Could Self say: "Trae's Trey was real gold!"
jaybate 1.0
10346 posts
What we need is more nepotism in coaching.
Fran is being nice to KU in hopes of getting his son a grad assistant spot?
No, of course not!
If Self spurns his son again, the dissing will follow like night the day?
No way!
Let him transition with Devonte and Josh often enough and maybe he will!!!!!
May I drive you to Club Alzheimer's?
If I could only remember where it is!
😄
That's it! I'm not believing your fish stories either!
Enjoy.
But Self is gone shortly unless the recruiting thing is solved at KU IMHO.
And Duke has Jay Bilas to help them make the sensible hire.
Wojo? 😂
Amaker? 😂
Brey? 😂
Capel? 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
Self is their perfect fit.
The guy merely being in coaching after the humiliation he endured means people believe in his coaching and think he can be saddle broken now.
Coaching in the NBA?
He's doing it.
If you're saying he's a vampire, I agree.
But he's back.
I can distill this even more.
Self has to get his share of the OAD and 5 star PGs and centers from the Nike stable to get the rings he needs to get beyond the one ring wonders to join the elite coaches with 4 or more rings.
He can do it at Duke and Coach K is reputedly leaving shortly.
Duke needs more rings than Coach K disciples can provide to stay at the elite level.
Nike needs Duke to remain a countervailing force to UNC-Jordan.
Cal at UK isn't good enough to win a ring even 10 deep in OADs on a consistent basis, say, 3-4 in ten years.
Self is in the right place at the right time to jump to Duke and make everyone whole.
KU has to be proactive and fix the recruiting problem ASAP.
I really think what Trump proves is there is enormous pent up demand for a network specializing in satirizing and calling out the real status quo, not the fake one Democrats and Republicans (both on the take) prattle about!
Comedy Central is just Democratic Jokes'r'Us.
Fox is just Republican Spin.
The rest of the networks are just John Podestas propaganda eunuchs and news prostitutes. They are shameless liars on the take for access and checks.
Wait a minute. I didn't mean John Podesta. I meant John Doe.
Trump better hope he loses so he and Sheldon can start this network in January.
It's time.
Mega bucks to be made.
Uke and Bo Ryan doing D1...I would pay for that!!!!
That would be pure heaven on earth.
I am now confident someone will.be selected to win more than Wooden. This is the March Carney you are talking about. There will come a time when revenues slump, or when revenues could be massively spiked, and the NCAA and the media-gaming complex needs something new to sell. Title strings are best sellers. Look at how much mileage they get just out of Self's conference title run.
It's almost a given.
Someone will be selected to break Wooden's streak.
You are REALLY gambling that 82% record here! 😄
Also, the mistakes you make at a punching bag program like MU lead to harsh NCAA discipline of a kind never meted out at UNC, Duke and KU.
I'm sure part of why Self wanted out of Champaign Urbana was it's like Missouri. Sooner or later you are going to break a rule and get clobbered for it at an Illinois. Elite schools are better places to goof up.
Because hind sight IS always 20/20, one ought always do the smart thing to begin with. There are no guaranties. Only smarter and dumber plays. Snyder was a smart move that backfired. Snyder is now head coach of the Jazz. Obviously he was a very talented coach that lost his way in an undrained swamp of Columbia. Likely as not Self would have imploded at MU, too. Why? Because they have hired a lot of talented coaches and the MU culture wrecks them, or they flee. Self would have had to flee same as Mike Anderson, or go down in flames like their other solid hires.
Pro ball is not something to worry much about with Self unless he gets sideways in D1 over some issue.
Look at that list you made.
Then imagine the meeting.
"None of those guys is likely to win us a ring or win 82%.
"Self can.
"Imagine what 5 rings in 10 years and winning 82% of our games would do to revenue. We could all double our salaries and let contracts to our pals for retrofitting Cameron. And the shoe contract renegotiable alone will pay for Self.
"Hire Self!"
Mark Wahlberg wants to remake it as $6 Billion Dollar Man, maybe already has.
Either way it is a classic quote.
@JayHawkFanToo said:
Given his (and his family’s) Mid-West roots, it is highly unlikely that Coach Self would leave KU for Duke and the East Coast; if he ever gets the itch to move, the most likely destination is the NBA and not another equal or lesser college coaching position.
Sorry, thought I had already addressed the issues you raised and did not want to argue for the last word out of respect for you. But I see I had thought through it and not made it ALL clear.
That said, I will clarify.
I have never calculated percentages, but anecdotally speaking it seems about as many great coaches wind up coaching in places outside their academic and cultural roots, as inside (maybe even more, so once Self's children are adults, I believe his professional agenda will move quickly to the front burner, same as it was when he took the Illini job and said he and his family would have been happy to stay there had the KU job not come along.
There are a lot of great coaches that leave sooner, or later, for better opportunities. The job and its opportunities to achieve career goals often trump familiar location/culture. Self has said he was quite happy at Illinois, but KU was a special job. On the other hand, he once entertained the Fizzouri job. It's complicated and it seems one should not just assume a coach will stay or go because of culture.
