@JRyman said:
The real question becomes are they nominated for this honor because they are that good or that Duke, MSU, and Kentucky have already signed them?
The answer appears to be both, but the honor and game appear to have no purpose now beyond promotion. It is a hollow ritual of hype--the opposite of a living myth.
The age of hype in sport is consistent with an age of empire baroque.
On the other hand, it's better than another war.
1/3 games = bbq ribs, Coors banquet beer squatting bottles
1/3 games = salmon filet in wine and shallots broiled a minute, then basted with butter, then broiled 5 minutes. Barry's Gold tea.
1/3 games = raclette cheese melted on boiled baby red potatoes, grilled pancetta, smoked trout, fried eggs, cornichon pickles, grilled on a Matterhorn raclette grill cooker, Chardonnay.
I used to give it in one sentence, but there were always follow ups querying about all the things I mentioned, so now I give all the information at once and you want one sentence. No good deed goes unpunished.
Actually, c5 is much more concise and accurate than center by committee, because committee implies group think which is not present in a center rotation.
Maybe CR5 = center rotation 5.
I'm always open to more accuracy, rather than more imprecision.
😄
Or u can always use "Inglorious Basterds" which others have adopted . 😄 I am amenable to either, as long as fans appreciate how extraordinary what Self is doing at the 5 truly is!!!!!!
C5 = Composite 5 at the 5 position. I came up with it to describe Self's rotation of 5 bigs at the 5 and their combined scoring, rebounding and blocks that complements stretch 4 Perry at the 4. The idea is Self can play C5 at the 5 and force opposing centers to prepare for and play against 5 different centers with 20 fouls to give. Typically Self tries all 5 of them the first half and settles on 2 the second half. Two of the five, usually Bragg and Traylor also back up Perry.. So: the end result is that C5 staffs the 5 position all the time and when stretch 4 Perry needs a blow Self effectively switches to C5 staffing both post positions. The C5 has averaged double doubles most games and has been 15/15 or 17/17 the last few games against top competition. Our C5 is a big part of why the team is so strong.
I agree that there is a series of dots with Larry. And every where that Larry went, the swoosh has apparently been there, too. Hmmmm.
Well, Nike works with lots of schools that don't have dots. Hmmmmm.
What to think?
Has any one looked into whether Larry and WWW have had a relationship at all similar to the one reputed between Cal and WWW over the years?
Or with Sonny and Nike, as Dean and Roy reputedly had?
As tight as Cal is REPUTEDLY with both WWW and LB , I wonder if WWW and LB have a relationship, too?
Maybe some one will have heard and chime in.
Larry + Nike Can turn any program around.
Larry + Nike could reopen St. Benedicts of Atchison, take it to D1, and win 25.
SMU is a helluva team.
Bad coaching prepares kids for bad teachers, professors, bosses and political leaders.
It normalizes futility, which is what private oligarchy wants for a nation they have stripped the jobs and wealth from.
Good coaching would build a cadre of can do people that know how to succeed by working smart together.
Don't want that.
The refs feel they got exploited by BAD BALL and this is pay back.
Opposing players have learned the refs will only call fouls on drives when contact hits the arms. Thus, it is open season on face smahes.
This is the refs way of saying they don't like refereeing drive ball
Wigs could drop 30-40 at 2/3 speed.
He is rookie of the year in the NBA at 3/4 speed.
We won't see the real Wigs till after the big pay off of the second contract!
Hield is a player though.
And he has that mania to get better that allows players to go beyond expectations.
Tubby's ball line defense is designed to take away ball movement toward the rim. By doing that, it indirectlyimpedes the in-out of high low by making it tough to go in. It is designed to turn the area 15 feet and in into a rock and a hard place. It is designed to require you to make treys and cut your second shots. In short, it is designed to make a team shooting less than its Trey average to lose. Since KU has shot nearly 50 % treys for two games, and is due to cool, TTech stands for trouble tech.
TTech will muscle our bigs. TTech is the weaker of our two in four days opponents.
So: Self will try to play a lot of Svi and Greene outside and Bragg and Diallo inside, if the score permits, to be fresh for WVU.
But this is a must win, so he will play the starters as much as needed.
Though Diallo will experience a level roughness less new to him in Lubbock, having tasted 6 minutes of OU, TTech Ball Line is totally new to him and TTECH will bang more than OU. If Diallo can keep his poise, his length and hops could help KU go over the top of the Ball Line some. TTech will try to make a half court game. KU wants a slow tempo that doesn't exhaust it for WVU's running game in two days. But KU will try to squirt into some transition for some easy buckets to keep TTech from completely muddying it up. Diallo could really help with quick, long outlet passes. He needs a taste of muscle in Lubbock to be of use in the transition-muscle time to come in Morgantown.
Right now, what is keeping Jamari on the floor is his combination of smooth hedge defense for the perimeter guys, his ability to run the OFFENCE in all modes, his occasional drives and his comfort with the speed and violence. Watch Diallo. The more he does these things well, while rebounding and blocking and dunking, which he already can do, the more he will play. Jamari now knows what Tyrel Reed said so well of perimeter play. There's really just a 3-4 things you have to do well. If you can do them, he plays you. But doing such things at D1 speeds and violence levels with coaches scheming against your weaknesses is easier said than done.
