Will Roy Try to Keep Coaching Til He Break's Coach K's Number of Rings?
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Coach Williams has been gone for 14 years and as much as we like him or as many good things he did for KU, his legacy is primarily tied to UNC and only tangentially to KU. When the time comes to evaluate Coach Self’s legacy, will anyone mention Oral Roberts or Tulsa or even Illinois? The answer is that it will be mentioned only anecdotally, much like KU and Coach Williams.
This topics would be better discussed at a UNC or even a Duke sports forum.
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@HighEliteMajor Yep. I couldn’t agree more. I guess he wanted to do it all at NORTH CAROLINA. The key to me in your post is " ‘should’ve’ had two at KU." This makes me sick every time it’s posted and an ugly reminder of his coaching. But, many will defend and justify all that he did. How wonderful he is, etc, etc, etc. But the ugly fact remains, he never won 1 (ONE) NC at KU. Other than that, Ol’ Roy is a great guy.
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@HighEliteMajor and 2003? The Syracuse loss stings the most for me. Missing 18 of 32 free throws.
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The missed free throws turned out too be a non factor. A while back someone took the time to analyze all the missed free throws and how many of those were rebounded by KU and led to scores and the net result was a wash or even a slight edge.
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For what its worth, I would not be totally surprised, if there were one day a very fascinating book written by some professional journalist about the apparently anomalous interweaving (direct and indirect) of KU and UNC basketball for several decades that might include a cast of characters including, but not limited to: Phog Allen, Frank McGuire, Dean Smith, Larry Brown, William “World Wide Wes” Wesley, Roy Williams, Sonny Vaccaro, Michael Jordan, Matt Dougherty, ADs and Fund raising officials at both KU and UNC, various and sundry academic counselors and tutors, and some Chancellors from both schools, John Calipari, Danny Manning, and Bill Self.
I know I would buy it.
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I so hope you are correct.
But I’m going out on a limb here and predicting Roy ties Coach K’s record.
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@JayHawkFanToo did they consider all the extra time that was taken off due to rebounding and scoring and how that could have possibly affected the game? Instead of a forced 3 from Lee maybe you have more opportunities? Without seeing the study for myself, I have a hard time believing missing 18 free throws has no impact on a 3pt game. That is interesting someone took a look at it from that angle though.
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@Blown Lee’s three was going in…
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@Blown I had seen the same analysis…which matched my thoughts as I watched the game. The math made sense. But, as you point out, if you change one thing, you don’t know what would have happened in another scenario. My take…the missed FTs did not necessarily cause the loss.
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Hawk8086 said:
@Blown I had seen the same analysis…which matched my thoughts as I watched the game. The math made sense. But, as you point out, if you change one thing, you don’t know what would have happened in another scenario. My take…the missed FTs did not necessarily cause the loss.
But missing a bunch of FTs and hoping it doesn’t matter is certainly not a proven recipe for success…
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If u make 4 of those free tosses we may be holding the ball at the end and they are fouling and chucking 3s. That study is hogwash.
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Fightsongwriter said:
If u make 4 of those free tosses we may be holding the ball at the end and they are fouling and chucking 3s. That study is hogwash.
My thoughts exactly except to quote Colonel Potter, “Mule Muffins” on that study.
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It actually makes sense. If you miss the first free throw but grab the rebound and score then you are not any worse than making both free throws. If you make the first free throw, miss the second but grab the rebound and score then you are one up over making both free throws.
As long as the missed free throws were rebounded by KU and a score followed then it makes sense that the missed free throws were not a negative factor. Most of the time, the defense will grab the missed free throws so this is obviously not a good strategy but in this particular case, when you look at all the missed free throws in question and the follow up plays, they did not appear to hurt KU.
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@JayHawkFanToo @wissox so you are saying we scored on every missed free throw against Syracuse? Man I watched a different game. How about this Potterism? Horsefeathers!!!
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That is NOT what I said; please reread my original post.
