Newman-Brown Hypothesis
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Good defenses can stop any scheme. That’s what’s different about basketball versus football. In basketball, you can run a sophisticated offense all you want, but I can have a defense shut it down if you don’t have good enough players. But give me a great player - a Durant, Bryant, James, Jordan, Wilt, Bird, Magic, etc. - and I don’t care what kind of defense you play, I can score.
From a schematic perspective you can put guys into great spots, but all the positioning in the world doesn’t put the ball in the basket. It all comes down to shotmaking, and if you have shotmakers and playmakers, you will score points in almost any offensive scheme.
The San Antonio Spurs have a tremendous offensive scheme, to be sure, but they also have Future HOFs in Duncan, Parker and Ginobili, as well as one of the 15-20 best young players in the league in Kawhi Leonard. Schemes look a lot better with that type of talent. The Showtime Lakers had great schemes, but if you just hand the ball to Magic Johnson and have Worthy filling one lane on the break with Michael Cooper filling the other and Kareem trailing, again, you will score the ball pretty well regardless of what you’re actually running.
This has been the problem KU has confronted. Good defenses can clog their schemes and KU’s guys are left standing around wondering “now what?” Well, now you get into a new play, or you take advantage of a MUA, or you go one four, or you run a high screen roll for a ball handler. The thing is, you have to have a creative option when things are clogged up by good defenses.
I think Self has seen that because he knows we were better than Stanford, he knows we shouldn’t have lost to KSU either of the last two years. He lost to less talented teams because they were able to clog up our regular schemes. So now he’s looking for guys that can’t be bogged down because they can create their own, and I think he is wanting to let those guys do their thing.
He dipped his toe in the water this year with it, but it was too late in the year to fully embrace that approach. He has the University Games and the entire offseason to work on this now, and if he gets Brown or Newman (or both) he has the right personnel to do it.
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@ralster Why would the offensive schemes and plays stagnate?
I would first say that I don’t think our plays stagnate. Our set plays are by and large effective.
But on our offense, it’s because it is not dynamic. It is easy to guard. There is never an inversion of roles. It’s easy for defenses to know where offensive players will be. It relies on execution first and foremost, which of course most offenses do. But its execution does nothing to confuse the defense. In other words, we try to do what we do and do it so well that we’ll beat you. The roles in the offense are very regimented. The stagnation occurs because there is little freedom to deviate from the rules of the offense. Rules aren’t bad, of course, they are a necessity. But there are too few options within the rules.
Best way I can say it.
One example I have used is we rarely use the high post to screen the wing, away from the ball. This creates 1) the opportunity for an open three pointer, and 2) a re-screen to set up a pick and roll on the wing. This seems like a very easy concept to incorporate and use all the time.
@justanotherfan I am hopeful that your optimism is well placed!
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I agree that many of our sets are too vanilla. I don’t think we need complex sets, though. Instead, I think we just need freedom within our existing sets.
For example, certain guys should have a continuous green light to freelance. The threat of a drive from the wing always exists just because certain guys always have that green light. Adding just that element of the unknown means that now defenses must gear not just to the play (playing the play, as we used to say in high school), but also playing the man because he may break away from the play.
When I was in high school, in scrimmages when I was on the JV we would often frustrate the varsity by freelancing out of our regular sets. The varsity had more talent (obviously), but because everybody in the building knew the sets, it was easy to bog them down, even for the less skilled JV. And obviously, when the JV had the ball, the varsity could easily clamp down on the sets because they knew what we were running and had more talent.
But we used that knowledge to our advantage. We would get into our regular sets, then go opposite of where the action was supposed to go. If we were supposed to run a pick and roll, I would sometimes just reject the screen and drive the opposite way. With the defense expecting me to go to the screen, the guy defending the screen was up to high trying to hedge and the guy guarding me would be slipping under the screen to pop out on the other side. Many times we would get an easy basket for me on the drive, or for the screener on the roll because the defenders would be out of position.
We would backdoor instead of popping out for passes on the perimeter. We would dribble to the wing instead of starting the offense with a pass. We would backscreen the post instead of doing a cross screen. We would sometimes post our perimeter players and let our post guys feed them, just to confuse the defense if they were waiting on a perimeter guy to pop to the wing.
