🏀 KuBuckets Archive

@EdwordL

Awesome recall!!! I had forgotten Wally Butts and Bryant. I am submitting your name for congressional approval as Secretary of Sports Memory!!!!!

I never did understand what happened in that situation. Do you recall if DOJ investigated it, as @JayHawkFanToo says they would have? That could be some evidence for him. Still not a basketball coach, but closer than a referee. Though still something quite far beyond the professional curtesy of not throwing a game, but rather just not roughing up and wearing down a colleague's highly ranked team unnecessarily just before a big game in which both coaches' team's would benefit from playing the second of 2 in 3 or 4 with more gas in the tanks and fewer injuries. Right?

Remember @JayHawkFanToo created the whole "fixing" issue completely counterfactually to what I was discussing. Made it up himself. I was assuming NO fix of any kind. He was who wanted to think about fixes and introduced the concept. It's a technique of thread destabilization, though I believe in his case he genuinely believes professional curtesy would be a crime the DOJ would investigate.

All I was talking about was: The game was to be shortened as appears to happen frequently in coaching strategy, and played closely without a lot of the illegal rough housing and intimidation and cheap shotting that goes on. I assumed a completely legal and sportsmanlike approach all apparently legitimately within the rules, while @JayHawkFanToo went off into a fixing tangent that I shrugged at but indulged him on.

Since I don't see the appearance of professional curtesy as an illegal conspiracy, and since i am not interested in the fixing of games by coaches, as much as @Jayhawkfantoo appears to be, I suggest you direct this to him. He seems to know a lot about the law of fixing and the criteria for DOJ investigating that is all quite beyond my knowledge.

He could perhaps informatively explain how Bear Bryant asking a coach Butts to throw a game would equate to two D1 basketball coaching colleagues facing 2 games in 3-4 days and with neither gaining much benefit from coaching a bruising high possession game with a lot of hard fouling and cheap shotting and "manning up" deciding simultaneously without conversation between them on the subject to coach a low possession game with out a lot of the rough stuff, so as to leave both teams in the best possible condition for the next opponent.

The crux of it is shortening a game and playing the final ten to win knowing veteran Coach A has the superior highly ranked team and Young Coach B has the inferior team facing a home whistle on the road. Should Coach B pull out all the stops and run his team and Coach A's team into exhaustion for a remote chance of winning, and probably causing both teams to lose their next games, or should he play it close to the vest, try to steal it at the end, and regardless our outcome live to fight and win more probably in a few days, while simultaneously minimizing the chance of the veteran Coach A electing use his home court advantage and superior team to beat him into the next century for being an unprofessional jerk?

I really haven't a clue about how @JayHawkFanToo gets into fixing. It appears a complete logical disconnect from what I was writing about. But I try to be a good sport and be patient and not squelch him. He will work through this at some point.

Everything I was writing about was opening, speculation and hypothesis as usual. Just trying to understand the game as it appears.

Rock Chalk! And let's get ready for Morgantown.

@KUSTEVE

Cool. Glad you're enjoying it. Keep us posted how it goes.

I wonder if there were an equivalent for USA politics; i.e., fantasy politics?

USE REAL PLAYERS STATS IN SIMULATIONS. You assemble Hillary and Kellyanne Conway and see if that beats Donald Trump and Karl Rove. Switch campaign strategists around and see if you can outperform the pros.

I would think it would get popular in a hurry, if it isn't already being done.

I'm not joking either.

@JayHawkFanToo

You seem a little colicky the last few days. KU is doing pretty well. Is it inauguration related?

@JayHawkFanToo

Map me baby!!!

It's fan-tactic!!!!

@JayHawkFanToo

You are wrong.

You are changing the subject.

Is it too difficult for you?

That Would be a crime.

No crime definition.

No evidence.

Unrelated example.

Your changing what you said.

Do loop.

Howling!!!

Howling!!

@JayHawkFanToo

Have you read about some reputed new mil-int thread management and psycho-mapping technique and software.. They reputedly carry on lengthy purposefully meandering argumentative discourses loaded with impugning assertions and with one playing good cop and one bad all the while the thread discourse is being used as data to psycho-map the target for data and tendencies unrelated to topic. Its a completely unreal, contrived discourse on purpose. It's supposedly some fallout from memetic engineering research. Forget where I saw it now. Now all who belabor points may be psycho mappers. Wonder how long it will before they start showing up? Apparently because it can be conducted fully automated --two AIs not just one--they can be flooded all over the Internet.

