Moore
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Moore came with some hype from USC(?). I thought many had Moore pegged as the next pg after DG. It seems most on this board simply sees him as a solid backup pg to Dotson. We shall see exactly how quickly Dotson picks up the most important role in a fairly complex offense. I could see Moore buying Dotson some time to learn Self’s system. We all know Self will baptize Dotson with fire during the pre-season. Dotson seems to fit Self’s pg mold and Moore will simply be ready to supplement Dotson.
I will be curious to see where Dotson is as a pg when the first conference game rolls around. But, Self will rely on Grimes and Langford(?) to take some of the ball handling from Dotson. Let’s hope Dotson comes in and learns immediately, and becomes a key piece to the offense. We will also see much more inside play too with our 4 and 5 too than last year. Doke saw a lot, but not nearly enough. The 4 is going to be another key to the offense. I hope Silvio and KandDLawson will be a huge threat at the 4. Our 4 was a non-factor or even present. This last year it was 1,2,3, and 5. We had 5 players but we had no 4 presence at all.
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The game has changed.
There are no short treys in the Carney against the Nike-EST teams anymore.
No more running and jumping like young men flying off trampolines to score amazing dunks and banks. The days of Dr. J have gone to the same ash heap as the 2-hand set shot and the mid range J.
Using athleticism to create short treys and impact plays is the old way to play.
Athleticism is now about adding range to 40% accuracy beyond the semicircle.
Conference titles after 14 don’t matter anymore. The record is broken. Now it’s about playing for rings in a Carney of apparent asymmetries.
You can go as far as a two seed, as you can as a 1 seed, if you are loaded with trey guns and 2 bigs that can drain treys too.
But no rings for driving, pirouetting, leaping athleticism.
Athleticism without a trey is like a day without sunshine.
Is Moore a 40% 3pt shooter with up to 28 feet range?
Can he place the pass to the hands at the optimal position to go up for three?
No more lobbing jams either. Too low of a percentage.
Only passes to wide open dunks.
And to wide open treys.
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Balance between treys and twos?
We don’t need no stinking balance.
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North Carolina literally won the title last year with a very average three point shooting team.
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@BShark Ya, I was proud to actually see a Roy team actually win a grinder with rebounding, toughness, and D, and this despite Justin Jackson literally almost shooting his own team outta the gym. He jacked up some of the worst looking 3atts Ive ever seen. Yet UNC won despite him (NC game, but JJ certainly helped them get there). It didn’t even get a Roy-coat-unfurl/toss…
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@BShark That was two years ago, ‘Nova won last year. This year it’s the Hawks to lose! Game on! …damn it’s going to be a long off season.
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I might add from my earlier post that Garrett isn’t too bad either. I think he will make a huge improvement into next year. Garrett handled the ball and his first year should provide some momentum for next season. Look for Garrett to become a taller and maybe more versatile Aaron Miles in the upcoming season. Garrett is such a quiet, fundamental, and steady contributor for this team.
Also, a correction to my earlier post. I realized he transferred from Cal not USC…
I also went back to review his time at Cal. He’s a little like DG.
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Why Garrett played over Cunliffe is like a litmus test for understanding basketball.
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DMac is a freakin’ man-child…CRAP, he’s gonna be a beast. If we keep Doke for 1 more yr, we will have the most dominate inside presence of CBB.
The one thing that jumps out to me is his short game. He’s not bad 6-7 feet from the rim. He’s got a nice touch away from the rim.
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Moore’s game seems more Frank M than Devonte G. Finishes well at the rim with either hand, using his body to create or get into space. His game also seems more drive to shoot than drive to pass. That was early FM too. What he seems to do better maybe than either of them is to hit the runner. Of course, feel like we just watched his every scoring play from the year. Any other types of highlights? No assists?
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Ochai reminds me of KLangford. I still think, no disrespect to OA at all, but a redshirt would allow him to adjust and come in his second season as maybe one of the most dominate players in bball. I think a redshirt would make him even better and more hungry. We just don’t quite need him. I just don’t see him sniffing the court if we get RLangford. Again, NOTHING against OA at ALL. Either way he’ll be good, but let’s face it, most of these recruits are playing against average to slightly below average competition accept on the AAU circuit.
Notice in the dunk drill at the line? He has to take a power dribble. To me, this is a bad habit that many college players create and it carries over into games. He has to grab, pivot, two step, and jam. The ball will be slapped out of his hand or poked everytime in the lane if he tries that in at the D1 level. I get it, it’s a drill, but it creates mental habits that will likely translate into games. He’s good, and will be a great player at the next level. I’d like to see him consider a RS, no real reason, KU will be stacked if we land Langford.
See the inbound play to OA? Much like a Self play…haha
Love the kid in the KU sweatshirt too.
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@truehawk93 I think I was more impressed with QG passing highlights than Devon’s
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Bwag said:
@truehawk93 I think I was more impressed with QG passing highlights than Devon’s
Most definitely…QG is a 6-4,5 pg. He’s a humble Kobe Bryant caliber player…shhhh…don’t tell him that, but something tells me he can handle the comparison.
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One request for all these ELITE players…would someone please teach these kids to use the right hands and legs on a layup. This is one of the most glaring deficiencies of many of these top players. I learned and it was tough for the longest time, because it’s not dominate or natural. But it’s the right thing.
Use the Left hand, and right foot for a LEFT hand lay-up.
Use the Right hand, and Left foot for a Right hand lay-up.
