I don't know. Tyler was maybe a better coach's son than I gave him credit for. :-)
jaybate 1.0
10346 posts
I watched the second half.
I looked at the box score.
55% shooting from the field.
High 30s from trey.
Beautiful 78% FT shooting.
Among the starters...
Doke racked up especially good numbers for only 20 minutes on the shellac: 21/10 and only 2 PFs is a very good nights work. Only hitch might be still not getting to one of those 15-18 reeb games one would expect against a mid major, but clearly Self was giving big minutes to Lightfoot and Garrett to get them a lot of work on the glass, so I'll stop picking nits about Doke. He brought it again.
Vick played positively Josh Jackson-ish. He was active in all phases of the game. Probably his best game at KU: 7 boards, 3 assists, 3 steals, 3 blocks, and the null set on turnovers. Vick is a sending signals that he is something very special. 15 highly efficient points. With his monster floor game and his high scoring efficiency, it was the equivalent of a 30 point night. Really an impressive performance. if Self ever gives him the touches, LOOK OUT! But the team is much better if he can keep playing this role. There rest of the players do not seem able to bring such a an active, well rounded game AND the scoring efficiency. Vick may stay under the radar screen this way, but he is very likely to be the toughest match up for an opponent of all our guys, if he keeps playing this role to Oscar levels of performance.
Devonte was effective but neither as sharp, nor efficient as he can be. This was another 5 pop tart game and that is kind of concerning against a team like Oakland. But he keeps dishing the assists and it will take till much of December to really understand what all his mates can and can't handle in the receiving department. The lid will come of the basket when it comes off.If he has another 5 TO game this next game, then I'm going to start scrutinizing for a hand injury. But that can wait. He was solid, just not that mind-blowing kind of stellar he can be.
Svi played a good floor game, got on the glass, avoided a turnover, and was aggressive on the stripping. Probably can't strip like that against a major, but that's okay. Good game, Svi, just not as efficient as I'd like.
I would be pretty upbeat about Malik's performance, but for the 3 pop tarts. Against a well drilled, but lesser talented mid major like Oakland, suggests there is still a concentration issue to get better at. What I like is that he was nearly as active as Vick, save for the blocks. No blocks and 3 turnovers suggest he just isn't anticating and getting after it fully focused yet. You like to see a new player get it fully together against a mid major the way way Vick did, so that he is ready to take the next step up to doing it against a major. Because Malik was a little off the edge, he is now going to have to take another crack at it against the next opponent. Oh, well, mostly I'm happy for Malik. The sooner he gets his floor game squared away, the sooner he can stop thinking and start shooting without learning curve distractions.
All of which brings us to Lightfoot and Garrett. Whenever I write a real handwringing post the day before, or especially the day of a game, I feel like players pick up my Tesla waves and decided to blow me out of the water.
Lightfoot first: I doubted Lightfoot big time today and, well, I'm quite a loooooong way out of the water. He got after it for 24 minutes, scored efficiently, got eight reebs including 2 on the offensive glass, which is a category he must become good at, when relieving Doke, because much as out perimeter guys like to get after it on the defensive glass, they remain largely strangers to offensive rebounding. Mitch had two blocks and only 1 TO in his two bits of PT. Blocking would be nice icing, if he were to be able to keep doing it against majors and elites, but it seems reasonable to doubt that would continue. He didn't make a steal, so maybe he can sharpen that skill to make up for the fall off in blocks as competition stiffens. Or maybe he will surprise me with blocking, too. But here appears the bottom line: Lightfoot took a big first step to being a credible D1 player. He got'er done against a good mid major. And Oakland IS a good mid major. Frankly he accomplished what I felt Malik fell just a little short of. Now he is ready to try the next step--20 comparable minutes against a major. And so on. I thought Mitch had the stuff to get it done against an Oakland. My doubting was about what could be expected from him versus majors and elite majors. Give Mitch some petons and his climbing boots. He is ready for the next ascent.
Garrett was equally impressive and IMHO scaled Mt. Mid Major just as nicely as Lightfoot did. I had a few days previously expressed grave reservations about Garrett's readiness for D1 majors and elites ANY time this season. I still harbor those doubts, but he at least put me back on my heels and now I must say I am neutral and waiting be shown.