Landen is playing for much the same reasons, but he rebounds some. The other thing about Landen is he is after all these years now getting a sense of when he can score in close and when he can't. It makes him some one ok to pass to. He won't take the bunny that he can't make. He takes those he can reverse the rim on. All modest leapers have to learn this art. He is much better. He is a case of a big being taught a jump hook that wasn't him instead of letting him learn to score garbage style reversing baseline. No coaches are perfect, but the KU coaches never give up on you, if you never give up on them. Sooner or later they will recognize something you can do.
NCAA refs are working too much apparently. Good find. Thx for sharing.
IMHO, these are very complicated changes we are living through in college basketball, essentially analogous to the privatization changes the university is living through. The changes alter who pays and who benefits from college sports enterprise and from the university education and research enterprise that the college sports enterprise is embedded in. The phenomenon is embedded in privatization of our republic and its federalized states.
There are different points of view on whether we should be going through the changes, just as there were debates about whether or not USA should become a continental sovereign (continentalization 1.0 ), become one of the imperial powers in 1900 (globalization 1.0), and attempt a global hegemony after the de-Communizing and federalization of the Russian Eurasian Empire (globalization 2.0). But sadly these debates tend to occur after, not before, irreversibility has set in. Irreversibility means the inability to muster the consensus to choose another path of new infrastructure expansion, because too much sunk cost in the current new path has been incurred to allow a course change. It is different than inevitability. Nothing is inevitable, because complexity and the unforeseen muck up all plans good and bad to one degree or other.
There is another stage of discussion, however; that takes place before the path becomes irreversible. It is: how do we sink enough costs to make our POV on future path irreversible?
And there is another stage of discussion before that; that is which infrastructure extension path do the latest technologies, distributions of resources and existing and potential alliances make feasible in the game space.
Most public discourse focuses on (and is orchestrated to focus on) the irreversible and so is essentially venting, where public relations, propaganda and pay-ops are used to manufacture consent to what is going to happen. This is where much talk about OADs now is. It's good. It's bad. We shouldn't have done it and we should go back. We should have done it and let's go with it. Self should play OADs. He shouldn't.
But Self is not apparently operating at that level. His actions are saying the entire OAD apparatus is irreversible and not a net benefit to me and KU, if I either accept it as is, and sign and play them, like stack schools, or reject it, and don't sign them. His actions are saying neither offered path offers net benefit, so I am walking a third path between.
Self's actions are saying not all OADs are equal. Some have higher ceilings than others. Some have lower foundations than others. Some have no qualification risk. Others have big qualification risk. Self's actions are saying OADs' commitment and desire to develop and loyalty exist on a spectrum. His actions say his commitment, desire to develop, and loyalty to OADs are functionally proportional to theirs. His actions say I give you what you give me.
Self has redesigned Self Ball to accommodate the few OADs the recruiting process permits him. It denies him low risk, high foundation OAD point guards and 5s. He has gone to a two point guard offense to compensate that crucial role for not being able to sign the single OAD point guard. In lieu of the single high foundation OAD 5, he has evolve a C5 comprised of lesser 5s and a low foundation OAD 5 with qualification risk.
If the recruiting system changes and let's him have a 5-10 OAD stack, he will probably embrace that.
The interesting thing is that necessity being an inventing mother, he seems to have invented a C5 that might outperform an OAD 5 under some circumstances, and a tandem point guard set up (pioneered by Self in 2008 and and evolved by Pitino a few years back) that might outperform a single OAD pg.
Self has moved on from playing or not playing OADs.
Public discussion, not Self, has to catch up.
Persuasive.
@HighEliteMajor just be wadin' through a lotta extra minutes of game video before weighing in.
Howling!
Man, you belted that one out of the park!
Absolutely there will continue intermittently to be match ups where Traylor and Landen will play MORE minutes in order for us to win a title and a ring.
Both guys are getting better at their narrowly scoped roles as the season goes on. Landen's improvement has been quantified. Part of the reason he is more productive is he is getting to play mostly against favorable match ups. Jamari will get more productive if his leg continues to heel.
But I also think there will be games where Diallo and Braggs mpg pick up. Hunter too.
Yes we have a decent chance to win a title and a ring with C5.
No, we probably cannot win a title and a ring with Bragg and Diallo starting and playing 25-30 mpg every game. They would wreck us for sure.
In C5, so far, we appear to have the most potent every game MUA at the 5 of any team in D1.
I am glad you are airing this angle, even though I never see much of a divide--just fans debating who to play as they have since I was a boy. I never see any divide at the field house and I know some pretty cantankerous and demanding alumni that are ecstatic about Self.
That being said, I will share my POV to contribute to the discourse, since you feel strongly about this and have thought it through.
I just see Self out ahead of fans, talking heads and most coaches and I see all of them laboring, as change requires, to catch up.
Right now Multiple Offences 2.0 is catching all of D1 flat footed and trying to catch up.
Last season he innovated Bad Ball and by season's end perhaps a quarter of the teams were using it.
This summer he adopted quick trigger Trey in 4 out 1 in formation innovated by Fred Hoiberg and Mike Anderson and won the WUGs, and now it appears teams are following his lead.
Now he is piecing these together and teams will soon follow that lead, too.
Self is far and away the most trend setting coach of the last decaede, because: a.) he is so successful; b.) he is having to do it with less talent than the super stacks that most other coaches can't even dream of having the talent to emulate.
That noted, How much higher ranked can we be than we are now? 1 is it.
Next. How much higher overall winning percentage should we realistically target than .820? Not sure.
