Best posts made by jaybate 1.0

There was an alias once in Texas

And she was honest and good

She cheered her Jayhawks

With her husband with whom she stood

She and he rode the train of life

Across life’s bridges

And through life’s tunnels

Station to station they road

There was an alias once in Texas

And she was honest and good

She cheered her Jayhawks

With a man we understood

Loved her till death did they part

And loves her still

Beyond the Great Divide

Till once again they ride

There was an alias once in Texas

And she was honest and good

She cheered her Jayhawks

And flipped cancer the bird

She grieves now beyond grieving

Down where the Gleaner combines

Start their runs from Texas dawns

Crossing Kansas to the Canadian sun

There was an alias once in Texas

And she was honest and good

She cheered her Jayhawks

When her husband was gone

There is a harvest that awaits us all

But it came for her husband first

Would it had come for me so she could

Spend even one more day with him.

There was an alias once in Texas

And she was honest and good.

(R.I.P. Mike)

~Mason is the best small point guard KU has ever had. I am not saying he is better than Sherron, because Sherron was NOT a small point guard. Sherron was a brawny point guard that happened to be short. Frank Mason is truly a small point guard and he is absolutely incredible. His defensive anticipation is VERY good, and his ability to maneuver defenders until he get an angle on them, or drain a shot is unparalleled. And I am actually relieved when he switches off a guard to guard big forward, because I know he will do a better job on the big forward than our forwards will. Frank is just insanely good.He has gotten tot that rare level of play where he can control a game on an off shooting night. Only really great players can do that.

~Mason coming from beyond the baseline to steal the pass to a KSU player on the wing late in the game is one of the greatest defensive plays I have ever seen a KU guard make, even though he flubbed it on the other end.

-~Devonte has become the perfect hinge between Frank and Josh and Frank and Svi. Devonte actually makes the team better, when he does not score much. He will be a smashingly good point guard next season, but this season when he is not scoring a lot it means he is enabling everyone else and him playing that role is what makes KU able to beat a lot of teams that seem better on paper.

~Josh Jackson is single handedly redeeming the OAD player. Not since Anthony Walker of UK have we seen an OAD do so many things to help his team win. IMHO, Jackson has done the impossible already. He has become a Self Baller in less than one season. He still makes bad mistakes on defense, especially the occasional switch that puts one of our guards on a guy they just can’t cover, but, my god, it is magnificient to watch a potentially great perimeter player leave it on the floor for a season for the team against big forwards. It is everything I love about the “team” game of basketball. Josh is going to remember this season the rest of his life and remember it fondly. It was the year he really got play the game the way it was meant to be played. It was the year before he went to the pros and began trading on his insane athleticism the way the great players in the NBA must. He is making the game worth watching again just by being a team guy and not uncorking his gigaflop hops everywhere all the time. Its like watching Jordan at UNC. Its watching an extreme talent just play the game for the pure fun of it.

~Svi is still searching for his game. it will come next season. But its a testament to how good he is that he can help the team as much as he does, while he is still trying to find his game. The moment late in the game when Josh had taken the ball into the lane and got stopped and kicked out to Svi on a wing was pure basketball nirvana for me. A great player who has dialed his perimeter game down to become a garbage 4 much of the time, could easily have taken the ball up and been fouled, and gotten is two strokes, but instead, the great player playing a season for the love of the game alone, and redeeming the sport and all of us fans at the same time, looks to kick to an old point guard still searching for his wing game, stares at him as if to say here it comes, I BELIEVE IN YOU, teammate, here it comes from one kid from Detroit to one kid from Ukraine, here it comes, I’m kicking it to you in a rivalry game that means nothing to either of us, except that we know it means everything to our fans, here it comes right at the perfect height for you to catch, plant, go up, and drain. Here it comes, because this is how the game is the most fun to play. To believe in your teammates and to play it with them on the X axis, even if I could vector out of this silage dump on the Y-axis and get a feed on ESPN. Here it comes because we are teammates. Here it comes because where we’re from doesn’t matter and where wer’re going doesnt matter. What color we are doesn’t matter. What language we speak doesn’t matter. Here it comes because nothing matters but playing the greatest game ever invented the most fun way to play it with teammates. Here it comes!!! And Svi drained it on cue. And neither player even slowed down to make a big deal out of it. It was just pure fun in the moment.

~Landen? Everyone that has read me must know I have a special place in my heart for big men. I love them because they are the guys that noone truly understands. Big men have all been our height, when they were young, so they know us, but we have never been their height and so we don’t know them. We have to work to put ourselves in their giant shoes and we have to admit that even doing so, we still cannot really understand that big man territorial thing.We can only marvel at it. We can only watch them walk around like big flipping grizzlies, or bull gorillas, owning the joint. Its not that they don’t get challenged and some times bloodied. Its that they DO!!! They walk around owning the lane even when they are not in control of it. They keep walking around the little guys and don’t even have to say in a big deep Berry White mutherflipping voice intoning, “Play him tighter , really crowd him and I’ll pick the pencil neck up quicker the next time.” Landen didn’t have big numbers and he didn’t dominate the KSU players, but unlike in years gone by, when things went wrong, and Landen would start looking around all worried, this game when things did not go right, he just got all Barry White and into himself, and walked around reassuring the Darby O’Gills and the little people and kept owning the lane. “Daddy’s steady,” he seemed to say, especially after burn marks. Landen seemed to say, “Daddy may not always fix everything right the way Momma Self wants it, but Daddy ain’t goin’ nowhere. Yea, I know, I got to fix that door hinge so it swings the right way, but I’m here and i AM going to fix it. You little’uns just keep minding your Ps and Qs and you’ll see, things’ll work out.”

~Finally, much as I hate to I have to say three nice things about the silage engineers, I feel I must… Bruce Weber has been to an appearance consultant and they got rid of the helmet hair, and Bruce actually looks like a respectable D1 coach. Second, The KSU home uniforms are not bad. And third, they played well and gave us all we wanted. Congrats.

What a flipping GREAT win!!!

I am still luxuriating in it late this evening the same as I was 15 minutes afterwards.

Boeheim enters the ranks of coaches that have spent a second half completely unable to figure out how Self is not just winning, but making the opponent look inept.

Boeheim had his usual collection of arrogant longs that look like great basketball talents, but actually don’t know how to do anything but stand around in a zone and look like they are expending more energy whining about not getting calls and being made to look like basketball dorks, than guarding and running offensive sets.

The chief difference between this collection of Boeheim’s long-handled garden hoes in tennies and his others that can be annoyingly hard to beat was the absence of a great point guard. Jim Boeheim without a great point guard exposes what a pitifully unimaginative excuse for a basketball coach he truly is. I kick him when he’s up, so I’m sure as hell going to kick him when he is down. I learned years ago that Boeheim needs a kick in the nuts whenever possible, because when ever he has a 5-star scorer outside, preferably at point, his arrogant smugness is intolerable.

Here Coach Boeheim, let me put on my steel toed Danners with the scuff guard. There, they are on. And whack!!! One more swift kick to the nads for all the Fab Melos you’ve brought college basketball over the years.

Ahem.

Now about the game.

KU was lead by Devonte Graham’s 35 (?) poured down from some higher dimension I’ve never had the pleasure to have played on, and LaCobra Vick’s 20. Note that was Graham’s second 30 point outing and that Graham played the full Monty (40 minutes). There were stretches of the first half where he looked positively human, but he kept his team in the game, while the newbies discovered the irritating experience of patiently probing a 2-3 zone staffed with whining, cheap-shot artists. The newbie Jayhawks struggled with the simplicity of what had to be done to shred the de-legendary Syrxcuse zone. Let me nutshell it for you before returning to LaCobra.

Possession 1: throw the ball to the high post man standing on the mid point of the free throw line. He turns and looks down the lane, but pitches it to an open wing that trifectates. That was easy.

Possession 2: point drives right, passes through seam to low post right in a seam of the base line of the 2-3; low post right then pitches out to Svi in corner, Svi pots a triceratop. That was easy.

Possession 3: point passes to wing, wing reverses to point, point to back side wing, drive seam toward lane and lob to the Cobra (Vick) ranging sideline to sideline on the baseline. That was easy.

Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Till Boeheim whines. Then repeat some more.

That was easy.

That’s all there is to it. Nothing else. But as often happens to teams with newbies facing Boeheim’s zone the first time its just hard to break the habit of running the offense and doing a lot of die-doe moves Self has tried to install for the game to give Boeheim something slightly different to sleep through. Then about 8-10 minutes in with Self red enough to fry eggs on his neck, someone new, like Mitch Lightfoot gets the wrath of God treatment and Self looks down the bench for some familiar face that’s got some facial hair and knows the play book Some years its someone decent. In lean years, its just someone that Self would trust to take his daughter out on a date. They don’t have to be great. All they have to be able to do is walk and chew gum and find the mid point of the free throw stripe and stand their and call for the ball and catch it and not do something stupid with it. This year, that savior of Self was–drum roll please–Clay Young. Clay Young’s line score does not look like much, but he was a crucial to KU’s victory today as Cole Aldrich was in the semi final game against UNC in the magical year of our basketball lord 2008 AD. Clay Young allowed the team to discover just how little everyone had to do against the whining giants of the Empire State. Find the seams, make the shots. No French pastry. No complicated plays. Clay Young was glue personified today. Next time someone tells you glue doesn’t matter, or anyone can do glue, remember this game. There were a lot of guys with fast twitch muscle and serial stars after their recruiting rankings and there were bigger guys, and faster guys, and more skilled guys, and guys with better looking cars not even on the road trip to Miami, and NONE of these guys could give the Birds what they most needed at that moment: someone to just get to the spot, catch, pass. and do no harm. Someone that actually saw where the seams were to stand and to throw to. What Clay Young did was so simple it was contagious. Suddenly every Jayhawk seemed to go: aha! I get it now. And after Clay’s 9 minutes his job was done and he quietly retired to the bench and that was it for him for the night.

Now, let’s get back to starters.

The Cobra “only” played 37 minutes, but on an “off shooting night” still roamed the baseline endlessly leaping out of his wicker basket and stabbing his fangs into the orange rim for 20 points, while grabbing 8 rebounds, only one shy of the footer Doke the Buke. Oh, and when he finally got the hang of high posting, he got 7 assists, too. I still don’t think he really “understood” the high post, but he did it finally and KU pulled away.

Since The Cobra is my new nickname for Vick I should explain it. He is so named, because of his incredibly skinny legs that rise up to shoulders that flare out like a Cobra hood and gather in to an endlessly watching, sensing and menacing pair of eyes and because of this players tendency to kind of sway around not doing a lot for several seconds at a time before then striking with blinding quickness. The Cobra struck the Orange Boys repeatedly, injecting them with points and his unique venom each time.

Next Malik. Well, Malik just discovered what it feels like to suck on national television amongst some teammates having great games.Talk about getting his ego put in perspective. It will probably single handedly turn his season around. Malik disappeared. Invisible 5-star. His face showed his frustration. By the end he was demoralized. But you know what? Self forced him to own it and kept him in. And Malik kept fighting to do doing his job the best he could on a night that starkly dramatized the bottom one third of human performance Self talks about players having to deal with. But he will probably come back and go off like a roman candle next game.

Azuibuke did not have an impressive game, and got fouled up, BUT he still eeked out 6 points and 9 boards in prime time. If this is an off game for Doke, then he has come a long way. This was prime time and 6 points and 9 boards against a long bunch with its own footer, like Cuse, is not abject failure. Doke showed that he too can keep struggling and contribute, even when things aren’t breaking his way. This is something to carry forward. At the same time, Doke learned today just how tough it is to be a starter in D1 against a D1 Major. He has a lot of getting better to do.

Svi? Svi had a so-so night statistically, and got fouled up, but I likes the way he TOO struggled through adversity and played a kind of ugly game that he needs to be able to do. This was the kind of floor game I always hoped to see him play, when the going got tough against a big team. Svi was getting in there and mixing it up with the Syracuse bigs, as if he himself were a big. This is how Larry Bird used to do it on his off nights. He went inside and stuck it in their ears. Svi appears not to be a trash talker, like Bird, but he has developed his own version of the hard case look and ice-cold stare. My favorite play of all that he made was when he went up and stuffed their footer. He didn’t get credit for a block, but it was sweet nonetheless. Svi can really get up! He is not super quick-footed, but the guy has Tyrel Reed like spring. He has come a long way from the wild point guard to the stretch 4 trying to model Larry Bird. He’s not completely their but he can make it this season, if he doesn’t get discouraged. Remember Ty keeping his 41-inch vertical a secret all those years, while he tried to build up his foot speed strengthen his upper body? Self may have to ask Svi to use his springs the same way Self had to ask Tyrel to start using his. Svi was good for 11 points, 4 boards and 4 assists. Looks modest, but he really seemed a presence on the floor.

Which brings us to Mitch Lightfoot and Marcus Garrett. Um, these two proved not ready for prime time. Since the same thing happened against Kentucky, we have to call this a reliable indication of what their capabilities are right now. Both produced lines comparable to walk-on Clay Young. But where Clay Young, a 6-5 senior walk on, oozed constructive glue for 12 minutes, two scholarship players found themselves both unable to glue and unable to impact. Mitch and Marcus oozed goose eggs and fouls, same as Clay Young, but Clay Young made the team play better and they did not. Mitch Lightfoot could not even find a single rebound, which is something he ought to be able to do at his height. Garrett, to his credit, did grab a couple caroms. Mitch and Marcus flaming out was especially chastening for this team. Self might as well get Sosinski practicing. And if de Sousa can get admitted, we need him in a big way. Syracuse was long inside, but they weren’t good long, just long. Its a little concerning to think about bigs having to go up against a major with a big man rotation of truly good players.

But one of the things that made this such a sweet victory was that KU was playing small at all 5 positions for significant lengths of time against a very long Syracuse and our guys adapted and made it look like something they could live with. It was a superior effort by our shorties and it was a fine job of coaching by Self.

At the end of the day, Boeheim was clueless how a bunch of runts had taken his longs to the cleaners.

But KU did take them to the cleaners. KU made Syracuse look like a not very good team today. KU made them look bad in fact.

And that felt good.

Real good.

Bridges outweighs Vick by 40 pounds and has 2 inches on him, maybe three.

Spellman is a true 4. He’s got 40 pounds and 2 inches on Svi, a converted point guard.

They’ve got 6 three point shooters, we’ve got four if you count Garrett.

They go 8-9 deep.

We go 7 against a really good team.

They have all the classic pieces.

We’ve got duct tape and bailing wire.

They’ve got Nike.

We’ve got adidas.

They’ve got the refs.

We’ve got the shaft .

They’ve got the Pope and the College of Cardinals.

We’ve got Wayne Simien.

They’ve got the entire Fake Media.

We’ve got Holly.

But we’ve got the FIND-A-WAY-BOYS AND THE GREATEST COACH OF HIS GENERATION.

Our guys don’t even really come together until its hopeless.

Our guys don’t just eat adversity for breakfast, they pack it in MREs and eat hardy amidst dissaters and obstacles the would reduce Ernest Shackleton and Sir Edmund Hillary to dialing 911.

Our guys are the guys the United States Marine Corp are cheering for.

Our guys are the guys that go ashore and find a way when they get there.

If Vick and Svi have to, they will reduce this to hand to hand combat.

I have seen them in Morgantown, when there was no way. They won.

I have seen them in Texas Tech, when there was no way. They won.

I have seen them win three in three when there was no way. They won.

I have seen them when Bagley was certain to eat Svi alive and the refs tried to give Duke the game until even the refs got sick of Duke. They won.

These guys are going ashore tomorrow.

They are sharpening their Ka-Bars.

They are packing extra ammo.

They are meeting the enemy in what will soon be known as the Battle of the San Antonio River.

They have been through this many times.

Nova has never been through it this season.

This is our kind of combat.

See you on the other side.

JNewell has a story with this Bill Self comment on Perry Ellis:

“I just think there’s a little bit going on with him from a confidence standpoint, or maybe from a mental standpoint that maybe he’s rationalized that it’s OK to be the way I am because the team is doing well, and I don’t think it is,” Self said. “I think he’s got to be our go-to guy, and I don’t think he’s far off. I wouldn’t be surprised at him having a big game and a series of big games very soon.” http://cjonline.com/sports/2015-01-15/bill-self-perry-ellis-fraction-away-emerging-ku

I have been writing for two weeks that Coach Self has been letting Perry “labor,” while Self worked with getting other pieces of the Jayhawk engine firing at D1 levels of power.

