Devonte is operable. You read it here first. He looks like a Frederick of Hollywood model. He has everything but crotchless panties on. I am watching the replay and KU is just sickening to watch...knowing they are playing the dregs.
jaybate 1.0
10346 posts
Boy, KU looks like a very ordinary team tonight.
Is the game just getting under way, or have I linked up to a replay with ESPN3?
It will work quite well I suspect. I know neither the Roman Catholic Church, nor the US-Israel lobby are announcing that they want fewer seats on the bench, so that the Supreme Court can be more representative of the population at large. :smiley: Seriously, the Vatican is just as complicated of a multi national organization as any. It has a long history of having schisms within it that lead it make alliances with seemingly unlikely allies in order to root out some of the internal problems that plague it, before moving forward with its longer term agenda.
The Roman Catholic Church apparently learned from the assassination of John F. Kennedy what many other ascendant subgroups have learned in our country's history. They learned that the Presidency is sometimes the last office you want one of your subgroup to occupy, when attempting to build up legal-political power and influence in USA. They got ahead of themselves, or perhaps they did not, but one of the more ambitious members of their flock, Joseph Kennedy, did. Their wealth, power and political influence appears much greater now than in 1960, in large part because of the massive influx of immigration that has greatly favored their market share. Oh, and half of the Supreme Court justices are Roman Catholics. Let that sink in for awhile.
"...and we're the best in the world."
Muhammad Ali would like that chutzpah!
Uh, Coach Self, is that what you mean by swagger?
It would be good for sport if they back it up.
Every generation needs some of this.
I was just thinking of viewing audience market share, rather than institutional power. Roman Catholicism has a solid market share of the Bo-Wash Corridor cities and burbs plus south Florida. In other words they are a major market share in the dominant time zone--EST--Americans of Italian, Irish, Polish, Puerto Rican, Cuban descent. And Catholics in the French part of Louisiana and the hispanics in Tayhoss give Catholicism a good CSt foot print to. What other relatively allied audience group can give you that much core audience? And folks always underestimate how many good Catholics are African Americans. All totalled, that Catholic TV market will hunt. Hold them and that's maybe better than pulling strong with the Balkanized Protestants and Fundies from Virginia down through the Carolinas, Georgia and Florida. Hillary got enough of these Catholic folks to win the popular vote by several millions. She was stupid in a lot of ways, but not in picking Tim Kaine. Trump wasn't sucking up to Christy and Giuliani just for mob support. He could not let all the Catholic votes go to Kaine and still win. He had to have some to to go along with his Pence fundies and alt righters, and conservative Protestants. You can't go wrong appealing to Catholicism, so long as doing so doesn't cost you something else crucial. All audiences have to be assembled today, because the nation has been sliced and diced and fragmented from 35 years of divide and conquer politics and the creation of 2000 channels and the internet. You build an audience by finding a core group and then adding pieces. Both Clinton AND Trump had to do the same thing: identity politics. They were just appealing to differing identies. So does CBS and the NCAA for March. If they don't build an audience piece by piece during the season, the audience is too fragmented to survive the negative effects of early round losing to build to a big event. Package a Catholic team to appeal to a large core in the EST and brand it as you go; then as the Carney operators said, "We have a winnuh!"
If you could be sure Nova would win, then you could afford to brand them and even to let KU play in the Finals. "We have a winnuh!"
This isn't exactly new news. Catholics have long been a way to market in sports and politics. But they are hardly the only way. There are different ways to build an audience, same as skinning cats.
There's tournament engineering and audience engineering. Heck, there's probably quite a lot of memetic engineering going in both, as well as in sport and politics more broadly.
The nerds didn't take over. The engineers did. It's just that nerds were a sizable share of engineers. My new mantra is: EVERYTHING THAT CAN BE ENGINEERED WILL BE ENGINEERED. But I digress.
Back to Catholic influence in the bidness of sport.
Note that gaming is much more complex than one casino in Vegas with an influential betting line. In the EST the Irish and Italian cultures reputedly like to bet and Irish and Italian organizations reputedly handle a goodly share of the action. So in the EST, gaming has a very Catholic connection. Not an insidious one. Just a cultural connection.
But since you asked about the "power" of Roman Catholicism, let me answer that query this way. First, I'm a fan of Roman Catholicism, same as most religions, even though I'm a Protestant. So I'm not picking on them. I have no trouble talking about the religio-cultural tendencies of Catholics, Episcopalians, Jews, Muslims, Shinto Buddhists, Hindus, aetheists, etc. Since the Vatican accepted Temporal powers from Charlemagne, it grew into one of the largest economic entities on the planet by the Middle Ages. They have operated directly, or indirectly, seemingly forever the oldest central bank--The Bank of Italy, and since 1209 the oldest continuously operating stock market in the world in Bologna. They probably own more gold located just on the ceilings of their cathedrals than most of the nation states of the world own in their vaults, to say nothing of the Vatican's reputedly sizable bullion holdings and investment portfolios. The Vatican has partnered in business for some periods with most of the great empires of the West since the first millennium. The Vatican, whatever else it is, is a bidness--a corporate bidness. It kind of wrote the conceptual book on incorporation. The Vatican allied with the Habsburg silver and gold fortune in the 1400-1600s to mobilize its own Christendom, stymied by Eurasian obstructionism, to find a sea route to China and to colonize and then mint gold in South America as the world's first reserve currency for trade with China. They started the modern university and own and operate lots of them around the world. They own probably the largest private hospital chain in the USA. And so on. They are huge by any measure of wealth, revenue and market share. There are about 1.2 Billion Roman Catholics in the world; that puts them in a league with China, but smaller than the Crown of Great Britain's 2.2 Billion subjects. The Crown is the biggest dog on the block. Period. And let's not get into the Vatican's more recent political alliances. Suffice it to say that gold, investing, and the time value of money have been and continue to be good to the Vatican. And today they appear influential enough in USA to populate half the Supreme Court justices with only 28% of the USA population. The Vatican and the Crown of Great Britain modeled as a business entitity off the Vatican, are arguably the two richest and most influential essentially private transnational economic entities on the planet. So: yes, the Vatican is quite powerful as an economic entity with that big 1.2 Billion population of tithers to boot. Heck, the rate of growth in Christian's, mosthly Roman Catholics, in China grows about 7% per year and totalled 10 million in 1980 and now 100 million in 2015! Heck yes Roman Catholicism is economically powerful. It isn't a political power, per se, so much as a giant multinational corporation with its own central bank. The Rockefellers, Morgans, Mellons, Schiffs, and Warburgs have theirs too. And the Rothschilds largely control them and the Crown of GB, so it's not like they are absolutely top of the heap, but they're making ends meet okay. And they tend to hang in longer than families. And getting richer all the time. Not in a way to be feared IMHO, unless you fear the Crown of Great Britain, and the owners of the Fed, but rather just the way it is. Check this interesting link out for Catholicism in China.
http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/why-is-christianity-growing-so-quickly-in-mainland-china-57545/ ↗
Hope this helps clarify what I was getting at.
