.

The British kicked the scoffing French's ASSes until now when France is everyone's bitch.

Oui?

@dylans uses a Bill Self quote for his tag line that has long fascinated me.

""We want to be in the game, not be a spectator with all the answers." Bill Self"

I increasingly wonder if Bill Self and staff are tapping into spectators that increasingly seem to be come up with "all the answers" we see kicked around here BEFORE he implements them.

I used to be enormously respectful of the boundary between basketball professionals and fans. I was very 20th Century in that regard. I believed the coaches were professionals and so light years ahead of fans in their understanding of the game and of strategy, tactics, and logistics, if you will in the game of basketball.

I used to see the embrace by Self of strategies and tactics advocated by fans in advance as random coincidences. The coach knew more than everyone back before the internet. The coach now makes $10M per year and so probably has fantastically more resources to expend on mastery of the game, not just more time.

But fans preceding Self and staff to insights has happened enough times now that I am starting question, if there were more than coincidence, or even synchronicity, going on.

Self still comes up with a lot of wrinkles and innovations that fans do not beat him to, or cannot even recognize, until he calls attention to them, so I do not wish to leave an impression that the man I have long called "the genius" out of genuine respect still does not know more than the fans--a lot more.

But a fascinating phenomenon may be emerging because of the internet's enablement of communication and analysis by individuals and its rapid cross pollination with large groups of individuals of varying perspectives and levels of knowledge and diversifications of knowledge.

Online communities, especially small ones like this one, with an enduring and common focus on KU basketball just do accrue knowledge relentlessly. The impact of this may have been being underestimated by me. I have long suspected a capacity for group learning accelerating over time in online communities, same as I have long recognized the capacity for group learning to be bamboozled with sophisticated spin and misinformation. But here is the thing: as we are increasingly observing in the large online communities that discuss all manner of subjects, but especially those engaging in various facets of politics, that the more TPTB engage in sophisticated mind control and disinformation campaigns up, the faster these online communities catch on to propaganda techniques and the faster they begin to identify poisoned wells of information, well-poisoning techniques, and new patterns of discourse that recover faster and reestablish faster integrity of discourse. The more sophisticated the lying and disinformation the more sophisticated the communities become about how they are being lied to.

But what I have underestimated IMHO is that group intelligence accumulates as well as group insight into bull shiting/disinfo/well-poisoning techniques.

What if this online community really IS getting smarter as the years go by about all things basketball?

What if the fans really are becoming a collective resource about the game that is growing richer by the day, by the season?

It is scary how much more I know about basketball after ten years of online interaction about the sport and I knew quite a bit about college basketball before I started.

I find it at least possible now that down stream fan communities that engage rigorously in keeping up with and analyzing the latest in college basketball statistics, and strategy and tactics, may overtime become a harvestable resource for coaching staffs looking to try to innovate and stay ahead of the competition.

I know this sounds like sacrilege to the traditional way of coaching and governing countries in the age of experts, but I have a hunch that the next great discovery of experts is going to be that there is a fantastically under utilized and under data mined resource out there that the can bring into play for the advancement of strategic and tactical thinking rather than just for spying on it and brain washing it and terrorizing it.

Market feed back before markets were hamstrung with top down controls gave western economic developments huge advantages.

Political markets back before they were hamstrung with top down controls gave western political systems tremendous advantages in political innovation.

Perhaps military and sports organizations need to begin to look at their fan bases as knowledge bases, not just money bases, that can be data mined for strategic and tactical knowledge that can lead to innovations current leaderships are simply just to slow and legacy ridden to recognize and adapt to.

Welcome to the really brave new world!

The world where not only AI, but the collective strategic and tactical and logistical intelligence of cultures are data mined for how to more effectively engage the world militarily and athletically.

Imagine the stampede to a renaissance in education of our nation if our leaders began to understand AGAIN that the intelligence of the nation is its greatest strategic, tactical, logistical and technological match up advantage. And what if they realize that perhaps the most underdeveloped and underutilized category is group intelligence capable of triggering nonlinear leaps in matchup advantage? What if we can not only benefit hugely from identifying the highest IQ types, but what if we should be identifying and data mining the intelligence of communities, of cultures? OMG!!

