So you love the high low?
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@DoubleDD You’re much more patient & forgiving than I. Gotta protect my vein from exploding. Good night.
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No like I said I’m with you. KU is like candy to a kid to me. I just can’t help myself. (shaking my head) Good night my friend.
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@DoubleDD Agreed–Bill doesn’t run any plays to free up a 3, and that just makes it easier to D up the 3. Scouting will also tell you that we don’t have any players who will attempt a 3 if they’re not completely wide open (which is probably also at Bill’s edict) so you just have to defend them moderately well outside the arc. Kinda makes defense easy.
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@jaybate-1.0 “whatever Coach Self’s purposes were.”
What do you mean by that? What other purpose could he have than to try to win the game? Do you think he’s working some ulterior motive here?
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Just heard Webber talking about fans storming the court. He said it’s happened to me ??? When Coach Webber ??? When ???
Sorry KUinLA I’m drunk didn’t mean to you but to everybody.
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@DoubleDD Hey, he took a team to the Championship game. They finished 37-2 that year.
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Sorry no up vote on that one. He took HCBS’s players to that one. I have no doubt the boy can coach, but when he takes his own players to a final four then I’ll listen. Coaching isn’t just about x and ooo it.
You have to recruit too.
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@DoubleDD Well he went further with Bill’s boys than Bill did with Roy’s boys.
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Well that’s because HCBS was a better recruiter than HCRW. LOL
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@DoubleDD Ok fine–I’ll go along with that.
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Now you get an up vote. ') But no seriously Webber can x and o it but as for running a team and coaching he fails. I work up in Chicago and eastern IA and what he’s going through now is the same thing he’s going through when he was at Illinois. He lost control of his team and couldn’t nail down recruiting in his own backyard. I listened to many of radio shows talking about Illinois studs leaving the state.
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I think if Kstaters are going to storm the court and throw elbows and punches, then KU fans should return the favor. OH wait KU fans are better than that.
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So glad I’m a Jayhawker.
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@DoubleDD I’m hoping you are not trading in self for weber!
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Noway!!! Did you not read what I posted? LOL, Love you girl.
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dam how quick the wolves come out, so now coach self has no idea on how to run the team, what we do have is a lot of arm chair coaches that need to quit their day job and go apply, stat a petition to get coach self fired. don’t remember but wondering where the hell we would of been without the inside Presence of Perry? remember the 24pts 9 reb ? ya that guy. but hey heres a thought how about trying to get a DEFENSIVE STOP now there is an idea, this team has no killer instinct, so erractic, up 7 let them off, up 8 let them off, jack up a three when someone in your face forgetting what got us to the point where we where in control, exactly where was it we were in control? seems like when we was getting the ball down low to Perry, who stopped him all night? then w decide to jack up airball for the three at two dribbles but that’s ok right? seeing as we all know more how to run the team right? that’s why Bill has been so successful because he doesn’t know squat right? doesn’t matter how many 3’s you put up, how many you take if you don’t wanna play any dam D. how many times did we come down the floor and fail to make any kind of what so ever defensive stand when we were down by 2 or one where if we would have made even a feeble effort attempt to play the D might of worked wonders, wonder why Frank didn’t find it necessary to attempt to drive the lane and then dish out for that oh so important 3? then lets when it is late and running out f time in the game NOW lets try and get the ball back inside to a guy that’s been eatin KSU’S lunch all night when everyone on the floor know’s where we are trying to get the ball to so when he does he is doubled and has absolutely no chance to score that makes sense or lets not worry about continuing to pull the same idiotic crap of turning the ball over at a high rate a lot of them unforced but ya lets not worry about that lets focus on just being able to jack up the three’s whether Perry has been kicking their butt all night DAMM wish self KNEW SOMETHING about the game of basketball. GO HAWKS
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First, the premise of your argument that this has to do with playing the High Low Post is a false one.
The team has won playing the High Low all season. It never runs another offense. When it runs out of the 1-4 all it is doing is pulling its post men out high. And when it runs 4 out one in, it is leaving one post man low and playing Perry outside. It is always the High Low Post Offense. Always. It is the offense Larry Brown and Dean Smith and Roy Williams have run. It is the offense all the Okie Ballers have run. It is largely what Bruce Weber runs.
