One two many beers



  • Tim Miles is the best young coach in the game right now. He doesn’t get a lot of press right now, but in a couple more years, everyone will have heard of him. I’m not sure he is KU’s type of coach, and Zenger is not enough of a visionary to go after someone like Miles, but he would be an awesome hire.



  • @SlickRockJayhawk Nebraska coach? I’ve heard good things about him. Where has he been?



  • @Crimsonorblue22 He was at CSU for 5 years or so and took them from absolutely horrible to the NCAA tournament (beat Mizzou and lost to national champs Louisville in 2013). Before that I think he was at NDSU and was always upsetting D-1 teams.



  • Agree on the Virginia coach…but what happened to that team in the BigDance? Everyone points to Virginia’s 30+ win season…but Self’s been averaging that, so anyone posting “30+” had better show more than just that. That is PRECISELY what has KU’s “realistic unrealistic fans” (to quote Self) simply wanting more than a 2nd round exit…irrespective of the conf. championship or the 30wins. So the fans themselves have narrowed the focus to those that can “do more than a 30win season”.

    Another thought would be Tad Boyle at Colorado.



  • Gregg Marshall simply would not be as tactful or choosy with his live quotes as Bill Self has been. Marshall has absolutely come across as brash and aggressive.



  • @ralster I like tad Boyle, too. Nobody measures up! If Marshall was at KU would he play WSU? Probably Missouri too! GAG! What do you think of Jacques Vaughn?



  • @ralster

    My first choice would be Brad Stevens and I don’t agree with the not able to recruit part. For a small school like Butler, he did extremely well. Butler does not get the the A-list players, they get what is left after the elite programs have had their pick. At a program like KU he would be competing for and getting top players.



  • @ralster Most of my replies to any post are satire or just straight BS, but this is the truth - if Thad Matta EVER becomes the coach of Kansas - I will have watched my last college basketball game.



  • @ralster-"Another thought would be Tad Boyle at Colorado.’

    Think he’d take it?



  • Rex Walters, making strides and doing well as a HC.

    Doc Rivers, the Clippers owner is just pushing him out.

    Cinderella picks, dark horse, slim to non and slim just left the building pick.

    Jeff Bosche



  • Donovan would be my top choice, if he’d leave Florida.

    Then Stevens.

    The Tim Miles suggestion is really interesting.



  • @nuleafjhawk Ya, personally, I’m not a big fan of Thad Matta. He has a stellar win%, but there isnt much that excites me about OhioState’s playstyle. And 2nd year bigman Jared Sullinger got exposed for not knowing what to do in a doubleteam/trap in the post, executed by Self’s veteran players in that Tourney game. That comes down to coaching and experience. I was shocked that we made Sullinger look so bad. And sent OhioState packing from the Tourney 2 straight years. Tyshawn Taylor and Elijah Johnson made Aaron Craft look BAD. As in outclassed, and outcoached.



  • Tad Boyle is a good guy. But he’s got to show a few years of DOMINANCE in his conference, with conference titles, and maybe an Elite8 AND a Final 4 run to be considered. How is his recruiting?

    KU AD’s challenge is to find someone who has “proved” something at a high level, in college ball.



  • Here’s an idea: Maybe this season’s challenges and lackluster team forces Self to either GET them up to standard, or throw other in-game elements into his own coaching (like trapping zones, or 1-3-1, or 3-2, etc…or quickly inbounding after a made bucket…to push the pace). Whatever we do, we have to do it better than we did this season.



  • @DoubleDD haven’t heard from you since your initial post! How bad was the hangover?



  • Jacque Vaughn is an interesting thought. He is a Roy guy, but I dont know what playstyle he coaches. Since he played in the NBA, surely he has a grasp of many different playstyles…maybe that fact gives him an edge?



  • @DoubleDD I think its kind of fun to speculate on who else could coach our Jayhawks team.
    Manning would be the top candidate IMO. So would Larry. I would LOVE to have him back at KU. But he is nearing the end of his tenure as a coach. Dooley would be good to have back. Ollie from UConn would be awesome. Im a big fan of Shaka. Yeah he beat us in '11 when we should have won it all but I don’t hold that against him. Dude can flat out coach and he is young. When his career ends, he will be one of the better ones.


  • Banned

    @Crimsonorblue22 I’m good 😉


  • Banned

    @Crimsonorblue22 – I’m a bit of a conspiracy theorist so sometimes a throw these scenarios around. I really believe that HCBS will never leave KU for another college job. He has found heaven and he knows it. However I do think he has an itch for the NBA game. So I do believe if the right situation presented itself and it would have to be perfect. HCBS would at the very least consider it. That is why this Thunder situation kind of bothers or at the very least makes me wonder. The Thunder are loaded so it would be a ready made team for a new coach. Not to mention Oklahoma is HCBS’s home state.

    As for potential KU coach’s if God forbid HCBS were to leave. I think it’s more about who we can’t get as it is who we can get. Meaning there is only a few coach’s we couldn’t get but every other coach couldn’t pack their bags fast enough. So here my list of coach’s we couldn’t get (and maybe don’t want).

    Coach Cal of UK – I do believe Cal would take the next big thing in a heart beat. He has no loyalty. However lets face it. Moving to KU would be lateral move for him, and he’s not a good fit for the KU faithful.

    Coach K of Duke – The Duke faithful are going to build statues of him in Duke. Do I need to say more?

    Coach Roy of UNC – Yea I’m not even going there. However I bet there is a part of Old Roy he wishes he was still coaching at KU.

    Coach Boehiem of Syracuse – The guy has been coaching there since Noah boarded the ark. He’s not going anywhere.

    Coach Izzo – Michigan st – Like HCBS he found a peace of heaven. Though I don’t think Michigan st is on the same level as KU. I do believe it would be a lateral move for Izzo.

