Boeheim faces one of his most complicated decisions today? 2-3 zone or surprise with man. That’s about as complicated as it gets for Jim. Well that and whether or not to play an ineligible player.
jaybate 1.0
10346 posts
PHOF!!!
Fly a drone into Jim Boeheim’s hotel room and drop crimson and blue paintballs on his dome.
Get out the Jim Boeheim basketball voodoo doll and pin it repeatedly.
Thank your lucky stars he is not our coach and never will be.
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You are wrong about Coach Self’s confidence in Mitch determining how Mitch will do. Mitch’s ability, skill, poise and aggressiveness will determine how Mitch does. As usual if @JayHawkFanToo can’t...and so on and so forth.
Is that the correct rhetorical style? 😀
Yes but only if we get to call them “a basketball sink hole of gutter depravity.”
Practice not slapping Jim Boeheim for his unwarranted smugness.
Paint an upstate New York landscape with Jim Boeheim self-immolating at twilight.
Find three basketball fans outside Syracuse, NY, that don’t think Jim Boeheim graduated Summa Cum Laude from jerk school.
Sketch entry pass angles to the high post against a 2-3 on a bar napkin, while toasting a tequila sunrise to the coming crushing of ‘Cuse’s Naranga Boys.
Donate plugged buffalo nickels to the Jim Boeheim retirement fund.
Practice flipping the bird at the big screen in preparation for the half time interview of Coach Sleep Eze by a Fake Sports Broadcaster schilling Syrxcuse for EST eyeball counts.
Enjoy the heck out of a great game day!!!
Rock Chalk!
The defense has made his usual clarifying and persuasive summation for the jury. The jury will now deliberate!
Exactly. Mitch was not a five star recruit. Mitch did not start as a freshman. The only connection between Mitch and Perry is that Self might try Mitch as a face-to-basket player the way Perry was finally tried. I might have used Traylor too, when Traylor was asked to drive the lane from out front and shoot the 15-18 footer. “Stretch” and “face-to-basket” are the operant ideas.
Thx for the assist. Thats it.
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Stats fattened on cupcakes are just that.
LOL
Thanks for the explanation. Makes sense.
Good synopsis, but I want us all to remember that he barely played against UK. His solid performances have all been against D2 or mid majors and that just does not indicate what he can, or will, do against majors with blue meanies, and against elites with draft choices in the paint. I'm not knocking Mitch. I'm being realistic about him. He has a helluva a long way to go--at least one broken nose, and a couple throw downs--before we can have confidence even in his ability to stay on the floor with blue meanies. Clearly Self thought he was not ready even for UK's sushi frosh. That is a big yellow caution flag. At the same time, Self was right to not throw him to the dogs against UK and now that he's got a little taste of action, now IS the right time to see what he can take inside against big, eastern zoning team with a history of fairly aggressive play and a coach that takes no prisoners, when he can get away with it. Boeheim has always been a tough out for Self, perhaps only behind Ratso Izzo and Coach K in degree of coaching difficulty for Self. If Self uses Mitch against Syracuse, we'll know Self is serious about Mitch. If not, if Self goes to a small ball lineup with Svi and Garrett at the 4 and 5, then we know Mitch is just going to get 20mpg in games against mid majors and .500 and under majors, so as to rest Doke as much as possible during the easy games and the 2 in 3 stretches.
This call isn't up to you or me. Self will tell us the score on Mitch against Syracuse.
Interesting find.
Hadn't heard of him.
Sounds like he has done a good job at a mid major .
Can you describe the kind of game his teams play?
Cross' pedigree is decidedly unimpressive. He played and assisted Eddie McCarter, at UTA, then succeeded him. McCarter was less than .500 He graduated from UAB, when it was a D2 school (Gene Bartow took it over the following year when UAB entered D1 as I recall). McCarter was so-so in 14 years at UTA and now is at West Alabama U. I could find no indication of McCarter's coach at UAB.
Conclusion: KU will likely do much better. KU's history is to hire coaches with either impressive pedigrees, or with impressive accomplishments as assistants within the KU program.
Cross' next stop is likely a major, rather than an elite. Texas might be smart to hire him to replace their current coach.
Yep, improvement. He is a late "maturer" for sure. By the end of this season he may even be able to grow whiskers.
Now, we have to see what he can do against some blue meanies inside. Syraxcuse is a perfect test to see if he can keep from getting mugged inside.