Wright has learned the current secret to winning rings in the March Carney: play as a team, hope Duke doesn't get a long stack, and get mail in the EST.
Wright and Nova will be unbeatable, if Coach K does not return and U.K. gets upset despite getting a Carney whistle.
Wright and Nova and Roman Catholicism and an EST zip code are money in the bank for CBS.
No one but Nova, U.K. and UConn has a chance otherwise, unless Trump and Likud make a move on CBS and even then Penn would probably just be subbed for Nova!
Everything is written...in the Carney.
As my Marine Major dad used to say, tough is useless, unless it's tough in the necessary way.
I never forget this gem: "We trained our Marines to have toughness with a semi-automatic M-1. The Japanese trained their Marines to have toughness with bolt action rifles. We trained our Marines to be tough with Corsairs and tanks. They trained their Marines to be tough with knee mortars. Our kind of toughness was tougher than their kind. A lot! Toughness without an unfair advantage is just another word for stupid. Don't ever forget that, son."
I try not to.
Self never wants to be big and slow. The Morri were big and fast. Shady and Darnell were big and fast.
Big and fast beats small and fast most times.
I never liked Nebraska football much, except when Devany took a big slow team to play Alabama and got clubbed by a small, fast Bryant team, and learned the right lesson.
The next season he recruited big fast guys and he worked his big returning guys on quickness drills, and played the same small, feisty, lightening quick Bama again and beat the crap out of them.
Devaney was asked what changed?
He said we learned our lesson. We decided to get big AND fast.
And big and fast is usually what it takes to grab the ring.
I totally agree. He was a 4 star when Self signed him. He is right on schedule for big man who had to add 40 pounds and learn a new way to play in D1. Strong second semester soph year rotating for a starter, then starter as a junior.
Going by what Self said about thinking 4 Ball would not be what they would be playing in March in JNew's story awhile back (pre Doke injury), yes.
As Self has proven repeatedly, he will abandon any scheme to get the best and most ready 7-8 players on the floor.
Fans just sometimes disagree with him on who those 7-8 are. In turn, they used to think he was not changing when he should.
But now we know he is quite flexible and willing to change, when the best 7-8 need something else.
Frankly, it all depends on what adidas can deliver. We know Self will go out and find his share of sleeper guards and project bigs. What we can't tell is what Adidas can deliver when, in terms of OAD/5-Stars. The tendency has been 3s and 2s and no 1s and 5s. If this were to continue, 4 Ball would be the future. But....
Nike has stopped the long stacks for some strategic reason.
And adidas has spent more big bucks.
And once Coach K and Roy are gone, then Self is increasingly the only sensible place to go for 5-star bigs to develop. UK should still get the OAD 5s.
But think what Self could do with Coach K's and Roy's 5-stars. adidas could load him to the gills if they make Self their destination coach, as they appear willing to do with Wigs and Josh.
I believe the real reason for developing the 45 degree angle wing chop is to get more scoring out of the OAD 3s, like Josh, and eventually blend it with tandem 5-star bigs playing hi-lo.
If guards and wings are all adidas delivers, 4 ball continues. Not if not.
If Doke and Bragg return healthy, and two more bigs sign, then it's back to hi-lo inside hopefully with the 45 degree chop outside.
I was guessing, since Maxwell bugged out, Self figured two more good bigs were coming.
But it could, I suppose, also mean they aren't, and Self told Maxwell we will be playing 4 Ball again next season and you are not needed.
Either way, Self will never turn down an inside game of two bigs if he can get 4. He tried to bring in enough bigs for this season to play 3-2 hi-lo, but injuries stopped him...not a love for small ball.
Small ball still appears just what you do till you can get big again.
The change coming appears to be hi-lo inside combined with the 45 degree outside chop.
Maybe this is what you mean by hybrid motion?
Regardless, this 45 degree outside chop will work better with double posts and three guards than with 4 guards and 1 post, because it can mirrored with ball reversal with the back side post man always in position to rebound.
The 45 degree chop is just being added the same way pick and roll were.
Self is making Bragg into a complete player this season before he relies on him for that next year.
Self knows any good defensive coach can take away a player's best move, if he schemes to do so.
As a result, if a team is to rely on a player, he has to have a second move to fall back on, or else a team cannot cornerstone its scoring on him.
Bragg must lack the backup move.
I like your take. Think u r correct as far as the MPG Bragg is getting to produce from. And It makes me feel better about Bragg....
So long as I don't get seduced into thinking he is ready to do it for a full game yet, when being schemed against by opposing.coaches.
The peril of efficiency numbers is always the implicit assumption that the guy could do for 35 what he does for 12-20 mpg.
My hunch is: if Bragg could do it for 35 mpg, that this team would already be a 3-2 hi-lo team that mixed in some 4-1.
I reckon Self wanted to work Bragg in slowly anticipating some growing pains, which he started to do; then Bragg tripped at the party; then Doke went down, Self had to make a choice about whether Bragg was ready to start and be schemed against, or whether 4 guards and Landen were the better bet with Bragg filling 5 and 4 without being schemed against.
Since Self appears to have made an effective choice in terms of wins and losses, it's probably logical to assume he was also right about Bragg not yet being ready to be schemed against as a full time starter.
Bragg will grow this way and probably be back next season with Doke and form one Self's formidable tandems inside.
Bragg's PER numbers already demonstrate he can wear the weight and produce. Now it's just about filling gaps in his game and becoming a lottery pick next season.
