Tharpe's Performance Inexplicable
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@drgnslayr Hey Drgn, go watch MoneyBall, again if you have seen it. It did wonders for my damaged psyche after that last game!
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@HighEliteMajor : I just looked up the record of the 2008 Jayhawks. They had 3 big twelve losses: at Texas, at Kansas State, and a very ugly one at Oklahoma State that had me screaming at the tv while I paced the floor throwing my arms around. After the loss at Oklahoma State, the team didn’t lose another game. I would take that team over this one in a minute, because of many things, but especially because of the point guard. Oh well, perhaps history will repeat itself.
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I’ve regained my sanity since my earlier rant.
It doesn’t mean I don’t have fears about this Jayhawk team. Their inconsistency factor will be around through April.
But there were some good signs from Saturday’s game with OSU. Our first half defense did a good job in several areas that we aren’t used to seeing from this young team. We are doing a better job of shifting off of ball screens, our defense looks like they are reacting quicker, etc. We held OSU to 25 points on their own court in a game they had to win. OSU also was building momentum from their two previous wins.
I’ve come down on Tharpe hard, so has HEM, because we simply can’t win if he doesn’t bring a certain level of play with him. It is only going to take one slip in the tourney and we are done. The OSU game is the warning shot of what is to come if he can’t maintain solid play.
As fans, there really isn’t anything we can do except watch.
I never expect us to win a National Championship. It is not realistic. Everything has to fall in place, including a bit of luck. But what I do expect is we’ll go out every game and play hard as a team and we will come to a game ready to play. That means… players aren’t playing video games 5 minutes before they come onto the court.
It is a good idea for players to consider the entire day leading up to the game, to be a part of the game itself. Really… the game starts the night before, by not staying out late and partying. Get a good night’s rest and then get up and take care of yourself and prepare your mind with some positive visualizations… chat with players and coaches going over last bits of preparation. Stretching… warming up… executing a repetitious schedule of things that brings you to the game ready to play.
I lost my cool this weekend because for the first time with this team I have sensed behavior similar to other teams we have had that really laid an egg in March. The behavior is based around a complete meltdown of our point guard. That one position can take down any team.
I’m not mad at the 90th rated PG in the country. He’s had a great year… just frustrated with his play on Saturday (and a few other games). And wondering if he is the best investment we can make when the rest of our positions are filled with NBA star talent.
I’ve always been a big Chiefs fan, too. And I related that in my rant. A lot of frustrations in me needed to vent from decades of watching Chiefs fail with the best team in football… best at every position but quarterback! Suddenly, I have melded my frustrations with KU PGs and past Chief quarterbacks! The bond is the fact that I care deeply for both teams.
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This is not news to anyone reading this, but I am not a basketball guru. I’m a die hard fan and I love all things KU, but I’m not an X’s and O’s kind of guy. I like to watch the round ball go through the hoop thingy when we have the ball and like to watch it get stolen or swatted away when “they” have the ball. That’s the extent of my knowledge.
However. It seems to me that something needs to be done with the dynamics of our team. I know you folks won’t hesitate to tell me how stupid this is, but is it just my imagination? When Conner is in the game, it seems to me as though we play better. Given the fact that Frank is fast, but sometimes out of control and that Naadir has his head up …somewhere besides in the game most of the time, why not give Conner a shot at one of the guard positions? He’s cool and collected, doesn’t throw the ball away and might bring some stability to this team. With all the other scoring options on this team we don’t have to have him in there to score points, although we all know he can light it up from beyond the arc. Why he hasn’t this year is one of life’s great mysteries. I can only chalk it up to not enough time on the court.
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I don’t think it is realistic to start Conner over Naa… but what about using him sooner in games, especially if Tharpe comes out shaky?
When Naa is on his game, he gives us the best shot at winning. He’s even won some games for us this year by knocking down points. And when he is on, his A/TO ratio is outstanding.
We just need a backup for Tharpe on those games like the OSU game. Then… Self shouldn’t hesitate. He should pull Tharpe, and he should do it sooner… not late in the half or second half.