If he does get mugged, its not the end of the the world. I always remember Cole Aldrich getting mugged by MSU that first season he started. It looked like it might be a very ugly year for him. But he was tougher than a boiled owl. Now its time to find out if Mitch is.
Mitch may not be able to avoid getting mugged till second semester, or maybe even next year. But he is going to get a shot at big boy minutes very shortly and he could easily wind up playing with a hockey mask for a month or two. But he seems like a feisty devil and that is a prerequisite.
Go, Mitch, Go!!!
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It is impressive how KU, KUAD and the KU Basketball program can become information black holes, when they want to. It appears that no news, or even rumors, are being emitted from the black hole currently. Its not even clear where the event horizon starts?
Does Billy Preston actually still exist?
Was he a Deep State projection that never existed?
Will multiple Billy Preston's begin to surface?
Will there be grainy video of multiple shooters and reports of helicopters infiltrating and exfiltrating teams from a secret heliport on top the Field House that were tracked to a P.O. Box in the Caymans?
When/where was the last sighting?
Has he been taken to Antartica to be held in a secret installation under the South Polar Ice Cap, because of some anomalous DNA parallels between his helix and those of the ancient civilization reputedly found there back during the frenzy of misinformation during the Presidential campaign?
Is he attending classes? Does he do so by passing through a stargate?
What's his current GPA? Is it measured in unit values from a parallel dimension?
Is he having a growth spurt and now a footer? Or is he being fitted with orthotics to make him appear to be a footer?
Does he still live in the athletic housing? Or has he moved into a hardened underground installation beneath Mt. Oread intended to keep alive selected faculty that grade basketball players easy (it was rumored to have been built back under Roy's tenure)?
What is his favorite dish at training table? Is it organic, or fast food?
What kind of car was he driving, when this incident surfaced? Had it been maintained at proper intervals to keep from voiding the warranty?
What kind of car is he driving now? Or has KU installed a Star Trek transporter in the athletic dorm?
Can anyone in Lawrence make a super tall bicycle to help him get back and forth to campus on clear days, when the transporter has a stuxnet virus, so he doesn't have to bus it every day?
Any new tats? or subcutaneous RFID chips?
There is not much free flow of information on this subject?
Who is investigating this issue? Safety Patrol? KUAD? Campus police? KU in-house counsel? NCAA? Petroshoeco-Agency Complex security firm? LPD? KBI? FBI? INTERPOL? Archon Alien Law Enforcement?
Where are the intrepid local KUBucketeers on this?
Not even any scuttlebutt?
Help me, help me, help me, I think I'm going insane with curiosity!!!
(Note: All fiction. No malice.)
I think you are onto something with Self improvising with Perry. It is among the many things he does so well. Until could be's become realities, Self has Doke and Mitch. Let's think on what his options are that he must be churning through, shall we?
My premise with Self is that he favors schemes that enable the team to be "who we are" regardless of who is playing.
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Part of who we are is always "ALWAYS play take what they give us."
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Part of who we are is always "try WHENEVER POSSIBLE to play it any way they want."
These first two are GIVENS. He recruits minds and bodies that are flexible enough coming in to be coached up to be able to do the first two. Thus, schemes have to enable us to do the first two.
But there is one more element of "who we are" and this varies season to season based on the players he has to work with.
- This part of who we are is what we seasonally emphasize, as our strengths, and what we mask, as our weaknesses.
Who can we be this season with only Doke and Mitch?
"Fast twitch speed" and its exploitation has to be our cornerstone. What is meant by "fast twitch speed"? My dad used to call it water bug speed; i.e., players that can go 0-60 and change directions not just rapidly, but in the blink of an eye. Examples are Devonte, LaGerald, and Malik. Svi is pretty fast, too, he just looks a step slow against these guys. Put these guys in perspective. Vick is as twitchy fast as Tyshawn Taylor, maybe faster, and Tyshawn was the fastest I ever saw. Devonte and Malik are just a hair slower. Garrett is maybe a hair behind Devonte and Malik and he's 6-7, or something. Thus the primary objective of any scheme has to be put these guys in position to out accelerate opponents. To this end, Self has clearly studied the offense of Calipari's 2012 champion UK and done yet another of his remodeling-the 3-2/4-1 jobs even on what was done by last season's Jayhawk team. Fans are noticing a difference in speed both because this group is faster, and Self has them turning more right angles and fewer 45s. He has these guys running routes fast but then cornering and accelerating in ways we did not see last season. Yes its the same combination of inward and outward weaving, but watch how they are running more outward weaves which gets the defender floating outward and so maximizes the advantage of our guys right angle accelerations back toward the basket. This went over my head the first few times I watched KU. I couldn't understand why they were running so many outward weaves, but the more twitchy fast you are the more advantage your cornering and acceleration have over an outward floating defender, when one of your guys break to the iron. And the outward weave stretches the defense outward increasingly so things get less and less congested for the driver. Its diabolical, but something counter intuitive you get to do with twitchy speed. And if they don't float out with your weave? Well, it just so happens that Devonte, Vick, Malik and Svi are all deadly from trey. Pow!
