Recipe for Horned Frog
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@jaybate-1.0 Brain of Trent Johnson. Gross. He isn’t human anyway - he is an alien hybrid, cloned from the chem trails in the sky. I saw all this on Ancient Aliens, so it has to be true, right?
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Posting a pic means it’s true
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@VailHawk ok, kill me now, I like him.
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@Crimsonorblue22 You know that weird Big 12 commercial where they blather about playing each other twice? Trent Johnson actually plays all 12 coaches. He is a shape shifter, you know. Hehehehehe…
( This is parody. Trent has the strangest looking face I’ve ever seen, so he must be alien,right?)
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No Cyber Bullying
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@wrwlumpy I think it’s funny the whole coaching squad wears sweater vests. Speaking of coaches, when’s snacks coming back?
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Look or the next oreo shipment?
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To be fair, we all need to post a picture of our faces so we can make fun of the way each other looks too! I’d post a pic of mine, but I don’t know how.
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Dang I thought Trent was a decent coach. Shows what I know.
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Trent Johnson’s winning percentage at the school’s he has coached are as follows, according to his wiki page.
Trent Johnson Winning %
UN-Reno .515
Stanford .625
LSU .391
TCU .429
Compare his record to Bruce Weber.
Bruce Weber Winning %
SIU .656
IlLINI .675
KSU .632
Neither man is a great coach, but Trent makes an otherwise seemingly average Bruce Weber look like a giant of the profession.
And even if one ignores the considerable similarities (both started at non basketball power mid majors, both inherited a major program in great condition, both went to lesser majors after screwing up the major they inherited in good condition) and lesser differences (Weber has not yet washed out at KSU and gone to a TCU, as Johnson did) of their careers and the varying conditions of the programs they inherited, the most one can say in Johnson’s defense is that he isn’t as good of a coach as Bruce Weber by some not particularly significant margin.
And we all know the modest esteem Bruce Weber is held in, because of his record.
If this were cyber bullying, so should it be. No, let me change that; this IS the farthest thing from cyber bullying I can think of.
You see, I did not like their one-dimensional, once-beaten-by-KU-at-their-crib players, dumping their probably coach-sourced-with-plausible-deniability tripe in the media well, likely as not for some venal psychological warfare benefit for the coming game against our still young, impressionable players. I hope Self suspends grand strategy for a game and beats this team and its mediocre, to sub-mediocre coach into the next century. But Self probably won’t suspend the strategy. He will probably do the right thing; i.e., long bench and keep it close, both to conserve his team’s energy budget for KSU, and as a coaching curtesy to a fellow coach, Johnson, who appears to be circling the drain of his career–for his accrued, declining W&L statement,
Next.
P.S.: And as a digression, it appears this “cyber bully” term is drifting (perhaps inexorably) into the mold of other once substantively terms like “liberal” and “right winger” and “conspiracy theorist” as being weaponized into smear words used to manage public opinion by smearing the point of view, when it cannot otherwise be argued away with facts and logic. I frankly still can’t believe that cyber-journalist Tom Keegan over on the old site appeared to “cyber bully” his own cyber readers/cyber clickers by appearing to suggest cyber bullies were picking on Perry Ellis, and leaving an impression that the cyber readers he appeared to be calling cyber bullies were his own! I still like to read Tom’s commentaries, even though I don’t as much because of the insulting nuisance toll of having to answer marketing questions to do so. But I thought appearing to call his own cyber readers cyber bullies, or at least leaving that impression that he was, was a wrong turn in online journalism.
Here is how these terms appear to evolve, at least to little old me. They are identified and picked up out of common usage by professional opinion managers, then the opinion managers train their hired lurkers how to weaponize them and spread them as smear words, and as counter smear words. Then the copycat types with shared agendas pick them up. Then the
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@wrwlumpy Rolling!
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@jaybate-1.0 Though Weber’s winning % is quite a step up from merely adequate, he hasn’t actually knocked the socks off opponents during tenure in his #1 chosen profession, coaching. Actually, he tried to RIP the socks off an opponent in his second profession of choice: UNDERTAKING!
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Let’s keep this focused on Trent Johnson and his drain-circling career trend, since this is TCU game day.
Then redirect to Weber after we beat Trent Johnson and his likely decent kids trained to play bang-ball, rather than coached to develop skill, into the 22rd Century.
