A Perfect Tension
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Self is doing it again. He is finding a team, while everyone else is looking for one. Finding is the act of creating a unity greater than the sum of the parts. Looking is the act of fitting pieces together that work the way they are supposed to. Artists find unities. Journeymen search for assemblies. Picasso said he found art, he did not look for it. Bill Self finds teams, he does not look for them.
Every player is a color for Bill Self. A roster is palette of colors. A rotation is the combination of colors he needs to paint a particular game. Each game is a composition. Each season is a new phase in his career.
There are recurring themes and form languages. Stops start offense. Sticking stops offense. Offense is inside out. Feeding bigs is crucial. Kicking out to open looks follows feeding bigs like day follows night. Making shots, not taking shots, is the goal. Shooting for three (a drive to the rim for two and a FT, or a trey, is almost always better than shooting for two. Players that can go get balls (rebounds, 50/50 balls, strips) are better than those that can’t. Help is not just help, it is helping the helper help. Beauty may walk a razor’s edge, but finding ways to win ugly on your off nights is the path to basketball salvation. Turnovers are resident evil. Getting better is a moral imperative. Playing out of position forces getting better. Not valuing what Self values is the equivalent of sticking your head in the muzzle of a howitzer as the lanyard is pulled. Characters are necessary to keep the drudgery of getting better from making everyone including Self quit from burnout. Being soft is worse than anything but not trying hard. Anyone can be coached up, if they supply the want to.
These are the techniques of the craft of Self’s coaching that can be known and articulated. In the hands of journeymen they are used to search for and assemble serviceable teams. But as I said at the start, Self doesn’t search for teams, he finds them.
When HEM writes Self has to settle on one of three candidates for Selden’s backup he is logically right. When slayr writes Self has to get a PG that is good on the X coordinate he is logically correct. When I say Self ultimately has to stop playing Tharpe and Mason together so much, I am logically correct.
But Self is finding a team, not solving logical problems. Self largely agrees with each of us that in the end our suggestions are where this team will probably end up, but the process of finding a team takes precedence.
Great painters find images lessers don’t.
Great coaches find teams lessers wouldn’t.
An ordinary coach would build this KU team around Andrew Wiggins. It appeared to many lesser minds at first that Self was doing just that. Certainly the hype artists of national media thought so.
But Self found a great “inside” team with two exceptional perimeter players instead of a Wiggins centered team. Self found a team capable or confronting other teams with a perfect tension between inside and outside. It is taking awhile to develop, but he found it before we did, as usual.
Self isn’t searching for his team. He has found it. They are going inside even if opponents do collapse on them. They are going to explode out of position on opponents inside and if that doesn’t get three the hard way, then they are going to kick out and crucify them with two athletic freaks on the perimeter making plays.
When Embiid was not so advanced, when Tarick was in a funk, when Jam Tray was not yet confident, it was not clear what team Self would find. But he kept dabbing their pigments on the hardwood canvas in different mixtures until he found the team, until he found a perfect tension. Now he is developing it.
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Well now I feel complete. Welcome jaybate. It seemed perhaps that you would be referenced in absentia forever.
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@jaybate 1.0 jbeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee w/ da remedy!!!
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@jaybate 1.0 awesome! Good to see you, jb.
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Thought it should be 2.0. Don’t we get an upgrade for Christmas?
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@Wishawk: consider the first jaybate a beta version and you have gotten 1.0 for XMAS!
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I’ve never posted anything before, and I probably never will again, but I have to agree 1000% with HEM and VailHawk. I’ve been reading all you guys for a couple of years now and I can’t tell you how much I enjoy reading all your posts, but Jaybate, you are the best. I enjoy reading your opinions but you also make me laugh my a** off. I’m glad you’re back.
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Someone get this man a grail for his avatar. Welcome, JB. Good to see you.
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Good to have you back on “board” @jaybate 1.0
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All hail, Jaybate!
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@jaybate 1.0-Our collage is on the verge of completion old friend. We have methodically, continually, & successfully cast our breadcrumbs along our passage here to kubuckets. And thank you for the reference to journeyman assemblage; I personally accomplished that milestone at the ripe old age of 28. May I join in the masses who exclaim Danke, heir jaymiester 1.0. Your prudence, providence, & puritanism are pleasurable to old board rats who continue to enjoy a forum free of facegate attribution and permissions-unless they may mutter their disposition with the twixt of the lip of, let’s say…Sylvester the Cat! Welcome back jb 1.0. And please enjoy the freedom of civil conversation without the retribution & absurdity of the wanton cynics still so protrusive on the public media sites.
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approxinfinity has now found his website!
