Reflections on Feline Hair Removal
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Each year, a chorus sounds. It chants that Wilhelm Self aka the combined William Tell and Lone Ranger of basketball coaches and their overtures, cannot split the Honeycrisp apple yet again, cannot possibly replace the lost 18-23 year old players; that “last season” was the end of his run; that the returning and incoming players will not be able to replace the lost accord with cord-ripping efficiency, lost liberty tosses at the NGO-stripe, the vaporization of carom-ization, the atomization of trifectation, the loss of havoc wreaking ability to denude opponents of the cattle bladder, the incoming resistance to instances of willing assistance, the pop-tarting ratio falling below bakery standards, the Adolph’s meat tenderization and Baylorization due to lost toughness, the rise of insouciant basketball IQs, and, or course, the inevitable arrival of some that–if they play more than mop up minutes–KU cannot possibly be a contender with.
To the following short list of American inevitabilities of death, taxes, and Deep State coups, one should add the following.
SELF. CANNOT. RELOAD. AGAIN.
These four words are increasingly the basketball equivalents of “The American republic is finished,” “Dewey Wins!”, “God is dead,” “Truth is dead,” “This is the end of history ,” “Mission accomplished in Iraq,” “Hilary will be the next President,” and, finally, “the high ranking public officials and the pedophile ring that serves them will be arrested and imprisoned FOREVER.”
Some things, good, or bad, just don’t seem to happen, even when it seems VERY likely.
Bill Self has been on the ropes more times than boxer’s sweat.
So: why haven’t time, and the river, and the apparent petroshoeco-agency complex, put him on the coaching canvas?
I could give you a lot of sophisticated explanations and technical jargon of where the hat rabbits keep coming from, but that triggers perspiration on @JayhawkFanToo, and then the gaslighting starts and then I have to start handwringing and feeling all self- and Self-doubting to be a good team player in workouts here in the logonasium.
So: let me put it the way Grammie Jaybate 1.0 put it over a hunter’s breakfast one 5:30 am, when she was outta the milk I asked for my oat meal, while seated in my dad’s canvas duck hunting vest, at the long table in the huge kitchen full of coffee and frying bacon smells in the big white house with the huge porch surrounded by giant Elm trees in the small eastern Kansas town, not long before the Dutch Elm disease took most of them.
“Fortunately, there’s more than one way to skin a cat,” she said.
And that was when I got my first taste of heavy cream on oatmeal instead of milk.
Then and there, the substitution principle was introduced to me by a resourceful Main Streeter who was old enough to remember Tee Pees at the edge of town as a small girl.
She skinned cats different ways for me many times.
When my boot lace broke, she laced it up with twine and said it will hold till I can go to the store tomorrow.
When my pants tore another time and the grown up hunters were threatening to leave with out me, she just stapled my jeans and said, “It will hold till you get home and I can sew them for you.”
When I didn’t like the Brussel Sprouts she made, she threw a bunch of brown sugar on them and said, “I don’t blame you. They’re not very good. But you like brown sugar don’t you?” She covered them in brown sugar. “Try that!” And I did and I got’em down.
When I awoke from a nightmare as a child and she got there before my folks did, and she said, “What is it?” and I said I dreamed of giant tornadoes with jack’o’ lantern heads throwing me back and forth between them, she said, “Did they drop you?” Well, no, I said, clinging to her. “Well, then it woulda been a lotta fun to fly around like that, if you had known you were safe. You oughtta try to go back to sleep and see if you can get’em to play catch with ya again.” And I did.
Now, trust your basketball Tonto here.
Jay Silverheels with a keyboard is typing to you, hand wringers.
Basketball, like grandmothering, is a game with many approaches to feline hair removal.
Bill Self is creative and determined, like Grammie Jaybate 1.0.
Hence 25-30 wins are possible yet again, so is a title, so is a March run, even if he has to staple some shorts and shirts together for awhile.
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The title caught my attention. Much the fan of bald cats. And a fan of reloading, too.
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Reloading is best.
Shorn Maine Coons are the default.
Rock Chalk and good to hear from you.
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Self is a master reloader. Always competitive.
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The guy has more resilience than a zektron Super Ball!
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I think this year we could be underrated. This is a retro year, where Bill finally has some size down low. I am watching Preston closely, and I’m liking what I’m seeing. He is several years older than your avg freshman, and won’t get pushed around down low, like bragg did the past 2 years.
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@KUSTEVE Where are you watching Preston? Pickup games, video…
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@jaybate-1.0 25-30 wins? My foot! Thirty one!
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I was trying not to put too much pressure on Self, but ok–30 to 38!
We live in an inflated age.
30 to day equals 20 back when Self started coaching at ORU.
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@stoptheflop I was watching video from camp yesterday. It’s on Youtube.
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Link for the lazy, ie me?
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@Crimsonorblue22 oops…
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@KUSTEVE gone! No big deal
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Danke @KUSTEVE
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In the video, I love the way Preston takes Whitman completely out of the play down low with an enormous butt shove. That’s how you box out, kids. Yes, it was probably a foul, but so nice to see somebody on our team down low that means business.
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Ya know, I think every sports fan site has a jaybate to wax rhapsodic and use his left hemisphere and deep cells to come up with posts like this, right??
(WROOOOOONG)
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@jaybate-1.0 Aw, shucks, Self’s salary demands ultimate pressure from the Jayhawk community. If he can’t produce at least one more win than 30, then you will be forced to recuse yourself to allow me to step up as special prosecutor. Now that he is figuring out how to stock + win THE ADIDAS WAY we should all just kick back to enjoy the production. (That being said, if Wily Bill should take up adversarial early morning tweeting, then I plan to abort my current claim to super fandom. One of the facets which I cherish most about our current coach is that he stays quiet or remarkably sane and sensible in front of a mic or reporter’s urgent newsmaking.)