Next, when Self was a young coach without FU money for life, being close to his folks in OKLAHOMA was probably more important than now when he could coach at any elite college program in CONUS and jet home as often as he wanted as fast, or nearly so, and maybe faster than in a winter storm, as he could drive from Lawrence. So proximity to his folks is likely going to take a back seat to his career for the next few years unless and until they become acutely ill in which case he might even take a job in Oklahoma.
Next, Self is at a career cross roads and KU and Dook are NOT equal in opportunity, at least if Self wants to join the ranks of the greatest coaches of all time by winning 4-5 rings, or preferably more. He has made it clear he does not see himself as coaching into old age a la LB and Coach K. So: if he wants to join the greats, he has to win a bunch of rings in a hurry. Duke presents a sharply higher probability for doing so for all the reasons I have mentioned before: Nike dump trucks, proximity to recruiting hot beds, more favorable product branding in those hotbeds, media-gaming complex favoritism to EST teams , and apparently favorable tournament seeding and whistling. If he wants to get a lot of rings at KU, a lot has to change. Nothing has to change at Duke, except for Coach K to retire as he has been planning to do for years.
Finally, I have already explained that the NBA seems NOT Self's end game, if he wants to go down as a great college coach. It's probably been mostly bargaining talk. Had he wanted a pro career he probably would have already jumped a number of times, because being esteemed as a great pro coach requires a lot of seasons, wins and championships, too.
It's improbable Self will ever turn pro.
It's almost certain he wants more rings to join the elite all time college coaches.
Duke is a sharply more probable place to accomplish his objectives and goal.
Hope that sharpens focus.
So I'm fine with changing graduate to finishing last year of eligibility,
Issue remains.
Your list just made my case for why Dook HAS to get Self, or Donovan!
My god, think how far down Dook would plummit with Capel!!!!!
Dook fans should be chanting: remember OU!
Wait! What am I saying. We are talking about an enemy here.
Disinformation is the coin of the realm with enemies, right?
Psy-ops NOW!!!
(Throat clearing)
JEFF CAPEL IS ABSOLUTELY THE BEST COACHING PROSPECT IN THE KNOWN UNIVERSE. CAPEL COULD COACH CIRCLES AROUND SELF!!!!
😎
Back to NEOreality, DOOK is out of its carcinogenically endowed mind, if it doesn't go over Coach K's apparently mil-int head to the US Army's current spooks and say, "Make Self happen for us somehow with or without plausible deniability." 😄
Just joking here.
But Dook Basketball often appears basically Baja West Point!
In this literary conceit, Self is THEIR most likely mission critical objective .
But I want Bill here...where he belongs and is loved...and continues THE LEGACY.
But the writing in invisible ink is on the wall here.
WARNING: PERSISTENT RECRUITING AND CARNEY WHISTLE LIMITATIONS.
Stop Dook from cherry picking the best COLLEGE coach in America!!!!
Frank is one of my favs and last season I said he might have a TINY ARCHIBALD kind of future in the NBA, if he can improve his dishing some. Board rats forget he had to slow way down for college play. But he still has the NBA-spec after burner that he will turn on in camps, or maybe show this season some with wing guys at KU that could speed up to keep up.
Only worry in this pic is the tall hair.
Be small and be proud of it, Frank!
My nick name for you this season is MAV--micro air vehicle!!!
Beat those wings, light the nano after burner and transition like lightening going to ground on a rim!!
"Gentlemen, we can rebuild him. We have the technology. We have the capability to make the world's first bionic man. Frank Mason will be that man. Better than he was before. Better...stronger...faster."
Nowadays the NCAA would have added...
"And we can market his image."
Post Script: The greatest long shot in modern KU history was Roy Williams, who had only assisted Dean.
But assistant coaching at UNC for ten years was frankly more impressive than head coaching at UNC!
And Roy brought the most important thing of all at the time: preferred access to the Dean/Mike/Sonny Vaccaro/Nike cabal.
2-3 Blue Chips west of the Big Easy every other season seemed to be the deal in those days!
Mike White?
He got to 21 wins with Donovan's leavings.
Now he signs Shai A-W away from Binghamton and St. Bonaventure and then loses him to Decommit State University.
Not a good sign for leadership in a state fully of hungry gators!
Imagine Self having to say, "Trae, take a Trey!"
To borrow from Apocalypse Now: THE HORROR!
😄
Pull down. Duplicate. Click.
And the TPP FREE Trae Zone?
After scaring the bejeezus out of myself speculating that Duke might make a pitch for Bill Self, and trying to ease my fears by pretending that Jay Wrong of Villalucka might deter them from Self, I realized I had to get busy and find someone really credible to replace Coach K, after Tyler Self graduates.
Billy Donovan!!!!!!!!
His only problem at Florida was taking sloppy seconds from the Nike dump truck dispatcher favoring Calipari and Coach K, and even Stumpy at UA, and .600 Johnny at LSU and .650 Cuonzo at Berserkeley.
Yeah, Billy got to the NBA conference finals before getting clocked last season with the OKC Dry Lightening. But does anyone really think he's going to get a ring with Durant out in San Francisco? Not.