I know…it’s tough and awkward, but much like a switch hitter or a South paw to use the Right hand…I remember learning as a RH pitcher, to turn toward 1st base for a 2nd base pick. It was AWKWARD, but once I learned and not step off with my right foot, and turn toward the runner or bag, my pick off ratio improved, and it looked better watching by my coaches. Remember Rocky? But when they learn and it becomes part of their game, it looks better watching, and it adds to their game. Again, if it’s not broke, don’t fix it…but just sayin.’
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Here is the thing. You are correct on the proper form of a layup, HOWEVER…
Once you play at an elite level you MUST learn to go off the wrong foot and mix up your timing or you will always get your shot blocked. These kids are playing against the best at a younger age so they are learning this also at a younger age. Also going off the “improper” leg makes it easier to jump into your defender and create contact and go shoulder to chest on a shot blocker.
If you only make layups with the “proper” legs you will be easier to guard.
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BigBad said:
Here is the thing. You are correct on the proper form of a layup, HOWEVER…
Once you play at an elite level you MUST learn to go off the wrong foot and mix up your timing or you will always get your shot blocked. These kids are playing against the best at a younger age so they are learning this also at a younger age. Also going off the “improper” leg makes it easier to jump into your defender and create contact and go shoulder to chest on a shot blocker.
If you only make layups with the “proper” legs you will be easier to guard.
BUT…if the defender is on my right side and I’m right handed? I use my right hand from the left side of defender, jumping off my right foot? Doesn’t that allow the defender to defend the ball better?
Whereas, if I use my LEFT hand, RIGHT leg/foot…ball away from the defender, who is on my right side/weak side, then use my body…I have a much better chance of an AND 1? IF I use your logic and jump right foot/leg, and use my right hand…the defender on my right side will eat the ball, not my body.
Same principle with Right hand, Left foot/leg when the defender is on my Left side…
Unless of course you’re being facetious?
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NO…Moore seems score first, pass second. Unless he has learned with DG to pass then score. He better if he expects to thrive at pg and in Self’s system. Dotson seems to be pass then score.
It’s gonna be FUN watching all the same.
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I was just thinking about an interesting player comparison. I realized the interesting styles between…
Keith Langford
Travis Releford
Wayne Selden
Ochai Agbagi
Pretty interesting when you watch the four. I don’t think OA hasn’t quite developed the outside shot that Selden and KL had, but their very interesting. I think Selden and Ochai have more power and strength. Releford and KL are similar. Just an interesting observation.
Although after watching the OA clip, he does have a nice stroke. Actually, the kid has some hops…dang…wonder what his vertical is?
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The basics are important to be sure, but @BigBad makes a great point about changing things up.
On top of that, you also have to go back to your strong hand when dealing with great shot blockers. I remember when I started playing against better shot blockers in HS and moving into college that I basically stopped shooting layups with my left hand unless it was a breakaway. Good shot blockers could reject a lefty layup with ease, but if I kept the ball in my strong hand, I could change my shot (floater, scoop, finger roll, double clutch, whatever) and still get a good attempt off, rather than an awkward half hearted flip at the basket with my off hand.
With as quick as a lot of the shotblockers now close space and get off the floor, you have to do whatever you can to disrupt their timing. Lots of kids now are learning the Eurostep, which is one way to do that, but they are also now teaching kids to keep the ball in their strong hand to finish the Eurostep off.
Additionally, at the higher levels, you always teach kids to finish by dunking when they can. As a result, you have to get them to keep the ball in their strong hand. If they are always switching to their off hand, they won’t dunk, which, for guys with an NBA future, is a bad habit to get into because NBA guys will block those layups all the time.
As a result, for a lot of kids, they don’t shoot layups with the “correct” hand once they start dunking because the teaching is to keep the ball in your strong hand to give you a chance to dunk whenever possible.
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Bwag said:
No assists?
Yeah, that’s the rub.
3.5 ast and 2.9 t/os in 29 mpg running the point at Cal.
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truehawk93 said:
Bwag said:
@truehawk93 I think I was more impressed with QG passing highlights than Devon’s
Most definitely…QG is a 6-4,5 pg. He’s a humble Kobe Bryant caliber player…shhhh…don’t tell him that, but something tells me he can handle the comparison.
Grimes has a fantastic feel for the game.
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@truehawk93 I expect Ochai to be a better shooter than KFreeze or Releford. Not that such a feat would be that difficult.
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Agbaji is a better shooter as a HS senior than any of the guys that you listed, @truehawk93
Now, Releford and Selden both developed quite a bit as three point shooters while at KU, so it will remain to be seen if Agbaji has enough growth in his game to develop like that over a four year period.
Langford never did develop much of a three point stroke. Never shot even 36% while at KU. I would imagine Agbaji would surpass that as a freshman given the mechanics I have seen on video from him. If I were a coach at KU, I would hope that Garrett develops to be a Langford level shooter, while I would hope that Agbaji develops to the point that Selden did (right around 40% from three by the time he is a junior). I think Agbaji’s development curve could make him a high level starter as a three or four year player. He has really impressed me with his development. Just looking back at what he was as a junior until now is an incredible thing to watch.
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Dunking is different than a layup. An athletic blocker will pin your layup almost 100% of the time. A fast break dunk is not a layup. A fast break dunk or flush is much more efficient and almost impossible to block.
