🏀 KuBuckets Archive

Bill Self is a determined man. When he finds a path that works and promises to make a team the best it can be, he does not give up the path just because of a little adversity.

It is Self's willingness to persevere against seemingly long odds that triggers the most doubt and criticism of Mr. 600--the nominated Hall of Famer. Self clearly comes from the "what doesn't kill us makes us stronger" school. Detractors get their diplomas from "path of least resistance" high. Some times, Self shifts paths to the delight of those that like to do the "obviously logical thing." This essentially involves changing "the way we play." Exhibit A would be shifting from inside out to outside in. More often Self stays the course and things can get pretty ugly--on the floor, an among fans--before the team learns to adapt, so it can keep being "who we set out to be."

The season ending injury to Udoka Azuibuke appears to have delivered Self and fans to one of those moments.

The path of least resisters already think the choice is clear: the loss of a key big means go from a mix of 4-1 and 3-2 to a mix of 4-1 and 5-0. It's elementary to them. There aren't enough qualified bigs to stay the course and rely on a committee of 4 post players swinging between 1 and 2 bigs in the rotation.

But Self's quotes so far signal that, while he does not rule that course change out, he thinks the smart move is to continue down the 4-1 and 3-2 path to max out the potential of this roster..

So get ready for a bumpy stretch. Self made it clear he isn't changing course on "how we play." And he doesn't usually misinform on this issue.

In turn, Self made clear that Lightfoot, or Coleby, now "have to come through" for us.

Which brings me to the candidate most likely expected to "come through": Coleby.

That 1 minute of PT in an easy UNLV road game for Coleby combined with the epic butt chewing Coleby got, means Coleby with the bailing wire knee is about to find out about what "toughening" and sacrifice for team means.

Self was clearly sending Coleby an instant text message in one of the last games Self could afford such messaging.

The message read something like: "Rehab over. Stop. Team and season in dire emergency. Stop. Report to duty NOW. Stop. Play and play effectively even if you have to crawl. Stop."

In short, Self made clear to Coleby it his time to sacrifice for team--to discover the difficult comes easy and the impossible takes a little longer.

And Self put the team on notice that Self is going to put Coleby in the toughening box until they close ranks around Coleby and help him discover the Mario Little meaning of team--the Tyrell Reed meaning of team--the play operable meaning of team.

I got a new range/oven for our kitchen recently. It's one of those models with different sized burners. The salesman called the big, honking burner in front the "hyper burner." Coleby is now on it.

Lightfoot is next, if Coleby is unable to stand the heat.

Self sees a path to a title and a ring--to being the best we can be--swinging between 4-1 and 3-2. He sees something less swinging 4-1 and 5-0.

In this mind set, Coleby and/or Lightfoot have to "come through."

@HighEliteMajor

Merry Christmas.

@dylans

Ouch about the 'chete!

Thx 4 the recall on healing and effects

@DoubleDD said:

Well I say piss on them. If Golden state can win with a spread offense so can KU. Welcome to the revolution.

PHOF!

There was an alias once in Texas

And she was honest and good

She cheered her Jayhawks

With her husband with whom she stood

She and he rode the train of life

Across life’s bridges

And through life’s tunnels

Station to station they road

There was an alias once in Texas

And she was honest and good

She cheered her Jayhawks

With a man we understood

Loved her till death did they part

And loves her still

Beyond the Great Divide

Till once again they ride

There was an alias once in Texas

And she was honest and good

She cheered her Jayhawks

And flipped cancer the bird

She grieves now beyond grieving

Down where the Gleaner combines

Start their runs from Texas dawns

Crossing Kansas to the Canadian sun

There was an alias once in Texas

And she was honest and good

She cheered her Jayhawks

When her husband was gone

There is a harvest that awaits us all

But it came for her husband first

Would it had come for me so she could

Spend even one more day with him.

There was an alias once in Texas

And she was honest and good.

(R.I.P. Mike)

@RockChalkinTexas

I cannot begin to express my sympathies for you.

I actually cried on my wife's shoulder this morning about your situation.

And now this.

I am so, so, so sorry.

You will be in my prayers for as long as it takes to find your way forward through this.

A muted rock chalk.