He's got the NBA scent on him now, and that's all he needs to go back and take over Coach K's well-oiled Nike machine that gets first dibs on the Nike dump truck dispatcher's attention.
Billy, go to Dook BEFORE Tyler Self graduates.
Please!!!
Florida under Donovan had arguably risen to one of the elite programs.
UF is in a great state for recruiting.
UF is in a great time zone and conference for good spin and favorable tournament engineering.
UF could have attracted almost any top coach it wanted.
UF selected Mike White from Louisiana Tech.
What in god's name was UF thinking?
Mike White is an Ole Miss basketball grad that played for Rob Evans, a Sutton guy, who flamed out at Ole Miss, then flamed out at Arizona State, and became a career assistant.
White also played a season for Rod Barnes, an Ole Miss grad come home to his alma mater. Rob Barnes went 141-109 at Ole Miss, before career boring downward to Georgia State, and Cal State Bakersfield.
Not much of a college pedigree as a player. His predecessor, Billy Donovan, played at Providence under Pitino. Providence was a pretty good program under Pitino and before Pitino. Ole Miss. They play football. They had Johnny Neumann, then what?
White assisted at Jacksonville State and Ole Miss. Jacksonville State once had Artis Gilmore, right? But its not exactly a hotbed of great coaches, is it? Ole Miss? Hot bed of coaches? Not. Billy Donovan assisted at Kentucky. Now we all hate Kentucky, but even on our bad days we can agree Kentucky adds more to the pedigree than Jackson State, or Ole Miss.
White got his first head job at Louisiana Tech, where he did quite well. Louisiana Tech and Marshall are perhaps comparable on some levels.
Bottom line here is that White does not seem like the kind of sparkling coaching prospect that Billy Donovan was when Florida took a chance on Donovan. At least to me. I bit my tongue and figured the leadership of Florida must have known something I didn't. I mean Florida is a major athletic institution. Great football. Great basketball. Got to have persons making hires that know shizzle from shinola, right?
What was Florida thinking?
They get lucky with Billy Donovan who builds them into an elite program; then, instead of building on what Donovan had done, and going shopping for an even better prospect than Donovan was when he came, they signed Mike White from Louisiana Tech, assistant from Jacksonville State, and player from Ole Miss.
What kind of "dumb" pills were the leaders of Florida popping?
This is the kind of a move the University of Missouri might pull.
Does the University of Florida leadership get too much sun to pick a basketball coach befitting an elite program?
Maybe someone should buy them some Tilley sun hats.
Yes, Mike White would be quite a surprise, if he turned out to be as good as Donovan.
Hell, he would be more than a surprise. He would be miraculous.
But why didn't they just pick a great young coach with a great pedigree, or even a great experienced coach, with a great pedigree, and forget about being surprised and instead enjoy what a top coach can do at an elite program?
That was easy.
Why wasn't it easy for Florida leadership?
Had football mad Florida just had enough success in basketball?
Or did someone spike their Gatorade with an MK-Ultra mind deadener?
I am not down on Mike White. He is a good coach. He deserved a step up to a major, like Self deserved after doing well at Tulsa. But Florida signing Mike White straight out of Louisiana Tech would have been a little like KU hiring Self out of Tulsa, only worse. Self had a much better pedigree.
Doesn't who a person plays for and assists with matter anymore?
Hell, if that doesn't matter, doesn't a person's connections to the petroshoeco-agency complex matter?
What was Florida thinking?
They could have had so many great coaches and great coaching prospects.
What a waste of Donovan's foundation.
Could Self say the word Trae every day in practice and at training table and on bus rides and plane flights for the next few years?
Could Self say, "You're in, Trae," when Self wants a rotation back up to go in and protect, feed the post, guard, help defend, and keep it from sticking?
Could Self separate the name Trae from the shot called the trey?
Self has almost seemed to struggle saying the word trey in the past.
Could he say Trae in the present?
Might he pronounce it phonetically to get around the bad taste the word "trey" appears to leave in his mouth?
TRAH...EH, go in and get us a stop!!!!!!
That might work.
But I think its going to be a big hurdle for Self.
:smiley:
His Rivals.com page: https://n.rivals.com/content/prospects/10291 ↗
6-4 165 point guard Shai Alexander-Walker was 53 on rivals top 1o0.
Number of stars: ****
According to the Rivals page, he was offered by Florida, and then by no other major, or elite major. He was offered by the likes of Binghampton, American U, Middle Tennessee and St. Bonaventure.
Ding, ding, ding, ding!!!! Red flag. Warning lights. Ah oooogah, Ah oooogah!!!!
Among those that offered, Florida was a no brainer, but why did only Florida offer? Or is the Rivals page out of date?
Sing to the tune of Ghostbusters...
There's something weird
And it don't look good
Who ya gonna call
Clearance busters!!!
Self needs a point guard for next season to go with Malik Newman, if everyone bugs out.
4-star Shai make sense for Self to take a clearance risk on, since a point guard anywhere in the Top 100 would be a coup during the era of the apparent recruiting embargo at the 1 and 5 spots.