Getting Oubre going took much longer than expected and even once he got going it took a few games to try to find the right role for him within the starting five.

Then Self took on Cliff, only to have Cliff, expected to be one of the really big pistons of this engine, reputedly get caught up in nagging injuries. Cliff seems to get what’s going on now, even if he can’t execute without fouling every game. Getting it is about all you can hope for right now.

Along the way: with the nagging injuries to The Big Red Dog, and Traylor having an indscretion with the law, then Self had thaw first Mickelson from the cryogenic tank; that did not go to Self’s satisfaction.

Re-enter and retool Traylor for a face to basket offensive contribution; that took a few games.

As Cliff’s fouling and injuries persisted, Self looked into the cryogenic tank and gave the order to keep Mickelson at absolute zero and to defrost Landen Lucas the last game. Lucas came in and didn’t do anything horrible, which is what you need when The Big Red Dog is hobbled, and Traylor is yo-yo-ing on you, and, well, you go to guy and most experienced big man, is laboring through your ignoring him and, well, having the kind of existential crisis you like to create for players in toughening boxes off the floor, only this time you decided, out of some expedient necessity to erect the toughening box ON THE FLOOR this time.

Yep, Perry Ellis now holds the distinction–hell, in the word of Bill Self, its a kind of high honor–of being the most recent KU player ever to “play through” the toughening box on the floor.

And so he has.

Perry has actually looked on the floor the way many noteworthy KU players sent to the end of the bench for toughing have looked. His facial expression is locked in a permanent confusion, His body motions are tight and awkward, All the things that he is normally good at he is no longer good at, or no longer allowed to do. It is a hellish place–Bill Self’s toughening box–but it never fails to toughen players.

Bill Self says he wouldn’t be surprised if Perry has a big game, or several very shortly. He says Perry is just a fraction away from being the player they had envisioned him to be.

Bill Self says these sorts of things often around the time players look like their personalities have been depatterned at Gitmo.

Bill Self says he is concerned about Perry’s body language, about the whole team’s body language.

Sure, Bill, nudge, nudge, wink, wink.

Bill Self has now introduced body language into the lexicon of player analysis.

Sure, Bill, nudge, nudge, wink, wink.

This is like saying Steve McQueen’s body language didn’t look to good after Papillon had been in solitary confinement for a few years.

The clear translation is that Bill Self has decided that Perry has done enough time in the on floor toughening box and he is finally going to scheme some things that work for his best big man.

If one listens closely, one can hear an electric buzz and a barred door sliding open in front of a mobile toughening box with the words Perry Ellis stenciled on it.

Perry Ellis is going to come out of that contraption like a jack rabbit shot out of cannon aimed directly at the Hilton Coliseum.

Perry Ellis is going to go ape-flipping-shit crazy in Ames.

Do you recall the last Self man who fell to earth after a long stay in the hellish confines of Self’s forcing him out into the outer reaches of solar system of his discomfort zone?

That would be Elijah Johnson.

The man went off for 39 points.

The man was like a cross between a radioactive cheetah and a greyhound with tobasco sauce enema.

He was like an SR-71 black bird soaring up to 100,000 feet and then doing aerobatics in near space before powering in for a perfect landing.

He was transmogrification on steroids.

He was a man set free from a toughening box.

Only Perry Ellis has been through something remotely comparable to what EJ went through.

I am not saying Perry will hang 39 in Ames.

But I am saying that if I were Fred I would wear some fire retardant Nomex driving suit to coach in Saturday at 8PM because for the next 40 minutes of division one college basketball his going to see the world’s most stoic human being come flying by him like a low flying cruise missile in silks.

Go, Perry, go!!!

Welcome back to the world.

What the architect of sustained excellence against the odds looks like:

What Self is doing is the stuff of legends.

Think about all the coaches with medium and long stacks that either can’t keep up with him, or only exceed him for a season or two?

It is absolutely insane what he is doing with players like Mason, Devonte, Hunter, Landen, and Jamari that the other elite majors probably didn’t even recruit. What Self is doing is already verging on the greatest coaching job he has ever done.

If Self wins a ring with the talent on this team in the height of the age of medium and long stacks, it should probably go down as the greatest coaching job in college basketball history.

Self is doing it again. He is finding a team, while everyone else is looking for one. Finding is the act of creating a unity greater than the sum of the parts. Looking is the act of fitting pieces together that work the way they are supposed to. Artists find unities. Journeymen search for assemblies. Picasso said he found art, he did not look for it. Bill Self finds teams, he does not look for them.

Every player is a color for Bill Self. A roster is palette of colors. A rotation is the combination of colors he needs to paint a particular game. Each game is a composition. Each season is a new phase in his career.

There are recurring themes and form languages. Stops start offense. Sticking stops offense. Offense is inside out. Feeding bigs is crucial. Kicking out to open looks follows feeding bigs like day follows night. Making shots, not taking shots, is the goal. Shooting for three (a drive to the rim for two and a FT, or a trey, is almost always better than shooting for two. Players that can go get balls (rebounds, 50/50 balls, strips) are better than those that can’t. Help is not just help, it is helping the helper help. Beauty may walk a razor’s edge, but finding ways to win ugly on your off nights is the path to basketball salvation. Turnovers are resident evil. Getting better is a moral imperative. Playing out of position forces getting better. Not valuing what Self values is the equivalent of sticking your head in the muzzle of a howitzer as the lanyard is pulled. Characters are necessary to keep the drudgery of getting better from making everyone including Self quit from burnout. Being soft is worse than anything but not trying hard. Anyone can be coached up, if they supply the want to.

These are the techniques of the craft of Self’s coaching that can be known and articulated. In the hands of journeymen they are used to search for and assemble serviceable teams. But as I said at the start, Self doesn’t search for teams, he finds them.

When HEM writes Self has to settle on one of three candidates for Selden’s backup he is logically right. When slayr writes Self has to get a PG that is good on the X coordinate he is logically correct. When I say Self ultimately has to stop playing Tharpe and Mason together so much, I am logically correct.

But Self is finding a team, not solving logical problems. Self largely agrees with each of us that in the end our suggestions are where this team will probably end up, but the process of finding a team takes precedence.

Great painters find images lessers don’t.

Great coaches find teams lessers wouldn’t.

An ordinary coach would build this KU team around Andrew Wiggins. It appeared to many lesser minds at first that Self was doing just that. Certainly the hype artists of national media thought so.

But Self found a great “inside” team with two exceptional perimeter players instead of a Wiggins centered team. Self found a team capable or confronting other teams with a perfect tension between inside and outside. It is taking awhile to develop, but he found it before we did, as usual.

Self isn’t searching for his team. He has found it. They are going inside even if opponents do collapse on them. They are going to explode out of position on opponents inside and if that doesn’t get three the hard way, then they are going to kick out and crucify them with two athletic freaks on the perimeter making plays.

When Embiid was not so advanced, when Tarick was in a funk, when Jam Tray was not yet confident, it was not clear what team Self would find. But he kept dabbing their pigments on the hardwood canvas in different mixtures until he found the team, until he found a perfect tension. Now he is developing it.

How shall I put this in a sportsmanlike way?

In an ESPN box score I just looked at shortly after the KU-MSU game, it indicates the refs called 16 fouls on KU and 14 on MSU.

It looks pretty symmetric, doesn’t it?

Its highly improbable the jobs the referees did will ever be questioned by the talking heads in the media, nor will the NCAA leadership call for a review of the game’s officiating. How could they? The refs called 16 on KU and 14 on MSU. It looks so, so, so fair on paper.

But I suspect many, if not most, KU fans that watched what appeared to this KU fan to be one of the truly disgraceful refereeing spectacles, in what has become a frequent recurrence of disgraceful refereeing spectacles besmirching the first, or second, greatest spectacle in sport, would recognize a couple inconsistencies in the referee’s calls between an experienced, highly skilled basketball team (KU) and a green bunch of typically hard nosed MSU bruisers.

Fouls called on KU were mostly reaching fouls, being brutally charged into and being called ludicrously for a defensive foul, or just plain phantom fouls, like the one in which Josh Jackson was called for going over the back on a rebound in the second half, and the overhead camera showed unmistakably that there was NO contact at all.

Fouls called on MSU appeared anecdotally mostly ones where KU players were layed out on the floor, or suffered sudden changes in vector direction and momentum, after the contact, or close lined (Josh nearly getting beheaded on the sideline near mid court in the second half).

Of course, in every apparently egregiously asymmetrically whistled game, it appears to be the no-calls that really tell the story. No-calls appear to be how the refs really give one team the winning edge, and the other the short shrift. The actual asymmetric calls appear just to let the teams know which team is going to be favored. By comparison, it appears to be the no-calls that can keep inferior teams in games, and sometimes even allow them to upset opponents.

I think reciting the no calls, which might amount to as many as 4 per MSU possession during the first 30 minutes of the game would be kicking MSU when they are down and that is something no KU fan should ever do. MSU did not hire the refs. MSU did not ask for an asymmetric whistle. MSU just played the cards they were dealt. And a damned good set of calls and no calls it appeared to be.

If KU had not been so resilient, experienced, skilled, athletic, and poised, the outcome might have been different; that’s how much the refs appeared to mean to this game.

Without putting too fine a point on it, it is hardly beyond the realm of possibility that KU might have beaten MSU 130-50, if the refs would have appeared to have blown even a reasonably symmetric whistle for most of the game.

But the refs appeared to say “phooey!” on synmmetry.

It would be futile (and foolish) to speculate what might be the motivation of referees to call a game the way this one was called.

Suffice it to say that even my wife, who rarely watches a basketball game and is not a KU grad, or even a big time KU fan, said it was appalling how much the referees appeared to favor MSU for extended stretches.

The only further thought of yours truly worth noting has nothing to do with referees’ motivations, at all.

As a result of calling the game as the referees did, whatever their actual motivations may have been (and I do not speculate on that at all), it is a reasonable inference to draw that if the game had been called with more apparent symmetry that fans of MSU and of the Big Ten and of Eastern Time Zone basketball generally, would likely have quit watching sometime in the first half, because KU would have been too far ahead for MSU to have more than a remote chance of winning.

But again, I have not a single clue why the referees actually did call the game the way they did. It is a mystery to me. My best guess is that it is an utter coincidence that the way they called the game appeared to keep an EST and a Big Ten team in the game. They must have just been having a bad day.

Down the stretch, when KU’s athleticism and experience and skill were allowed to assert themselves for what really amounted to a very short part of the game, KU literally blew MSU out of the arena.

And except for FTs and some steals, KU didn’t really even play all that unusually well.

To be generous and respectful to Coach Izzo and his Spartans, they are a young team and have the makings of maturing into one of Coach Izzo’s frequently fine teams.

Alas, I regret to add I lack the same optimism about this team of referees improving similarly by next season.

Rock Chalk!!!

(Note: of course, all of the above is opining and speculation by a fan from a remote location. God only knows what was really going on. It may have been the most fairly called game in the last 100 years or so.)

Lane jumping, stripping, 53% trifectation, and massively outrebounding Purdue, plus 8 minutes of the best baketball ever played by a KU team equal a blow out of Big Ten Chump-ian Purdue.

Add a Vick 360 dunk and more strips than Gypsy Rose Lee and you have one of the greatest tournament blow out wins against a good team I can recall.

Every cylinder was firing perfectly and Self decided to Rev the engine to redline on game 1 of this weekend.

Self must have figured Oregon’s multiple defenses guaranty a low possession second game.

But Self did sub a lot vs. Purdue. Self got 23 minutes out of Coleby and Bragg and 24 min out of Vick!!! Thus Self cheated the high possession game with resting “some” legs.

No KU player played more than 35 minutes and Lucas only played 20, and Svi only 19 minutes.

Self was a magician yet again!

Self used little players to outrebound a much bigger team with two genuine studs on the blocks. How does KU +7 on the glass sound!!!

But it was the 53% trey shooting and the passing-lane-jumping, strip-them-silly (9 steals) defense that also forced 16 Purdue turnovers that stole the show and blew Purdue into more pieces than a boiler under too much pressure for 40 minutes!

One of the greatest KU performances ever!

1. Try to put Self’s .821 W&L statement out of your mind.

2. Forget that he has won 11 straight conference titles.

3. Hypnotize yourself and give yourself a suggestion that he did not win the ring in 2008.

4. Ask your Yogi to give you a mantra that goes “Self was not the winningest coach in college basketball for six seasons.”

5. Write a paper for a peer reviewed journal on game theory explaining how winning by 5 against Harvard leads to an equilibrium strategy dooming KU to mediocrity.

6. Blaspheme against the God of Basketball in order to be cast into basketball hell, so you can wear black leather KU basketball warmups and lead a cult of hell rising up against the naivety and coaching cluelessness of Bill Self regarding who can and cannot play and undermine his credibility to the point that his replacement by either Bruce Weber, or a coach sponsored by the Drake Group, becomes an inevitability.

7. Learn to love Rat Face.

8. Argue that the evidence is incontrovertible that playing players before they are psychologically and physically ready to play is one of the Ten Anti-Commandments that must be obeyed, or the new Coach Kthulu will end KU’s conference title string AND cause KU to be upset by UK in the first round of the NIT.

9. Drink an artisan cola, while munching Wolfgang Puck’s incredible new Corn Nuts Rockefeller at the Allen Field House Friends of Bilderberg Concession at the new kiosk next to the Phog Allen statue.

10. Embrace KU’s fabulous success and learn to love it.

Last year, Self was succeeding wildly with the Trey, and called it fool’s gold.

As @HighEliteMajor and some argued, Self quit what made the team win, and the team sank into another double digit loser, getting badly injured trying to play inside, and forcing him into the invention of Bad Ball, so as to back into a title from a team with nothing left in the tank for the Madness. The injuries made the default to Bad Ball rational, but should he have ever given up Trey balling for drive ball and all the injuries that ensued, simply to get the short 3 scoring he valued so highly? Probably not. With fewer injuries, KU would have stayed a single digit loss team and might have shot through the late slump and might have gone on a tear late.

This year he is roaring at Diallo and Bragg for playing as freshmen, and threatening once again to stop playing them as elements of C5.

Not. Going. To. Happen.

Frank, Devonte, Wayne and Perry are all good, but not great players. Without a double/double post man, they are just another good small team that gets stuffed by good big teams.

C5 IS a double/double post man and Bill knows it more than anyone. He and Igor Roberts created the Frankencenter.

C5 is what makes the team so hard to play, prepare for, and beat.

Self gets it. The light is on in Bill, like it was last season before his reactionary quest to replace long fool’s gold with short fool’s gold.

Bill can huff and puff about having to play C5, but he created the monster that wins, and if he wants to keep winning big, he has to keep it getting better.

Poorly as Bragg and Diallo play most times, the monster would likely never reach double double without them.

You want the double double, you play all five.

Cut it to three and you might find a way to keep winning mostly, but the long and strongs would wear your low ceilings down and Ls would follow.

Cut it to two and its taps for this season.

Five is the magic number.

Five is what teams haven’t seen and struggle with.

But self wants Diallo and Bragg to get better, so he has to threaten them with shortening the bench.

Not. Going. To. Happen.

Every game his high ceilings rest his low ceilings and force opponents to prepare for five guys. Every game his high ceilings make sure the C5 reaches double double.

Calling your bluff Bill.

If you can get constant double doubles with only low ceilings, more power to ya.

But I don’t see how it can happen against all comers, as it has with C5.

I have never seen Bill Self rub it in, but he did today.

Usually when an opponent shoots 39% from the field and 27% from trey, Self slows it down, and defends his lead, so as not to humiliate a fellow coach. Self’s preference for not humiliating his colleagues with lopsided victories has been one of Self’s admirable and retro characteristics that have endeared him to many in ever coarsening age of narcissism and preening vulgarity that we as a nation labor through. This he did today.

But when his team also shoots 54% from the field and 58% from trey, and his team is playing great basketball on offense, defense, transition, and even huddling during time outs better than usual, Self usually pulls his starters and first and second rotation guys and turns it into a 80-60 win that helps the opposing coach save face back home.