I hold Trent Johnson in the same level of esteem I hold Bob Huggins and Ratso Izzo and John Thompson 2.0 and John Thompson 3.0 (thug ball with a smile and daddy’s modified Princeton) to name just four in the Thug Ball Hall of Shame. They didn’t just bring thug ball to the game, they sustained it, and helped enable its normalization. Each one probably has his own rationalization about the unfairness of the system that made them do it. For that they are IMHO deserving of installation in the inner most ring of Dante’s little known Basketball Inferno. And screw their rationalizations. Other Caucasian Americans from mining and timber country have played it the right way. Other African-Americans have coached it the right way. This bunch hasn’t IMHO.
The chief difference between Trent Johnson and the group including Huggins and Izzo and JT 2.0 (JT 3.0 seems to be too mediocre to rank with these three, even though he got off to a quick start with the W&L before he got on the wrong recruiting list), is that those three are/were pretty cunning and inventive in how they have destabilized opponents with thug ball, and Trent and JT 3.0 never have appeared to be as much so. Of course Trent and JT3.0 are part of a large club of not very effective thug ball copycat coaches, so let’s not pick on just them for their mediocrity, okay?)
IMHO, the chief difference between Self and this bunch is that Self’s philosophy is: we will play you anyway you want.
We will start out playing our way, which is actually pretty modest contact, but once the game gets going and we see what you are doing, we will play you however you want AND TRY TO BEAT YOU DOING IT.
It has proven sound strategy over time, even though Izzo got the better of us for awhile.
Why has Self’s approach worked so well (82% W&L statement, 10 conference titles and a ring) even in the face of thug ball? Or as one might say, “while hell has been in session?”
Hypothesis : because thuggers don’t like it when they get thugged. They don’t like it when their biggest edge is equalized. They are not much different really than play ground bullies that way. They cry to the authorities like big, BIG babies every time what goes around comes around. No one cries as much as Izzo and Huggins, when their guys get thugged, and it might help them win an edge with the refs.
But here is the thing about Self’s approach that is both subtle and apparently effective. It seems that when Self thinks the refs are a bunch that want to call it the right way, every time he waits and lets his guys thug first, it seems to set a precedent in the minds of the refs. Refs are human. They try to be objective, but they appear to remember who started the thugging. Some refs are anti-thugging, some appear not to care.
With the refs that appear to care, and with those that don’t, Self then is pretty much free to unleash retaliation. And because Self’s teams start out playing aggressive, in your jock defense, it is a very, very small step add the constant banging, and cheap shotting, without ever going to full time thug ball, and it does not stick out like sore thumb.
Cheap shotting, which Coach K appeared to implement the season his team beat Butler for a ring, appears to be a strong antidote to thug ball. And Self appeared to adopt it the season after, as best I can now recall.
Thuggers appear to really hate what appears to be skillfully coached cheap shotting. This sort of cheap shotting seems to be the basketball equivalent of marital arts. You don’t have to be a prison body to cheap shot. And every thugger is in position sooner or later to be cheap shotted. It appears to take away all the comfort zone of thug ball. Much as I despise cheap shotting, it does seem to chasten the thuggers everytime it is used and so in lieu of referees calling the game properly apparently becomes a default tactic versus thuggers. This is not of course new. My father who played the game in Kansas in the 1930s said getting even with rough play with cheap shots was infrequent, but utterly conventional at time. Eggregiously violate the rules of play and you got a cheap shot.
Big bad thuggers of today, especially those seeming to be coached to play thug ball, seem not to like being up ended in the air, or tripped from behind, or chopped in the adams apple, or eye gouged, or stiff screened in the genitals. Really, really, REALLY the thuggers don’t seem to enjoy this stuff. Its kind of ironic, but that is how it appears.
Not sure what it is about the thugger mentality that makes them so afraid of cheap shotting, but it is probably just as simple as not liking no net advantage to intimidation and exploitation. Its like thieves reputedly will knock over a house without a alarm/surveillance sticker in preference to one with. It is risk management by the exploiters.)
I would love to have seen Self’s KU teams play John Thompson 2.0’s Hoya Paranoia teams that were in my recollection among the most effective and innovative at thug ball in their time. I never studied them for cheap shots, so I have not recollection of that. Maybe someone else can recall that.
I reckon it would have taken about two, to maybe 4, games for Self to figure out JT2.0s bully button and push it the same way he has figured out all of these other thug ballers. Even Izzo has become someone that only thugs Self’s teams, when he is absolutely sure he has the a clear advantage in muscle and no star that is physically vulnerable to what is inevitably going to be triggered. IMHO, Bob Huggins has never even tried full blown thug ball on Self since WVU entered the B12. Thug ballers have rational expections of their strategies just like everyone else. If there is no net benefit, they don’t do it. Risk management again. This is why it has been such a crime against the game to let the referees let the ThugBallers thug. The thug ballers stop as soon as the net benefit is not there.