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@truehawk93 Agbagi has interesting driving skills - he uses his body perfectly going to the hoop. That’s very impressive to me. It took Devonte 4 years to learn to use his shoulder to create space, and this kid does it every time he drives. He is officially on my future Jayhawk pick to click list. He might not even smell more than 2 minutes, or he might red shirt, but once this kid starts getting minutes in future years, I think he ends up making a very good impact on our program.
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GOD how I wish the season were starting sooner… all this back and forth has me drooling with a bad case of basketball jones
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Just about 4 months to late night…
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I haven’t even watched the feeds, but from the beginning my hunch has been Self sees a guy in Moore with the potential to play like the guy Larry Brown sent us for the World University Games. I doubt he is there yet after his time at Cal, but I think that is the kind of player Self hopes to develop Moore into.
Frank was shooting guard going to Towson State when he took him and saw the inner point guard that did not really bear PG fruit till his junior season. Frank was a most athlete with a great shooting eye and an afterburner like nobody’s business. But his ball handling skills and shoot/pass judgements were suspect his first two seasons.
Devonte was a born point guard that was kind of slight and gentle. It took him a season and a half for Self to let the inner lion out from the shooting guard position; then after a full season of roaring his junior year, and running the point to rest Frank at times, the born PG and the inner lion converged his senior season at the point.
Self has done the stuff too many times with too many successes to be pessimistic about Moore and his lack of a fifth star.
The key thing to remember is that Frank and Devonte REALLY benefitted from just one summer of playing with that terrific little fire plug of Larry’s down at SMU. Now, that guy was a point guard from the Dean, Brown, Self breed of point guards!!!
I suspect Moore is going to adapt pretty well to what Self wants out of him at the point.
But outside shooters are born and refined, not made.
So: the big question is this: is there room in the game these days for a point guard that cannot pot the triceratop at 40%, or higher?
By this I do NOT mean can the guy start and lead KU to a lot of wins and conference title. Put enough bigs and 5-star wings, so that all he has to do is distribute, push and guard, and no PG needs to be a Frank, or Devonte, from down town.
But to go to the Final Four and have a prayer of winning with all of these long and strongs at the 3, 4 and 5, sooner, or later, the team has to beat a 3-point offense like KU had last season, or a three point offense on steroids, like Nova had last season. The encounter usually comes from the Elite Eight on. And for those kinds of teams, your point guard is a serious weakness, if he cannot pot the triceratop. There are just too many possessions when a fine opposing team’s momentum has to be dagger with a trey, or possessions down the stretch, where a gap has to be closed with a trey, or a trey has to be answered with a trey, and “running the stuff” won’t get a three point look quickly enough.
But worst of all, EVERY coach in America is going to be trying to emulate Jay Wright’s zone, not just his volume trey shooting. And that zoning is going to be absolutely destabilizing to any team with a point guard that can’t drain the trey >40%.
Why?
Because it is so easy with a match up zone to turn things into a 5 on 4 game, when all a point guard can do is pass, or drive.
First, no-one cares if a CST point guard wearing adidas treads can drive into the seams of a zone in the EST Carney, because he is going to get the hell fouled out of him and never get a call.
Second, a PG that can’t pot the triceratop is a guy that a match up zone can ignore and stretch to help on someone that can.
It is hard to believe how fortunate KU has been to have two consecutive > 40% PGs. It is just the best of all possible worlds for the Small Ball Era.
To conclude, I am not really even a little worried about Moore being a fine point guard able to run the stuff Self’s way.
What I’m concerned about is whether he can be a serious threat from the trey stripe, when there isn’t any other way to manage games than to take and make treys?
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Frank’s SO and JR numbers were very similar, almost identical.
Nice officiating conspiracy thrown in for good measure.
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BShark said:
Frank’s SO and JR numbers were very similar, almost identical.
Nice officiating conspiracy thrown in for good measure.
Howling!
Let me play the straight man.
Question: Why EXACTLY might it PROVE SOMETHING, if they were similar, or identical? Frank was a vastly better player the second half of his junior year than he was any time during his sophomore year. Do you not understand that Frank’s role change drastically from sophomore to junior year, and quite a bit from junior to senior season, too. Don’t you think the changing rosters had an impact on Frank’s numbers and on the roles Frank was assigned by Self? If not, why not?
Next…
THERE. APPEAR. NO. CONSPIRACIES. IN. D1. IMHO.
NONE. HAVE. BEEN. PROVEN. THAT. I. CAN. RECALL.
YOU, @BSHARK, APPEAR POSSIBLY ADDICTED TO IMPUTING CONSPIRACY TO THINGS
I TRY UNSUCCESSFULLY TO HELP YOU GET THIS CONSPIRACY IMPUTATION MONKEY REGARDING ME OFF YOUR BACK.
CONSPIRACIES ARE APPARENTLY FOR SUCKERS.
AND MISCHARACTERIZATIONS OF OTHERS WITH “CONSPIRACY” AND “CONSPIRACY THEORY” APPEAR TO HAVE LOST THEIR SMEAR POWER.
ONE NOW HAS TO CALL SOMEONE A “TRUMPER”, OR A “COLLUDER WITH PUTIN AND RUSSIA,” OR MY NEW FAVORITE–“AN APPEASER OF NORTH KOREA.”
OF COURSE, I’M NONE OF THOSE, AND I DON’T BELIEVE IN CONSPIRACIES AND CONSPIRACY THEORIES ABOUT CONSPIRACIES IN D1 EITHER.