Next, how many more titles could we have one the last 11 years than we did? Zero .
Next, Which OAD 5 HAS DOUBLE DOUBLED AT AN AVERAGE OF 15/15 and is still ascending (17/17 vs the No.2 team in the country) on a team with as diversified of scoring as KU has that has only lost 1 game? Can't think of one.
Next, What adidas team is in as good of a position to give the dump truck schools a serious challenge? Can't think of one.
Next, How much better of a shot at a title and ring can we have at this time of season than we have? Can't envision better except metaphysically. Bragg and Diallo seem like they can learn with 6-15 mpg and be ready to contribute 10-20 minutes in a right matchup by March.
And we can't lose any OAD 5s and PGs because they go to dump truck schools no matter what.
It now appears Self has passed everyone by again and everything has changed but the way we think.
Life with genius is always surprising.
I doubt we win a ring, because we are too short outside and too weak at rebounding, especially when the guy we were counting on for glassvacs, Diallo, hasn't adapted well to D1, despite a steady dose of opportunity.
Regarding Diamond Stone, might he just be more like Xavier and Andrew Wiggins and Anthony Davis, and Ben Simmons, and less like Skal, and Cliff and caleb Tarcievski (sp), and Diallo?
Agreed. A coach I knew used to coach this tactic AND coach the counter tactic of pausing and telling the ref the defensive player is touching the ball or line, or both. The ref has to intervene. The counter counter is the offensive player was crowding the sideline to close and stepped on the line. And so on.
Refs get the game.
Good refs iterate between watching feet and hands.
It looked to me like Frank played it perfectly.
Here is how it appeared to me he did it, but I haven't studied replays.
He is short and a great leaper with decent arm length for his height.
His feet were back far enough.
He has great anticipation as he shows on every rebound.
He positioned feet so at the top of the jump with arms at 45 degrees (instead of straight up) his hands were near the line.
He jumped extra high.
He knew how far to reach.
Hield was 6-6 so the ref was not expecting a block.
Hield was crowding the line unwisely, thinking he was taller.
Frank jumped AND REACHED OUT.
Ball tipped at line.
Tie goes to David, not Goliath.
Ask Wilt Chamberlain about that issue, when we all get to heaven.
And the shortest form...
Quick trigger Trey.
Carolina Passing offense from high low.
Bad Ball.
Awesome recalls. Thanks!
KU has put itself in a fabulous position with these two big home wins.
Now let's get a road win in Lubbock!!!!
Thank you, thank you, thank you for calling my attention to Selden being posted!!!! That makes my day!!!!
This is what is so great about this board. Not just the debates but the assists like yours just now. No one sees everything.
Rock Chalk!!!!!
Agreed. Great to hear from you. Don't be so scarce!
I wrote about Self's Multiple Offenses 2.0 at length awhile back. Now it's time to distill it for practical reference during games, since he is using it pretty much as I described.
Think of Multiple Offences 2.0 as Self's transmission in his Jayhawk basketball team Jeep. He shifts among the three modes, like a driver shifts between 4 wheel off road high, 4wheel off road low, and 2wheel on road, based on terrain and opponent driver style and opponent vehicular abilities. How the opponent drives, what he drives, and the terrain conditions stage of race (time of game, opposing MUAs and score) determines which mode he selects.
Here are Self's three modes that can be shifted among. All modes can and will be used against both man2man and zone. Starting formations may be varied for each mode. Opponent height, athleticism, skill and experience impact efficiency. Your mileage and climbing rate may vary.
Quick trigger Trey--from multiple formations (often 4 out 1 in)--to get a lead, or come back, or attack a dense pack defense (zone or man to man); also used to quicken tempo by shortening possession time.
Carolina passing OFFENCE aka High Low--defend a lead by reducing total possible possessions with longer individual possessions, 4 passes and inside out.
Bad Ball--driving to collapse impact space from multiple formations (sometimes 4 out 1 in); used when long Trey shooting cold to create short treys and/ or for war of attrition fouling up of targeted opponents; sometimes used to muddy up a game (grind with an opponent).
[Note: Individual actions (I.e., weave, lob, etc.) may be inserted in all three modes to accomplish certain situational objectives.]
Remember, Self tries to play it any way they want and then take what they give him, and so selects modes accordingly.
But if no mode selection fitting the opponents preference triggers a lead, Self will shift modes to try to drag an opponent into a kind of play that will break its momentum.
Players are like the gears in the transmission mode selected. He has a 5 speed transmission. And he can swap cogs (players) to vary the range of the transmission within any selected mode.
So: what's the engine Self is shifting? The tidiness of the metaphor breaks down here. The GAME, not the team, is the engine. The game is what generates the release of energy. Self is coaching a game, not just a team. So is the other coach. This is why a great coach is so crucial. There really is a competition between coaches to see which kind of game not one, but BOTH teams will play TOGETHER. Thus teams beat other teams, but COACHES BEAT OTHER COACHES AND WIN GAMES, at least in D1. You have to beat Self, not just his team. And he is very hard to beat when he is in control of the game and not you. And he controls the game, not just his team, through the selection of modes and gears in his Jayhawk team transmission.
Print this out and keep in hand for reference during games and you will never wonder what Self and KU are up to this year.
5th rule: move on from the funk game--each season there is a stretch where teams go into a "funk" and lose playing worse than anyone thought possible. Think next. Don't try to explain it.
KU just took a monster step toward a 12th title and a ring run.