The issue hinges entirely on where Self decides for the team to try to attack an opponent, which formation of it they run it out of. If the opponent tries to take away the outside shot, KU attacks inside. If they take away the inside game and give away the outside, KU shifts the high low formation to the 1-4, or the 4 out one in.
The team has won several games outside in this season, so we not only know they have the shooters to play that way, but they also have the offense for the shooters to play that way.
The question of whether Self could, or would, evolve his High Low Offense so that he could take advantage of his good outside shooters was answered almost a month ago now. He did.
The question is why has he decided to spend the last month playing inside out with the High Low in its conventional 1-2-2 formation and 1-3-1 formation.
The answer is we have played a series of teams that have decided like KU fans have decided, that the strength of the KU team is its outside shooting game. The opponents have either zoned us with matchup zones outside that make the 1-3-1 formation of the High Low Offense the appropriate formation, and make attacking the seams inside the appropriate place to attack the zone.
When we see zones pack it in, Self stays in the 1-3-1 formation and the number of 3ptas rises to 20.
When we meet teams that decide to pack it in on m2m, then we see Self shift formation to 1-4 and four out one in and the 3ptas rise to 20 and the bigs either drive or cut to the blocks for scoring.
For several games now we have had opponents that have taken away the outside game, so KU goes inside.
KSU clearly over played our perimeter to take away our treys and gambled that their bigs were strong enough contain our bigs.
So: Self responded not with going to the big men on the blocks to score, but to feed cutters, and also to his strength, his guards to drive the lanes. We got quite a few feeds to Kelly cutting to the rim early, or Perry across the lane. But Weber adjusted to that. The next line of attack was from the guards. Frank, Wayne and Devonte went to iron, but were not up to the challenge, though they drew some fouls and made some FTs that kept us ahead and then even for awhile.
But finally, our defense broke down, which I think happens often when we start asking our guards to drive a lot. They take a beating and they expend a lot of energy and it shows in their defense on the other end after 5-7 minutes of doing it.
That was when KSU squirted out into its little lead that it then began defending.
Basically, we had done to us, what we do to other teams.
Weber took away our outside game, kept it close, kept adjusting his defense to shutt off our various attacks inside, waited till our guards tired from our attacking, had his guards squirt free for some treys and a few easy inside baskets, and then he told his players to tighten it up again and defend the lead. Then when our guys tried to run some stuff for threes in desperation at the end, KSU’s guys played 3 man zone out front on the weaves. Then when we shifted from weaves to fade curls they anticipated them and just dogged our guys as far as they ran their curls.
The weaves were run out of the 1-3-1 formation.
The curls were run out of the 1-4 formation.
Neither worked.
Why?
Because Weber is a good defensive coach that schemed defenses to stop exactly what he had seen Self run in the past, when he decided to shoot treys earlier in the season.
The reason Self did not go to the trey earlier in the game was because he knew he would see exactly the kind of defensive schemes earlier that he finally saw when he had no choice but to run some trey action.
Weber is not a great coach, but he is a good defensive coach. He schemed defenses for a lot of years for Gene Keady at Purdue, who was the only guy that could beat Bob Knight very often back in those days. Weber learned Okie ball from Keady who learned it from Eddie Sutton, who taught Self a lot of what he knows about it.
Self knew exactly what defensive schemes he was going to see if he ran his outside stuff.
Self gambled he had the better inside scorer in Perry, plus Oubre who could get inside, plus guards that could attack and draw fouls and FTs. He played take what they give us, as he always has. He played the percentages. He played money ball. He knew his team was in the bottom third of its performance distribution. He tried and played nine guys double digit minutes looking for some combinations that would get some stops and gets some buckets. Nothing worked.
And we saw what happened the minute the team started running action for threes against Weber’s defenders. Zip.
When things go wrong for Kentucky, does Kentucky quit running the dribble drive?
When things go wrong did Phil Jackson opt out of the triangle?
When a coach’s team struggles, he doesn’t junk what they practice all the time.
You keep looking for ways to attack within the scheme and within what the opponent is giving you.