Not Saturday, January 2, 2016, a date which should live in infamy in Waco, Texas, but which should be savored by KU basketball fans as a day when justice was finally done to an impudent twit named Scott Drew that has unnecessarily disrespected Bill Self for many seasons in hand shake lines after games, and even put it to Coach Self and his Jayhawks, once in a game in a galaxy far, far away.

There have been many memorable lop sided victories in basketball, but to put this smashing thrashing into perspective, one must reach into American military conquests to even begin to do it justice.

KU’s crushing of Baylor was the basketball equivalent of the WWII Battle of the Philippine Sea aka The Great Marianas Turkey Shoot, or perhaps even the dreadful massacre called the Highway of Death in the Gulf War.

Brave men like Rico Gathers were beaten senseless, guarded senseless, scored on with impunity, run ragged, and generally treated like pinyatas at a birthday party in Hell.

Baylor walked on the floor actually looking like it had the talent to beat KU.

But Baylor walked off James Naismith Court looking like a bear turned into road kill by an eighteen wheeler and then skinned and packed into Jimmy Dean sausage casings and spit roasted two weeks over Reactor Number 2 in Fukushima, Japan.

I don’t recall a talented basketball team being beaten as badly as KU beat Baylor EVER!

But did Bill Self stop playing his fabulous foursome of Wayne Selden, Perry Ellis, Devonte Graham, and Frank Mason?

Answer: not for a long damn time.

Remember, the final score was 102 to 74.

And it didn’t feel that close.

Look at the PT: Wayne, 34 minutes; Perry, 24 minutes; Devonte, 32 minutes; and Frank, 28 minutes.

Hell, Self doesn’t necessarily play these guys this many minutes in close games!

Oh, well, Perry’s and Frank’s minutes were a little low, but they did have 3 fouls a piece.

Come on, when was the last time Bill hung 102 points on a visitor and played his starters this many minutes?

You can go back to The Big Bang and not find something comparable.

Hell, The Big Bang was probably not that much louder than Allen Field House’s orgy of noise for what Self and KU served up to Scott Drew and his neutered bear cubs.

Think about it.

Casual observers of headlines and the box score will say, well, yes, of course KU won big because it shot 58% from trey and Baylor only shot 29% from trey.

But remember, KU’s last game KU shot 29% from trey and beat a decent UC Irvine team by 25 points.

Baylor shot 29% and got a century hung on it.

KU finished +28.

There was much more going on in this merciless beat down than one team with a hot hand and one team with a cold hand.

One team played what at times appeared a perfect game against a talented team that was simply eviscerated.

Many is the time I have seen a team get shelled like this for a half and walk off the floor shaking their heads not sure how things had gone so wrong.

But I have NEVER seen a team as talented as Baylor come back on the floor and get beheaded twice in one afternoon.

Every time out, it was like Scott was standing there without his head–taken from him by the KU players and Self during play, and being handed back to him by his own demoralized players.

Without putting too fine of a point on it, it was like watching Scipio Africanus march a Roman Legion through baby nursery.

To go on any more about the magnitude of the slaughter of these innocents would be to indulge in gratuitous prurience.

Suffice it to say that as usual C5 handled their post men with 19 Points, 13 Reebs.

Wayne was the blazing star of the game with a shooting hand so hot it literally left a contrail, wherever he went.

Perry had a good, but average for him, outing.

Devonte played one of the greatest games I have seen a KU 2 guard play. He finally grew into the shoes left him by Nic Moore and showed that the role Nic created in the WUGs in Korea is what made that team a champion and can make this one a champion also. I have been harping on Devonte being inefficient all season, but today he was not only efficient, but efficient playing a brilliantly high risk game doing everything for everyone on the team, ranging from taking over the game for stretches, to being Frank’s and Wayne’s Tour de France grade domestique other times. It was an absolutely beautiful game of basketball.

Frank is fast turning into an alchemist before our eyes. He is becoming a kind of Hermes Trismegistus in sneakers. He is thrice great. Frank glides around much of the time almost like an AWACS flying over the frey linking every one without even appearing to be doing much, until a little redirect is needed and then boom he makes one of his incredible plays that he makes look easy, but which one sees no one else doing in D1.

Hunter got lots of raves from others and rightfully so, despite getting fouled up early. He hung 7 points, six rebounds, 3 blocked shots, several alters and lots of good post defense in only 17 minutes due to fouling. Were Hunter to put together 30 to 35 minutes of such play, we might have been watching a day approaching what C5 put on today.

Bragg looked good in his 10 minutes, but Self was very careful to come with him as a first substitute at the 5 against a replacement, who was about as slim as Bragg and a perfect match up for Carlton. Still, Carlton did his job.

Landen saw 11 minutes, less than I expected. He too did his duty, though.

Diallo was productive, but one can score when one takes 4 15-18 foot jump shots outside the flow of the offense in 6 minutes of play. My hunch, and its just a wild guess, is that if Cheick had shot half as much he would have played twice as long. Just a wild guess.

Jamari slipped into his unproductive ways in rebounding and scoring in his 10 minutes, but his hedge defense was seamless, he dished two assists, and got a fine block.

On the Greene and Svi front, Greene got the big 18 minute opportunity, looked very rough, but was productive. Svi looked very smooth, but was not very productive shooting and rebounding. Greene got 3 rebounds and fought hard on defense, which justifies his roughness more than his shooting, given the role he is being asked to fill. And miracle of miracles, BG got an assist. He also didn’t make Self palm his forehead. Svi looked smooth, as I said, and did not make Self palm his forehead. But Svi at the FT line kept him from being knocked out for the rest of the season. Svi managed to score 5 points on FTs in only 4 minutes and 1 FGA. Svi is not out of the competition yet, despite Brannen holding an edge.

The only black lining to all of these silver clouds I can find are the high number of fouls by C5. Hunter had 4, Jamari 4, Lucas 3, Bragg 1, and Diallo 1. That is 12 fouls on C5! What does this reveal? It reveals that big strong bigs with quick feet are one way to take KU into a Free Throw shooting contest on a day when KU is not shooting as astronomically well as KU shot against Baylor. Think about that: 12 fouls out of the 5 position. I reckon C5 could hold Wilt under his average giving 12 fouls!!! Bottom line: you can only give huge numbers of fouls against good teams, when they are shooting poorly and you are hot. Do it on the reverse kind of a night and you are apt to get into problems.

But my did I have to look a long way to find anything negative to say.

Great, great, great exhibition of team basketball at the expense of Scott Drew.

What could be better?

Maybe a week of great sex with a beautiful woman?

Maybe.

Rock Chalk!

Lord Self has a rim protector at last!

All hail the dump truck driver, whom ever he may be!

Give thanks to the saw bones that put the good King back together!

Behold Dokethello!

But there is a rub, Board Ratliff’s.

The King would lack depth behind him, unless Lord Self were predisposed to ask William the Second of Prestonwich to consent to be used as a veritable 6th man, as posted yesterday.

Alas, what hath this kingly stuff to do with gambling on said perimeter, my fellow Yorics?

Well, by sweetly overplaying on the perimeter, and relying on the king to checkmate the opponents’ dullards at the ring of iron, surely thus we can gain most advantage, lords and ladies.

But what then should the rubbeth be, my fellow skullduggerers?

To overplay outside, exposeth the good King Dokethello—aye he that ruleth the virtuous middle without depth—to such odious fouls that only bitter fate could befall the good king and our knights of the rectangle.

To sag, to give, to help, aye these are means of keeping King and court in proper state.

But not to pressure that black stripe which doth yield momentum shifting scores is heretofore unSelfian, yes?

What then must be done?

This I beseech thee to make sense for me.

.

What is not to like?

He is 6-8 and 210 and in his first season of trying not to be eaten alive, when he was projected probably not to be a major contributor till year 3 or 4.

He is giving the team what Traylor gave the team his first year or two: exploding for blocks and guarding. Most block are stops. Stops are good. For any block there are two alters, maybe more.

Saying the team needs something it does not have is not to denigrate what it does have. The team will still need Mitch if it adds Preston and De Sousa.

Rock Chalk!

By break out game, I’m just hoping 8/6.

There are a lot of persons laboring under a mistaken notion that Jay Wright should be mentioned in the same breath as Bill Self regarding basketball coaching ability.

The cool aid is very strong these days–in politics AND sports.

The Deep State is apparently spiking everyone’s water coolers to try to keep from losing too much control.

I am not qualified to give you the political antidote, but as a long time fan of college basketball I am willing to give you a bolus of 90 proof Old Spellbreaker about Jay Wrong and speak truth to the water cooler spikers.

Here is the difference between Wright and Self this season.

Wright has a medium stack of the kind select Nike coaches appear to get.

Self is doing it with mostly with 4 stars he coached up.

Wright started with a team with ALL the classic pieces of a power house including 6 players that shoot >39% from trey.

Self started with four combos, including one combo converted to a 4, a big still new to the game coming off an operation that couldn’t make a free throw, Mitch Lightfoot for a backup, and an OAD that never started a regular season game.

Wright managed to lose four games with a team that should have gone undefeated and ended his own modest 3-conference title streak in a mid-major conference by finishing second.

Self lost his OAD, brought in a high school senior at mid season and somehow with no depth miraculously won his 14th consecutive title in a Power Conference.

Wright was given an unearned 1 seed in a marshmellow joke of a regional.

Self was given a deserved 1 seed in the toughest regional in the tournament.

Wright has made it to the Elite Eight for the fourth time and the Final Four for the second time.

Self has made it to the Elite Eight for the 9th time (at three different programs no less), and the Final Four for the third time.

Wright’s overall record is .684.

Self’s overall record is .766.

Wright’s record at mid major Villanova in a mid major conference is .718.

Self’s record at elite major KU in a Power Conference is .825.

In short, there is NO comparison.

None. Zero. Zip.

Self is up here.

Wright is down here.

Jay’s team has the right shoes; that’s all.

Bill’s team does not.

Without the right shoes, Jay Wright would not even be .500 this season. No one would know Jay Wright’s name without the right shoes and most anyone that knows anything about basketball coaching knows it. Wright is Sean Miller without the scandal.

In Jay’s early days he took Hofstra to a first round loss in the NCAA.

In Bill’s early days he took Tulsa to an Elite Eight.

Jay has never coached in a Power Conference.

Bill has coached in two.

Stop with the cool aid.

Beer are on me.

@JayHawkFanToo

It is so fun to see how reasoning from differing premises can lead to different conclusions. I grew up with this sort of discourse in my father’s house, so I have never found civil disagreement uncomfortable, or uninformative.

@HighEliteMajor knows I respect him (I can only infer gender from some remarks, I don’t claim to know for sure) and we learned a loooooooong time ago to agree and disagree comfortably. HEM, more than any other single poster I can recall saw the potential of building bridges across differences in order to enrich the sports discourse in online communities. I have always been very grateful HEM for that. Frankly, I don’t ever recall @HighEliteMajor bitch-slapping anyone. HEM thinks it through and states the affirmative of his position clearly, and points out logical inconsistencies he finds in other positions. And admits his own when they rarely surface. Can’t ask for more than that. To reiterate something I have noted in the past, the only lasting contribution I believe I have made to KU Basketball discourse is entering into a pact with HEM once upon a time to bridge differences. Opinions come and go. Positions shift and change as new information surfaces. Understanding grows. Experience adds wisdom. New blood adds vitality. But to me the cornerstone of an online community is the legacy of bridging differing opinions with respect and with a sense of a team searching for the path of understanding through thick and thin. HEM and I have agreed on so many things, and we have a good deal of agreement on the current team and where we think the future of basketball may be headed. Our disagreement over the merits (demerits) of Self’s coaching late this season are simply signals that there is more to be learned and discovered about what is happening.

I am similarly proud of the way you and I have found a path through the thicket of disagreement, though our search for a relationship remains quite young.

Online communication, contrary to what the gloom and doom crowd suggest, is a great, great, great step forward despite its perils.

When postal services were created in the 1700s, or so, they dramatically augmented communication. They greatly enabled the coordination of of political, military, and business activities. I am probably the only one that thinks this, but I believe the mail service hugely augmented the romance and evolution in loving relationships among persons by expanding the range and space for amorous and affectionate exploration of feelings among loving persons. Vices were enabled also, but all innovation (technical, infrastructure, etc.) and ensuing change triggers and inevitable calculus of new benefits and costs.

It took awhile for persons to learn to adapt their writing styles from that used for personally hand delivered letters, to letters delivered through the mails. Frequency changed length and content for interpersonal communication in writing.

The mails immediately fell prey to government spying and the spying of military and business competitors, and to spying of jealous lovers and so on.

But in retrospect, the net benefit of creating the mail services were so enormous that that costs and problems were utterly worth bearing.

It is a similar situation with interactive communication on line.

It has been one of the great satisfactions of my life to participate online with so many good board rats, and to find one in HEM willing to set an example of respectful disagreement and joy in learning from each other that could act as a cornerstone in the KU Basketball Legacy.

I have always learned as much from disagreeing with HEM, as from agreeing with HEM.

I believe the import of what we are all doing here now is laying a foundation of intelligent discourse in the online medium for the next 50 years of THE LEGACY.

I believe that you, @JayHawkFanToo, are contributing, too.

I believe everyone is here.

It is imperfect.

It is human.

It is subject to virtue and subterfuge, and occasional stupidity.

It has all the beauty of human discourse and all the vagaries and misunderstandings that homo sapiens have wrestled with as they have muddled forwards for several hundred thousands of years of language usage.

There are certain instances, and realms, that one participates in, when one is most fortunate to have been alive.

The possibilities for abuse, and identity theft, and experimentation with discourse framing techniques, and set ups by special interest groups, and so on are endless even in this little online community.

But the net benefits are greater.

I am glad @HighEliteMajor is here.

I am glad everyone is here.

Darkness falls on college basketball.

The NCAA does not have a rules problem. It has a rules enforcement problem. Until symmetric refereeing is restored, it is impossible to predict the impact of rules changes.

@KUSTEVE

PHOF!

It is XTRemely sad and complicated what happened to Indiana. It is much, much, MUCH more complicated than Knight having a temper. Knight had a temper alright. He had it for years before they decided to sack him. Knight took on the powers that were (and probably still be). Knight tried to take on corruption and wound up in exile never to win another championship. Coach K would still be chasing his mentor, if Knight had gone along to get along. Not saying Knight was an angel. Not saying I would have wanted my kid to play for him. Saying whatever his faults and flaws, he was the last guy to try to take on corruption in the game before it apparently became institutionalized and normalized, and he was CRUSHED.

For anyone that wants to understand what happened to college basketball, Bob Knight was the canary in the mine shaft that needs to be studied.

He stood up alone.

And the wrong way guys won.

And the game has never been the same since.

C5 at 9/16 was not the problem

Perry at 21/7 was not the problem.

50% Trey balling on 20 3ptas was not the problem.

Rebounding at -2 was not the problem.

The scheme for attacking the press seems like the problem, but it’s really wasn’t. Why? Look at the TOs for KU’s three ball handlers: Frank, 7; Wayne, 6; and Devonte, 1. If the scheme were the problem, then Devonte would have had a bunch of TO’s, because he handled the ball so much. Almost every pressed possession, Huggins defensive scheme forced the ball into Devonte’s hands, thinking Devonte would crack. But as rattled as Devonte got at times, he only had 1 TO.

The problem this game was Frank and Wayne baking a baker’s dozen pop tarts–13 TOs!!!

13 TOs are 26 to 39 lost possible points. Let’s say KU only converted 40% or so; that’s still 10 to 16 probable points.

Imagine also how many more fouls KU might have drawn on 13 more possessions? And rebounds?

KU only made 60 percent of its FTs, but it only shot 20 FTs, so shooting well might only have added 2-4 points. Not a big deal.

That leaves the +12 on Fouls. But let’s put that in perspective. If Frank and Wayne had protected and KU had had 13 more shooting attempts, KU might have 5-8 more fouls; that would have made fouls +4 to +7; that would have been in the range of a normal home whistle.

Svi’s and BG’s PT and lesser TOs also tell us scheme was not the problem. Both players shot poorly and played without excelling, yet their TOs did not sky rocket.

There was something going on with Frank and Wayne.

And it wasn’t good.

Perry handled the ball a lot and played big minutes without big TOs.

Jamari didn’t spike TOs.

This loss was on Frank and Wayne.

Something happened.

Each has seen this WVU press 4 games previously the last two years.