All of that stuff just to create uncertainty on the defense because they knew the plays, but had no idea what we would do.
As you said, we have to create that uncertainty, where guys feel free to break away from the regular set.
For example, we need to have guys occasionally spin back to the sideline when we run our dribble weave instead of always trying to drive middle. The defenses have discovered that they can just funnel everything middle and we will drive right into trouble. However, if we spin back to the sideline and get a quick screen from the post man, we have a quick hitting side pick and roll out of a set that many teams are trying to force into the middle of the floor.
Or out of our standard high screen, maybe start screening with a shooter rather than a big. You can’t go under a screen if Brannen Greene is the screener because Greene may separate and punish you with a triple.
Back screen with littles for bigs. Post up Selden and let Perry feed him. Screen and roll with Perry as the ball handler and Selden as the screener.
All just little wrinkles to confuse the defense so they can’t just sit back and assume they know where the action is going.
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I’m all in on your comment about guys freelancing out of a set. The key to running good offense is still about having guys with a high basketball IQ and can play aggressive. If you have that then you can run about anything and score. Defenses will continue to adjust and you find a way around their adjustments.
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Coach Self system takes more than one year to master and he has indicated he had to “dumb down” the system so the younger players could be at least partially effective. The '08 and '12 team with experienced player could execute all the variation of the hi-lo and the the '08 team had the talent and won the title, the '12 team did not have nearly the talent and still made it to the finals. If Coach Self will continue to rely on inexperienced players he will have to come up with hybrid version of his system that makes the inexperienced players effective and still takes advantage of all the variation of the hi-lo; having said that, the upcoming team should have a fair amount of experience.
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@JayHawkFanToo I think he had lower than ever!!! bb IQ kids this year!
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How is the BBQ IQ?
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@JayHawkFanToo really good in my town!!! Better than kc!
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That is me. That is me: old as the hills and twice as dusty!
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Better than KC??? We might have to put that statement to a tasting test…
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Hard to beat Oklahoma Joe’s at the original location.
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You mean the one in Mission or the one in Olathe? Is ts called Joe’s Kansas City BBQ now.
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In Mission near the state line. It’s the classy joint in the back half of a c+. Man that was good bbq! You’d see all the local pro-athletes, tv, radio guys in there. It was fantastic in the '90s and still is, I just don’t get it but once in a great while now.
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Lots of celebrities at the Olathe location and I believe they have now one in Leawood across Town Center that probably gets most of the celebrities. Billy “Country Breakfast” Butler was frequent sight at the Olathe location.
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@JayHawkFanToo I’ve had the Olathe locations ribs a couple of times, but I’ve never been in. Back before they had branched out the line was insane. It would always be at least the length of the building and usually started 20 people outside of the door. They shoved people through amazingly fast! Delicious. I wish I could buy bbq that good here. I’ve got to make it myself and I’m not that good…yet.
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@JayHawkFanToo be a fun taste test!
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Depending on the day and time, lines can be crazy long. Most of the time I just order and take it home; I am only 3 miles from their location.
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@JayHawkFanToo I am a mere 6.5 hours from any of the locations! mmm bbq
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At least dozen great BBQ places within 10 miles (many very close) from home.
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@JayHawkFanToo I’m taking him to the best, come on down w/us!
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Where and which is the best? I am not sure they are better than the ones in KC which rer routinely in the top-10, top-20 lists of BBQ joints in the country.
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It’s not about a system’s complexity or simplicity. It’s about a system’s unpredictability.
You can run a very complex system, but if you give me enough time, I can figure out all of the wrinkles and I can still stop your complex system because it’s not that unpredictable.
On the other hand, you can run a simple system, but a system that allows a lot of freedom and freelancing, and no matter how much I know about your basic stuff, I can’t predict what you’re doing because your players may go outside the basic tenets of the set at any moment.
The Hi-Lo is a complex system. It has lots of options. It’s a very viable offense. But it’s not like there aren’t coaches all across the country that know and understand the Hi-Lo and haven’t schemed up ways to stop it. The key then is to add some variations, or allow some variation that otherwise you don’t normally have.
