@HighEliteMajor
You’ve described Self’s approach to KU Basketball to a tee.
He appears to be playing it anyway they want that is within “the right way” that Chancellors and ADs want.
They want the shoe money more than they want a ring, so he strings the bow and fiddle so he is the decisive factor in making the most out of less roster talent than what is required each season to win a ring.
Self appears part of the dynamic, but a good part. It’s probably why he hasn’t gone to the pros.
It used to be elite schools fired coaches for not recruiting enough players for a run at a ring.
But the shoe system has changed that. It allowed him to invert that, or maybe inverted it for him.
Now he is apparently retained and praised for not having enough players, and fighting through injuries, and yet doing so great with what their willingness to compromise for the shoe money allows him.
He appears the best college coach.
There seems slim chance Coach K, Cal, and Roy could do what Self has done at KU with an adidas contract.
The more KU leadership accepts shoe money and the apparent (maybe loosening?) embargo, the more indispensable Self becomes.
They need him to make “their” apparent compromise feasible.
He just keeps banking $10M or so per.
He has apparently taken Jack Hartman’s approach at KSU in the old days to another level.
Hartman reputedly got to where he only recruited one player a year. He reputedly quit recruiting most of the time. He could beat Ted with one good player and a bunch of glue. Neither he, nor anyone else could ever get enough blue chips in Manhattan to win a ring, so he didn’t scheme to try.
Self appears to recognize he has near zero chance of winning another ring under the current shoe money regime the KU leadership compromises with for money.
So he appears not to be scheming and recruiting to win rings.
Duh.
He appears to be trying to win conference titles and over achieve to the Eight, when things break just right. Self doesn’t cry about losing at the Eight, like Roy used to.
And Self has been highly successful.
The Chancellors and ADs appear to get the game.
Everyone is happy if Self keeps it up and the minor sports keep getting funded and the seats are full and alums keep donating, and political-corporate types get seats and construction contracts and throw their influences the right way on the right appropriations votes. Capice?
Winning enough without top talent isn’t everything. It’s the only thing!
We live in compromised times to put it mildly. Innocents appear to be being murdered intermittently to enable fear stimulus necessary for Deep State (or others) spin. Other times accident actors appear to be being used to leverage the effects and signal portions of compromised law enforcement and confuse uncompromised elements of law enforcement. President Carter says we are an oligarchy, not a republic. President Trump asks why his own AG is not appointing a special prosecutor to start an investigation that might even lead to investigating a special prosecutor. A Deep State apparently refuses to comply with election results. Mainstream media reputedly makes much of the news up to serve the Deep State. Universities use not for profit spin offs to make enough “surplus” to pay huge salaries and fund minor sports with petroshoeco contracts.
None of it appears Self’s fault.
Self may even be the leper with the most fingers. He appears to be playing it anyway they want it within “right way” constraints and some guys even go to class and graduate. He appears to be sub-optimizing at a very high level given suboptimal constraints.
Self appears emblematic of the best Americans can hope for currently, at least until the hair trigger our military is reputedly on is accidentally triggered by a false reading, or an actual pre-emptive strike and changes things tragically.
He appears the best coach. He appears to try to suboptimize the “the right way.” He tries to fix his mistakes. He wins titles, but not rings nowadays, without OAD-5 star 1s and 5s, or has. He has won a ring when he had nearly as much talent as anyone. He innovates. He smiles and appears to keep things in perspective. His hair works. He has apparently mellowed some with age. So far he has appeared to separate from most of his bad influences. He has helped a lot of persons.
Rock Chalk!