It may seem obvious what I'm talking about here, but there is some subtlety to it.

Currently we have educated to find the brilliant persons and shove them up as high as we could as fast as we could to leverage off their individual high IQs, while educating the rest to enable the carrying out of insight of the great thinkers. But what if there were another category of great thinking? What if there were a category of great, untapped thinking at the group level. We have done this in the past by creating epistemic ghettoes called universities where we group brainiacs together to try to get some nonlinear advances in thinking. But what if the online communities of our world are almost without our knowing it becoming massive concentrations of untapped thinking data, not just consumer data. What if online communities that focus on certain categories of activity are now tappable wells of innovation and insight, if only hidebound leadership would wake up and smell the epistemic coffee brewing online?

Remember, rock oil bubbled up in seeps for thousands of years in the midst of all stages of human cultural living without any one thinking of doing anything with it but putting it in bowls or on the ends of sticks and burning it. Recognizing untapped resources under our noses is the essence of human advancement.

Education of individuals to reach the maximum potential of their intellects is the greatest strategic tool and weapon the world has ever discovered and periodically underutilizes, because of the bias in leadership to want to monopolize knowledge to enhance its own legacy control.

If America wants to be great again, first educate its human beings to think creatively and rigorously, then build the infrastructure necessary to trigger and harvest their collective thinking, as well as individual thinking, BEFORE the rest of the world does it. Don't just keep using the internet for eavesdropping. You're never going to find out anything strategically big and worth a shit with 24/7 surveillance. All you are going to do is scare us all into finding a way to overthrow you all; that much history tell us for certain about top down constraints. Human beings are absolutely evolved to throw off top down constraints endlessly.

But if we begin to free persons and encourage them to generate, share and accrue knowledge, well then: a.) things are going to get better even faster than they have in the past, and b.) persons are going to be a lot happier and more fulfilled. Now listen up! Happy, fulfilled people need far less governing and far fewer drugs to put up with the hideous pain and depression that flows from totalitarian governance.

We can't lose educating all of us and capitalizing on the individual and collective knowledge we accrue. Even the private oligarchs can't lose.

It is amazing how much knowledge of basketball this web site has accrued on a shoestring and by serendipity.

Even if it is ahead of the coaching staff and management only 20 percent of the time, that 20 percent alone would probably be enough of an edge to push the program to another level of winning above the competition, if the coaching staff were open to harvesting it.

How might they do this? Share more and more of their knowledge with us, so long as it doesn't hamper their abilities to win games. Get us thinking more and more about the game, about strategies and tactics, about recruiting, about player psychology, etc. The more we think the more information we accrue and the more information we accrue the quicker we are to come to insights that might be useful to the coaching staff. Why would this possibly work? Because time is always the limiting constraint. A staff of coaches only have so many man hours to devote to thinking about basketball and they have to think with great focus on the immediate situations--the next game. Fans bring more man hours of thinking to every problem that coaches might steer them onto. The community brings more. Large communities bring still more. As with most things, there are probably diminishing returns at some point to the size of online communities regarding their knowledge accrual, same as with research teams, and universities and coaching staffs. But we don't know what those are yet to my knowledge. I've never seen research of online cultures to see learn: a.) do they get smarter; b.) can they be engineered to think and accrue more knowledge; and c.) that knowledge be harvested.

And imagine if all the fan web sites that were vastly bigger were actively encouraged to think and accrue knowledge. We are talking about a virtually untapped resource.

It is absolutely scary how much farther the already brilliant coaching staff we have could take the program by leveraging off the rapidly accruing knowledge in its fan base, if it were to actively develop its fan base. And an actively engaged and committed fan base would be less likely to fire a coach IMHO.

Stability through increased knowledge.

Stop using the internet to break everything and everyone down.

Start using it to build knowledge productivity, not just find out what buttons to push to make them buy shit they don't need, or divide them to allow another stupid, unproductive pirate oligarchy to take over without any net improvement in productivity and wealth generation.

And more wins for KU!!!

Rock Chalk!!!

There appears some possible correlation that Kentucky and Duke have backed away from the 8-10 dump truck thresholds recently.. Could they, or their aggregate suppliers, have seen this coming? How convenient for them, or what a remarkable coincidence? It is all quite difficult to fathom for a fan!