All of the above is a long way of saying this team has to play twitchy fast in transition and in half court.
Twitchy fast perimeter play means bigs have to have good straight line speed in transition to get a rebounding spot for the quick shots and they need to be able to be mobile in half court play because in weaves the lull of the back and forth is going to be interrupted unexpectedly by a lightening strike. Bigs have to be able to react suddenly to get to fitting right rebounding spot. Mitch and Doke can pick'em up and put'em down in transition. No problem there in series substitution. In half court, Twitchy fast offense--the perimeter's strength--does not favor Doke as much as would slow predictable offense. My hypothesis is his rebounding numbers are modest for his size, because of his inability to react quickly to get to the right rebounding position, not because he is slow--he isn't--but because the perimeter guys are a bunch of Tyshawns.
Self has two options: a.) slow the perimeter down, or b.) rely on the non shooting perimeter guys to water bug to the iron to grab the caroms Doke can't get to in a timely fashion. Self clearly favors option b. And against lesser teams we can get away with board crashing because it looks like our water bugs can get back on defense at light speed also. It seemed more problematic against UK. Thus our strength is twitchy fast offense off outward weaving. This requires some board crashing, which in turn requires our guys to use their blinding speed to get back on defense, not just for offense. Time and opponents will tell how well we can do this. But it seems like it will hunt most of the time. And so most of the time, when they over play our perimeter outside, we turn and burn and dish to Doke and make'em pay. Then shoot their lights out from trifectaville if they sag.
This brings us to Mitch, which was my real reason for going through all of the above as prologue.
Mitch has a surprising advantage over Doke. He is likely much quicker at reading and reacting to the quick shooting. Mitch is also able to step out and pop the 15-19 footer. Now these are not an even trade for losing Doke's incredible length, still significant weight, and strength. Doke is a bona fide gravitational force when on the floor. He can NEVER be treated as just another guy to guard...EVER. If his arm goes up in a call for the ball, the opponent has to stop it from getting to him, or suffer the consequences of either letting him dunk, or running up its own team foul total.
But Mitch is still a serious problem playing back to basket on a spot. He can be knocked off most spots. And he is not tall enough to be a serious b2b threat against the tournament grade bigs we are likely to encounter during the March Carney.
What to do?
Remember Perry Ellis? He suffered much the same constraint set. Not quite big enough. Not quite strong enough. But excellent end to end speed and decent quickness. This sounds a lot like Mitch Lightfoot. Let's call Mitch a poor man's Perry Ellis, because Mitch seems to lack Perry's three point gun (so far), and maybe some of his athleticism (maybe). Mitch has two edges on Perry though. Mitch has decent sized mitts. And Mitch has a knack for blocks.
So: what can we learn from Perry Ellis to apply to Mitch Lightfoot?
Play him face to the basket.
Drive him occassionally.
Let him take and make the 15-20 footer.
AND break him to the basket and let him catch and dunk. He has the hands for it.
No, Mitch is not supposed to get 15 FGAs per game, as Perry got and deserved maybe more.
But when Mitch is in the game for Doke, Mitch floats out to 15-20 feet and plays it from there. He crashes boards from there. He drives it from there. He shoots it from there. He ball screens from there.
Mitch is used as a single high post a la John Wooden's several guys at long goddamn last.
The perimeter guys keep doing that twitchy fast voodoo that they do so well.
Thus, KU plays 20 minutes of twitchy fast low post.
And 20 minutes of twitchy fast high post.
Cunliffe comes in at semester and greatest the depth outside to play this way for 40 minutes a game outside.