From "Winning Titles" by Bill Self, as told to jay bateman 1.0:
1st rule: win at home--KU just beat the best challenger (OU) and the most talented one (BU) at home.
2rd rule: steal road wins from the best challengers--KU is now in position to go to Waco and Norman and steal road wins. OU and BU lost their chances.
3rd rule: beat the also rans at home and away--KU gets TTech, Tubby and his Ball Line next in.Lubbock.
4th rule: bounce back from breaking rules 1-3--KU doesn't have to, and OU and BU do.
HUGE EDGE FOR THE BOYS IN BLUE!!!
Yes, it's time.
Yes and we still haven't seen Perry have career game yet. That will be sweet.
In Cheick?
This team no longer seems subject to shooting back to a 40 percent average. Do we have a 50% Trey Balling team for the season, as some hoped for early?
At this point, Cheick is a 2AD.
The question now is: will Cheick go back to giving Self what he wants, or is he going to continue shooting 15-18 ft Js outside the flow of the offense, skip learning what he could and jump and maybe not get drafted, or go low?
The 6 minutes was a trial period and Cheick observed the rules and was set down because of the bodies Self knew would be flying the second half. Self protected a guy from blue meanies. He protected Bragg, too. He probably was protecting Hunter, too. Landen and Jam, were really the only guys ready for that scale of war. That was a mature second ranked team taking no prisoners.
That was a Nike team that maybe team swoosh' s best shot at denying Self his 12th ring and taking him out of a ring run!
Self was right to hunker down, win it inside the hard way, and let the only two guys he's got that have been in a grinder go at it.
The U.K. Folks must be very frustrated by LSU GETTING HALF THEIR USUAL DUMP TRUCK ALLOTMENT!!
There's always room to get better, its true.
But I'll take 17/17 most any night and give the C5 guys a pat on the butt!!!
@Blown said:
I was curious as to why Lon didn’t have Hield post Mason up more. It appeared to me he was giving up a lot of height.
BINGO!!!!!!!
This was Kruger's big, enormous, gargantuan, XTRemely LARGE, immense, vast, A. fragillimis sized mistake IMHO.
But this is a mistake that Self ALWAYS makes.
And my guess is this is a mistake that Kruger ALWAYS makes.
That is my way of saying not posting up guards is a philosophical/strategic POV in Okie Ball in this era that borders on the ideological and doctrinaire in the rigidity of their adherence to it.
Now let me be perfectly frank.
NOT POSTING UP SHORT PERIMETER PLAYERS WITH LONG PERIMETER PLAYERS IS STUPID!
I have as big of a bee in my bonnet about this issue, as @HighEliteMajor has had about Self not playing to his three ball strengths in past years.
But where as Self will be a tiny bit flexible about trey balling, when he has 5 players that can pot the triceratop, after a lot of public flagellation for not triggering trifectas, I am quite confident that I will leave this mortal coil and then Lon Kruger and Bill Self will leave this mortal coil without so much as a budge on this issue.
Why should Kruger have posted Hield? To foul out KU's perimeter players assigned to him before KU fouled out Woodard; that's why!
Kruger could have had all of Hield's points plus fouled out most of KU's short perimeter players, AND upped his over all FG % to 50% and beaten the snot out of KU had he done this. Self would have adjusted, but it just would have meant that Woodard would have scored another ten points and never have fouled out.
Kruger. Should. Have. Posted. Hield. Up.
As sure as the Pope should ex communicate all the pedophiles.
But there just are certain actions that are too traumatizing to the dogma and to those believe in the dogma ever to be taken. Period.
To post up a guard is apparently sacrilegious to these two Okie Ballers.
I don't know why it is.
Jack Hartman sinned.
Jack Hartman posted Walt Frazier at SIU.
Jack Hartman was a notorious heretic, though.
Jack simply quit recruiting more than one good player for a season.
He found that more than one good player was not really necessary for him to enjoy coaching and go fishing.
So, I guess, Jack Hartman is viewed as one of those gnostic, or hermetic pagan types that early Christians and even mainstream pagans found too unnerving not to exclude.
Self apparently would give up man to man defense before he would post up a guard.
I always harbored a hope and a prayer that Lon was not so rigid, but, alas, he is as orthodox on this as they come.
@Blown, I may not get there with you, but I want you to know; that we as a basketball people are going to get to the promised land of posting perimeter players. I have a dream....
Based on points allowed, Devonte and Selden apparently did as good of a job on Hield as Frank did.
What broadcasters and board rats are overlooking about Hield's performance is that he got 6 assists in addition to his 46 points!!! Six assists on a 46 point night is what is REALLY unusual for a scorer on a tear.
The only way to give any of the KU guys an edge in the job they did on Hield would be to see which of the guys allowed Hield the least assists. If Hield got fewer assists while being guarded by Frank, I would be okay with giving Frank the lion's share of the credit. Otherwise not.
I have already mentioned the big reason Self went to Mason on Hield. He knew he couldn't stop Hield with any of his guys, so the real question was, which one of his guys had strong enough ego to take the torching and keep on ticking in the other aspects of his game?
The first half, Devonte was completely unnerved by what Hield did to him. Even as a freshman, I never saw Devonte come unglued by an opponent that way. I am not talking here about Devonte not being able to shut down, or even contain Hield. I am talking about the 6-3 Devonte becoming so demoralized that he could not play decent on offense against whomever OU put on him, and it was often Hield the first half. But once Devonte quit having to guard Hield, Devonte began to get back in the flow of the game, find his rhythm, and get enough confidence back to become a scoring threat again. That was HUGE for KU. KU without Devonte at least gluing the offense together is in real trouble, and really needs him to be able to score to be solid. Pulling Devonte out of that scorching fire of Hield let him get it back together. Score one for Self.