Thx. Every once in awhile I can still get a little insight. Alas, I mostly have to depend on young eyes and brains to get me thinking. It's better than not thinking, but there was a time when the brain worked entirely on its own. Ah, those were yeasty good times!
@Jesse-Newell ran a story early in the season over at KCStar Online that did a nice job of graphically demonstrating what I was referring to a few days ago as the "chop" and the "weave." I vaguely recall someone posting it here previously, but for ease of reference here is the story. I had missed it (or forgotten it) and just read it today. Whatever it is JNew's typically timely and insightful analysis and use of feeds to make it clear for us fans, what the heck Self is tinkering with.
http://www.kansascity.com/sports/spt-columns-blogs/campus-corner/article118325443.html ↗
I know KU is running other "stuff" now, also, and Self even says in the story that he is not entirely satisfied with the experiment and that is probably something that will not be their core offense come March. But I wanted to share this link with @REHawk, plus any others, that may have missed it.
I also wanted to add some comments.
We can learn a number of things from the feeds.
First, as JNew notes, they show how Self early on was experimenting with turning the chop from a single play out front (a tactical action, if you will) used now for many years, into a rudimentary offense (a strategy if you will) in its own right.
Before getting into things, let's define clearly what the original tactic of the chop was, and why I made the distinction about it in my own words as a chop and a weave a few days ago.
Think of the now long familiar "tactic" of the chop out front as a "downhill" chop. Downhill is how Self describes a weave in which the cutters keep giving the ball to the approaching cutters and the approaching cutter cuts closer, or "down hill", towards the basket with the ball for a shot or drive or another dish to a cutter.
Think of the similar "tactic" that I called a weave a few days ago, as an "uphill" chop; that is, the cutter throws the ball to the cutter who goes over the top, or farther from the basket, or quickly dishes farther out. The ball is moving farther away from the bucket.
Downhill chop and uphill chop are apparently how Self actually talks about the play to players. Whereas I used chop and weave, Self apparently uses downhill chop and uphill chop. Henceforth, let's use Self's apparent terminology...because its easier to remember, and because it reveals something about Self, about the chop, and about his offensive mind.
It implies that we are looking at a similar action in which the player decides, based on the defensive players movements, whether to take the ball uphill, or downhill. Does this sound like quintessential Bill Self or what? (It also sounds like most rule based offenses, even the the rules apply to a particular kind of action, but I digress). Sprecifically, this is a kind of take what they give us, even in what looks like a rather rigidly diagrammed play, albeit with a distinct preference for manning-up and taking it downhill, whenever possible.
So that's the familiar chop that can be used to move the ball inward, or outward from the bucket, depending on whether you want to attack, or are stopped from attacking on a particular passing exchange, or just want to burn up some clock.
Now we can talk about what Self was actually tinkering with.
Self basically turned the chop to a 45 degree angle to the basket (note: it can be run from a 45 degree angle from either the right, or the left side, as you are a point guard standing facing the basket in the middle of the court). The chop then unfolds as a means not just of looking for a shot, but now it can also unfold to deliver the ball to the wing where KU's usual bundle of high low wing point plays can commence, or the chop can be run again with the wing point initiating a chop with the point man, again at this 45 degree angle. As always, any time the chop runs, player choices can take it downhill or up hill.
Do you see the difference? The traditional chop out front used to involve the point guard and both wings and, if it did not yield a shot, usually required a reset in which players had to hustle to positions before action resumed.
In this new tinkering of Self's offense, the chop becomes an action that leads into the conventional offense, or into more chopping. It is a little bit of genius IMHO. Turn the same goddamn action at a 45 degree angle with a 4 out 1 in formation, and you get to chop and play high low without missing a beat.
Self was so intrigued with this idea that he also realized he could run the chop and then instead of either running the chop back out front, or running the high low actions out of the wing point, he could also have the wing point drive outward on the hook pattern that KU used a lot not last season, but two seasons that he cribbed from Bo Ryan at Wisconsin (note: the season Bo got to the finals and got beat by what Bo so memorably referred to as Duke's "rent-a-players). The wing point drives outward and then comes hooking back around toward the lane and runs some strange stuff that can itself turn into chops. By the way, I have also seen some Oklahoma Shuffle actions rearing their hoary heads in this boulliabaisse offense Self has been stringing together, along with the ball screens and so on that show now and them..
The point is here that Self and his brain trust were/are trying to concoct something a lot more here than just "small ball" screens to shake some runts loose to shoot treys. He was/is apparently trying to take Henry Iba's High-low, that LB and Dean took and turned into what Dean called a Multiple Offense (i.e., high low plus a menu of actions often called like football plays when not running the offense) into something more seamless; something that flowed seamlessly into one another, and that had enough symmetry that it could flip flop back and forth across the imaginary centerline the runs rim to rim.
Lastly, I am going to at least speculate that Self is also trying to achieve something that so far as I know has only been achieved in the past with Tex Winters' triangle offense. Winters offense, if run right, is like a series of triangles that keep reforming as the ball moves from one wing to the other. It can even reform once to the baseline from the wing. I think Self was exploring the possibility of the chop forming and reforming as it went around the perimeter.
I suspect it could be done theoretically, but I also suspect that in practice it doesnt form and reform as tidily and reliably as Winter's triangle. Hence, I suspect that is what Self is in part not satisfied with it.
How the big man action fits into all of this is less clear to me, so far, except to say that the big man can sit on a block, or come out and ball screen at a moment's notice. And I suspect that lack of symmetry bothers Self, because of all of his years of being able to outmaneuver any one dominant post man with the two man action of two post men.
And yet...
Wooden was pretty goddanged sure that the single post was the path to enlightenment, whether one played two big men, or not.
And truth be told, Wooden's single post offense was about half way between what Self is trying to do and Winter's triple post in the way it formed its triangles of a guy with the ball and two other first pass away players.
Iba, Wooden, Tex Winter, and Knight have all talked about the three player triangle as being at the core of the offensive game. What action and how you connect the action varies. But its all got to produce a three player pattern that interplay and impact plays can be made from.
@JayHawkFanToo said:
or many of these athletes school work is a nuisance that gets in their way to playing sports which they believe is what will get them to the pro leagues, but the truth is that very few get there. This is why I believe that if a players is good enough to go directly to the NBA, he should be allowed to do so, but once they start college, they should stay at least 3 years so they have a decent shot at getting a degree.
