Put on some chains and bring some extra hand warmers.
jaybate 1.0
10346 posts
@drgnslayr said:
What happens when all those oilmen and rancher contributors stop buying the hype?
The JFK treatment?
Stay out of Dealy, Schlocka.
Indefinitely is the new 1 game.
If he stays healthy, future NBA hall of famer.
If Patton could pull out of one winter battle, and move his Third Army through a winter storm to Bastogne, KU can stage this game in a damned ice storm. There are good men and women out their needing to play and watch basketball in the midst of these ongoing ungodly politics and journalism. We're not waiting another day. We're not waiting another hour to stage this game. We're going to attack this ice storm and we're going to keep attacking, and we're going to PLAY THIS GAME...OR LET NO FAN COME BACK ALIVE!!
You have helped to clarify this issue by viewing it through a strategic lens instead of an operational one, if you can apply those terms here.
By operational, I mean how do you learn to play well? What is the optimal process/operation for helping one learn to play well? Start fast/stay fast/finish fast (Operational--practice at getting up on edge makes one better and better at getting up on the edge), or stay under the radar screen by playing at some intentionally suboptimal level early, so as to come on like gang busters later and surprise your opponents down the stretch?
I reckon Self does some of both, now that you and some others make me think of it.
As I have long asserted, he sends them out flat some games, and lets them labor for a win. Sometimes he sends them out with less than his best possible offensive schemes to make them learn to find ways to win with defense, and improvising on offense. And so on.
Taking both into account, it appears Self tries always to find a way to win, even when sub optimizing. For instance, after having let his team labor for 30 minutes of a game, it is not unusual for him to call a time out with between 7-10 to go, and finally give them some stuff to run that works quite well.
So: plays players big minutes, and make them play through injuries, and bails them out down the stretches of games, in order to win as much as possible, and so instill the "habit" of winning and the swag that comes with it.
At the same time, he is willing to contrive sub-optimal performances and risk losses, in order to develop his teams in certain ways.
All I can say is he has it down to a pretty refined science of tight rope walking betwixt playing to win and playing to develop, because he wins 83% of the time.
Frank is real point guard news in an era of fake point guard news.
Relative to other teams, which is the only standard that matters, we have started fast every season of Self's tenure. All that dampens the starts occasionally is facing a few talented, experienced teams early, and we happen to be green. But even then Self is trying get out of the blocks fast. One of the secrets to Self winning many of his consecutive titles is his team's jumping out to substantial early leads in conference races by picking up early road wins when other teams are playing it too close to the vest. He does it often.
Ban Fran!
"...but Selfs teams do best when they start slow and put it all together in March."--@HawkChamp
Self wins 83% of the games, thus by definition he starts fast, stays fast and finishes fast.
Self starts with a simplified version of his offense and defense and adds to both over the season.
So do all the other coaches and teams that I can recall.
But all other teams do not win 83%.
Part of this has to do with talent.
But I argue that a greater driver is Self establishes sooner and more accurately how his team can play to realize more of their potential sooner. This gives them an early edge and they spend more time developing what works incrementally. This gift/skill of Self's also enables him to diagnose effective responses to unforeseen events (i.e., injuries, players not developing as expected, transfers, etc.) faster than most coaches. As a result, KU spends less time searching for fixes that are dead ends and more time practicing what works. Self has a remarkable knack for figuring out "next". He isn't perfect, but his batting average at not fixing what ain't broke and fixing what is is impressive. I get the feeling Self has the season pretty well schemed out correctly BEFORE the first practice. The gear shifting only occurs when the unexpected happens.
No, I've had this discussion many times in work situations. And those that talk about paper don't understand yet.
But that's ok, everyone is free to find there own path.
The trick is to develop the habit of winning.
This is the greatest single edge, outside of talent, there is in sport.
But Wooden went beyond winning.
He said winning is not the yard stick to measure by.