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@drgnslayr I agree that Tharpe can be a huge asset when his head is in the game and I guess I had in mind that when we have Mason and Tharpe in at the same time, maybe it should be Tharpe and Frankamp. Conner could handle the ball as Tharpe is a better shooter than Mason right now. I just can’t figure out why Tharpe seems so distracted this season. The job is his, he’s surrounded by great talent, he just can’t seemed to stay focused.
Does he have a girlfriend? Dump her Naa !! Only date during the off season…
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“I just can’t figure out why Tharpe seems so distracted this season.”
Several decades ago I was gambling on sports as my main source of income. A guy who was a real pro at it turned me on to a device that calculated players’ biorhythms. He swore by it. I used it, too, and made a lot of money betting games. I stopped because it gave me ulcers and I thought I was going to stroke out!
Biorhythms are a strange phenomenon. They don’t seem to have much of an impact on many people. The secret in sports gambling was to find the key players who did seem to be impacted by biorhythms. I’m wondering if Tharpe is one of those guys impacted by biorhythms.
If anyone else has experiences with biorhythms, please post it. It could have been a coincidence when I was “picking winners”… however it worked for me in those years of my life!
Here is a short, easy read on biorhythms:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biorhythms
I’m kind of with the critics on biorhythms when associating it with your birth date. But I am more the believer these cycles may occur and impact some people… but how do we find the cycles? Like I said above, I did use them, based on birth dates, and had remarkable luck on certain players.
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@nuleafjhawk Tharpe actually has a child (a situation that has been common to a number of Jayhawks, including Frank Mason). But you bring up a tremendous point – we just never know. Girlfriend problems can dictate a lot. Could be a lot of things.
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@drgnslayr is that the same thing as PMS? Menopause?
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@drgnslayr Hey, biorhythms makes as much sense as anything else I can think of for him. Thanks for the info!
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Ha… I don’t think it is the same thing. But everyone has hormonal cycles, not just women.
I think my overall point is that all of us have cycles that we operate within. Some people may be impacted more than others from some kind of cyclical factor. I did have some success using biorhythms with my predictions on some athletes. What really came clear to me while studying 100s of athletes’ biorhythms is that there does seem to be some level of predictability possible. Maybe it has its roots more in people hormonal cycles instead of a cyclical pattern going back to birth.
I am just throwing out there something that popped into my head from a long time ago. Something that might explain a bit of the inconsistencies with Tharpe.
@HighEliteMajor - forgot about that. Having a child is a more concrete possibility of a factor that could be impacting his play. That opens up a broad window of possibilities that could be happening totally separate from KU basketball.
None of us want to dump on Naa. We all support him and want him to be successful. HEM’s words of calling Tharpe a wimp are not words to demean or harm Tharpe in any way. Call outs like that are used to push athletes to higher levels. I agree with HEM completely on his post here and I am behind it because I care about Tharpe… and I care about this team! If I didn’t care, I wouldn’t waste a moment’s time on this site or writing about Tharpe.
We all need to push him to “man up” and stay focused! When someone hits you, you get back up with more fire than what you had before getting knocked down. We are all just fathering him with our comments.
Man up, Tharpe!
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@nuleafjhawk I’m in the camp for more PT for Frankamp. He is steady. Doesn’t make mistakes. Keegan gave him second-to-last ratings for the OSU game because his stat line for 5 min. was 0-0-0. Okay. That means he didn’t turn the ball over!
He plays good D for a frosh. He can be a great shooter if we’d run some screens for him. And, there are four other guys on the floor that can score.
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@741hawk I’m guessing strength might be one factor, not at practice so don’t know. In the ou game, he had 2, maybe 3 fouls in a couple of minutes. His man scored 6 pts. Conner fouled his man on a made 3 pt’er. Made the ft, then fouled again, his man made 2 ft’s. Felt bad for him.
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Well, I’m in the camp of continuing to start Tharpe, but really actively trying to get Mason more minutes.