These words should be sent to the NCAA and NBA.They are sense and spirit that should drive all of this, not the OAD rule.
Imagine long!.
What a difference a coach can make...
It is striking. There just are a few persons that recognize what each play could contribute, find a scheme that lets them, encourages them to get a little better at a couple things they didn't think they could, and gets them to love their teammates and play HARD!
Cool to see everytime it happens.
I never get tired of seeing it happen.
Never!
Copy & paste
I hope so. Maybe he has decided to just use Coleby one out of 2 in 3 to save his knee.
Cyn has to identify with the virtuous woman in a western waiting to see if her man wins the showdown.
And Bill has to identify with Gunfighters.
Maybe every coach does.
Over the years a lot of new guns have been hired to knock Self off.
It never ends/Never.
Not as long as he's takin' the checks/the checks.
Every year it's some one new in the B12.
Over the years, Self has faced down a lot. Been quicker than them all/Them all.
Knight. Sampson. Saddler. Barnes. Billy Clyde. Anderson. Martin. Haith. The Mayor. Tubbie. Kruger. Trent. Travis. Prohm. Shaka.
Now Jaime Dixon.
He's good.
Real good.
Turn around good.
Back home good.
Lose by six to the #3 team with Trent's cellar dwellers good.
If Self stays with us for five more years, there are going to be some monster confrontations between Self and Dixon.
Dixon will own Texas recruiting in three years if he can claw to 20 wins next season/twenty wins.
Owning that state's recruits is the El Dorado of college basketball. Owning that state's recruiting brought Knight to Texas Tech, LB to SMU and Barnes and Shaka to Austin City Limits.
Self may in the third act of career face his greatest challenge.
Dixon is a COACH!
KU's Master Gunfighter, like Cole Thornton in Howard Hawks "El Dorado", decides where and when he will risk his neck. Let's hope he keeps seeing the odds in risking it in Lawrence. It's really good that some seasoned guns ride beside him and walk down the dark streets of the Big 12 with him. I'm talkin' bout New York Norm, LA Townsend and Peoria Snacks. Ya gotta have some one watching the back doors and alleys.
Self and Dixon are going to have to meet in the street 10 times the next five years at least.
Cyn, like Kansan Vera Miles before her, has to know one side of Bill is the affably honest and determined Ransom Stoddard carrying law books in a land where they were needed but often did no good. But the other side is Tom Doniphon, a hard case with a gun and a side kick.
As Gene Pitney sang in a song intended for, but cut from another classic oater, "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence:"
"From the moment a girl gets to be full-grown, the very first that thing she learns
When two men go out to face each other, only one returns."
There's uh show down uh brewin' in Bill's future down south of the Picket wire and south of the Red River/way south.
It's an Okie thing.
Sooner or later, every Okie that dares to stand tall winds up in a show down with someone from Sam Houston-land/That land.
And only one returns.
What is the injury report on Devonte and Josh?
Affirmative.
Bragg balled some.
9 counts when its against some size inside.
Memo to Carlton: this is how you earn your spurs. Stay mean cause the war is coming to you the next 8 weeks!
PHOF
This year's team was supposed to be another deep one.
Ha!
In the first close game that mattered, Self revealed his hand.
Self is now playing 7-card stud.
The usual five up cards to start are what he hopes play like face cards.
4 out...1 in.
Two whole cards in case one of the up cards shows up without a face.
Self's one-eyed jack, Josh Jackson, lost face. He was cold and fouled up before you could say OAD. He played like a deuce.
Fortunately Self's usual hole cards--Svi and Vick--came up a pair of Aces.
Which was lucky because his usual Aces--Frank and Devonte--came up a queen and an eight.
The only other up to show face was Landen Lucas, who played like a glass-vaccing Ace, with 17 boards, and the rest of his line added up to a king. Landen seems well at last.
Lucky us.
Coleby and Lightfoot were jokers Self took out of the deck.
Going to be lots and lots of close games the rest of the way.
We are back to playing every hand close to the vest.
Self hasn't had to play 7-card stud wearing an arm garter and a green visor for awhile.
But the Riverboat Gambler, as @drgnslayr calls him, is usually pretty good at bluffing his way through lean hands.
Keep the pots manageable and don't overreach.
Anticipate Aces and eights.
Hope your cards become full houses and inside straights, when you need them.
Dealer, give him his chips!
Civil War historians essentially never explain that the Civil War was fundamentally a battle for which private oligarchy, the North or the South, would get to control the trade routes through the Western Hemisphere, by building the transcontinental railroad and telegraph, in order to then build the interocean canal in Tehuantepec, Mexico, or Nicaragua, or Panama.
Civil War historians also rarely put into realistic perspective that the US Civil War was just one of two huge wars going on in North America simultaneously and for inter connected reasons. The other was the European four power invasion of Mexico. The US Civil War can only be comprehended usefully in conjunction with the European invasion of Mexico. Great Britain was financing and enabling both wars in the early years of both wars in pursuit of a trade route agenda.
Simply adding (not revising) what historians leave out always brings puzzling historical events into sharp clarity.
Like your signature line!
Historians leave out the decisive parts much of the time.
Oil, gas and central banking are almost never mentioned as drivers of war in history books and they are at the center of every US war since the CIVIL War.
von Braun possessed the knowledge that was cutting edge for his time. He got it from reading Russian Konstantin Tsiolkowsky's pioneering theorizing about the engineering potential for liquid fueled rocketry space travel between 1890 and 1919.
von Braun also learned cutting edge rocket engineering from studying under Hans Oberth at Technical Institute of Berlin and later from interactions with American Robert Goddard's pioneering work in liquid oxygen fueled rockets using gyros and variable tail fins.
And von Braun's later forecasting of orbiting space stations and moon and Martian bases comes straight out Tsiolkowsky's books.
So: I don't think aliens are exo-governments are necessary to explain von Braun's work.
What does need explanation is why von Braun lead a team in 1967 to Antartica to retrieve a bunch of moon rock meteorites shortly before the US Apollo space program went to the moon and brought back a bunch of alleged moon rocks, most of which can no longer be found, and which turn up in places like Neil Armstrong's closet found after his death by his wife?
Will they revise the system when Self finds a way again?
Great recovery from the memory hole!!
