Aaron Miles, next KU Assistant Coach...
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@Texas-Hawk-10 The PG play falls on coach Self. Same as it did when TT was out of control. The PGs play the way Self apparently wants them to play. Self has the ultimate hammer – the bench. He tolerated TT, and perhaps encouraged much of it. We (you, me and most everyone else) may want a distributor, but I don’t really think Self sees it that way. I think he prefers an attacking PG vs. a distributor. As for ball movement, I don’t know. I’m not convinced that was a problem. We couldn’t not score inside, and I don’t believe any of that had the least bit to do with the ball movement this past season. Ball movement is of course a big part of getting the ball into the right spots, but we were flat lame upon receipt of the ball. Also, for what it’s worth, we abandoned our offense after the TT game and went to the perpetual weave.
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@HighEliteMajor I don’t agree with putting full blame on Self in this case. If Danny Manning gets full credit for his work with the bigs while he was at KU, then the assistant that works closest with the PG’s deserves the majority of the blame as well.
I really don’t think it’s a coincidence that the PG play of KU has fallen off significantly the past two years which also happens to be when Howard arrived. I’m not saying Self is blameless here, but he’s busy coming up with the game plans and running the team which takes up the majority of his time, not coaching a specific position. That what the assistant coaches are there for and the PG position is one that hasn’t seen significant growth over the past 2 years and the majority of the blame falls on the assistant coach whose job is to make the PG’s better and hasn’t.
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What if Bill Self told Jerrance last season, we are going to start playing drive ball like Bo Ryan at UW? What if Self said we are going to sacrifice dishing for driving the rim to get short threes, as it appeared was going on? What if Jerrance coached Frank and Devonte to play exactly the way Self told him to coach them? What if coaches that started and played some point and some combo for Self at Illinois really are smart enough to coach point guards to play different ways? What if Jerrance Howard is exactly this sort of person? What if Self were to tell Jerrance that we are moving beyond drive ball to BAD BALL, Jerrance. Coach the point guards to either drive it all the way to iron for the short three, or pass it to someone else in position to drive it to iron for the short three, and forget feeding the three point shooters? What if Jerrance did exactly that?
Fascinating, eh?
P.S.: an intermittent lack of ball movement has been a consistent complaint not only of fans, but of Coach Self, since he arrived at KU. The high low aka the Carolina passing offense is renowned for this problem. Players come to college having played set offenses with lots of action, or alternatively lots of clear outs, in high school. They often don’t get the concept of keeping the ball from sticking. And there is a tendency in even experienced players to get frustrated with the failure of ball movement to get the defense over shifted, so that the first reversal does not create an impact space sufficient either for a drive, or an open look trey. The frustration leads to holding the ball and looking too long for the feed inside, or the drive. This is sticking. The third side is a hard habit to get into, especially when various defenses are designed to anticipate the ball movement of the high low.
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@jaybate-1.0 That’s a lot of what if’s. I tend to believe in the Occum’s Razor philosophy, the simplest answer is usually the right answer. PG play has declined quite a bit since Jerrance Howard came in and I just don’t think that’s a coincidence.
Just because someone played the position doesn’t mean they know how to coach the position. Jerrance Howard’s actual body of work doesn’t come close to his reputation as a coach.
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@drgnslayr said:
National Championships are typically built around the play of a PG more than any other position.
AMEN to that! Now I’m no savvy bball fan, but saw that with the past NCs going to Connecticut, Louiville, etc. Why can’t our beloved coach get 5* guards? Should I blame Nike?
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“Why can’t our beloved coach get 5* guards? Should I blame Nike?”
I don’t think we usually want to get a 5-star PG. Unless a guy is a total freak that can take a team to a NC I’d much rather have a system where we always have a couple of PGs and the starting PG is either a junior or a senior and the other PG is his backup and learning the job as a freshman or sophomore.
I really like Frank and what he has to offer. And I think Devonte is going to be phenomenal! Both will be with us for 4 years. Then, I hope next year we land another quality PG project. Someone to develop behind Devonte. Churn 'em out… It’s what UCONN does. If you do it right you have a senior PG every second year, and the other year is an experienced junior. On a team like Kansas… those senior PGs should be taking us to the Final Four almost every time.