@drgnslayr

Agreed. Once the demon of expectations was released, and he has just been allowed to work at getting better a little all the time, his young age has become time on his side, instead of time in his face. And he has gradually improved and the Ukrainean Cranium is soaking up the game like a sponge and the Steve Austin body rebuilding is slowly becoming more and more natural to him. It was hard for me to let go of that skinny, floppy, Pete Maravich kind of player he seemed to arrive as, but I have to say that if he can just find the gun sight he left somewhere around the Crimean, that this guy could with incremental progress become a real force still!

In answer to the question in the title: till the first game Duke is down 10.

@Ralph

I absolutely love the title of your post!!!!!

PHOF!

@drgnslayr said:

to get to the point where you can digest it beyond the emotions, connecting souls to a higher level

Digest it beyond the emotions...that's it!

@dylans

I thought twice before posting it. I was not concerned about @RockChalkinTexas misunderstanding. If one has been married 20 years or more, I am confident it will be understood. I was concerned about younger readers.

The nearly incomprehensible sorrows and difficulties life serves up to married couples over a long marriage makes them all learn the necessity of a sense of humor about the worst of trials and the awesome depth of meaning of "Honey, I love you."

It is difficult to explain the difference between the fiery passion of "I love you," the first 10 years and the deep reservoir of shared experience and abiding respect and affection and devotion later on. It is the difference between Bill Self the day he started coaching at ORU and Bill Self the day he got his 600th win at KU times ten. Even if one could fully understand it one's self, one knows looking back that one could not have understood it back at the beginning.

Rock Chalk, @RockChalkinTexas! and hubby too!

Don't think this means you don't have to take out the trash.

At least our foreplay won't be impacted.

You lucky devil. You get to miss all the Democrats whining.

This is the first time you haven't snored on your back since we married.

Should I spike the IV with a little Black Label?

Hey, you will do anything to get out of sweeping up pine needles, won't you?

Honey, I love you.

@mayjay

You are an ideal messenger. Thx

Prayers in progress.

Sometimes it comes down in clusters.

Buy each of you good hats for Xmas..

Hang tough.

Whisper in his ear: be greatful it's not a ligament like Doke.

Humor helps anything.

Believe.

@mayjay

Really BAD news!!!!

Do they have some new synthetic ligaments for this, or is it just reconnect and hope?

Sometimes they can split one close by and borrow?

Any word on how it happened?

If I recall correctly, breaks used to take six weeks in cast to mend and 2 more out. That would be early March, or Carney time?

But didn't Bill say summer for full speed?

Hmm.

Did Doke's break just become a mystery?

Bill's statement even seemed to Imply some doubt about his full recovery.

How did it happen?

Are we talking tendon/ligament tears instead off, or in addition to fx?

I mean, c'mon, its new Vegas, right?

People bring their families to the new Vegas.

Its like wholesome to bet in the new Vegas!

Surely we can let players, coaches and refs bet on their own games in Vegas, right?

It should be like a reward for letting the whole world treat them like a bunch of grey hounds, and weighted 4 year olds, the rest of the flipping season, right?

C'mon, betting is good for everyone.

Betting brings out the best in people.

Imagine how hard players would play if they knew they had some of their own action riding on the game!!!

Its the American way.

Insider everything.

It would teach the young men a good lesson about American business.

Hey, maybe we could get the mainstream media to make up some fake news about it.

(Note: all fiction. No malice.)

@BeddieKU23

As a player? :smiley:

@drgnslayr

As i said to @JayHawkFanToo, this is just another bump in the road.

Let's just hope Doke did not break it over someone's head in the Wheel, where there would be blow back. Apparently that is not the case.

I've been wanting to stop wasting Josh Jackson on the perimeter, since I first saw his outside shot.

JJ could score some serious points working the paint for 38 on short treys and foul up most opposing post men.

I really think this could be a blessing in disguise for this team, if Josh's handlers will permit him to play inside. Self has no control over that, obviously, but we will learn soon enough.

If not, well then Carlton Bragg, basketball newlywed, is about to find out what Conference play is all about.

Rock Chalk!

@JayHawkFanToo

Take a deep breath.

Everything is going to be alright.

We go through this stuff multiple times each season.

Take my hand.

Then take a step with me.

God help me, I do love the smell of basketball napalm in the morning.

This could be the beginning of Tyler Self in the front court rotation.

Josh Jackson, time to start working on the hook shot.

This is actually good news.

Self gets bored when things go right.

Mitchell Lightfoot, get ready, dude.

