BAD BALL STRIKES AGAIN!!
-
Self is a genius, not only at basketball strategy, but in addressing the media, so as not to betray what he is trying to do in his basketball strategy.
Grant faced a similar problem late in the Civil War. He was among the most brilliant strategists and tacticians our country has produced. When finesse and maneuver could win the day in the West he proved himself brilliantly effective. When he came east, he read the vast difficulty of the situation correctly, and changed his approach profoundly and decisively yet consistently with his underlying principle.
He knew Sherman’s March from Chattanooga to Savannah would be criticized as viciousness of a high order in its effect on civilians. But he knew he needed to defeat not one but two foes: the Confederate Army and the Confederate people and he had to protect Lincoln from as much criticism as possible while doing it.
He let Sherman terrorize the Confederate people on the way to positioning his army to put Lee and the Confederate people between a great hammer and anvil. Grant then began relentless pursuit from both directions that all sides called heartless and blood thirsty and strategically misguided until Lee and the Confederacy collapsed.
Grant took all the “blame” for the winning strategy and tactics by not explaining he had told Lincoln this was what it would take to win the war decisively. He took the media’s wrath, so Lincoln did not have to, so Lincoln could survive and sustain him in his mission.
Self was keeping the mud off Allen and Iba, but both men would understand and applaud the brilliance of what Self is doing. Allen tried any and every kind of strategy and tactic he could think of over the years. Iba was the father of slowing it down and gumming it up, even as he was the father of the modern basketball offense. Great strategists and tacticians find ways to get it done. And it can take sensibility a long time to catch on to the brilliance and elegance of what many call ugly to begin with.
The awesome elegance of new ideas often overwhelms even its inventors, whose aesthetics are products of the time before their genius transformed possibility.
Oppenheimer said he thought of the eastern scripture “I am become death, destroyer of worlds,” when he witnessed the first test of the atomic bomb that hastened the end of one war and bounded the USSR, then deterred world wars to date.
The responsibility of a great leader in competition is to get the most out of what he has within the rules and put his side in the best position to win, then get it done.
My father did not take his boots off for ten days on Iwo Jima. He did not change his uniform for three weeks. He and his fellow Marines did not fight pretty. They had to change how they fought in real time. It was not pretty. But they got the most out of what they had, and despite all the human error, they got it done. My father never did view Iwo Jima, or war, or competition as an aesthetic contest. He never saw Iwo Jima as a beautifully composed photo of a flag raising and he constantly reminded me not to think of any competition that way.
Basketball is a game capable of beautiful moments.
But it is not a beauty contest. Naismith and the rules never awarded points for beauty. The points are awarded and withheld by getting the ball in the basket and keeping the other team from doing the same–within the rules.
The deep beauty of what Self and his team are doing lies within the elegant fit of their strategy and tactics with their abilities within the rules.
The more tightly the refs call the game, the better Self’s Bad Ball works.
Self’s Bad Ball does not, like thug ball, depend on breaking the rules and refs swallowing whistles. Quite the contrary. It uses KU’s athleticism to disrupt flow and then attack from all five positions. It challenges the refs to call the fouls and exploits both when they do, AND when they refuse to. Unlike thug ball, or even winning ugly, this is elegance and sophistication of a high order that is not yet smooth and flowing. This the elegance of chaos theory and emerging complexity. And these are the two most elegant scientific paradigmns to emerge the last half century.
Bad Ball is an experiment in altering fluid dynamics on wood.
There is as always the shock of the new.
Rock Chalk!
-
KC Star. Interesting last paragraph.
-
When we played Michigan in 2013 (I know I can’t believe I am bringing this up either) I knew that we could beat them (and did for 38 minutes) but I knew we could not beat them in a pretty way. They simply had more talent. More NBA players. What Self did pre-implosion was he muddied the waters. Played great D. Did not let their studs get the shots they wanted. Did not let them get into the lane where they wanted to be. The UNC game from 2012 may be a better example since we won and it took us to the Final 4. Or the OSU game the following round. We simply did not have the offensive fire power that either of those teams had but we played ugly and won ugly and I see this 2015 team doing the same thing starting next Thursday.
The reason I bring this up is I do see us moving onto the 2nd weekend and playing a 3-6 seed in the Sweet 16 / Elite 8 who has fire power. Taller guys. Better shooters. And I see Bill Self doing his best to make it a truly ugly affair. Maybe we will see a little Box and 1 that we did to Steph Curry or a little Triangle and 2 that we broke out against UNC and Harrison Barnes. Really looking forward to seeing what ugly tricks Bill has up his sleeve.
Great win last night. Hope we get a similar shooting night from ISU tonight from deep. RCJH!!!
-
@Shanghai_RCJH Right? How do you win the best conference, outright, and the conference tournament and not be a 1 seed? I don’t think they’ll get it w the 7 losses, but I sure would like to hear their explanations
-
@ZIG It is a really interesting situation. It may be the first time ever that the team from the best conference wins the regular and post seasons (if we win of course) and does not get a 1 seed. But I agree with the above posts that we have too many losses. The KSU one looks pretty bad.
-
@joeloveshawks If Duke ends up still being a 1 seed, I’m going to be real interested in the logic. They didn’t win their conf nor their conf tournament. Yet, you know, they’ll be in the conversation for a 1. I don’t think the committee will put them there though, too difficult to justify.
-
Self is contending with two new phenomena.