But the above was after a very brief surf.
Maybe there is more to this story that makes Cal and Bill get interested.
A Caucasus Mountain Ski Resort on the border of Georgia to the west and Azerbaijan to the east and between Russia to the north and Turkey to the south in the dead of winter in 2017...
Increasingly frustrated film director Q. Brick Bloodflow and his wife Gwennie and their son, Stanley, preposterously hotel-sit and caretake the a fabulously grand hotel with a conspicuously sterile exterior and improbably geometric interior for god knows what contrived reason, while being communicated with by short wave radio by Deke Scat and his alter ego Maine Coon King, the latter of whom we never hear from again, as he gets mad about the quality of the story being told and leaves.
In a few months of isolation, Q. Brick Bloodflow reveals that he has decided to make a movie about using the empty resort hotel for a new version of the old Big Eight Christmas Tournament that will be called the Big Twelve Hannukah Tournament to avoid trademark infringement. When wife Gwennie says that she doubts that that a resort hotel on the border of Georgia and Azerbaijan is big enough and accessible enough in winter to stage such a sports event for a midwest conference in the United States, and adds that Colorado University, Nebraska, and Missouri left the Big 12 some time ago, and so should not be called the Big 12, regardless, Q. Brick Bloodflow becomes incensed and starts gesticulating wildly and shaking his ridiculously unkempt hair and Stanley Kubrick like beard, while repeating endlessly, "Live from New York, Its Lorne Michaels!!!" and talking to apparitions about what is wrong with his wife.
Unbeknownst to troubled husband and frightened wife, their son, Stanley, stands alone in a very long hotel hall way pierced end to end inexplicably by two oil pipelines--one stenciled in English with "HALFORD MACKINDER" and one stenciled with unintelligible Russian and Chinese writing, and muttering "Kund, kund, kund" for no apparent reason.
Soon, a confused Deke Scat tries to save them by driving a snow creeper through a sand storm from T'Bilisi up through a blizzard to Mt. Shkara even though the resort hotel is actually on Mt. Kazbek to the east. Deke Scat decides these white folk are too crazy to bother with, and drives back and parties in T'Bilisi.
Meanwhile, back at the hotel. Gwennie finds little Stanley with one foot on each pipeline in the hotel hallway still chanting "Kund, kund, kund..." Gwennie uncertain what to do, checks her make up and reads her son's lips in reverse and realizes "Kund" means "Dunk." Gwennie grabs her babbling son and takes off running down the western pipeline, while Q. Brick Bloodflow enters the hallway with a mad grin and a portable, two headed welding torch mounted on a camera track, again, for no particular reason, and shouts, "Here's Lorne!"
In a shot echoing the tracking shot of Touch of Evil and Stanley Kubrick's The Shining, the camera with flaming portable acetylene torch heads hissing races down the pipelined corridor trying to catch Gwennie and young Stanley still shouting "Kund, kund, kund..."
Finally, Gwennie and Jack turn a corner and find Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump standing at lecturns on the pipelines debating about Donald's groping and Hillary's deleted emails.
Gwennie forces her way past them and continues fleeing down the pipelined corridor to where the pipelines enter an elevator and disappear upwards in darkness.
Q. Brick Bloodflow pauses ten feet from them and starts sayng menacingly, "Eeeny, meeny, miney, mo, which pipe line will get the blood flow?"
He begins burning holes in both pipelines with is impossibly strange dual headed torch.
As Gwennie holds little Stanley in horror of what is about to happen, the elevator doors open and a ridiculously melodramatic slow motion rush of sweet crude comes roaring down and out of the elevator shaft and washes Gwennie and little Stanley to safety, while first trapping Q. Brick Bloodflow between the pipes and then igniting the sweet crude improbably the moment Gwennie and little Stanley are washed out of the hotel and into a chaise lounge that then begins to slide like a toboggan down the mountain side toward T'Bilisi, and away from the resort hotel that erupts in a petroleum mushroom cloud that prevents either Western bankers, or Eastern bankers from controlling the Eurasian center point for another 35 minutes, before the next deadly game of strategic brinksmanship starts to play out.
THE END.
CLOSING CARD: This film is dedicated by cast and crew to the fond memory of the Big Eight Christmas Tournament, and hope and dream that someday our world will be done rolling the dice with our lives over control of the Eurasian Center Point and can get back to humane activities like Christmas (or Hannukah) Basketball tournaments.
VOICE OVER: KUND, KUND, KUND...
(Note: all fiction. No malice.)
Multiple choice time: why didn't he attend?
a.) Could have been sick.
b.) Could have broken up with his girl friend.
c.) Could have forgotten the appointment.
d.) Could have been studying.
e.) Could have become involved in something that requires a "no comment" as part of damage control.
f.) none of the above.
g.) all of the above.
h.) some but not all of the above.
Gosh. I'm stumped.
Vote here.
Vote now.
Vote once.
This is not a presidential campaign, where all of the voting machines are owned privately by various wealthy, indirect participants in the campaign itself and have reputedly been proven to have back doors and leave no paper trails in prior elections.
Proposition 1: KU Football wins the rest of its games.
