You're an engineer, as I recall, and so I will have to explain this to you both literally but succinctly.
It is called being tongue in cheek. :-)
jaybate 1.0
10346 posts
About Danged time!
đ
Iâm saying the weave appears ancient.
But Iâm saying Coach Self appears to be the originator of the scissor play that can spool inward OR spool outward, until some one can remember an earlier coach running it that way.
Ready, set research!
I havenât read about Hayes yet. Youâve stimulated my curiosity. I wonder if John Hay were involved in Rutherford B. Hayes, too?
Back when I read a lot about early basketball, I read some where that the weave was run as far back as early pro basketball around 1900. If I recall correctly, 100, an old poster on the web site that this site descended from, indicated that Phog Allen had experimented with a weave some and run it some back in the 1920s even. Another early version of the weave was claimed to have been pioneered by the Harlem Globetrotters. The weave is kind of a generic word for players running cross court at one another from both sides of the court, one with the ball, and one approaching for a toss, or pass, or hand off. But it is important to understand that there are many ways to crisscross and in my opinion each of these ways of running the weave is what really constitutes a particular coaches invention and not the criss crossing and tossing itself. I suspect that there has been criss crossing and tossing the ball likely dating back to the very early days of the game.
The reasons for early origins of the weave may not be apparent to today's fans. In the days of layups it was a way to keep getting closer to the basket. But as the two hand set shot evolve was particularly helpful in getting two hand set shooters loose for a horizontal, sliding two hand set shot that would not be blocked back in the day. My dad, who played high school and a little college ball in the mid to late 1930s showed me the shot with the sideways slide many times. Still the weave kind of receded with the rise of early fast break basketball pioneered by Ward Lambert as far back as the 1920s, but really pioneered back when Wooden played for Purdue in the 1930s and likely by a coach at Wisconsin even earlier. The more contemporary conception of the fast break filling two or three lanes and going appears to track to John McClendon's innovations shortly after he left KU as an unpaid assistant and protege of James Naismith, if I recall correctly.
But it was supposedly Henry Iba that pioneered a fully systematized weave that was used as both an attack offense to get a shot AND as a stalling offense in the 1930s. It was Iba that used it to overcome opponents like KU with more talent than OSU (then called Oklahoma A&M) had. It was Iba that used it to slow down the pace of a game and reduce the number of possessions. It was Iba that refused even open shots until a shooter was completely open very near the basket. The Iba weave would repeat getting closer and closer to the iron until finally some one got a lay up, or the ball was brought back out front and the weave reset and run again. I saw the Iba weave in the early 1960s, long after it had gone out of fashion elsewhere and Iba was called an anachronism, when OSU played in the Big Eight Christmas Tournaments. It was the most boring, frustrating, offense I have ever seen before or since. But Iba was keeping games close with inferior players and hanging on to win it at the end long after everyone had begun to mimic Wooden's running game, or Dean Smith's multiple offense, both of which emerged by the early 1960s, or Knights motion offense, and Eddie Sutton's/Jack Hartman's/Don Haskins' 3-2 high-low emerged by the late 1960s.
After Iba retired, the Iba weave seemed to disappear pretty much in my recollection until Bill Self rethought it and frankly adapted it to enable the athleticism of contemporary players to shake free for a basket at a crucial moment the season before the 2008 ring team. Maybe others here will remember Self running it before that, but that is my earliest recollection of Self developing it.
Whenever he started running it, Self's weave differs markedly from the Iba weave I recall. The Iba weave was much more cross court-oriented with each weave nearing the basket in much smaller increments. The Iba weave was VERY deliberate, repeated many interactions, and as I said just kept repeating until it got within a few feet of the rim.
About the only thing Self retained from the Iba weave was players crossing and transferring possession.
Self devised the weave to be run out of the 3-2 high low initially and so he really never weaved with more than three players in the beginning that I recall. The Iba weave almost always involved four players as far as I can recall for I am recalling the Iba weave from 1962 at least, and Iba supposedly did not even invent the 3-2 High Low until the 1964 Summer Olympics. The Iba weave I recall weaved with 4 players with a post man. Alas I cannot recall what the post man's role was.
Also, the angle of the crossing is much "steeper" in the Self weave, than the Iba weave. Players are running out and curving around and then crossing often at near 45 degree angles of approach to the paint and the basket as they take their tosses. This I believe is why Self called his play the scissor's play rather than the weave early on. The players are cutting across each others paths instead of weaving. If you can find footage of the Iba weave you will likely notice the distinction I am making almost immediately. Self's weave more closely approximates what the Harlem Globe Trotters ran at times than what Iba ran, but don't hold me to that. Someone needs to go back and research this. And Self has elaborated it for a 4-1 set and included four players in the play more recently. And Self has been kind of subtlety dorking with where the tossing takes place. Early on much of the tossing occurred out in the middle of the floor. But now we also see the scissor/weave transfers occurring out on the wings AND in center floor. This scissors offense is much more complicated that it was back in 2008 for sure. We even see some screens in the lanes setting up the freeing of the players to start the scissors on a wing sometimes. Sometimes, I think if it were not for Self being able to dork around and keep adding bells and whistles to the entry into the scissors offense, Self might get too bored and go to the NBA. :-)
Finally, Self's version of the weave has something I don't recall at all in the Iba weave. Self's scissors play is run two different ways. One way the crossing players cross under each other and toss the ball to the player penetrating closer to the basket. The other variation is the player pitches the ball to a player cutting over the top. Sometimes the weave takes the ball farther from the basket and sets up a long jump shot. Other times it takes it closer and sets up a slashing drive into the paint. Here again, I think the Trotters did this some, but Okie State did not. But remember that the Trotters were weaving for comic effects and for chances to do schticks. Self has adapted this action for real.
Because of the differences cited above, I really think Self deserves to be called the inventor of the modern Scissors Play rather than the resuscitator of the weave. He seems to have borrowed some from Iba and some from the Trotters.
In some critical ways Self's play is NOT a weave at all.
Now, what needs more research is whether or not someone else pioneered the scissors play itself before Self.