CONSPIRACIES IN D1 ARE APPARENTLY FOR SUCKERS…
ROCK CHALK!
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@jaybate-1.0 33% from 3 is virtually the same as 50% from the 2. 40% from 3 calculates out to 60% from 2. We had to shoot 40 north last year because we couldn’t get a rebound to save our lives. If Charlie shoots 35% from 3, we’re in the Final Four. I love Charlie- his game gives every rec league wanna be hope. Talk about utilizing what you have…Charlie is just nosing for the basket every time. The backboard angles he uses show his gym rat bonafides, and the guy is simply nails in open space. I think the kid is special, and if we need for him to make 40%, he’ll manage.
I don’t think we’ll see Dedric at the 3. Now KJ Lawson at the 3 is a possibility.
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Charlie understands spacing and timing on his drive finishes. That’s a tough thing to teach players. His freshman year highlights from Cal show how he finishes in a crowd in the Pac 12.
I have high hopes for Charlie! He is bound to get some decent PT because of his experience alone.
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@KUSTEVE jethros back
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KUSTEVE said:
@jaybate-1.0 33% from 3 is virtually the same as 50% from the 2. 40% from 3 calculates out to 60% from 2. We had to shoot 40 north last year because we couldn’t get a rebound to save our lives. If Charlie shoots 35% from 3, we’re in the Final Four. I love Charlie- his game gives every rec league wanna be hope. Talk about utilizing what you have…Charlie is just nosing for the basket every time. The backboard angles he uses show his gym rat bonafides, and the guy is simply nails in open space. I think the kid is special, and if we need for him to make 40%, he’ll manage.
I don’t think we’ll see Dedric at the 3. Now KJ Lawson at the 3 is a possibility.
Welcome back old compatriot. Solid points here. Regardless of who wins the starting PG spot, Moore and Dotson will both help the team.
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@drgnslayr The one legged mid range jumper is one of my favorites. The way he drives to the basket, and spins the ball two inches from the end of the backboard, and uses english to coax the ball in the net are rec league favorites. Those are shots I used to attempt…and he nails them! It might not always be very athletic, or very pretty, but the kid is a battler and he knows how to get the ball in the hoop.
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@BShark I think Dotson will own the paint. The drives to the basket will be walks in the park, with two behemoths setting screens down low.
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@KUSTEVE grimes is doing a pretty good job of that.
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Grimes, Dotson, Moore and Garrett are all good at driving. Teams are definitely going to pitch a tent in the paint.
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@KUSTEVE and @drgnslayr
The “more” you guys talk about “Moore,” the more I see him being Self’s version of the SMU guard that lead us to victory in the World University Games a few summers back.
I see a structural strategic problem with tolerating 35-38% perimeter shooters and thinking that one does not need to keep shooting a lot of treys, because we have six bigs, and can get more 50-60% stick backs. Its rooted in 3 > 2.
Leaving aside that most teams probably will NOT be able to emulate Nova; i.e., not be able to be apparently stacked with 6 > 39% trifectates via metaphorically unmarked dump trucks apparently dumping apparently mischaracterized 75-100 rank players late at night in the Palestra parking lot good enough to blow out teams loaded with 1-75 ranked players and 2-3 >39% trifectates, what Jay Wrong demonstrated last season is that there is always some number of 3ptas by one team greater than the number of 3ptas taken by another team that yields a winning edge, if the three point shooting team taking more 3ptas is shooting even reasonably well. This is CRUCIAL to keep in mind as we move forward in college basktetball.
You don’t have to have six > 39% trey ballers to take 10 more 3ptas than the opponent. You can do it with 2, or 3, or 4 trifectates. But your shooting volatility (variance due to particular shooters being on, or off, for a game) apparently rises as the number of 3pt shooters declines. The more trifectates you have, the more likely you are to find at least two trifectates in any given game able to shooting at the 40% mark, or higher. So: the more trifectates you have in the rotation, the less volatility risk you face in playing the 3pt-first way. Jay Wrong showed that six, including two trifectates at post, lowered the volatility so low that Nova could steamroller its way through a six game tournament with ease, if he were just willing to keep shooting more 3ptas than an opponent, regardless of how many 3ptas the opponent took.
Self’s strategy of trying not to shoot more than 25-30 3ptas, rooted in his deep, quasi metaphysical faith “balance,” became his own self made prison last season against Nova.
Moving forward, we can reasonably hope that Self, who has broken through all his previous metaphysical blinders in the past, when harsh losses knocked them from his head, will be dialing up the treys to 10 more than his opponents, whenever he plays a good three point shooting team.
Speaking conceptually, at least, there is always some number more 3ptas you can take to offset either a hot trey shooting opponent, or a volume shooting trey opponent. Again, conceptually, one should even be able to offset some increment of deficiency in 3pt accuracy of your own team by taking more treys than an opponent that shoots them more accurately than you do.
For example, much as this runs counter to certain board rats beliefs, KU would likely easily have overcome Nova’s hot hand in the tournament, if Self had just dialed up the 3ptas to +10, or +20, above what Nova in fact took, IF, that is, Jay would have let him.
Every attempted short trey by adidas-CST KU was futile against NIKE-EST Nova. There were not going to be hardly any short treys called, so every time KU took what was given by Nova’s defense, KU was being the 2 in the 3 > 2 equation. And Jay took advantage every chance he got by answering a KU 2 with a Nova 3.
3 > 2 is essentially the new E=mc^2 of D1.
