@truehawk93 No signing of Hos or Moose yet.
mayjay
7180 posts
@BShark Is that a shot of the bench or a dance routine on SNL?
@wissox I really liked that article. Much more balanced than I expected from Mellinger. And his bottom line to Huggins amounted to: Prove it or suck it up. Liked that!
@JayHawkFanToo Let's agree to drop it from here. And not take it elsewhere.
@BShark Tech is not entitled to have all the stars align.
Blake Griffin is the only person who has a legit grievance against Fate. The imbalanced schedule about a decade ago meant we only had to play OU once each year of his 2 years. His first year (2008), major knee injury 5 mins into the game. Next year (2009), he misses only our game with a concussion. Those two games are a major part of our luck in keeping the streak going.
WE are entitled to have stars aligned!
@wissox You obviously don't know how to create unbelievable scenarios. I think people would have laughed even harder had you predicted a few things much more impossible than the ones you listed--like an imbalance of, say, 35 to 2 in FT attempts.
You will have to let your imagination range a little broader...
Bothers me not a whit.
@kjayhawks Most agencies. So long as influence and money determine who leads agencies, rather than expertise, they will not perform properly. This has been a problem under both parties.
BAWK! bawk bawk bawk bawk BAWK!
@JayHawkFanToo A good reputation under Hoover was undeserved. Thus, the word "historians" in my post.
JFK had an undeserved general reputation as the All American cookie cutter husband with a beautiful wife. It is now known to have been as mythical as the Camelot whose name was used for the WH.
Reputations change as more facts come out. Unless you disagree, I hope you are not proud of the FBI's work at Hoover's behest to destroy lives and blackmail his opponents.
The argument, "The FBI may have been a tool of a power-mad fascist, but people didn't know it because we were ignorant, so wow! what a great reputation it had!" is absurd.
Fran could learn something by watching tape of Bilas taking down the refs for not calling opponents' fouls at AFH.
@drgnslayr said "my memory stinks"
I forgot Wooden's name today.....
@kjayhawks The interest in OU is still high enough (due to Trae) to overcome a record that is spiraling down--probably enough to take them from the first or second four out to the last four in. (In contrast, LSU still wasn't good enough to get Simmons to the Dance.) If OU can't get any signature wins from here on (KU, WVU, TT) the percentage will drop fast. On the edge now.
Texas Hawk 10 said:
@mayjay If it's like the 1st half, they won't win a game.
Gotta wonder if cardiologists monitor coaches constantly, or conduct studies to see how they live through this crap!
@HighEliteMajor You are imagining things if you think I conceded that. I think a few political appointees went wacky and made some really bad decisions to please certain politicos. I do not see the top to bottom problems that occur with corruption-riddled organizations.
@Texas-Hawk-10 And if they play like the first half?
@jaybate-1.0 I suspect most professional coaches feel that if you give enough internet bandwidth to enough monkeys--er, uh, fans--tapping on innumerable tablets and phones, eventually one of them will transmit an electronic message containing a piece of wisdom that looks like it sprang from the pages of Allen's or Rupp's or Wooden's notebooks.
God sure works in mysterious ways. Using Trae Young to make it harder for KU to continue the streak because that KU loss to OU helps put TTech in such a strong position. The part where Trae knew God wanted OU to win the conference must have been a misprint.
Even if all B12 teams routinely flame out before the F4, no other coaches are thrilled to see B12 teams in their brackets.
@JayHawkFanToo For FBI historians, the all-time low is more likely to have been found in their participation in J Edgar's personal vendettas, his antiSemitic campaigns against Einstein and others, the anti-communist witch hunts, and the initial FBI resistance to civil rights investigations.
On Universities being the victims, that is the alleged crux of jurisdiction. I don't think everyone is thinking schools are relieved this is happening.
@HighEliteMajor On the respective quotes by the coaches, Roy can say things like that because after the fake class scandal resulted in no findings, he knows UNC has permanent immunity for everything. Self lives in perpetual fear after two NCAA investigations that resulted in no findings nevertheless resulted in losing two five-star players.