The yardstick to use is playing to one's potential. Play to one's potential and one wins regardless of the scoreboard. He said it was Impossible to beat someone with more talent that played to their potential. But it was often possible to beat teams by us playing to our potential, while they failed to play to their potential, whatever it was.
And his players knew that over a season their potential would grow with practice.
Thus, the habit to try to create and strengthen was playing to one's potential, not winning. Thus from the first practice players were expected to play to their potential and the wins would take care of themselves.
Overconfidence from winning streaks was almost never an issue with a Wooden team, because they focused on what they could control, not what they could not. 5 wins or 25 wins did not matter by definition.
To build the strongest habit of winning, you have to start playing to your potential, however limited it may be in the beginning, keep doing it, and finish doing it.
The habit builds startlingconcentration.
Wooden the coach built toward conference and post season.
But the players were expected to play to their potential from the start.
Put another way: play to your potential to start, keep playing to your potential to the end, and in between add potential!
Actually it is what you're talking about. You just don't realize it yet. 😄
Everyone that keeps practicing and playing gets better and better. It's a process towards achieving one's potential. But some teams have way more potential than others. And some teams get an injury, or get cold at the end and it obscures their progress toward their own potential.
The phase at the end you are talking about is significantly driven by uncontrollable variables;I.e., teams getting a hot shooting hand for six games, teams being healthy at the right time, and teams getting good match ups and a favorable whistle.
It's a misperception that teams find themselves at the end of seasons, or fail to keep getting better and so get surpassed. They all get better but have varying amounts of talent and injuries, and luck with refs. OU is making the best of a tough situation. They are getting better, like everyone else is. But they just don't have enough talent to make a run. Indiana had holes that didn't show in a single game. They are getting better. They just aren't good enough.
Start fast. Stay fast. Finish fast.
Wooden advocated no highs and no lows. Prepare and play the same for every game. The opponent doesn't matter. Practice, practice, practice. We are the only thing we can control. Be able to be at your best, whenever you need it, first game, or last. You play as you practice, so practice the UCLA way from the first second of practice. Don't start slow. START! He would have altered my saying as follows.
Start quick. Stay quick. Finish quick.
Quick, not fast.
It worked for him.
It has worked for me in my endeavors.
I'm a true believer.
@HawkChamp said:
In short, there is no reward for starting the season well.
Not feeling argumentative, and I do think never giving up and getting better and the tortoise and hare story are valuable, but....
Starting well is a great advantage. I used to run Sprints in high school and we had a marvelous coach who said races have a beginning, middle and end, and if you win each third you win. Period.
Start fast. Stay fast. Finish fast. Victory goes to the first one to finish, not the fastest one in any one third.
He loved to talk about the guy who set a record in the last 220 but ran a very poor first 220 in a 440, and lost the race.
Further, if you start the season strong, you get to be the starter and prove yourself, as someone the coach can build around, rather than view as a replacement and so have to sit and wait as an understudy for a shot.
I always liked to start fast and defend a lead, rather than have to play catch up, and finish strong.
IMHO, Bragg's problem is things have not gone as expected and it's exposing a chink in his mental toughness. Quite simply, he assumed he would be the starting 4 in a double Post offense, like they played last season. He would be Perry with two more inches stepping out for treys, and driving the rim, not a war horse on a low block.
But Self shifted gears into a true 4 guard offense scheme and that put him competing with Doke as Landen's backup, He never believed he was good enough to beat Landen, so he hasn't been up to the challenge of taking minutes from him head to head. Self put him in a war with Landen and he pouted instead of clawing and scratching to find a way to take minutes from Landen. He will grow from this. He will be a much tougher customer once he understands it's a dogfight, not a slot waiting for him.
Bragg will be very good once he gets mentally tough and furiously competitive. He was neither this season. But Yoda Self has introduced him to this gap in his psyche, as a Jedi big man. Early on he probably said, "Coach, I can do the job. I'm ready. I won't let you down. I'm big and strong and I'm not fearing any man." To which Yoda Self likely whispered, "You will be." And then he placed him in a head to head battle with Landen, and he folded for a time.