First, he has to deal with effects of accelerated learning. Teams AND players have to be developed in a season. Players are on learning overload. They lose focus more frequently and require more redirects and more intense redirects and more simple redirects to cut through their own analysis paralysis. “SOFT” and Self’s competitive fire are the tools he has found work best so far.
Second, the first problem is compounded by his having to resort to a new way of playing and so the players having to learn a new and counter intuitive, heady style of play.
This is the opposite of the pasteurized AAU junk Cal teaches and Self has had to resort to it to help compensate for the talent asymmetry from apparent talent stacking.
Note: maybe we need to start calling it SMART BALL and Cal’s AAU dribble drive DUMB BALL.
Anyway, learning to play a new way creates even more information overload.
Self is defaulting to the simplest, most intense instruction to keep from talking too much to his info overloaded players in the chaos of combat.
It makes so much command sense. The military creates its own highly specialized command jargon in battle to counter the chaotic noise of battlefield information.
It is not being mean, brutal, or belligerent. It is signal control to ensure a message gets through the information overload of combat.
-
@Crimsonorblue22 I know! Im feeling a bit ahh, manic about our team.
-
Duke’s body of work is going to have them with a #1 seed. Road wins at Wisconsin & Virginia carry a lot of weight. They had won 12 games in a row until that loss yesterday so while they didn’t win anything their body of work really keeps them up there. Plus its Duke, they get more coddling than any team not named UNC.
This year is very top heavy, I think if Nova wins out they get that last #1 seed. Wisconsin & Arizona are also just as good as anyone on a given day and could get that last seed with Tourney championships. Then you got Gonzaga which has a good team but the weakest resume of any so they are clearly a #2 seed.
Our 13-5 (possible 14-5) record against the Top 50 is insane and probably doesn’t get enough credit because we have those 7 losses and inconsistent play. It’s a catch 22 sometimes with scheduling, you get rewarded for playing good teams, but if you pile up the losses your reward only goes so far. I think the reward for our schedule is that it would have taken a collapse in the Quarterfinals against TCU to keep us off that #2 line.
-
I’m gonna stick with that alliterative duplicitous moniker, “BAD BALL.” Right from its origin, I felt that jaybate had hit upon something very clever and appropriate to define what I was viewing. Bad bad bad. Man, this stuff is BAD!
-
So does anyone have a preference with who the 1 seed is in our bracket?
-
KU Should be the Number 1 seed.
-
@jaybate-1.0 said:
I just started calling it Bad Ball as a little retro allusion
Ahh… and even going farther into that slang etymology, I seem to recall ‘bad’ being shortened from ‘badass’. (Also perhaps an offshoot of 'bad to the bone) Maybe ‘BA Ball’ (or BTB Ball)
Our team sure doesn’t get it done pretty this year, and they sure seemed softer earlier in the year, but wow, we’ve played with some major grittiness.
Loved yesterdays game, except for all those really bad passes. It was nice not to have the opposing team have a chance to beat us in the last couple of minutes for a change.
So glad to see Perry out there, Selden getting it done and BG breaking his slump. Would really enjoy seeing everything come together and blowing out IS today. Then again, maybe a blowout today would have them feeling cocky before the Dance, so it might be better to have another one similar to yesterdays game, strong but still gritty.
-
@joeloveshawks You are absolutely right. The only way this team has a shot at a final four is to play bad ball and out tough the other team, just like in 2012.
-
@jaybate-1.0 Why should they be?
-
@DinarHawk Lunardi just put us back to Midwest Region where UK is the 1 Seed. I hope he is wrong. Don’t get me wrong, I am not scare of UK, but, would rather meet them at FF.
-
History suggests that the committee does not penalize teams that have #1 seeds going into the conference tournaments for losing. They usually don’t remove them from the 1 line with a loss in the conf. tournament. Now, if someone is shaky on the 1 line, and I think that Duke could qualify, that might happen. I don’t think we have a shot at a #1…too many losses. Others (Wisconsin, Villanova have had better season, I think. But I don’t think there is any way they should move us off the 2 line even if we lose today. Like some have said…we won what most believe is the toughest conference.
-
@Shanghai_RCJH Yeah, I would hate to have to play them to get to the final four.
-
@DinarHawk Revenge should be sweeter when the stake is higher. RCJH!
-
@jaybate-1.0 Are you saying Self’s criteria for recruiting OAD/TADs = athleticism + brain smarts? Lacking in bb fundamentals, some of these muscle boys need the brain power to learn Self’s Bad Ball that scraps & reprograms their muscle?
-
@Jyhwk_InTigrtwn those transition passes, Dg and oubre are ones that come to mind!!!
-
@Shanghai_RCJH I’m not a Lunardi fan, pretty much don’t like many people lately, Dodd, jack Harry and most of all, mushy and Fran! Oh and the flippn hair ISU feminine acting player! He is good though.
-
Always remember that Big Media has to favor any EST school over KU.
It’s business.
Don’t EVER, EVER forget it.
When it comes to eyeballs and clicks, they will say or do whatever it takes to get them.
Move KU’s campus to an EST city and KU would be KING!!!
-
even Frank had a few that he just put in their hands. but beyond the passing game, i was pretty happy with most everything else
-
I would say we want to be in the Duke or Virginia brackets. I’m not basing this off yesterdays results either because they both lost to good teams. Virginia doesn’t look the same with Anderson back and they want to muddy the game up just like KU has done recently. I think we can match up better with Virginia than say Nova. Duke, is all 3 point shooting or nothing so they could always lose in the first round like last year. So right now I’d say we want to be in those brackets