    Well that’s it. I really can’t think of another coach that would be off limits to KU. I think even Pitno would be interested in the KU job.



  • @ralster Man, I loved Jacque Vaughn ! He was a very solid player for us and an all around good guy. Part of me would love to see him on the sidelines for us some day, but the part of me that sees his record as an NBA coach thinks maybe not.

    I don’t follow pro ball, so maybe it’s just the team that he has to work with right now. I do know that Jacque is a very smart man. He was a two time Academic All-American at Kansas and the Academic All-American of the Year in 1997.

    However, I don’t see him coaching for the Clippers in the near future…



  • I don’t think Self jumps to the NBA. He has no NBA experience, either as a player, executive, coach or assistant. I think that puts him at a significant disadvantage to other candidates like Hoiberg.

    I also think Self’s style of coaching is more suited to the college game. He’s more of a style coach than a matchup coach. The NBA is all about matchups and if you cannot exploit matchups that you have an advantage in, you will not last as an NBA coach. As we have criticized on this very board, that is probably Self’s greatest weakness as a coach.

    In the NBA, if you cannot stop a certain set, they will run that set over and over again until you either stop it or they score 1000 points on you. That’s just the way it works. College coaches never do that. They may run something once or twice, but they won’t run the exact same set over and over until the end of time just to show that you can’t stop that set. It’s rare for Self to keep feeding a player because the opposition just cannot guard that player.

    I think the other thing that would keep Self out of the NBA is job security. If he were to get a job like OKC, they would probably keep him there for a few years, but if he didn’t win within 2-3 years, there would be a lot of pressure on him. Durant and Westbrook are both 25. Ibaka is 24. If you go 3 more years without a title all of those guys will be closing in on 30. You aren’t going to get much help in the draft because you will always be in the playoffs, so if you can’t win with those guys, you are probably headed for a rebuild.



  • @nuleafjhawk

    The Orlando Magic, the house Dwight Howard built…and tore down. Have you seen the Magic roster? Hard to win with a team where the two top players are Arron Afflalo and Jameer Nelson and their top PF is Kyle O’Quinn (he of Norfolk State beats MU fame), and whose entire payroll is less than the combined salary of James and Wade .

    Considering the players he has, it is amazing the Magic win any games at all.



  • @JayHawkFanToo so what’s your opinion of Jacque Vaughn for a coach?



  • @justanotherfan

    I think you nailed it on Self, and his potential in the league. He’s a college coach, and it is a different game than the next level. He would have to loosen his concepts of being a teacher of a rigid style and convert to being a coach that does whatever it takes to win.

    Everything gets exposed in the league. A small weakness in your system gets pounded over and over again (just as you stated in your post).

    If there is a college coach that is trying to groom his coaching towards the NBA it would be Calipari. He’s changed his approach in the last few years and he doesn’t count on any one thing to develop success (except for recruiting the best talent he can). He builds his scheme on what he has, not on a rigid format. I’m still not sure he has the needed seasoning to make it in the league. As you stated, it does help having plenty of experience and his experience in the league was short and sour.

    Coaches like Hoiberg and Ollie are coaches I would expect to make the jump soon (and possibly succeed). Fred’s game is all NBA.

    Most of the legendary college coaches… Coach K, Izzo, Donovan… I think Donovan played one bench year for the Knicks… that is the total experience of NBA basketball. Self doesn’t add experience to that mix. All these guys are college coaches and I wouldn’t give any of them much of a chance to make it in the league.

    Hoiberg had 10 years in the league. Ollie played… what… 15 years in the NBA? Both of these guys could coach 360s around all those legendary college coaches.



  • @Crimsonorblue22

    He has had Gregg Popovich as his mentor. He ended his career at San Antonio and was hand picked by Popovich to be his assistant, so he obviously must have seen something in him and I think that with decent personnel he could be very successful; he is a bright individual. I think he would be a leading contender when Self retires, no question about it.



  • @JayHawkFanToo good to hear! Don’t hear much about him. I do know a bright point guard is generally a good coach! I wish we could hear more about our ex Jhawks. Thx!





  • @Crimsonorblue22

    Excellent read… thanks!



  • @drgnslayr

    You articulated my points better than I did!

    Preparation in the NBA is key. For example, look at Memphis and Oklahoma City playing in the playoffs right now.

    Tonight’s matchup between those two teams will be the 18th game between them since November 2012 (just 18 months ago). 4 regular season games each season because they are in the same division, plus 5 games in last year’s playoffs and 4 more so far this year going into tonight. That’s familiarity. Gasol, Randolph, Conley, Prince, Allen, Davis, Durant, Westbrook, Ibaka, Collison, Jackson, Fisher, Sefolosha, have played in most of those games. The stuff that work in Game 3 of last year’s playoffs has been analyzed and shut down by now.

    In college, you see a team at most 4 times in a season. It’s unlikely you would see a team more than 10 times in a 4 year career in college. All of the preparation is general because you are preparing to face general opponents - Texas today, TCU next Wednesday, West Virginia on Saturday, with generic players that don’t necessarily have otherworldly skills. In the NBA you have OKC (and Durant) tonight in the regular season, Carmelo and the Knicks two days from now, on the road for Lebron and the Heat this weekend before swinging through and facing Atlanta and Charlotte on a back to back next week. And you have to prepare for every specific opponent because even though Durant, Carmelo and Lebron are all SF, they have different offensive games and if you try to use the same gameplan to stop all three chances are two of them shred you. In the playoffs, you see the same team over and over, so you have to adapt your gameplan every night. It’s just a different preparation (and pressure) and I don’t think Self’s coaching style or skills play to that.

    The only coach that has been successful at both consistently has been Larry Brown, and I can’t figure out how he pulls that off.


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