This mental toughness variable is what most board rats fail to take into account for when anticipating how much players will contribute in a coming season. Look at Josh Jackson. He is a huge talent and very tough, but when Self plays through him for a few conference games against weak teams, even Josh begins to wilt under the pressure and Self has to turn things back over to Sergeant Mason. It's not a war out there in conference, but it's an order of magnitude more intense than any starter has ever known before.
Bragg could not even stand the heat of competing with Landen in precon, so Self has wisely started to protect Bragg from the heat of conference games. Bragg will be brought back into the fire, but he will likely be protected much of the rest of this season.
It's tough out there for the newbies--beginning, middle, or end of season.
Its not easy being a center for Bill Self.
He feels decidedly biblical about post play.
"In the beginning was the post man..."--Basketball Genesis 1: 1
Its such a big job that a Selfian jargon has emerged to describe what all has to be done.
One has to be able to stay on spots, have a motor, be able to finish, board, guard the post, body opponents, hedge defend, and kick out, all while manning-up and playing through.
This special jargon also extends to what bigs are NOT to do and be.
They are NOT to play like a bunch of babies.
They are NOT to play like KU may once have played against Topeka YMCA.
They are above all NOT to play soft!
Commit any sin, or omit any virtue, and Self is fairly New Testament...for awhile. If you guard hard, he forgives some learning errors, and teaches. He tries this approach and that approach. He speaks parables in fractured syntax with an Okie accent. He talks of getting better and expects small miracles. He greets some coming back to the bench with love, and others with hell fire.
But lose Self's trust, or fail to complement another post man, or fail to give the team what it needs, and lord have mercy and some de-icing fluid for the post man's frozen soul.
Self's hell for bad play is a fiery hot one where he can get up and close and personal as he screams red faced at the player he thinks might help the team reach its potential.
But Self has a separate hell for those he cannot find a way to weave into the team's future, or that he has lost trust in. It is a hell of cold and ice. It is a cryogenic experience at the end of the bench.
It is where two centers now find themselves: Dwight Coleby and Mitch Lightfoot.
Until this season, centers were in one hell, or the other, other.
But this season Self has added a third hell; this one with a rheostat allowing him to set the temperature to cool--chill if you will.
Carlton Bragg, the player Self once said would in time be an exceptional player, is the recipient of this new level of Self-hell.
Bragg's minutes appear to be dwindling.
He is the second string center on a team that plays one post man.
He plays, but you never know when, or how much.
He doesn't play much against teams that go small, because he is not quite agile enough to chase 6-7 inch guys.
He doesn't play much against teams with big, strong centers, because though he has put on about 40 pounds since the skinny days of last season, he is not quite strong enough to go at it with the prison bodies.
This means Carlton Bragg is left to play long skinny centers.
Yet Bragg has not played particularly well yet.
And when a player has not yet played particularly well and the calendar reads second week of January, Self tends to lose a little faith.
Self has not yet flooded Bragg's pod with cry-fluid and turned the rheostat to "freeze."
Let's just say that he has run a couple inches in the bottom of the pod and turned it to chill in case he decides to go ahead and ice him.
Hang in there, Carlton.
As the Beatles once sang...
"I've got to admit its getting better
A little better, all the time,
(It can't get no worse.)..."
But of course it can get worse.
Just ask Lightfoot and Coleby.
But the important thing is: it can get better, too.
Look at Landen.
Carlton, its time to start doing all the things post men are supposed to do for Bill.
You won't like the Cryo-ice.
Right.
Way to put Scott into a fun perspective.
I look on him as, well, as the Kenneth Starr of basketball coaches.:bowtie:
Its good enough.