Mason provides some head scratchers, and is drives too many times when nothing is there. I’m not a CF fan, really, as anything more than an emergency minutes PG.
Not sure that any option right now provides anything but uncertainty.
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@HighEliteMajor I want the Tharpe from the OU game! Uncertainty is right!
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@drgnslayr I made a follow up post kind of rephrasing the “wimp” thing. I prefer not to name call. It seemed that it aptly described the way he projects himself on the court. I will be very interested in how he reacts at WVU.
He can still put us on his back, as others have noted.
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@Crimsonorblue22 Exactly. But that is the peak. I fear the valley.
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@HighEliteMajor - “Tharpe, the team’s stated leader, drops in on Gallagher-Iba with seven well-earned turnovers. Don’t believe the boxscore. It wasn’t six – it was seven.”
With all due respect - if you watch the game back it was actually six TIMES seven…
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This is the stage of the season when I usually grumble to myself: okay, BIll Self once again has boxed himself into a corner, not having provided his bench players enough minutes to make a difference when things turn dicey with the starting lineup. But to be fair and judicious, this Jayhawk starting squad opened the season with SO MUCH inexperience that there has been little opportunity to work Frankamp, Greene, White, Lucas onto the floor. Outside of necessary subbing with BLack, Traylor and Mason, the other talented bench players have been exposed to slim opportunities to advance and prove their value, at least in game conditions. And Bill knows best what goes on behind closed practice doors, evaluating growth and talent from day to day. Tharpe’s inconsistincies are a real puzzle, a junior who sometimes plays with aphasia. At this stage, not much to be done but to ride out the year with him, unless injury intervenes; hoping that he shows up for more really good performances than the opposite. I think that eventually Conner will become a more efficient and dependable point guard, but that is a tough position for a freshman athlete who did not arrive as a top 10 or 15 recruit. If he keeps his head right, perhaps opts for a red shirt next season, he just might develop into as dependable a player as Releford or Reed, even much sooner than they.
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@REHawk I have to say that I think Self has done a better job this season of giving guys roles. Self has used his bench much more this season, to the degree that I think multiple guys can contribute. White is the only guy I would guess would be rusty. I have confidence that Greene, Frankamp, and Lucas could play 15+ minutes if needed. I feel much different than, say, 2011.
And there, I did it again … mentioned 2011. That can ruin one’s day.
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Sorry… but you aren’t a name-calling kind of guy. Using the “wimp” term fit in the context of your post. I don’t suspect any of us (including you) to start dissing players with names. We aren’t going to start calling Naa a wimp. But it did fit your context and you’ve earned respect in here to where people know what you are getting at.
The role of labeling people in sports to help push them will always be around. We may have sterilized our culture to the point where we’ve all grown over-sensitive to things like this… thinking, for example, your label as abusive.
I’m glad I grew up in sports where coaches would call us “ladies” and “wimps” and other things to push us. It helped us. It wasn’t abusive because we understood the overall context.
I totally respect Naa… and I’m not going to give him the nickname of “wimp”… but I am on the list for thinking he played like a wimp on Saturday. Nothing fits better. It isn’t the same thing to say he played “apprehensive basketball.”
HEM… someday when you are coaching my kid and he plays like a wimp… call him a “wimp!”
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I’ve stated some criticism I have about Self… but in the big picture… I think he has done one of his best jobs ever this year! Maybe his best!
All of us have over-the-top expectations… and he does a good job of at least giving us a chance to reach those crazy heights.
You can see in his face that he carries the same frustrations all of us carry, too.
To be honest, I am surprised we are even in the conversation for winning another NC.
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Self is just insanely good at stealing wins and moving the pieces just far enough from game to game to get another W.
As Self keeps reminding people, this bunch of defensively challenged green wood that cannot protect on offense if another team even looks crossly at them, has a three game lead with two games to go.
It is an unbelievable accomplishment considering he had to play with Embiid and Black at half to three quarters speeds for over a month of the heart of the conference season, and without Embiid entirely for a week or so. I can bitch and moan all I want about how he shouldn’t have brought Embiid back until about now, but the point is, he bought his team time to get a three game lead with two to go and the conference title, and the best chance they could have had to get a 1, or 2, seed despite the adversity.