Iba had an assistant at OSU that left and adapted Iba's slow down game to a much faster pace at either Oklahoma, or Oklahoma City University. I recall the man's name to be Doyle Parrock. I have long viewed Parrock as likely the missing half-step, developmental link between Iba's game and Haskins/Sutton/Hartman's version of Iba Ball. I do not think Parrock succeeded as a head coach and so returned to be Iba's assistant to near the end, of Iba's career, again, if I recall correctly. I have often wondered if Parrock maybe developed some version of the scissors play from the Iba weave and maybe that's where Self got the idea. Its just a hunch. I have no evidence of it.
What someone really needs to do is ASK Self about this issue?
He could clear it up instantly and definitively.
He is so knowledgeable he would probably contradict 2/3s of what I have laid out above. But that's okay. What is important is that we get it down from the master for the record how Self did it--where it came from, when and why?
Self is an amazing guy. What he is doing to and for the game needs to be recorded and understood.
Rock Chalk!
If by SC you mean South Carolina, they are a different bunch, aren't they?
I always found that it helped me, when I was pulling my hair out in such places, to study the colonial and post colonial relationship of Britain and France in other places like the Caribbean, or the Guyanas, or the Southwest Pacific, to get the objectivity to appreciate the long term British and French overlap in the American South. Scholars don't talk much about it, but there really was a British-French co-depency dynamic in colonialism, as they played catch-up with the more expansive and (early on) more sophisticated colonial apparatus of Spain. Once you get enough detachment you can see the strong parallels with the British-French co-dependent regions and then remember that it was a combination of British banking in New York City financing South Carolinian planationism (that expanded westward to New Orleans and then into Texas), trying to do to the South much the same as the British had done to Ireland, coupled with British and French buyers of the plantation products that jointly shaped both the political and commercial law and so sensibilities of the Deep South. Remember, also, that it was British insurance companies, not northern insurance companies, that decisively insured the rebuilding of Southern infrastructure and commercial and real estate enterprise from the earliest stages of reconstruction, and that it was the British and to lesser degree the French that found safe haven jobs for Confederate political and military officials during reconstruction that otherwise might have hung under the puritan streak's yearning for justice for the North. It was not a coincidence that Confederate AG/SecDef/SecState Judah Benjamin fled to London and had a fine life and business career there after attempting to dissolve (and so destroy the strategic and commercial and military viability of the remaining North due to eventual asymmetries in rail/telegraph/canal cost-benefit) the USA in the US Civil War, nor was it a coincidence that Confederate soldiers founded communities in places like the Guyanas, or that Confederate generals found military assignments in English colonies after the Civil War. Further, Yankees may love English riding tack and the taste of French cooking, but they struggle mightily with English admiralty law and French maritime and civil law and the sensibilities (and political and business ethics) they nurture over long periods in places like Charleston and New Orleans and now after a century of Federal incorporation, perhaps even Washington, D.C., itself, I reckon. What is charming to a Northern American on vacation in the South of France maybe quite frustrating to that same American on business or doing law enforcement work in Charleston and New Orleans.
At least that's my humble, layman's take on the things looking back on my time, which is already an archaism of its own.
You seem on the right track, now that I have had some time to think.
I often argue this point, but usually in the past it has not made them look this soft.
Some kind of Energy Management might be involved and it probably is triggering a softer looking style of play than we are used to, because of the heavy focus on energy managing Doke. Self has often rested his point guard on the floor by moving him to wing, and we are seeing some of that for sure. But there is something more going on half to 2/3s of a game: resting Doke. This KU Team needs as many minutes of Doke as possible. Self seems to be following the old rule Allen and Harp and others taught Wilt. Half of Wilt is better than no Wilt. Donât foul out, even if it means long stretches of not going all out.
Walking up court, weaving so Doke rests till the shot, shooting early in the clock, and three point shooting all over a 40 minute game cut energy expenditure on offense, rest and protect Doke, raise the POINTS PER OFFENSIVE MINUTE (fewer minutes are spent working for a shot, few ball reversals, minimal in out, etc.), and points per possession (shooting more treys does that), and shift more energy expenditure to defense. And on defense there are intensity levels they go only the last ten, and not even then if they donât have to. Avoid injuries and exhaustion despite playing starters big minutes. Self has to conserve every drop of gas in this teamâs tank.
As a result, he is picking strategies that require less gas.
Makes sense, Jethro. Thx 4 the reminder.
Agreed. The weave is now probably the most imitated innovation by Self. Itâs increasingly his biggest impact on the game.
@et al
The weave forces switches that trigger mismatches AND it keeps play in the area of the floor where we have most athletic advantage. Further, it gets us driving at their post man BEFORE the defense can collapse and help.
We have to keep the action away from Doke to keep him from fouling from fighting to stay on spots for entry passes. The weave does that.
Self seems like he is running lots of other stuff too.
The only thing he is avoiding is double post action for obvious reasons.
We saw more weave last game, because Self was trying to play through Malik and the weave fosters Malikâs strengthâdriving.
I didnât miss it. I set it up for you! đ
Isnât it hilarious that in the midst of all this rancor and cancor in Washington that the real pimps for the private oligarchyâthe myriad lobbiesâcome out almost completely unscathed and unmentioned?
Perhaps we will know when/if the action gets VERY serious in DC , by when/if the big lobbies start getting taken in for questioning by Mr. Mueller. I so hope Mr. Mueller gets to keep looking and asking who did what?
I forget. Did you say you work in the swamp? If so, it must be a fascintating time to watch all the dancing. You ought to start reporting DC from your POV on this web site. I would read it!!
Rock Chalk!
Get to M.D. Anderson ASAP.
Ralster said:
We had cartoonish turnovers from Devonte & point blank layup misses late vs Clones at home. ISU is proven nonfinisher, we just let them answer every run KU made, we made slightly less gaffes late than them.
Donât bet the wife on #14, as watching her get rode out of our own barn could be very unsettling.
Howling!
You distilled this hush puppy of a win better than anyone else has so far.
I couldn't even bring myself to talk about Devonte.
Devonte alternated between his usual inspired play for stretches and was like a bad dream for other stretches of the game!
I don't know how a seemingly fully groomed, natural point guard that has already played a prior season at 2 and filled as the 1 maybe a quarter to a third of the time last season, can make some of the plays we saw last night against ISU. I really don't.