For example, Perry is a very skilled player. We should take advantage of that by allowing Perry to freelance on the perimeter more. Put Perry on the perimeter while you send one of our smaller guys inside and run the Hi-Lo with Perry high and Selden low. Make the defense do things they haven’t necessarily practiced.
Run a basic pin down every now and then (something we almost never do. Screen for the high post with a shooter, then run a pick and roll with the shooter and the ball handler. It’s all about options and about creating defensive confusion.
If Self is running a system that is so complex that players cannot learn it within a season, his system is too complex for college. At every school, your rotation turns over basically every season because even without OAD’s, you have players graduating, players coming in, transfers, etc. You will have 2-3 new guys almost every year no matter where you are. If your system is so complicated that you can’t get contributions from those guys, you’re doing it wrong. This isn’t the NBA, where you have the chance to keep your core together for 2-4 years at a time. This is college. No player will be in your system for more than 5 years.
Look at a school like Wichita State. They don’t have OADs. Here are the WSU rotations for the last five years (averaging double figure minutes playing in at least half the games, or over 20 minutes in less than half):
14-15: Baker, Van Vleet, Cotton, Carter, Morris, Wessel, Brown, Kelly
13-14: Early, Baker, Van Vleet, Cotton, Carter, Lufile, Wiggins, Coleby, Wessel
12-13: Early, Hall, Armstead, Baker, Williams, Cotton, Wiggins, Van Vleet, White, Orukpe
11-12: Ragland, Stutz, Murry, Smith, Kyles, Hall, Williams
10-11: Durley, Murry, Kyles, Stutz, Ragland, Smith, Blair, Hatch, Ellis, Williams
Every year except one, WSU introduced at least 3 new guys into the rotation. And this is without any OAD’s! And with Cotton and Carter graduating this year, they will probably introduce a couple new faces to the rotation again next year. If the system is too complex to learn in a year, you will constantly be wasting years because guys need to be able to come in and contributeon some level as freshmen/ first year players.
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@justanotherfan Your post is excellent and very insightful. The unpredictability you cite makes it very difficult to game plan to stop the offense. It’s no different than football. If you run the same stuff, out the same formations, good defensive coordinators will stop it (unless the athletes are far superior).
The reason Self’s system is supposedly so complex is his demands within the system. Which goes to your point on flexibility.
I had mentioned yesterday, as well, a couple easy additions to our system. You mentioned options. Have we ever seen our wing screen for the high post with the low post clearing out to the opposite wing? Imagine that … Ellis accepts the screen from Selden, Selden clears wide and rolls. Ellis attacks. The low post has cleared wide to the roll/Selden side. Selden provides an option for the pass. Meanwhile, Greene lurks on Ellis’ side, at the three point line (corner). If Greene’s man helps, pop to Greene for three. Of course, if the lane is open, Ellis goes to the hoop.
A great example of teams scheming to stop our offense – When we ran our 4 out/1 in weave against Oklahoma, it caught them off guard. We had the advantage. By the time we reached the Big 12 tourney, coach Hoiberg was ready, and shut it down in the second half. All ISU did was pinch the wings, kind of create a mess in the middle, and shut the lanes down. We had nothing. WSU just plagiarized ISU – it’s what good coaches do.
Self needs an offensive coordinator.
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I believe @justanotherfan and @HighEliteMajor are on the right path.
@JayHawkFanToo - You are right in your post about Self saying he had to dumb it down and it takes players more than a year to get his offense. That is all we need to know why we need to change our offense. If guys have to go out there and think a lot while on offense, they aren’t going to be moving at the right speed to execute. Play (on both sides of the ball) has to move quickly without much thought. Guys need to know what to do and execute.
Basketball is a game about feel, not too much of a head game. Yes, players need high basketball IQ… and that will help them play smart and responsive because they aren’t freezing to think about something… they are reactive and proactive.
It shouldn’t be rocket science for these guys. When a player gets on a spot on the court, he should be able to know how he can score… depending on what the defense gives. And that player has to know where to look for other guys on his team to make an assist.
