Thoughts on the Hawks
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Doke played 13 minutes.Did we only win because we shot 55% threes? What I find most interesting is that with so little time the big guy was out there we only shot 20 threes. Garrett reminds of Vick last year. I think they both go full blast and want to do whatever it takes for a W. I’m hopeful that Vick isn’t a repeat of Seldon but if takes a while longer i see him putting out any way possible. Remember it took Perry a while. He looked slow, couldn’t jump or finish, but we hated to lose him because his senior year you could count on him every game. The announcers were astonished with Mitch-- short corner swish, a three and clutch freethrows. Sam gave a good 11 minutes-- a basket and 2 freethrows. I’m still giving Malik the benefit of doubt— injured, trying too hard.
Would we have a better record if Billy had played all season? Probably. Could this long drawn out investigation be a blessing? Yes, thanks NCAA!
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@Gunman I thought DTG was great once again, shot well, drove to the hoop and hit fts. Vick wasn’t great but had some nice plays, didn’t score much but really didn’t need to with the way others did. Garrett had some big rebounds but man the opposing defense can just ignore he’s out there, had several plays that he stood at the 3 point line and had no one within 8-10 feet of him. He drove it and got two charges called on him because they know he has no threat to hit jump shots. Svi hasn’t been talked about much after this one all the dude did was hit 5 3s. When he’s on, he’s a cold blooded killer on the road. Doke was a beast early and most likely has a career night if not for foul trouble. Hard to complain about 14 points in 13 minutes but I bet we would’ve won bye quiet a bit more if he had been out there just from the law of averages with his size for rebounding. Sam is coming along nice, you can definitely see his athletic ability. Mitch had his best game as a jayhawk, games like this can happen for him in the future bye just playing hard. He reminds me a lot of Jamari Traylor with a better jumper, was happy to see him get big minutes and make plays. Malik, I really don’t know what to think of him at this point. He looks selfish at times and hasn’t found any type of rhythm on the court and could see his minutes continue to go down if he can’t figure it out. He totaled just 1 point and 4 fouls on the stat sheet in 15 minutes. A lot guys have harped on him and he hasn’t played well but if he can grow, he’ll be a big part of where we go in March.
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@kjayhawks I wish more people would look at what we have rather than what could have been. If Preston had a season ending injury before the first game wouldn’t most be satisfied with the record we have today?
Coaches are better, players are bigger, stronger, more athletic than even ten years ago. The playing field has leveled; look at what happened yesterday in the top 25.
All I expect of players is give 100%, listen to your coaches and be thankful you are a Jayhawk!
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DG was awesome! However, he did have 3-4 “Nadir” type turnovers (aka. silly, for no good reason, wft was that.) LOL
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@hawkmoon2020 to many minutes?
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@Crimsonorblue22 maybe 3 of them. 1 was just plain too complacent.
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Minus the muggings of DG, he played maybe one of his best games. He didn’t play well, he played tough. He was beat up. This is the toughness that Self wants. He stepped up and won this game from the FT line.
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In a narrow 4 point win there are many ways to look at drivers of victory, but I like to think about two first.
- A change in several variables could have left us with a Loss. Examples…
–5 fewer offensive rebounds, and so 5 fewer second shots, since we were making around 50% inside the stripe would likely have put us behind. We have been such a poor rebounding team that this is one very likely way we would have lost this game maybe 3 out of 4 times.
–We only needed to make two fewer treys and we would have lost; that suggests a lot of sensitivity and risk of variance. We made 55% of 20 3ptas. We average almost 42% from treyville. We way overshot our tendency. It would have been VERY easy not to make 2 of the 11 treys we made. 9 of 20 would have been 45%, or still above our season average. Did we win the game largely because of abnormally high 3 point shooting? Hell, yeah! But let’s explore some more variables we could have lost and their significance and probability.
–5 fewer made FTs spread around our guys would have lost the game, but we shot 69% and without Doke in the lineup much our guys would probably be able to average close to what we actually shot, so the chances of us losing by FT variance might only happen 1 in 4 or 5 games against TCU.
–6 fewer KU blocks (stops) would likely have yielded an L.
And so on.
In this way of thinking about what made us win, it becomes apparent that unfavorable change of as little as 1-2 in only 3-4 categories listed above would have lead us to a loss. Such a slight change is getting into random error territory. This means our victory was not based on superior play, but on a lucky break in the random error factor.
This is why in close games its not enough just to make big plays at the end. Playing even just a little harder and smarter in all phases of the game, so that you tip everyone of the categories just a little farther in your favor is really how you steal wins at home, or away, in close games. Getting the scoring spread into random error territory is also how lesser teams beat better teams. Fail to play a little harder and a little smarter and the opportunity to make a big play at the end to eliminate unfavorable breaks in random error will vanish.
But as I noted, there is another way to look at close games and what drove the win, or at least drove the game to be close enough to be settled by the luck of random error.
- Divide 2pts, 3pts and FTs into a pie chart and attribute winning to the most points and compare that to the opposing team. The biggest disparity between KU and TCU scoring by category is what won it.
KU
2pt 32 points 36%
3pt 33 points 37%
FT 23 points 26%
Total 88 points 100%
TCU
2pt 36 points 43%
3pt 27 points 32%
FT 21 points 25%
Total 84 points 100%
–TCU was +4 in 2pt scoring. TCU defeated KU inside the stripe. –KU was +2 in FTs, but that still left TCU with a 2 point edge. –KU was +6 from treyville. Three point scoring gave KU a winning margin.
CONCLUSION:
In the first way of looking at the game, 3 point shooting was a huge driver because KU was so far above its average in 3pt shooting, but the closeness of the game meant that the number of variables that could have easily have moved by just 1-2 units and altered the game outcome indicated that the most decisive driver of victory was likely random error.
In the second way of looking at the game, TCU beat KU inside the trey stripe and KU narrowed that advantage at the FT line. But the deciding factor was KU’s awesome 55% 3pt shooting on 20 attempts.
Either way, the 3 point ball played a big part in KU’s victory.
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@jaybate-1.0 Who was the former B10 player that called the game? He was a little biased. I loved his Capt Obvious comment, “live by the three and die by the three…” Really? He is a genius. I think the trey helped, but I think what gave KU the edge was sinking FTs. If they hit more FTs, this game wouldn’t been so close.
What I want to know is where in the hell did Fisher come from…geesh. He was non-existent in the OU game.
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Live by the 3 and die by the 3 is a heuristic aka a rule of thumb.
Heuristics help us remember important things, but they rarely help someone understand why they are true.
I hope what I outlined above helps someone appreciate what underlies such a time tested heuristic.
Live by the 3 and die by the 3.
Another one is: make your Free Throws or live to regret it.
Another one is: Miss your bunnies and miss your chance.
My old high school coach had a million heuristics.
I hope what I laid out above explains in the simplest possible quantation why each of these heuristics, and others, have lasting significance to the game.
Rock Chalk!
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truehawk93 said:
Minus the muggings of DG, he played maybe one of his best games. He didn’t play well, he played tough. He was beat up. This is the toughness that Self wants. He stepped up and won this game from the FT line.
I think this is a really super distillation of Devonte’s game against TCU and his crucial contribution to our winning it. Thanks for sharing it.