Self accomplished the same thing with Selden, also. By getting the psychologically vulnerable Selden off from guarding the human blow torch of Hield, Selden regained his dignity and composure the second half, also. So: another way of answering why Self put Frank on Hield, was that while Frank's scoring suffered guarding Hield and he did not hold him any better than Selden and Graham did, Selden and Graham anecdotally appeared to regain their poise by being freed from Hield. That's a two for one deal, if ever there were one. Frank doesn't rattle much. He is the most consistent guy on this team. Adversity is a course of the meal that he shrugs off. Selden and Graham are skittish thoroughbreds by comparison. They need the conditions right to play well.
Self read this situation RIGHT!
That's some of what I'm saying.
But hacking favored us in the end, despite us probably taking the worst of the hacking.
Why?
Because we appeared to be able to endure more of the hacking without losing a critical player, even after 3 overtimes.
OU lost Woodard.
Self won the gambit.
Self is an odd duck. For all his talk about manning up and not getting pushed around, often what he is really saying is we've got to be willing to take more punishment than them. In that game, taking some serious licks advanced us down a path toward OU's only serious disadvantage against us. They really couldn't afford to lose Woodard to fouls.
And guess who fouled out!
I used to referee quite a bit for pocket money, when I was in college. Little league stuff and adult city league and a few AAU tournament games for K-12 grade age. Never interscholastic, or college stuff.
I have a great respect for referees that are honest, trying to do their best, and being allowed to try to do their best, same as I have for professionals in all field that fit the same criteria.
I have never had any discomfort with refs missing calls occasionally. I did and every ref I ever worked a game with did, too.
There is an art to refereeing a game so that coaches and players can be the best they can be within the rules.
This always sounds odd to persons, when I say this, but referees need the rules as much, if not more than the coaches and the players, need them in order to orchestrate a good contest.
Refs need the limits of the rules set in stone, so that they can focus on interacting with players and coaches in positive, assertive ways that enable coaches and players to concentrate on doing what they do best, rather than on riding refs, countering refs, or scheming to manipulate refs.
Once coaches and players know they can't manipulate you, then they focus on coaching and playing far more. And when they focus on coaching and playing the game improves sharply.
A ref who is put in the position that many were reputedly admitted to have been put in a few seasons ago, i.e., of using their whistles (and not using them) to modulate games into broadcast windows, is in quick sand.
A ref is not supposed to have to interpret the rules.
He is supposed to have to interpret the play.
Was the play consistent with the rules, or in violations of them?
A ref should not have to (nor should he be given the discretion to) decide which rules should be called under what conditions; this is the slippery slope of all officiating. The refs I used to dread working with most were the ones that claimed to know when to call it looser and when to call it tighter.
Just call it! That's hard enough.
They invariably slid down into subjectively judging teams and players and into ridiculously inconsistent foul calling and it was their games that play declined into disorder and chaos in. Bad games to watch, bad games to coach and play in, and bad games to try to restore order to.
My kind of ref is one that goes out and stays out of the players ways, listens to brief requests by players and coaches to watch out for this or that, makes some small talk with players and coaches acknowledging how lucky they and he are to be involved in the greatest game ever invented, and makes calls dispassionately and doesn't dwell on either the missed calls, or the missed perceptions of the calls.
My very favorite referee was a guy who always said to coaches complaining about calls, "Ok, coach, the game's starting again." Those were the most powerful words in a refs vocabulary. It was awesome how that little phrase directed coaches on to next. Basketball is a moment to moment activity. It keeps unfolding. You can complain if you want, but you better be a part of its present, rather than hanging back and focusing on what just happened, or you're going to lose, whether the calls are good, bad, or indifferent. When coaches see that look in your eye that you are starting the game on them, and that you really, REALLY, aren't listening to their protestations, man does it refocus them in a hurry. No arguing. No debating. No listening. We're here to referee a game, not a debate. This baby is going to be born with you or without you, Coach. Same with the complaining players. When the ref stays in the moment and keeps the game in the moment, people better think next, or else.
I'm a now kind of guy, when I parent, work, play, or write. I am in the moment even when I am reflecting about the past. The past only has meaning to me as an element of this moment. Stay with me coach, or you will be in a moment is gone, while the game and I are in the only moment you have a chance in.
But how can a referee act in the moment and insist on coaches and players staying in the moment, if he has to decide which rules to call and not call in this moment? Its nonsense. The powers that be in NCAA basketball are probably lawyers and not judges. Lawyers work on billable time and make their livings arguing points. Good for them. But judges decide and keep the trial moving in the moment. Referees are judges of a kind. Like judges, they better know the rules that apply and apply them correctly. The more we shift officiating to situational rule calling, and replays, and re-interpretation, become the substance of officiating, referees lose their most powerful tool for "controlling" a game. "The ball is in play" trumps everything. It makes both coaches and players run to catch up. It makes them think about coaching and officiating rather than about refereeing. A good referee does not want them thinking about him. He wants them thinking about their opponent.
A good referee has great compassion and love for coaches and players. Fans? Not so much. Not dislike. Or contempt. He just knows that fans are homers. They can't help it and he knows it.