What I decided, in my recap, was to close my eyes and assume it was one of Devonte's bottom third of the performance distribution games, and pray he doesn't do ANY of those things in Morgantown, or we, DEAD!
West Virginia is a real D1 Basketball team.
West Virginia is big and strong and disciplined.
They still put that press on you to see if you have a pair, and if you do, then they forearm smash you to see if you can take it.
Huggs is a real D1 coach--almost shoe in Hall of Fame-er.
God help us if everyone doesn't come to play that night, because if they don't, the trainer better stock a lot of Gerbers for the flight home, because there are going to be a lot of crying babies on board.
One more point: the reason a team with 5 guys scoring in double figures and a tough defense is so often able to prevail over a team with a one or two highly productive players and a tough defense often tracks underlying scoring inefficiency of the two highly productive players. The two highly productive players are often given the bulk of the FGAs not because they are the most efficient scorers, but because they are the most athletically able to create shots. This is a crucial distinction. Creating shots is not the same as making shots. Keeping mindful of this distinction is what has allowed Self to be sooooooo much more successful than many other coaches coaching similar or better levels and amounts of talented players.
Self recruits athletic guys that can make plays. So: he highly values athleticism, or the ability to create shots and make plays. But he also prizes characters with swag, as he calls it. Self never loses sight of the fact that it is not enough to be able to "create" the shot, you also have to have the mind set skill necessary to "make" the shot. This is where so many coaches fall down. They fall in love with the player's ability to create the shot, and stop insisting on efficiency as the ante to get the PT to begin "creating" AND "making" shots.
Malik is a problem for Self not because of his attitude, really, but rather because of his skill level; that is why I keep harping on how much good it would do him to come back another season.
Malik has the athleticism and mind set to be a highly productive player even without enough skill to allow him to be efficient.
Self's problem is that Malik is just right on the bubble between enough and not enough skill.
His productivity is formidable every time either he unleashes himself, or the occasional times Self unleashes him.
You want a shot created? Malik can create it.
You want a shot made on a drive? Malik might be one of you first choices. You want a shot made outside? Malik may not be your first option on this team. Maybe not the second. Maybe not the third. There are two kinds of fall out from this situation. Malik not being a great trifectate yet makes them guard his drives much more; that makes it harder for Malik to create a drive. Apparently, this has all been somewhat tough for Malik to accept, without frustration, and so stay focused to do all the things necessary to have a good floor game on defense and on offense. Malik is NOT a bad guy, Malik is a highly focused, highly producitive guy, that is caught in a team situation that needs all of his floor game, and more efficiency, or for him to accept being less productive and let other guys do that job. Self Ball requires a good floor game and scoring efficiency, as foundations BEFORE one is entrusted to create and make, especially with gifted create and make guys like Devonte, Vick and Svi.
Frankly, Svi has faced largely the same problem for all of his years at KU. Only middle of last season did he get efficient enough to unleash his productivity, but last years team just had too many guns ahead of him. Svi could have been very "productive" and inefficient from the beginning, but he was NOT remotely as efficient as guys like Frank Mason, Devonte Graham and Josh Jackson to name just 3. So: he has had a long gestation period.
If you come to KU with a D1 grade floor game and scoring efficiency, you will play at least rotation minutes, heralded, or not.
If you lack both, it seems not to matter how many stars you come with, you struggle until you acquire the floor game and the efficiency.
Its not the small sample size IMHO.
I actively tradeoff lesser productivity and higher shooting percentages.
Without a shot clock, a perfect game would be a 1 to 0 win, where in KU stalled the with possession for the entire game and KU's one player was 1 for 1 and the opposing team's players went either 0-0, or 0 for 1. In this case, efficiency would be 100% and productivity on a per minute played would be incredibly low.
Few persons grasp efficiency and productivity, especially in a statistical context.
To win, you always want both efficiency and productivity working for you.
The trouble is that most persons are easily wooed by offensive productivity and tend to undervalue offensive efficiency and defensive "de-producitivty" if you will.
Self knows approximately how many more stops on defense playing Malik costs KU, than playing Marcus.
Self also knows approximately how much more inefficient Malik is than Marcus.
Thus, Self knows that opting for Marcus' productivity is a statistically VERY risky choice for the team's hopes of winning.
Self apparently decided by sometime around early to mid December that the chances of winning were much higher with Marcus' defense and offensive efficiency, if the shots related to optimizing productivity were shifted to other starters (Devonte, LaCobra, and Svi), rather than to Malik, and his defensive issues.
Now it could be that Malik has finally internalized the feedback and decided to increase his defensive contribution, and efficiency to a level that Self and team can afford Malik's productivity benefits.
A few more games will tell the tale on that.
Hey, you're right!!! I really screwed the pooch and didn't run the numbers. Bad
'bate 1.0!!!!
Specifically, I confused good efficiency with low productivity.
To wit...
Marcus' efficiency (2-3 FG)and (1-2 3pt) was good, but then I massively undervalued his low productivity on both over 15 minutes.
This reflects my persistent bias in favor of optimizing shooting percentage and my tendency to skip over productivity per minute. I have always favored shooting percentage, because I think that if everyone is shooting a high percentage, someone or some few will always find ways to optimize productivity.
My thinking goes like this: I would prefer Marcus to have shot 4-6 FG including 2-4 from trey over, say, over 30 minutes, to Malik's 10-21 including 5-13, over 34 (or whatever Malik would standardize to at 30 minutes for the sake of comparison), because then players that were higher percentage 3pt scorers, like, Devonte, Vick and Svi, would have taken over Malik's shots over and above what Marcus' would have taken on an unproductive night, and KU would have won more easily. The game probably would never have gotten close with, say, Svi, who was 6-9 from trey, taking Malik's treys.
Basically, I always advocate having your best shooters shooting, especially if you have to win with the trey, because you lack an inside game.
But it does little good to tolerate Marcus' efficient, but unproductive offense, unless one redistributes his shots to someone more productive than Malik tends to be from three, like say, Svi, if Marcus can ALSO not hold up his defensive responsibilities on his efficient, but unproductive offensive night. This was apparently why Self indicated that bad defense was the reason he pulled Marcus, and not low offensive productivity, even if Self were peeved about Marcus not taking open looks before getting pulled.
