A HIGH LOW PRIMER: OR SEE DICK AND KHALID LINE UP, SEE DICK AND KHALID SHIFT, WATCH DICK AND KHALID PASS TO OVERSHIFT THE DEFENSE, SEE DICK AND KHALID CREATE, OR SEE DICK AND KHALID RUN ACTION

I really don’t know why what appears to be attack graphics are being resorted to, but I guess if it helps one work through some thing or other, well, an alias has gotta do what an alias has gotta do.

Rock Chalk!

jaybate 1.0

nuleafjhawk

@jaybate-1.0 I missed out on all the fireworks on this thread, but one questions haunts me - how did the fishing go? A friend of mine sent me a picture yesterday, her, her mother and another person I don’t know were holding 3 stringers of probably 25 catfish. Nice ones! I’m expecting a fish fry in the very near future…

jaybate 1.0

@nuleafjhawk

Not so hot. As I was making my sneak out, rod and ancient Plano in hand, my better half informed there were domestic and home improvement obligations with higher priority, so the fish got a reprieve.

jayhawk 007

@ jaybate

The whole of idea of expending more energy on D and less on O is good, however the high-low scheme of passing it around the perimeter to get to third side for the open shot has flaws beyond the energy savings of the players. It means that the TEAM has to score and not the play makers: great for D, great for learning the meaning of teamwork and locker room vibe and reducing the diva mindset, but not great for optimum O at crunch time.

The ability to play as a team on O and pass well takes time and training and learning and intelligence and skill. In the OAD and TAD era, this is not always availabl year in and year out.

With inferior or equal talent, yes it can compensate and beat better teams. But with equal or superior talent it is less effective than dribble-drive, penetrate and pitch, practicing making a play during the entire year so that at tourney time, the play makers are not over-passing. This is the weakness in the KU offensive scheme which depends entirely too much on system offense and the ability of the team to score rather than teaching the play-makers to play one-on-one, or a two man game (pick and roll and pick and pop).

The result is that in crunch time our guys will run a play to score rather than go get a basket with pure talent and ability. Or they will panic at crunch time and force the action because they have not been playing that way all year long. We have seen this scenario play out multiple times at the end of the year, and over the years of the Self era.

This is also in my opinion why we over perform during the regular season and under perform in the Big Dance.

The offense needs to open up more and worry less about shot creation by running great stuff, and focus on getting MORE shots, more O rebounds, more athletic play outside of a set scheme. We now have better athletes and better players than the Tulsa teams of years past!

My feeling is that Coach Self is learning this lesson at a slow and steady pace but we are not yet at our optimum level on O and the high-low “run my stuff to get a shot” is part of the problem. The best example was Wigs last year who was incapable of carrying the team at crunch time because he was a cog in a wheel and not the alpha dog who was trained to take over the game. Look what happened in his rookie season in the League.

We need to play faster on O, take more threes, attack incessantly, be better dribblers and run LESS stuff, not more and better stuff. We all love KU BB. our coaches and tradition, but the idea of passing more on O is not the path to greater success on that side of the ball.

Bad ball on D, but creative freer and more individual play on O.

RCJH!

jaybate 1.0

@jayhawk-007

The point of high-low is you get to exploit all of your athleticism at crunch time with more energy when you put it on the deck and go, AFTER passing to create the space, rather than congesting space with a dribble drive ball screen. And this is in fact what hAppens almost every trip, when a Self team has a credible low post presence AND credible wing threats and an experienced point guard.

God only knows what Self’s high low would do with a Derek Rose, Marcus Teague grade point guard. Self has never been able to sign an OAD point guard.

Ku’s problem last year was no low post presence worth passing into, so opponents over guarded the perimeter which forced Self into Bad Ball driving inside.

Self’s High Low beat the Dribble Drive with Derek Rose, CDR, and a low post draft choice. Cal had the only future dominant pro on his side and lost.

Cal has been squandering OADs and TADs in record numbers with the dribble drive. It is a strategically unsound offense.

Ollie won a ring with the High-Low with only one top player at PG.

Self won the WUG with the high low without running any action at all.

There is little question any more that the High Low is the best flexible-formation core offense going.

Knight and Coach K and their motion offense have won more, but they have had to hold most of the aces to win big. Knight without the aces couldn’t Match Self’s .82 w&l. Coach K has failed to win conference titles and sustain a high w&l with THE MOTION, when his talent fell off too.

Passing beats screening over the long haul and leaves more juice for defense.

It seems proven to me now, after the flexibility the offense showed in the WUGs.

But others still cling to the hope for a better offense.

Defense, great guard play, and OAD footers are the trumps in the Madness.

No offense can overcome the lack of these created by recruiting, seeding, and refereeing asymmetry.

But it’s not surprising to me that most coaches wind up Copying Self’s offensive schemes.

jayhawk 007

Good response, Mr Jaybate.

I feel the KU offense has been stagnate and the lane has been clogged and the offensive scheme (high-low) is partly to blame in the Self era. I feel that Coach Self is one of the very, very best but is somewhat stale and uncreative on O.