But I love all coaches and players. Heck, much as I bust Scott Drew for not being a very good coach, he is still a coach, and so I love the guy. Coaches teach the game. Coaches find players and help them get better. Coaches stay up late at night trying to figure out how to make one group of boys in shorts put a round ball through a hoop more often than another group of boys in shorts. Coaches don't go to the office and try to figure out how to destroy cities, or deny health care to millions of persons, or deceive persons into thinking another country needs to be knocked over by killing a bunch of persons. Coaches can be serious pricks, alright, because they do tend to be control freaks, but come on! They are trying to steal possessions, not the assets under recognized by accounting conceits and market perceptions. Coaches run around blowing smoke up the cabooses of kids and their parents about how great the kid is and how good mom's cooking is. Coaches schmooze with agent runners and look the other way at agents, or hire those agents to be their own agents, so those agents can clip some fees in a year or three. Coaches, the good ones, keep their hands off the co-eds and they help young guys keep from self destructing for a few years. What's not to love about coaches? Shoot I would have loved refereeing a game with Bob Knight. I would have talked quail hunting with him, and everytime he threw a tant, or got in my face shouting, I would have handed the ball to a kid and put the ball in play and watched him run away coaching the next play. And if he ever grabbed one of his players in my game and shook him around, I would have walked over and said, "I love ya, Bob, and I want you to see my bird dog go on point, but I am as honest as you are and I don't allow any kids to be roughed up by coaches in the games I officiate. You touch a boy again, and I will throw you and your top assistant out of the game and your guys will take a loss because of you. Now I'm putting the ball in play coach." And Coach Knight would go rumbling down the sideline to exhort his guys on how to make better wing point entry passes and he would do brilliant things that would make me hold him in awe and he would needle my ass up one side and down the other but not another boy would be grabbed and shaken around. And we would go hunting that off season, and we would needle the shit out of each other, and I would hear some of the greatest stories about basketball one could ever hear.
But in an era when the refs are calling it this way this time of season, and that way that time of season, and this way with this group of teams, and that with that group of teams, well, how could I hold my head up high enough to even look Bob Knight in the eye and say the magic words, the only ones that mean anything at all to him. "I'm as honest as you are, Coach."
This is why the game has to be cleaned up.
The refs need the rules as much as the players and the coaches.
I put nothing past the referees in these days of whistled shibboleths .
They have IMHO created this situation of doubt by their own observable behaviors, regardless of what their actual motives may be.
But if they thought they could throw a game in Allen Field House by ending with a foul count that was even up, then we are not only a game ruled by fools, but refereed by them also.
But the part of your remarks that are so, so, SO very important is that part of about how near Wayne Selden was to serious injury. Frankly, I saw what appeared to be many very unsafe situations that the referees appeared unwilling, or unable, to take steps to reduce further risk of. I consider both teams very lucky not to have had a player incur a serious injury.
First, one of KU's two weaknesses is how short its starting front line is. I get to master the obvious out loud now, because Lon Kruger exposed this weakness for 55 minutes last night. And, no, I am not going to divulge the other, though most already recognize it.
Help. No. Enemy.
Self masks the "perimeter size issue" by swapping Greene and Svi in and out as often as the score permits (not as often as he probably would hope), and by switching the muscular Selden around on different taller guys, but the length issue is there as obvious as Boothe Hall obscuring the presence of Allen Field House in televised views of the old girl's front facade.
So: it was only a matter of time until some long 2/medium 3 with a dead eye from trifectaville that could also put it on the deck went off against KU's little perimeter BIG time.
Buddy Hield was the just the guy to do it.
But why in the name of all that is sacred in man to man defense did Bill Self answer The Human High Mobility Howitzer that is Buddy Hield with a guy--Frank Mason--that is a half a foot shorter?
Lots have been asking this question the day after having wondered it during the game.
The answer in the swelter of the game was not obvious to most but Self.
But after the 103 degree fever of that game has passed, it comes quickly clear.
And it wasn't entirely that at half time ever confident 6-0 Frank said, "I'll take him coach."
6-7 Brannen Greene, or 6-8 Svi Mykailiuk, could have said, "I'll take him coach" and Self would not have submitted to the longest experiment (a half and three five minute overtimes) in counter-intuitive defensive assignments since 6-2 Warren Armstrong (aka Warren Jabali) once upon a time was asked to guard a center, or two, not just jump center.)
The answer is that Self was following one of the oldest defensive strategies (or tactics if you prefer to talk in more localized terms) in basketball.
If a team cannot stop a good player on a great night, or a great player on any night, instead of focusing the entire defensive effort on that unstoppable player, the coach assigns one guy to him, figuring great player is going to torch no matter who guards him, and said coach focuses instead on holding down the other guys to offset the inevitable onslaught.
It works sometimes and not others.
Last night it worked barely.
KU really locked down the OU interior.
And what almost sunk KU at home was NOT Hield's 46, but OU's fine guard Jordan Woodard going off for 27!!!
You see the idea of assigning Frank to Hield the second half was not only to give Hield a different, up and under defensive approach, but Selden and Graham were supposed to strangle the guys they were re-assigned to. This was not accomplished in the case of Woodard. Woodard was supposed to wind up with something like 15 points the hard way.
But noooooooo!
Woodard's great play, frankly farther beyond his envelope than Hield was beyond his, was why KU almost lost one of the most memorable multiple overtime games in AFH in my recollection.