Maybe wear some ankle weights to get yourself up to 220. :bowtie:

Is this a haunted front court this season, or what?

Doke just has a paper cut.

The brace is to prevent him from injuring himself by shaking his wrist and saying ouch when he accidentally touches the paper cut.

It is not a break. It is not a stress fracture. It is not a torn tendon.

He is not even nicked up. He's just a little sensitive.

Next.

@HawkChamp

Over the years, when Duke appears not to have overwhelming advantage in talent, or when:

a.) Duke is down 10 in a high possession game; or

b.) down 3 in a low possession game;

Duke cheap shotting seems spike.

At least that's how it appears.

@wrwlumpy

I'm bummed you don't have a picture of Sheldon Adelson. He is kind of synonymous with Vegas these days.

Going to a Game in the New Freedom

!new freedom 17.JPG ↗

@DoubleDD

Maybe, but the global population numbers favor there being a lot more. They are spread around the world. There are probably enough out there for every NBA team to start one, if a systematic effort were made. Remember: Joel was considered a project even when he came to KU by most. But all it took were some real basketball men like Self and Norm and the lights went off!!!!!

The problem with the system of finding them is that there are really only a handful of persons in the world that are qualified to judge which big guys have the get better gene to go along with the obvious size and athleticism variables.

Why is Self so successful? Because he can pick guys out that he can.coach up....that have the get better gene.

If we gave Self a sabbatical and a bunch of inoculations and sent him to Africa for a year and he really went into all the scary, hard to get to places, he would probably come back with 2-3 guys and 2 of them would make it. It's numbers and pattern recognition of the getting better gene.

@ralster

Air superiority trumped tank design, weather permitting.

The T-34 had a great front suspension roller designed/patented by an American engineer; that design was turned down by Pentagon and Detroit CarCos, because of patent envy. The Russians jumped on it.

The Sherman was as superior to Japanese tanks in the Pacific, as it was inferior to German tanks in Europe.

The Sherman was faster than some enemy tanks.

The gasoline engines on Shermans were easier for more soldiers to work on than the diesels.

Diesels burned more kinds of fuel in a pinch but in war torn France and Germany there wasn't much supply of cooking oil at the market to run a Panzer, let alone a Tiger.

While most US military personnel on ships, driving FUEL convoys, guarding fuel dumps and driving tanks bearing the risk of highly flammable gasoline would have preferred diesel, a little discussed advantage of using gasoline tanks in Europe was our tank fuel supply was useless to them when captured. It also could not be Black marketed to them for tank fuel, or stolen by civilians to run their building furnaces or farm tractors, either. Gasoline fuel and engines of that era were also was less negatively effected by cold weather; I.e., much easier to start. And so less prone to being left idling in order to prevent having to deal with cold restarts. It meant less gas wasted.

Engine and machine durability means less in war than reliability in awful conditions. Tanks in wars don't have long lives. What is crucial is that they work when needed, go where they need to go, are easy to repair, and are adaptable to carry different weapons. The European culture preference for over engineering and over building and specializing worked against them some in their armormants. They had too few tanks. Too many kinds to supply parts for. They grew too heavy to go many places. Each time we blew one up all the overengineering and overbuilding was wasted.

Would I have rather crewed in a Tiger than a Sherman? Tiger for sure. Regrettably, war fighting is not always about what is best for individual safety. It's one of the reasons I hate war. I'm for what's best for individuals.

@drgnslayr

"EVERYBODY WINS...except the people."

That's my new bumper sticker.

@drgnslayr

It's not whether you win or lose, it's how
you play the game.

@drgnslayr

"Maybe we just get away from finishing the tournament"

Inspired insight.

@drgnslayr

Almost forgot. Most movies and commercials run the day of the FAKE vote on the fake BASKETBALL ELECTORAL COLLEGE will convey themes of war, betrayal and threat to safety.

And last but not least, the FAKE sports media for the FAKE EST TEAM and the FAKE sports media for the FAKE non EST TEAM will both show the same FAKE terror events and both spread fear and despair.

Oh, and FAKE video footage of FAKE terror events will be cropped from time to time with blurred borders to keep one from seeing that the scene is staged.

It doesn't matter who is selected the FAKE winner in the FAKE basketball tourney. What matters is that FAKE sports fans are traumatized into accepting whatever FAKE thing is done next.

Lies are truth.