I do like Cliff's chances for getting to the L one day. Rebounding and defending can always find a spot at the end of the bench.
Anyone else recall the days when fans used to doubt Bill Self's judgement about who should and shouldn't play on his rosters?
Remember all the guys that just needed the PT to be NBA track players.
Self has to deal with these phenoms every season--these guys that are going to be NBA stars in a year--and most of them he has to tell them learn to play first.
Fans say, but Bill, this kid is ready to play right now. He is going to be a star in the NBA. He was in the top 100.
Ummmm, VERY few guys make it big in the NBA from ANY program in the country. During the Long stack era that only lasted a couple of years, the long stack schools did have quite a few draft choices. But, my god, how many of the long stack school players actually turned into NBA stars? Not that many. Half maybe? More like a quarter probably.
And among the rest of the short stacks like KU? Its slim.
Self has a lot of NBA players, but to be a star is really scarce.
The ratio of washouts and journeyman to NBA starters and stars is super high.
The three KU players mentioned above were all fine prospects. Perry made himself into a fine college basketball player. But the NBA is just like an exo-league, or something. The guys are just unbelievably good at that level.
Not only did Harry jack Jaylen for old Okie Baller Cuonzo, but then they both wasted Jaylen.
KU was ring worthy with Jaylen.
You owe us one big time, Asphalt Dome.
I know, Harry, I respect you for all you have done for sports and for African American athletes. I'm glad you've got your little sports institute that keeps you busy when your eye brows get the color of Sierra cement, but....
You still jacked a player one Okie Baller needed for the good of another Okie Baller and that's a no-n0 in the Okie Baller Mafia.
Its also bad form for you to do that to the Father of All Basketball programs.
As a result, we have sent Jarod Haase to Stanford to kick your team's ass in conference for the foreseeable future, and to recruit Bay Area players out from under the Cal Bears' noses.
But, Harry, if you can find a way to cut us into the Nike gravy train, well, then I will personally invite your ass back.
Sincerely,
jaybate 1.0
P.S.: My wife's grandfather was Berkeley class of 1919, so I've got a soft spot in my heart for Cal men. But they've got to recognize you don't steal hoopahs from the Father of all Basketball Programs. Pete Newell, Harry Edwards, or not!!
Go for it!!!!!!
Your mention of CoO tripped a memory totally unrelated.
Wow, I hadn't thought of College of Emporia in half a century. I think it closed quite some time ago. Anyways, my beloved older brother was decent high school basketball player but not big enough to play big college ball. Back in those days CofE had a boys team that was not half bad. He was offered a work-study-play scholarship or something, but his heart was set on going to KU no matter what. I always wished he had taken the CofE offer and stayed in the game. He would have been a great coach.
Get out your whistles and get some young men or women running wind sprints and diving for the loose balls.
Thanks for the recall. Self steals a lot. I often think he makes himself steal something that was used effectively in the NCAA tournament. Self stole XTReme Cheap Shotting from Coach K the very next season after Coach K beat Butler and Brad Stevens using the illegal hand checking with the XTReme Cheap Shotting. To Self's credit, he adapted it to XTReme Cheap Shotting Lite and had his players (most memorably the Morri) cheap shot unpredictably in the most absurd situations for the psychological impact. Self had the Morri and TRob throwing forearms out in open court, rather than flipping guys upside down Duke style. But the psychological effect was the same. And he immediately pulled his guy to protect him from quick retaliation exactly the same as Coach K did in the championship game against Butler. Before it had worked for Coach K in the NCAA championship game, Self had seemed to think pre-emptive cheap shooting was unmanly. But once Coach K showed that it was a psychological operation to be run on an opponent playing a way the refs refused to take away, then Self borrowed immediately, Self definitely brought Doc Sadler in to borrow Doc's defensive schemes. There was another guy I forget the name of right now that had been with Haskins and Self took some stuff from him. And Self brought Janks in to learn what the hell he could about Jack Hartman's wrinkles with Iba ball also. The thing about Self though is that he rarely borrows what I expect him to borrow. That hedge defending from Ben Howland I did not see coming. I also doubted he would borrow the hack'n'slap, but he took it completely until the refs stopped it.. If you watched Self play for Paul Hansen at OSU, or saw his ORU and Tulsa teams, you know Self was never one much for physical basketball, even though he was a broadshouldered ex footballer. But once Self got to Illinois and got his nose bloodied a time or two by Ratso Izzo, Self very quickly became very much enamored with integrating Big Ten Bang Ball into his scheme--what he came to call grind. There is no question in my mind that Self steals. I think he tries to steal at least one thing every year from the NCAA that someone else wins ring doing, or gets to the finals, doing, just to keep himself and his game fashionable and growing. The only things he doesn't steal quickly are things that he believes are fundamentally unsound. The Princeton and lots of ball screening is just fundamentally unsound to Self. But eventually, when he needed to ball screen for a guy like BenMac, he stole straight from Calipari's Princeton on Steroids Dribble drive initial ball screen, as well as pinching that fade curl screen from someone. Sometimes I even think Self steals things like the fade curl from college football passing routes. But that's just a wild hunch. Self is an Okie. All Okies are deeply affected by football. And all football is deeply derived from Bud wilkinson. Sometime I swear I look at KU hurrying up the floor even when they don't need to sometimes and I think Self just dreamed about Bud Wilkinson and stole something from Bud, or one of Bud's myriad coaching offspring. But one thing Self will NEVER do. He won't steal an entire system; that is a violation of the prime Okie Baller Directive. Hell, Jim Calhoun stole Self's entire system to win his next to last ring, or maybe it was his last ring. If I recall Calhoun coached Ollie in college and Ollie had played pro for LB and assisted LB somewhere. It really looked like LB gave Ollie a brain dump and Ollie gave Calhoun a brain dump, and voila, KU winds up playing in UConn uniforms. The guy that was at Marquette after Crean and before Woj, umm, Buzz Williams. He is another guy that copied Self ball with two degrees of freedom. He assisted Billy Gilispie at Texas A&M if I recall correctly and learned the Self Stuff there. Marquette under Buzz Williams played 3-2 inside out and defense first, and looked like a carbon copy of Self's KU teams pre 4-1. And it was insane watching Calhoun switch from his old style of Big East ball over to Self's high low Carolinda Passing offense, chops and all, the same defensive help schemes after so many years of watching UConn play east coast style. A testament to Calhoun that even that old he was willing to steal an entirely new way of playing!!!! All great coaches steal. Bob Knight has made clear that the offense he created was parts of Fred Taylor, Pete Newell, and Claire Bee all coiled around the motion offenses of Hank Iba before Iba invented the 3-2 high low passing game for the 1964 Olympics. Bob wanted the motion for when he did not have the best players.