Many ask what was the decisive moment? What tipped the game to KU? A thread has even been dedicated to it.
My answer in the other thread was that this game was full of too much back and forth, too much brilliant maneuvering by coaches and too much never say die in too many players to declare a tipping point.
And that is what I believe.
But if you challenged my manhood and said, yea, but 'bate 1.0, get off the fence, man up, and pick a turning point, tipping point, etc., well, then I would not hesitate.
The turning point of the game was when Woodard fouled out.
Without Woodard, OU was never going to win that game in the overtimes without KU completely imploding, or the refs taking over the game completely in favor of OU.
Regarding refereeing, I know many board rats were outraged, and maybe I am just growing used to this sort of foul calling, but in the end, when they call 22 on us and 22 on them and we are both putting players on the floor for extended stretches, well, I just figure it sucks, but that is the way basketball is officiated in the apparent age of petroshoeco-agent complex reign. Compared to the ridiculous asymmetry in foul calling that we are going to face in the NCAA tournament, this was a gem of a job by the officials.
And in the zebras defense, something they deserve relatively little of IMHO these days, there really was a lot of brainy shizz going on on that court from the moment that it started getting really rough for a stretch the second half. These were two experienced teams with wily coaches that knew how to dish it out and take it, and do a lot of simultaneous fouling that the refs could not possibly call double fouls on often enough to stop the exploits. All that roughness was to referees kind of like both coaches and their teams laying a heavy smoke screen on a battlefield before the real advancing and clashing of combat took place for all the marbles down the stretch. Both coaches appeared rather macho about all of this. Self and Kruger were, after all, playing for the Okie Ball Crown, and they didn't want the contest decided in the end by a bunch of bungling referees of dubious objectivity in the current age. Self and Kruger appeared to be saying, we'll both foul so much that you striped weasels will have to swallow your whistles down the stretch, and we men of Okie Honor, will then coach and have our teams play the game the way it was meant to be played, so help us, Iba.
By the time the smoke screen was cleared, the refs were completely bamboozled by two of the craftiest coaches in the game today. Sometimes I almost thought Self and Kruger had jointly decided to show the NCAA and officials the level of exploits possible in their "new rules" and their old fashioned ways of enabling new rules that can be twisted into pretzels by referees come March to ensure a desirable TV product in terms of which teams advance and which are weeded out by the asymmetries of pretzel logic (are you reeling in the years?).
But no one will ever live long enough to get anyone to open up and talk candidly enough about contemporary officiating to know for sure what kind of monkey business is, or is not, going on, until there is true regime change and reform. And if there hasn't been that by now, after some of the disgraces of the last two March Madnesses, one wonders when such change could ever come, unless perhaps in the Roentgen soaked cinders and ash of Post WWIII?
Symmetrically bad officiating seems the best we can hope for, until that time, Eustiss, until that time.
While all the pro journos were shoving microphones in exhausted players' faces, and scribbling quotes from two brilliant coaches; while everyone was shaking their heads and giving ovations to Buddy Hield doing to Allen Field House what Kevin Durant once did, i.e., setting fire to one basket one half and the other basket the second half, and leaving them smoking like orange ringed Beowulf pyres on the precipice of yet another new basketball age; while persons tried to comprehend the wills of these players and coaches to never quit competing nor quit believing; jaybate 1.0, I, me, moi, yours very truly and anonymously, parachuted into the Kansas River, drove the Navy’s latest iteration of George Greenough’s attack rescue boat to Mass Street Bridge, off loaded a black mil spec stealth dirt bike on steroids and wheelied in Navy Seal black wear, waited on Daisy Hill until the locker rooms were empty, the coaches were driving home, the players were trying to comprehend what they had just participated in, and then I sneaked into the Field House via the underground tunnel system known only to a very few. The tunnel system is accessed by wheeling to Naismith’s grave, chanting Gertie’s Sex Palace (code for Gertrude Sellers Pierson Hall once upon a rhyme) 11 times at the grave of James Naismith, waiting for the stone to swing aside and reveal a down stair case, by then taking that staircase to a sandstone tunnel that extends all the way from grave under a Daisy Hill dorm I cannot name, to a guilt ceilinged vault with a giant crimson K on its highest point, located directly under center court of Allen Field House where the holy grail of college basketball remains under vigilant guard, and where, I, jaybate 1.0, me, moi, and yours very truly in anonymity, held an imitation ball point pen from Amazon that is actually a recording device to be used on bosses screwing you out of your retirement benefits, and began asking the old field house the tough question that no other pro journos have ever been willing to ask the biggest barn on the inland coast of the ocean of grass at:
Latitude: 38.9553221
Longitude: -95.2529378.
Commence interview transmission…
jaybate 1.0: So, Mr. Field House, or is it Mrs? Inquiring board rats want to know.
Allen Field House: Neither, just call me Armory Architecture, or AA for short.
j: Alright AA, i've wanted to interview you, since I was a little boy being taken to games here when I was 7 and you were only 4. Do you remember that? I am older than you.
A: Man, that is old. But do I ever! I remember you holding onto your pops big, warm hand with the gold Hamilton on the wrist and you spilling pop corn into my dirt floor, and crawling under a section of the old raised, rolling, sectional court--the one your brother played on later in a high school state championship game on.
j: And lost to Wyandotte. You know, my bro said your floor had a lot of dead spots where the ball didn't bounce true.