He did this all by the way with the next Lebron playing rather like the next Xavier, not the next Lebron.
He did this with a point guard, Naadir Tharpe, that might have difficulty guardiing some of us!
And he did this with Naadir Tharpe, who’s main strength going into the season was though to be his ball handling, which just turned out to be one of his greatest weaknesses. Lost in all the talk about Tharpe’s defense and TOs is that he has turned out not to be a particularly exceptional ball handler unless the other team just leaves him entirely alone.
Oh, and his 5-star 4 that was supposed to be able to become a dominant player this season and a scoring machine, has except against weak competition, turned increasingly into a glue 4 that gets 2-4 ppg and 2-4 rpg. I mean, THINK ABOUT THAT!!!
And did I mention that his great trey shooting perimeter guys–Greene, Frankamp and White–turned out not to be able to shoot much.
When you stop and think about it, Self only had three guys perform at, or above expectations this season.
Wayne Selden, who some thought might be an OAD, turned out to be a guy that has some good games and some bad games, got injured for a stretch, but generally turned out to be a solid glue 2 most of the time.
Frank Mason, they guy that almost went to Towson, and then gave everybody goose bumps with his after burners for two games early, then settled into a guy that came in an penetrated and couldn’t finish at the rim, couldn’t shoot the trey much, and really contributed the most when he tried to just glue.
Self’s only really wonderful surprise was Joel Embiid. Embiid was thought to be a project that would be a back up most of the year and not come into his own until next season. Embiid learned faster than anyone dreamed and became Self’s savior, only Embiid got a knee and a back injury that then greatly reduced his effectiveness for the last month of the season!
Hey, I almost forgot to mention Tarik Black, the guy Self and Coach K competed hard to sign. Tarik Black spent most of the season trying to stay on the court maybe four minutes.
Now step back and look at the descriptions of what actually happened with each of the guys on the team versus what the expectations were for each of the guys on this team. Get that chasm between expectation and outcome clear in your head. Now, put yourself back at the start of the season and pretend I told you then what these player would actually do, instead of their expectations. What would you have predicted would be the record of a team where:
the point guard couldn’t protect or defend.
The 5 star 2 guard became a glue player.
The next Lebron at 3 became the next Xavier.
The 5-star 4 averaged 2 points and 2 rebounds in big time games in February and basically disappeared all season long against good competition.
The big 260 pound center often played fewer than 5-10 mpg.
The trey shooters couldn’t make treys.
The Jam Tray played consistently in reserve, but never had a break out game.
Would you have said this team was certain to clinched the tenth title with a three game lead with two games to go?
Hell, I would have predicted the team to be in third or fourth place!!!
Self is a genius.
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I think he has done one of his best jobs ever this year! Maybe his best!
@drgnslayr I tend to agree. This was not an easy team to line up against the #1 SOS in the country. Add to that the unknowns replacing the starting 5 from last year, 80% plus of all scoring and minutes… 5 freshmen, a transfer and new assistants… And he still won the B12 regular season crown.
Despite the pressure of the #1 recruit or the pressure of 10 titles in a row… he just did it.
Impressive.
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I have really enjoyed reading all these posts. Yeah, I concur 100% that Bill Self has done a marvelous job with this young and inexperienced crew. No freak one time accomplishment. He does it year after year, plugging the right recruits into his system, plugging the right players into game situations, securing wins that the majority of coaches would not. I shudder at the thought that someday he might depart. Is now more than somewhat reassuring that he feels comfortable sitting on the throne, declaring that there will be no need to move on until fans grow tired of his “rhetoric!” The Guy is a genius at the mic, too. After good ol’ Roy beat his tired retreat to alma mater North Carolina, who would have thunk that Jayhawk hoops would have vaulted so quickly and steadily into the hands of such masterful coaching? There just might come a season when all of us will have to cut Bill Self a bit of slack.
