Bill Self - cost us the game?



  • @chriz I simply don’t get the “vote of confidence” point. Doke not making FTs is NOT for lack of confidence. It is that he has probably the worst FT shooting “technique” of any college or pro player I’ve ever seen. Definitely worse than Shaq. He can have all the confidence in the world - he ain’t making more than 50% of his attempts shooting them the way he does…



  • Listening to Self in the post game interview, it was probably not Doke’s confidence on the line tonight.

    Guess you have to see what you’ve got to work with in crunch time at some point.



  • The idea that you can’t work on changing his shot at this point in season is just foolish. What’s he gonna do go 0-7? Big deal. From the sound of it the strategy isnt gonna change moving forward…

    So… Same strategy, and same mechanics=??? I guess alot more “This is on me, I screwed up”



  • So what about Vick, speaking about hurting our game tonight?



  • @DanR For sure we can exploit it. Doke never comes out and we feed him the ball til we empty their bench. Lon didn’t out coach Self, Self stopped coaching.How does this weigh on Doke? If Doke starts launching 3’s from half court is Bill going to leave him in? If Doke tries to bring the ball up the court against a press, is that alright?



  • @DanR Fair enough. Couldn’t he have seen that at any point up and until this game. If not, how about the first time they poked Doke? The second time? The third time? What, not even after the fifth time?

    Stipulated that we need Doke on the floor as much of the game as possible. But in this game, Mitch had about the same slash line in 5 fewer minutes. More importantly, he is 14-17 from the FT line this year. I get you want to have your best players on the floor. But, in obvious fouling situations, a 40% FT shooter is not one of your best players.



  • @cragarhawk “The idea that you can’t work on changing his shot at this point in season is just foolish”

    I love this statement so much. Because it’s true. In a few months, I’ll be 60. Haven’t played competitive ball in 35 years. Haven’t played HORSE with my kids in the driveway for over 10 years. I’ll bet anyone on here I can go out RIGHT NOW - at 9:41 at night and by 11:00 I will have improved my free throw percentage by 50%.

    It’s not that damn hard. You think " OH - I bricked that one, I’ll soften the next shot up a little “. " OH - that was was too soft, too flat, I’ll put a little more ooomph on it and a little more arc” “OH - I need to get my hand square under the ball and bring my elbow in closer”.

    Not - OH - I’ve bricked the last 100 shots I put up, guess I’ll keep doin the same damn thing. OH - I must be doing it right because my dumb ass coaches aren’t telling me to do anything different and they keep me in here at crunch time so I can lose the game for my team and our fans.

    I’ve said for YEARS that these prima donna college basketball players need to put in MINIMUM 2 hours practice per day on Free Throws. Good free throw shooting teams win championships. They’re FREE.

    FREE POINTS.



  • At some point, should the refs call it intentional?



  • DanR said:

    @Texas-Hawk-10 should’ve been intentional

    That’s not what the rule is though.



  • @HighEliteMajor He is clearly not doing the same routine on each shot (Free throw 101), and what I noticed tonight is he is not even looking at the freaking rim when he releases the ball. I constantly worked with my players to improve their form and routine during the season, and guess what? Most of them improved!



  • Doke’s last free throw was at 1:56 and even with the miss KU was up by 1. Point taken about Doke and his free throws but in fairness, a second look at the final 1:56 is also relevant – a missed 3 by Graham, a missed 3 by Svi, and a missed switch on defense that cost us 3…to name a few.



  • I see all of the usual Self defenders which is usually me but tonight Self should have pulled Doke. The fans knew it, refs knew it, and the opposing team knew it. Yall are saying keeping him in shows Doke that Self believes in him? Self made him stand in the corner after the time out to keep the other team from fouling him. So you handicap your team when the game is on the line? Might as well develope an inbounds play where you throw it to the other team. Or better yet inbounds lob in the opposing teams basket?



  • Statmachine said:

    Yall are saying keeping him in shows Doke that Self believes in him?

    That’s what Self said in his post game interview



  • Subbing offense for defense and vice versa is basic coaching. i did it all the time. It did not hurt the kids confidence. It let them know we were doing all we could to win the damn game!



  • That’s bs. He just stood him in the corner so he wouldn’t get fouled. That sends the exact same message.



  • cragarhawk said:

    The idea that you can’t work on changing his shot at this point in season is just foolish. What’s he gonna do go 0-7? Big deal. From the sound of it the strategy isnt gonna change moving forward…

    So… Same strategy, and same mechanics=??? I guess alot more “This is on me, I screwed up”

    Sounds like the definition of insanity and the reason we don’t win in March. Self is still stubborn about things and that won’t change.



  • DanR said:

    Listening to Self in the post game interview, it was probably not Doke’s confidence on the line tonight.

    Guess you have to see what you’ve got to work with in crunch time at some point.

    Thanks captain obvious. Because none of us were aware that Dok is a horrible shooter (sarcasm).



  • Next game I vote for inbounds lob on opposing teams basket! It would be far more entertaining.



    1. Self knew the risk of leaving Doke in

    2. We still had the lead, despite the 6 blown freebies

    3. ?