What I'm concerned with about college basketball right now is that the young guys are all making so much money to start with in coaching that none of them wants to be a character innovating the game. Self's earliest innovations were simply to go back to Hank Iba's cedar chest and pull out stuff like the chop and dust it off and adapt it. But Self at least went his own way most of the time. So many young guys today are not trying anything new, nor are they reaching back into the past. They are just running one of the three ways the game is played right now. Self Ball, Dribble Drive, and that other thing I forget the name of that lots of coaches are queer for now.
By the way, most persons forget that the chop and the weave are actually different, The chop has each guy going under the guy he gets the ball from. In the delay weave, the guy goes outside the guy he gets the ball from. The chop is to get the ball into the guys hands you want to drive inside with. The delay weave is what you run to get the ball in the guy's hands you want to shoot a trey, or run some quick action from a point or a wing point with a few seconds left on the shot clock. One works the ball farther and farther inside. The other works the ball slightly farther outside. Both the weave and the chop are designed to make the opponent get tired sliding and grow uncertain if you are going to drive or hand off again; that uncertainty makes the defender hesitate and that hesitation checking his blindspot is the moment he is lost, especially on the chop. Its an annoying offense to watch and to guard. But it works from time to time.
I'll stop now. I'm getting to old for going long with the young bucks.
Thanks 4 posting the link on Rollie!!!!!
I love it that he is out there coaching at 82!!!!!
It inspires me!
@REHawk, GET YOUR WHISTLE!!!!
Sometimes it seems like Coach K and and Self are the only ones other coaches steal from!
The various shot clocks have had little effect on the game, except to stop the stalls team's used to confront UCLA with. Wooden might never have lost any game in the 10 ring seasons but the one against Houston when Kareem was hurt, without stalls. But if one were to argue it has had an effect, UCLA and Wooden would have benefitted greatly with any clocks tried so far. Wooden was a ring leader in arguing for the shot clock. Dean Smith would have suffered some without the stall.
Regarding talent, folks forget that the top 16 teams in the country were way deeper and way more experienced and skilled in Wooden's era than even the best teams are today.
Only the OAD-shoe thing might have impacted him negatively, but probably he would have the best shoe deal and probably he would have the most dump trucks today.
And since he prided himself on running the simplest offense, and never prepared for specific opponents, his approach would have worked great today with OADs.
I have asked my self how Wooden would have fared in XTReme Muscle Ball. The answer is: Steve Patterson, Sidney Wicks and Curtis Rowe. Those guys were the proto Muscle team. Further, Wooden himself played in the Big Ten, when it was vastly rougher than any other college conference, and Wooden played for the reputed inventor of playing bruising centers and forwards to control the glass and allow running every trip: Ward "Piggy" Lambert. Wooden' own UCLA teams were physical inside, whenever challenged to be. A part of Wooden would have relished bang Ball even though the Indiana Rubber man loved to run. Wooden loved breaking opponents down until they quit. He ran to break opponents down. When the refs "lett'em play" the last 20 years, Wooden's teams would have become the most menacing. He would never have let Tom Izzo intimidate one of his teams. It would have been a blood bath and The Rubber Man, who got his name from hitting the floor and bouncing up, would have let the blood run till there was no more. I'm just glad he never had to.
Really, it was much tougher to win ten when he did than it would be for him to win ten today.
Today he would probably win 15-20 because he would not have wasted 15 seasons not recruiting.
He would have gotten to 600 much sooner, and would probably have won 700-900 games depending on how many seasons Nell would have let him coach. Heck, maybe a thousand with assistants taking care of so much.
Yes. I hold coaches to the same criteria as players.
Self has many times been a great coach, because he has won so many consecutive titles. He has achieved sustained greatness.
But Self achieved the level of a champion only once.
Before going further, I want to explain how I analyze these steps from good to great and from great to champion. I flatly reject the notion that coaches and teams luck into titles, or that coaches and teams luck into championships. Seasons are too long and complicated for luck to be the deciding factor. Everyone gets some luck--good and bad. Everyone has some talent. Some have more and some have less. But the frequency of less than the most talented teams winning it all means that talent is a requirement but rarely the determining factor. The crucial factor deciding who wins lots of championships and titles is who performs best. Sports is a performance. Coaching sports is every bit as much of a performance as playing. What determines game out comes--at least prior to the tournament becoming an apparently entertainment value engineered Carney--is level of performance both in the critical moments of games, but also in the run-ups to those critical moments. PERFORMANCE DECIDES EVERY GAME OUTCOME. No coach, or team, in a legitimately refereed game, EVER lost a game because they performed better than another team at winning the game. There are many other measures of performance that are not critical to winning games and coaches and teams often perform better than the loser in those metrics. But in the metrics that matter; i.e., in the metrics that lead to who winds up with the most points, when the buzzer sounds to end the game, NO TEAM IN A LEGITIMATELY REFEREED GAME HAS EVER LOST BECAUSE IT PERFORMED BETTER IN THE CRITICAL VARIABLES THAT LEAD TO BEING AHEAD WHEN THE BUZZER SOUNDS. NEVER. Coaches and teams win, because they perform better at scoring the most points in 40 minutes. This is what I love about the game of basketball, when it is not being engineered by entertainment values to bias out comes with seeding and referee bias.
It follows like 2 after the number 1, then that great coach is one who has figured out what it takes to win a title, and that a great coach that win way more titles than his opponents, has: a) figured out how to win titles; and b.) figured out how to make himself and his team perform at a higher level than the other coaches that have also figured out how to win titles, but have only figured out how to win 1 or 2.
The same holds for coaches that learn how to win championships. Anyone that wins one championship has to be included among those that have figured out the formula for winning a championship. And those that win many more championships have learned how to make themselves and their teams perform at much higher levels.
This may seem like mastering the obvious, but its not.