Self and Coach K have appeared to have had to impose an “anyway you want to play it” philosophy in lieu of sound refereeing. I mean, its ridiculous to play basketball the way it is played today, even after the alleged “clean up,” and it is ridiculous to play it any other way than Self and Coach K play it, when someone like Ken Williard of Seton Hall will give a guy ONLY a two game suspension for Setoning that guy on Villanova, and the NCAA, with full video coverage of the incident, lacks the decency and nut size to either suspend the kid for the rest of the season, or bounce him out of D1 entirely, either of which, combined with a year of state of the art counseling, would far and away be the best thing for the player involved.
The game is still in a sorry state of violence right now.
And the best thing we as fans can do is keep talking about it often and frankly.
The players finally are the once suffering most from the way the game is being called and coached and played. The players are the ones that wind up having to play the game looking more and more like Merrill’s Marauders on the way to Mitkyna. The players are the ones that have to bear the wear and tear of playing it this way. The players are the ones that have to watch OAD teammates being allowed to protect the merchandize, while lesser players have to go out there and take the full force of thug ball abuse. The players are the ones that have to degrade themselves into thuggers. The players are the ones that have to degrade themselves into cheapshotters and counter cheap shooters. And its all because the referees, and their directors, and the coaches, and the NCAA and Networks and Big Gaming NEED the thugging to keep the games spreads sufficiently close that the coaches can keep from being fired when they lack talent, the NCAA and media companies can keep the ratings up with close games, and media companies and Big Gaming can manage the point spreads before and (if history is any guide) during the games, so that everyone can keep cutting a fat hog.
Protect the players.
They are the ones laying the golden egg.
Rock Chalk!
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I’m surprised to see such a low winning percentage at LSU as I regularly hear pundits talk about how he turned that program around and thus was hired to do the same at TCU. That’s why they are pundits and I apparently A sheeple on that subject.
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@jaybate-1.0 I said No Cyber Bullying. I stand by that. I did not address you, nor did I read your post.
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You are right; cyber bullying is now prevalent in forums of all sort in great part because the anonymity they provide. No question that; some of the material posted on this forum could be construed as cyber bullying.
Legal definition
Cyber bullying is defined in legal glossaries as:
- actions that use information and communication technologies to support deliberate, repeated, and hostile behavior by an individual or group, that is intended to harm another or others.
- use of communication technologies for the intention of harming another person
- use of internet service and mobile technologies such as web pages and discussion groups as well as instant messaging or SMS text messaging with the intention of harming another person.
Examples of what constitutes cyber bullying include communications that seek to intimidate, control, manipulate, put down, falsely discredit, or humiliate the recipient. The actions are deliberate, repeated, and hostile behavior intended to harm another . Cyber bullying has been defined by The National Crime Prevention Council: “When the Internet, cell phones or other devices are used to send or post text or images intended to hurt or embarrass another person."
A cyber bully may be a person whom the target knows or an online stranger. A cyber bully may be anonymous and may solicit involvement of other people online who do not even know the target. This is known as a 'digital pile-on.
As they now explain the concept to kids in grade school…if it is something mean and offensive that you would not otherwise tell the other person face to face, it is probably cyber bullying. I am not talking about the attempts at humor, however misguided and in poor taste, I am talking about the unwarranted offensive posts that surface from time to time. I am not referring to anyone in particular but it is likely that from time to time, most of us have gone over the line even if just little bit. Constructive comments welcome.
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@JayHawkFanToo Well said. Thank you for the definition. I come to this forum to talk hoops. Certain lines should not be crossed.
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@KansasComet I’m confused, where do we draw the line? Can we still bad mouth kstate and mizzo? I’m not being sarcastic, hopefully you know me by now.
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@Crimsonorblue22 that’s not for me to decide. All I did was send out a friendly reminder. I thought this site was more about Kansas Basketball than name calling. I know that some of it is done in fun, but some post are just flat out mean. I am sorry, but no one deserves to be called an alien.
You’re one of my favorites. I look forward reading your post.
We are the number one University, with the number 1 fan base. I also believe we have the number one fan forum at KUBUCKETS!
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@wissoxfan83 oh, all right…
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TCU game prediction, Chrisian Garret will be in the box score.
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@wrwlumpy lookin good!
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@wrwlumpy Does he score another bucket? I’m all for that!
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Did you hear “scarecrow” is suiting up? Practice player