Psycho mapping. It's fan-tactic!!!

But in the post truth era it is debated whether this software exists, or not.

Others argue that it is a hoax passed off to make everyone think they can do something they can't.

I think the post truth era could get quite unknowably interesting. 😎

@JayHawkFanToo

You remain unpersuasive to me on this issue.

And no I don't believe that I am.

And you may continue to try to persuade me.

My mind remains open.

@KUSTEVE

Fascinating. The NBA is a whole other world. I have often wondered how they managed the grind. When I was a child in the 1960s I recall my father saying the NBA players didnt go hard till the playoffs. It appeared that way sometimes.

@KUSTEVE

That's an interesting angle to view the issue from--fantasy basketball.

It makes me wonder if there are other aspects of the real game that fantasy basketball might lend similar insight on.

"I take it is too difficult for you to believe that coaches just don’t do this, regardless of what you think."
--@JayHawkFanToo

Your taking it this way makes it seem about your difficulty with an apparent phenomenon I noted and your apparent hope that the apparent phenomemon is not real

It's not so loaded for me, because I don't see fixing as a likely and sound interpretation. Hence no sense of difficulty for me. FWIW, I'm feeling pretty good despite a mild cold. 😄

I will say that it seems like each point you make raises more questions about possible nefarious head coach conduct in this regard, if one bought your premise,which I remain skeptical about. I just find it hard to believe coaching a low possession game till ten to go and then playing all out to win it the last ten minutes could reasonably be characterized as, and investigated as, fixing.

The issue of fixing is all yours. I have just tried to explore it with you as you saw it, in order to respect you and your POV, even though I find it rather unpersuasive. Some times you take me off in interesting directions, so I try to give you latitude.

Again it never occurred to me that shortening a game to ten minutes, or trying to take it a little easy on an opponent to help you both conserve energy for the next game, could be equated with a legal definition of fixing. It seems like a logical disconnect.

But your steady insistence that it would be fixing makes one ask: well, if it were to qualify, as you say, then that raises the next question of why the apparent phenomenon is apparently rarely, or never investigated by DOJ? Is it because it doesn't happen, or because it's a grey area of fixing, or because everyone has agreed not to enforce the law on coaches, or what?

Again, I suspect you are off on this fixing idea, but I've done the best I can with it.

And I am hopeful the above clarification helps relieve some of your difficulty.

Rock Chalk!

@KUSTEVE

Ha! The unfair advantage!!!

@JayHawkFanToo said:

fixing games by making calls that change the score.

Thanks. I knew that refs and gamblers and players fixed games.. But the interesting angle is the coaches. If I understand you correctly, you can't recall any coaches getting investigated by DOJ for fixing games. Neither do I. Must have been some in over a century.

I wonder if head coaches have managed fixing the way they have managed recruiting violations? In recruiting its reputedly an unwritten rule that the HC maintains plausible deniability by having the assistants and alums do the rule breaking for him; then he says he didn't know about, and then does a "motion play" to another school.

@KUSTEVE

Looks like there's an edge sharpening!

@kjayhawks

Thxs for the assist. Sounds good.

@Texas-Hawk-10

Self is moving more and more to shortening games, as he did with 2012 Finals team.

The technique goes back a long way in basketball. You break the game up in 5 minute chunks and try to beat a team for 5 minutes, then muddy it up for 5. Repeat. My old high school coach used to call it "squirt and dirt."

Short bench = short game.

@KUSTEVE

He'll get them in Morgantown, if he can deal with the heat and beat. It's going to get tough.

@Blown

U lucky devil. Thx for the report from the front!!!

Greatest Title for a post this season!!!!!!!!!