That is what I expect at Kansas. I don’t think we should go beyond 4 years without making it to the Final Four. Handle the PG situation properly and we should be able to maintain that kind of consistency. Look at teams like UCONN… and they don’t even get near the talent we get at all 5 positions.
Ever once in a while a player like Anthony Davis comes along and puts his footprint on a championship. But most of the time, it is a game for guards, especially PGs. Someone has to lead a team to a national championship and it is hard to lead from the back line.
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I don’t know that I want to blame any of our coaches for our lower assist numbers last year.
The results were largely in Frank’s hands… but he wasn’t a PG in HS. He was a shooting guard and a volume scorer. I think he has done a fabulous job of converting his game to point. That is the hardest adjustment to make in this game. Anyone who has never played point suddenly has to learn the job. The entire outcome of the game is in your hands to decide what will happen.
I think Bill should look far ahead and see that if he can score an assistant coach like Aaron Miles… he should jump a mile high to acquire his services. Aaron would really push Bill’s success over the top. I have absolutely no problem stating that as perhaps the strongest opinion I have ever had in here.
Aaron is the John Lucas I cried for earlier. Even better… he is young and will be looking for a new career, and he is a lifelong Jayhawk! An opportunity like this won’t come around often.
If I was Bill… I would be planting the seed to get him to Lawrence as soon as his pro playing days are over!
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You may reduce the above list to any single one and make the case. There is really no evidence Howard is doing a bad job coaching the PGs, nor is there any evidence to suggest the Miles, who has never coached professionally would do a better job coaching PGs than Howard, who has coached professionally for quite some time.
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Agreed Aaron would be a good add. Don’t see why he would do a better job than Howard, though
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Mason is the point guard and may be the best player on the team. He looked to distribute far more last season than his frosh year. As a freshman surrounded by freshman he struggled. As a sophomore surrounded by sophomores and freshman he looked better. As a Junior with an experienced team core he should flourish.
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@jaybate-1.0 I would say Naadir Tharpe as a junior (Howard’s first season), regressed quite a bit from his sophomore year. There were a lot of people clamoring for either Mason or Frankamp to replace Tharpe towards the end of the 2013-14 season and to replace Tharpe the following season before he was run from the program.
KU has also had arguably the worst 2 year stretch in 25 years the past 2 seasons and that has largely been because of lackluster PG play. I don’t care that Mason is a score first PG, but he is a high volume shooter and he doesn’t always look to pass when his shot isn’t falling and KU lost quite a few games because of that.
Jerrance Howard has landed 1 recruit in 2 years and has been suspended from the staff for failing to disclose a misdemeanor drug conviction that also played a big role in derailing last season (KU was 20-4 pre suspension).
Recruiting is a big part of the job description for a collegiate coach and Bill Self has now implied he trusts Brennan Bechard over Jerrance Howard during the most important recruiting period of the year by leaving Bechard stateside with Townsend and Roberts. If Bechard does a good job, we may very well see Bechard replace Howard at the end of the season because not letting Howard recruit in July tells me that Howard is on a very hot seat right now.
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There is a huge difference between being a backup and being the starter.
As a sophomore, many on the former site were clamoring for Tharpe to replace senior Elijah Johnson at the point. It’s easy to look great in a limited role, when your weaknesses are hidden in your limited minutes and all we see are your glowing strengths.
When you have to make good decisions for 30 minutes a night, and keep the pace running, and defend the other guy and keep everyone happy, and do all that against the first team for the other side, things get much harder than when you come on for 15 minutes a game against the other team’s backups and if you’re having an off night you only play 10 minutes instead of 15.
Starters don’t have that luxury. When they are bad, they still play 25+ minutes, so we see them being as bad as they are that day.
Tharpe was a limited player. A below average defender, a pretty average decision maker. Slight of build, so he couldn’t get into traffic and score effectively all the time. A decent shooter, but one who needed others to attract the defensive attention to truly be effective at the D1 level… All of that was hidden when he played for short bursts because nobody focuses a defensive gameplan on the backup PG. He can be hidden on the defensive end. Tharpe didn’t regress as a junior. He played the same. It’s just that we saw his weaknesses because there was nowhere to hide them.
