Nice article about Self
-
-
There seem to be many on this site that don’t think that highly of him. he might not be a genius, but he is one fantastic coach that we are lucky to have.
-
@wrwlumpy Speaking for myself, he’s a great, great coach. TEN Conf. Championships (so far?) NINE home losses in what - eleven seasons? But he’s human.
When things aren’t going our (Kansas’ ), way he seems very reluctant to try new things. Sometimes you have to change up old ways and at least try new ways. In my opinion, it’s his stubborness that has caused most of our early NCAA exits.
I still think highly of him, I just wish that once in a while he’d try new things when the old things aren’t working.
-
Thanks for sharing.
For me, the quality of a college coach is a combination of three things:
- Recruiting = finding and getting the best talent, including transitioning out and transitioning in players each year, getting the great ones to commit and finding the hidden gems, and finally mixing of OAD and TAD with the 3-4-5 year glue guys / depth and chemistry
- Representing = alumni relations, fundraising, promoting your university, being a role model, pushing academic as well as athletic performance of the student athletes / not being a scum bag of dubious ethics, helping the community
- Coaching = practice time, teaching how to play / fundamentals, motivating, and of course all the decisions involving rotations and schemes and real time adjustments and game-time changes / having your players better prepared to execute and more win games than your opponents
As per this overview, our Coach is certainly in the top five in the nation, but Coach K has better credentials and longevity.
Coach Self does get stuck in a mindset and can be stubborn in an idea or a belief but he can and does also adjust to modern times and different players each year. His teams always play hard and go to class and have good chemistry and win.
The only thing I think we can criticize in all fairness is maybe his offensive mindset and schemes can be stale and predictable and outdated. I think he needs an offensive refresh, like we see in football where a new, surprising OC or DC can push a program to a new level.
Snacks was a good hire but where is the offensive innovation coming from?
-
So you want to hire an offensive coordinator?
-
If I were British, I would call you cheeky!
We could use an offensively minded assistant coach at KU, I am thinking of the great coaches and leaders and business executives who hire guys to complement their skills.
The point was, my cheeky bloke, that Coach Self is not a great offensive mind…
-
That’s a great read. “Toughness”
One of the best compliments I ever got was from my high school coach who wrote in my year book. “Looking back to your sophomore year, thought you’d never make it. But tough, just tough.” The next sentence was “Leave the femme de taille alone and you’ll do well.” LOL
-
@JayhawkRock78 well, did you do well?
-
@Crimsonorblue22 Been making that point for years. Bill Self is an outstanding coach. Winning it all in the NCAA Tournament is extremely difficult, especially when there are lots of teams that do not deserve to be in the tournament. Coach Self is a winner, his teams constantly win their conference and are always in a great position to win the whole thing. Last 10 years 1 National Championship, 1 Runner up, and even a few Elite 8’s and Sweet 16’s. Looking forward to many more great seasons under Coach Self.
-
@wrwlumpy I think most are upset about losses than about Coach Self.
-
Simply as a matter of bringing perspective, whenever we start talking about losses, especially the painful losses in March, I like to bring up key facts from those games:
UCLA: didn’t finish bunnies. Guys trying to go 1-on-1, as Darnell Jackson said solemnly postgame: “we got away from what brought us here”. And that was the future 08Champs. But they proved anybody can lose a game if they get away from how Self instructs his teams.
UNI: Lack of defense, and poor shooting combined: Sherron goes 0-for-6 from 3. And he was the most trusted, greenlight shooter we’ve had ever since he set foot on campus. Shot was “pure” from Day 1, but not that day. Reed, the trusty soldier, never thought Farokhmanesh would launch a late transition 3 with no rebounders under the rim…but then Ben Jacobsen’s team was pretty unconventional in many ways. KU team fail in multiple areas.
VCU: Poor defense. Too many turnovers (Markieff with 6 himself!) and Reed going 1-for-7 from 3. Again, trusted greenlight senior shooter…and honestly, a STRONG case for fool’s gold striking us down, as Reed toilet-bowl made his first 3 from the right corner (remember?), then went 0-6. So major, major team-fail in many key, basic Self philosophical areas, is how overall 1-seed KU felled ourselves. No D. Turnovers. Bad shooting.
Michigan: Very sad, sad final few minutes, as it was very much a team fail, and not “just Elijah’s fault”. EJ in his 4yr career never had a 10sec call, and most KU faithful have “timed” the 10sec count more like 8.5-9sec. He got jobbed. The other issue was McLemore’s missed bunny from the left baseline–point-blank miss. And the combination of Withey+KYo not going for that 50/50ball, which Mitch McGary turned into a quick reverse layup. And the “disappearance” of Releford and Ellis. Look, they were all role players, including EJ. EJ wasn’t Tyshawn’s mentality, and it never showed up more glaringly than on the last play of his college career–when he passed it out of panic instead of taking it to the hole strong for the finish or foul. Let me sum up that season with the question ‘no alpha on the team’, no guy that says in the huddle: “give me the MF’ing ball!” We see such a non-alpha personality still saddles Ellis, but thankfully, we now have other personalities like Mason, Selden, Oubre, Greene, and for the most part Jamari. Cliff likely will get there, but is adding to the toolkit…
OkieState: The same kids that looked like worldbeaters looked unbelievably frazzled and were an embarrassment-in-uniform during the 2nd half.
Lesson in all this: Players gotta learn. Players gotta execute. No one won anything in this game by being passive. Team leaders have to get the team re-focused. Its hard to blame Self when we’ve seen different groups of Self players beat up on opponents year after year after year with solid execution, and level headed play. Self’s stuff is already proven, man. But various guys experience/youth level doesn’t allow efficienct execution, and that’s the grand variable in this system.
You could say the same about another royalty program, Duke, and their #2 draft pick going down in flames in the 1st round (Mercerized!). Not fun for their fans. I wonder how many darts they threw at their 4-time NC-winning coach? You know they did–that’s just what fans do. And we’re all used to it here…and I see the same on the UNC boards, just like I saw it on the KY boards after their ‘NIT 1st round loss’. But everything’s peachy in KY land right now, isn’t it? (Nope, some fans still griping, seeing of course some rain cloud close to North America that just might find them and rain down on them specifically…).
My view: Enjoy the games. I’d be surprised if we make the Final 4. Too many categories of poor production. FG%-D and 3%shooting are of course good marks. But, any team can get hot, hope that’s us at the right time…as I always do. RCJH
-
@ralster enjoy your thoughts!!
-
“What happens in the madness of March makes not a great coach. The best coaches do it in the regular season, during offseason workouts, in team meetings and in preparation. What happens on the court sometimes in March is often a coin-flip.” YES.