Frankly, for 3/4 of the game, the ball was getting down the floor rather rapidly. The problem was what was happening in the half court offense once it got there.

Here, Devonte’s frequent poor shot selection hurt some, but he only took 7 fgas.

One give away was the FGAs of Frank and Wayne again: 6 and 7 respectively. Why were our our two perimeter studs shooting so little? Answer: TOs.

Another give away: Wayne’s minutes. He played only 25 with only 3 fouls. Fouled up? I don’t think so. Devonte played way more with 5 fouls. Tired legs? Nope. He was 3-6 from Trey.

Bottom line, Wayne showed up for a big game against a bunch of thuggers and punks speeding the game up and he could not focus. And his lack of focus came when he was having matchup problems. Huggs was careful to either match Wayne with length and strength he could not handle, or with greater speed. Huggs was out to stop Wayne and he did.

Self appeared to recognize Wayne’s lack of focus and Hugg’s match up exploits of Wayne’s weak ball handling.

Self answered with Svi and Brannen and both players combined for lousy shooting (0-6), 6 fouls, 3 TOs, and complete absence of poise as glue men.

So: what did wily old tub of lard Bob Huggins and his usual cast of lousy shooting, stiff screening, eye stubbing, skin scratching, Blue Meanie playground throwbacks figure out?

It was actually pretty subtle and Huggs deserved some serious credit.

Huggs figured out that if you force the ball with the press into Devonte’s hands and speed the game up, then Frank and Wayne would be forced into Devonte’s usual glue role. As glue men, forced to make the second pass to get the ball where it needed to be for a score, neither Frank, nor Wayne could make the pass. And Huggs had perimeter defenders that could disrupt their drives and a big in Williams that could alter both. That left the second pass and neither guy could make it once sped up and trapped and pressured. Frank and Wayne baked pop tarts like Mr. Baker the Fine Pastry Maker. This forced Self to try size at the wings with Svi and BG. Same problem, only worse. No one could pass, or score, or defend.

For persons that say Self did not adjust, they are right. He had no checkmate move on offense to make and knew it. If an opponent can stuff all four of your wings, and Devonte was not mature enough to hang 20-25 to make’em pay in half court, then it defaulted to Perry and the C5 to win it inside. Perry did his duty. But Self had no wings that could, or would feed the C5.

Self’s fault was not the response to the press in full court. Presses increase TOS, and speed games up. That is a given. Failure to get easy baskets was also not a death blow… It’s whether you regain your poise in half court; that is critical

Thus, Self’s faults were three fold IMHO.

He needed to get the ball back in Frank’s hands at the point each possession to run the stuff with Devonte on the wing gluing the second pass as usual. The wing post feed and the wing drive are not Frank’s.

He stayed with Svi too long. Bad Wayne was better than bad Svi.

He didn’t commit to low block scoring through the C5 at the start of the second half, which meant starting and feeding Hunter, or Diallo. I would have gone with Diallo, even though Diallo would have turned it over. We needed to get them out of their comfort zone inside to change this from a game where they were dominating our wings. Perry needed another threat inside to free him more.

To have won the game the way Huggs was scheming it, we needed 5-7 more points from Perry and 6 more points from C5. Diallo is always good for 6 points, despite his other short comings. Get them early the first half, then follow with Hunter and Lucas and Jam. Then get Devonte On the wing and let Frank drive where is comfortable from, and things might have gone differently.

But the main takeaways are:

WVU is good and matches up great with us;

KU has to find its poise in half court against a pressing team.

It does no good to break a press as consistently as KU did and the turn it over in half court.

Are we as good as our hype? No.

Are we a good team? Yes. We were as nicked up for a first game, as I recall, and played a strong, talented team to an OT and could easily have won, despite not playing very well.

Can Josh Jackson Step in and Replace Wayne Selden? Not yet. Wayne averaged about 14 efficient ppg and 3.4 rpg and shot 39% from trey. Josh was 3-11 over all and 1-3 from trey for an inefficient 9 points. His on ball defense was solid, but his off-ball defense caused many breakdowns in the team defense. He can grab boards better than Wayne. He got 6 against an IU team with a lot of glass masters. Of course, in Josh’s defense, Wayne was notorious for yo-yo-ing and he could easily have had the same numbers, or even worse than Josh had tonight. But Wayne could also have hung 30 on Indiana. Josh is going to be a very good player. But like so many OADs, he has lots of holes in his game that a likely Top 20, or Top 10 team like indiana expose. One the season, Josh will have some huge games against .500 teams, but it seems unlikely that he is going to hang 30 points on a Top Ten team this seaons. He just has to much to work on.D1 teams are going to look at tonight’s shooting performance and say, "We’re hanging off you and going to let you beat us from outside, and when you come inside we are going to really get rough with you. Self also has a problem he has had before with the 3 man in Self offenses. If Self has a good point guard that can score, there is a tendency to turn into a garbage man role. Josh seems to good to be a garbage man, but the holes in his game do not seem like they enable him to do much else, if Self is going to rely on Frank and Devonte, as he apparently will.

Can Bragg replace Perry Ellis this season? No. Bragg got 12 efficient points and 4 rebounds with only one TO. His defense was not nearly as good as Perry’s. He did his numbers against the kind of big team that Perry used to disappear against, unless he was hitting his trey. Bragg did it all without his trey, which he reputedly has. There is a chance by mid season that Bragg could replace Perry AND not disappear against the big strong teams. But Bragg’s defense is going to take a lot of work, and things could get very tough for him for a month or so in mid season, also, when the Big 12 coaches start scheming against the holes in his game. Let’s say its 50/50 on replacing Perry this season. Next season? Bragg could be very tough by then.

Can Frank and Devonte truly be a complementary back court? It does not seem so yet. Frank is fabulous, when you turn it over to him, but he still does not make other players around him better doing it. They might as well clear out the side for him. And Devonte is ready to take over a team and drive it and yet he cannot do that with Frank. Self still has not found a way to actually make these two like a great guard combination. They take turns being dominating point guards. They don’t do it together.

Is this the year Svi super novas? Svi seems ready in every way but two: he needs to run and does so rather infrequently, and he needs to shoot the trey and he only does that infrequently. KU is really not a running team and Svi needs a running team to really break out. KU is still a half court team t6hat squirts some. KU is also not a trey balling team. KU is a short half court team that plays Bad Ball when it needs baskets. It doesn’t let her fly from 25 much. So Svi, who looks completely matured and skilled, is kind o being a garbage man 3, because of the way the team plays.

Can Udoka Contribute this Year:: He is better than I expected and if he had any money moves he would be a handful for opponents right now, even only playing about 15 mpg. But 15 mpg seems about average for this season.

Is Coleby going to be a factor? Maybe in a couple months, when has heeled, but maybe not.

All for now.

I miss @HighEliteMajor, but I also miss @Red_Rooster. Where has @Red_Rooster gone? I proposed a write-in campaign with him, and after his inimitably dignified style he volunteered to accept the job if elected, The write-in campaign stalled, when I was side-tracked by other issues, but then I ceased to see his/her typically ubiquitous presence. @Red_Rooster, you are under no obligation to mark every post read as you used to do, but you need to weigh in once a week and let us know your are OK?

Best regards, jaybate 1.0

I wish basketball would get over, so we could start talking football again.

Self would be perfect, if he just had hair like Bruce Weber’s.

Coach K is a handsome man we can look up to, because he insists on clean play and likable players.

We were always too critical of The Antlers.

There are times, when I would rather watch a Chick flick, than attend a KU Game in Allen Field House.

@jaybate 1.0 is right more often than Bill Self.

The NCAA engineers the seeding and refereeing in the March Carney in KU’s favor every season!

Players and cheerleaders should be selected solely for their intellects.

John Calipari is a straight shooter that plays by the rules.

Dick Vitale is impartial.

It would be so great to have Fizzou back in the Big 12.

(Note: all fiction. No malice.)

Most Ridiculously High Won-Loss Percentage of a team a head coach ever publicly spoke of junking a 4-1 set and rebuilding as a 3-2 set: .846

Starters averaging double figures in scoring: 5 of 5

Highest Big Man 3pt% Ever to Be Disrespected: 50% by Mitchell Lightfoot

Most insanely, scintillatingly, spontaneously combustible, scorchingly hot three point shooting with over 50 attempts by a perimeter player since Frank Mason: LaCobra 49%

Only player to have as many PFs as Points: Clay Young with 9 PFs and 9 total points

Worst 3pt% by a player trying to become a 3pt shooter: 19% by Marcus Garrett

Most Unimpressive 3pt% by a Reputed Top Flight 3pt Shooter: 36.2% by Malik Newman

Most Unsightly FT% that Makes One Ask Incredulously Why Isn’t He Fouled Every Time He Touches the Ball: 42.3% by Udoka Azubuike

Most Efficient Football Player Suiting Up: James Sosinski, 2-2 from the Field in 4 total minutes played, indicating 20-20, or 40 points over 40 minutes.

Best Rebounding Team Inch for Inch in America: KU, starting 4 guards, plus a big man that averages only 8.4rpgs, and as a team is +62 in rebounding at the midpoint of the season

Best Protecting Short Team in America: KU with 29 fewer TOs than opponents

Best Stealing Short Team in America: KU which has 25 more thefts than opponents

Best Blocking Short Teamin America: KU, which has 11 MORE blocks than opponents, despite starting 4 guards and subbing in the all diminutive rotation of backups

The Most Under Free Thrown Team in America: KU which has shot 48 fewer free throws than opponents, despite the even more bizarre statistic that KU has only one less foul than opponents

Holy cow!!!

Norm Roberts deserves MEGA STROKES for the whole Joel Embiid phenomenon.

Norm was down in Gainesville licking wounds from his railroading at St. John’s by the Wrong Way types shutting off his recruiting spigot. He had been given a job by Billy Donovan, who by the way was an absolute man for giving him a job at that time, because the wrong way guys appeared to be really intimidating anyone that dared stand up for anyone they had smighted.

So: in the no good deed goes unpunished department, Norm is recruiting for Billy and he finds Joel Embiid landing in his flipping back yard. Norm no doubt went gametes to the walls for Joel.

Then Self says, “Oh, Normie, I want you back in Larrie looking after the bigs, since Danny’s gone down to Cyberspy Tech of Tulsa, OK to try a head job.”

So: Norm jumps into Mannings enormous flipping big man coaching shoes, shoes of a size many doubted could be filled by Self himself.

Enter New York Norm with the brass in his kanakas that had gotten him out of the Apple as a young coach and kept him going through thick and thin.

Norm proceeds to keep Jeff Withey getting better to the tune of becoming one of KU’s all time shot blockers and alterers.

Norm doesn’t stop with Withey either.

Self gives his old pal a 3 to play the four named Perry Ellis. Norm had to shake his brain case and mouth silently, “Thanks ol’pal. Just what I need. A finesse 3 playing power forward with a William Powell playing 5.”

Self says, “Norm, that’s not the worst of it. Perry isn’t even ready. Perry doesn’t even talk yet. The guy you’re really going to have to get it done with is a transfer from the College of Lay Out and Year and Hope. And before that he was from Loyola Marymount. Names Kevin Young. Has no J to speak of. Makes mistakes like the guys we used to recruit for Tulsa. But he tries so hard, Norm. You’ve never seen a guy with the kind of energy he has.”

So, Norm says, “What is he? 6-9 and 250?”

And Bill says, “Well, not exactly. He’s 6-8, well, we say he is, but he’s more like 6-6, and, um, well, he weighs 180…after a big meal.”

New York Norm doesn’t bust out crying. He doesn’t whine. He knows Self has seduced him yet again into coming to his rescue.

So New York Norm rescues Self’s broad shoulders and slender girlie fingers during the year of Self’s middle aged crazies.

New York Norm creates something called a Block Party. He turns Jeff Withey from skillful shot blocker polished by Danny Manning into nothing short of a shot blocking savant the covers up all manner of blow byes. And he turns Kevin Young in a whirling dervish, perpetual motion machine that perfects the art of going over the back of bigger bigs to average an outlandish number of reebs for a guy thin enough to walk between Venetian blinds without touching them.

Thanks to New York Norm Self gets to keep his string of conference titles going.

Self should have kissed his feet and given him a year off for that big man coaching performance,

But he didn’t.

Instead, Self says, “Normie, I’ve got a hole at the five the size of a fully dilated elephant in child birth. I let everything ride on Kaleb Tarshizzonme last recruiting season and true to his name he took a dump on me and signed with Stumpy Miller in Tempe. I got zip, zero, null set for an experienced post man. Landen Lucas might be ready two seasons from now. And Jamari, well, he’s a 3 with no gun playing out of position at the 5, because, well, because I’m queer for guys that can explode out of any position on defense. You dig, Normie?”

And Norm says, “Don’t do me no favors, Oakie Boy, I shoulda stayed in Gainesville.”

Bill gets all slit eyed and smiley and says, “New York Norm, I need you to pull a rabbit outta your Borsalino, caprice? Whatcha got for me?”

New York Norm says, “Well, m!@#$%f!@#$%^r, how does a 7-0 soccer player from Cameroon stashed away for a rainy day under Donovan’s nose sound?”

Self says, “Next thing I know you’re going to be saying I’m young and single and Olivia Wilde wants cell phone sex with a spokesman for the hair club for men. Get outta here, Normie. Donovan’s got Florida iced, and if he doesn’t, then Leonard over in Talahassee does.”

New York Norm, who has been keeping Joel Embiid in his hip pocket, in case Self melts down from the middle age crazies, says, “Alright, Bill, order some pizza for the Gulf Stream and lets get down to the Orange Panhandle ASAP. I got a guy you gotta see.”

Cut to Joel Embiid’s gym and Self’s jaw hanging down through the bleacher all the way to the floor.

“New York Norm, you been holding’ out on me,” Self says. “New York Norm, you’ve been hiding the next Hakeem from me. New York Norm, this guy is Hakeem with Baryshnikov feet. Full press him. I don’t care if Donovan does have him locked up. Unlock him. Get me a meeting with the kids mother. Get me ten minutes with his mother and I will land him without a net. I will have him in the boat and you can coach him up yourself, see? Make it happen, New York Norm. Make it happen!!!”

So he does.

And you know what?

New York Norm coaches the kid from Cameroon UP!!!

By late December Joel Embiid is being mentioned for Numero Uno in the draft. Joel Embiid is blocking and altering like Withey with a equatorial accent. Joel Embiid is making free throws. Joel Embiid is entertaining the national media with lion and shark killing stories. Joel Embiid was last seen going for a walk on the Kaw River.

And New York Norm ain’t letting any grass grow under his feet either.

Next up Miles Turner!

@VailHawk

I know people think I am out in the ethers when I say this, but I am absolutely serious. It happens because KU Basketball is a living myth.

Living myths are regenerative connections to the life force.

The more you give to it the more it gives back.

The more you learn the more you can share.

Literary and cinematic myths are things like StarWars and they are not interactive. They are a one way energy transfer…from the creators to the viewers.

But at the center of the living myth of KU basketball is not an illusion, not an art work, but a living breathing team. We are not cheering for a KU video made once a week. We are cheering for the real team of human beings that the weekly video is made about.

Self is real. He is not an image of a coach.

Allen Field House is unique. The light that comes in it really is different than the light that one finds in any other arena.

Lawrence really was born of a Civil War in which one of the great issues of human history–are humans meant to be free and self governing, or toadies of an aristocracy with slaves–was played out.

Kansas in the 1890s really did attract one of the most extraordinary collections of persons ever and really did generate a People’s Party that said: “the government is the people and we are the people.”

The inventor of the game really did bring it to the shelter of Lawrence and the university, after seeing it coarsened and vulgarized in the big easter cities.

The first coach and the first genius the game produced really did produce the KU basketball legacy for nearly 50 years.

KU really was among the programs that integrated the game.

KU really has had a phenomenal involvement in the evolution of the game.

It really is the father of all basketball programs.

Basketball really is the greatest game ever invented.

All of these things are like logs on a mythic fire that burns on.

You cannot help but experience it and feel its warmth.

The myth lives.

You touch it.

And it touches you back.

That is what is different about this.

Play BAD BALL and protect.

Also known as the Rule of Tens.

TOs under 10.

3ptas under 10.

Get 10 strips.

Perry makes 10 FTs and grabs 10 Reebs.

Kelly goes 10/10.

Frank drives ten times.

Hunter plays 10 seconds.