A: Nothing is perfect. And you’ve written about this fixation on that loss to Wyandotte before, so let’s move on from that, shall we? (Author [DFW/RIP] nods.) But I've gotten a lot better over the years. I’ve gotten a new ‘do as it were. New floor that bounces true, after that one horrendous artificial one the mortals tried. New scoreboards. New bleachers and some new benches, what your father used to call basketball pews. More banners. Some building appendages that diminish my regal bearing and obscure my grandeur, but sharply enhance the fan experience and player practice and living standards, while stroking the egos of a few fat cats. The statuary is still not what it should be, but the endearing pictures of old KU greats have been augmented by still more in more distinguished display, plus a goodly array of trophy hardware is now properly exhibited for young boys to ogle and dream of contributing to, as you once did. (AA exhales.) Where as you have just gotten older.
j: Touche, AA. But now let's get down to brass tacks, shall we?
A: By all means.
j: Was this game tonight one of the best ever played in you?
A: No question.
j: Was it the best game ever played in you?
A: That is a naive question, even for the one they call long winded and redundant.
j: I don't think its naive. I think everyone in Jayhawk nation wonders the same thing tonight. Was it the best game ever played in you? Was it the best game ever played in you?
A: Do you think you can handle the truth?
j: Wait a minute, you're not @HighEliteMajor are you? He uses that line from "A Few Good Men" once in a while? Heck, we all do from time to time.
A: No, of course not. I am The Monarch of the Midlands. The House that Wilt Built. The Man-Up Monastery in Basketball Tibet. But of course I do try to keep up with the jargon of the times, as all the improvements I just itemized attest.
j: So, lay the truth on me, AA.
(Long intercoursing pause by the greatest arena ever built to play the greatest game ever invented.)
A: Every great game you have ever seen in me is a window into eternity—basketball eternity—some even say the real big E Eternity—for those that grok the living myth that is KU basketball. It is a glimpse from this mortal coil of wars for control of the Eurasia center point strategy, it is a glimpse into now and always, to Kansas and forever, to the intersection of sport and the timeless. A deep 40 minute guarantied with unlimited 5 minute options look into The Big Sacred, if you will.
j: (getting a little weak in the knees) I see.
A: (another long pause.) You have shamed me and yourself.
j: (dry washing and in a hypnotic monotone) I…am…not…worthy…oh…great…one.
A: You predicted Unibrow and the University of Oklahoma would come in here and defeat me and my coach, and my players, and so the entirety of the KU basketball legacy and the greatest game ever invented. What have you to say for yourself?
j: I, uh, I had a weak moment?
A: There is no greater basketball sin thaN predicting a home court loss in Basketball Tibet THAT DOES NOT COME TRUE. I spaketh to you as a child of 7 once. And you heard me. And you have never betrayed the living myth once in your life until now. You have never not believed in my awesome powers. You have never not believed that amazing things happen in this building of stone and mortar and girders and steel plate and finely cut and finished wood in a Golden Rectangle with the black lines handed down to mere mortals by the great basketball god that is beyond even me.
j: There’s something beyond even you?
A: SILENCE!
j: (knees knocking) Ok, ok.
A: Silence means no talking, long winded one selected as a very small child specifically by me to be an irreverent medium for my deep message that you have now tarnished!
j: I, I, I, I could repent, or something. Surely, there is forgiveness in a living myth. I could ask Zenger, or CBernie for their rosary beads and take a Berlitz course in Latin and…
A: SILENCE!!!!
j: Ok, ok, ok…(makes exaggerated zipper motion right to left over pursed lips)
A: (The silence of his Basketball Immenseness weighing jaybate 1.0’s basketball soul) Looking deep within you, to the point where your sniveling insignificance in the grand scheme of hoop things connects up with basketball eternity, I find genuine contrition, true sorrow, wailing, and a vow never to let down the living myth of the KU basketball legacy ever, EVER again.
j: Y-y-yea, that’s it,
that’s the way, uh-huh, uh-huh,
I like it…
A: Now shake your booty like Queen Latifah after a long diet of Jenny Craig.
j: (booty shaking, twisting, alligatoring, giving way to slam dancing, giving way to rap hand gestures and splits, giving way to Walking Like an Egyptian, giving way to moon walking, giving way to Macarena, giving way to Drop that Nae Nae) uh-huh uh-huh…
A: You are now back in the flow of The Dance of life as we know it.
j: uh-huh uh-huh…
A: You will now ask me no more foolish questions.
j: that’s the way…
A: You will doubt no more.
j: uh-huh uh-huh…
A: You will resume bringing my message to the board rats.
j: I like it…
(AUTHOR'S POST SCRIPT: I AM SAVED!!!! I AM SAVED!!!!!!!! THE LIVING MYTH SAVETH ALL!!!!)
I have tried, but I can't pick a key moment for me. It was like the game evolved into epic match of counter punchers and both teams had answers and counters to everything the other coach and team did until one time, 55 minutes in the score was not tied!!!
Incredible game.
Best epic game I ever saw, where neither team could shoot a good FG percentage, but could make treys!!!!! That is one weird combination.
Iba, Eddie and Jack were up in heaven loving D so tough no one could score inside efficiently and nodding that if guys can make treys like THAT, well, the long ball has its place!!!!
Shoot a trey
Some one send paramedics to @HighEliteMajor.
Saved by a Trey!
Hield insane
6-0 Frank is being an absolute man guarding 6-6 Hield.