Beating a good mid major like Oakland university can be a little like taking a huge puff off the oxygen tank for fun at base camp before the steep ascending starts. For a brief time, it makes green climbers think the next ascent to Mt. Major appears easier than it really is. There are blue meanies up on Mt. Major that just don't exist on Mt.Mid Major.
But I am cautiously optimistic about Lightfoot and Garrett for the first time.
And that's damned important since that's all folks, until Cunliffe and maybe a player to be named later show up at mid season.
We have to hope these are some robust, durable bodies wrapped around the obviously huge Jayhawk hearts.
Each of the seven players may as well figure on playing through anything short of bones sticking out of flesh.And in a pinch, Self might even just cut a tennis ball in half and tape it to the bone sticking out and say, "Lace'em up, son, there isn't anyone else."
Are you confident he can log 25-30 every fifth or sixth game and 15-20 four or five games in between and KU can beat majors and elites with Mitch? I'm just not to that place yet. Against mid majors and minor majors, yes. But against Texas, or Iowa State, or Baylor? Or Duke, UNC, MSU, and UK? I don't know. I didn't see much sign of it against UK. Like a long in the tooth Fox Mulder, I want to believe. But I just don't know, Sculley.
Remember when we thought Self had it tough with Lucas, Traylor and Ellis?
Those seasons seem like gravy days. Trips to Bountiful days. Our cup runneth over days.
Ellis, Lucas, and Traylor now seem like clover days now. Why Self used to cro-ice guys to the bench with more game than Mitch Lightfoot.
So: we know how KU will play with Doke bowing the wood on the low block.
But: how will he play Mitch on the night, when Dole sits after 5 minutes with 3 early fouls?
What then does he do for 30 minutes of Mitch Lightfoot?
I haven’t a clue!
Does any one else know the plan?
Tell me.
Billy we hardly knew ye.
Sosinski we heard’o ye, but never saw ye.
DeSouza we ne’er saw, nor knew ye.
Hypothesis: someone one called in a mark on Mr. Ball and scripted what he was supposed to say.
You will love this book. It is not high polish academic history. It is a memoir by a very old man both partly haunted by, and partly exhilarated by, a decisive historical moment he was a decisive participant in. I don't think I've ever read something quite like it before. It must have been a great struggle to finally get it down at such an age.
My father, who fought in the Solomons campaign, instead of what might have been a Hawaiian campaign, or a California defense, owed this man something, as in turn so do I, and so do all of us.
It is not that he did more than the rest, as he was quick to insist.
But he got'er done. Had he not dropped his bombs accurately, all the work, sacrifice, and death incurred to get him into the position he was briefly in, would have been for not had he lost his nerve, or concentration, at that key moment.
I will not call him a hero, because it was his wish not to be called such.
I will say he was the very best of everything that once was American, and that will be again.
In miraculously surviving against the odds, as my father also did, he became their spokesperson, as my father became for certain men of the Third Marine Division in the Solomons. But unlike my father he lasted longer and became, in his words, like the last leaf in autumn, before he too fell.
Anchors aweigh and Anchors away.
Going to be bliss. Best wishes in advance.
How long in the Sandwiches?
Ideal. Enjoy.
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Seriously, you’ve gotten a great idea for a business. After market conversions of Terexes into Executive Terexes for sale to leaders of resource countries, etc, pumpdoms, and/or petroexecs, operating in these pumpdoms recently knocked over by their proxy enemy ISIS, or soon to be. Wouldn’t it be impressive for someone in the private oligarchy’s installed lackey base in the Middle East to tool around this war torn pumpdom in an absolutely lavishly tricked out Terex??!!!!!!
I can already see the Jet Black with gold trimmed Terex rolling right over Joule Oil headquarters and then pulling up in front of a Russian Casino for some baccarat and a caviar stuffed falafel!
But a harvested, guided asteroid fragment would hit with sufficient impact to render that missile a minor irritant. 😀
The most powerful things are often the things he just remarks on.