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Couldn’t have a better Christmas present than to have a post by Jaybate.
(clap)
I raise my (beer) to you.
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This post is deleted!
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Jaybate welcome home for the holidays. Remember the holiday classic in AFH when we hosted USC and UCLA with J. Hartman I think as the other home team. Vague memory yet know you will have it. I think we sat together behind Ted.
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In the British House Of Commons there’s a title called Father Of The House. It’s given to the most senior member of the chamber.
I always thought of Jaybate as the Father Of our chat House, if not in years, then definitely in stature.
Merry Christmas 'bate, and to all fellow board rats! RCJH!
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Ok … on to the substance of @jaybate’s post.
And we knew it all along, didn’t we? Self is a feed the post kind of coach. That’s his m.o. His entire offensive scheme is built around the wing entry pass to the block.
I would ask, though, this perfect tension between inside and out – where does the three point shot fit in all of this?
I would argue that you cannot effectively have this perfect tension if you can’t shoot a competitively high percentage from three point range. The athletic freaks on the wings can’t drive nearly as effectively if the defense is packed it, preferring to permit the three pointer.
Turnovers, intensity, rebounding … forget it. Those will progress. All this team lacks right now is three point shooting. Add that, you have a national title contender, if not a national title favorite.
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Missed you buddy. Now the season has started. Nimitz also knew how to blend the colors.
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@HighEliteMajor Thank you, HEM. As you know I have a special place for you in my heart, because we made civility a coin of the realm. FWIW, I’m just coming off the bench now. You and slayr r da men.
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@VailHawk: part of the reason I worked up the gumption to come back was the warmth and playfulness you exhibited to me over on Jesse Newell’s live blog. Thx.
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@approxinfinity: You are an amazing person to have had the generosity of spirit to patch this board together and make it hunt. Thank you.
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@oldhwkfan: thank you for mentioning my attempts at humor. There was a stretch of the Great Stagflation, which still haunts many, when things were so grim for so many, that I committed to being funny more than doing hoops, because I knew how many were suffering. Not sure I can do humor as consistently, because of losing my fastball to some health issues. But I will give it a go, whenever I can. And you really should post. Everyone that loves the Jayhawks has stories worth recalling and analyses worth sharing.
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@tis4tim: you are one of those folks that I go back with. Thx for the warm welcome.
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@JayDocMD: Thx. You are among the posters that the recent changes have brought out the best in. Keep it up.
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@Jesse Newell: I have made myself pretty clear over on your live blog, but I will repeat it here. What you live in enabling not only smooth exchanges, but also weaving in data, and interesting observations of what goes on around you has seemed to me one of the high points of early internet journalism. Your introduction of statistics into sports journalism has been nothing short of pioneering and sensational. The highest compliment I can pay you is this: you are the first truly interactive journalist I have had the pleasure to watch develop the medium in the way I foresaw connectivity to work. Thank you.
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@jaybate good to see you on board. I saw the title and read the first sentence (before seeing your name) and thought that sounds like Jaybate and sure enough it was you. Looking forward to the exchanges and pontifications through this exciting season.
By the way, I was going to paste a Chalice here but can’t figure it out.
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@globaljaybird: of all the aliases here that express themselves regularly here, you and I seem to be from the closest to hailing from the same time capsule in The Legacy. There are insights you have about what I trying to say that are at times a nearly telepathic. It pained me greatly not to respond to you when you reached out to me in concern for my well being. I regret not having responded to you, and to some others. But at the time, I made a decision based on my health and my relative unfamiliarity with all of the goings on about change in community rules to be silent to all inquiries. It was a very complicated time for me. I had lost a number of persons in my life recently. I was struggling with ill health. And it was all I could do at times to make it day to day. It isn’t really an excuse. It is just the facts. Please forgive me.
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@FarSideHawk here ya go… just drag and drop and image from your desktop into your reply window…
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@jaybate 1.0 Good to see you jb. I miss your art gallery on KUSports
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@FarSideHawk: Thanks for remembering the chalice. I am not able to locate either my original, or my replacement, jpeg right now, but everything turns up eventually.
Have a great holiday.
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@ParisHawk: you have always been able to edit me down to essence.
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@RockChalkinTexas: RockChalkin’ you are so very kind. Thank you. Make it a Louise’s Schooner. 32oz we used to claim.
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@lighthawk: light, great, great, grrrrrrrrreat recollection. If we sat together then you had to know me, and if you knew me, then I have to ask you to keep the secret of what a mischievous scoundrel I loved being in those days.
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Wow, it feels like Christmas has arrived early this year!
Welcome aboard, @jaybate !
I look forward to scheduling in more time to read some long, tasty posts!