In response to @VailHawk on another thread…

adidas-Wisconsin achieved one of the greatest victories I have seen in the last 40 years. It beat Nike-UK, which was without question the team with the most draft choices on it in the last 40 years.

Bo Ryan took a 1-stack and beat John Calipari’s 10-stack.

It was unbelievable.

It made me feel incredibly lucky to have gone to both KU undergrad and UW for grad school.

I never dreamed the Buckies could get it done.

But they had Frank Kaminsky and a bunch of drivers that could also can the trey.

They had exactly what Bill Self probably hoped to have this season: Joel Embiid and a bunch of drivers that could can the trey.

Frank Kaminsky reputedly stayed, because he loved the college game.

Joel Embiid reputedly left, because he hurt his back and still had a chance to be the the third round pick.

Frank Kaminsky and his adidas-Badgers deserve to go down in the history of the game, along with the 1957 UNC Tar Heels that beat Wilt, as the greatest Giant killers in the history of the game.

In any case, it was the greatest victory by any team so far in the still early stages of the Big Shoe-agent complex era.

It was a terrible beauty to behold, because adidas-Wisconsin not only had to beat UK, for the last ten minutes of the game, but it also beat the referees that called one of the most egregiously asymmetric games I have ever watched down a stretch. Just a disgraceful job of officiating. So bad I could write a book about the last ten minutes. If no calls were the criterion for putting refs in a hall of shame, these officials would be in on the first ballot. But what’s the point of complaining anymore about asymmetric officiating. Asymmetric officiating apparently appearing to be aimed to shape outcomes of games appears now as much a part of March Madness as One Shining Moment. All I ask is that some wit on YouTube commences a trradition this year with a feed called “One Shameful Moment” that does for the seemingly bogus foul calls what One Shining Moment does for the beautiful moments of the tournament. We are so far past equitably bad officiating now it is tragic.

But back to the inspiring victory by adidas-Wisconsin and the monumentally inept loss by Nike-UK and its 10 draft choices in search of a coach.

It was a testament to how truly mediocre of a coach John Calipari was and how limited in competency his 10 stack was as a team, that they could lose to a 1 stack.

This loss makes any of Bill Self’s clunkers in the Madness seem like Renoirs.

If the refs had called a fair game, adidas-Wisconsin might have beaten Cal’s Nike-UK band of still too young with talent by 15-20 points.

But the refs didn’t call a fair game for whatever reason. Oh, but I won’t go back down that road, because so many think that calling a spade a spade regarding referees is whining.

It looked like adidas-Wisconsin just said we are going to beat Nike-UK AND the refs and we are not going to be denied.

It was a magnificient effort.

It was almost biblical.

It was way better than frying Emperor Palpatine in a plasma matrix.

It was like David kicking the big, fiercesome, but astonishingly stupid Goliath in the balls for 40 minutes before he fell over, still without knowing how he had been fallen.

IT. WAS. SWEET.

The only downside to this victory is that adidas-Wisconsin had to burn most of their energy budget to beat Nike-UK and the flipping refs.

And Nike-Duke got to play a low possession game, against one of the most ridiculously bad semi-final team efforts in modern memory–Tom Izzo’s bunch of astonishingly modest talents that made one wonder how they got this far by a fair symmetric whistle?

Seriously, Duke was sleep walking through the MSU game. They were as flat as a Bill Self team being sent out flat for the easy game of a two game series, which is exactly what Coach K did.

It was hilarious to watch Izzo try to coach a NO-Stack against a 9-stack. Izzo appeared to know his team was so out matched that he never even told his guys to bring out the tire irons and brass knuckles that he appears to have them pack sometimes. It was almost like Tom wanted to be beaten by 20 points to make sure there was a zero percent chance that anyone thought his No-stack deserved a chance to get humiliated on a larger stage. For persons that think Tom Izzo is some kind of genius, it is time to wake the flip up. Tom apparently couldn’t even adjust his belt a notch much less come up with mid game or half time fixes. His game plan appeared to be: come out and shoot four threes and then watch me stand around and yell a lot beside a stool. Tom Izzo is to NO-STACKS what John Calipari is to TEN STACKS. But I digress again. Let’s be kind and say he did find his way to the Final Four without a lot of good players and then got exposed as a gunsel with no bullets in his clip. Next.

Nike-Duke has a full tank of gas for Monday night thanks to Tom Izzo and his band.

adidas-UW has a half tank, if that…

Nike-Duke is a 9-stack.

adidas-UW is a 1 stack.

I would never again rule a team with Frank Kaminsky out of any game.

But the odds are stacked even higher against adidas-Wisconsin in this Finals against NIke-Duke , than they were against 10 stack Nike-UK.

At least against 10 stack Nike-UK, adidas-Wisconsin had a full tank and it was facing a seemingly average coach in John Calipari.

But 9-stack Nike-Duke will have a full tank and the winningest coach in the history of the game–a coach that has won rings without 9-stacks, albeit with apparent cheap-shotting before tho season.

adidas-Wisconsin has a half tank and a 1-stack.

Luckily for adidas-Wisconsin, it has Bo Ryan and Frank Kaminsky and a lot of VERY (for today’s game) experienced Badgers.

ON WISCONSIN!!!

@HighEliteMajor

Not much paralysis here.

The game I watched would most definitely have been lost had we played Traylor, Diallo, or Bragg another minute. Those three were just not up to the challenge at all yesterday. Diallo showed exactly why Self isn’t starting him. Bragg, too. Lucas was our best postman by quite a bit and that’s not based on talent, just on guarding the post, getting boards and being able to contribute to the flow of play. These are minimum pre-requisites for playing on a team, so its not like Self is setting the bar too high for Traylor, Diallo, and Bragg. Hunter is the only guy I would have given more time to, to at least see if he could get untracked, but Hunter has apparently been re-condemned to the cryogenic machine, until someone gets injured. Woe is Hunter. He looks like some German or Russian soldier frozen to death in a fox hole at the end of the bench. There is no explaining this treatment of Hunter in my mind, except trying not to look like a coach playing a kid from a small

Regarding the approach to the game generally, there was just no way Self was going to beat the tar out of one of Coach K’s guys, or out of one of the nations’ most influential alumni bases. No one gets a head in life hanging a century on Harvard for fun.

Be that as it may, the reason the game was such a grind was that our 2, 3 and 4 position players stunk.

Frank was very good.

And the composite 5 scored 14, snagged 15 reebs, blocked 3 shots, and got two steals.

The 1 and composite 5 were the only strengths of the team.

Regarding tempo, Self gave Frank the day off running the team and tried to give Devonte as much experience as he could; that was smart IMHO. Its just that Devonte really didn’t perform very well offensively in the point guard role, but maybe he couldn’t look very good with the 3 and 4 sucking the hind teats of a passive boar. Either way, Devonte just could not get a feel for pounding it inside once Amaker figured out that Self wasn’t going to play to beat him into the next century, and was going to let Amaker clog the paint, so that Self could let Devonte practice playing pound it inside to the the Composite 5 and Perry the second half.

Self is going to work on conventional pound it inside every time we play an opponent that is not very good, but that has some length inside to practice against.

Finally, Jamari really looked bad. He appears completely back in injury mode judging from the lingerie on the legs. I would go so far as saying we probably won’t see him play more than 10 mpg for at least a couple of months. After looking pretty springy up till this game, against Harvard, he was moving around like he did last February and March. His legs looked completely shot. Woe is Jamari, if he is this worn and torn this early.

The bad news is Diallo is completely uncooked, not just raw. Facing just a little team help defense, he was completely lost. That really chastened my hopes for him. He will do fine whenever we are playing teams that aren’t well drilled defensively. But his minutes are going to fall in a big way against good defensive teams, unless Self wants to take a bunch of Ls the rest of the way in hopes of getting Diallo ready and for KU to make a run from a low seed. Don’t see much chance of that, do you?

Diallo has young neural net syndrome. He’ll be much better next season, where ever he chooses to play. But man does he appear to have a young brain. And his shot? Don’t even ask.

Lets do some chase cutting to, shall we?

Lagerald Vick was our most overall productive perimeter guy against Siena.

Among our perimeter guys, Lagerrie, he of the nano thickness legs, had:

a.) the highest FG%;

b.) tied for most points from the the field;

c.) the most offensive reebs (3);

d.) the most defensive reebs (8);

e.) the most total reebs;

f.) the third most points;

g.) the third most assists;

h.) tied for second fewest TOs;

i.) tied for most blocks;

j.) tied for most steals;

k.) tied for second most minutes; and

l.) tied for fewest personal fouls.

His only short comings?

He was 0-1 from trey and did not get to the FT stripe.

Well, considering he is not one of our designated drivers, not getting to the stripe hardly matters.

And considering he only took one measly iron pyrite attempt, well, here agains it is hardly a negative.

12 points, 8 rebounds and 2 assists!!!

And he did it on a night when everyone else was 32rd order Free Mason bricking everything in sight from trey.

Put another way, those 3 offensive rebounds indicate that Mr. Elmers gave his team exactly what it needed yet again. He gave it high efficiency, high protection, AND he got on the offensive glass to make up for his mates’ frigid shooting, and he got on the defensive glass to get the defensive stops at the other end to make up for his mate’s veritable pop tart bakery on the offensive end.

This is the stuff that makes Bill Self get doe-eyed.

This is gluing par excellence.

Lagerrie is becoming known for running a basketball protection racket.

But against Siena he added offensive and defensive glass vaccing exactly when needed!!!

Throw in the efficient scoring and OMG!!!

Go, Legerrie, go!!!

@Blown

Sherron was bowl them over physical–a fullback at point guard. Fabulously aggressive. A mad dog part of the time.

Frank is like a leopard.

Frank is in some kind of psi zone. He is moving at something near total efficiency. He is moving effortlessly yet making everyone else seem slow. It’s one of the most insanely great stretches of psi play I’ve seen. Jo Jo White had stretches of this too.

The cheerleaders yell.

The dipshits cheer.

Everything in ball is downside up.

Basketball pencil necks see the genius not doing this or that.

Basketball fans see a coach doing the impossible–winning with guys like he used to win with at Tulsa some seasons and other seasons putting together talented bunches of perimeter guys and whatever the cat dragged in in the paint.

They see that a nice guy finishes first. Wins rings. Cracks wise. Strings 12 titles. Does it the right way. Makes guys go to class. Builds the Assists Foundation. Stays married. Raises kids. Wins with guys no one thinks can win. Wears a suit. Stays humble. Cracks back. But leaves the wood on good terms.

But over this time when the genius was defying all the odds from ORU to Tulsa to Champaign-Urbana to the building where amazing things happen, the rest of college basketball was getting down on its belly and crawling like komodo dragons injected with effing meth.

While this guy was winning 83% of the time and racking up a cold six hundred wins, college basketball was taking a trip down.

Down through the media-gaming complex shaping what the suckers thought and bet.

Down through the petroshoeco-agency complex trafficking in child ballers and making them leans to this brand and that brand, hyping them into Top 100s and then forcing them to turn pro before they were ready, so the leaches that had been sucking on them since seventh grade could release the blood tourniquets and let the biggest rush of all–the rush of red hot blood stained NBA money flow from the player drafted, signed and sent to the d-league; that flows into the veined wallets and bank accounts of the leaches.

This guy that the dipshits love to love; this guy that walks over the shit like Jesus walking over the top of a Superfund sight in a wetland where the tasered and wrist bound bodies are sunk in concrete ; this effing guys is just too amazing for words.

He finds a way through.

He gets used some times, but not really USED!

He gets made some times, but not really MADE!

How KU got lucky enough to find him, when it could just as easily have found Travis Ford, or Frank Haith, or Bzzzzzzzz Bzzzzzzzzdelik, is beyond me.

How many bullets has this guy had to dodge already even at goody two shoes KU?

Early in his tenure, a buncha effin’ glans heads over at the Williams Fund and KUAD were running a ticket scalping scam running into the millions of bones.

Drug dealers have preyed on the team from just a few rows behind the bench.

The kinds of guys that the Pete Bondurants and Wayne Tedrows and Ward Littells have to make disappear in ways we don’t even want to think about surface every now and again thinking they can score some green by speed balling some shit up the arm of one of our players, or hustling one of our coaches. Its not a jungle out there. Its a fucking James Ellroy novel out there. If James Ellroy has any more great books in him, someday he will write a trilogy about the underbelly of sports.

And some how Bill Self–the genius–keeps finding a way around and over the shit that passes for bottom feeding scum suckers in sports.

Some how he keeps graduating guys that grew up in hoods counting bullets fired around dark corners and waiting for the clips to eject, before walking the last block home to the projects from practice.

Somehow he keeps finding enough good parents and enough good kids to patch together winners that go to class. Somehow he finds kids with enough want to to sleep in the streets and somehow turn their lives around and contribute to 30 win seasons and conference titles and number one seeds.

Somehow he keeps dodging the graspy maneuvering of private oligarchs trying to use him, and the players, and the athletic department, as the backdoors into the university with the billion bone budget in a red state that keeps net importing federal revenues, and keeps electing guys that say they want less gubmint subsidy but never deliver.

Somehow he raises his own kids, and keeps talking to persons out on Mass Street and making people believe that the midwest is not dead and persons making $10M per year can kick back and chase a bacon scramble with coffee in a restaurant and sign an autograph with a smile.

Yea, underneath, it isn’t all as smooth and easy as he makes it seem. No doubt he’s got an ugly side and a wrong side of bed side.

He ain’t no angel.

But he ain’t no devil.

And he’s an angel flying over a stinking swamp of college basketball.

Some how he has built something that works and lasts in a world where every other coach seems a flash in the pan. He’s making players believe in teams in the middle of a country a Federal Reserve chairman that isn’t even sure whether America is still a republic or not. He is making them believe it is smart to be smart and loyal to your school in the midst of wikileaking and fake news about fake news and s elections stolen, then stolen back, then stolen, then stolen back…

Some how Bill Self has racked up a cold six hundred…the right way.

Rock Chalk!

KU fans love Frank. @HighEliteMajor fine post on Frank makes clear his radical conversion to Frankophilia.

Strangers love him, too. Those bald talking heads that populate national fake media tried hard to sell EST Edsels at PG much of the season , but finally they cracked for Frank’s Ferarri.

Award givers so prone to pre-branded players in EST and PST? They fell all over themselves trying to give Frank their fineries. Frank hit the mother load on awards.

So what made Frank’s season so great?

Didn’t win a ring.

Didn’t get to THE FOUR.

Didn’t have a career game his last time on the college shellac.

Didn’t shoot lights out in FGAs at 49%.

Didn’t even lead his team in steals

So: why do all the hard hearts and privilege-deserves-its rank types LUV THEM SOME FRANK, like all the of us bleeders of crimson and blue blood?

What’s so great about Frank?

First off, despite the tats, ripped out muscles everywhere, and the face that ocassionally screws up into a Shitzu’s mug, well, he’s diminutive as your favorite small breed dog all dolled with a sheared do on top taking Blue at one of those shows in the mid 500s you surf by looking for the KU game. Frank is homely cute as a button. I know. Button cute ain’t cool theses days, but Frank Mason restored cute to the respect it has always deserved–made cute and diminutive as cool again. About time, too. I am big but I appreciate small and in between, too. Viva l’difference in all persons. I like our individual uniquenesses. Frank is flat out unique. One off. Don’t nobody else look like Frank, act like Frank, hoop like Frank, bounce like Frank, shoot like Frank, or rebound from the mother#%$&@! point like Frank. Frank is one off. He is the original in oil that other prints will be made from. But at the same time Frank is restoring cool to the diminutive, as happens every so often. Cousy did. Nate Archibald did. Calvin Murphy did. Mugsy Bogues did. Isaiah Thomas did. Rajon Rondo do. Nash did. Basketball is the democratic game. It favors the tall, but it has room for the small. There are so many things that need doing on a court and so many ways to do them, the diminutive can be as effective as the long, if it can find its way to doing it. AND FRANK FOUND MORE WAYS TO DOIT DIMINUITIVELY AT A HIGH LEVEL ON A COURT THAN ANY ONE IN A LOOOOOOOONG TIME!

But I know you quants want your numbers.

47 percent from Trey on 174 3ptas. It’s not unprecedented, but its largely unfathomable to mortals and flat beyond hope to 98% of D1 basketball players.