In many previous games, Self has endured Marcus' low offensive productivity, and tentativeness about pulling the trigger, because Marcus contributed strongly to team defense. Put another way, Self realized he could get more defensive benefit with Marcus, than Malik, and shift the shooting attempts to other starters more efficient than Malik; that's apparently why Garrett has played more than expected, and Malik has played less than expected (that and a head banging and a sore foot).
BUT...to get back to the analytical goof by me...
I let my bias for how to win interfere with my interpretation of a comparison between Malik and Marcus productivity and you did a good job of catching it. Thanks.
Clearly, with Marcus both unproductive offensively and, apparently not defending well, Self logically defaulted to Malik's 5-8 FG driving (excellent for a wing 62%) and 5-13 3pt (barely passable 38% from trey!). Self opted for more offensive productivity from Malik, when he could not get enough defense from Marcus to offset his poor offensive productivity.
I like my crow with Gates Barbecue Sauce, please! It masks the taste of the feathers.
Rock Chalk!!!!
KU won by taking softness to a new Downey-like level.
KU guarded softly, giving up 78 points at home. KU guarded so softly that they allowed a team having a horrendous first half of trey balling (27%) to bounce back and shoot 50% the second half!
KU rebounded softly, almost fluffily, going -10 on the glass. This was some kind of record for softness in rebounding. I maybe be even going too soft by calling KU rebounding soft. KU rebounded like a down comforter. Footer Azubuike played as if he had taken a pre game soak in Downey. He only grabbed 6 caroms in 29 minutes, despite ISU effectively playing without big men. It almost seems impossible for a footer, even one with a bad back, to only get 6 rebounds against a team without bigs. Were it not for those two legendary KU rebounding animals--LaCobra Vick and Malik Newman--who BOTH out rebounded Azubuike! KU might have gone down -20 in reebs.
KU fouled softly. KU only committed 16 fouls and attacked so gingerly on offense that they only got fouled 12 times. It got to the point where ISU's Head Coach Steve Prohm seemed to be walking up to the referees like a hobo and saying, "Brother, can you spare a Free Throw?"
I could go through most statistical categories and engage in hyperbole about softness, but the point is made.
The only thing KU did hard was launch treys.
Can we talk?
KU had more 3ptas (36) than KU had rebounds (34). Has this ever occurred in KU history? This is the most bizarre combined statistic maybe in the history of college basketball. You have to really play soft, rebound soft, and pussyfoot outside on offense at record levels to have more 3ptas than rebounds.
I'm going to call this the softest win in KU history and quit with the softness stuff.
It was analogous to the Marines having taken Edson's ridge on The Canal with hand held fans on high.
Can we talk about Malik? Malik the player I have adopted and refused to give up on, even though a part of me wants to. Malik's game tonight distills his problem and his potential. If Malik could develop his game for two more years at KU, I believe he could be as good by then, as he apparently thinks he is now, but apparently isn't. Yes, Malik led the team in scoring. Big flipping deal. Anyone that takes 21 shots OUGHT to lead his team in scoring. Malik took 31.3% of KU's FGAs. Five other KU players have a higher FG% than Malik. Malik took 36% of KU's 3ptas. Four players shoot the trey at a higher percentage than Malik. Statistically speaking, Malik is NOT the guy you want taking 21 shots for KU. He is definitely not the guy you want taking treys for KU. So why was Malik getting 21 FGAs including 13 3ptas? Beats the heck out of me. KU might have won this 3pt orgy by 5-10 more points, if Malik's shots had been taken by other KU players.
But Malik did some terrific things, too, especially for Malik.
Malik got 8 boards, a hefty nights work for any perimeter player. Malik brought the ball up some and only baked 1 pop tart. Malik got two blocks! But most importantly of all, Malik got TWO assists and got so psyched up about a fast break layup by Svi that he cut loose with real emotion for Svi and patted him on the butt; this is REAL progress for my adopted player; this is the kind of progress that gets Self's attention, even if he did walk back to the bench a number of times appearing to be shaking his head at some of the things Malik was doing. Its pretty clear Self is coming to view Malik as he did Andrew Wiggins. He spent the first semester trying to coach him up and get him to do more of the things that a Self Baller is supposed to be able to do.But starting conference play, Self seems to shake his head and say, "Leopards don't change their spots." Self seems to have decided to let Malik be Malik, warts and all. For his part, Malik seems ready to be a good teammate to everyone and appears ready to do whatever he can for the team in his own way that he can. Malik has a lot to offer this shorthanded team, even with warts.
Between you and me, Self was apparently giving Malik one of those showcase games he gives 5-star guys once in awhile. Gets them untracked sometimes and makes them feel better about themselves. Good. We need Malik and we need him feeling good about himself, even if he does need another season or two become a bonafide D1 basketball player; i.e., one that could offend efficiently and really lock someone down on defense. Enough Malik for this game.
Self was apparently so committed to getting back to playing soft in this one that he carefully carved Mitch Lightfoot back to invisibility. Enough blocking and rebounding already, Mitch; that's not how we're going to win this one tonight. I'm saving you for another game. Tonight, we're about helping Malik feel better about himself and about winning one the old fashioned way--with Downey.
Cunliffe was disappeared, perhaps because of an injury I noted game or so ago, or perhaps because he didn't grade well on video scrutiny the last game, or perhaps, again, to help Malik feel better about himself. Heck, Marcus Garrett played only 15, so that Malik could play 34 minutes. To be blunt, Marcus Garrett's line score, normalized to 40 minutes smoked what Malik did. But Self is apparently confident now in what Garrett can give, and so spiritual development of Malik took precendent over further development of Marcus for this game.
Frankly, Self seemed to look at this as a home game he needed to steal by simultaneously playing his starters a ton of minutes, but preserving them and avoiding injury by Self's latest exercise in counterintuitive ways to play the game of basketball. Soft Ball is in its way as startling and unprecedented as was Bad Ball.
Here is the thing: everyone knew Self had to resort to something once Azubuike got his back out of kilter and Preston and De Sousa became quasi Lovecraftian interdimensional beings haunting us with the possibilities of their presences.
Mere mortals like me and some other board rats speculated that Bad Ball 2.0 could be upon us.