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“Agreed Aaron would be a good add. Don’t see why he would do a better job than Howard, though”
There just aren’t many PGs anywhere on the planet that played more unselfish ball than Aaron Miles. He was our “ultimate creator” and a role model for what PGs should be doing with the ball. If he is able to project this ability to other players, he becomes my “world pick” for teaching PGs. I can’t really say I remember Jerrance playing in college, but I’m doubtful he had the abilities Aaron Miles had (and has).
I know this could quickly become a lynching blog on Howard. My gut feeling about him isn’t really all that positive. But I’m not going to go on the uber offense to take him down. Not without knowing facts. Ultimately, we have to put some trust in Bill knowing what is good for Kansas basketball. I seriously doubt he would hold on to Jerrance if he wasn’t contributing to Kansas basketball.
Having said that… when do we sign Aaron?
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I took my g daughter to sw middle school to play, about 2 years ago. She was 1. There was a dad there working w/his 2 sons on bb drills. He had cones and was doing ball handling drills. Not long after we got there another guy w/4 boys, different ages set up drills in another spot. The first 2 boys left their dad to join them. I was watching them and my g daughter was playing ball w/1 of them. Same age. They cranked it up a few notches from the first guy and a couple of very small kids were very fast and very good ball handlers! The dad that was left told me his boys were in great hands and that was Aaron miles.
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@Texas-Hawk-10 I have to disagree w/you on Self favoring Bechard over snacks recruiting. Bb is a nice guy, but zero personality. I’m guessing he’s pushing more papers than out on the road.
As far as pg work, Self is making the calls. Jmo I don’t think the development or lack of it is on coach Howard. I’ve thought all along when coach Howard got caught he told Self. I think they decided to sit on it thinking it might not come up. Crazy I know. I think if it did come up and it did, it was agreed upon that Self wasn’t told. I looked up coach Howard and he was well-liked by teammates and coaches for his leadership skills and work ethic, was voted captain.
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@Crimsonorblue22 said:
I think if it did come up and it did, it was agreed upon that Self wasn’t told.
You make a very interesting point there - though I have no idea whether to believe it. It just goes to show how little we may really know about what goes on.
If that happened, what might the scenario have been:
- Self: “Don’t say a word, and if it comes to light I knew nothing about it.”
or
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Snacks: “Can’t we just keep this quiet? No one will know if we don’t tell them”
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Self: “OK, but you take the risk. If it comes out you never told me.”
Either way me no like.
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I may have misunderstood the point of this thread and your posts, as I am often predisposed to do, despite my best efforts to the contrary, sir.
I thought the premise of the thread in general was that young Master Aaron Miles was supposed to be a better point guard coach than Assistant Head Coach Jerrance “Snacks” Howard, because he was a point guard.
So: I pointed out that Jerrance had been either a PG or a combo himself; i.e., he had the same basic playing back ground as Aaron. I thought that rather conclusively invalidated the logic of that argument.
Thus stunted, the shifted the thread discussion shifted to asserting that there had been poor point guard play and that it coincided with Howard’s tenure. It occurred to me that there was a long list of more probable and plausible reasons for poor point guard play than Howard being an incompetent bungler. I listed them. Boom. The logic of that argument seemed refuted repeatedly. I did not even mention that Self did not have a history of hiring incompetent bunglers. Perhaps I should have.
In any case, my response was found wanting.
Next, the objection was that I had given too many what-if’s. I was charged with violating Bill of Okham’s single-edged, non-safety razor heuristic. I was in no uncertain terms told that it was more simple to blame Howard by correlation (guilt by association really), rather than enumerate a list of drivers embedded within a vastly more plausible operational scenario than the alarmingly counter-intuitive “Self is so flawed that he not only hired an incompetent bungler in Howard, but insisted on keeping him on despite his poor PG coaching” scenario.