A mighty nice win. Nice and easy. Not a lot of sweating. Vick got a nasty one out of the way, so he should be ready to go. Landen looked comfy playing heavy minutes.Devonte's 4-10 and 3-8 from trey shooting and lack of blocks still makes me worry about his leg, but he grabbed 5 reebs, and wasn't shooting so many set shots. Frank was gold from trey (5-6), but he got a little inefficient driving winding up 11-20. Svi? He got on the glass for 9, found 5 assists, and guarded okay, but no blocks. He was also teetering on the edge of being Svi Brickailiuc at 4-10 with 3-7 from trey. Where is that a great outside shooter we once hoped for?. Josh from trey was like Nowhere Man by the Beatles living in a nowhere land even with nobody on him. Josh got 16 inefficient points and just couldn't snag many rebounds (3). He's got to get better. That was a sub 500 team that just turned off the gas on his burner. Bragg? Carlton who? Bragg was nowhere man inside. Coleby didn't even get the cryo ice off him before he was back in the freezer. Coleby gets the Hunter Michelson Cryogenic player of the year. Lightfoot? Self seemed to be testing which guy froze, thawed out, and froze the fastest. Still, a tidy road win against a team that guards and was +2 on the glass with us. Very soon, I hope Josh understands it is going to get a whole lot harder and faster. The blue meanies are coming shortly now.
Frank smiled during a game.
That's right up their with a solar eclipse.
Its like some kind of signal to Roy. See Roy, Lonnie is running your secondary break stuff. See Roy, we do respect you.
Self needs to lose that UNC tie.
Frank putting Josh on the spot and saying let's see you drain a trey, rook.
KU letting OU score >70 is professional curtesy from one Okie Baller to another.
Wasn't Fran supposed to be doing games back east this season? I thought we had been given an injection of pennicilin and gotten rid of the little cork screw.
Thankee kindly. Its the Wisconsin cheese curds I had shipped in and have been eating to many of during the game.
Landen misses so many bunnies that he must be allergic to rabbit fur.
Was that Lightfoot Bill was chewing on, or the Ukrainian Kid?
What I like about Self barely showing Coleby and Bragg is that Huggie is watching and saying, "Awwwww !@#$%^, he just did that to make us have to prepare for it. I know Self. He'll stay small on us all the way. But he's just pimping us with Coleby and Bragg.
That was an example of the weave instead of the chop. The ball was being given to the guy who goes outside. The weave is for delay. The chop is for attacking inward. There endeth the lesson.
Really good question. I think he needs a little marketing help to get drafted. My advice is this: Move to Cameroon the day the season ends, change his name to Noel Embiid, learn to say "I have a lot of potential and have only started playing basketball after playing soccer for five years. And I kill lions."
I missed Coleby coming in. What kind of tool did Self use to de-ice him?
I agree. I hate finding that sunnuvabitch ever said anything insightful.
It appears Coleby and Bragg are pretty quiet tonight. Self has decided to see if his half pints can rebound with some telephone poles.
Here is a quote that might explain your increasing receptivity to the weave.
"Through clever and constant application of propaganda people can be made to see paradise as hell, and also the other way around, to consider the most wretched sort of life as paradise.”
--Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, 1923
That little floater of Josh's' that is the key to superstardom. He's got to build his wrists, forearms and that muscle that runs up the back of your arm above the elbow. Do that and he can shoot a 25 foot floater. That is the ticket.
Okay, that little 9 foot floaters; that IS the form Josh needs to duplicate from trey.
The Home whistles?
Wouldn't it be funny if Duke's tripper tripped Capell for taking him out?
The medical team seems to be forming a diagnosis that kind of hangs together on Josh's shooting pathology.
Frank looks like he is on the Psi frontier again.
Josh's shots really come off the iron hard from trey, when he misses. Who wants to be the shot doctor and say what he needs to change?
What is OU's record?
Super look to find the OAD
And then Frank took one to iron
Looks like Sooners have some bigs, and are running the secondary break to make of for their lousy outside shooting.
OU would tough if they could shoot.
Its Huggie's man bra. He keeps a little microwave transmitter in the right cup and uses it to trigger voices inside the ref's head.