Its the Stuff Fairy Tales and Nightmares Are Made of...
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Its mythic alright.
First Coleby’s knee does not rehab.
Then Doke goes out.
Along the line Landen injures an ankle that probably has never healed and injures some muscle above the belt that makes it so he cannot raiser his arm, and then when it heals for awhile he gets sick.
Then @Blown spies Frank’s ankle brace.
Then Josh Jackson, who has played without lingerie all season, starts showing some and simultaneously goes from being one of the best freshman defensive players in Self’s tenure to standing around watching guys drive by him right and left.
And all season long Devonte is a cramp waiting for low potassium and salt to happen seemingly every other game.
Then a story gets run that refers to a rape in McCarthy Hall witnessed by FIVE KU players…GET THIS…two flipping weeks after it happened!!!
Then Bragg gets suspended a second time for…um…reasons unspecified.
Then like clockwork, @JayhawkFanToo starts accusing the 'bate 1.0 of looking for conspiracy theories everywhere, especially about injuries.
Bing, bing, bing, bing, bing!!!
Ah oooooo gah! Ah oooooooooo gah!!!
Warning, warning, warning!
Dave, Dave, what are you doing, Dave? Can’t we talk this over, Dave?
Ahem.
It was @JayhawkFanToo that made it seemingly indisputable that I have been right to worry about the team’s problems. He is like a miner’s canary regarding the team’s true problems. The moment he says I am looking for conspiracy theories THAT is when you know something is SERIOUSLY wrong!!! When @JayhawkFanToo starts saying, well, he has to take Coach Self at his word, THAT is when you know its time to go to the life boats. Its right after that that it surfaces that everyone’s worst fears have been confirmed!!!
What we have here is a 7-man team with its major players playing 35-39 mpg and its late January and the team is running on fumes and bailing wire exactly as anyone with a thimble of brains would expect.
That’s the bad news, 'bate 1.0…the nightmare shizzle. So: what about the Fairy Tales you mention in your title? When does that come into play, eh?
This is sooooooooooooo mythic.
This is so Frodo on the road to Mt. Doom.
Bill Self - Bilbo.
Tyler Self = Frodo.
This team is building toward Tyler Self playing a pivotal role down the stretch.
Bill Self may even have subconsciously scripted this.
Bill, meet Randolph Tolkien. Randolph, meet Bill Self.
Bill Self may have not signed enough good players the last two seasons to subconsciously lay the ground work for creating the son requirement of saving the father.
He always has embargo problems. He always finds ways around the embargo problems. No, this is not about an embargo. This is about underlying mythopoeia. This is about the father sewing the conditions for his son to save him mythically.
It is unfolding soooooooooooo perfectly.
All season long it has seemed like all these problems dealt with issues and posed risks completely unrelated to Tyler Self.
All season long TSelf has gotten to drip cryo ice, because, well, because there just was NO chance he would ever be called on to play a serious role on this team. Zero. Zip. Nano Nope.
First it was: this team is too deep to EVER need Tyler.
Next, it was, well, the team isn’t deep anymore, but its thin in the paint. The perimeter is over stacked with super talented players. Tyler? Fuggedaboutit.
Next, it was, well, yeah, some of the perimeter guys like Svi and Vick are a little inconsistent, maybe injured, too, but our starters are so great Tyler could never be needed. We’ll just play them more.
Next, it was, uh-oh, Devonte’s got cramps, but what the heck, it just means the rest of the guys will have to rest on the floor during games and go 40 every time. Tyler? No way.
Next, it was oh, man, Jane’s getting serious and Frank’s got a brace!!! Still, no one could bring themselves to say the T-word.
Next, it was oh, man, rape? Ok, ok, don’t panic. Lightfoot could fill.
Next it was Bragg suspended a second time? Coleby? Coleby? Bueller? Bueller? Bueller? Please god, not the T-word.
Next, it was, please god, surely Mitchell Lightfoot can be split into five clones and play all five positions can’t he? NOT TYLER!!!
But now @HighEliteMajor 's RED PILL sits in our right hand and a stubby bottle of Coors Banquet Beer is clenched in our left. It is late January and we are boarding a plane for Lexington, KY.
Now we are thinking of taking the pill. We sit down in the seat. It is the long dark night of the soul.
And then it happens: @JayHawkFanToo starts whistling out on the wing on engine Number 2. He looks like the demon that Bill Shattner saw on the most famous Twilight Zone episode of all. He is ripping engine parts out of engine number 2 and throwing them over board. AND he is singing his paranoid “Conspiracy Theory Fugue in D Minor” out on engine number 2, which, we know deep inside, is our metaphorical mine shaft and we KNOW we HAVE to take the Red Pill now that @JayhawkFanToo has entered the singing stage out on flaming, smoking Engine Number Two.
We have to take the pill, wait a moment and then we have to get into the weird seat on Morbius’ tech noir sub tub and go into the net virtually as Tyler Self looking for Trinity!!!