From March play, I really got off on ND’s offense. Those guys were programmed to never give up on a possession. When a guy is open, the other guys aren’t standing there watching him… they are either cutting in for a rebound, or making a move to get even a better shot because they know the guy with the ball will be looking to pass for a better scoring option even though his is good… right up until the split second he shoots (or passes instead).
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Some great points being made on our offense and what can be done to improve/create unpredictability within the sets.
One thing I wanted to mention about the H/L that has grinded my gears for years was the overhead lob pass from the high post, or a from wing side throwing to an angle into the post when a defender fronts. Especially last year when we didn’t have the personnel to throw in to, that pass was as good as a turnover. It’s great if you can successfully throw it in and get the easy basket but we saw how ineffective all our bigs were at sealing, catching, and finishing those type plays. And we still tried to throw it in no matter who was in there. I think in the Wichita game it was good for 3-4 turnovers alone because of the way Wichita packed the lane.
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Unpredictability is just another item to be compensated for strategically. It is not a be all end all. It is not even that hard to counter.
All unpredictability is still something that has to occur somewhere and at some time. It is just a larger variance of what, where and when.
You just restring your defense to include the larger variation, or alternatively, you attack preemptively so the unpredictability can not come into play; this is the rationale behind preventative war doctrine. If you attack first, their unpredictability function plummets to zero.
And when you take away their predictability, then that opens up a box of worms for yourself that they then counter.
Nothing is a be all end all in strategy.
Whenever someone says it is not about this, it is about that, you’ve got them.
Because it is always not about this, or that, or even both, it is about everything.
And in motion.
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Good points but you have to remember that Coach Self developed his offense at at time when upper class men played and the younger players learned the system and if you look at his best teams, they were junior and senior based teams with a other complimentary players.
With OAD and TAD players taking the bulk of play time, the Coach Self has slowly changed/simplified his system, I guess you can call it dumbing it down for lack of a better name, so it is not as effective as it once was but allows better production form the younger, less experience players. The current team should come in with a lot more experience and I can see Coach Self staying with the system that has proven to be highly effective longer, now that he has the talent and experience. No question that some kids such as Collison, Hinrich, Reed, Morningstar come in with much higher basketball IQ and can contribute earlier, others come in with lower a BBall IQ and eventually catch up and some will never quite reach a high level BBall IQ and will have to rely on other tools to be productive. BTW, I don’t believe BBall IQ is related to how smart you are but how your brain is wired.
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@BeddieKU23 The Morri where golden with that entry pass from the top of the key to the block. So was Kaun, Aurthor. Our bigs are small so they can’t pass over the D as easily. I also don’t think our bigs were good passers. Traylor gets too amped, Lucas has no touch, Mickelson gets no minutes, Cliff was lost. Perry doesn’t throw the pass to the blocks often, mainly because the other posts don’t know how to hold position (Lucas may figure that out).
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Your last comment put it all in perspective. Self’s offense was built for juniors and seniors. So what the heck is he doing recruiting OADs? Why do we recruit OADs and run offense that takes guys 3 to 4 years to really get it?
We either need to adjust our offense to fit in with today’s game of OADs and TADs or stay old school and recruit old school.
The contradiction is killing us.
So we avoid most of the 3-star, 4-star and lower 5-star guys to recruit the elite OADs, and we spend 20-odd million dollars for luxury apartments… but we stay with Adidas and we teach old school offense that takes 3 years to interpret.
Will someone please ask Self about this publicly at the next opportunity?
We can’t have a cutting-edge perception (OADs) but be stuck in an old school world. It is like part of Self is modern, but his bones are committed to old school.
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Agreed, Lucas just wasn’t strong enough in the lower body to get the pass and go up with it strong for a dunk. He really labored with that and I’m sure Hudy will be working all summer with him on that.
Ellis is just too small unless he can effectively seal his man. I think he’d be better with another athletic big to off-set his lack of height.
The other issue with throwing that pass is having good passers. That was another area of concern. Mari is a good lob passer but his touch throwing into the bigs wasn’t that great. Ellis is the best post passer we have but we need him to score.
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yes…but…
He has adjusted his method, maybe not as much as some would like but he is still winning, so it is hard to argue that he is not doing things right…right?
We really don’t know much of what goes on behind close doors and after reading @ralster’s accounts of his experience with him, I will not second guess what he does.