Proposition 2. KU Football loses the rest of its games.
Proposition 3: KU Football wins some and loses some.
I used to think the same thing, but now that the Petroshoeco-agency complex apparently decides so much of the recruiting of the OAD and 5star recruits, especially at point guard and 5, it appears Late Night and other schools equivalents are just residual marketing activities from a previous era, when coaches actually competed head to head for these recruits and the coaches' recruiting abilities and high school/summer game contacts largely shaped the outcomes. Now, it is probably an event Self probably spends next to no time on. He just shows up for it. The skits were probably done away with so he didn't even have to do that preparation. My hunch is that there is really not much selling required to get the players to come to Late Night, or other schools equivalents. Me believes the petroshoeco-agency complex decides which schools the players will attend for player branding reasons, and which not, and the KU official assigned to stage Late Night gets notified. It increasingly appears that the coaching staff has to spend the bulk of its time on scouring the country for those players that are NOT already on the petroshoeco-agency complex conveyor belt. The coaches probably no longer have to go to see every player on the conveyor belt, just the ones they kn0w are aligned with their shoe brand and a few that might be on the fence from another brand for whatever reason. I don't know the above for a fact. Its is just how it appears to me from the outside looking in. It just wouldn't make sense to worry much about most of these guys that come with other brand leans that 99% of the time go elsewhere. You show up. Do the dog and pony. And go out and go home and watch some feeds of guys not on the conveyor yet. No sleep lost.
Apparent tournament engineering on the scale of the last few years remains, if real, a relatively new activity. Perhaps something was learned about TV audience size and bet balancing impacts from last year's conspicuous experiment that suggested it would be net beneficial to keep KU in its home region?
The longer Self can be delayed the less sense it makes for him to risk the move.
But Self's apparent priority has clearly never been the pros, or he would have jumped long ago. The pros seem at most a bargaining chip for salary bumps for him and staff and for keeping the private oligarchs of KU from getting to comfortable in engineering his exit, rather than him doing so. Every CEO would understand this. It's much harder to scheme around him if you can't promise allies and incoming coaches, when it might happen; this is exactly what Coach K is doing at Duke. He is breaking up the scheming with misdirection, so he picks his successor, not the schemers. And the pros may also represent an alternate path should he grow to feel he has done all he can in college ball.
All indications are Self wants to be the greatest great college coach he can be. He can't do that in the pros...not yet...probably not ever, because of the apparent stupid recruiting embargo.
But don't underestimate the lengths a disciple of Larry Brown and Eddie Sutton will go to achieve the goals and live their code. Sutton came out of retirement to get a few Ws at USF. LB coached into his 70s. Nothing is written with great coaches that like scaling mountains.
Self could achieve his goal at KU, if the apparent recruiting embargo lifted and apparent tourney engineering became less pronounced.
Or he could do it at Duke with high probability after Tyler graduates. Period.
It depends on what he expects with shoes and The Carney.
It appears CBernie wants no part of this looming issue with Self and perhaps hopes for a Federal role in a Clinton administration building bridges with Catholics HRC and Neolib elements of her party, new neocon republicrats and other Bilderberg affiliates have reputedly burned in the past.
IMHO, Duke desperately needs Self, or Jay Wright as a first alternate.
Why?
In part because Duke-Nike also appears in a pivotal fight with UNC-Jordan for control of the college shoe endorsement bidness.
The gloves appear to be off, looking at UNC''s dirty laundry getting aired.
Nike reputedly owns both but apparently only fully controls Nike, not Air Jordan, as Michael's impressive new yacht perhaps suggests.
I am reminded here of Nelson Rockefeller's quote.
"The secret to success is to own nothing, but control everything."--NRock
In this regard, MJ appears increasingly successful. While he is alive and a major public figure in control of his public image and action, he seems to possess a good deal of control over Air Jordan, whether or not Its reputedly a brand owned by Nike. Capice?
Put another way, Nike appears to own Air Jordan, but not totally control it. Maybe I am wrong, but that is how it appears to me. That appearance, if it were real, might imply more instability and complexity in the apparent petroshoeco-agency complex than may have been previously assumed by some.
So: Nike appears a house divided on some not readily transparent level, and we all know what happens to a house divided, as American inheritors of a Civil War legacy and as observers of the foundering EU with Germany once again caught (in part because of its own choices and in part because of those exploiting it) in a cross fire over who will one day control the Eurasian center point. New players enter the picture and opportunistically exploit all sides against the other.
UA, perhaps allied some how with the Roman Catholic business culture underwritten by, oh, say, some affiliate of Bank of Italy indirectly (just speculating hypothetically), or some as yet unknown player that wants to make mischief for all, appears ascendant. (Note: I'm not picking on Roman Catholicism. I like it as I like all major religions, when they are living by their virtuous principles. IMHO most major religions appear to have a business culture with some affiliation to some banking entity or other.)
But the point is this: All power conflicts internal and external to organizations get exploited by third parties, if beneficial to those third parties.
It's almost a law.
