@konkeyDong I’ll stick my nose in here, even tho you directed your request for specific changes at HEM. After all, this has been a sore point of mine since long before I started posting on any boards.

I think it starts with overall coaching style. I’ve heard a lot of good young coaches say they don’t want their demeanor affect their kids. It filters down from the top. When a coach is tight, the kids are tight. Roy was as guilty of this as anyone (Reference the 03 title game when Nick went 5/12 from the line and Kirk passed on several open 3’s) but Bill’s got it bad too. I remember a late season game when Naadir screwed up and Bill yelled at him for the entire timeout. Great. How does that help the team on the next play?

Bill intimidates his players with his quick hook. Ever notice that teams that upset us are free and easy with threes, while our guys are never sure if they should launch one? Like they’ve always got one eye on the bench? I’ll stand by my assertion that Bill’s early career treatment of EJ instilled a fear of failure in him that influenced him to pass on the biggest shot of his career.

Which brings me to a specific point, which you asked for–Bill doesn’t make the three pointer a part of his offense. Teams with good three points shooters run plays to get them open. When’s the last time you saw a Jayhawk run off a screen to get an open three?

And we should have been a GREAT three point shooting team this year. With Conner and Brannen and Naadir and Wayne and both Andrews, we should have been throwing down a dozen threes a game. But Bill just doesn’t make it part of his offense.

And that brings me to Bill’s refusal to use regular season minutes to develop bench guys for the tournament. This baffles me, because he did it with Cole masterfully in the Championship season. It was part of the regular rotation–Cole would come in for 4 minutes at the 12 minute mark of each half. And we all remember how that paid off in the Final Four.

I fully expected the same treatment for EJ and Jeff, but somewhere along the line, Bill lost his stomach for freshman/sophomore mistakes, even though he routinely enjoyed 20 pt leads in those two seasons. And by tournament time, he was too tight to trust his bench players, essentially choking his rotation down to six players against UNI, even though it was commonly remarked that our second five could be a Top 20 team that year. Imagine how another 3pt shooter or 7ft shot blocker might have influenced the 10 & 11 games. AndI sure would’ve liked to see Brannen and Conner and Andrew White get more time to develop during the regular season. But by tourney time, Bill didn’t have enough confidence to get them into the game. A couple more timely threes might’ve helped against Stanford.

As to specific changes, well, we should be a pressing team. We routinely enjoy an athletic advantage, but we never press that advantage. With waves of superior athletes over the course of a game, a good press will crush a less talented team. Bill’s excuse that a good team will beat a press for easy baskets doesn’t hold water. If that’s the case, how come we never beat a press for easy baskets? Why weren’t we pressing Stanford, without a real point guard, the whole game? Major coaching fail, Bill.

In terms of offense, well, Bill’s offense just sucks. All the way back to Big Dub, when he was required to just muscle for position, without ever a play or pick to get him open. It’s so predictable and scout-able. A Big’s gonna set a pick for a guard at the top of the key. Guess what? The D switches and, PLAY OVER. Remember Sherron at the end of the MIch. State game? Bill’s instructions were, “Go get it.” Great. No play–just one on five. And then there’s the lame weave out top when we get desperate. I haven’t seen that play get a bucket since Tyshawn left.

And then there’s this year and Bill’s continued insistence on running the offense thru the post. Not a terrible idea with JoJo, but still–YOU’VE GOT THE BEST WINGMAN TO COME INTO THE GAME IN THE PAST FIVE YEARS!!! Draw up some plays to get him the ball moving toward the basket! In a late season game, Bill exhorted Andrew, “It’s time to go! Now! Now!”

Great. How do I use that, Coach? How about drawing up a play for me? How about someone setting a pick for me?

I can’t believe commentators called Andrew a no-show against Stanford cuz he only took six shots. What kind of offensive sets only produce six shots for the best player in the country. Actually, probably only produced a couple shots for him, cuz I didn’t see much in Bill’s offense to get him open–he pretty much had to get his own. What’s he supposed to do, launch 25 footers, drive one on five against a zone. Greg Anthony called it pretty easily–get Andrew into the middle of the zone and let him go to work there. Nooo, we’re gonna run our offense thru Tarik Black.

With Bill’s ineptitude against the zone, I can’t believe anyone e would NOT zone us. Unless you’re one of those small schools we play early and it’s kinda in the contract, like, “We wanna work on our man to man offense, get it?” i.e. Don’t play zone.

Anyway, there’s a few concrete suggestions, along with pull-my-hair-out ranting.

1. Use your athletic advantage and press.
2. Run your offense thru your best player–don’t make your best player adapt to your offense.
3. Hire an assistant who knows how to run a zone offense. 3b. Don’t be afraid to play some zone. Cal almost stole the game tonight by switching to the zone.
4. Make the 3pt shot part of your offense.
5. Oh yeah, I almost forgot. RUN WITH YOUR SUPERIOR ATHLETES!!! Don’t slow the game down with your Okie hokie pokie offense and let overmatched opponents catch their breath. Bill’s teams don’t even know HOW to run a fast break. More often than not, they screw it up.