WRONG!
Soft Ball with 36 treys is upon us.
Soft Ball is easier to name than to break down and explain.
I confess, unlike Bad Ball, which had some recognizable precedents, I don't know where Soft Ball comes from, or how it works exactly.
Just saying it is only about shooting a mess of treys is reductive. It "feels" like there's more to it than that.
The wizard is playing with everyone's heads again. He is taking the game in one of those new directions he does when invention necessarily needs a mother.
Self may not even be sure what he is doing. He often seems not to be at his most inventive moments. Like artists, he figures it out afterwards, when that's the only way; i.e., when desperation and inspiration coincide.
You can usually tell when he is making shit up as he goes by looking at the assistants. They are usually looking around with puzzled expressions, like: what is THIS?!!
Soft Ball caught me so by surprise, well, I didn't even have the presence of mind to glance at the coaches!
I was frankly is a state of shock. It was kind of like watching a near car wreck unspool in slow motion only for the cars to miss each other and everything to turn out okay after all.
He is doing it AGAIN, was all I could think.
BUT...
WHAT IS HE DOING?!!!
Nothing like this ever gets published without a lot of PR planning. It is a thoughtful point of view thoughtfully articulated, thoughtfully positioned and thoughtfully disseminated. The African-American lobby seems to be working hard to re-position for 2018 and 2020, same as the US-Israel Lobby, the Women's Lobby, the LGBT Lobby, the Caucasian-American Lobby, The Alt. Right Lobby, the Fundamentalist Lobby, The Protestant Lobby, The Roman Catholic Lobby, Big Ag Lobby, Big Oil Lobby, Big Car Lobby, The aerospace lobby, the climate lobby, the High Tech Lobby, the Gun Lobby, the Real estate lobby, the mining lobby, the timber lobby, the Pentagon Lobby, the Military-Industrial Complex Lobby, the NatSec Lobby, the tax lobby, the banking lobby, the retail lobby, the warehousing lobby, the highway lobby, and the infrastructure lobby. This is America. Everybody's got a lobby.
Fuggedabout Identity Politics. No one's got any identity at all without a lobby.
America is about Lobby Politics.
Keep your eyes on the Lobbies.
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2018/jan/09/jaylen-brown-boston-celtics-nba-interview â
Now is the time to move ahead.
No one has any more illusions about how the system actually works.
Itâs the military-industrial complex vs. the private central bankers.
Pit them against each other till they go back to playing for the home team.
Good!
Everyone gets it now.
The founders werenât saps!
There is no greater little r republican force in the service of the people than pitting the most powerful against each other.
They lived in the real world.
So do we.
God bless America.
Please.
Why thatâs just damned CIA-MEMED CONSPIRACY THEORY talk!!!!
HOWLING!
Youâre not suggesting D1 football is as legally rigged as D1 basketball appears and as the California Democratic primary was reputedly found to have been in court, are you?
The reputed 2016 California primary rigging scandal seems kind of crucial to remember. The court reputedly found that Private organizations like the DNC and RNC are reputedly legally allowed to rig their own primaries, if they want to. IF TRUE, THINK ABOUT THAT!
(Note: seems like itâs time to form a party that guaranties it runs an honest primary. Now there is a party I would be eager to join. Letâs call it the Honest Party!!!)
Arenât the athletic departments of D1 programs private not for profits, like DNC and RNC? Isnt the NCAA a private not for profit? Would it therefore be legal for the private NCAA and the private athletic departments to rig both the March Carney and the Bollwevil Bowl football championship how ever they see fit, so long as other laws are NOT broken?
We as laymen can only wonder.
But wake the F up, people!!!!
The founders left us this system thinking we werenât total saps!
Letâs not let them down any longer.
By George, I think youâve got it!
Blown said:
Didn't Self & Kansas lawyer up over the Diallo deal and spend like 100k fighting them? Retaliation? Nah...
PHOF!
Ooh I like that!!!
Source: Guy Gadoit aka Inspector Guy Cluzuot
Players play through.
Fans fan through.
I agree with you it has serious risk from letting up on attack mode and momentum.
I vascillate between Selfâs way and your approach.
But while I fear loss of momentum, his W&L statement with this approach is hard to argue against.
PHOF ^2
I really wonder?
Vick appears definitely to be playing injured; that's what's triggered the sudden weak performances IMHO.
Watch his legs. Appears to be ligamentis, or tendinitis, at the top of the thigh bones, based on the way he's dragging one, if not both, legs, and sporting the increasingly broad coverage lingerie. Can barely slide one direction. This condition fools lots of fans, because he seems to be able to jump on the run off the uninjured leg. He can even jump a little still on a J if he can get both feet under him and go up favoring the uninjured leg. But the give away is watch him on the quick one step jumps, and on the drop step and sliding one direction. I forget which now. He's badly limited right now. Opposing teams will see it studying game film and they will really begin to exploit him next game. TCU did some already. Self finally HAD to cut his minutes.
My big worry is that Cunliffe appeared to pull something similar in one leg in the game before TCU. Cunliffe is pretty fresh (i.e., he hasn't been on The Canal from the beginning, like Vick has been) and so restored quite a bit and only showed the least little hint of limitation in the TCU game. But this sudden increase in minutes makes Cunliffe a candidate for a more serious pull and rapid performance deterioration. Please basketball gods, spare the young man, who has waited so long to play the greatest game ever invented.