Furthermore, one of the reasons we have not landed a Rose or Teague quality point guard is our offensive scheme (who wants to come to KU to “feed the post and take a charge as a resume to a future NBA career?”).

The whole point of the WUG success is that we did NOT run the high-low and we were playing freer and better on O, and GREAT (as usual) on D. Part of it was due to Nic being on the team, and his fearlessness. But also not being coached to play within the system. Larry Brown is better at this than Bill Self.

I respectfully disagree with this phrase:

There is little question any more that the High Low is the best flexible-formation core offense going.italicised text

I fully agree with this phrase:

Defense, great guard play, and OAD footers are the trumps in the Madness.italicised text

Coach Self is the BEST, but I would like to see a more open offense, more free flowing play, more risk taking, less inhibition (afraid to be benched for not running the stuff), more threes early in the shot clock, more forcing the action on the fast break, more secondary break, more one-on-one, more O rebounds and points on missed shots early in the clock b/c the opponent’s D is not set, etc.

Playing bad ball is good if you have less talent and less speed and less ability to score and rebound. It is not good as a standard scheme to allow us win another title with the talent and raw ability that we are now bringing into the program.

I think Coach Self is one of the best defensive minds and recruiters and program builders and university representers and overall leaders in all of college basketball. Maybe even THE BEST.

But I do not think he is a great offensive mind and I do not feel he has great offensive minds on his staff.

We can and should go better on that side of the ball.

I respectfully believe that we have underachieved offensively and that the key to becoming a truly elite program is sustainable success in The Dance. And that success in The Dance is largely dependent on our ability to play better offense at crunch time.

It is hard to do in crunch time if that is not the way you have been playing all year.

RCJH!

jaybate 1.0

@jayhawk-007

Oh, absolutely I believe we were running the high-low, or more accurately the Carolina passing offense, or more accurately, what evolved into what Dean called “Multiple Offenses.”

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/714867.Basketball

Dean, Gutt and LB reputedly evolved it early.

But many disciples joined in over time.

Start with Iba’s High Low.

Add Dean Smith action taken from Bruce Drake’s Shuffle offense being run by the coach at Air Force when Dean assisted there.

Add in any other kinds of action that surface from time to time.

Shake well and pour.

Self never stops running it. He apparently learned some of it from Paul Hansen. He says he learned some from LB. He apparently learned some from Eddie. He apparently learned more of it from his assistants that have worked with Hartman and Haskins.

He just runs it out of different formations and with less or more passing, and with less or more action, and with different kinds of action.

One of the problems board rats have with the High Low is that they think it is only 3 combos and two posts lined up in the 3 man perimeter and the two posts in the lane.

Not correct IMHO.

The Multiple Offense aka Dean’s Carolina passing offense is operating when Perry plays on the low block, or on a high block, or at the top of the circle, or as a low wing outside.

Notice Self calls Perry a stretch 4 when he is going outside and shooting it or creating from there. He doesn’t call it another offense.

It helps me to think about it in terms of a basic formation (what some are calling the Four Flat) and shifts because I played a little football when I was a kid.

If you read Dean’s old book and the section on multiple offense he makes it crystal clear. He had a keen mind and he didn’t waste words.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/714867.Basketball

Regarding you notion that Self can’t recruit point guards and centers because of his system, well, ummm, I kind of bought into that early on, but once the top centers started turning him down in droves despite his bigs doing well in the pros and despite him winning a ring, and despite KU having the rep of Big Man U, well, I finally had to awaken to the possibility of other more fitting explanations.

So: what I did was I looked around and said where were these top centers going?

I did not see them going to better coaches.

And I did not see them going to programs that necessarily produced better more successful pros bigs.

And so I kind of ruled those drivers out.

What did that leave?

Well, there had to be some kind of incentives involved.

At first in my naivety, I figure it was cash under the table.

But then I read some books about business of college basketball and about Big Shoe.

It wasn’t as simple as cash in the palm, or a key in the hand and a typed note with an address and a safe deposit box number.

No, the game had scaled up and changed and there were Petro-ShoeCos and agents and agent runners that I had not known anything about.

I still don’t really understand how it all works.

All I can say is that I more or less doubt that Bill Self’s offense is the pivotal driver for keeping OAD centers and OAD point guards away.

But I don’t believe in any conspiracy theories I have ever heard involving basketball recruiting.

So far, I believe most everything that is driving the apparent asymmetries in recruiting is likely legal and just not very transparent for some reason. I suspect those persons on the inside understand very clearly how it all works and would blow the whistle without hesitation if any of it were really illegal, or clear violation of NCAA rules.

Since they don’t, and since I know of no evidence to the contrary, so far, I can only infer that things are legal and just not very transparent for whatever reasons.

I suspect in time we will come to understand much better how the system distributes talent as it does.

But until that time comes, I will have to live with the lack of transparency, and yet also recognize that Bill Self’s offense just doesn’t seem like a very likely driver in all of this.

Rock Chalk!