And remember: Frank was NOT KU’s designated trifectate. Svi actually had 2 more 3ptas and Devonte had 74 MORE 3ptas!!! And Svi and De shot respectably near the magic .400. But Frank shredded cord at .470, while running the team and being cute and diminutive!!! Svi and De were the volume guns. Frank was the match piece Self pulled out again and again, when the game was on the line. He had a career long ball season.

Most humans would think 47% on 174 attempts was a season’s worth of accomplishment.

But not Frank.

Frank also shot 79% of 278 FTAs. Perspective? OAD Josh Jackson had the next most FTAs at 173. It was an insane number of free throws! KU should name one of the charity stripes on Naismith Court the Frank Mason Memorial Free Throw Line!

Frank made treys and FTs were practically a full offense for some lesser programs.

Let’s see…what else?

After Doke went out, Frank was the third leading rebounder on the team…from the point!!! I have gone off many times stacking superlatives about his rebounding. He is the greatest rebounding college point guard I have seen in 55 years of college basketball I can remember. Pound for pound he is exceeded only by Bill Bridges and Wilt Chamberlain at KU and they could not dribble drive and shoot the Trey as he did. Hell, Wilt and Bill would have loved Frank!!!

And he protected.

And he guarded.

And he helped.

And he never backed down.

And he achieved the longest stays in the Psi zone of any KU player I can recall.

And he had the memorable photo of him standing up to that big lug in the tourney.

Question answered!

Rock Chalk, Frank Mason!

My dad, who died six years ago, and who was a great judge of who would make it and who wouldn’t, said Paul was going to be a great NBA player the moment he saw him at KU.

Dad ranked KU PLAYERS this way.

1 Chamberlain.

2 Manning and Lovellette.

3 Pierce and White.

He put Pierce there after only one season at KU.

Pierce was probably the most unique appearing player and possessed the oddest Combo of talents outside Charles Barkley.

Paul looked slow, but was incredibly fast and efficient.

Paul looked soft, but was incredibly strong and physical, when needed.

Paul looked lumbering but could out quick everyone.

He didn’t look like a very good dribbler, but he could get everywhere he wanted faster than the best defenders.

His shooting form wasn’t pretty, but he was a fine shot.

He appeared taciturn and moody sometimes, but he was relentlessly reliable and fiercely competitive.

My dad always said Paul was the kind of great player you had to play through every trip for him to make his teammates better, where as Jordan was the kind you wanted to weave in and let him take over in bursts. He said Roy wasted Pierce trying to fit him in like Smith fit Jordan in. He said they were different kinds of players. He said Pierce was like Oscar, or Wilt. He had MUA every trip and could play 3/4 speed and still dominate. Jordan was more of a thoroughbred that had to play hard to dominate. Smith and Phil Jackson were right to weave Jordan into offenses and let him take over games in bursts. He said Pierce was wasted that way. He wasn’t as brilliant as Jordan in bursts, and his ability to wear down and overpower opponents was squandered in short bursts. Pierce needed to be the hub every trip to maximize his advantage and let him pass out to his teammates as the moment dictated.

The Celts finally understood Pierce. Once they found the right guys for him, he got them rings.

He was an all-time great.

Self prepares for life without Preston, same as he did with the Big Red Dog aka Clifford “Mom Reputedly Got Some Hep” Alexander. This amounts to deep frying a donut in the big fryer with the donut hole in the backup fryer. You would like them both to be ready to eat about the same time, but they don’t have to finish at exactly the same time, and the donut can be tasty without the donut hole, or just that much better with it.

But life is theme with variations.

The variations here seems to be that Preston will actually sit from the start instead of playing limited minutes a la the Big Bowser. As the late Tom Petty sang, “The waiting is [and will be] the hardest part.” Bang the box in heaven, Tom.

The commitment to sitting Preston makes one thing unmistakable. Whatever the issue is that looms with him and his Mattel Mobile, it appears much more cut and dried than it appeared with Alexander. With Alexander, Self and KU were apparently dealing with something involving mom, and that made the infraction involve “awareness” on the part of KU and Self and arguably even Alexander himself. Playing Alexander without “awareness” was NOT an infraction, at least if plausible deniability could be maintained. But the inference with Preston appears to be that what ever the potential transgression, it was apparently something flat inadmissible going in, and something Preston apparently would have had personal awareness of, and likely certain key officials in KU basketball would have had personal awareness of, or should have had. Plausible deniability can be a female canis familiaris.

Preston apparently isn’t playing, because playing with knowledge of the transgression would lead straight to Forfeit City. I’m not breaking ground here. Others have made similar inferences recently. I’m just clarifying for prologue. To wit, that he sits, instead of plays, appears to suggest KU basketball officials see enough of a black box that fecal matter could have happened inside that they are not going to the mat for the young man and playing him anyway. At the very least, it appears NOT a vote of confidence.

There endeth the prologue.

This post is really a rumination about who we are.

We knew who we were with Preston. We were a go-deep, match-up-any-way-they-want, flex 3-2/4-1 kind of a team with April expectations. We thought we had near Dump Truck-grade depth in perimeter athleticism and shooting. Plus inside, we thought we had Mr. Relaxed Fit in XXXL (Azuibuke) and Mr. Slim Fit in XXL (Billy Preston) both backed up with youth tall (Lightfoot) and Archteryx small (Svi and Garrett) pack-lite back ups. The suit case seemed all Briggs and Riley durable for a long adventure travel trip to the Final Four, especially, when Cunliffe and De Souza came Amazon-enabled at mid season to fill the remaining empty spaces in the Eagle Creek packing cubes. (Note: I’m practicing here for a future when each of us gets fees for product placement references in posts. If KU and Self can sell themselves, why shouldn’t we? Are you listening, @approxinfinity. Contracting with advertisers to receive a few cents or dollars every time a board rat mentions a product brand in a positive way is the zeitgeist way to get compensated for all your hard work here.).

But fecal matter has already happened.

Champagne wishes and caviar dreams were then.

So: who are we now, if Preston proves an Anti-MacArthur and fails to return?

We are improvised wishes and survival schemes.

We are 4-1.

Even with DeSouza.

At most, IF DeSouza shows, he will buy us two, five-minute stretches for Azuibuke to take on oxygen. No non OAD guy is coming into the asymmetric whistle ritual that is the March Carney and turning into an impact player for six NCAA games as a starting 4 to enable Self to wear his Iba mask and win one for Hank in the 3-2. Not. Going. To. Hap.

But, 'bate, that’s who we aren’t. We want to know who we are. We have to know. We gots to know. If we’ve learned nothing else from the Earl of Edmond, all these fabulous years, its a team’s got to know who they are.

Read my key strokes:

We are 4-1.

Let me distill it to Dr. Zeuss.

We are 4-1 if they are tall.

We are 4-1 if they are small.

We are 4-1 in a house.

We are 4-1 with a mouse.

We are 4-1 with a spoon.

We are 4-1 on the moon.

We are 4-1 in a caboose.

We are 4-1 with Calipari’s Mousse.

We are 4-1 with a hat.

We are 4-1 with Coach K the rat.

We are 4-1 against a schizo.

We are 4-1 against Ratso Izzo.

We are 4-1 against Jews and Goys.

We are 4-1 against Roy Williams’ boys.

We like crimson eggs and ham.

We like 4-1, Phog I am.

Ahem.

This 4-1 dog can hunt once it gets Cunliffe. Cunliffe gives Self a deep rotation of runts at the 4. He will be able to rotate Svi, Garrett and Cunliffe; that’s enough fouls to give that runts can keep coming and we can keep playing small at the 4, even when the opponents go big. It will mean switching in and out of man and junk zone to keep the Blue Meanies from knowing exactly what spots to stand on on offense, and who to screen, and back down, but Self has become Mr. Flexible the last few seasons. This is a defensive challenge and he likes those.

At the 5, it gets sticky being who we are, even if Azuibuke were miraculously to stay healthy and play 30mpg every time he laced’em up. Yes, Lightfoot can spell him for breathers. Yes, Lightfoot will get better when Self gives him the Marine Corp Captain to the Marine Corp Lieutentant line: “Son, I am counting on you. I’m not going to bullshit you, Lieutenant. We are counting on you to take that pocket no matter how you have to do it, and we know its going to be tough. This entire operation is depending on you doing your job. You don’t have to be a hero, Lightfoot, but you do have to have to sneeze lightening and shit thunder. We are not sure at present if there will be any replacements. You may have to do this with your bare hands and your KaBar but it has to be done. Failure is not an option. I don’t care what size they are. You kill and clean me some Dukies, or don’t come back alive.”

These are the kinds of things that will have to be said (and done) in some D1 translation suitable for politically correct standards of today. If you people think Grayson Allen is bad guy, you’re going to have to get a grip, when Self has to resort to Mitch Lightfoot to close an NCAA game out. But it can be done.

But here is where DeSouza comes in (as everyone has long since gathered, right?). Lightfoot is only enough to survive and advance with a right tail probability. Ten fouls just aren’t enough for Self to retain the flexibility of attacking, or shortening games, as the moment dictates. Add DeSouza, with pretty much the same exhortations given Lightfoot, and Self is in the magic 15 fouls-to-give territory at the 5 that can let Self do either. And De Souza at least would allow short stretches of faking a 3-2, when the other team plays two bigs, while Self and staff hatch yet another tactical scheme with the 4-1 to outflank opponent with size.

The above has been the long of it.

The short of it?

Self, the Basketball Gandalf, can with a bit of misdirection, a pinch of magic dust, and an occasional charge on his own Shadowfax of Devonte Graham, conjure the pieces of his Basketball Middle Earth into a winning conquest of Sauron, but he needs to add Cunliffe and DeSouza bad to pull it off.

Rock Chalk!

I love this game!

I love this game with all my heart!!!

It is the greatest game ever invented!!!

HighEliteMajor said:

@jaybate-1-0 It appears you are excited about the big WVU win … I think you set a record for threads started in a 24 hr period. Go get ‘em.

I didn’t think I could still get this fired up!

But, shoot, these guys slogged The Canal and then went to the Tenaru and fought it out hand to hand for all the marbles on the sandbar and WON!!!

They don’t make up stuff this good in movies.

Two soon to be hall of famers going at it.

I bet Self introduces the sunnuvagun!

An absolute blocking machine in that WVU post man.

A kid stepping out of high school and INTO HARM’S WAY in D1.

Malik playing with a brain bang.

Doke overcoming a home job that is now as American as apple pie and finding the courage in himself to recover and be the hub of our victory down the stretch.

LaCobra playing on seemingly magically rejuvenated legs the last two games and just gluing and giving everyone one everything they need on this team.

Mitch jumping like a gazelle and making a key offensive play down the stretch against guys that could break him in two and knock him off any spot.

Devonte’s grandma probably driving from somewhere in Virginia, where the Father of our Country lead desperate men through a seemingly unwindable war, and his grandma getting even more fiery than Self.

Self wearing one of Bob’s wind breakers to show solidarity and respect to one of his elders and a guy born just a year before me.

The Potomac and Monongahela Rivers winding around through the country where Revolutionary and Civil Wars raged.

Holly Rowe, usually utterly a FairPlay for Kansas broadcaster and a damn cancer survivor looking healthy fighting through her loyalty to her alma mater of WVU to be just and professional and kind to both teams.

A 13 title run on the line early on the Front Nine and 14 in the mist across the river on the Back Nine.

This is soooo sweet I can’t tell ya, HEM.

If you bounce it, they will come.

Oh, they will most certainly come, HEM.

What’s going on in my beloved Washington, D.C., the seat of the country I love even more than basketball, HEM, its worn me down, and I am about as resilient and optimistic about this country as anyone could be. I am pretty sure I have figured out most of what is going on and it isn’t pretty, but its not my place to tell Americans what is going on, or what to think, or believe about it all, but, man, HEM, I really needed this weekend of basketball to recharge me.

P.S.: Thanks for occasionally giving this old coot and poke and a stroke and a little encouragement. What goes around comes around.

Rock Chalk!

I for one would like to dedicate this amazing win by KU over Duke and the referees to all the fine teams in the past that have appeared to have been victimized by Duke and the referees in tournaments past.

This win was for Wisconsin and Bo Ryan, for Butler and Brad Stevens, and others, too.

It was a win for all the fans of the greatest game ever invented that still hold out hope for a day in the future, when teams will no longer appear to have to play Duke and the refs in the tournament.

Rock Chalk!

Self vs. Self:

He had this season with the flipping Marines coming to talk to the team.

This has been the hardest year ever for me to keep up with him–to figure out what the heck he has been trying to do. This is the most complex, sophisticated job of coaching he’s ever done at KU.

He won me over when he decided to make this team learn and run as much offense as a veteran team. Clifford has suffered the most because of this choice, but The Big Red Dog is finally starting not to look like a second semester Ph.d. student paralyzed with information overload. He is going to be a load when his brain throws off the circuit breaker and resumes firing normally.

Self won me over hitting the sign vs. OU. I wanted him to hit that sign. I liked every hit. No man can coach on this complicated a level without getting deeply frustrated. He has had find more interim fixes and wait for more late blooms, and see more early blooms die, and has had to make do with more guys that weren’t anywhere near ready than any other two years combined. This years incomers make Wiggins and Embiid last season seem like ten year NBA veterans about game savvy.

But god do I love this team NOW!!!

To start with, Trent Johnson owes Self some amour for Self keeping it close and not turning up the bunson burner on Johnson’s TCU job at a tie of year when lop sided losses get a coach at a low echelon program sacrificed. Trent’s got just enough talent in Shepherd and Washburn, and just enough bodies around, that all it takes is couple big losses and a cost shifting AD to let some up and comer that can bring in two perimeter scorers in next season to go with Shepherd and Washburn, and Trent is bound for a non power conference pronto.

Self long benched both halves to have a full energy budget for KSU and in the process made sure it wasn’t a blow out. He gave Devonte a bunch of practice work handling the ball and creating shots. He continued the “Where’s Clifford?” show. He experimented with Oubre at the two and Brannen at the 3, which I really liked and Brannen responded with 6 boards. Are you listening Wayne? Trey fingers on both wings. Oubre snagging 4 and BG snagging 6. Self about ready to shout, “Show me the rebounds, Wayne?” And Self gave Wayne some drives, which were hairy to watch from a wince index perspective. And Self even tried the weirdest variation off the weave yet, when he went deep into his Bud Wilkinson box of football memories and had the wings run a…drum roll please, a freaking cross buck that has been run in football since the single wing days, after which the PG, can recall if it was Mason, or Devonte, runs right off the hip of the cross buck, penetrates and makes a play. He may even have kicked out. Hell, Self even experimented with making Perry laugh out loud with joy at a couple straight dunks. What they hay!!! Self even played his flipping manager. For a minute there, I thought I saw CBernie and ShayZing unzipping some warm ups.

And Self owes Trent zip, because Johnson’s guys were still putting KU’s guys on the wood down the stretch. And Self just looked the other way at the bush league stuff. Fine he seemed to say, my guys need more toughening, and if I ever need to beat you into the next century, Trent, I will. Until then, I will just use you and you poorly coached bigs as practice game fodder.

Professional curtesy in coaching is a complex thing. Coaches have a code. Don’t cost a guy his job if you don’t have to. But never give a guy an even break. EVER. This is not tiddly winks.

If Trent Johnson could get some guys that could shoot, he could build a decent team, like Bruce Weber could , if Bruce could ever recruit as many as he inherited anywhere. Trent is not an idiot. Neither is Bruce. And Trent’s guys did wind up +4 on the glass, mostly because Self long benched both halves and worked on “stuff.”

But Trent couldn’t recruit enough at Stanford, and he really couldn’t coach up the guys he did recruit. Like Weber riding Self’s talent and prior coaching at Illinois, Trent rode Mike Montgomery’s talent and coaching at Stanford. Both places got both coaches their only distinguished stretches of W&L statements. Then boom! Both brought in a few recruits, but not quite enough, and then both didn’t really coach’em up.

Ya have to do both.

And its apparently getting tougher to do both.

With the talent stacking at the major Big Shoe repository programs, it leaves fewer difference makers that can filter out to the coaches trying to start new programs, even the cheaters apparently, which Trent and Bruce do not seem to be, to their credits.

Trying to turn a program around without a difference maker is VERY tough.

And if you land a difference maker, like Shepherd, or Washburn, and then you can’t coach’em up, well, life is very tenuous.