When he says his group and others, including the torpedo bomber pilots, understood the night before the attack that the first wave of torpedo bomber pilots were not coming back and mentions the awareness pilots had of going down and either dying from impact, or dying after in the ocean, it is more chilling than any movie, or book, has portrayed it. And in fact only one torpedo plane came back. If you have been far out to sea and looked down on it knowing you are too far to get anywhere in the event of a problem, get ready for a serious chest punch from this book.
As long as I get to have my buffers, I'm cool. :-)
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You poor, poor bot. 🙌😀
Please buy, or check out, “Never Call Me a Hero” by Dusty Kleiss. It’s his memoir of the Battle of Midway. Annapolis grad Kleiss flew a navy dive bomber and his group was directly involved in sinking or decisively damaging 3 Japanese aircraft carriers. It is a powerful memoir that removes a lot of hype and leaves one with deeply moving insight into one of the most important naval battles in history.
Kleiss makes clear the terrible cost of victory in the moment and afterwards and why Americans of all persuasions owe the dead of that day a great debt.
RIP Mr. Kleiss and to all the men who sacrificed everything to keep the Japanese from taking Hawaii and prolonging the war many years, or worse.
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I give up. How many?
Eh, Roy Hobbs from The Natural with Bob Redford?
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P.S. to @JayHawkFanToo
Choir preaching regarding relative impact advantage of an Escalade over a Civic.
Likewise, armored personnel carriers are sharply safer than SUVs 🚙 in impacts.
Alas tanks and SUVs lose out to the Terex MT 6300AC: 400 tons/ 3,750 HP in most impacts.
I would vote for most any pro constitutional republican government favoring, anti NeoCon/NeoLib, pro rule of law, anti Deep State candidate for President that promised every American that does not already own a large SUV a Terex MT 6300AC and the necessary fuel subsidy to operate it to let the SUV drivers spend a little time being squashed like bugs in traffic accidents. Nothing like walking around in another man’s driving shoes to make him appreciate a problem of asymmetry.
JayHawkFanToo said:
Larger cars are inherently safer. My brother got older Expeditions for his 3 HS-college aged sons and one of them was in a serious accident but he was largely unscathed; had he been driving a small compact car he would not have been so lucky. Something to ponder.
Especially in our reputed current era of remote crashing of noncompliant person's cars by the Deep State?
What is it about the affluent and those brand new, behemoth SUVs? They seem to buy them by bakers dozen and give one to each member of the family, especially the kids going to spend private schools, then one for the family driver, then one for grammie, then two for the company fleet expensed as backups.
If they were thinking clearly, they would ALSO send them out to be custom up-armored and require their darlings to wear Kevlar exoshields to class.
Ahem.
Have you seen that reputed market research done for one of the American CarCos that circulated around the internet for awhile that characterized the primary market target's personality profile for different kinds of new cars? My favorite was the one for large SUV drivers. They tend to be sharply more selfish, and sharply less caring about others, in comparison to all the other categories of drivers! I never bothered to run down, if it was a legitimate bit of research, or just something hoked up for click bait, but I got a kick out of it, anyway.
We can hope. But something about KSU brings him out like a hive.
Talk about a jack pot hit!!!!
Sosinski and Roy Hobbs (the movie version) will become synonymous!
wissox said:
Listened to Eye on College basketball podcast today from CBS. The episode was about the Ball saga and the Champions classic. They talked several minutes about MSU, then 20 more about Duke, then like 20 seconds about KU, then 12 more about Kentucky. Grrrrrrr.....
Only 20 about UK?
Did Cal turn in a black glove and get a kiss of death?!!!
wissox said:
Badgers suck at FT's. Baylor sucks at coaching. See which team sucks more!
PHOF!
I thought Faylor Starrs were declared an epistemic toxic waste dump after last season or three.
How can they still have a program?
We could also use a guy off the martial arts team. Give new meaning to stiff screens!
How about picking someone up from the archery team. He can shoot some of the opponent’s high flyers in the thighs!!!
Sosinski’s fine, but why not grab a 325 lb lineman or two?
Let’s set some real picks for a change!!!
Satan is a perfect match up for god, but I would not want god to schedule a home and home for TV revenues!
Fizzourah—a state of incompetence!
HighEliteMajor said:
Let's focus on Missouri for a moment. Just Missouri.