Fear is confidence.

Ambiguity is clarity.

Assassination is life.

Never ask cui bono.

(Note: this post, and all others by the author in this thread, are fiction. They are intended explicitly as satire and entertainment. They are just a FAKE spoof about a FAKE basketball ELECTORAL COLLEGE.)

@drgnslayr

I forgot to add that ELEMENTS within the FAKE BASKETBALL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY will make FAKE talking head appearances on major FAKE sports media to blame the FAKE basketball terror events on opponents that basketball fans have previously not trusted.

Remember: the key is not who wins. The key is to degrade trust in the authenticity of the sport. The relevant epigram is: if you can't win, don't lose. Delegitimize the victory of the opponent. It's all about destabilization after the event.

Rock Chalk!!!

@drgnslayr

Elegant summary. It will be turned over to THE BASKETBALL DEEP STATE and it will begin triggering synthetic terror events to drive the wedges.

On the day that the basketball electoral college meets to overturn the on-court winner of the March Carney, several terror events will be scheduled to focus fan attention off the decision of the BASKETBALL ELECTORAL COLLEGE.

Wouldn't it be grotesque if something like this ever happened in real life?

@Lulufulu

Composite centering works.

Think about USA electing to fight WWII with the small, primitive Shermans instead of introducing a tank superior to German and Russian tanks until way late in the war. Greater numbers allowed more flexible battlefield tactics, more replacement parts, and more mechanics trained to work one kind of tank, if USA TANK CREWS were willing to take the sharply greater deaths from thin armor, small gun, and hyper combustible gasoline. The simple, short, narrow relatively taller Shermans were easier to ship more of, and easier to get ashore, and lighter so they could cross smaller pontoon bridges. And so on.

Self lacks even the opportunity to introduce a superior tank. So he is making the logical move to go Composite, if he can sustain the numbers. If he cannot sustain the numbers, then it would be better to pick one now, rather than wait.

The question with it is the same as relying on 1 top center: is it sustainable through thick and thin?

An electoral trade school?

How about an electoral junior college?

If we cannot have a BASKETBALL ELECTORAL COLLEGE, could we at least have a BASKETBALL ELECTORAL UNIVERSITY?

@Lulufulu

We need Landen and Bragg to watch Joel.

For every great like Embiid that has the will to break through the conventional wisdom of Small Ball, there are dozens of other bigs that can be empowered by the example of Embiid to lift their games a notch; this is the ripple effect of excellence.

Great persons doing great things create a multiplier effect in the rest of us!!!! They inspire the rest of us to get better too. Many of us can't help ourselves from trying. This is one of the keys of great leadership in any activity. You get a whole bunch of persons in anything trying to get better and over time amazing things happen.

Small ball itself has been inspiring in its way. It showed what small players could really do. Steph Curry and his coach Steve Kerr raised the bar on perimeter play for sure. We are all the better for it.

But one great person doesn't matter that much on his/her own. It's all the copy catting that he/she triggers that catalyzes overall improvement.

It's the opposite of Ayn Rand, who perverted the idea of individual greatness into an end in itself.

Individual greatness is just the catalyst of a chain reaction and the chain reaction is vastly more important than the individual greatness.

It's why so many great leaders are assassinated by entitled fools frightened that they can't get better, too, and so resort to enabling lone gunmen. Assassination is the mindless prevention of progress, carried out by those that win by leaving everyone poorer.

Truly great persons leave most better by inspiring a critical mass of individuals to actually get better themselves.

Truly great persons are inclusive.

The fakes work for the prosperity of the few.

The size of one's positive ripple effect for the many is the ultimate criterion of greatness.

Anyone can steal a fortune.

Some can build one within the rules.

But only the truly great can make the lives of all better within the rules, while calling attention to the rules that need changing to let even more get better.

Bill Russell was great. He did great things for himself. He did great things for his team, his franchise and his profession and industry. He did great things for his own African American culture and for the larger American culture.

Joel Embiid, you could be greater. You could take another step the way Muhammad Ali did. You could expand to Africa and around the world.

Go for it!

@wissox

VHOF = PHOF

What if a non EST team were to win it all, even inspite of all the apparent referee and seeding biases?

Shouldn't college basketball be "protected" from the possibility of an upset by a nonEST team that is STACKED by Putin, or a nonpetroshoeco oligopoly brand like FLORSCHEIM?