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I will only post ludicrous responses to ludicrous “studies.” It was no doubt funded by…wait for it…
Syracuse University.
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@Fightsongwriter I was agreeing with you when you said Hogwash. I too think if we make some more FT’s in that game we win it.
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@Fightsongwriter @JayHawkFanToo Here is an LJW article in 2010 by Jesse Newell discussing the “study” that was actually done by a Syracuse fan (comments at end are Newell’s):
Free throws didn’t cost Kansas the 2003 NCAA championship: A convincing argument
Posted by Jesse Newell February 24, 2010 at 12:25 p.m.
I was perusing through KenPom.com on Tuesday (imagine that) and stumbled across something I thought was extremely interesting.
As most everyone around here knows, Kansas went 12-for-30 from the free-throw line in the 2003 national championship game against Syracuse, with the Orangemen going on to win the game, 81-78.
KU made just four of 17 free throws in the second half (23.5 percent), an occurrence that Ken Pomeroy himself later said that, based on chance, had a less than one in 1,000 chance of happening taking into account the 63.3 percent free-throw percentage of KU’s shooters coming into the game.
Naturally, everyone blamed KU’s poor free-throw shooting for the loss. It seemed obvious to do so.
Chris Bowers has another take on the game. And I think it might just change your opinion on how that championship game was won/lost.
I emailed Chris, and he agreed to let me re-post part of an email he sent to Ken Pomeroy last week. His words are in italics below.
As a Syracuse fan, the idea that Kansas choked always bugged me. Not only does it feels like a swipe at the legitimacy Syracuse’s title, but the numbers don’t hold up. Surprising though it may be, Kansas was actually more efficient from the free throw line than Syracuse that night. Take a look at the play-by-play and box score here. (Links in original)
Kansas went 12-30 from the line, and missed the front end of 2 one-and-ones. Effectively, that is 12-32. However, Kansas also scored 6 points via offensive rebounds on their missed free throws. So, effectively, Kansas produced 18 points from 32 free throw attempts.
Syracuse went 10-17 from the line. They also missed the front end of 1 one-and-one, and scored zero points from offensive rebounds on missed free throws. So, effectively, Syracuse produced 10 points from 18 free throw attempts.
Kansas: 18-32 for an efficiency rate of 0.5625 per free throw Syracuse: 10-18 for an efficiency rate of 0.5556 per free throw
Thus, Kansas was actually slightly more efficient in terms of effective points per free throw attempt than Syracuse.
The 2003 national title game was actually won and lost at the three-point line, not the free throw line. Syracuse shot 11-18 beyond the arc, while Kansas went only 4-20. Whether or not you consider that to be luck might be another matter. However, as a Syracuse fan and a number cruncher, I feel a lot more comfortable discussing Syracuse’s timely three-point shooting than the illusion of Kansas choking from the line.
I went back through the box score, and Chris’ numbers hold up.
As Chris said in his email to me, “I really think it was about the 3’s, not the free throws. People just like to blame free throws because, well, everyone likes to blame free throws.”
Thanks to Chris’ analysis, I’m already re-thinking my own thoughts on the game that I thought I knew well.
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Maybe you could be just a tad more open minded and consider that the numbers are fairly simple to run and the calculation do not at all indicate or even imply that every missed free throw had to be converted, only enough so the overall effect of the missed free throws is neutralized which apparently was the case in this particular game
I understand that it is counter intuitive to what we are conditioned but when you have a team that is good at offensive rebounds, it can indeed compensate for poor free throw shooting. As always, we are all entitled to our own opinions.
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In the analysis I quote above relayed by Newell, the issue is distilled to whether 6 points made after missed FTs negated the overall effect of missing so many. But I think the conclusion is flawed because it ignores the psychological effect of missing those FTs, and the fact that more misses occurred in the 2nd half.