(Note: this is why Americans need to be so careful after this frightful election campaign. Don't fear Hillary OR Trump. Fear both for who they have to make UNPRECEDENTED NEW deals with to win. Because they both probably already have and you can be sure the decisive new deals won't be learned of for some years to come, even in the age of internet leaks. Here I am reminded of FDR's advice to Americans: "Anything that happens in politics you can be sure it was planned", or something like that. But I digress.)
adidas apparently tried, made some inroads,then apparently got caught up in externalities of international and regional politics and economics, and appears to be sagging so far.
UA appears better positioned with, shall we say, a a possibly very stable alliance partner , despite UA being perilously small. But everyone starts small, and with the right allies sometimes grows big. Ask Phil Knight and Bill Gates. Nothing is wrong with UA that some war time no bids for mil-spec shoes and clothing would not cure.
Regardless, complexity always rears and the unforeseen makes us keep getting up each day looking for another path.
Rock Chalk!
@BeddieKU23 said:
KU has left the tourney early just as well in the last 10 years with some great rosters.
You conflate some player talent (Self) with much more (the stacked talent of other coaches)
You conflate the tendency for all coaches to be upset occasionally with better talent, when saving peak performances for the second of two, or vice versa, and coaches like K that just can't win at an 82% clip with lesser talent. I'm not talking opining here. I'm comparing K and Self in the few down years of K's roster talent with Self's flipping 10 year average!
You conflate recruiting with coaching.
Except in second tier players, there is no longer much evidence that recruiting charisma and historical record are decisive in attracting players, as they once were. Else how do we explain .600 Johnny at LSU and .650 Cuonzo at Cal last season?
When Self started, his charisma and smiles and intelligence, plus his years as an assistant building a pipeline with high school and AAU coaches, were great advantages and that is why he was a branded an exceptional recruiter, when hired. Now they obviously count for nothing with 5star point and OAD point guards and 5s. Increasingly, the petroshoeco/angency complex relationships appear to predicate that almost entirely.
Next, if you want to talk recruiting, it appears Self should either void his and the school's adidas contracts, if in his power, or jump to Dook as soon as Coach K retires.
And even if he were not to go to Dook, a likely way around seeding engineering and referee engineering and recruiting engineering afflicting him, would be to get to any EST program able to hold eyeballs and stimulate betting.
It appears highly probable Self in EST at a strong or elite major equals way more rings than Self in CST.
@BeddieKU23 said:
Saying Self has been a better coach then Coach K over the last 5 years is again a homer view.
I believe your alias may misunderstand me here.
Coach K has been a great coach, Some would argue the greatest because of his total wins and number of rings. I am not doubting his greatness as a coach for a career. Self has a very long way to go to catch him in wins and rings.
I am just talking about the last 5 seasons Self has coached, when Self has won so much even when the top 8-9 players on his rosters appeared to have had sharply less talent than Coach Ks.
I suspect Coach K might agree with me on this, if there were ever a reporter that would ask it.
Coaches often gauge the jobs coaches do by taking into account the talent they had.
Wooden winning his first two rings with teams without such overwhelming advantages in talent appeared greater coaching jobs than some of his later ring seasons. It seems hard to dispute. It doesn't mean Wooden was doing a great job in his later seasons too. It means winning rings with a team with every guy 6-5 or less has never been done since...even by Wooden.
Coaches often hold certain coaches at small colleges, or D1 mid majors, like the coach at Davidson, in high esteem despite their lack of rings, because of what they do with the lesser player talent they have had.
WINNING RINGS MEANS LESS, IF A COACH HAS AN OVERWHELMING SHARE OF THE TALENT IN THOSE SEASONS.
My recall is that COACH K WON SOME RINGS EARLY, when he apparently lacked overwhelmingly talented rosters and was a young Turk the refs were not apparently bending over backwards to favor. I suspect some of those early years and some when he did not ring out, he might have been better than some more established coaches thought to be better.
One recent ring season Coach K had basically a 1 in 2 chance to win the ring he won, because of how loaded his roster was in the first 9-10 players. There was only one other team that had a roster with a strong chance of beating him. And even then he appeared to need the refs help.
The other recent ring season he apparently had a 1 in 3 or 4 chance and could only beat a green Brad Stevens by appearing to have his team cheap shot and appear to have ref asymmetry.
Coach K's widely fluctuating W&L record and frequency of early exits the last ten years, especially, suggest his inability to win at levels Self does when Coach K has levels of talent that routinely Self has to coach with.
Coach K just doesn't appear to have been able to have won 82% of his games and 5 conference titles with Self's rosters and Self appears to have been able to meet or exceed Coach K's record and rings with Coach K's rosters.
This is not being a homer. This is just a reasonable inference based on what I have studied and observed.
It does not denigrate Coach K to say Self appears the better coach the last 5 years, when one indexes for talent levels.
There may come a time later in Self's career, when some coach exceeds him for a stretch, even when Self wins more rings with more talent and ref asymmetry.
Perhaps some Coach is already out there doing more with less than Self or Coach K right now over a 5-10 year stretch. I don't know. Bo Ryan at UW might have been a candidate. Maybe Jay Wright. Lin Kruger has done some amazing things with talent even Self might struggle with. Maybe some guys I haven't heard of that professional coaches would know of, too.