On your first post with the question to me, I think the issue may depend on what kids and families sign to get their scholatships. Like a falsified mortgage application can result in federal charges. I do not know if athletes fill out federal financial aid applications to get their grants-in-aid. If so, federal interest is easily proven.
Interestingly, the move to get additional stipends to players may result in more player vulnerability because they actually receive money with those stipends. In many scholarship arrangements, the "private" Athl Dept simply arranges the enrollment with the school and the scholarship exists only as accounting entries. Money changing hands always creates potential foundation for federal jurisduction.
@ParisHawk I think it is hysterical that people think the FBI opened an investigation 2 years ago to give them cover from allegations of conflicts of interest arising out of other investigations. Sort of a bigger version of the Tarkanian Cleveland State theory.
"Hey, we might have done something wrong here. A few upper level political appointees are gonna get in trouble for making decisions about their friends' invesstigations."
"Um, okay, let's go after college basketball in a big way for a couple of years but don't tell anyone. We will keep it in reserve until we need some cover."
Reality: a sports investigation will not detract from or deflect a political investigation.
And the Deep State theory for the motivation behind this investigation is even more laughable. The targets, in case anyone hasn't noticed, are universities. Deep Staters, those liberal evildoers, aren't likely to try to bring down the centers of the "Resistance."
Not everything is a plot. And if the plotters were so capable of doing it, they would just be entrenched in power, not working behind the scenes.
Anyone looking for conflicts of interest as driving anything in this investigation should probably focus on money driven influence in the NCAA instead of political connections.
@mayjay Looked up payola. Recording industry cases involved violations a
spelled out in specific laws and regs under federal communications law. So, paying to influence someone to attend a school, for example, likely would also need an underlying violated federal interest to become criminal activity.
Illegal to bring weapons onto WVU property also, but there are a number of exceptions including military, law enforcement, and so forth. The firearm might be considered an "historical item" used in an official activity or something.
But maybe not at KU! Let's bag the bastard for a test case!
@JayHawkFanToo You are pretty late to modern cheerleading, I think.
I am just wondering if the whole recording industry "payola" scandal and the prosecutions arising out of that are of a similar vein to the theories here.
@HighEliteMajor "The only reason – and I think we all can agree on this – that we would feel that we are immune is our unquestioning faith in Bill Self’s character. A quality of person that I believe is too strong and ethical to look the other way."
True about him, but I think most of us worry about some of the players' (and their families') susceptibility to temptation more than we do the staff, and the offerings to them by agents, boosters or other outsiders most of all.
@wissox Congrats! Big victory. (Although you are correct that most of us don't intrinsically care, we care a little because you care so much!) (But it would not be the same if you were, say, a Duke or Syracuse fan....)
@JayHawkFanToo Paying someone to commit fraud on someone else may be the theory--inducement to a crime. But whether an athlete's family commits any crime if the kid doesn't know may be an issue. If someone not signing the financial aid documents takes the money, it seems problematic at best.
BShark said:
@JayHawkFanToo Sure but he shouldn't be on the hot seat. It would be like saying Self should be on the hot seat. Also Cal does have a lot of FFs.
He has two less than he has. :boom:
@jaybate-1.0 said "Mount the Mountaineers!"
Just FYI:
Ain't mountin' no Mount'neers.
@chriz Interesting twist in there: AAU local program director accepted $150K from undercover FBI agent to funnel money to a recruit. Gets indicted as part of the whole corruption/bribery thing.
Charges now dropped because he never gave the dough to the kid. Kept it instead! So, stiffing an attempted briber is apparently a legal source of income!!
@JayHawkFanToo Probably! The correct answer, however, is a conversation between any two congresspersons of opposite political parties. Don't know whatchyall were thinkin'......
What do you get when you have a back and forth between someone who always wants the last word and someone who refuses to acknowledge any narrative other than his own?
@dylans Uh oh! Thanks. I knew I had it wrong but my search came back empty. I retract my suggestion in that case!
Fightsongwriter said:
@KUSTEVE @jaybate-1-0 So here is an interesting thought, if Bill Self were a current poster on KU Buckets, what alias would he currently be operating under?
Well, he may not be current, but perhaps --
Didn't see any cancers, either.