Board rats often do not appreciate how much adrenaline pumps in these guys early on, when they are getting their chance to prove they can play. Practicing just does not release the adrenaline. These guys are super athletic, or they wouldn't be there. When they get on to the floor the first couple of times playing for a coach that recruited them precisely because they are explosive types, its like putting a super high octane race horse in the starting gate the first time after some practice. The adrenal pump kicks in and, like the race horse, they take sudden super man strides to show the coach just how good they can be!! Watch me run! Whew. Sudden tremendous loads on those ligaments and tendons occur with feet reaching an extra 12-18 inches farther sideways to cut off a real enemy jacked up himself to game speeds. This is especially stressful, when Hudy has been ramping up their muscle strength and mass for months as a practice player waiting for a shot. A guy like Cunliffe goes out there and tries to play under control as his coach is telling him to for a few minutes, but then someone challenges him, or the game gets down to the wire and a starters fouling out brings him in, and everyone is taking it to another level to try to win, and a guy like Cunliffe suddenly realizes all this weight work, combined with an adrenal rush, has given him another gear, same as a stallion race horse feels, a gear even he did not realize had. He feels he can jump tall building in a single bound and he almost can! And then the guy he's guarding and is sliding beautifully to cut off suddenly changes speeds and directions faster than Cunliffe has seen and he snorts like a race horse, plants and reaches out in a 45 degree drop step like he has never reached out before and...sttrrrrrrrrrretch....the ligament is suddenly beyond its prior limit and Cunliffe the race horse is thinking one thing: I can cut this guy off!!!!!!! Just watch me!!!!! It was just a tweak!!!!! Nothing. I've got this guy cut off and turned to paint and help. This play alone is going to prove to Self that I can play for him. And then the whistle stops play and the adrenaline reduces and he feels how hard it is to lift his leg up to tie his shoe, or to lick his fingers and slap his soles like he likes to do, or whatever, and then the realization sets in...shizzle, its pulled. Hope its a tendon, cuz ligaments take forever to recover their elastisticity. Damn, I showed him I can lock down, and funnel to paint, but now I'm like a one legged freak. I'm not telling anyone. Not yet. Besides all they can do is e-stim it and if that doesn't work shoot it. And you shoot a ligament, and I've heard all the older players say it, you shoot a ligament and you can already count the number of times on one five finger hand you can shoot it again before the ligament will never have pop again. Nope, I'll walk over like its just a little muscle pull, and say I'm okay and go get some therapy and some e-stim. It'll probably be just fine in two days.
Denial, not just a river in Egypt, as the cliche goes.
This IMHO is the real reason Self brings guys on so slowly, when at all possible.
Ligament and tendon injuries make walking wounded that will not likely heal this season of even the guys with the highest pain thresholds. Ligaments, particularly, are not about pain threshold. Injured, they just plain make your leg so it won't slide. I'd much rather play with an FX booted than a stretched ligament and I've played with both. I just couldn't play worth crap with the stretched ligament. And people doubt you. There's no bruise. No swelling. Nothing visual. Except you try to slide and you can't slide. You try to lift it and it won't lift. The bone break? You just put it out of your mind, maybe take some pain killer, but a placebo works about as well and won't slow your reactions. You grit your teeth and hope it doesn't go compound on you. You man up. Everyone oohs and aaahs at your fortitude. You can actually move pretty well, if you just go into the zone and self hypnotize to forget about the pain. Some can and some can't. But if you can, then everyone loves you and you get by. But ligamentis? Fuggedabout the heroics. The leg just doesn't work. It won't do what you tell it to do. You could be tortured and it still wouldn't work. And the more you try the more worthless it gets.
Rest is the only fix.
Rest?
Not rest!
Rest is the most feared word in sports among non superstar athletes trying to make it, or trying to hang on to what they've got. Rest? Rest means not playing. Rest means everything else atrophying, while the competition keeps getting better. Rest means the coach looking at you and saying, he's not that good even well, why not just set him and run him off later. Rest? Rest gives true athletes night sweats, once they have experienced how far they fall behind once or twice. Rest is the devil himself in sport. Rest is evil. Rest kills. Things at rest tend to stay at rest. Things in motion, have inertia on their sides.
I don't know HOW Vick is going to heal. I hope Cunliffe doesn't have to heal. I hope I am wrong about both of them.
E-stim is the only thing that ever worked for me with tendon and ligament problems and they didn't have it when I played sports in high school. I got my first E-stim treatment from snow skiing injury as an adult thinking I was younger than I was. I got my second E-stim after going down on my beloved, life-threatening motorcycle.
In both cases, E-stim and anti-inflams and massage, immediately created the illusion of wellness, and some function. With E-stim, I could quickly walk comfortably. No tell-tale leg dragging in street shoes. It was spooky. Like faith healing. A laying on of electrodes. HEAL!!! You can walk again, brother! At least for a little while.
But I quickly learned that the illusion was limited. Go ski again like a damned fool? Lose a little control at speed on a mogul run? Streeeeeeeeeeeetch!
These guys we have the privilege of watching do the amazing things on the sacred wood they do? They are demigod bodies,minds and cardiovascular systems connected with mortal ligaments and tendons.
Defensive coaches burn up ligaments and tendons like Nero went through buildings, while fiddling.
There is no free lunch in this world.
Certainly not in the case of good team defense.
cragarhawk said:
Also, as much as I hate to question a HOFer I just continually fail to understand why our late clock/late game offense is always stand and hold the ball and the one guy drive and throw up a circus attempt that usually gets blocked to the stone age.. The % of time it actually works cannot be that good. Although, its the only thing we've done in that situation for years upon years so perhaps it's more effective by the numbers than it looks
Thought provoking. Thanks.
Always okay to question a coach. Even better to question a HOFer. Why? Because we almost always learn something from deeper scrutiny of Self. The guy has been at this a long time and there are many aspects of what he has learned that he has strategic disincentive to reveal. So: its up to us to ask the sorts of questions you did, so as to infer from the trail of dots what the master is up to, or perhaps stumped about.
Here is my hypothesis.
Self figures fatigued players at the end of games as play grows helter skelter from desperation defense by the opponents grow increasingly likely to make bad judgements about running the passing offense. If we don't pass it, the pass cannot be stolen. If we do not dribble a lot waiting for the clock to run down, the dribble cannot be stolen. If we get the ball in the hands of our coolest impact player with the greatest match up advantage and hottest hand, then if he just stands there with the ball, and waits for the clock to run down, that creates the highest probability of getting a look and a chance for a short three, or two free throws, on a drive. As is typical of Self, this tactic achieves several things simultaneously. It optimizes probability of a scoring attempt. It minimizes likelihood of an offensive breakdown yielding a break away steal of a pass. And its worst case is a miss, or even a steal, that still allows our other four guys to release and deny a fast break score. It is nail-biting to watch. It lacks an element of strategic surprise (the opponent knows exactly what KU is going to do), but, and this is a huge but, it retains, maybe even maximizes tactical surprise. If you have a player like Frank Mason, or Devonte Graham, or Josh Jackson, and you put the ball in his hands 25 feet from the basket, with his teammates spread out, the isolated defender has an enormous amount to think about. Will this great athlete, go right or left? Will he faint the drive, or shoot it? Is there a back screen, or isn't there? Will he pull up for a floater somewhere along the way, or go to iron? Or will he faint a drive and instead initiate one of those goddamn weaves KU does everyone in a great while in these situations (see Memphis 2008 with a few seconds to go). And any attempt at a double team triggers a pass out to an open man, which likely would be catastrophic. If the defense has a good match up with our guy standing with the ball, the defense usually responds with guarding him head up and helping on him at the last second somewhere in the lane, usually near the rim. If the match up is no good, then they double, or zone. Either way, KU is burning clock, then getting a high probability of a shot and a foul, while maximizing the ability of our other players to release and prevent any rapid score by the opponent.