A little lean on the body of the post though. ::smiley:

@kjayhawks

I think you're right about the taking off possessions. But I also think it may be attributable some to Self working on trying to get the team to the point of finding its own ways to win, rather than always relying on his wrinkles to bail them out. We have to remember that while Frank, Devonte and Landen have been through this crucible Self puts teams through each season; i.e., finding ways to win a game without the coach's help, Svi, Vick and Josh have not been. It makes it a bit of a jerky jerky process bringing 2-3 guys up to this level, while also trying to keep winning games. But it does seem like Frank and Devonte actually sometimes kind of slack off just a hair to try to make Svi, Vick and J0sh ramp it up a little to compensate. Its hard to prove things like this, because great coaches don't reveal their deepest secrets about how they build teams. Maybe they don't even fully understand what they are doing themselves. But this is most definitely how Self's teams progress through seasons and this team just happens to be a little more this way than most. Self usually peaks them some time in mid December, so the team knows just how good it can be and what being good is; then Self seems to break the team back down again and work on chinks in the armor, and say, "See, I have shown you what I can do when help you, but I won't always be able to help you out there at certain decisive moments. Its at those times that you have to figure out how to win games without me. Then he takes them through this kind of ugly, funky period and lets them find their ways; then he finally says at some point: we're ready, let's go get'tem with everything we've got. And Self returns to creating wrinkles and giving them every kind of edge he can and they begin to feel ten feet tall.

@HawkChamp

Agree that those bursts of defensive energy were very good signs. A few weeks back he tried a few times to see if they could win it on the defensive end without many wrinkles, and they foundered and he had to bail them out. Today, he didn't really have to bail them out, because of some of those defensive bursts they found within themselves.. That I think is a real positive for moving forward.

@KUSTEVE said:

Maybe it was three dimensional chess,

PHOF

I know USC isn't athletic enough to stay with UK, but Frankie will bang Cal's boys and hang around awhile. And UK will have a decent share of South Florida tire iron hickies even after spending the next few days in the spa.

Go, Frankie, Go!!!!

I watched a little of the UCLA-Zona game and it was wild watching KU in UCLA uniforms. They run the chop and the weave as much, maybe more than KU. Lots of other similar action. I was so stunned, I forgot to check if he is playing any 4-1. Maybe someone else can chime in. And Steve, despite's being in one of the mother lodes of basketball recruiting appears to be playing a positively Selfian share of glue guys without 5-stars or OADs behind their names. He has a very typical adidas team. And it has been playing very well. It didn't look so hot against Zona, though, which is still pretty darned athletic even in Stumpy's apparent post long stack era. Zona clocked them in a high possession game.

Or did the two coaches and teams kind of pace themselves for their upcoming games?

Texas plays OU in Austin on Monday night.

KU plays WVU on Tuesday night in Morgantown.

Both teams had an incentive to conserve.

But did they?

79-67 with 60 and 59 FGAs is one of those tweener games IMHO. Not a low possession game for sure. But at the same time, for two teams that showed several times that they had guys that could really get up and down the floor, there were several major muddied up stretches of the game. So: it wasn't a high possession game either. Neither team just kept pushing it the whole game. It didn't wind up 98-90.

It kind of felt to me like they each played half of a half at a pretty intense level, and conserved the other half.

All in all the pace appeared very good for KU. Not so fast as to be tiring. And not so intense as to prevent Self from squeezing out 22 minutes to Bragg and Lightfoot to keep Josh and Landen at 30 and 32 minutes, rather than having to gut it out to 38, or 40.

Frank and Devonte were cut all the way back from 38-40 to 34-36, which at this point, probably seems like a light scrimmage to them.

It will be interesting to see how everyone holds up energy wise in Morgantown against the press. Its not 2 in 3, but its not really 2 in a full 4. since there is a travel day involved that is kind of a tweener effect.

One would expect to see three point shooting percentage suffer if the legs tire in Morgantown.

But even if legs don't tire, KU shot 48% from trey on 23 treys and even broke 70 percent from the FT line, and so there is significant risk of shooting back to age. I haven't checked. Usually WVU can't shoot the trey, so maybe it won't matter if we cool down to the mid thirties from Trey.

What we don't want, however, is a convergence of shooting back to average and tired legs making it even worse.

Really, though the only lead lining to these silver 18-1 clouds today, despite some stretches of ugly play, was our FG shooting inside the trey stripe. Net out the trey makes and attempts and you see 17 of 37 inside the stripe for 36.1%. Now, I know there are fouls to think about effecting that, but 36.1% is mighty low for short shooting.