Young players facing very aggressive m2m defense with perimeter defenders that match up well without an inside option that can go get them a basket in a pinch run into hard times from time to time. This was one of them.
Playing inside didn’t look good at all.
But playing outside looked worse.
When you aren’t hitting your shots, nothing looks very good, and it is at that point that you need to go to your got to guy to get you some impact buckets.
Who are KU’s go guys?
Frank, Kelly and Perry.
How many FGAs did Frank, Kelly and Perry get?
Perry 16 FGAs
Kelly 13 FGAs
Frank 8 FGAs
Self went to his go to guys.
Sometimes your go to guys crap out.
He gave Brannen 6 FGAs and Brannen went 0-4 from three.
The more I reason through this for you, the more I understand what Self did and the more it appears he coached this exactly right, given his scheme for this team.
The only thing I would have done differently is I would have become an outside shooting team early this season and been shooting 30 treys a game minimum, and as I’ve noted, may be would have been willing to experiment with shooting all treys all the time. But i’m an outside the box kind of board rat.
But there is hardly any guaranty I would be tied for first place doing it.
And the fact is Self is STILL tied for first place.
And he is just now getting to the number of conference losses most folks predicted would win the conference.
So: while this was a horrible, ugly loss and one we should have won, if we had shot better, bottom line is: what we have here is a bad performance on the road by a young team and a loss to a rival.
How much of a barometer of doom really is such a game? Not much.
How unexpected was such a loss coming sooner or later during a title winning season? Frankly most expected it. Teams have bad games and lose when they shoot horribly, no matter how much they try to get good at winning on bad nights.
Did anyone seriously think a team that is a donut with a hole in the middle was going always going to luck out on the close games? Nope. Well, I did for a brief period, when I got over optimistic and predicted they would win out. But my latest wild hair prediction of them winning an NCAA Ring this season, in no way precluded them losing some games before the Madness. It assumes a hot streak by a not huge team like UConn last season. But I willingly admit it is a wild hair prediction.
But these gloom and doom predictions of the end don’t do it for me. They could lose the rest of their conference games and probably still make the Madness as 4-6 seed and make a long shot run almost as easily as from a one or two seed. Frankly, the better season they have the more likely the NCAA seeding mavens are to put KU in a stacked region to ensure they exit early. The worse we play, the lower our seed, and the more likely we are to be just ranked in any old region, and,thereby, slip up on someone. But i digress.
When Cliff began to play better for while this team’s fortunes really picked up. As he has tapered off, its fortunes, not surprisingly have turned downward.
But either Cliff is hurt, or opposing coaches have found his weaknesses and cliff cannot correct them till the off season, or Cliff has a mentor relationship with Snacks and can’t function without Snacks. KU needs Cliff to get back at least to the level of productivity he was at a month and a half ago, when he could at least give 15 decent minutes.
Can we blame Self for Cliff’s current flame out? Hmmm. Cliff had four fouls. Did Self call those fouls on Cliff? Nope. Has Self been saying since the beginning of the season the guy was too foul prone to cornerstone a team? Yep. Has Self been trying to coach him up? Yep. Has it worked? Well, he was getting better for awhile, and then he cratered. Surely part of the blame must be Self’s, if Cliff is not injured. But have you ever seen a single top coach that never had a promising player crater on him? Nope.
I wish we shot more treys, like you and others.
I wish Cliff played like the OAD that stifled Jahlil Okafor in their famed head to head meeting that got Cliff ranked so high.
But not if we shot treys the way we did tonight.
And what would it matter if Cliff played up to expectations if he fouled out of every game before half time?
The most logical response to this game is: recruit some big men that can play productively without fouling.
And keep recruiting more and more of them.
Duke, UK, UA, UL and Zaga have 4 near footers.
It can be done.
With the right shoes and agents, apparently.
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Well I assume your post is directed at me. DoubleDD. Let me ask you a question? We just played a high/low game to perfection, and Ellis scored big time (love that kid) yet we lost to a team that sucks. No my friend they aren’t good in away. You speak of guarded three’s, but I ask did HCBS run any sets for the three ball? What maybe two? Yea so tell me my friend how a team that can shot lights out from three land, only runs 2 set from 3 land?