BShark said:
ISU fans as expected more excited that TTU won than mad about their own loss. They just really want anyone but us to win the league. So deep in their head.
The whole league probably feels that when we finally lose, it will be more wide open every year.
@jaybate-1.0 I think it would be hard for anyone to distill all of our various contradicting opinions into one winning formula!
Maybe they will announce that they are giving free tickets to Buckets members to our final home game this year, with a special pregame meeting with the team so we can give them all the advice they desperately need to win the conference!
@drgnslayr Freshman status of even high talent is always probably a good reason to keep our optimism at reasonable levels. But with the other major newbies to the rotation (Lawsons) expected to be major contributors, hopefully their experience at Memph and their RS practice status will help them avoid too much adjustment disorder (Moore, too). Malik is still adjusting, though.
@jaybate-1.0 Wow, lots of information there and non-theories dispelled!
But now I am worried about what there is to not ask questions about, both about KUBB and everything else.
@jaybate-1.0 I have been both punched in the eye and hit by a line drive in the eye. It isn't as much fun as it looks.
@JayHawkFanToo Maybe if there are too few, the walkons would start clamoring.
Do we have any walkons? I remember a couple of walkaways....
@jaybate-1.0 Maybe everyone is just trying too hard to assume the blame, so they punch themselves in their eyes to obtain a mouse of dishonor they can see in the mirror to remind them to do better?
@wissox Well, at least you have had KU's exciting and consistently excellent season to keep your basketball juices flowing--uh, oops, never mind.....
:upside_down:
@justanotherfan @HighEliteMajor
The biggest difference between this team and 2012 is thst virtually everybody who played in 2012 had been on the team played together for two or more years. Tyshawn and Conner (RS/5th yr) were seniors, and Withey (RS/3rd yr), TRob, EJ, and Travis (RS/4th yr) were all juniors. So the core 6 players were all upperclassmen with 22 years in the program. [Our only freshman was Tharpe, who did not have to shoulder any responsibility except an occasional few minutes to give someone a rest. Our subs were Wesley (RS/4th yr) and Young (jr, transfer).]
Contrast that to this year. Our top 7 players have 18 total years in the program. Only DG, Svi, and Vick have any significant time playing together, and Vick's and Lightfoot's freshman minutes barely count, and Doke missed more than half of his.
The 2012 team was a collection of pieces that had learned over several years how to mesh, with significant leadership up front and in the backcourt. The team bonded in circumstances that hopefully this team doesn't have to when TRob's grandfather and mother died in a two week period. It was really a unique group that accomplished more than expected (as judged by so-called talent evaluation as HS players) because of that chemistry in how they complemented each other.
The current team is a mismatched group that is still struggling to mesh gears. A senior who has had to change from wingman to leader, another senior who is a marksman trying to learn how to drive, a junior who would love to just swing outside but whose role has to change every time the big men (or single man mostly) can't take care of the frontcourt resonsibilities, another wing who is trying to relearn being an alpha after trying too hard initially to defer to his elders, etc etc etc.
I think our biggest problem, and it surprises me to realize this, is that Self has tried way too hard to try to achieve team meshing by desperately trying to force it. I think he should have made his PT decisions slowly, and let the team lose as it finds its identity and the players learn how to help each other find their proper roles. Every team needs to go through growing pains as a group, and this team has had its adjustment periods disrupted. The BP situation was a kick in the teeth for over half the season in team preparation, which was a big wrench tossed into the already not-meshing gears.
But if Self had been patient we would have been hearing all that criticism about how it is unacceptable for KU to lose, and why doesn't Self do something?
@approxinfinity I read "that the American luger was a 'Soldier Athlete'" and wondered what this weird reference was to an American knockoff pistol I apparently had never heard of, and what it had to do with Olympics. Then I realized "luger" wasn't capitalized!
@Ralster Correct--NOT either/or! I think #14 is more important to think about right now because if we pull that off, we are back on the right path. If we don't, the mental determination to pull harder for a NC will be severely undermined.
Worry about our goals in order, and meet the challenges as they come. Give lesser attention to hard goals up front than dream goals later, and you are essentially saying the imminent goal isn't worthy of your best try because you are focused on something later. That is the way to nightmare endings, not dreams.