If we are a bunch of Ice-Hand Isaacs from trey and have the same struggle scoring inside, we'll probably lose. Period. Unless...

Self can find a defensive wrinkle the venerable Huggie Bear has not thought about in his long career.

But what?

Search me.

But we are going to definitely need to put on our defensive hats in Morgantown. Too often I focus too much on managing the press. One has to do that. But doing that without handcuffing the Mountaineers on defense leaves us at the mercy of the 3 point gods.

Rock Chalk!

@JayHawkFanToo said:

Having your players go soft so the other team is rested for its next game comes close to the definition of “fixing” a game and it would land that coach in the bullseye of a DOJ investigation.

Well, you're leaving out the part about playing the shortened game competitively the last ten minutes; that seems an obstacle to declaring a game to have been fixed. I mean you aren't suggesting that a coach holding his own team's score down to rest them is fixing a game are you? That doesn't seem to be what you mean. You seem to distinguish between one coach slowing the pace down for his team's benefit and another coach slowing the pace down for his professional benefit. Is that distinction made in the rule you've read about "fixing" games?

Fixing a game? This is an interesting concept.

I've never read a legal definition of fixing a game. If you know the legal definition, I would like to read it. It would be interesting to know exactly how close such activity would be to this definition you are referring to. Heck, your observation makes me wonder hypothetically: if it fits the definition, and if its been occurring (two big ifs), why hasn't DOJ been prosecuting it all of these years?

Further, you make me wonder the following: how many times has the DOJ investigated coaches for violating the legal definition of fixing games the last 40 years? the last 20? the last 10? Is it frequent? Not frequent? Never?

I've read stories and books that suggest that there is some fixing of games that goes on. But I don't recall right off hand a coach being investigated by the DOJ for fixing a game.

Who were the last few coaches you recall the DOJ investigating for fixing games?

Even back in the old 20th Century point shaving scandals it always seemed like it was the gamblers that were the objects of the investigations.

This is kind of a fascinating line of discussion you have triggered. Thanks.

Is CBS streaming it live for free, or do I have to use the tube?

Recipe for a Texas Basketball Martini:

1 jigger cactus piss

1 jigger armadillo piss

fill to brim with chili vermouth

1 long horn turd melon-balled and pierced with a toothpick to infuse impurities

Shaka, not stirred.

@dylans said:

I have a hard time believing coaches talk to opposing coaches before the game to dictate pace.

I definitely do NOT suspect they talk before the game. If it exists, it would be a convention of the profession--a part of the unwritten code of the profession.

I reckon that coaches in the Jud Heathcote era never talked with a newly hired assistant and said, "You know, its a convention of the coaching profession that I now assign you to break a recruiting rule in order to make sure you don't rat me and the other coaches on the staff our for the rules we have to break to make this program competitive. So: I want you to take this safe deposit key and this envelope of cash and put it in the XYZ bank deposit box for Player A that I have you recruiting for us. The kid has the matching safe deposit key and a couple days after you drop off the cash in the unmarked envelope, the kid will go to his safe deposit box and pick it up. At that point, we expect him to sign with us, and have you complicit in what we are doing. As a result, we can trust that you will not rat us out should the NCAA come around investigating. And of course we won't rat you out either. You've got something on us and we've got something on you. Capice?"

I have a hunch that mentors advise professionals about some of the unwritten rules and etiquettes of the profession. I have a hunch that in the case of professional curtesy, one starts a game in a conserving energy mode and assesses whether one's opponent is going to play the same. If the opponent plays balls to the walls, one knows one has to go out and play full tilt for awhile, say, build a lead, then defend a lead, build a lead, defend a lead. But if the opposing coach has his team playing "ball control, low possession" game, well, then you both know you are observing the rules of professional curtesy. Both teams cruise till ten to go and then its a race to the wire. But again, I have no proof that this goes on. I am just commenting from appearances. It could be that it does not go on. It could just be a by-product of a kind of equilibrium strategy of games. But I wonder.

@JayHawkFanToo

Do you think good sportsmanship in coaching necessarily excludes professional curtesy?

Is there a rule in the rule book expressly prohibiting professional curtesy to a professional colleague in coaching?

Is there a body of sports law that has laid down precedents in this regard?

I don't recall any, but I'm not a legal expert.