Having both shaved cleanly, and cut myself occasionally, with the stropped razor of Okham a time or two in my life, I thought I ought at least re-examine the edge and the whiskered surface to which it had been applied this time. Had I hit a major artery of illogic in my neck and missed the gushing blood of fallacy? I looked closely in the mirror of my argument. I leaned so close I could note the very pores of the argument. No, I concluded, there was not even a hint illogical blood, not a scratch, not even any razor rash. It occurred to me that Okham’s Razor, correctly stropped, or not, was never intended as a rationale for reduction to absurdity, or reduction to oversimplification, or reduction to simple correlation without further quantification into empirically based probability. As I rubbed the cleanly shaved skin of my argument, by then as smooth as a newborn’s bottom, it occurred to me that Oakham’s Razor was never intended to make an argument that, because my car is often parked in my garage, somehow my car caused my garage to stand up the way it did due to the simplicity of its presence within, and coincident with, the garage around it. No doubt such an argument was much simpler than the physics involved in the hidden wood frame that more probably held up the garage, but even old Okham would not try to attack me with his shaving instrument and try to slit my throat for saying that the structure of the garage was more responsible for holding up the garage, than was the car inside. No, it occurred to me, Okham’s Razor was supposed to bias me toward choice of the least complicated explanation among several proposed mechanisms (systems, drivers, logics, etc.) that rationally explained a phenomenon, so that I would not fool myself with unnecessary complexity. This, I concluded, was something that even Jeeves, my quite frankly infallible butler, would likewise agree upon without so much as a reconnoitering.
But then I was informed that, well, really, the issue had nothing at all to do with Jerrance having been a point guard, or with my supposedly egregious misuse of Okham’s Razor, but rather had to do with a laundry list of other things including, but perhaps not limited to: Naadir “Selfie” Tharpe "regressing; and with an allegedly “worst 2-year stretch in 25 years of guard play the last two years” (though I was not presented with the calculus of arriving of this breathtakingly broad generalization); and with having only landed 1 recruit in 2 years; and with a misdemeanor drug conviction; and with unconcealed forecasting that Brennen Bechard, whom to my knowledge never started a game in Division 1 at PG, would a possible replacement for Howard because of Assistant Head Coach Howard being sent to the WUG instead of Becherd (note: I am not yet entirely clear how a future possibility of Becherd replacing Howard might be simultaneously viewed as a reason for Howard being replaced, rather than as a result of it, but far be it from me to quibble over such minutia).
And it was at this very moment–not a moment sooner, nor a speck of a second later, that I, Bertie Woosterbate 1.0, became aware of the remote, but also near, possibility that very possibly reasons were being constructed and flailed about for dismissing Assistant Head Coach Jerrance Howard in order that someone should take the blame for the trials and tribulations experienced afflicting Kansas basketball in general and the frustrations of certain fans in particular, AND that any attempts at exposing the fallacies of the reasons given might meet with further, and increasingly facile reasons being advanced for the dismissal, or replacement, or demotion of Master Howard, so as to make of him a suitable, if rather extremely rotund scapegoat. Further, it occurred to me that if one were to continue to expose the fallacies in the premises constructed for his justification of his dismissal, however gently done and well meaning in purpose, one might eventually be confronted with the allegation that Assistant Head Coach Howard was, rather like a KU football coach once upon a time, found simply too bloody fat to coach at KU.
Jeeves! Do come at once. I am caught up in a trying situation quite beyond me, as usual, and I am in need of your inestimable assistance…Jeeves? JEEVES!!!
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@jaybate-1.0 Bill Self is not thin!!
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@ParisHawk I think there is a lot that happens we don’t know about, and I think it should be that way.
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Ah, my dear conjunctively colored and repeatingly digited lady, so kind of you to “weigh” in on Bill’s specific gravity and massing in your inimitable style.