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@nwhawkfan: I shall keep a stiff upper for us both, then, when ever I partake in irreverent doggerel about the Madame Chancellor, nee CBernie, sir! Good day.
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@jaybate 1.0 Thanks for the kind words. It’s been a lot of fun and educational, and I think it’s made me exercise some social skills that were a little rusty.
One thing I have to do - Can’t seem to @ you (it appears to be tagging the person who originally took the jaybate moniker here). I’ll have to figure out what we can do about this, as the @ feature makes it easy for you to follow conversations here
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@HighEliteMajor: I agree we have a problem with trey shooting for sure. But the convergence of all the bigs into guys capable of producing to one degree or another, rather than having still-born line scores, especially, Embiid, means Self really can start taking it inside and making them stop KU inside. This development means that Self’s long list of trifectates are increasingly going to be shooting open looks right at the line. Self apparently believes Selden, Wiggins, Greene, White and Frankamp can all make shots from the Planet Trinitron and that shooters come around whenever they come around. He apparently thinks the best thing he can do for them is to go to a power game, where none of them feel like they have to make shots to win; they just have to take wide open looks without even really jumping very hard. This will likely allow the shooters to grow their juevos back. Or so it seems to me.
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Welcome home Jaybate. Now if Oakville would just pay a visit the site would be truly complete.
Here’s looking forward to your unique and often educational basketball posts. The X’s and O’s thrill me and the conspiracy theories entertain me in the summer. Thanks for all the good reads and here’s looking forward to more!
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I don’t think we have a problem at 3. Our last couple of games we’ve run an offense feeding the post and our 3-FG% is about 36%. Throw out the shot by Evan Manning in the last game and it was 38.5%. Not blistering, but give it some time. The first step is to establish post play.
As we settle in to a steady offense based on feeding the post, our perimeter shooting will come around. It takes a while to settle in to this offense, especially from the perimeter. These guys will start understanding where exactly they need to run their spacing to the defense (for example).
We’ve got too many good options at 3 to not shoot a respectable %. They should actually shoot better from receiving passes out of the post then from side-to-side. It sets the shooter up for an easier motion when he receives the ball out of the post. Before the last couple of games most of our 3-pt attempts came from side-to-side passes. It’s a tougher shot because the shooter has to swivel after having caught the pass to then get up the shot. Plus, the release is quicker when the shooter doesn’t have to swivel.
I’m betting sometime soon, like early in conference play, we get the outside shooting touch down. It makes no sense that we have all these great perimeter guns and none of them are shooting it well from 3. There has to be an explanation, and I’m betting it was mechanical and will largely go away as we develop offense running out of the post.
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@wrwlumpy: same to you, wrw, and that is one awesome jpeg!!!
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@AsadZ: Good to hear from you. I don’t know if I will be able to resume paintographing, or not.
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@drgnslayr: I hope board rats here appreciate what you have been giving especially the last few weeks. There have been times recently, when you seemed to pick this web site up on your back and carry it for days at a time. Talk about manning up. As I told HEM above, you and he are the starters now. I am just a reserve. For everyone else that reads this, I want everyone to know far slayr has come as a writer. He always knew the game better than most everyone else, because he played it here,and lived it overseas, but he was for a long time hesitant to go ahead and find his voice. Work obligations and a touch of doubt about whether finding his own writing voice was worth the inevitable struggle it required to find it made him deliberate early on. But it has been a particular and remarkable joy to to watch his tenacity and success in finding it. Like HEM, slayr’s become a writer here. Its been great fun watching him become a ripping good read. Rock Chalk, slayr. You did it.
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@jaybate 1.0 Second that. Thanks for manning up @drgnslayr – without its sparkplugs this car wouldn’t move. Your color commentating gets us fired up consistently.
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@jaybate and @approxinfinity - Thanks for the kind words. Yes… I kind of felt an obligation to try and keep things going. I sure am glad you are back! I appreciate your words, but I can’t hold a candle to your talents! I’ll always do what I can, but I’m probably reaching my plateau on the upside. I’m happy to share the load with a real 5-star writer!
Rock Chalk coming back to you JB!
And if you would like some health discussion… please message me. I’m not a doctor and don’t practice medicine, but I study nutrition and health through non-pharmacological methods. It became a necessity for my own health concerns over the years. All I can say is I went from being a broken-down old guy to a sprite old guy! ha… But seriously, nutrition knowledge is advancing faster than pharmacology these days. Unfortunately, there isn’t the big bucks in home remedies, gardening and fermentation practices. That doesn’t mean you can’t find a quality lifestyle that will keep you healthy at the same time! It’s out there!