Regarding loss of respect, I recall reading former MSU HC Jud Heathcote once was quoted in a book about sports recruiting as saying it was common practice in the D1 coaching profession during his career that a HC purposely required a newly hired assistant to commit a recruiting violation in order to ensure his future silence and loyalty (complicity?) about the rule breaking regularly engaged in by coaching staffs.

I lost some respect for the coaching profession, when I read that, too. But coaches do a lot of good, too.

I find coaching a game some to help keep the winning margin from not be used against a colleague on a career hot seat not all that objectionable.

Here is another intriguing oddity that appears to arise In some two in three series in conference and the tourney. Can't swear this happens but it appears to. Both coach's appear to opt toward a low possession game in the first game of 2 in 3 to save their teams energies for the second game. What appears to happen is both coaches choose to shorten the game for 30 minutes and then play balls to the walls the last ten minutes. The winner appears determined on the floor in a 10 minute game. The winner goes on to the second game of 2 in 3 with more energy and plays a conventional 40 minute game. I have noticed this apparent phenomenon in the early rounds of some tournament games. Is this ethical, if it's happening? It definitely looks good for the coach of the lesser team, because it makes it appear his low seed team Is hanging in with an elite team. It's good for holding audience interest. It's good for the game winner who has more energy for the next game. Should we lose all respect for coaches that do this, if they do?

I reckon all professions struggle some with ethics and that there are differing thresholds of right and wrong in certain realms of professional conduct, whereas other realms are subject to a lot of consensus and explicitness of standards regarding conduct.

I don't flatly in all circumstances find the notion of professional curtesy being extended to a colleague in coaching as being abhorrent. I can see where it could get abused. But that's probably the way it is with many unwritten codes in many professions.

"With the middle of the Big 12 being pretty solid, there are a lot of Big 12 teams that could upset EST teams in the tournament. "

--@justanotherfan

We expect this so many times and then apparent seeding and whistle asymmetry appears to prevent it.

Or we find out our conference has been overhyped perhaps to help with bet balancing?

I hope you're right and we do great.

I'm just skeptical.

Nothing appears fundamentally different this season.

And I'm not sure why apparent seeding and whistle asymmetry would cease to appear.

@mayjay

The NSA used to not exist but knew EVERYTHING.

Now it exists and knows everything.

i sometimes feel like I don't exist and know nothing.

Life isn't fair!!

@drgnslayr

What's breakfast? 😄

@approxinfinity

Part of war is trying to find times to rest your troops for a big push.

The Texas game could be a rest for the WVU PUSH!

Or a contest. No rest.

Up to Shaka.

If Shaka were smart, he would keep keep it a 65-55 game with no banging. His fans and alums are cool and Self's team gets fresh legs for Morgantown. Self would repay him the next time he has him on the ropes and not try to kill so an Okie Baller can have the Texas job.

This the professional/political end of coaching. It's a long career, not just a game. You try to make friends and allies where you can BEFORE you need them.

Self will play it anyway he wants.

It's up to Shaka.

War or scrimmage.

@JayHawkFanToo

Yes, Self appears to extend professional curtesy ALL....THE....TIME, when he appears to feel any kind of collegial, professional relationship . He could beat many opponents into the next century. Coaches try not to put fellow coaches out of jobs; that's what I heard an old coach say off the record one time. And observations over many seasons have often conformed in appearance with the assertion.

Next.

What if...

What if Bob Huggins hires Andrea Hudy away from KU in order to turn himself into a rock hard body finally able to burn his man bras? What if?

What if the future of college basketball 5 guards all under 5-8 and 150 capable of moving at quantum speeds in which they not only move instantaneously from place to place on the court violating the locality assumption, but were able to alter each other's spin moves via quantum entanglement? What if?

What if in the post truth world today that liars want us to accept as inevitable, the national champion were determined through psychological operations and mind control to make us believe a team has won when it hasn't? What if?

What if Bill Self takes his players out to a top secret installation and is given highest level security clearance; then lets weapon scientists expert in nano-drone formations dropped from mother ships and operated by distributive artificial intelligence programming that causes the nano drone formations to think, strategize, deploy and fight in realtime embed the artificial intelligence into every player on the KU roster, so that after programming, the team becomes a coach-less entity that swarms down from the rafters of any arena and overwhelms to opponent with infinitely varying tactics? What if?