You see, I too agree and concur that neither Bill of Okham, nor Bill of Okmulgee, were what one might reasonably ascribe the word “thin” either to, or about. Focusing on Bill of Okmulgee, I would hazard a guess that he is thick of brow, broad of shoulder, and during the most trying stages of the season, rather well ballasted from sprees of junk food eaten on the run during recruiting junkets, when not consuming vein clogging chicken dinners at alumni gatherings and bad nouvelle cuisine at golf clubs for fund raisers for those afflicted with carcinogens, if you will. But, on the whole, Bill of Okmulgee would also not be characterized as being thick either, now would he. He has those oh so very feminine hands, you know. And he does have below the knees what some might call pipe cleaner gauge calves. And well, how could we call his remaining unplugged regions of his scalp anything but thin, eh? So, whilst you are most adamantly correct in your assessment in Bill of Okmulgee not being “thin,” he is also not uniformly “thick,” now is he? Should you require further assistance in reflecting upon Bill of Okmulgee’s gauge, i should recommend you to my irreplaceable servant, Jeeves, who would no doubt be able to resolve any remaining ambivalence you may feel about the issue.
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What do you think of the un-tucked and bulky polos the coaching staff was wearing?
BTW, I vote to take the cheer leading squad to South Korea and liven the place up
time outs are so boring without cheer leaders and pep band…
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@JayHawkFanToo and @jaybate-1.0 those shirts really show those bulging bellies!!! Not flattering! But I don’t care one way or the other…
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@JayHawkFanToo I guess they will really appreciate them when they get back. Think there will be KU fans there?
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There are KU fans everywhere…I used to travel quite a bit and on occasion I would wear KU gear and always had someone make a comment, overwhelmingly positive, about the Jayhawks/KU.
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Henry Kissenger made it plain that women, if given the choice between men with wealth and power and men with great physiques, were much more attracted to and sexually aroused by wealth and power, at least in his experience.
Since Henry was no Chippendale candidate, rather homely in fact, but had a lot of power and a lot of money, and since he had a steady stream of beautiful, desirable women on his arm, I had to take him somewhat seriously,
Bill makes $5 million a season and lives in a humongous house and has life time financial security. Does the gut make him so unattractive that women wouldn’t want to be seen with him if he were single?
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@jaybate-1.0 Go back to the top of this thread. My initial comment was that I would not be opposed to Aaron Miles replacing Howard. That should imply that I believe Aaron Miles would be better overall at being an assistant coach than Snacks. There might individual skills that Howard is better at, but I believe Miles would be a better overall assistant coach than Howard.
I will fully admit that I do not have trust in Howard because of his failure to disclose his arrest. I will always wonder what else he hasn’t told Self that could have an impact on his ability to recruit and do his job.
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@jaybate-1.0 ha ha!! Going to pick the personality! I think Self is known for having fun. So your nike shoe on the other foot, what about you and a rich, round lady?
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You know, a woman’s wealth has never been crucial to me. I have been strongly attracted to and happily involved with women from many socio-economic levels. The only common thread I can find in the women I have been most attracted to is that they all either had a lot of money invested in their cultural development, or they invested in developing themselves that way. Either investment creates appealing results to me. Women that have strongly attracted me have all had beauty, intelligence, humor and a healthy sex drive. I am very pro women’s rights and women’s freedom to choose way of life and receive equal pay; that independence only makes women more appealing to me romantically, and appeals to my moral-ethical agenda of ALL persons getting a fair shake. At the same time, the women I find least appealing are those that, like men, become one dimensional in their development as human beings. For example, though I agree down the line with most feminists about their agenda for women (up to the point that feminism begins to seek subjugation of men as zero sum revenge for past subjugation of women), I confess to finding many feminists in my lifetime incredibly boring and unattractive despite being in strong agreement with their philosophies. Why? I have asked myself this many times. The answer is surprisingly simple. Women that become ideological about feminism become as boring as any persons that become ideological about politics, or religion, or race progress, or business, or art. They begin to develop in only one way and so surrender much of their human appeal to me. A woman (or man) that is incapable of embracing the XTReme opposites of fierce independence along with intimate dependence and vulnerability, both in themselves and in their mate, in romantic and friendly relationships just isn’t very appealing to me, just isn’t funny to me, just isn’t fun to me, just isn’t desirable to me, just isn’t precious to me, just isn’t someone I can get close to, while simultaneously