Self at KU from Here to Eternity, Cal and K Rumored Gone (Scratch that Vulnerable to Apparent LSU Stack)
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Oh, this is so fun!
Self is staying.
Just kidding about Cal and K, but if you think about Cal and K, their days really could be numbered.
To reiterate, Cal has failed folks big time that don’t appear to like failure, or the unexpected.
And Coach K? Well, bottom line, it took him a 9 stack of what Bo Ryan reputedly called rent-a-players, plus an apparently completely cleared path to the Final with an apparently favorable whistle to barely beat UW with only two guys that might make an NBA roster!!! Think about it.
Next season, if LSU were given the SEC stack (and it apparently has been) and Cal has to earn an SEC title, then can he and UK be taken seriously at all anymore? eve with Labissiere? I mean the jury is kind of in on Cal’s coaching, isn’t it? Without all the advantages, he might take you to the NIT and lose first round, right? He’s not like Self who will find a way to win a conference title even with guys no other stack school would even sniff at.
And can the NCAA really afford to clear another path to the Finals for Coach K? What if Coach K doesn’t sign Ingram? OMG! Coach K seems to be at that age that he has to have no competition until the Finals, then a favorable whistle, and a nine stack to pull it off. This is no exaggeration, is it? I mean he and/or his players appeared to have to resort to big time cheap shotting even with a 9 stack, an apparent path clearing, and an apparent favorable whistle? If you are thinking of backing up the dump trucks in Durham with what remains right now, which appears to amount to giving Coach K less than he had last season, how confident is that going to leave the powers that be feeling, eh?
And to reiterate: Coach Cheapshotashevski, no, no, no, just joking, I mean Coach K appears not in sight of being given a 9 stack again.
A recruit like Ingram, and his posse, have to think this through very carefully. Same with Diallo. Same with Brown and Newman. Even if they all go to UK with Labissiere, or if they all go to Duke, are they going to be good enough as a green wood to beat LSU? It looks kind of doubtful.
This apparent program stacking looks so easy at first, but like all apparent central planning emergent complexity catches up with it at times.
But if all the players remaining were all to go to KU, to go along with all of KU’s experienced players, KU might well become the team to beat, even for Nike-LSU!
But Self has to find a 5 to reassure them and he has not done so, at least publicly. But what if he has behind the scenes?
I suspect this is why there are so sooooooo many mixed signals and so much gear shifting going on by the small but important flock of recruits remaining.
I suspect there is real uncertainty about where is best to go to contend with Nike-LSU.
A lot perhaps doubt Coach K can win without a completely stacked deck, which he can’t have next season, because, well, it appears that the deck is stacked in Baton Rouge this year.
And many likely suspect now that Cal can’t win even with a completely stacked deck, and they know he is NOT going to have a completely stacked deck next season with LSU in conference. Hell, you could give Cal everyone left and IMHO he almost certainly would finish second in the SEC!!!
So this raises UNC and KU into the picture as target programs for the remaining recruits to flock to–to bring strength in numbers to.
But UNC has a black flipping cloud hanging over it, because of the easy course scandal. Remember?
And any, or all, of them choosing UNC pours salt in the Jordan vs. Nike fault line in the greater Nike world.
This means that KU actually could be a face saving path precipitating least conflict and best possibility for beating LSU.
Go, Bill, go!!!
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@jaybate-1.0 Thats insane! My question is how on earth did LSU get the Nike dump trucks to back up to their doors? The LSU coach, is he sniffing the behinds of any major recruiters linked to Nike AAU programs or is he on the verge of becoming the next Brad Stevens or something?
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@jaybate-1.0 AND, when the crap are all the undeclared guys going to pull the plug!? For cryin out loud.
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So far as I recall, Brad Stevens apparently did it without dump trucks at Butler, so I don’t think we can learn much from that comparison. About all we can infer from Stevens is that when you go to the Final Four twice without dump trucks, and refuse to move to an elite major where dump trucks might go, something about the NBA soon looks pretty appealing, even after you say you plan to stay at Butler forever. Hmm. Not sure what to make of that.
I do vaguely recall Trent Johnson did not get dump trucks to back up to Baton Rouge during his time there, nor do they appear to back up for him at TCU.
And Trent was an assistant to Mike Montgomery. And Mike Montgomery after leaving Stanford wound up back in the Bay Area for a time at Cal. And you know what? The dump trucks didn’t back up there for him either, as I recall. Hmmm. Cuonzo Martin is now at Cal. Haven’t heard how he is doing there, have you ?
May be something might be gleaned from some professional journalists comparing the impressive recruiting successes of Stumpy Miller at UA, John Calipari at Memphis and UK, Coach K recently at Duke, and what may emerge at MSU and Texas?
Heck, I think we all need to be studying these Nike programs to learn how to do what they do to emulate it at our adidas program.
Where there’s a will there’s a a way, right?
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@jaybate-1.0 For the Brad Stevens thing, I just meant from a very savvy coaching perspective. Is he any good? The coach at LSU?
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@jaybate-1.0 Donovan to OKC? I read a headline on Espn about it but thats all I know.
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Donovan has wanted to go to the pros since his double ring teams. It has been fascinating to see him stay and try to make something enduring out of Florida basketball. I think Floridians as a fan base are maybe too football partial to ever truly appreciate what he has done for them. I also think Donovan has to be asking himself what he is doing there trying to build something lasting at Florida when college basketball is being brought to its knees by the NBA, the ShoeCos and the Agents with the Media-Gaming Complex in the Back Ground monitoring nothing longer term than eyeball counts and scale of vig. Donovan has to be thinking, well, he has won two NCAA rings back to back. All he has to do is go to the NBA and win two rings and he beats out Larry Brown as the most successful coach at both levels combined. And he would never have to go begging for another OAD either.
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@jaybate-1.0 He has already partially gone to the NBA. A few years ago he accepted the head coaching position from the Orlando Magic. He had signed a contract. After a couple of days he decided that he wanted to stay at FL. The Magic let him out of the contract.
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Exactly.
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@sfbahawk Oh yah! I totally forgot about that one.