Isn't this what MU is all about? The ... getting ... so ... close? The rushing field, only to have a ref say, "not so fast, my friend" (Flea kicker). To have its greatest season ever, only to drop a first round game to lowly Norfolk St. And, of course, on the verge of the CFB championship game, only to get drubbed back into their pathetic existence. It's like Stipo pulled out a gun and shot Porter himself (accidentally, of course). We knew it was coming. Oh, the crackers be shakin' for sure -- shakin' from withdrawal. A season's death comes like this. In an ESPN alert. It used to come when MU would somehow, someway, figure out how to lose short of the Final Four in every year of its century plus existence on the court. Even Holy Cross, Dartmouth, Duquesne, Santa Clara, and other powerhouses have found their ways to the Final Four. But not MU. And not this season, either. The Antlers won't be crackin' any Natty lights with Eustachy over this one. Paige Are ... er, Mizzou arena might have a few empty seats (few defined as, like, all).
This is why the rivalry is oh, so good. MU has it right there. On its fingertips. The excitement. The anticipation. And it is unceremoniously yanked away from the Tiger hordes. We can just sit back and take it all in.
Oh, and right, sorry for the kid. But look, he signed with MU, it's almost like he brought it on himself.
——————-
Definitive Fizzourah PHOF!!!
Howling! .
First, to emulate your rhetorical technique and so try to maximize communication, do you have any recollection of the actual 2012 UK team? Do you even recall how they rotated against top 10 competition most of the time, especially in close games? Or did you only look up their cummulative season numbers without EVEN disaggregating them for patterns of average rotation against top 10 competition?
Second, and continuing in the vein of the first, have you EVER seen Garrett and Cunliffe play? And if you say you have, have you really perceived what you say you saw? And if you say you perceived what you say you saw, did you ever really process what you say you perceived you saw?
Howling!
.
Well, you have made a good QA case, so I have to dry wash with doubt and recrimination.
Damn, I hope ur right about Garrett AND wrong about Cunliffe.
Only question: did Cunliffe generate his numbers largely against cupcakes, as Garrett has so far, or was it against diversified quality of opponents? Put another way, are both guys’ numbers based on comparable mixes of competition?
Cunliffe will retire Garrett and Lightfoot in all the big games. I count that as six. Seven if DeSouza shows, right? I just don’t see Garrett as a viable 7th man against Top Ten grade competition this season. I think he would get eaten alive. He will get all his significant minutes against lesser teams. 13 is tops even for a green UK team in disarray. If KU played Duke with Cunliffe available, he would be lucky to get 5.
Daring take on DeSouza vs Preston.
You might be onto something, but Preston’s awfully talented.
Et al,
To reiterate, 6 man rotations ARE FEASIBLE.
John Calipari won a ring in 2012 with 6 guys.
Bill Self FYI finished second the same season with what some called 6 guys, but I called 7.
The keys to winning with 6 man rotations are:
a.) use starters to shorten games vs all opponents; and
b.) use your non rotation guys as much as possible against all weak opponents.
Six man rotations basically are trying to reduce 40 minute games to 20 minute games
—5 fast to start the first half and bolt to a lead
—5 fast to start the second half and bolt to a lead
—10 fast at the end of the second half to close out.
The idea is to cut the season from 40 40-minute games to 40 20-minute games.
And learn to love sand bagging and a lot of close games.
KUSTEVE said:
@JayHawkFanToo BTW, T Tech beat 20th ranked Northwestern by 35, and OU and TCU look tough as a boot, so maybe the B12 isn't as down as much as originally thought.
One thing we can be confidant of: no matter how good the Big 12 is, it will appear to be underestimated by an Eastern SPorts Network, unless some bet balancing requires it to be briefly hyped. :-)
I don't think you could balance the betting on that without resorting to Deep State money laundering. :-)
Kcmatt7 said:
Couldn't be happier Bill has been forced to use a 7 man rotation.
To be accurate, the UK game made clear Self has really gone to 6, or even a 5-man rotation. Lightfoot was not in long enough to be called a rotation player at all. Even Garrett's minutes were so restricted one could call it a 5 man rotation and not be stretching it.