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jayballer, 100% agree. Self is in a lot of trouble with this teams defense. We can’t have bad offense and bad defense and expect to win the game and always double digit turnovers. Guards are not staying in front of their man, post players aren’t boxing out and it doesn’t help for the 1st time in a long time we don’t have a TRUE SHOT BLOCKER. Aldrich, Withey, Robinson, Embiid, for so long our guards have been bailed out on defense to a shot blocker. Those days are over and even worse we are undersized in the post. It hurts to finally realize Self can’t coach himself out of this one. I hope I’m wrong! Get a 7 footer next year and we are back in business. This team goes hard for 2 games in March and loses focus in the sweet 16. I hope I’m wrong about that too and we go further. Sorry for the rant.
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Yea but HCBS ran maybe what two sets for a three shot? I’m sorry you don’t pound the ball inside all game then expect shooters to come out and bury three’s. It’s either apart of the game plan or it’s not. Look at the threes that were shot, they were hurried and a last resort. If that’s the way it is, then don’t even shoot the damn three at all. Let just pound it inside and see how far we get in the tournament?
Also I don’t think its fair to say that pounding inside has won all the games KU has. I remember a lot games where the 3 ball saved the day.
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I am in an awkward place to discuss this issue. I am essentially on the side that we could be shooting more treys and having another set of problems to deal with, but I am trying to defend the idea that Self’s approach is valid also, even though it brings with it its own set of problems.
When you lack as big of a piece of a basketball team as a credible post man that can score and rebound to go along with your stretch 4, this is going to be an enormous problem to play around which ever of the above approaches one takes.
I don’t see the High Low Offense as any more the cause of the problems than would I see the dribble drive being part of the problems. Each offense applied to these players would face serious costs and benefits without a credible post man. I mean look at how many footers Cal signs just to be sure one works out; that’s how important coaches think these big centers are to a successful team.
I agree that we cannot blame our shooters for not suddenly being able to pull treys out of their hats at the end.
Desperaton shooting is desperation shooting whether you are doing it inside our outside. It rarely works.
This is why I don’t judge this game on the shooting at the end. The plan wasn’t for them to have to be shooting desperation threes. I am confident the scout and the game plan did not call for us to be shooting desperation treys. Likely the plan was to build a ten point lead and defend it at the end.
The reason I keep repeating the Merrill’s Marauder’s angle is that no matter which way Self might have turned early in the season, he was going to be facing a big, big, BIG hole in the middle of this team, and the only way this team was going to become great was through a harrowing march through extreme ups and extreme downs. It was inevitable.
You put this roster of players in any offensive and defensive schemes you want and you are going to run into a very problematic season of the kind we have been watching.
And to reiterate, this team has not seen the last of the horrors.
The only way this team can become great is to make pain its friend and hell its zip code, and go deeper and farther into sacriice and suffering than other teams are willing to go.
I know I would have schemed this differently than Self has this time, but it is the first time I have ever substantially differed from him in eleven years. But…
I also know there was no silver bullet scheme with this roster of players.
Too many holes for it all to fit together tightly.
Name me one team that has ever won a B12 conference title, or B8 conference title that had no back to the basket scorers. Never been one.
Name me one team that has ever won an NCAA ring without a back to the basket scorer. Maybe UCLA’s '63 ring team, but other wise not one since then.
Self is trying to do something that has never been accomplished in any power conference that I can recall.
Win a conference title without a player with a big man with a back to the basket game.
It would be a staggering problem whatever offense you run, and however many 3ptas you decide to take per game.
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As usually you humble me. However being the crazy and fighter that I’m am I would rather go down swinging, meaning doing what we do best (shooting the three) instead of pretending we can do something (inside game) we can’t really do.
However I totally understand what your saying and say thank you for the insight.
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Execution, plain and simple. Missed lay ups and 2-13 from 3 point line. That is why we lost the ball game. Teams have to make lay ups and knock down closer to 30% of 3 pointers on the road. Nice game Perry Ellis.
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@Crimsonorblue22 I didn’t see most of the game. “The Voice” was on for the first hour, then I watched us look stupid for about 4 minutes and decided there had to be something better on to watch. I was right.