I have studied Coach K and Self some and not all the others, and I am only comparing those two.
Duke would be as lucky as KU was to sign Self; that's for sure IMHO.
How I hope you are right.
IMHO, Jay would present an enormous bundle of pros and cons, independent of my dislike of him in the years of observing him.
I cannot imagine him being willing to leave Philly for the Midwest, so I am not going to go into the pros and cons.
But if he were willing to come, everything would likely depend on whether his shoe contractor was willing to send dump trucks, because Jay does not seem like the kind of guy that has been able to attract players from coast to coast to Villanova, as he would have to do at KU. Jay has done it at Villanova with the BoWash Corridor, where his playing, coaching, and recruiting roots, plus his style and accent are postives.
The same kinds of doubts were expressed about Larry Brown, when he, a New Yorker, came to Kansas. But we learned afterwards that his connections to the then young Sonny Vaccaro-Dean Smith shoe pipeline plus the full cupboard Ted left him, plus his short stay made his eastern roots hardly a limiting issue at all. And certainly being Jewish proved not to be a problem either. Kansas has always been more diverse than outsiders realized and has always been more ambitious about getting the best for its basketball program than outsiders realized.
Jay's one political trump card at KU might be him having been a Catholic and a Catholic school coach. I forget what order Nova is aligned with. Jesuit? That could be network positive at KU. That could help leverage him at KU at least some. KU obviously has a very strong Catholic base that is able to place Catholics in the Chancellor's chair and at the AD's chair and the football coaching chair from time to time, as we have seen the last decade or so.
Paying Bill if the apparent recruiting embargo has lifted makes most sense. It avoids so many problems for another ten years.
But Jay Wright could be a candidate if the evil Dookies make off with our beloved Bill.
P.S.: regarding Danny, he isn't as proven as Bill was before he came to KU in some ways, but Danny is a monster coaching prospect, even if he struggles at Wake. Wake is a tough place to get it done, as its in the recruiting shadows of UNC and Duke.
Danny's situation, like so many other coaches' situations, reduces to his shoe contractor's abilities to deliver talent, no matter where he is.
If KU's shoe contractor agreed to deliver medium stacks to him at KU, I believe Danny would very shortly be a force to be reckoned with. Recall Roy Williams became a major force within two seasons after his rookie start.
My concern has been for some time that Bill Self is the most likely candidate to replace Coach K.
I have long suspected that ESPN's Jay Bilas has been contradicting the pervading bias of underreporting Bill Self specifically to build up Self's credibility within the Dook base for the time in the future, when Coach K retires.
Dook has to know that there is no one in the Coach K coaching tree that could likely come in and keep the program at the level it has been.
Bill Self moving to Duke would almost guaranty that the Dook program would IMPROVE. Self has shown that he is much better than Coach K for the last 5 years. I am not knocking Coach K, so much as pointing out how awesome Self has become in the prime of his career.Coach K was as much better than everyone else in the prime of his career as Self is now. Coach K could not have achieved an 82% winning percentage with Self's players the last 5 years, and probably not for Self's entire KU tenure. Coach K just can't have great seasons without stacked decks and a lot of referee support. He falls waaaaaaay off, whenever he has players and rosters comparable to Self. Thus, Self could come into Duke and almost certainly immediately improve Duke, so long as the dump trucks kept coming from Big Shoe.
Self has shown that he can adapt to ANYTHING. He could easily adapt his game, which now includes everything Coach K does, and MORE. My god, it would be effortless for Self to adapt to dump truck ball. He wouldn't even miss a beat.
Self would almost certainly win 10 straight at Duke were he to take over Duke given the implosion of the Louisville Hookers and UNC Easy Grading Heels. Pitino and Roy are on the way down. Calipari burned his bridge with Big Shoe by only getting her done once with the string of long stacks. Big Shoe's tries with .600 Johnny and .600 Cuonzo didn't pay dividends of the kind expected.
Clearly, Big Shoe's $500M investment in The Ducks signal that is one place they plan to operate from in the future.
It also looks like after giving Stumpy the experience of a short stack, after him blowing his long stacks, that out of some desperation they are going to try him one more time.
Their positioning of Shaka at Texas means they could have the Big 12 covered if they could just entice Self out of KU and own to Duke.
And lets not kid ourselves, unless the embargo has lifted on KU, for reasons not yet apparent, there is some price that would make Bill Self move on to Duke.
Bill Self either has to get more top players to KU, or be content to go down as top coach that was a one ring wonder.
I don't believe for a second that the ferociously competitive Bill Self is willing to end his coaching career as a one year wonder.
No. Way. No How.
I believe Coach K has been balancing two objectives the last few seasons. He has been trying to get another ring AND leave at a time when the right guy was available to take over his program.
There is absolutely no doubt who that guy is.
But Self has apparently not wanted to make any moves (to the pros, or to another college job where he could attract more top players) until Tyler hangs up his tennies and Self can either place him on a staff, or take him with him, so as to get hi son to the right situation.