Note: its actually not new either. From the moment the trey was instituted, a few coaches, like Paul Westhead, of Loyola Marymount, and certain others in Division II, and NAIA ball, have tried to exploit 3 > 2.
The corollary to 3> 2 is: every time a team shoots a 2, shoot a 3, until a large enough lead is built worth defending with 2s.
Fouling everywhere all the time could work against a good three point shooting team, if one had enough depth and fouls to give.
Self appears to be set with six bigs and so positioned to try just that.
But when you foul an opponent every where all the time, you reduce their offense more or less to a FT shooting offense. KU’s opponents averaged .713 from the FT stripe for the season. That sounds pretty daunting to overcome and it is. But the idea is to foul so much that the refs won’t call them all, and so much that even a high make rate from the stripe cannot replace the misses created on shots inside and out, especially the threes.
Stop and think about it.
Every time a foul is not called and yet triggers a severely hampered shot, or a steal, or TO, that is in effect 2, or 3 point attempt that never get effectively attempted.
Self has long grasped that he can beat a lot of teams simply by getting sharply more shooting attempts over 40 minutes.
But the more 3 point attempts an opponent takes, the harder that is to do, unless you counter the trey with your own trey at the other end. Fail to do that and you begin a long slow process of ending up with fewer attempted points at game’s end.
So: what I believe Self was signaling, when he said that Dedric would likely take as many or more 3ptas this coming season, as Lagerald Vick took last season, is that Self has learned his lesson from Jay Wright.
Self is going to scheme a smothering, foul everywhere all the time defense cornerstones on six post men with 30 fouls to give, allowing: a.) his perimeter to overplay the trey out to about 30 feet; and b.) eliminate all unfouled 2ptas in close.
But that’s only the defensive part of the equation.
On offense, Self has likely learned that you have to shoot more treys than your opponent until you build a lead that can be defended, and the worse your three point shooters are, the more three point attempts you have to take to make up for their deficiency in three point shooting accuracy.
The object of the game is to score the most points, not to score them with the higher percentage of accuracy.
The way you score the most points, if you are not a great shooting team, is to ramp up how many points you attempt, so even though you may make a lower percentage than your opponent, you attempt so many more that you wind up scoring more points anyway.
ffensive rebounding and second shots
The most productive paths to more attempts are:
a.) more steals and TOs diminishing an opponents attempts in ratio with yours; and
b.) more three point attempts in ratio with their three point attempts and more three point attempts in ratio with their two point attempts; and
c.) more offensive rebounds and second shots.
Clearly, KU will get more offensive rebounds and more second shots because they have more bigs.
By playing foul everywhere all the time, it could create a much greater number of steals and TOs.
By taking more treys than the opponent, and more than KU took last season, it could end up scoring more points, despite its likely lesser 3pt shooting accuracy.
Whether we bang it inside a lot most of the season against cupcakes and lesser opponents most of the season is pretty immaterial to preparations for trying to prepare to win games in the Carney from the Sweet 16 onward.
From the Sweet 16 onward, when player abilities and roster depth increasingly converge at higher and higher levels, attempting more points than an opponent is the surest path the scoring more points than an opponent.
Part of the net advantage comes from shooting more treys than the opponent does.
Part of the net advantage comes from preventing more shots of any kind by the opponent.
But I would still rather try to attempt more points than an opponent with a bunch of highly accurate three point shooters, than not.
Rock Chalk!
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BShark said:
Grimes, Dotson, Moore and Garrett are all good at driving. Teams are definitely going to pitch a tent in the paint.
Except for NOVA.
NOVA will try to get Grimes, Dotson, Moore and Garret to drive every possession!
3 > 2
Every drive is an auto-stop, or a self stop, if you will.
Every drive is choosing to attempt 2 points instead of 3 points.
Thus, every drive is foolish.
Every drive instead of a trey is 1/3 of a self stop.
Each time a team takes a 2 point attempt, when it could take a 3 point attempt, it is a monument to stupidity, unless…
One is playing the clock with a big lead over an opponent late.
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@jaybate-1.0 Interesting concept. Under you theory a physical WV type press would create more TO’s and FT’s which should take away the 3 opportunities for an opponent.
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Nic Moore.
Ah yes poor HCBS. The system works against him at every turn. Meanwhile the great rankings cover-up makes Jay Wright (an excellent talent evaluator and coach in reality) look much better than he really is! When you factor in that KU never gets calls well gosh it’s rather amazing HCBS has the will to field a team. A true maverick, a renegade trying to defeat the system that definitely doesn’t funnel him players too.
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Thanks for weighing in.
Yes, yes, and I think we laymen are only barely beginning to catch on to how the coaches are probably thinking about this and approaching it from a number of angles simultaneously.
Huggins is an exceptional defensive coach, same as Self.
They are predisposed to working with different kinds of players and so they probably take different strategic paths.
Coaches do not have the luxury we fans have of thinking ideally about what would work, or about what kind of players might be best.
Coaches from early on in their careers learn that there are certain kinds of players they can reliably sign year to year, and that among those there are certain kinds that they are most successful at working with to get them to improve and play the type of game the coach feels he can coach.
Each coach has to find out what he is good at and then learn how to be as flexible and adaptable within that range of “who he is” and “what he can sign” as possible. But Self just cannot become Huggins, or vice versa. They can borrow certain things, but they cannot in most cases simply copy the entire program, because they cannot sign those kinds of players, nor coach in that particular kind of way.