SHOULDNT WE BE PLANNING AHEAD AND ASKING ALL THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA OUTLETS TO COME UP WITH ENOUGH FAKE NEWS TO JUSTIFY THE BASKETBALL ELECTORAL COLLEGE TO OVERRIDE A NON EST TEAM FROM BEING DECLARED THE CHAMPION AFTER HAVING WON IT ON THE COURT?

Isn't an EST team winning the ring vital to our national basketball security interests?

Shouldn't we use our BASKETBALL ELECTORAL COLLEGE to override the on the floor champion sufficiently to throw it into the BASKETBALL HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES where BASKETBALL SUPERPAC CONTRIBUTIONS can pick an EST team to be the winner?

(Note: all fiction. No malice.)

The NBA is about to rediscover the awesome force of the big man in basketball.

If Joel stays healthy, people will begin to refer to the last few seasons of Small Ball the way they refer to the basketball played before Russell and Wilt. Lots of good players back then but no great athletic big men. Not really comparable to the game with great big men.

Small ball will be seen for what it is: how you play when there aren't any good big men.

Some one as good as Holly to interview him.

Oh, heck, I'd just get Holly.

The horrific beauty of the OAD rule lay in the absoluteness of its corruption.

It has NO redeeming value AT ALL.

ZERO.

It isn't even good for the NBA!

It delivers them an ever declining quality of player AND a continuous stream of busts!

Its horrible for the players for reasons too many and already discussed to make repeat anything but boring.

It's even bad for the shoecos and agents who leech less out of the pitifully undeveloped players.

It turns the colleges and college coaches into specialists in recruiting second class players, because the OADs are apparently assigned to them.

The OAD Rule proves human beings engage in evil, because they are hopelessly, futilely stupid.

@ralster

You're on the right track explaining Frank's high minutes and presence, when the game was more or less out of reach. I'll add a few reasons.

1. High minutes in a hard fought game that Frank is having to play to win every possession on both ends of the floor are hard on Frank, but high minutes in a game against a lesser team with a big lead, where Frank can play at about 7/10s is really just a work out for him, probably easier than a lot of practices this time of year.

2. Frank has one side of his game that still needs polishing. He needs to become smoother at shifting his transmission between drive/shoot and involve others. What he needs is repetitions doing it smoothly against an unfamiliar scrimmage opponent. That's what NU amounted to the second half. Frank is almost certainly stale at learning to get better at this in practice after four years, because he knows all his perimeter pals, some for several years. Frank needs to become as Psi about seamlessly moving between playmaking and going and getting a basket, as he already is between jump shooting and driving. This seamlessness, i.e., where he is always a threat to do either, is all that now separates him from being one of those rare, short NBA long term PGs that can shoot, drive or playmake at any moment from 28 feet in. This guy can shoot lights out. He can drive lights out. He can get up with giants. He can guard. He can help. He can even rebound. And he has an NBA afterburner that he doesn't even use with these D1 college guys. But he is not yet a seamless threat between involving others and creating himself. These minutes in the second half of the NU game are how he can take those incremental steps to mastering that.

3. Self has a lot of bodies to develop, if we are to rack a title and make a deep run in March. These guys can't develop as well if Frank is on the bench and another less proficient point guard is running the show and not running it efficiently. Devonte has already been developed as an effective replacement at point. Its even arguable that Devonte is the better natural point in the sense of being able to seamlessly shift between shoot/drive and involving the others. So: having Frank in playing 2/3s speed the right way, and enabling the development of Vick, Josh, and Svi outside kills two birds with one stone. It lets Frank get polished, and it keeps the offense well greased for the newbies to learn how it is supposed to go when done right.

4. No doubt Self would be resting more Frank some more, if Devonte hadn't come out of the blocks in lingerie. Devonte is the guy that needs protecting and resting some early. Now the Devonte seems to be rounding into shape, I suspect we will see Frank getting more rest and then board rats will be asking why Devonte is playing so many minutes? :smiley:

All in all Self seems to have this process well in hand. If we see Frank playing 38 mpg in a 2 in 3 weekend situation in January with a big lead; then I will either begin to worry, or assume something is very wrong with one of the other perimeter guys.

@KUSTEVE

Get ready. Synthetic liquidity crises is reputedly the new thing in unconventional warfare doctrine.

Uh, duh, Lorne Michaels.