One or two of Sosinski and DeSouza enable cutting Mitch's high post minutes to ten on certain nights.
And if Preston makes it back, he plugs into the backup for Doke and when he is in, KU goes flying circus.
But the key here is that with a worst case scenario of only one of Socinski and DeSouza, this Doke low and Mitch high rotation hunts, if Self can stretch and flex his imagination to a stretch 5 when Mitch is in.
That’s smokin’ at any size!
I used to play pickup b-ball games with KU football players in college at AFH. If this guy can curb the tendency to run through people and slide, he could help.
Yes, and seriously I actually love the State of Kentucky and like the Kentuckians I’ve met personally. But UK fans in basketball season require a dose of humor. I also removed my crack about their Senator, too, out of respect for our beloved republic and its noblest institutions.
UK and Cal seem like they are coming to their senses for the good of the game. I hardly want to kick them for doing so. It may be to their ultimate great credit that they have voluntarily curbed the stacking. Time will tell.
Holy cow. A fast 260 pounder in tennies! Let’s hope he’s a quick study and can start and stop.
And even when they care, they don’t learn to play college basketball till February usually.
And even then it’s about a 10 page playbook.
I haven’t seen him play against a Kentucky, have you? How did he do against that level of competition?
He looks much better, but that’s relative, because he could often barely run or jump last season.
Does he look explosive enough to run the floor with this KU Team’s Pace? No.
Does he finally look like a player against lesser competition? Yes.
Could we use him, because Preston is out? Yes.
Could he be better than Sosinski? Yes.
Better than Lightfoot? If we slowed it down? Yes. If we kept cooking? No.
I was a believer in Coleby, and think he will get much better by next season. Knee recovery can go on for three years.
Things did not break right for him and Self.
It happens.
Welcome. Your post makes an interesting point. Guard play does seem even MORE free wheeling this year and last year was itself a new peak. So why?
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Devonte is a more freewheeling “disher” than Frank.
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Vick IS LONGER AND MORE ATHLETIC, almost LIKE A CHEEHAH, than Devonte was.
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Malik is a second 2 and a really HUGE athletic presence still getting untracked.
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Svi has always been a racehorse reining it in and he’s running at 4.
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Doke has transmogrified from a lumber wagon into really long, fast Mercedes S Class Maybach stretch! This guy is AMAZING GETTING DOWN THE FLOOR!
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Lightfoot subs in and he can fly end to end also, and he’s twitchy quick in half court.
Self has defined who we are as “twitchy fast” and “strikes like a Cobra.”
I can see why Self has to test Sosinski a bit. This is one FAST Team. It’s not clear just any bruiser could keep pace.
At the time, Coleby made the right choice and so did Self.
Self had a chance for a jersey hanger in Preston and had to go for him to match with Azuibuke. It meant a back up slot for Coleby and Coleby had a terrible knee that did not progress as expected, while on the team. Self just could not FORECAST big PT FOR Coleby with a knee that might not improve AND with only a year of eligibility REMAINING. Self had Lightfoot with 2 good knees, a jump shot and many years remaining. Self also may even have had deSousza in background. Coleby gets to play the greatest game ever invented and I bet Self is delighted for him. It’s not clear he would beat out Lightfoot even now. It depends on Coleby’s knee. If explosive, Coleby. If not, Lightfoot.
Your point is also well taken. Self has said a number of times over the years that a stretch 4 is the hardest player to guard in D1. It makes sense that it might be, or become that way in the NBA, too.
Beautifully clear and nuanced take. Thanks. I get it.
I’m with you. I would love to see Self break new ground and introduce a completely new kind of player and play to D1.
IMHO, Self only scratched the surface of what was possible in the horizontal game with drive ball and bad ball with traditionally sized players. A back line of agile 325 pounders playing 2-3 zone defense could change the game entirely to the horizontal, when the transitioned to offense and backed opponents down to take 60-70 % accuracy shots. Self is smart enough to pull it off, too.
But he doesn’t take such plunges unless he gets totally sideways. He’s one big man injury and Sosinski and one more wide body away from possibly trying it.
I don’t hear ANY debate from the small ballers saying that KU would be better off sitting Azuibuke, or that Philly would be better off sitting Joel Embiid.
Why?
Is small ball only the future in a Disney-esque small, small world?