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Another issue with the Hi-Lo is that it requires traditional post players to run at an optimal level.
Look around the country at the top recruits - how many are traditional back to the basket post players? Not many.
Last year Self really pursued Okafor, and with good reason. Okafor would have been a nice anchor in the Hi-Lo. He would have changed KU’s entire offensive approach because he was a big man that commands double teams on the low block at all times.
Now let’s think about the last time we had a post guy that you absolutely had to double all the time on the block. That would be Thomas Robinson - we went to the title game with him. Before that, it was the Morris twins - Elite Eight. Before that, Darrell Arthur - championship and an Elite Eight. I don’t count Cole or Jeff Withey because neither of them was ever an adept scorer on their own.
So Self’s offense is reliant on a rare commodity to be most successful. He has to have a post player that you must double team to be most effective. With Embiid healthy, KU was rolling. Embiid got hurt and we fell apart because the Hi-Lo needs the Lo to be most effective.
In thinking about it, we really needed to grab a guy like Diamond Stone. He’s a traditional back to the basket guy. If we are going to get OAD’s, that’s the type we need. Maybe we would have been better off getting Julius Randle than Andrew Wiggins for that reason. Wiggins doesn’t help as much as Wiggins because, even though Wiggins is better, Randle fits the Hi-Lo better.
But here’s the thing - if you have great talent, shouldn’t your offense conform to that talent. What good is it to have a McLemore, a Wiggins and an Oubre, but not capitalize with all of that lottery talent on the perimeter because you are committed to the Hi-Lo?
We need an offense that can maximize all talent, rather than an offense that focuses on the low post even if our best players are on the perimeter.
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If I had to guess one guy that KU has the best chances at it would be Georgios Papagiannis because of the recent success with foreign prospects. Wiggins, Embiid, and Svi are the best foreign prospects over the last couple of years that played in the NCAA. I think it holds a lot of weight with guys looking to come to the states and play college ball. This is the guy other teams would have to double team and meets your back to the basket 5. I actually think KU lands him this summer.
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Courtney Cronin @CourtneyRCronin · Apr 21
To clear this up: Malik Newman will announce his college decision at 12 p.m. Fri in a closed setting live streamed at http://clarionledger.comThis girl has been following him around and she is in the know. She did predict UK though so I would imagine if anyone had any idea it would be her.
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Wiggins and Embiid were high level prospects but Svi is still a big unknown. Did you watch the Nike Hoops Summit where the International players beat the Americans? Tons of good foreign prospects…about 25% of NBA players are now foreigners.
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While it would be nice to get Newman, I would say that KU’s primary targets are Diallo and Ingram and any available footer or near footer after that, would you agree with this?
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@JayHawkFanToo I believe Georgios Papagiannis is actually HCBS’s TOP priority based specifically on need BUT he has spent so much time and $$$ recruiting the 4 guys left on the board if he makes it public that his top priority is the Greek big man it might change the trajectory of Diallo. We need Georgios Papagiannis for 3-4 years MORE than we need any OAD but I believe Self’s OAD credibility would be crushed if he regressed and perused lesser talent before the top guys are off the board. Just my take on recruiting.
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Excellent points. Whats is the current status for Papagiannis? He seems to have dropped off the radar in the last week; I figured he decided to play pro ball in Greece…
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@JayHawkFanToo He has said he WILL play ball in the states next year and will make a decision in June.
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Good info. Is he playing for Greece in the upcoming World University Games? Is he even eligible?
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@JayHawkFanToo No clue!
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It appears that ALL of the OAD’s left on the board will announce with in the next week. After the dust settles it will look like the US is invading Greece with all of the college basketball head coaches and assistant coaches headed there to court Georgios Papagiannis.
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@Statmachine I hope we don’t need to!
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@Crimsonorblue22 I hope we have to because we should still have a scholarship left and why not try to fill it with some height? I cant imagine KU landing 3 of the 4 left on the board. That would be beyond my wildest dreams if that happened. I would be smiling from ear to ear until next April!
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From what I read, I’d be happy just to fill one of those scholarships with these guys and then hope for a late catch… something Self is probably the best in the country at doing.