We have to emerge in Rupp Arena walking on wood surrounded by 23,000 Agent Smith’s!!!
We have to stand their in our Tyler Self suits and forget about the Occulist Rift fantasies of preseason.
We have to face the hyper reality of the z-axis of the Matrix; that reality is no longer what it seems.
That with Trinity anything is possible.
That without her losing the bid for another conference title is as certain as getting eaten by one of those hairy assed electro convulsive techno monsters swimming outside Morbius’ tech noir sub tub.
That we must live through Tyler Self and learn how to bend and shape the Matrix and stop Agent Smith Bullets with our minds like a bunch of board rat Neos caught somewhere between the actor playing Agent Smith and the actor playing that dip shit character in Peter Jackson’s ring trilogy also.
That Tyler Self IS the one.
That Morbius has known all along!!!
Get ready everyone.
We are one outbreak of Novovirus on the team from it all coming down to Tyler in Lexington.
The Agent Smiths are coming.
Its time for Tyler to put on the long black warm up frock with the Dr. No collar and the black sun glasses and start running on walls and flipping cartwheels through phase space dripping green computer screen characters.
Its time for Tyler to save Morbius and get the girl.
Rock Chalk!!!
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@jaybate-1.0 Indeed, it’s starting to seem like the wheels are coming off the track - YET - we’re 18-2.
???
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@nuleafjhawk Since the injury bug happens every season and we are 18-2 or thereabouts every late January, wouldn’t it logically follow that it is - BECAUSE - we are 18-2? Too short a rotation and playing too hard, and training too hard (?) not to get injured?
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@approxinfinity It’d be interesting to see our Big12 record in recent years because it seems we are 6-0, 7-0 in the league every year and then we never get past that 6, 7 win mark until after we lose one or two, then the rest of the league thinks they have a chance. Of course this year, it’s playing with 6 guys, and 1,5 bigs on the roster.
@Jesse-Newell was pointing out on his podcast, or maybe it was his sidekick, that sacrificing a win at UK for the good of the team might be necessary. Those words were spoken before the current distractions. He then said Self would never ‘throw’ a game even if it meant future success of the team, and I think he’s right, but now, preserving Franks, JJ’s, DG’s, LL’s and Svi’s health for March is important.
We might need to sacrifice another Big12 title for the good of the team in March. We all know how talented we are. Going into March ready for the dance, relatively rested, and relatively healthy is better than being totally beat up by trying to win another league title and #1 seed.
In 1988, injuries forced Larry Brown to utilize his brilliance. A little known football player Clint Normore was invited to play, and contributed significant minutes all the way through to the last game. In that said last game, Billy Tubbs must have had a perilously thin bench too and only used 1 sub that entire game. Coach Tubbs blew that game as I think that team was deeper, but on April 2, it only went 6 deep, and they got the silver medal as a result. Anyone know any KU footballers who have some hoops skills?
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@wissox it definitely would. Also, did they find anything conclusive with Hudys mouth swab / injury study?
…Particularly football players with defensive basketball skills!
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@approxinfinity Not sure about the mouthswabs.
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@wissox Could be the smart move, but not likely that happens.
These guys are going to be on auto amplification. Too much pride at stake to get them boys to even consider holding back on the throttle.
Unless of course, I"m wrong, and Self tries to turn this into a big 10 style possession game to take away UK’s scoring/transition advantage. I personally don’t see that as a viable option with them not being able to defend the length of the shot clock well enough.
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And this is where I worry that “the Streak” is too important.
We are currently in the driver’s seat in a competitive Big 12 race. We have UK on Saturday (a game that everyone will be amped to play in) and then Baylor on Wednesday, then Iowa State next weekend. You never want to “throw” a game, but with Bragg suspended, it may be time to expand, rather than shorten, the rotation.
Start giving Coleby and Lightfoot significant minutes. Cut back Frank and Devonte’s minutes. Maybe play two traditional big men a little bit more for the next couple of weeks to get guys right (and see if those lineups can contribute anything in case you need them come March).
Perhaps that means we go 3-3 over the next couple of weeks, but if that means that our main six guys are ready to go come March, that’s probably the best possible trade off.
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@justanotherfan said:
Perhaps that means we go 3-3 over the next couple of weeks, but if that means that our main six guys are ready to go come March, that’s probably the best possible trade off.
Self has ALWAYS coached to win the game at hand. He has never done much of the big picture season planning. It’s why we rarely lose bad Big12 games but also why we “struggle” in the tourney sometimes.
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@BigBad It’s hard to think of a scenario like this though where Self has had to make a decision like this.
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Hillary and Tom Dewey appeared certain to win based on the numbers.
But all numbers are a reflection of the past conditions that produced them.
When conditions change, the numbers change, not the other way around.
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@BigBad they struggle a lot more than just “sometimes”.
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@HawkChamp said:
@BigBad they struggle a lot more than just “sometimes”.
I agree but its relative. A lot of teams would kill for a Runner up, two elite 8s, and a sweet 16 in the last 6 tournaments.