What if J.R.R. Tolkien, Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, Ray Bradbury, Stanley Kubrick, Frank Herbert, Gene Roddenberry, George Lucas, Stephen Spielberg and the Wachowski Brothers all worked as agents of the Deep State generating a body of modern mythology portraying the triumph of individual and corporate-military order bound up in secular magic, over family, representative government and orthodox religion? What if?

What if Self has solved the problem of feeding the post once and for all by eliminating feeding the post entirely? What If?

What if Bob Huggins decides to play a polite friendly game of basketball in Morgantown to completely throw KU off from its preparations for a knife fight? What if?

(Note; all fiction. No malice.)

@drgnslayr

Don't recall Trier? What team?

@wrwlumpy

Oooh, this for the memory hole refresher.

@dylans

Good add. But if Shaka needs close, a soft, low possession game is the way to get Self to keep it close. If Shaka opts for high possession with lots of motion offense with long cuts and physical inside, then Self probably has to separate to buy his starters <30 mpg. Thus a dilemma for The Shakster.

On Saturday, Shaka isn't likely to come out of the field house with a W.

KU plays a pressing team on Tuesday on the road.

Thus Shaka faces a professional curtesy issue.

Alas, the Shakster and Self don't appear in professional curtesy mode.

A coaching "colleague" would give KU an un-physical, low possession game to let it face Huggie's press on strong legs without more injuries.

A guy with a grudge makes KU run and deal with some unnecessary roughness, even if it means getting pasted by more.

What will Shaka do?

@HawkChamp said:

uh, I know what happened because I watched the game and have re watched it many times.

Agree to disagree. You are wrong and unsupported.

"As you can see, the more you look at the very top teams, the more unlikely that 3 EST are in the FF is."

--@JayHawkFanToo

Bet balancing made easier until the FF?

Also, three of four of anything in the Final Four should be a rare anomaly; same with 2 of anything in the Final Two. Having an EST team (and sometimes two) in the Final Two every time since 2008 is remarkably anomalous. Once in a great while such things happen. Anomalies are called such because they happen rarely. They are outliers in clouds of tendency. The more frequently they occur, and the longer they persist, the MORE anomalous they become, until it reaches a point where in some analysis drivers of the anomaly are revealed. Some times the drivers are hardworking and perseverance. Some times they are bribery and deception. Some times they appear to have been engineering to entertainment values.

What is mental toughness? A coach defines it.

https://www.teamsnap.com/community/podcast/episode-23-craig-sigl-they-say-sports-are-90-mental?utm_source=glazier&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2017contenttoolbox&utm_content=podcast23 ↗

@autohawk said:

everyone is such an expert.

I am not now, nor have I ever been a member of the Expert Party.

!NAPG.jpeg ↗

Get to know yer North American Electric Power Grid.

Tayhoss in blue.

@Blown

Those that do not remember the past are doomed to repeat it.--G. Satayana

Those that remember it wake up in cold sweats.--j. Satayanabate 1.0

@Hawk8086

Just to show that I'm not doctrinaire about this: I could also see them coming with 2 ESTs, a Texas team, and an LA team.

I don't want to leave the impression that they will stick to this EST bias indefinitely.

Selecting a Texas and an LA team would really help with bet balancing.

The point I am trying to make here is that there appear to be two levels of invitation to the March Carney.

Hypothesis: 64 teams get formally invited to be seeded in the 64 tourney, while 4 teams appear to be selected for four berths in the Final Four.

It appears to be two different tournaments.

But time will tell.

@drgnslayr

You know, its really hard to say.

Seems about time.

Hasn't UA had its turn?

@JayHawkFanToo said:

Are you telling me that out of this 7 teams with a decent shot to tre FF only one makes it…

That is the hypothesis.

Stack the left half of each bracket with the best teams. Put the CST teams in those half brackets.

Stack the right half of the each bracket with lesser teams. Put and top EST team in that bracket.

Let play play with asymmetric officiating.

Voila!

Final Four Stew.

Three EST teams and 1 from somewhere else.

@drgnslayr

Call me Fox.

I want to believe.

But I've got to see it first.

And no I have missed UK so far.

Will have to get on the stick.