Let’s see, anything else…

Omg, here we go again. Wayne can’t be a point guard for the same reason Travis couldn’t be a point guard. He doesn’t have the ball handling skills or the quickness to play point guard for a major college basketball team.

Bill’s offense sucks.

Its not a matter of your tournament winning percentage, its who you lose to. If you’re a 1 or 2 seed, anything less than a Final Four is a disappointment. If you went out in the Sweet 16 every year, that would be a 667 winning percentage. Is that something to crow about? Maybe at Gonzaga. Not at Kansas. Does anyone brag about an Elite Eight appearance in 2011?

This coach just does not get his team ready to play in the tournament. When’s the last time you felt comfortable in a tournament game before halftime? Or even before the middle of the second half? Even in first round games against 14 15 or 16 seeds?

This coach has almost as many tournament upsets as Big 12 Titles. Btw, once again, the Big 12 has left the building before the second weekend even starts–so much for the “strongest league in the NCAA.” Meanwhile, Florida and Michigan State have an opportunity to pull even with Kansas in NCAA titles, and UConn might pass us, and Kentucky, well, I don’t even want to think about it. All on Bill’s watch. So much for being a “Blue Blood program.” I’m thinking more and more that this coach is becoming an unworthy “keeper of the grail,” (to reference JB )

ict–what you can lay at Bill’s feet is getting upset in the tournament almost as often as winning the Big (?) 12. Different players, same system. If you’re gonna give him credit for one, he’s gotta shoulder some responsibility for the other.

As for your ? above about what to change–I’d trash that offense and go more up tempo. These guys don’t even know how to run a fast break. He’s got a couple future NBAers hanging around 25 feet from the basket while he continues to try to pound the ball into…Tarik Black?

@KUSTEVE were any of those teams you mentioned 1 or 2 seeds? Because Kansas was in a lot of their upsets. That’s the difference.

@KUSTEVE you don’t know me Steve–I never gloat or talk s*** to other guys, because being a Kansas fan has instilled the humility of upset after upset in me. I don’t know if you’re local to the Jayhawk area, but when you get out of the KU bubble, you hear people’s honest and objective opinion about our team. Bracketbuster, choke artists, and upset are recurring themes.

Thanks Steve–appreciated. ict–agree somewhat to being a victim of success, but I would argue the program is a victim of Bill’s “win every game at all costs” rather than developing players to be ready to contribute in the tournament method. After all, what good has a high seed done us when losing to a 9, 10 or 11 seed? You can do that just as well as a 5, 6, 7 seed. I’d have rather gotten a lower seed and have Green and White ready to come in and pop some threes against Stanford’s zone.

Off to work.

Or how about this–How many teams that beat Self did NOT win another game in the tournament? Losing to lower seeds who promptly bow out in the next round is a good indication that you’re underperforming in the tournament. That seems like a pretty objective reality. Does anyone here feel like this coach is doing a good job of getting his team prepared to play each game in the tournament?

@ralster teaching point is right. I hope Bill learned something

@ralster I’d like to hear Bill crack some chalk to a blackboard and draw up a play

@ralster Been saying the same thing for five years

Bill’s offense sucks.

@JayHawkFanToo No, I don’t have any inside info on Bill or his program. I don’t know any more (and probably less) about it than most posters here. I’m not trying to start rumors on this board. Strictly personal opinion here.

@Crimsonorblue22 his treatment of players that get swept aside. You court the heck out of a kid to get him to come to KU and then show 'em the door when someone you perceive to be better (or someone who you think can further your own personal success) comes along. We read tons of reporting 2 years ago about Conner coming to KU and what a great shooter he is and tons of speculation about how he would impact the Jayhawks. Now it turns out that he doesn’t fit in to Bill’s scheme anymore, thanks for playing, here’s some lovely parting gifts.

I know it’s a business and business is business, but it’s just an unsavory business. Especially when you see it exposed in something you would like to think of as clean and pure, like amateur college athletics. Call me an idealist. And it probably goes on at all big college programs but we don’t hear about it as much because we don’t follow those programs as closely as we follow this one. But we see it a lot here. And when you live in that water, I wonder if it begins to mold your character, hence the “kind of a dick” statement.

@KUSTEVE Really? This whole chat board is made up of nothing but speculation. I thought that was the whole point–to express views.

Beginning to feel more and more that Bill’s just kind of a dick. Would not be surprised at all to see some revelation surface in the next 3-4 years that will bring embarrassment on the university. And I mean something more serious than getting bounced out of the tournament by a middling school with no basketball tradition.

@jaybate-1.0 lol, Dribbling is for suckers! WHAT are you smoking, Jaybate? Okay, I get it–you’re just trolling for a response. You got me. Touche!

@jaybate-1.0 I’m sure if you could sit in on practice and see what happens day after day and put Frank and Conner and Devonte and Wayne through basic ball handling skills tests, you’d find the first three far superior to the last.

And the fact that Self does not give Devonte a clear edge means…absolutely nothing at this point. What, are you reading cat entrails now?

And Wayne can’t be developed into a point guard because he’s only going to be here one more year. You can’t “develop” ball handling skills and quickness into a player in one year.