Like I said, all it takes is one hot young coach out their with two perimeter scorers on the line, and such perimeter guys are not so rare, as Fred Holberg has shown, in his short stint as the Mayor of Ames, and boom! Good by Trent. Hello new guy with the two scorers to go with Shepherd and Washburn. And after the new guys says a few gratuitous nice things about being able to build on the foundation Trent started, it is Trent who?

And Trent is back in Reno…if he is lucky.

The life of a D1 coach is insanely tenuous.

Self has dedicated his life to coaching also. Its been a lot better to him than it has to Trent, or Bruce. 82% W&L. 10 titles. One ring. But he only has 3 OAD/TADs this year, only one non OAD/TAD commit in Bragg, and he is having to really gut it out and rewrite the way you play winning basketball, among fans throwing tantrums about how he is too inflexible and stubborn, and even though he’s in first place and likely to get the incredible 11th title, he could be .500 next season if the OAD/TADs jump, no OAD/TADs sign, and one of his returning guys blows an ACL.

You can’t coach up what you don’t have.

Self has got to get some OAD/TADs signed. He needs three more just to stay even. But that’s just to keep walking the tight rope another season. He needs 7=10 to say yes in April. to seriously contend with the Big Shoe-Agency stacks.

He is an amazing human being.

I don’t know how he does it.

I don’t know how how he keeps finding the next invisible door.

But he does, and when he gets them here, compared to the way freshman and sophomores play for these other Big 12 coaches? It is stunning how much better he coaches his guys up through their flaws into being title winners. Just flipping amazing.

And all the while he has time to just toy with Trent Johnson and used that game for a practice game in late February to keep working on “the stuff.”

Amazing, just amazing.

Any other B12 coaching this team would have 5-7 conference losses. Easy.

I still say, that despite all the problems and poor showings, all the unfulfilled expectations, the guy is 22-4 and in first place with a group of guys that can’t score back to basket ever, and can’t rebound about a third of the time. This is a team that is so young and is learning so much so fast that it actually masters things like protecting the ball–3 TOs against Texas on the road–and forgets how they did it by February, because they are learning to do so much other stuff.

Hey, I even have a new hypothesis about what is the real problem with Cliff.

The guy just can’t keep up with how much knew “stuff” Self keeps “stuffing” into the offense and defense game after game. Cliff may not be stupid. He just may not be a rocket scientist and able to keep up with how much keeps coming at him every week.

It is insane, but Self is taking this youngest team he’s ever had, and he is turning it into team with as rich of an offensive variety, maybe THE richest offensive variety, of any team he has ever had.

Self has apparently decided that the hub of his team, Perry Ellis, is REALLY smart in raw IQ; that Frank Mason is really smart; that Lucas is smart, and Selden and Traylor are going to have learn how to be smart, because if this can’t be one of his most talented teams, then it is going to be one of his smartest teams.

I have been trying to tell board rats for quite awhile: the team has been learning to play a new way. They have been learning to play to win by 5 plus or minus 4. Each game is an exercise in trying get a W, while working on trying to learn to play and win this new way.

It is an insane way to play the game, and Self is borderline mad for trying to do it.

But he is doing it and he is forging a new way to play in the OAD/TAD era, and the birthing pains are often ugly but its being born. It was only one point in error in Morgantown. And versus TCU it was a close game all the way, not because TCU was any good, but because this is the way this team is learning to play. Close. Close. Close.

When it isn’t close, Self coaches to keep it close. He works on stuff and tries new combinations until it is close and then he puts his starters back in and says win it. And then he pulls them and tells a different combination to win it.

And Perry, the brain at the center of this team, is slowly learning how to play rough this way. Perry was out mixing it up for the third straight game. This is the most consecutive games of seeing Perry bang around inside that I have seen. He is getting it. And because he is so damned smart he is carrying the team on his back learning the rest of the new stuff. When they falter, he scrambles to make it work.

All of which brings me to Frank Mason. I’ve never read if Frank is bucks up in the class room, or not. But I will tell you what. He is now Phi Flipping Beta Kappa on wood right now. He has up games and down games like everyone, but he “gets” what Self is trying to build and he is building it for him out their on the sacred wood. Frank is going to be a success in life. Frank knows how things fit together. I don’t know if he can make As in class, but if he can’t, its only because he never got the right classroom coaching early and he’s playing catch up there. Frank has the right stuff. And he has the brains. But cut the TOs frank; that was unsightly to have 4 after such a sterling series of games on that count. On the other hand, when you’re coach is still running and R&D program implementing more and more new stuff in February, well, maybe 4 experimenting against a cellar dweller is tolerable. But not Monday night.

I can hear Coach Self already. He winks at Frank, and say, “better tighten’er up on Monday, Frank.”

And the Gunny says, “Done.”

Maybe not Self most talented team, but well on the way to being his smartest.

Rock Chalk!

Losing to a second tier conference team, when KU plays poorly and that team plays its best, happens once each season, or at least every other conference season, if everyone were on their aricept as they should be, and recalling things with even partial clarity.

Losing to KSU on the roads means NOTHING other than the team has to bounce back. It cannot lose its self-confidence, as some board rats are doing, and bounce back. Our players are young, but they are increasingly tough. They will do it.

The more concerning losses to me were Okie State and West Virginia. We lost both places because we couldn’t handle what they threw at us. They threw some really good guard play at us on both sides of the ball.

But think about what KSU did to us. They, too, threw some good guard play at us.

Light bulb over head flashing.

There is one common thread among the recent OSU, WVU and KSU losses that, in fact, extends all the way back to the ISU loss, the Temple loss and the UK loss.

We have been overlooking it, because we have all been focused on lack of standing height, a black hole at the 5, whether to play inside out, or outside in, and–and this is a very crucial and–we have been making an assumption that our perimeter play has been the strength of our team, despite Selden stinking things up regularly, Devonte vascillating between productive and unproductive games, and Frank playing consistently well until the last two games.

It has frankly been an odd assumption to make, and I myself have been making it, so I am not picking on anyone any more than myself. Svi imploded under the early pressure of trying to play on the perimeter. A reputed fine shooter, good passer, and able defender de-patterned before our eyes. First perimeter player gone. Brannen Greene has distracted us all with his trey gun. But, in fact he has very fitfully improved his defense to mediocre, and still has trouble following the most basic instruction of waiting for the ball to reverse before shooting (this is an astonishing deficiency after almost two full seasons, like continuing to take too big of bites after 20 years of parental correction). The great news about Brannen is that he has discovered a rebounding bone (recently) and the team is certainly the better for that, because Wayne Selden, Jr., all 6-4 and 230, or so pounds of broad shouldered muscle that he is, has come to view rebounding as something that is off his post-pop menu. Wayne Selden, Jr., averages only 2.7 rpg and really needs a post devoted entirely to his short comings this season. Wayne Selden, Jr., cannot dribble drive without losing control of the ball about one out of four attempts; this is a significant flaw for a perimeter player on the back side wing, who is often presented with driving opportunities as the ball reverses. To put Wayne Selden, Jr.'s ball handling woes in perspective, Wayne Selden, Jr., is tied for the team lead in turnovers with 57. This turnover number astonishes, because: a.) Wayne Selden, Jr. is tied with the team point guard, Frank Mason III and wings hardly handle the ball in comparison with point guards; Wayne Selden, Jr. averages playing nearly3 mpg less than Frank Mason III, and Wayne Selden, Jr. is completing his second full season of starting. Wayne Selden, Jr. has distinguished himself at times on defense, during certain games when his concentration can be sustained for an average of 30 minutes out of 40 that defense may have to be played. But there have been a number of games, where concentration on defense has been sustained for something significantly less than the defensive portion of the 30 average minutes that he plays. And Wayne Selden, Jr. appears to average 30mpg largely because Brannen Greene’s iffy defense, and Devonte Graham’s slight build and modest height are behind him pressing him only modestly. To Wayne Selden, Jr.'s credit, he has a very Brady-esque assist level of 85 (second on the team), and has overcome a very difficult early trey slump that most excused as adjusting to changed shooting mechanics, and he presently resides at a Brady-esque 40% from trey, playing a Brady-esque number of minutes (when Brady was also not being pressed by an OAD), although with, as noted, an un-Brady-esque team leading number of turnovers. Without putting too fine a point on it, Wayne Selden, Jr. needs to get better at putting the ball on the deck and protecting, and hope and prey that an offseason with Hudy can rekindle some pop, or else study film of Travis Releford’s old man’s game. Presently, Wayne Selden, Jr, is very vulnerable to another Brady-esque experience; that would be finding his minutes falling to 20mpg next season, while playing behind an OAD. And this of course leaves us Devonte Graham and Kelly Oubre to contemplate without assumptions. Devonte, we have all been rightfully grateful for simply because freshman playing even backup rotation minutes at either 1, or 2, have been rare as chicken dentures under Self and we had a SERIOUS need for him to play, since Conner Frankamp ditched this team for home cooking and reputedly perhaps a little home brew. Devonte averages 16.5 mpg, shoots 44% FG and 39% treys, makes 70% of FTAs, and. Devonte, playing half the minutes Wayne Selden, Jr., plays, has about as many assists and fewer turnovers per minute than Wayne. Where Devonte costs us most relative to Wayne Selden, Jr., is that he rebounds about half as much as Wayne per minute played, and Wayne, as noted, is not doing an imitation of Bill Bridges, who was at about Wayne Selden, Jr.'s height and weight, and with two bad knees, compared to Wayne’s one bad knee, one of the great rebounders both in KU history, and in NBA history. But I digress. There is a remaining stark contrast between Devonte and Wayne Selden, Jr., that needs to be made manifest. Devonte makes 48% of his 2ptas, whereas Wayne Selden, Jr., makes only 35%; that is an enormous difference. The point here is that Devonte is who should play, when Self wants to score inside the trey stripe, hold TOs down by a couple less per game, can get by with one or two less caroms, and the other team has a slender, not too tall two guard to defend, and Wayne is who should play when Self wants to score outside, doesn’t care about a couple more TOs per game, needs one extra rebound per game, and the opponent has a long and strong 2. Self actually has a hard choice between these two. Both are adequate but both have costs. Wayne costs you TOs and is a free mason inside where Self wants to play the short trey game so often. Devonte can’t really handle the long and strong 2s that are increasingly prevalent with the muscle ball coached teams. Plus Devonte has to spell Frank 5-10 mpg. And last but not least in this stroll past perimeter assumptions, we have OAD Kelly Oubre–he of the 7 foot wing span, who is supposed to be a junk yard dog disrupting on defense and a high scorer on offense. Well, Kelly averages a merchandise protecting 20mpg, while scorching the nets at, um, 44% FG, 39% from trey. and 68% FTs. Kelly’s FG% is behind Perry’s, Frank’s, Cliff’s (yes, you read right), Brannon’s, Devonte’s, Jamari’s, and Hunter’s (what few times Hunter has not been frozen stiff in his cryogenic bench chair). This is quite an extraordinary number of non OADs to be ahead of an OAD on a team that is NOT stacked with any likely first round draft choices on the perimeter OTHER THAN Kelly, is it not? Ah, but our one freshman OAD starting has a 7 foot wing span and so he must necessarily be leading the team in rebounding and strips, right? I mean this team is known for having short bigs that are height independent, frankly, shall we say, carom challenged. And sure enough, Kelly is averaging nearly 5 rpg, which puts him, uh, behind Perry, and, uh, Cliff (you read that right). Still, he is a strapping 1.5 rpg above Jamari Traylor and Landen Lucas, but that says more about the abject shortcomings in carom-snagging of Jamari and Landen, than it does something shining about Kelly’s rebounding. But wait! There is the category of steals that Kelly must be an avaricious bird of prey at–must be distinguishing himself at. Kelly has 29 steals!!! Why, that is ten less than Frank’s 39 and only 3 more than Perry’s 26. And get this! It is only 6 more than Jamari Traylor’s 23 steals.But there is more to being an OAD that will go pro in a few months than being average or below in all the above stats. An OAD going pro needs to be a prolific scorer, too, right? Well, Kelly hardly lets us down there either. He is scoring a whopping, um, uh, well, he is scoring, @Lulufulu, please get a grip here, Kelly Oubre, our ace in the hole, our perimeter OAD, our difference maker, our go get a basket man, Kelly is averaging…drum roll please…8.6 ppg.

Now do folks see why Coach Self has decided to go inside, ooh, say, whenever opposing teams decide to take away our perimeter trey balling with some decent guards? Take away our trey balling, and well, our perimeter doesn’t look quite so sterling, even though we fans have been counting it as our strength for most of the season.

It seems that not so long ago, Coach Self looked at the statistics that I have been looking at just now, instead of looking solely at our perimeter players rather gaudy three point shooting numbers, and noticed that there were a lot of holes in the outside game TOO! And if this team focused solely on three point shooting before long it would be facing defenses that were forcing it out to, oh, say, Naismith Drive, or maybe even 23rd Street, to take our shiny treys, and since trey percentage diminishes substantially with each additional two feet farther out the shot was taken, Coach Self revealed a touch of the poet and called the three point shooting phenomenon a kind of fool’s gold.

Let me put some words in Coach Self’s mouth here that Coach Self was probably too wise to articulate until after the season. Yes, we have some good trey ball shooters. But presently, our perimeter guys are as much Swiss Cheese, as our big men are. And if both our outside Swiss Cheese, and our inside Swiss Cheese, don’t learn to play some ball generally, we will be running ball screens and come backs and fade curls just to get 35 foot jump shots. And Coach Self apparently asked someone to run the numbers on the likely trey percentage with everyone on the other team laughing their asses off at the KU guys running action out on Naismith Drive for open look treys, and said, “Well, then our three point shooting is fool’s gold.”

Coach Self also apparently noticed that despite all the bad mouthing, and all the ridicule, and all the scorn, the only guy on this entire team with respectable D1 numbers were Perry and Frank and over time moving Perry all over the floor has kept him productive in a way that other teams not been able to rein in as much as they have been able to rein in even Frank.

Now, @REHawk, I think we all owe you an apology, because you have kind of been Perry Ellis’ godfather here, and you have had to listen to a ration of fecal matter from all of us, regarding Perry’s shortcomings, of which, as with all players, there are some, but as the season wears on, and the bottom line of statistics keeps getting bolder, Perry is, at the very least, the leper with the most fingers on this team.

The team has played inside out for a stretch. The team has played outside in for a stretch. Now it is back to inside out for a stretch. This seems, for better or worse, determined by which part of KU’s game the opponents get it in their minds that they can most constructively take away from KU.

Overall, Perry’s 48% FG, 40% Trey, and 70% FT numbers, plus his 14 ppg are approached only by Frank, and whereas Frank is trending down a bit from the wear and tear and greater minutes, Perry appears to just be hitting his stride.

And Perry is doing this without a flipping 5 registering on the radar screen for the last month.

If Cliff (“If Cliff” should be his new nickname) could just turn a corner here, even a very wide radius one that just got him back into the next parallel universe to this one, instead of being unstuck in the chronosimplstic infindibulum of College Basketball Universe 9, we could get on with the business of making something special out of this season. But I am digressing into the black hole of the five that has so preoccupied us all, and Self too, probably, this season, when what I hoped to do was explore the unexplored perimeter.

So let me get back to it.

The limitations of our perimeter limbed at length above trigger an unfortunate cascading dynamic, when combined with our black hole at the 5.

When our guards cannot hold serve, that is, when they are equaled or exceeded in talent by the opponent, that starts a default down into our black hole at the 5, and that is a no win for KU, which in turn leads to requiring our perimeter guys to drive to iron to try to get some short treys, which cascades into our perimeter guys losing their shooting legs, which cascades to three terminal conditions.

1. Our perimeter guys lose their shooting legs for treys and treys start clanking, which means we lose our ace in the hole–the timely cluster of threes that build leads, or close them.

2. Our perimeter guys turn the ball over more and the opponent converts those to more points that shorten the shelf lives of our leads and make it much, much harder to come back from even a small deficit.

3. Our perimeter guys cease to be able to guard hard enough to get stops and force turnovers and a Self Defense that cannot stop a run, and get more possessions for a Self offense is a prescription for disaster.

This all tracks back to black hole at the five, which emboldens smart coaches with good guards to figure KU cannot beat them inside if they cheat outside, and KU’s perimeter players have such faulty floor games, that if you just push them back far enough from the trey stripe, either they are going to miss the treys, or wear themselves out and mistake themselves out going inside that this is the recipe for beating KU.