With the above as my bedrock principle of what makes great coaches win more titles than other great coaches, and what makes some championship coaches win more championships than others, let's proceed into a bit more detail and into some comparison of coaches.
Only one coach ever sustained the level of a champion; that is, only one coach ever both figured out the formula for winning a championship, and then was able to perform at a high enough level to win many championships. The rest of the great ones have only been able to scale to champion level intermittently--one, or two, scalings of the peak are about all the champions can muster, while there are a handful of three, four, or five timers.
But the 3, 4 and 5 timers are Adolph Rupp, Bob Knight, Jim Calhoun and Coach K. Rupp we can reduce to 1, or 2, because it is documented that he was inning rings during a time when gamblers were fixing the outcomes. There is little reason to believe all of his titles were legitimate, and there is strong reason to suspect some of them were not. Since he went to KU, let's be charitable and say he won maybe 2 legitimately. Knight coached during a time when the tourney still appeared to be a legitimate tourney, so we have to say that Knight genuinely scaled Olympus to be a true champion 4 times and so he indicates the peak of champions after Wooden.
Alas, to analyze Coach K I HAVE to make an arbitrary, AND undoubtedly controversial assumption. Starting the year after Self won the NCAA championship in 2008, it appears that some combination of ShoeWars and the Media Gaming Complex lead the NCAA tournament across some kind of threshold into the appearance of a March Carney in which apparent recruiting, seeding and refereeing asymmetries apparently in the service of entertainment values appeared to delegitimize the tourney. Thus, titles won since Self's ring appear of dubious authenticity.
(Note: why do I pick 2008 as the cut off date? Because that was the last season a non EST team won. Because that was the last season it could be argued that Self had among the best talent and there was no talent stacking on other teams. And because that is the last time I recall watching the NCAA tourney and not asking myself, independently of KU's treatment, are other teams being treated fairly by the seeding and the refereeing? Call it subjective and anecdotal, but I have to call it as I see it. KU has hardly appeared to have gotten screwed the worst over the years since 2008. I would argue KU gets BETTER treatment than some other CST and MST and PST teams. The tournament appears entertainment value engineered in many respects, not just regarding KU. And regarding the 2008 ring that KU one: while the usual talking points about the Memphis game is how miraculous it was that Memphis missed so many free throws down the stretch, and that KU was just luckier than hell to win, as a result, what seems to be much more striking is how many FTs were awarded to Memphis down the stretch, and the fact that they played the game with ringers. To me, KU was likely NOT intended to win the 2008 tourney either. But I figure that KU winning against the odds that were apparently stacked against it adds to Self championship ability and to the same regarding his players. But in any case, I felt one had to pick a year after which to characterize the change in the appearance of the tourney regarding entertainment value engineering, so I picked a year I had a particularly strong recollections of. Pick another one if you wish.Either way, Self and his players upsetting the apple cart as happened probably needs to be given some special recognition, especially given the difficulty he has had since with recruiting top point guards and centers despite his sterling record and string of conference titles and a ring.)
Given the above, Coach K won two of his ring's AFTER it became the apparent March Carney, so we can at most say that he scaled the level to champion 3 times, not 5. Again, to be charitable to one of the games greatest coaches and champions, he did not ask for the tournament to appear to be biased by entertainment value engineering, though he apparently did not turn down its benefits. Let's assume with holiday spirit, that he might have won one more title and ended at 4.
Which brings me to Calhoun of UConn; this three time winner of the NCAA championship won two of his three rings AFTER 2008. Inference: Calhoun was really a one time ring winner. At best, we can say he might have won one more; that would leave him at 2.
Which brings me to Wooden. He won ten rings. Critics argue that Wooden was a fraud, because Sam Gilbert bought him players the last 8 titles. This is bullshit. Here is the truth about Wooden. He lost for 15 years to teams and coaches that were hiring players. Even so, he finally won two straight rings without paying players the way players were being paid at EVERY OTHER MAJOR BASKETBALL PROGRAM IN THE UNITED STATES. Next, Gilbert began hiring him players by paying them the same monies that that other major basketball programs were paying their players.
What is a fact about Wooden for this discussion is that Wooden was one of many coaches that rose from great (winning titles) to a champion winning championships; i.e., he figured out how to win titles, and then he figured out how to win championships.
What distinguishes Wooden is that in addition to figuring out how to win titles and championships, he PERFORMED at a vastly higher level than any other coach in his time, and in any other era that followed.
All this business of goodness, rising to greatness, and of greatness rising to a champion, is about what is done in the string of moments leading up to and including the championship contest.
Champions in NCAA basketball operate in one and out.
So: the ONLY definition of a champion that matters is this one...A CHAMPION DOESN'T MAKE THE SAME DECISIVE MISTAKE ONCE.
THINK ABOUT IT.
For six games, not a single mistake can be made of sufficient adverse consequence to trigger a loss by coach, or players. NOT ONE. Make even one, and you and your players are gone.
Everyone makes mistakes in a game, especially in six games. But that is not the crucial factor. The crucial factor is that you cannot make a single loss inducing mistake, or a constellation of them, that triggers a loss, or you are NOT a champion again.
Think of how many moments there are in six 40 minute games. where a coach can make a mistake, or a constellation of mistakes, that can cost his team the game.
It is the single most unforgiving criterion of a champion's success in sport IMHO, or it was until March Madness became an apparent Carney.
I used to think winning was hugely, then later at least decisively, about luck, but then I recalled Wooden's across a dinner table REMARK TO A YOUNG ME in Marysville, MO, about a thousand years ago now, when he responded to my question about his run of championships by saying, "It took quite awhile to figure out how to do it, but once we did, we got pretty good at it, didn't we?"
Wooden, the master coach, left a bread crumb trail for all that would dare follow. It was not random. The formula was searched for by him through 15-20 years of trial and error and by his legendary relentless statistical study of every aspect of the game he could measure reliably. Whatever formula he finally arrived at depended decisively--not on luck (which everyone gets some of), and not on talent (which everyone in the tourney has more or less of)--but on the UCLA Way. You have to have some luck and you have to have some talent, but he won his first two with talent that no one else had much wanted. He won his first with a team of five starters 6-5, or under. He won 10 titles total. Sometimes he had twice as much talent as the next team, same as Calipari has had once or twice. He won some rings with teams that had some more talent than others teams. But the dead giveaway was that he won TWO straight rings with less talent than most of the other teams, and he went undefeated with one of them. Ooooooooooh, yea. That's another thing persons forget about Wooden; he had four undefeated seasons also, if I recall correctly, or was it only 3?