I am not mentioning this to be negative. Calipari beat us for the ring in 2012 with a six man rotation. But they were 6 OADs/TADS. Self could conceivably carry something similar off, if injuries can be avoided, and if he runs into a runner up as shallow as KU was itself in 2012. After all, he arguably played a 6 man rotation in 2012 also.
One more point to consider: Kentucky was not an exceptional team. They were green. They had key players injured. They played with less talent than they have had for many years. They still played 8-9 players, suggesting Calipari was approaching it as a game he was using for a tune up, rather than going with his best five, or six, players to win, as Self was clearly approaching it. That's okay. There have been other seasons, when Self conceded more or less that he needed to use the Kentucky matchup to see who could and couldn't play, rather than strictly as a game to try to win. Likely Self would have played Preston, had Preston not violated team rules, and Garrett and Lightfoot would likely have wound up with even fewer minutes. In that scenario, KU would have shown what amounted to a six man rotation., which is where I think this team is headed against all top ten opponents, unless Preston comes back, Cunliffe is darned good, and DeSouza shows up.
Self signaled us in no uncertain terms against Kentucky that Garrett and Lightfoot are marginal backups not even ready for UK, when UK is green and experimenting. We will see lots of minutes, as many as possible, really, for Garrett and Lightfoot against non top ten competition in order to rest our 5 man rotation as much as possible in between the top ten opponents, and on the front ends of 2 games in three days situations. Otherwise, I think Garrett and Lightfoot will be very scarce in big games. If Preston and Cunliffe show up, and play as well as I suspect they are capable of, I reckon Lightfoot will disappear entirely, and Garrett will be in about as little as Lightfoot was against UK. If DeSouza shows, Garrett could disappear, too. Garrett's minutes now stem almost entirely from the combo of Cunliffe's absence and Preston's limited, or non PT, IMHO.
.
Self prepares for life without Preston, same as he did with the Big Red Dog aka Clifford "Mom Reputedly Got Some Hep" Alexander. This amounts to deep frying a donut in the big fryer with the donut hole in the backup fryer. You would like them both to be ready to eat about the same time, but they don't have to finish at exactly the same time, and the donut can be tasty without the donut hole, or just that much better with it.
But life is theme with variations.
The variations here seems to be that Preston will actually sit from the start instead of playing limited minutes a la the Big Bowser. As the late Tom Petty sang, "The waiting is [and will be] the hardest part." Bang the box in heaven, Tom.
The commitment to sitting Preston makes one thing unmistakable. Whatever the issue is that looms with him and his Mattel Mobile, it appears much more cut and dried than it appeared with Alexander. With Alexander, Self and KU were apparently dealing with something involving mom, and that made the infraction involve "awareness" on the part of KU and Self and arguably even Alexander himself. Playing Alexander without "awareness" was NOT an infraction, at least if plausible deniability could be maintained. But the inference with Preston appears to be that what ever the potential transgression, it was apparently something flat inadmissible going in, and something Preston apparently would have had personal awareness of, and likely certain key officials in KU basketball would have had personal awareness of, or should have had. Plausible deniability can be a female canis familiaris.
Preston apparently isn't playing, because playing with knowledge of the transgression would lead straight to Forfeit City. I'm not breaking ground here. Others have made similar inferences recently. I'm just clarifying for prologue. To wit, that he sits, instead of plays, appears to suggest KU basketball officials see enough of a black box that fecal matter could have happened inside that they are not going to the mat for the young man and playing him anyway. At the very least, it appears NOT a vote of confidence.
There endeth the prologue.
This post is really a rumination about who we are.
We knew who we were with Preston. We were a go-deep, match-up-any-way-they-want, flex 3-2/4-1 kind of a team with April expectations. We thought we had near Dump Truck-grade depth in perimeter athleticism and shooting. Plus inside, we thought we had Mr. Relaxed Fit in XXXL (Azuibuke) and Mr. Slim Fit in XXL (Billy Preston) both backed up with youth tall (Lightfoot) and Archteryx small (Svi and Garrett) pack-lite back ups. The suit case seemed all Briggs and Riley durable for a long adventure travel trip to the Final Four, especially, when Cunliffe and De Souza came Amazon-enabled at mid season to fill the remaining empty spaces in the Eagle Creek packing cubes. (Note: I'm practicing here for a future when each of us gets fees for product placement references in posts. If KU and Self can sell themselves, why shouldn't we? Are you listening, @approxinfinity. Contracting with advertisers to receive a few cents or dollars every time a board rat mentions a product brand in a positive way is the zeitgeist way to get compensated for all your hard work here.).