I thought small ball was argued to be the future, because, well, because trey balling and highly mobile small bigs had changed everything but the way we think.
Would some of the small ball devotees step forward and argue the case for Azuibuke and Embiid playing less, so the superiority of small ball can properly reassert itself?
Bourbon is the high water mark of their culture.
wissox said:
If you like trolling other peoples boards whatever. We talk a lot of smack on other teams too.
Just call them THE KENTUCKY DEFILED CATS.
Their real mascot is Oedipus.
It’s been at least 20 generations since Kentuckians did not reproduce with their parents. What do you expect. You’re lucky they don’t tell you about their sex lives.
Small ball, meet Joel Embiid.
It’s been a while since a center stepped in the L and manhandled people. Ain’t it Grand!
Hey, have you heard a wild internet rumor that Obama is managing the shadow government and he’s currently meeting with heads of state abroad to try to orchestrate something or other?
Dang, if he is, I wish he would covertly orchestrate us some more depth in the paint!!!
If he isn’t, then I’m hoping Mike Pompeo can, after a rumored move from CIA to State, can use some of the private contractor dump trucks over at Foggy Bottom to deliver us some more D1 ready bigs. Playing with only two is kind of a tough row to hoe even for Self!!!
P.S.: All we can talk about is fake news and rumors, since the six holding company news cartel apparently decided to hire guys that rape and harass women rather than report news.
Unreal when KU steals a recruit from Texas.
Dubya moved to DC and DC went to hell.
Dubya moved to Dallas and Dallas went to hell.
Dubya became a Horn fan and the Horns went to hell.
Let’s see if we can get Dubya to move to Durham and be a Duke fan!
jaybate 1.0 said:
jaybate 1.0 said:
JayHawkFanToo said:
I see I am still getting to you...
And again.
jaybate 1.0 said:
JayHawkFanToo said:
I see I am still getting to you...
I had to show it again.
JayHawkFanToo said:
I see I am still getting to you...
It’s so good!
JayHawkFanToo said:
I see I am still getting to you...
This is a true flame artist taking pride in his/her work. Thanks for sharing. You sure no how to enhance and beautify KUBUCKETS. Keep up the flame art. No one does it quite like you. And we are all the better for it.
Greatness becomes you.
Post more art here. This thread is a tribute to your flame art.
Rock Chalk!!!
It looks like a lot of thought and work went into it!
jaybate 1.0 said:
JayHawkFanToo said:
I like the sensitivity and subtlety of Implication of reference to that demonically, diabolically, almost Aleister Crowley seductive Luc Picard characterization by Pat. The brush strokes are expressive but the composition is a decided reference to anti classicalism. The black and red are so Stendhal-ish. I want to thank @JayHawkFanToo for this edifying addition to the KUBuckets Graphic Hall of Flame.
Rock Chalk @JayHawkFanToo !!
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JayHawkFanToo said:
Oh I love it!!
Did you just take another seminar online?
Howling!
dylans said:
@jaybate-1-0 I thought I that play was weird when it happened too. Hopefully we’re reading something into nothing.
I’m not reading anything in, nor are you. It’s just an observation of an atypical event among players that feel warm and fuzzy toward each other.
Who knows what it means?
But if I were a coach and saw that, my antennae would go up and I would be talking with both players to see if anything was wrong.
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“As usual, If @JayHawkFanToo can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bull...All that writing to say what? Nothing?”
Is that how to do it in thread cracking and site destabilization 101?😂
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No you didn’t “prove” anything, except search engines search; that’s a tautology last I heard.
Ooh but I like the “if you can’t dazzle them with...”
Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.
Seriously What thread cracking seminar teaches that thread cracking technique? (Notice how I satirized that with redundancy in the same sentence?)
Is this technique trade marked and copyrighted, or can I start repeating it to you ad nauseum too.
Howling!!
Get ready!
“As usual, If @JayHawkFanToo can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bull...All that writing to say what? Nothing?”
Hey, did you hear D-CIA Pompeo is rumored to be taking over the state Department’s private contractor army from Tillerson soon. THIS COULD GET VERY TENSE WITH KOCH-STATE AND ROCKEFELLER-DEFENSE FIGHTING FOR THE HOG TROUGH.
Seriously, I enjoy reading and hooting with you.
P.S.: Experience can’t be right or wrong. Only inferences drawn from experience can be wrong. Stop with the unfastidious thinking. You can do better!