We’d better enjoy the court storming while we can. If we keep playing the way that we have been, no one will have any reason to storm the courts against us.
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Hate to say I told you so. I knew this game was a loss 2 weeks ago. Last night make the losses at West Virginia and OKST more difficult to swallow because those were games where we were doing our thing. We could have shot more against WV, but our weaknesses weren’t blinding the way they were last night.
Credit where credit is due. K-State played well. It’s sad that it took them until almost March to play like a team. If they had played like this throughout the season their coach wouldn’t be getting fired in a few weeks and they wouldn’t be taking a trip to the NIT. But this isn’t about K-State.
Last night made me miss Darnell Jackson. Made me miss the Morris twins. This team is so soft it’s unbearable. I don’t really have much to add that other posters haven’t said, but last night reminded me of the VCU game. Where we have to rely on desperation three pointers to save us in a game where we refused to try to make them our strength. Don’t know what to say. Sad loss, but it wasn’t as bad as last week. I think we’re seeing Self develop some really ugly tendencies this year. Refusal to adapt to changing circumstances will inevitably lead to failure. Oh well, better be out recruiting centers today because it seems pretty pointless to act like we’re anything other than a low post team. We’ve shot the average that Self was talking about a few weeks ago, and now we sit here at 3-3 in the last three weeks. And watching Self get out-coached by the likes of Travis Ford and Bruce Weber is just too much to take…
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This team has expended all of the energy in the reservoir, and it has been noticeable to me the last 5 games. Frank Mason’s improved shot form has regressed to last previous years where he lacks balance in his lift. He is all arms with his shots now because of his dead legs. The gunny is what has held this team together all year. He has been the leader and the glue. But the gunny is dunny. The team is running on vapors. The offensive sets have slowed down. The mental focus is gone (See ridiculous turnovers). Soon the belief will be gone.
At this point I hope the kids can use this adversity to build on their character for next year.
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they didn’t play any defense. You win on the road playing defense. It doesn’t matter about anything else when you cant stop the other team from scoring. This is exactly the team many of us are criticizing. This isn’t a great Self team, its not even a good Self team. 22-6 record with some good non-con wins is just clouding what we really are. Conference play has exposed that and if it weren’t for Allen Fieldhouse masking everything at home as well we’d have more losses.
We didn’t want it, we gave up layups to nobody’s. Johnson was unconscious.
you get 42 minutes from Lucas ,Mari & Cliff and you get 3 points and 8 boards. That’s SAD news right there.
Mason was on a suicide mission in the first half it was like he was literally trying to fix the game. That 3 pointer he shot in the 2nd half looked like someone took over his body and shot that. I couldn’t believe how horribly it looked. Every one of Selden’s t/o’s turned into points, maybe I’m wrong but I know most of them did.
The bottom line is this team doesn’t know how to finish. Up 41-33 Mason throws an idiotic pass to Ellis feet goes out of bounds. K-St scores not even 20 seconds later. We all knew the lead wouldn’t last. We have seen this picture 10-15 times this season. Christ we had seen in 3 times in the first half before that. That’s not something Self can correct, its on the players.
Maybe the most disappointing regular season loss in Self’s tenure. it’s on par with TCU.
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@jaybate-1.0 I mentioed during the game that I was watching Greene closely while he was in the game. Weber had his guys blanketing him, switching off screens and whatever it took to keep a man on him. I did not watch as closely when he was out but the D remained about the same. It was very obvious the game plan was to take away the 3 and make KU’s big men do the work. Everyone knows KU has a weak spot in the middle so that is what they are going to give away. Perry made them pay for that and for awhile that was enough. We needed one of the 5’s to step up none of them did. Mason felt the pressure to save the game and tried to be the hero, to no avail. I told my wife about 5 minutes left in the 2nd that it was over, only thing I’ve been right on this week. Kind of disappointed in that.
Oh and that air ball of Greene’s, that was the first 3 he took at the point of the game he regularly subs in, it was wide open if somewhat deeper than normal. Can’t blame Self’s game plan for that, he wasn’t close all night from outside, it was not a coming in at the end of the game cold hand thing.