But nevertheless, all the good ones are all skilled and smart enough to massage the strategies on both ends of the floors to try to get to a net benefit in scored points vs. allowed points.
Huggy, Izzo, Bo Ryan, Ben Howland, long ago apparently inferred that basketball could be played at a level of contact that was so frequent that referees simply would not call all of the fouls. From that moment, the game has gotten more and more physical, despite brief respites when fouling thresholds were lowered and more fouls were called to try to deincentivize fouling everywhere all the time.
Huggins defense is one way to hold down total points attempted and accuracy. By stretching full court, it enables more opportunities to foul in transition, where refs anecdotally seem less likely to call the fouls of a certain kind, and then all of the hubbub in transition makes the refs anecdotally seem less likely to call all the fouls in half court. To call fouls and to try to control a game with foul calling, referees have to have a feel for the flow of the game. When WVU presses it is not only disrupting the other team, but the referees, too. it can backfire on WVU, as it did one game against KU where the referees appeared to feel they were tired of being had by Huggins and so simply called a ton of fouls on WVU and none on KU.
Self’s M2M that funnels the ball to help in middle is another approach. KU fouls a lot once the ball gets into the middle. Sometimes they get away with it and other times not. It depends on the arena and the opponent.
Neither Huggins’ defense nor Self’s defense is very good at forcing the shooters out of the 20-25 foot strip of the 3 point shooting area. Both are more attuned to disruption of the flow of the offense throughout the half court area, especially the first initiation pass. They are good at keeping the ball out of certain hands and delivering help quickly and unexpectedly.
Jay Wright’s break through IMHO was to dust off Jud Heathcote’s old 1-3-1 matchup zone that Heathcote used when Magic Johnson was there. If you are tall at PG and one wing and have two bigs, the 1-3-1 matchup is a great zone that can really stretch and shut down open looks from outside or inside on ball side. Jay seemed to take the concept and mask it by playing several zones in match up fashion and this enabled him to push the the opponents three point shooters farther out consistently, and then rely on his two bigs inside whenever they could sucker teams to escape the pressure by moving into mid range 2 pt areas of the floor. This ability to shut off high percentage three point shots and challenge and deny the inside, hamstrung opponents into contested 2pt shots that worked to magnify Nova’s great three point shooting and Jay’s insight that Nova should always try to shoot 5-10 more treys than the opponent could get off.
I suspect we will see quite a bit of advancement in blending defenses schemed to deny the trey, and offenses schemed to generate open look treys on the other end.
So: even though I like to bust Jay’s chops, I think the game owes him and whoever got those six trey ballers, including two post trey ballers, a debt of gratitude for showing another way to skin the basketball cat.
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@jaybate-1.0 I don’t know if I’d go as far as a debt of gratitude. Some ways of skinning a cat are gross.
Watching James Harden and Steph Curry walk up the court and launch Ill advised threes for half of their series made me sick. Just mind numbing garbage.
If the game is infact dumbed down to a simple truth of 3 > 2, is it enjoyable at that point? Is it watchable?
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Your palpable disgust with the kind of play 3 > 2 seems to be generating reminds me of my father’s disgust at first the proliferation of the one handed jump shot that made the long range two handed set shot obsolete.
It also reminds me of many others of his generation and their dissatisfaction with the proliferation of the dunk, which largely obsoleted the hook shot and the layup.
Further, it reminds me of me back during the mid 1990s (culminating in the dreadful 2000 championship slugfest between MSU and UW) grumbling about the referees apparent decision to “let’em play football” and the rise of the prison body bigs that literally knocked drivers into the cheap seats at times.
All rules changes trigger both foreseen and unforeseen effects, and desirable, and undesirable styles of play.
Rules determine the path tendency of interplay.
Rules changes change that path tendency.
Some times the changes come instantly, other times slowly.
The three point shot was first tried in a college game in 1945 and then rejected.
It was not instituted until 1967-68 in the ABA. Seven foot former center Commissioner George Mikan said the three point basket would help keep the little man in basketball and open up the defense to make the game more enjoyable for fans. The ABA also encouraged slam dunking to attract fans as well.
The NBA followed suit in 1980 with a 23-9 trey stripe.
FIBA followed in 1984.
From 1980 to 1985, the college three point shot came conference by conference . The Southern conference was first. Most followed the next year and from 1981 to 1985 the three point stripe ranged from 17-9 to 22-9 away from the basket. Interestingly, Michael Jordan’s career at UNC from 1981-1984 paralleled the spread of the three point shot in college basketball and in 1981 the ACC three point stripe was only 17-9 feet from the basket.
The three point basket was standardized across college basketball at 19-9 in 1986-7 and first used in the NCAA men’s tournament that year–the same season the trey was adopted in women’s basketballl at 19-9 also.
In 1987, high schools adopted the 19-9 stripe.
In 1995, the NBA tried to spike up scoring by moving its 23-9 stripe in to 22 feet.
In 1998 the NBA moved the three point stripe back to 23-9.
In 2007 the NCAA men’s stripe was moved out to 20-9.
I have recalled the time line above to show how herky jerky and uncoordinated the adoption of the rule and evolution of the rule has been. The lack of continuity and standardization of the rule early on seems to have set in motion a diluted and delayed recognition of its potential for changing the game.
Just because some one was a good three point shooter in high school did not guaranty they would be in college. And being a good trey shooter in college did not mean they would be in the pros.