And it is.

This post is not about solving the problem.

This post is about clearly delineating it.

We have a few days to kick the solutions around before Texas.

There are always solutions to clearly, accurately defined problems.

Sometimes the solutions may not make things better, but often they do.

Yeeeee hawwwwwww.

I love this game.

@Lulufulu

Myitkyina.

The team will put you on its back and carry you there, if it has to, or you can march it on your own two feet, but we are going there one way or another.

I said it was going to get tougher and tougher.

It is not as bad as it is going to get.

You might as well get ready for that.

These guys are being offered the kind of obstacles that turn teams into legends, after a season.

Frank Mason on sore knees is faster and tougher than other teams’ grade A healthy point guards. He is lightening fast! With 5 days rest and everything on the line he will be unstoppable. Same for Kelly. Wayne is breaking through the knee fear barrier. BG’s foot will heal and he will be blazing treys. Everything depends on Perry and I have not one doubt that a Kansan will produce when needed.

We are going the hard way, but we ARE going.

Self’s major decisions on strategy have been vindicated. They overcame the inevitable Trey shooting slump, the injuries and suspensions to deliver us through adversity to the eleventh straight B12 title and the 2 seed it ensured. The Trey slump is coming to an end at the perfect moment.

Myitkyina is now near, not far.

We are coming in under cover.

One foot in front of the other.

Think of sitting on the patio May 1st with a cold beer and a national champion t-shirt.

Think of 10 years from now when your grand kids ask, “Grandpa, tell us again about the season the Marauders won it all when no one believed they could.”

Think about saying, “I was there beginning to end. I saw it with my own eyes. They were the most heroic team I ever saw.”

One foot in front of the other.

@DinarHawk

Isn’t that the case with any team in Madness?

Shooting slump equals quick out.

Everyone needs to stop holding Self and KU to different standards than other elite coaches and programs. Self hasn’t even had his first Cal trip to lose in the first round of the NIT! And this team has lost way more to injury and suspension and started with less talent than that UK team started with.

Coach K has had a bunch of early exits.

Fred Dread, the Mayor of Ames has never won a title or a ring! He is just plain potential nothing else.

Pitino has been up and down. Rick, as good as he is, with 4 footers is a 4 seed!

Roy, recruiting the whole country, is a 4 seed.

Is Donovan even in the tournament?

Ratso Izzo is a 7 seed!!

Self and Bo Ryan are the only non OAD/TAD stacks with an apparent prayer of beating the apparent OAD/TAD Nike lean stacks.

Face it. He is a genius and better than the rest, except for Coach K. And if he were to stay around as long as Coach K, he would probably exceed his win total, for the same reason Coach K and Knight exceeded Dean’s total wins. They coached in eras with longer seasons for similarly long numbers of season. And Dean exceeded Rupp for the same reason. And Rupp exceeded Allen for the same reason. If there were a way to index total wins for games played I suspect Allen would be the winningest coach all time still, though Rupp might be neck and neck.

Cal?

He would definitely be .500 with this KU roster.

Cal apparently knows his limitations and unknowingly plays ringers at Memphis and anomalous talent stacks at UK to compensate.

Fred?

Fred has already copied Bad Ball, while KU fans are still trying to argue why it won’t work!

Some have suggested surprise at our early outs the last two seasons. I did not feel much surprise at an early out, when Embiid quit playing, and Naadir Tharpe was our point guard. I also did not feel surprise at this year’s early out, when Landen Lucas was our starting 5, Perry Ellis was injured going into the game and got punked during the game, and Frank Mason, much as I have grown to love him, was headed to Towson State before coming to KU.

But let’s focus on this season as a microcosm of the problems facing Self and KU for many seasons.

And lets try to get past the surprise of some, and let’s get to the probable cause of the problems some found surprising.

If Self had the weakest front court this season out of his eleven years, and it appears reasonable to say that he did, and if an OAD 4/5 in the weak front court not only struggled to perform even adequately as a substitute the entire season, and he did, and also then has to be removed from suiting up for the team the last month to remain in NCAA compliance regarding eligibility issues, then why would one NOT expect for this team to have had more troubles than any prior team in the Self era, especially when it apparently played as tough, or tougher, of a schedule than any other team in the Self era?

It appears to me that board rats are letting the mind-stings of “inconsistencies” and an early exit obscure the trigger the team’s problems.

The trigger from which a problem plagued season cascaded, does not appear to me to be either how Coach Self schemed and coached the roster he had, or what his players injured and not, suspended and not, did with the schemes he provided them, but rather the roster of players he had to work with.

It was the players, or put more accurately the players he did not have.

This lack of players hardly exonerates Coach Self on its face, for he is, after all, responsible for the players that he attracts to the roster, and those he in effect drives away from it.

But what Coach Self is not entirely responsible for is the players that choose to go elsewhere for reasons unrelated to Coach Self and his staff and facilities.

Self and his staff had a reputation of being exceptional at recruiting, when he and his staff were hired at KU some eleven years ago.

During his tenure, he has attracted some very talented rosters of players to KU and rosters of players that included most of the “pieces” needed for successful teams. The team he inherited his first season had some good, but not NBA grade returning players, but then some obvious missing pieces–players not up to replacing the likes of NBA grade players like Kirk Hinrich and Nick Collison. It showed, though Self made the best of it and won a conference title the first season.

But as the years ensued and more and more of Self’s recruits populated the roster, his teams improved to 27 to 30 game winners going deeper and deeper in the Madness despite some early round upsets by mid majors not at all inconsistent with early round upsets of other elite programs, like Duke.

If I recall correctly, somewhere along there KU shifted to adidas, a Petro ShoeCo sponsoring a small minority of AAU teams where elite players play, and from which agents and agent runners apparently informally influence recruits toward certain of those programs (see Rick Pitino’s comments this season). KU shifted from Nike, a competing PetroShoeCo sponsoring the lion’s share of the AAU teams that elite players play for, and which it is reputed that agents and agent runners also informally influence recruits toward programs for.

KU basketball made a windfall of cash for switching from Nike to adidas–for KUAD. And it shortly won a ring in 2008 with a great deal of apparently originally Nike-leaning talent, something that might not have been necessarily consistent with Nike management’s marketing strategy. After all, why would Nike have wanted players it might have hoped to groom as endorsers to win a Ring for an adidas school instead of for a Nike school? And if I have the chronology incorrect, and KU switched to adidas after the 2008 ring team, why would Nike wish for players it hoped one day to endorse the Nike brand, to continue going to KU, when KU became an adidas contracted school? Do you see the problematic nature of the issue either way?

Regardless, winning the 2008 ring was a moment, when it was logical to expect Self would have a windfall in recruiting. A ring finally allowed Self to be considered among the game’s elite coaches by recruits, at least if recruits valued winning rings, and conference titles, and winning 82% of games played.

And, indeed, Self and KU did appear to start to get recruiting “access” to more highly ranked recruits than before. KU appeared increasingly to make the lists of the most highly ranked players. Most KU fans were cheered by this prospect and readied for Self having as many draft choice grade players as schools like UNC,Duke and some other elite programs were then regularly getting.

But, instead, of a recruiting windfall at this moment, Self began to manifest trouble signing 5 star 5s and 5 star point guards, especially OAD grades of either, that he gained access to recruit. It was around this time that Self also began to have to rely as much, or more, on 3-5 year players, and on formerly highly ranked transfers that either did not like the schools they initially signed with (e.g.,Jeff Withey), or backed out of programs imploding because of scandal (e.g., Xavier Henry, Josh Selby). Though Self was obviously open to recruiting and signing the best 5s and the best point guards, he consistently failed to sign them.

Conspicuously, these elite 5s and point guards did not always sign with other elite programs. Sometimes they signed with less storied and then recently less successful programs and coaches than KU and Self.

These failures were always rationalized one way or another, as KU not having enough PT, or as Self not being willing to promise PT, or Self being too demanding of a coach. This of course contradicted the facts that many of these players were going to play for certain elite programs, like Duke, that had every bit as demanding of coaches, and had lots of talent on hand, while others were choosing to play for all manner of coaches–demanding, not demanding, older, younger, more successful, less successful, nearer their homes, farther from their homes, and so on.

These explanations and rationalizations, whether accurate, or not, in a limited sense, appeared to tend to ignore, marginalize, and rather incompletely explain the dynamic, if any, of Petro ShoeCoes and agents and agent runners on the recruiting process, even though books had been written between 1990 and around 2000 documenting, at least partially, a highly problematic influence of both shoe companies and agents on the recruiting process previously, and there having been no apparent reform of that process broadly engaged in in the years since those books had been written.

Self and KU were hardly without recruiting successes in this period, as the number of draft choices Self and KU produced during the period suggests. But these draft choices conspicuously still did not include a steady flow of elite 5s and elite point guards signing originally with Self and KU that were among the most highly prized recruits both by colleges and the NBA.

KU’s front court players that were high draft choices were exclusively 5s like Jeff Withey and Cole Aldrich that had to play for a number of years to develop into players the NBA wanted to draft with high draft choices, and 4s like Thomas Robinson and the Morris twins, that also had to play 3 years before attracting the interest of the NBA.

KU’s point guard position produced no Top 15 draft choices at all, and few first round choices.

KU’s wings produced first Xavier Henry as an OAD high draft choice, but he reputedly had only attended KU as a second choice to the then imploding Memphis, and even then reputedly entertained the notion of decommitting to KU and recommitting to Kentucky (to which former Memphis Coach John Calipari had moved shortly before the Memphis ineligible player scandal) before finally settling on KU. After Henry, KU then attracted Josh Selby apparently avoiding the impending UTenn implosion under Bruce Pearl, but Selby turned pro and failed to be a high draft choice, then failed to make it in the NBA. Next came BenMac, who had to sit out a season, because of high school academic defficiencies. He blossomed and played brilliantly one season and was drafted highly.

On the heels of BenMac, Self had his one great recruiting class of reputed OAD grade players. Andrew Wiggins, a reputed Nike lean in AAU ball, who signed with KU, starred one season for KU, was drafted Number 1 overall by the NBA, and then signed with adidas as a pro. The second reputed OAD was Wayne Selden, Jr. Selden played, but reputedly struggled with injury, his first season. He played wildly inconsistently his second season. It is unclear at this writing whether he will go pro, but it appears he might not. Joel Embiid, who was signed not as an OAD, but as a probable 2, or 3, year project with a very high ceiling, surprised many and played well enough for the NBA to draft him Number 3 after only one season and with an injured back, too.

The thing to keep in mind about Self’s “best post ring recruiting class” is that even it only included two reputed OADs, while other elite programs were signing 5 or more.

This past season Self had another 2-OAD/TAD recruiting class in a year when Calipari added 5 OAD/TAD types to five returning reputed OAD/TAD types for a total of 10. And Coach K at Duke achieved 9 total OAD/TAD players on his roster.

Self and KU are aligned with adidas.

Calipari-UK and Coach K-Duke are aligned with Nike.

Frankly, Self has never been able to amass enough OAD/TAD recruits that played to a draftable level in a single season to be remotely as talented of a program as UK and Duke since Cal moved to UK.

Self has proven that he can, with less talent, and with the pieces fitting well together, and with favorable match-ups in the Madness, go deep in the Madness one in three or one in four years, which is about as good as anyone does without having the elite 5s and elite point guards on his roster year after year.

It is NOT comparing apples with apple to compare Self with Calipari, Coach K, Roy Williams, Sean Miller, Billy Donovan, Rick Barnes (most seasons) and the last two seasons, Bo Ryan, because they have elite 5s and/or elite point guards on their rosters most every season, while Self does not.

Even Joel Embiid was not an elite 5 while at KU. He just had an enormously high ceiling. And even when he improved dramatically, he was injured a third, or quarter of the season to go and Self had no elite 5 to back him up, as, say, Calipari has three to call on in the event of injury to one this season.

It is even hard to compare Self with Tom Izzo, because though Izzo has struggled in recruiting, he has often landed an elite point guard.

Elite 5s and/or elite point guards are pivotal to being a powerful team likely to go deep in the Madness. They don’t guaranty it, but they are the best insurance. There are exceptions, like KU’s own 2008 ring team, where there was neither. But the pieces have to really fit together well, and there has to be a whole lot of talent on such teams to go deep go deep.

Self has to be compared with other coaches that are coaching without Elite 5s and elite point guards. When he is compared in this way, I would argue that he probably stands head and shoulders above all coaches in this class.

My hypothesis here is this: Self’s problem is that he cannot get enough elite 5s and elite point guards to sign with KU consistently (or at all), because KU is an adidas school with adidas related agents and agent runners that do not provide the right linkages to attract elite 5s and elite point guards.

Now, if a board rat thinks Self SHOULD be able to sign elite 5s and elite point guards, and increasingly an OAD/TAD type player two deep at every position, as Kentucky has done, and Duke has nearly done, then Self needs to be fired immediately, because Self has never shown an ability to do this in his eleven seasons.

To conclude, I think the entire debate about schemes and so forth is intellectually stimulating but utterly inconsequential to solving the problem of making KU make deep runs in the Madness on a more regular basis.

Nothing but a steady run of elite 5s and elite point guards will make that happen consistently. Without them, and with 2-3 OAD/TAD types at the 2, 3 and 4 positions, 1 deep run every 3-5 years is the best we can hope for.

The lesson of basketball is that strategy is an adjustment waiting to be necessary.

There is not a coach alive that cannot be made more conservative by a shoe contract.

A long term contract is a technique for making sure a coach will never have to work as hard as he did to earn it.

An OAD is a player with a low foundation and a high ceiling playing 3/4 speed 1/2 the time.

Throwing 9.5" diameter balls 20’9” into 18" diameter holes ten feet in the air for three points still makes more sense than driving a 1.68” diameter golf ball 250 yards into a cross wind with a gob of aluminum at the end of a graphite stick, so help me god.

A basketball coach is someone that dedicates his life to doing what the inventor of the game said one should not do, and wishing after every loss that he had not.

When a person karate chops someone in the temple, he is said to have assaulted someone. When a player karate chops someone in the NCAA Finals he is said to play for Duke.

Naismith invented the game to keep track athletes fit and uninjured before track season. Now track players do not play the sport and half of everyone that does play gets hurt.

Naismith required players to pass the ball and not run with it to minimize injury. Dribbling was added out of some deep resentment of father figures.

Naismith used peach baskets with the bottoms in them and raised ten feet to keep players from guarding the basket. Now we use AAU ball.

If you talk about basketball long enough, you will doubt coaches know what they are doing. If you talk about it too long, you will think you do.

Time outs are where coaches give players new strategies that do not survive the first pass.

Naismith tried to make the game as slow as possible, and those that have followed have speeded it up to the point that if anyone slows it down they are said to be wrecking the game Naismith invented.

When you play an opponent, you play the game of basketball. When you play Duke, you play the referees.

Raymond Carver would have understood the temptation KU fans feel to drink after early exits, and would have made a fine collection of short stories about the pain.

Sending a big thank you to all those covering recruiting for us. I used to not like recruiting gossip, but it seems like @statmachine and @truehawk93 and @konkyDong and @JayHawkFanToo and @Crinsonorblue22 and @wrwlumpy and several others that my cell phone is preventing me from naming have combined to find a new way of covering recruiting that makes it all interesting, connective and more investigative!!!

Sleuth on!

Thanks!

Double over time!

Everyone contributed!

Nic Moore is officially a Jayhawk for life.

Thank you Lawrence Brown!!!

Julian Debose is a Jayhawk for life!

Thank you Joe Do!!!

Every player did something wonderful, despite the fatigue of so many games in a row.

Roll call: list them all!!!

Coach Self backslid for awhile and ran the chop. It almost sunk us, but then he loosened up and the boys won it for him!!!

D1 adopt international rules now!!!

One of the great wins in THE LEGACY!

@drgnslayr

Because we are America. How come we had to fight revolutionary war? It comes with the turf of leading, rather than following!

Regarding Nic, I would give everything to have him play for KU.

He is the RussRob of runts.

He is a helluva basketball player.

His character is what allowed this team to transform from Self’s team into the players USA team. HE IS AN AMAZING GUY. I am on his team wherever he goes.

Nic Moore even rubbed off on Frank.

Nic will be the next great coach of the LB tree.