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It also ignores the most important point (like the pun?), additional made free throws alters the course and flow of each possession in the game. If we made our average and were actually ahead, Lee never gets the facial disgrace, we kill more clock, we run different offensive sets, and 8 million other scenarios (hyperbole warning for Justanotherfantoo open minded). I don’t want my mind to be so open my brains leak out! Huey ballooey! (A Frank burns-ism this time for my fellow MASH aficionado @wissox ).
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@Fightsongwriter Greatest TV comedy ever!
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Jesse gets too lost in his sabermetrics some times. You make 12 out of 30 FTs and lose by 3, I don’t know what else to say, you’re putting yourself at risk of losing the game! It doesn’t matter that Syracuse was less efficient at the line. If we make 10 more FT’s for a rather pedestrian 65%, we win that game! As @Fightsongwriter keeps saying, so much changes that’s hard to quantify what would have happened had we made more FT’s.
I had forgotten that we made only 4-20 3 pointers in that game. So I guess we could say we would have won if we’d made more 3’s also, right? How can a writer say making 12-30 FT’s didn’t cost us the game but making 4-20 3’s DID cost us the game? Did they analyze all the missed threes? Did they look at our offensive boards on 3’s? I doubt that.
All I remember during the game is repeatedly thinking to myself, ‘dang, I wish we’d made those FT’s’.
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OTOH, how about the positive psychological effect of getting offensive rebounds after missed free throws…which is no easy task?
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How exactly sabermetrics, a baseball stat, affects basketball? You are just looking at the missed FTs in isolation and not at the baskets scored as a direct result of those misses. Newell looked at the entire analysis in context and he also came to the conclusion that FTs were not the reason KU lost; 3 point shooting by both teams had a considerably larger effects and I do agree with him. This does not make me or you right or wrong, we just see it differently, agree?
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@JayHawkFanToo @wissox @Fightsongwriter
Ok, go again to the numbers. As analyzed by the Syracuse guy, we got 6 more pts by putbacks after missed FTs. As noted, this put us on a par with Syracuse’s FT efficiency, but who cares about that? To determine if it had an undue effect on the game, you have to compare it to KU’s ability as demonstrated throughout the season.
Doing this, we can see that if we had made the season average 63%, we would have had some 19 pts from FTs instead of 12, plus possibly 1 or 2 more due to missing those two first ends of 1 & 1 opportunities. That is a variance of 7 to 9 more pts than we scored, or more than the 6 Mr Syracuse credited arose from our misses. Even at 7 more from FTs–the low end of our average and even assuming that we missed the two bonus opportunities–, that last shot might have gone inside instead of a desperation 3 ptr to tie. That would have meant 5 possible players to take it. Anyone thinking that doesn’t change the possible outcomes significantly is short-sighted.
Sure, other things mattered, but to fail so abysmally in the only uncontested scoring situation in sports, and thus in the only facet of the game solely within our own control, absolutely has to be most significant element in analyzing where KU lost the game.
As to the possible positive psychological effects of making a putback off of a missed FT, I would hazard a guess that missing so many more FTs than you make would cause teams to stop going inside hoping to get to the line. Might even explain all those missed 3 point attempts. By my calculations, we attempted 5 more in that game (33% more) than we averaged per game for the year.
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While the efficiency is similar the use rate is not. And yes McNamera (sp?) killed KU.
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@wissox I am young enough and old enough that I have been fortunate to see and love what I consider to be the Big 3: MASH, Seinfeld, and PSYCH.
I must admit that I laughed harder and out loud more often at Psych. Though Psych was not a true sit com. The first 4 seasons of MASH are hard to beat tho.
- Psych (must be watched in order for full effect)
- MASH
- Seinfeld
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@Fightsongwriter Wow, Those are probably my three favorite shows. Got some Psych on the DVR, same with MASH, and Seinfeld’s on every night. This would be too real to be true, but my favorite basektball team is KU. Yours?
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@Fightsongwriter Whoa, we’re taking over this thread with our chatter. I enjoy Larry Norman, Kansas too. My favorite lived in Leawood for a while, Phil Keaggy.