Does the tactic result in a score, or even a foul and FT, all the time? No. Refs don't like to call fouls that award FTs that decide games, if they can possibly help it, but they will call a clear foul on a star player, especially at home. Hence, this play often ends in a very ugly looking FGA by the KU player driving into the opponent, or getting rejected by a post man.
But does the tactic result in the clock running, avoidance of a strip quickly converting to points, and a timely release of our guys to get back on defense most of the time? Yes.
Late in a game, Self, the defensive coach, is, as the saying goes, playing the clock first, and the opponent second.
Hence, if he already has the lead, scoring is probably his fifth priority.
First priority: make sure the clock is run down.
Second Priority: make sure you can always get back on defense to deny any quick score (i.e., make them run the clock to score, too).
Third priority: at all costs, avoid a steal that triggers an unguardable fast break for a quick score.
Fourth priority: get a shot for your best impact player without giving the opponent a chance to deny him getting the ball.
Fifth priority: See if your impact player recruited for his athleticism can make a great play and score points with athleticism.
Notice one last thing here. This approach of Self's effectively takes the other coach out of the game. By Self creating this strong tendency of doing this at the ends of games, the other coach has to scheme to stop it alone. Self, the defensive coach, knows exactly what the possible defenses are. Thus Self can train his impact player in exactly what to expect. No surprises. Just quick reads: one on one, a double, or a zone. If one on one, drive and create. If double, dribble and pass out to the unguarded man and release. If zone, use more clock, penetrate nearest seam, collapse zone and kick for open trey. And every once in a while Self can throw the other coach and defender a curve ball and run a weave immediately, while the first two weavers to release immediately back to defense, after they have handed the ball off. But that weave is risky (vulnerable to strips) and the only thing it really has going for it is surprise.
When Self K.I.S.S.es (keeps it simple stupid), his simple is probably more nuanced than a lot of other coaches' "sophisticated" moves.
Self's KISS is thought out in all dimensions.
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:-)
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This team is beginning to show serious wear and tear.
Self says itâs close to adding reinforcements.
It is always one 30% 3pt shooting night from a loss.
Preston could reduce the likelihood of losing on bad trey nights.
KU should have 15 conference games, and 2-3 conference tourney games, to get to the March Carney. Letâs call it 18 to be optimistic.
It seems to have a sub par trey game every 5-6 games. For ease of figuring, letâs call it 1 off shooting night in 6. That means KU should lose three more games because of 3pt shooting. Thatâs 4 losses. Now add 1 more loss for a team wide funk, or a really bad match up of talents/styles, and thatâs five losses.
Surprise!
Thatâs what Self predicted would win the conference.
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I am generally skeptical of the opining of any non NCAA officials about the actual motivations and intentions of the NCAA. The NCAA has a complicated and unusual role. It has to work with many diverse agendas. It struggles reputedly with insufficient resources for its many tasks. I often wonder just how clearly NCAA officials themselves could understand some of their own motivations and intentions given the complexities and constraints of the context they operate in. The chances of mere fans understanding them definitively and then communicating their allegedly definitive insight with complete coherence seems a long shot. By their actions shall ye know them, as much as possible, not by the opining of fans claiming to know their motivations and intentions. Rock Chalk!
WVU fans are getting cocky about Trump and the Rockefellers clearing a path for them to go back into the mines and get black lung again.
WVU fans are like KSU fans with hills and a good coach.
Best CaseâBoth clear now, start, and KU runs the table and wins ring.
Worst CaseâNeither clears, neither stays at KU, Doke gets back Operation and never plays another game, Malik plays less and less, Vick has leg operation, Devonte loses pop, Svi gets wilder, Garrett never makes a trey, Clay Young becomes starter, Self infarcts.
Probable Caseâunforecastable future involving unforeseen events growing out of emerging complexity.
Recommended Strategy: play hard, eat well, Love well, take no wooden nickels, forget the doubters, win at home, steal wins on the road, make jokes about The Farmers, issue Kevlar for Morgantown.
Itâs Monday afternoon somewhere in the world already!
I am not sure I am allowed to say this, but...
I was chosen by a high tech company that will go unnamed to be in the beta test of a new 5G "universal communicator" that is embedded subdermally in my right eye lid. 5G operates on the same frequency as the military's and the police's micro wave crowd control devices. It has this amazing capacity to be given an address and then locate the building at that address and then generate a holographic image of it in your brain, so that you can walk around the space virtually and interact with persons there as if they and you really were together. I got curious about Preston an De Sousa and the NCAA and so 5G'ed to the NCAA headquarters and walked around inside the building until I got to the conference room with the records and hard copy decision on both players. Unfortunately, as I approached the decision paper, some cyber malfunction occurred and I suddenly began to feel my skin burn and hear voices that sounded like Barbara Billingsley telling Tony Dow as Wally and Jerry Mathers as the Beave that if they didn't avoid the opioid crisis sweeping Mayfield that Ward was going to have to come give them a good talking to in their rooms. Then the pain got so intense that I had to virtually flee the room and virtually surf back to my own residence. I could not see the exact date the Preston and De Sousa would be allowed to play, but I am pretty certain that the decision has been made.
Rock Chalk!
(Note: all fiction. No malice.)
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I don't believe its the racial.