But fecal matter has already happened.
Champagne wishes and caviar dreams were then.
So: who are we now, if Preston proves an Anti-MacArthur and fails to return?
We are improvised wishes and survival schemes.
We are 4-1.
Even with DeSouza.
At most, IF DeSouza shows, he will buy us two, five-minute stretches for Azuibuke to take on oxygen. No non OAD guy is coming into the asymmetric whistle ritual that is the March Carney and turning into an impact player for six NCAA games as a starting 4 to enable Self to wear his Iba mask and win one for Hank in the 3-2. Not. Going. To. Hap.
But, 'bate, that's who we aren't. We want to know who we are. We have to know. We gots to know. If we've learned nothing else from the Earl of Edmond, all these fabulous years, its a team's got to know who they are.
Read my key strokes:
We are 4-1.
Let me distill it to Dr. Zeuss.
We are 4-1 if they are tall.
We are 4-1 if they are small.
We are 4-1 in a house.
We are 4-1 with a mouse.
We are 4-1 with a spoon.
We are 4-1 on the moon.
We are 4-1 in a caboose.
We are 4-1 with Calipari's Mousse.
We are 4-1 with a hat.
We are 4-1 with Coach K the rat.
We are 4-1 against a schizo.
We are 4-1 against Ratso Izzo.
We are 4-1 against Jews and Goys.
We are 4-1 against Roy Williams' boys.
We like crimson eggs and ham.
We like 4-1, Phog I am.
Ahem.
This 4-1 dog can hunt once it gets Cunliffe. Cunliffe gives Self a deep rotation of runts at the 4. He will be able to rotate Svi, Garrett and Cunliffe; that's enough fouls to give that runts can keep coming and we can keep playing small at the 4, even when the opponents go big. It will mean switching in and out of man and junk zone to keep the Blue Meanies from knowing exactly what spots to stand on on offense, and who to screen, and back down, but Self has become Mr. Flexible the last few seasons. This is a defensive challenge and he likes those.
At the 5, it gets sticky being who we are, even if Azuibuke were miraculously to stay healthy and play 30mpg every time he laced'em up. Yes, Lightfoot can spell him for breathers. Yes, Lightfoot will get better when Self gives him the Marine Corp Captain to the Marine Corp Lieutentant line: "Son, I am counting on you. I'm not going to bullshit you, Lieutenant. We are counting on you to take that pocket no matter how you have to do it, and we know its going to be tough. This entire operation is depending on you doing your job. You don't have to be a hero, Lightfoot, but you do have to have to sneeze lightening and shit thunder. We are not sure at present if there will be any replacements. You may have to do this with your bare hands and your KaBar but it has to be done. Failure is not an option. I don't care what size they are. You kill and clean me some Dukies, or don't come back alive."
These are the kinds of things that will have to be said (and done) in some D1 translation suitable for politically correct standards of today. If you people think Grayson Allen is bad guy, you're going to have to get a grip, when Self has to resort to Mitch Lightfoot to close an NCAA game out. But it can be done.
But here is where DeSouza comes in (as everyone has long since gathered, right?). Lightfoot is only enough to survive and advance with a right tail probability. Ten fouls just aren't enough for Self to retain the flexibility of attacking, or shortening games, as the moment dictates. Add DeSouza, with pretty much the same exhortations given Lightfoot, and Self is in the magic 15 fouls-to-give territory at the 5 that can let Self do either. And De Souza at least would allow short stretches of faking a 3-2, when the other team plays two bigs, while Self and staff hatch yet another tactical scheme with the 4-1 to outflank opponent with size.
The above has been the long of it.
The short of it?
Self, the Basketball Gandalf, can with a bit of misdirection, a pinch of magic dust, and an occasional charge on his own Shadowfax of Devonte Graham, conjure the pieces of his Basketball Middle Earth into a winning conquest of Sauron, but he needs to add Cunliffe and DeSouza bad to pull it off.
Rock Chalk!