    4. Victory/Loss

    lessons learned… Self BLEW IT.



  • Who would agree that Doke should have been called for a foul when he plowed into Young right before TY hit that 25 footer? They seemed to be calling every other touch foul.



  • Sad part about it is the rest of the team could shoot from half court blindfolded at a higher percentage than Dokes ft shots tonight.



  • @Blown even the announcer said so. The fans boooo’ed the refs until the 3 pointer.



  • Young’s really good at making everything looking like he’s fouled



  • @Crimsonorblue22 He got nailed on the push off tonight though, which was satisfying considering how often he does it.



  • @HighEliteMajor This is what I have been spewing on twitter! What kind of coach(s) allows a kid to ever shoot a free throw like that? Thats the question I want Self to answer. They have had two years almost and this is the form they came up with? If aint broke dont fix it, well it is broke so fix it!



  • All right. I’m done for the night. Hyperbole aside, I want Doke to be a guy that can be in the game at crunch time down the road.

    Pretty sure Bill Self knows he could have won this one. Hopefully the team is better in the long run. Maybe there was some rope-a-doke going on for future games (what a set up that would be!), or he just gave the kid a chance.



  • @DanR

    And even after they showed it on the scoreboard screen the fans kept booing; pretty ignorant fans.



  • @chriz I wondered this too, this is how the NBA handles it most times, they get more TO’s but if I remember correctly Self didnt use a lot of TO’s



  • Interesting. Channel 5 in KC referred to the poke-a-Doke. Remember, you heard it here first. 😄



  • Hows that for confidence?



  • I wish Doke had fouled out with 3 minutes left.



  • This years “how to beat KU” play book. Put your walk on’s in and foul Doke every time KU takes a lead. Rinse and repeat. Out of all of KU’s possessions if you took 10-15 away by fouling Doke away from the ball then you could shave 20-30 pts off of their production. Seems legit.



  • @truehawk93 not a bad game. Threw it with a failure to adapt. I don’t see any way that Doke will grow from this. It’s possible but probably not this year.



  • @kjayhawks in last 2 min we weren’t even throwing it in to him. They were fouling him when he wasn’t really even in the play.



  • Blown said:

    Who would agree that Doke should have been called for a foul when he plowed into Young right before TY hit that 25 footer? They seemed to be calling every other touch foul.

    Are you thinking conspiracy?



  • @DanR Doke gained no confidence from this. At best, his confidence is not 100% destroyed.



  • @CRH107 that take does not take into account the pressure that was built by a failure to adjust.



  • @Crimsonorblue22 now that’s a mystery. Not adapting to end game strategy is stupidity.



  • @Big-Clyde52 hopefully our coaching staff would adjust in the future. If not, an Asst Coach needs to put his job on the line slapping sense into Self on the sideline.



  • @Bwag a strategy the refs were keen on too. I mean how much more clear was it that the refs threw the game?



  • @hawkmoon2020 I had this in the loss column like the WV game. But who’d figure we’d give it due to coaching when victory was achievable at 2 min mark with an adaption to other teams coaching strategy?



  • @chriz no. just thinking how the smallest things in games (and life) can prove to be more meaningful down the road than they appeared at the present time. Might have prevented that big 3 and had another foul on Doke and he could have fouled out of the game before being poked 5 times.

    The Hawks lose championship this year by one game, this game will be very bitter to look back upon giving the circumstances and coaches decision.

    I am still amazed about the foul discrepancies. Maybe I should “go ask Fran about it.”



  • This was adapting to the refs and how they were calling it. Which is called having the refs in your pocket. Which is cheating.



  • @chriz I don’t see that master plan materializing.



  • A lot of great coaches on this site!



  • nuleafjhawk said:

    @DanR You play through your issues in practice. You try to win the F-ing games.

    We could afford to lose this one. And I think this was engineered. But who cares. Vick, Doke, everyone. We need to get better when we’re tired in the second half.

    We had pretty good defense. I wonder if Garrett is more important in the lineup than Vick at this point. Better defense and better handle.



  • Partially. He was a contributing factor but I don’t put it all on Bill Self. Self should have switched Doke and Lightfoot after the first time Kruger decidedt o intentionally foul. But, Azubuike is the one who missed the free throws, he also bears some of the blame.

    Additionally DG shot 4/19 from the field and missed a lot of shots that he is capable of making. If he makes 2 or 3 more of his FGA and shoots like 6/19 or 7/19 (still bad), then it puts KU in a much better position to close out the game.

    Overall just a disappointing loss and a game that KU should have had.



  • Trae Young was great, though.

    Lon Kruger is a good coach.

    Water is wet, etc.



  • Never in a million years did I think I’d be yelling “Put in Mitch!”



  • Who would have thought Self would blow a conference game. The Big-12 is his sacred ground.

    I’ve never seen a coaching mistake that blatant from him in all the years. If there are others that top this I’m drawing a blank at the moment.

    Its put up or shut up time for both the staff and Doke. Both are forced to deal with the issue now. Both have to game-plan a way to improve. They helped Josh Jackson last season with his preparation and mentality. They must do the same with Doke now. It’s hard to believe we all witnessed this last night


Log in to reply