Glad Sherron gets a hang.

Will never understand what happened to him in the NBA.

@HighEliteMajor

Could this “scandal,” if it were to occur, focus on schools in states that were targeted for regime change by the two warring factions in Washington?

DOJ and FBI are involved.

The Nunes Memo has given us an indication of how politicized elements of DOJ and FBI have become.

Think about the schools involved so far, and the states they are located in.

Can you imagine either side in Washington benefitting from regime change in those states triggered by regime change at those universities?

Major athletic department scandals often lead to regime change in the athletic department and the university.

The university is often one of the largest economic entities in a state.

Cui bono?

@justanotherfan

I used to love the NBA.

I used to love D1.

The problem is not the differing systems. Variety is good.

It is the apparently virulent cancer of entertainment value-driven management apparently afflicting both that has ended my respect and affection for both.

@mayjay

But you will liposuction Huggie!

Quite discerning! 😀

@Bwag

👏

👍

Thanks for trying. The world will end not with a bang but formatting error! 😀

Predictions:

KU will lose to WVU unless referees are in the bag for KU. Huggins will convince his team that KU lucked out. Huggie has been here before. Coaches are even. WVU is deeper.

KU will beat TTech. Beard is now in over his head experience-wise. Self has a big edge that is narrowed by Knight game planning in the background.

Svi’s shooting is back after the mouse healed.

Malik is starting to get it.

If Vick takes one more step back to his prior level, KU will be back to invincible on any but it’s 19% 3pt games.

KU shoots well against WVU and it might even beat Huggie.

If KU shoots well against TTech it’s a W.

OU is the only game I am concerned about, because Deuce Young just had his last 0-9 game. He likely will be hot vs. KU!

That was Self’s prediction for the B12 winner , right?

PHOF

@benshawks08

19% has become a lower threshold, where losing becomes nearly certain.

45% has become an upper threshold, where winning becomes nearly certain.

@Bwag

Sometimes I feel as you do.

But I have after awhile come to respect him without really caring much about him.

Lebron grew up in the NBA. Never went to college. Pioneered the new NBA.

The new NBA is not easy to like.

He isn’t easy to like in some ways but he is the leper with the most fingers and it’s miraculous he survived what he lived through.

I thought he played hard for Riley.

He wasn’t very nice to Mario sometimes, but the two of them and some others won two rings together. Business is rough.

He made a business move back home to Cleveland. He went home to build a business. He liked Cleveland. It was an incredible business deal. He has done a lot in a long career.

I grew disillusioned with the NBA long ago.

I am happy he got rich, but I wish he could have played in a different time and gone to college.

Wigs and Lebron?

Most sad.

KUSTEVE said:

@BShark On the road. In a place we've lost way too times. We weren't playing for the national championship, but if we had lost tonight ...well, maybe the sky would've fallen.

True, true, true.

@Blown

Wow! Thanks for the relay on that.

LaGerald might be struggling.

I hope he has a code, or religion, or philosophy, and some friends that make it all enjoyable for him.

He deserves a break. Self clearly likes him, but maybe hasn’t found a key.

Some young persons don’t even have their own key at that age. Some don’t even know they have a lock 🔒 for one.

Some persons need a lot of support at certain times.

Hang in, LaCobra, you are finding a way. You are finding the way. Persevere. Nothing is written. You write it!

Rock Chalk!

@Texas-Hawk-10

What ever works!

@Fightsongwriter

Yea, very confusing to be interviewed that way.

Must be very tough for him, too, to feel that way in an interview. He should be savoring the win.

I actually worry a lot for the players.

I am old now and see so much more of what young people are up against than I could see when I was their age.

The world is about 50 % black box 📦 at my age.

It was 90% at 18-23.

I so hope he can trust the coaches and give himself permission to be of good cheer.

One day he will be able to help a lot of kids, if he can just hang in through this challenging time of his life.

Go, LaGerald, go!!!

I believe in you!

@Blown

Self likes characters.

The Snake 🐍 is one.

Something brought him out of the wicker basket tonight.

But what?

And will the snake charmer get him out against WVU?