Anyway, there is a formula for winning the national championship in a single elimination tournament. It involves many things, as Wooden's Pyramid of Success makes clear, but foremost among them was being at your best when your best was needed. Without being at one's best when one's best is needed, even with all the talent and all the resources, good health, and a dollop of luck, some games in the pre-Carney tournament required a coach and his players to be at their bests when their bests were needed--the coach and his players. It takes a very special kind of great coach to be at his best and to be able to elicit his players best whenever needed during six games. I am convinced that THAT is the decisive factor that separates any great coach from another great coach with fewer titles, and any championship coach from another with fewer championships.
Self has figured out cold how to win and sustain winning titles.
Self has also figured out how to win a national championship before the apparent time of the Carney.
Any guy that can win this many titles seems a likely candidate to win at least as many championships as some of the other multi-ring winners, and maybe even make a run at Wooden.
But so far, Self has not done it.
It is pretty conspicuous that his failure to win more rings has coincided with the rise of the apparent March Carney.
But it is also pretty conspicuous that his failure to win more rings has coincided with the apparent recruiting embargo that has nearly totally denied him OAD and 5-Star grade players at the Point Guard and Post positions, which are positions that national champions have traditionally fielded such extremely talented players at.
I think the real question regarding Self is could he have won one, or more rings, had March Madness not migrated to the apparent March Carney that it has appeared to become?
I feel the odds would be odd his side, but we will never know, same as we will never know if Coach K could have won two more apparently legitimate rings, or maybe even more, had the entertainment value engineering not appeared to overtake the NCAA tourney after 2008.
Finally, i want to take a moment and address the 64 team, versus 32 and 16 team formats that Wooden competed in. Doubters of Wooden often make the argument that the larger tournament is harder to win. To deal with this, I want to make clear that any comparison with the post 2008 tourney is irrelevant IMHO because of the tourney's transmogrification by apparent entertainment value engineering. That said, let me begin.
I used to think 64 versus 16 and 32 was just obviously much tougher, because of the greater number of entrants alone. Probabilities of 1 in 64 vs. say 1 in 16.
I have changed my mind on that.
If the tournament had ever been seeded randomly, then I think my old opinion would have held up; i.e., 1 in 64 would have been much tougher.
But the tourney has always been seeded to favor the best teams. Best plays worse, and so one.
Seeding in my opinion, especially in the early rounds, makes a smaller tournament much more difficult to survive. Seeding in a large tournament gives a team warm up games to get over the jitters and neutral court issues BEFORE ever having to face a team remotely as talented as a high seed team like a conference winner from a major conference. It matters very little IMHO that there are a few upsets in the early rounds. In fact those occasional early round upsets actually work to make it even more probable that the eventual winner will be from among the highly seeded teams. What matters most statistically is that the greater number of games, especially combined with the seeding and the occasional early round upsets of a high seed, mean that the best "preforming" coach and players have an even greater probability of beating winning out over lesser performers, because the greater number of games favor them.
Everyone understands that in a 7 game NBA series there is a greater likelihood of the "better" performing team winning than in a 5 game series. IMHO, it is similar in a single elimination tournament with an expanded field. The bigger the field is made the more likelihood that one among the most highly seeded teams will reach the finals and win, because playing more games with better performing coaches and players favors the teams with better coaches and players.
The only critical structural change in the game between Wooden's era and 2008 was the 3 point shot. Often persons, including me have argued that the three point shot makes scoring more volatile and makes it harder to avoid being upset. But here again I have changed my thinking on that.
It is only harder to avoid being upset if one relies on lesser three point shooters than other teams. Other things equal, if a coach makes a commitment to having as good of three point shooters as other teams likely to be faced in the tourney, which is the same thing a coach tries to do in every other regard, also, teams should be no more vulnerable to being upset by the three poinit shot, than teams being upset by the two point outside shot, or incredibly asymmetric offensive rebounding, or vastly better protecting.
So to get to a bottom line here of my discussion it is this: the best performing coaches and players win the most titles and the most championships, once they figure out the formula for doing so. As in all other realms of human action, the vast majority of persons cannot figure out the formulas of success, some that do can perform somewhere within a normal distribution, and some very few are anomalies out at the right tail.
But where you fall, when compared with others competing under similar conditions of legitimacy of seeding and refereeing, really does depend on how good you perform.
And the take away?
Performance is measured by making the most total points in each game.
James Naismith determined this when he decided for the boys to keep score.
Rock Chalk!
"Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do."
Good job!
There is no one on this team comparable to Rush unless Josh can carry this team to a ring while rehabbing an ACL! He was a champion for sure. Let's hope Josh doesn't have to.
The world is full of players that play great for stretches when titles and rings are not on the line. These are good players.
Great players play great, when the titles are on the line. You have proven you are great players.
But champions play great when the championships are on the line.
Don't forget this.
Sherron Collins and Mario Chalmers and RusRob are champions.
They are the gold standard.
Our front court is not Final Four material on its own even with Doke.
But it is well suited to be Final Four supplemental material with our Final Four grade perimeter players.
What this means is our Final Four perimeter guys HAVE to play at their peaks in March for this team to get a ring. Period.
This team's peak potential was to play like Mike Bibby's ring team; that is what this team could hope to be.
The interior guys just have to guard, rebound and not make mistakes.
@approxinfinity said:
Reminder that Frank is still a kid even though he's the man on the court :smile:
Truer words n'er spoke!
If the shoe fits....
Follow the shoes.
The war for control of UNC and Jordan shoes continues.
Landon and Bragg gotta play hard.
Coleby's gotta go till he can't.
Here we are again.
Title or no title.
It comes down to want to and doing what you may wonder if you can do, when you have to.
Coleby came here to advance himself.
Now he has to decide what he is willing to do for the team.
I don't envy him, but at the same time it is a chance to do something great.
I remember Mario Little not for what he did the last season, but what he gave the season before. No Mario Little, no run of titles.
Nothing is fair.
Nothing is written.
There isn't even equitable compensation for the sacrifice.
It's still the same old story...
a fight for love and glory....
a case of do or die.