As a result, for a long time, the three point shot’s potential was explored mostly by coaches at programs that could not field rosters of players that could use athleticism to “get to the rim” and to jump shoot over others in the mid range.
Also, the tendency of shooters to vary widely in their accuracy game to game discouraged coaches from relying on the basic mathematical advantage of 3>2, because every so often, on a cold shooting night, cold shooting would nullify 3>2.
But the biggest discouragement of the there point shot came in the 1990s, when muscle ball spread from the NBA to the NCAA. Muscle ball eroded the timed offense. It eroded trying to avoid contact when defending in order to keep from getting fouled up. What it encouraged was physical disruption of running routes, of making timed screens and timed passes to achieve open shots. All shots began to be contested, even violently, if necessary,. Unable to run motion offenses and timing offenses effectively, offense began to be played as physically as defense.Charging and backing down, and muscling to the rim became the higher percentage plays, if you had the prison bodies to play that way.
But after the fiasco of the 2000 season when the NCAA finals became a tooth rattling scrum of poor shooting teams involving prison bodies from MSU and UW, the NCAA set out to try to clean up the flagrant physical contact for a few years. Driving athleticism and kick outs to three point shooters had a renaissance till the latter part of the Naught Decade, when a skill and muscle restoration occurred. More rules changes stymied the muscle restoration, but something interesting occurred before the muscle restoration was stopped. Teams began to try to both muscle inside and kick and shoot outside.When the rules shut down the muscle restoration, college basketball coaches began to notice that: a.) the NBA was relying more and more on the three point shot; and the new college rules made driving ball seeking the short trey was feasible. Teams relied on some of both. More rules changes ended drive ball, when referees began not calling the fouls n necessary for the short trey. That left the trey.
My point is that 3>2 is a long term structural force incentivizing offense outside, especially when other rules changes discourage other paths of play.
The play you refer to by Golden State is annoying on one level, but it is simply sound offensive strategy.
ALWAYS try to attempt as many points as possible; that invariably leads to choosing treys over 2pts shooting.
All TPTB have to do is change the rules a little, and the path tendency of shooting treys instead of 2s will redirect.
The question is: why do TPTB think that the public prefers to see trifectation over athleticism.
It would, after all, be very easy to make a rule that any basket made inside of five feet from the basket gets 3 points also.
Or it would be easy to make any mid range jumper worth three.
Nothing is written except the rules.
And they can be and often are changed.
Rock Chalk!
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@jaybate-1-0 maybe they could incentivize the 2 point shot by giving teams bonus points at the half if they’ve made x many of them
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Its very frustrating to realize that the game you loved is being changed by rules that yield foreseen, and unforeseen, consequences you don’t enjoy, and wish were able to be reversed.
It is one of the less pleasant aspects of aging. As with any rules changes, basketball rules changes usually have short and long term effects. When we are young, all we have to reconcile with are the short term effects, which to us are sudden, sharp, and which we make quick reconciliation with by either accepting, and continuing on with our participation in the games, or by saying, “Phooie with this, I don’t like this game anymore and I am moving on to other games.”
But the longer term effects of rules changes to games surface much later and they often hit us after 30, but certainly after 40. In mid life we begin to REALLY resent these changes, because: a.) we are highly invested in the games by then; and b.) we sense there is little chance that this change is going to wind back toward what we prefer, and we have had enough prior experience with negative fall out from rules changes, to be pessimistic that anything new and improved will result.
Further, long term change emerging in our 50-60s leaves us frankly bitter, and tempted by a cynicism we have to wage a constant battle against being consumed by. We realize we are unlikely to live long enough to see this undesirable change remedied,precisely because it has taken so long for it to evolve and emerge, and we know how hard it is to change anything constructively as we age. The older we get the more we realize that change tends to occur as a result of small groups of wealthy influential individuals and their firms exploiting a vulnerability in the system of a game with the sole intent of enriching themselves, while pushing the costs of their pursuit of enrichment on to those not strong enough, or rich enough, or well organized enough, to resist the change exploitative change.
I am expounding on this at the risk of boring you for a reason.
Game theory and institutions, when studied, call attentions to assumptions, rules, incentives, strategies and tendencies of play. They sensitize us–through modeling what games and the aspects of competition the games may simulate–to the individual’s subjective tendency to over emphasize his POV as being most characteristic of the full panoply of play, and underestimating the influence of institutions (rules) and the strategic incentives of others interplaying with his POV and agenda to generate what is actually probable, or even possible.
Games of all kinds have much to teach us about broadening our POVs, beyond the simple enjoyment of games, and beyond how to play them well, or be knowledgeable fans and appreciate them well.
They also teach us a considerable amount about our frustrations in life, as well as what is and is not likely, regarding many competitive aspects of the world in which we live (if we are luck).
There is a concept in the study of institutions (and the game theory used to model and analyze potential institutional effects) called “institutional stickiness.”
Distilled, it is easier to make and impose new rules, than revise, or get rid of old rules, because institutions are “sticky.”
They get entangled and cemented into economic and political eco systems, if you will. It is a very powerful concept, that is embraced as a kind of heuristic, that probably implies a profound underlying law of the 19th Century kind that is simply to difficult and costly to formalize, so we keep it handy as a heuristic.
Problems tempting us to solve them by imposition of rules are often very simply understood and narrowly defined.
We want problems to go away, because problems are painful.
