Pace... Only Relative To Tortilla Chips
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Why?
Why? Why? Why?
We knew from the day we put Harvard on our schedule.
This game’s outcome would be determined by pace.
Who controlled it?
Sure wasn’t us.
I thought we were all about a fast pace this year? Guess not.
Instead… we decided to grind it out against an Ivy League school with a losing record. ON OUR HOME COURT. And we were extremely fortunate to have won.
We will never control our own destiny if we can’t control the pace of a game.
We will always be in deep doo-doo if we have Landen lightly jogging back and forth to each side. He might as well jog… because no one else was turning up the speed.
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@drgnslayr I notice you chose the “mild” version…
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May they be placed squarely on the shoulders of the Jayhawk players!
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My fear with that is they will eat the chips on their shoulders!
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Lack of pace falls on the shoulders of our bigs. When our 2 guards have to be the leading scorers AND play 36 minutes AND our bigs can’t rebound, we are at the mercy of whatever pace our opponent dictates. Selena getting fouled up didn’t help, especially with Svi struggling. (Another opportunity lost by BG with his suspension). Coach Self had to go with Lucas.
Our bigs, including Ellis, forced us to grind this one out. Hopefully a good learning experience.
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“We will always be in deep doo-doo if we have Landen lightly jogging back and forth to each side.”
There is a wizard behind the curtain that calls the shots. You’re right on point with the issue yesterday. Pace (and just 14 three point attempts).
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@imajayhawk Lucas forces us to play slow…Not sure if you gave our talent more minutes, they wouldn’t have had more RB’s.
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I view this some what differently than most.
I thought Frank was stellar.
I though our composite 5 with 14 points, 15 reebs, 3 blocks, and 2 steals, was stellar.
Who sucked and nearly cost us the game were those that staffed the 2, 3 and 4.
Those that staffed the 2, 3, and 4 each need ZTR lawnmowers doing donuts on their asses for about 5 minutes each.
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@jaybate-1.0 I don’t think your C5 concept is helpful. If we had a group of low talent folks, then okay. We have some studs who are stuck on the bench too much behind some experienced role players.
As is evident, Self is so fixated on inside play, that it is now appearing that he is very forgiving of young talent on the wings (Wiggins, Seldon) sometimes even when performance would warrant less pt (namely Seldon in previous years). Though not sure why Vic didn’t see some time when our guards were tired or ineffective (Svi somewhat), or on the bench with fouls, except that he saw Vic as a sub for his 2-headed PG strategy, and therefore not an option in his mind??
However, our talented bigs don’t seem to get the same chances. Cliff LY showed to be much more efficient even with many obvious mistakes.
Freshmen, less talented than ours, are getting PT all around D1 on good teams and not so good teams. They’re developing and even putting up numbers. Self needs to quit going out after the top talent if he’s going to be so dogmatic with his approach. I don’t see how this can’t not hurting us in recruiting. Do we start losing the mid level talent, if they see Self always stuck getting last second top talent recruited over the top of their commitments, unless of course it’s big man…then they have to worry about being stuck behind 75 to unranked talent with a couple years experience.
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@Bwag said:
I don’t think your C5 concept is helpful.
With all due respect, what I think you mean is that the logic of it is sound and it gets in the way of what you wish would happen. Isn’t that much more accurate?
The studs on our bench aren’t playing consistently enough to warrant turning the 5 over to just them.
There are always three things to consider about a player’s PT and most fans only give weight to one of the two things.
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Can the player give the coach what he asks for from the position the player plays? Note: this varies greatly from game to game. One game a 5 needs to be able to bang low. The next game a 5 needs to be able to chase and hedge. The next game a 5 needs to be able to run the floor. The next game a player needs to be able to score low against a zone. The next game he’s got to be able to go set picks up high. And so on.
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Can he do so at a higher average level per minute played than other players can? Note: this is the angle that most board rats focus on almost singularly.
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Can he do so with the best trade off of average and variance in performance game in and game out, regardless of the kind of opponent that is faced at that position? Note: trade off between average productivity and variance in that productivity giving varying kinds of tasks varying game to game but needing to get accomplished regardless is particularly hard for board rats to focus in on, and write meaningfully about. I am quite aware of this trade off, because I have long used it in my evaluations in my work, but I too find it hard to write meaningfully about it, because so far statisticians are not grinding and publishing meaningful statistics about it yet. Its hard to talk about because the tasks a 5 are expected to do vary a great deal from game to game and influence how much Coach Self is expecting him to score and rebound. Some games Coach Self wants a lot of scoring and rebounding out of a player, because he isn’t putting much load on him defensively. Other games its the reverse. Finding stats that indicate these varying loads being placed on a player and the way the alter his likely productivity in scoring and rebounding on a per minute played basis each game is very difficult.
Mostly board rats focus on the player’s average production per minute played in points and rebounds and ignore work loads along with those activities. I am even a bit guilty of this in my talk about the Composite 5.
But implicit in my talk about the Composite 5 is that because he is a composite of several players with differing abilities, differing levels of experience, and differing strengths and weaknesses, is that Self is going to being playing each player to achieve things situationally that the other players might not be as good at achieving as the player selected.
KU has kicked ass against against UCLA and Vandy on good shooting nights, and hung in against MSU on a terrible shooting night, in no small part because KU’s composite 5 has been able to counter almost everything MSU, UCLA and Vandy big men liked to do. Our Composite 5 got MSU’s Costello, clearly the best big man we have faced, fouled up and nearly marginalized him from the game. But Costello is just a very fundamentally sound and experienced big man that we couldn’t quite control down the second half. Costello would have had a field day against Diallo and Bragg alone, because they couldn’t have made good reads on help with him, he would have pushed them off all spots, and he would have had THEM fouled up in not time, instead of him. The UCLA and Vandy big men we just never allowed to get in a comfort zones, because Self kept coming at them with fresh legs, posing different challenges, and trying to do different things on them.
Until we run into another fundamentally sound center like Costello, who is taller than Costello, and so limits us to having to go with our taller guys only, this Composite 5 of ours is going to be our team’s greatest strength game in and game out, except maybe for Frank Mason.
Composite players have great vulnerabilities to a single great player that can do it all. Our composite 5 is MOST vulnerable to a really big, strong rebounding single 5 about 6-10. But, of course, so would be most single players that weren’t as great as that single great rebounding player on the opposition.
But right now, we have the best of all possible worlds with this composite 5.
And I haven’t even mentioned the best part of this Composite 5: Diallo and Bragg both are likely to improve a lot in the next two months and so the Composite 5 is likely to get a lot better.
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Jaybate, you are right on with the Composite 5. Bill Self is a master at choosing the right big for the moment (not perfect, but a Hall of Fame master). The worst we could do is settle on 1 or 2 bigs right now. The composite is an important strength.
Many people get down on Lucas, but Lucas did not slow the pace in the second half. The lack of efficiency from Selden, Svi, and Ellis in the last 10 minutes of the first half, and early in the 2nd half allowed Harvard in the game and crystallized a grind it out game. Frank and Devonte could not keep up the early energy alone and turnovers went away. A grind it out game with a strong opposing big meant Lucas was our ideal answer from the composite 5. Zena was held below his average (and below his 50% shooting percentage). He struggled more against Lucas.
Strength in numbers. The composite 5 will get much better as Diallo and Bragg improve, but I think we would have lost with them in there.
Also, if we had made free throws, this would have been a double digit win.
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@jaybate-1.0 I will defer to your greater knowledge. No sarcasm intended. And hope for said improvement, hoping that deferred development of talented bigs doesn’t hurt us in the long run