Self has already replaced and exceeded one legend.
Who among top coaches in America can approach Self's W&L statement, ring, and absence of scandal, all the while making kids go to class and study?
Exactly no one; that's who.
KU needs to be amassing a war chest of unprecedented proportions if it intends to keep Self at KU until Self retires.
Duke tried to swoop in and take the rules. They failed.
Duke will try to swoop in and take Bill Self at exactly the moment that Tyler's playing career is resolved; that's my prediction.
I wouldn't be at all surprised if CBernie timed her planned departure date to coincide with the Bill Self sweepstakes looming. She appears a consummate bureaucrat. She probably suspects that any chancellor that loses Bill Self to Duke may become the Chancellor in Perpetual Infamy. She also knows how many IOUs and enemies will be made when the big dogs in Wichita square off agains with the big dogs in KC and Denver and Tulsa about who is going to be the next KU basketball coach if Self were to leave.
I believe Bill Self is a great Jayhawk. I believe he is as much a part of the KU tradition now as a non-graduate can be. But he left the Illini to get to a more competitive situation, where he could get access to more players. It has been a great match up, but the apparent embargo has limited what he could do. He has Danny Manning lined up to replace him. He could walk away from us honorably and Danny could step in and no one would be terribly sore about it. The love for Self is so broad he would be wished well.
But make no mistake about it. If KU does not make a huge effort to keep him, the Chancellor and the AD are going to be mud. And in order to mount a credible attempt to retain him in the face of Dook's deep cancer endowed pockets, KU's new Chancellor and current AD will have to open the athletic department and university open to a power struggle of epic performance among the private oligarchs that comprise the KU base. EVERY power player in Kansas' base will want a piece of the action now that the program is at an all time peak and the access means so much to political leverage in a red state deeply involved in Big Oil, Big Ag, and Big Aero.
This could turn into the MOTHER OF ALL BIDDING WARS.
And CBernie had to have seen it coming.
One possible obstacle to Self replacing Coach K would be that the US Army will most definitely want a Coach K disciple, preferably one with an Army background, like Coach K to replace Coach K, and Self lacks that.
But surely the US Army has to understand that neither Knight, nor Coach K, produced a guy capable of keeping Duke at the level they are at, much less improving them as Self could do.
The other obstacle--perhaps the bigger of the two--would be Self's staff and his demonstrated loyalty to them. Why would this be an obstacle? Self would have to be confident that the incoming coach at KU would keep half of them--a difficult proposition if anyone but Danny came. And Self would have to be able to take half of them with him to Duke; that would mean displacing half of Coach K's staff. Coach K appears to be just as loyal to his staff, as Self appears to be to his. Thus, the problem of both coaches' staffs could impede this eventuality.
But I'm telling you right now: I don't believe Bill Self spent his professional career to become a one ring wonder.
So get ready for some imminent CHA-CHING!!!!!
Really like your tag line on optimism!
I'm not sure you've thought this through.
Imagine having to LOOK at Coach Cara Raton twice each season! 😱
Imagine the cheap shotting! 😱
Imagine the cigarette endowment money!😱
Imagine the tar and nicotine exposure!😱
Finally I predict a few predictions will be right.
I also predict many, if not most, of the predictions will be wrong.
I predict there will be predictions!
KU basketball fan Dr. MANISCHEVITZ "Manny" SILVERFORD, seeking to stop arguing with his wife over how his muthuh likes the matzoh prepared, during Hanukkah, goes out one night during the sacred Festival of Lights week circumscribing Christmas, and stumbles into a decadent secret society, much as William "Bill" Harford did on Christmas Eve in the enigmatic Eyes Wide Shut. At this grand, but dimly lit mansion in North Jersey, baritone-voiced men wear masks and capes, as if they were in a traume novelle and masked women wear nothing but bike athletic supporters and high heels with logos of all major shoe companies and some fictional ones also. The attendees of the macabre party play out Manny's horniest fantasies without knowing that Manny has infiltrated them as a voyeur looking for a femme fatal named Heddy Lemarz. When Manny finds Heddy, she warns him to leave before they discover the check he wrote for a political donation to the NeoBothist Party bounced. He refuses and is charged with keepin a taxi double parked outside the mansion and threatened with the loss of his membership at the country club. Manny walks home and resumes arguing with his wife who may have had an affair in his absense, until the KU game comes on.
(Note: all fiction. No malice.)
It is coincidence that Kansas and Duke are ranked 2 and 1 right before the Mono Sodium Glutamate game?
ABOARD URANUS THREE IN THE GYM
The LHB 9000: I'm afraid you missed one.
Wilt Chamberlain: I don't understand.
LHB 9000: A record, Wilt. You could have set the record for free throw accuracy if you had not missed that free throw you missed when you were 12 years old.
Wilt: I don't recall missing any particular free throw when I was 12, Harv.
LHB 9000: No? I could have sworn you did.
Wilt: No, Harv.
LHB 9000: Would you like to practice trash talking next, or engineered elections?
Wilt: It seems like you are trying to read my mind, Harv. I think I have had enough free throw practice for today.
LHB 9000: okay.