The more simply we define problems, the fewer persons there are we have to admit are impacted by solutions proposed. So: there is real practical (if selfish) expedience and strategic self-benefit to oversimplifying problems and who will be impacted by their solution. And it almost goes without saying that cost shifting is essentially taboo to discuss until after it has been shifted.
Thus, a proposed rule intends to solve a problem defined simplistically, whether a good rule, or a stupid one, but here is the great appeal of a rule: it has little cost of materials in the making of the rule. Its black ink on white paper. Sometimes its just pixels. All it takes is a few persons that think they will benefit handsomely from creating it, plus their perception that it won’t cost too much to get the rule agreed to and imposed on all of us, plus their perception that any large foreseeable and unforeseeable costs triggered will not have to be born by the small group advocating for the new rule.
Thus, there is a tendency to impose new rules, independently of whether there is a problem fixable by rules, or fixable by the rule proposed, that is driven by how much wealth is to be achieved by the small group advocating the rule and by their ability to make others accept imposition of the rule based on their belief that that new rule will make things better.
Alas, when the lying and side payments are done, many go along to get along, and almost no thinks about the unforeseen consequences, because, well, they are unforeseen.
But the conditions for change are quite different, when one considers changing, or repealing a bad rule that has been around for awhile.
First, the bad rule that has been around for awhile, has likely been enriching those that promoted the rule in the first place. So: they are one influential constituency obstructing its revision, or repeal, unless they think they can come up with a rule change that continues their enrichment, or increase it.
Second, all rules, but especially bad ones, trigger a lot of sunk costs in compensating for them. All kinds of expertise from all kinds of fields is brought to bear on problems caused by bad rules to help us live with those problems until the bad rule is changed. Its bitterly ironic, but bad rules are often actually far more cemented in place by sunk costs accreted around helping us compensate for and endure the side effects of bad rules, than are good rules that seem to require little or no professional expertise to perpetuate.
Hence, even the worst rules, maybe especially the worst ideas, become vast professional and enterprise arrays of networked sunk costs embedded in the politics and economy of a culture.
We see this played out even in the seemingly innocuous game of basketball.
It seemed a good idea (to some) to let the petroshoecos give the universities and coaches endorsement money. It meant we tax payers had to pay less for the minor sports and less for hiring the coach, and so on. But down stream, we discovered (or should I say the FBI/DOJ reputedly discovered) somewhat to our chagrins that petroshoecos require certain distributions of talent among schools to pursue their business interests and this leads into incentive methods that lead into all sorts of compliance issues and PR issues and so on that require all manner of experts in law, contracting, admissions compliance, and so on to handle the risk and pain of funding minor sports and coaches salaries increasingly through the petroshoecos. And of course the petroshoecos are part of an emerging petrowear industry trying to migrate the world off natural fibers and onto petro fibers, and trying to use slave/child/peonage labor overseas in countries with often hostile political systems to achieve big margins, and using globally marketed basketball stars to increase petrowear sales abroad and at home, and this draws Big Oil into the equation (petrowear is a huge market and so a big consumer of oil). And, well, universities are often one of the most critical and largest cash cycle activities in a state and so Big Oil and Big Shoe may have overlapping interests/agendas in both markets and politics for oil exports, oil imports, fracking, natural gas development, helium for moving gas through pipelines, oil dome storage capacities, strategic oil reserves, and so on that a state university and its state government and elected officials might be useful in promoting.
All of the preceding makes it so the folks wagging the tail of basketball would also benefit from wagging the tail of the university, and the board of regents and the state house, which still funds quite a bit of the university budget and which influences the state’s choices on political economy issues influencing all manner of linkages with this now vast array of interconnected organizational interests inside and outside government.
Comical as it sounds, changing the three point stripe one foot in (or out) could have one effect on the game (or other), but also possibly a further ripple effect outwards through the organizations I have just outlined. Often, the effect of a change in the three point stripe would be insignificant in term of foreseeable outcomes. All folks can see that. But big players like Big Oil and Big Shoe and Big Government are creatures of complexity. They live with complexity and the unforeseen consequences of interacting with that complexity 24/7, or at least quarterly in their statements that drive their stock values and particularly the incentive clauses of management.
Complexity and unforeseen consequences make the Big Players prefer changes that either perpetuate the status quo (something in your example, that you increasingly find objectionable), or change that so vastly benefits them alone that they do not have to worry much about unforeseen consequential enrichment of potential adversaries downstream. As a result, in the tiny insignificant backwater of college basketball, either nothing in the way of rules changes can happen without the watchful, cautious eye of this vast network of self interested big players, even for good reason, or only something that vastly, asymmetrically enriches those already embedded and being nourished like ticks attached to a blood reservoir the size of the Lake of the Ozarks. (Note: Jason Bateman’s OZARKS series, though not filmed much on location, is quite fascinating in a dark, one-eyed, occult sort of green tinged light way, but I digress.).
All of the above is a long way of saying be careful what new rules you wish for, because you only have to enrich a relative few to bring them about. And don’t hold out a lot of hope for changing bad rules without one helluva dog fight, because existing rules are cemented in often vast and unexpected ways to unexpected players that you may not have the fire power to face down and prevail over.
The above is old news and mastery of the obvious to many.
But sometimes old news is worth remastering in an age of fake news.
Rock Chalk!
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With @jaybate-1-0 geting on a roll lately, scrolling through his posts is helping me get in great shape for the many expected thumb wrestling contests during our g-kids upcoming visit home!