enduring the frictions that come with being close. The reason money is not crucial to me in a woman is that I have seen money come and go and come and go and come–both mine and women’s. If another person’s money were crucial, or one’s own for that matter, then one really could not hope to build anything lasting with another person, because money, so long as our economy is rigged, and manipulated by the few great fortunes that own our private central bank system, and constantly expand and contract the economy and so one’s wealth by design to continually increase and then concentrate the top down control of the economy, then one is never going to be sure to have as much money as one needs at any given time, nor can one’s mate. The need for money is inelastic and the experience of its security relative. No matter how much one has, one needs to maintain that amount, and typically, grow it, to stay feeling as secure and rich as one wishes. I can assure you that the Kennedys and Bushes simultaneously feel incredibly fortunate and well off, and then not sufficiently so; that is why they and other wealthy families return to the hog trough of Washington, D.C., periodically. The world of wealth is very competitive. Whenever a Sheik, or a dictator, or an entrepreneur, or what have you, becomes able to live more opulently and become more influential in the socioeconomic and political systems than an already wealthy family, that already wealth family has either to go into denial, or to, rather like vampires, awaken from their prosperous slumbers, and return to the frey in whatever field they know how to extract wealth from, and suck more blood from us all, not because they hate us ordinary folks (they don’t really think much about us at all, unless we create a stink that threatens to disrupt their easy routines and rank on the pecking order), but because they have to keep up with the Jones at what ever level they view themselves to be living at. Since I view the world through this lense (and I realize it is not the only one but it works for me), I would be quite foolish to base my love and happiness with a woman on how much money she, or I, or we, had at any given time. So: a woman’s appeal depends on beauty (which is largely in the eye of the beholder and by conscious choice NOT a standard contrived for me by mass media), intelligence, courage, humor, and trust. Nothing is more erotic than a woman you can trust that has beauty, intelligence, courage and humor. With that woman, I can find a way to get what we need. But I am a simple man that had variety in women, before I was married, and when I was young. So: I do not have the wondering eye and restlessness that afflicts many men. And I have found a woman with all of the qualities I mention, and so I am happy and content to focus on living well with her, rather than trying to live well with others on the side. I am no saint. I find women high maintenance. And I find men high maintenance, too. I opt for quality over quantity in human relationships. I could be quite happy living as a crew man on a merchant ship, or a yacht, bunking nights in a very small room, endlessly circumnavigating the world. But I meant a great woman that likes terra firma and so I live ashore and travel when we can. Life has been eternally surprising to me and though I have faced my share of drudgery, I have never found a woman part of that drudgery, though their emotional maintenance and indulgence are at times an unwanted distraction. Still, women, as well as male friends, keep it interesting, whenever they are being women and men, and not ideologues. I don’t fault women for becoming ideologues about their legacy of subjugation at times, just like I don’t fault African Americans for becoming ideologues about their legacy of slavery, and their current asymmetric share of poverty and incarceration in our society. Both are horrific legacies and presents. But the founders of our country were ideologues about representative government in order to carve out their place in the sun, also. Not surprisingly, I admire men as different as Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin and Alexander Hamilton a considerable amount, because they found themselves to be able to both grind their ideologies AND be men fully alive and thoroughly diversified and developed in their tastes, interests, and lust for life. I think women and African Americans can learn quite a lot from those three about how (and how not) to both pursue their ends, and live a full life that includes the joy of the opposite gender, and the other race. Life is better and progress comes faster IMHO, when joie d’vivre coincides with pursuit of progress. Otherwise, life becomes such unrelieved drudgery that one cannot sustain the effort required to outflank the bastards in this world that need to be outflanked for the good of us all. Finally, regarding roundness, it would not attract me, but it would not prevent me, if she were the other things I have noted. Hope that answers your question.
Rock Chalk!
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@jaybate-1.0 I’m happy for u!!
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@drgnslayr I really think we need another x KU player on the bench. Id love to see Miles in there! Paul Pierce, Scot Pollard, Sherron, all other guys I would like to see there.
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@Lulufulu I’d kill to see Paul Pierce on the bench. Recruits wouldn’t be able to handle The Truth.
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“I really think we need another x KU player on the bench. Id love to see Miles in there! Paul Pierce, Scot Pollard, Sherron, all other guys I would like to see there.”
I’m right with you!