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@jaybate 1.0 Well, well, well…and ahHA! An early Christmas gift unpackaged for all of us here at this best new alternate LJW site. Welcome back, jb! I had lost interest in posting, primarily due to your absence, I now think. Perhaps I can re-energize. Best of all good health to you this Holiday Season and beyond. Please keep the words flowing. You da king!
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“There are recurring themes and form languages. Stops start offense. Sticking stops offense. Offense is inside out. Feeding bigs is crucial. Kicking out to open looks follows feeding bigs like day follows night. Making shots, not taking shots, is the goal.”
I can’t express how much I missed reading passages like this!
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@drgnslayr Slayr, I felt from the getgo that our 3 pt. shooting would save the flag on more than a few campaigns this season. The percentages have been alarming, to date; but I still feel certain that we will see this squad reap the benefit of points aplenty from beyond the arc sooner or later. Your discussion here sounds encouraging: outside shooters beginning to receive more passes, straight on from the post, so that their motion is more dead-on, esp. at this stage when they are struggling to settle into proven form. The General and his troops are now beginning to find unison in adherence to very basic and productive Self-ball. I feel confident that other skills will soon fall into place. One thing now appears very certain: considering that 7 Big 12 teams this week are rated among the Top 28 Division 1 squads, Bill Self’s entire array of young talent will be challenged weekly to step up to the plate with lively bats. Our longrange hitters had best prepare the pine tar in royal George Brett style! And soon…
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Thanks for the kind words @jaybate 1.0. Sorry for your recent losses and I hope you are healing well from your own ailments.
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I decided to look at the numbers a bit. My impression during the first 11 games of this season is that three point shooting has been our Achilles’ heel. Not just percentage, but also the low volume of threes. So I thought I’d go to the stats that matter, those of NCAA Champions, to see where this version of Jayhawks stack up as far as three point baskets per game.
I looked at the last 12 NCAA Champions. Not surprisingly, the 2013-14 Jayhawks are well behind national title pace. This year’s Jayhawks have made 4.90 three point shots per game (54 in 11 games).
In the last 12 seasons, no NCAA title winner has made less than 5.31 per game, which was the low (Syracuse in 2003). The rates per game – 2013 Louisville 5.75; 2012 Kentucky 5.61; 2011 UConn 5.87; 2010 Duke 7.58; 2009 North Carolina 6.94; 2008 Kansas 6.77; 2007 Florida 7.42; 2006 Florida 7.41; 2005 North Carolina 7.48; 2004 UConn 6.38; 2003 Syracuse 5.31; and 2002 Maryland 6.02.
The average three pointers made per game by NCAA title winners was 6.54 over that 12 year stretch. Again, KU is now at 4.90 three pointers made per game.
This stat isn’t the definitive guide to winning a title. It’s just a piece of the puzzle. But my impression has been that we don’t have an excellent three point shooter logging regular minutes. We might have some decent ones, but no “excellent” shooters.
Our three point percentage is low, too, at 32.1%. No NCAA title winner has shot the three that poorly. But there are three that were in that ballpark. Louisville at 33.3% last season, UConn in 2010 shot 32.9%, and Syracuse was 34.4% in 2003.
But our threes made per game is significantly behind where we need to be. I have suggested that we can’t shoot threes at our current rate and compete for a national championship. We have to be able to keep up with teams that may get hot for stretches. I’m just not sure that the shooters we are playing as part of the rotation can pick up the pace.
But I do see three on the bench that might fit the bill … I’m just not sure any of the three are fit for Bill.
****As an aside, a completely startling stat – Syracuse in 2003 had three shooters account for 527 of their 540 three point attempts. That is really amazing. The rest of the team shot a total of 13 threes.
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My condolences for your recent losses, @jaybate .
Solid post, @HighEliteMajor . Really excellent to bring in some stats, especially comparing NC winners with this team.
I’m not really certain what we can do specifically to resolve the dilemma you mention. Frankamp is the gold-standard of shooting proficiency from afar… and his average seems to be one of the lower averages from our options.
I think part of our issue is that our stud shooters are only freshmen… except Tharpe. It kind of makes me think they all just need time and court time to work it out.
But really… before these last couple of games did we have any apparent set offense? In all our early games I thought it just looked like a bunch of freshmen running around trying to get open. I saw no deliberate strategy of attack.
I can’t help but think that having a well-run offense will also help our perimeter shooting percentages. It just makes sense that having all these great shooters with low percentages points to other issues besides their own personal talents.
If we get through half of conference play and can’t win at a better clip than now… I’ll start worrying.
I believe our strong post play with help open up the outside game… especially when considering that there aren’t so many great post teams out there.