I believe Billy P has gotten caught up in a power struggle between D-CIA Pompeo and interdimensional beings that the CIA has been in contact with, since Trump released his Uncle's copy of Nicola Tesla's never published paper on the pathway to communicate with interdimensional aliens using long wave radiation from a hill top in New Jersey once owned by a dummy corporation tracking to John D. Rockefeller.
I could be wrong, though. :-)
Does Self have the temerity and cojones to put Malik in the toughening box with a concussion AND a foot injury? At this crucial point of the season?
Maybe the appearances of "insufficient closeness" among Malik and Svi extended to Malik an other players? Maybe Self gave it a little time, while he fought other fires, and then finally decided the problem was not resolving itself, and said, "WTF, what else can go wrong? Why not just put Malik in the toughening box like I would do any other year, and drive his teammates to him and him to his teammates by February 1? A month in the toughening box will turn the team into a band of brothers, same as always. I'll just play Garrett more. And maybe we'll luck out and get Preston and/or De Sousa and I can start running Svi at the 3, too. So what if it gets a little dicey the next few weeks. We're going to lose 5 one way or another. Maybe get them out of the way now."
Could Self possibly be thinking that way?
It makes my head spin even speculating about the possibility but Self is a hard man. I wouldn't put it past him. I sure hope he tells Newman's parents, if this is what Self were doing.
Malik Newman is playing like a player in the toughening box--much more like that than like a guy with a bum foot, or a concussion, both of which we reputedly know afflicts him.
God help us all!
Malik hypothetically in the toughening box in early January with Doke down with a bad back and no Preston, no De Sousa, and Vick doing the Jamari Traylor and Mario Little leg drag masked with Vicky's Secret lingerie!
OMG, OMG, Help me, help me, help me, I think I am going insane!
Not the toughening box with a concussion!!!
Hell, HEM and I will volunteer to go to Lawrence, walk on and go in the box for Malik.
NOoooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!
truehawk93 said:
Minus the muggings of DG, he played maybe one of his best games. He didn't play well, he played tough. He was beat up. This is the toughness that Self wants. He stepped up and won this game from the FT line.
I think this is a really super distillation of Devonte's game against TCU and his crucial contribution to our winning it. Thanks for sharing it.
Live by the 3 and die by the 3 is a heuristic aka a rule of thumb.
Heuristics help us remember important things, but they rarely help someone understand why they are true.
I hope what I outlined above helps someone appreciate what underlies such a time tested heuristic.
Live by the 3 and die by the 3.
Another one is: make your Free Throws or live to regret it.
Another one is: Miss your bunnies and miss your chance.
My old high school coach had a million heuristics.
I hope what I laid out above explains in the simplest possible quantation why each of these heuristics, and others, have lasting significance to the game.
Rock Chalk!
In a narrow 4 point win there are many ways to look at drivers of victory, but I like to think about two first.
- A change in several variables could have left us with a Loss. Examples...
--5 fewer offensive rebounds, and so 5 fewer second shots, since we were making around 50% inside the stripe would likely have put us behind. We have been such a poor rebounding team that this is one very likely way we would have lost this game maybe 3 out of 4 times.
--We only needed to make two fewer treys and we would have lost; that suggests a lot of sensitivity and risk of variance. We made 55% of 20 3ptas. We average almost 42% from treyville. We way overshot our tendency. It would have been VERY easy not to make 2 of the 11 treys we made. 9 of 20 would have been 45%, or still above our season average. Did we win the game largely because of abnormally high 3 point shooting? Hell, yeah! But let's explore some more variables we could have lost and their significance and probability.
--5 fewer made FTs spread around our guys would have lost the game, but we shot 69% and without Doke in the lineup much our guys would probably be able to average close to what we actually shot, so the chances of us losing by FT variance might only happen 1 in 4 or 5 games against TCU.
--6 fewer KU blocks (stops) would likely have yielded an L.
And so on.
In this way of thinking about what made us win, it becomes apparent that unfavorable change of as little as 1-2 in only 3-4 categories listed above would have lead us to a loss. Such a slight change is getting into random error territory. This means our victory was not based on superior play, but on a lucky break in the random error factor.
This is why in close games its not enough just to make big plays at the end. Playing even just a little harder and smarter in all phases of the game, so that you tip everyone of the categories just a little farther in your favor is really how you steal wins at home, or away, in close games. Getting the scoring spread into random error territory is also how lesser teams beat better teams. Fail to play a little harder and a little smarter and the opportunity to make a big play at the end to eliminate unfavorable breaks in random error will vanish.
But as I noted, there is another way to look at close games and what drove the win, or at least drove the game to be close enough to be settled by the luck of random error.
- Divide 2pts, 3pts and FTs into a pie chart and attribute winning to the most points and compare that to the opposing team. The biggest disparity between KU and TCU scoring by category is what won it.
KU
2pt 32 points 36%
3pt 33 points 37%
FT 23 points 26%
Total 88 points 100%
TCU
2pt 36 points 43%
3pt 27 points 32%
FT 21 points 25%
Total 84 points 100%
--TCU was +4 in 2pt scoring. TCU defeated KU inside the stripe.
--KU was +2 in FTs, but that still left TCU with a 2 point edge.
--KU was +6 from treyville. Three point scoring gave KU a winning margin.
CONCLUSION:
In the first way of looking at the game, 3 point shooting was a huge driver because KU was so far above its average in 3pt shooting, but the closeness of the game meant that the number of variables that could have easily have moved by just 1-2 units and altered the game outcome indicated that the most decisive driver of victory was likely random error.
In the second way of looking at the game, TCU beat KU inside the trey stripe and KU narrowed that advantage at the FT line. But the deciding factor was KU's awesome 55% 3pt shooting on 20 attempts.
Either way, the 3 point ball played a big part in KU's victory.
Are we going to have to hire the FBI, or Fusion GPS, or Ghost Busters to get to the bottom of this Malik Mystery?
Who we gonna call?
Cue the music...
wrwlumpy said:
âMitch-Slappingâ .
PHOF
And imagine how much frustration Billy Preston is taking out on Mitch in workouts!!!!
Some see the glass empty.
Some see it half full.
But some, like the Comet, see it as it is.
Way to go Comet!!!!
Rock Chalk, @KansasComet
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