Not much. I mean, he's a Hall of Fame Coch, sure to win another championship or two, which would place him squarely in college basketball head coaching royalty- not just at present (he's already there, among active coaches), but all time. But, for whatever reason, he's lost a disproportionate number of Tournament games to mid major schools. He's even worse in games on the second day of a Tournament weekend.
The good news, for Jayhawk fans, is that Self seems aware of his weaknesses. His most recent news conference, he looked at a loss for words, but spoke of "48 hours", and his team being "loose" (earlier in the season he had described his team as playing "tight" against lesser competition). But he couldn't come up with a reason as to why this is the case for so many of his teams.
I think the two are connected, and I think it has much to do with his coaching style. I wrote, in my last post, about how KU's guards, in 2011, vis a vis 2008, didn't get to the foul line. After I got off, I looked up the number of 3 pt. FG attempts on each team. What I found, was that while players like Brady Morningstar hit a high percentage of 3 pointers, they didn't really take that many. The '08 group had several players attempt over 100 3's. Brady and Reed were the only such players on this team. The result is that, despite a team that, on paper shot the ball well, especially from 3, the number was misleading, because the sample size was, relatively, small.
Why is this a problem? What does it have to do with Self losing second games? What does it have to do with him losing to mid majors?
I don't think it's the 48 hour turnaround. Self's won, probably, more Big Monday games than anyone in America, usually after a Saturday game. So, I don't think it's routine or preparation or fatigue. I also don't think his teams overlook mid major teams. He still has a .750 win percentage against double digit seed mid majors. So I don't think he overlooks these teams. I have a theory.
Rockhurst High School has 9 state championships in football (including my senior year), to go along with 5 2nd places, and nearly 40 playoff appearances (which, considering 1968 was the first year they had a tournament, is quite impressive). Tony Severino, who has 6 of the Hawklets' titles, used to tell us this about winning: "There are only 3 ways you can beat somebody in a contact sport- you can out-finesse them, you can overpower them, or you can out-athlete them. If you're bigger, you might want to overpower them, but, for various reasons, you may want to out finesse them instead, and vice versa. But any time- any time- you have superior athletic talent, that's where you try to win the game. You let your athletes make plays." He was- and still is- notorious for putting the best athlete at a given position. He wants playmakers. Sometimes this has cost him, but I also can't help but think it has something to do with him winning so many titles. Or, as one of his assistants likes to put it, "When God deals you aces, you play aces and double down."
Let me put this differently. You're a track coach. You've got two sprinters. One who has great form, practices hard, does everything you ask, never makes a mistake, and consistently runs the 100m in 11s. It's like clockwork. The other guy is undisciplined, messes up exchanges, sometimes has great form, and sometimes just completely lacks concentration. Sometimes he's over 11s, but, when he wants to, he can break 10s. If you're in a dual meet, you might run the 11s guy, just because you'll know exactly what you'll get from him. You can plan everything else in your other races and events, because you know what you can expect from Mr. 11s. But, now suppose you're in a relay meet, and you have to win the 4x100m, in order to have a chance of placing at/winning the meet. You have a choice between the two runners as to which will run your anchor leg. It's a no brainer. You run the guy who can break 10s. Maybe he gets a DQ, but that's the risk you'll have to run. This guy is your best chance of winning. There's simply no way of coaching Mr. 11s any faster. It's easier to coach the other guy to not be as erratic.
That, in a nutshell, is Self's problem. When it's KU vs. Texas, the athletic talent is similar, and he's able to out-finesse Rick Barnes. Teams like MU, while he may have the better athletes, he still either out finesses or overpowers. In Big XII play, it was "Get the ball to Marcus/Markieff/Cole/Wayne". As a result, he played guys like Morningstar who he could count on to just not mess up.
Comparing VCU to KU, player by player: Marcus vs. Skeen, Marcus had 20 points, 16 Rebounds (8 offensive), and 1 turnover and 1 dime; Skeen had 26/10/4/2/2. Skeen outscored Marcus by a few points, and Marcus dominated everything else. Markieff vs. Haley, Markieff had 13/12/5/8/0; Haley had 2/1/0/0/0. So, despite Markieff's 8 turnovers, he clearly dominated his mirror. Taylor vs. Rodriguez, Taylor had 14 pts., 3 dimes, and 2 TOs; Rodriguez had 9/4/5. The stats don't lie. KU's top three players owned their VCU mirrors by 10 points. The problem is that the rest of KU's team scored a whopping 14 pts. on 6 dimes, and was outscored by 20. Who cares that they only turned it over 3 times? Selby had 2 points in 15 minutes. EJ had one shot in his 6 mins. (he was fouled; Brady never did get to the line).
If you were playing pickup basketball, who would you pick first out of Brady, Reed, Selby, Little, Travis, T-Rob, and EJ? If Brady and EJ or Selby were playing 21, and you had to put money on one, who would you take?
Why was arguably the best player on the floor for either team only on the floor for 15 mins.? Who knows how many points EJ or Selby could've had in 25+ mins.? As a rule, the more mins. Selby played, the more points he scored- and when he scored, he scored a lot more. He had 9 games where he was in double digits in points (consider, also that he missed 9 games, and played limited minutes in many more). As many minutes as Brady played, and he played in every game, he only had double digit points in 8 games. EJ had 4; he played in all but 2 games, but, like Selby, had limited minutes, compared to Brady. What's important is, unlike Brady, when EJ played 20+ or so minutes, he was much more likely to get double digit point totals. Brady, despite averaging upwards of 30 mins., especially as the season wore on, only had double digits when his 3 pt. game was working. This isn't rocket science. You want to let your athletes win these games. You can't do that if they're riding the bench. You want to create as many mismatches as possible.
Josh Selby may have been a lot of things, but he could create mismatches. Mario Little created mismatches. Same with EJ. They scored the basketball. They can be taught to play defense and not turn it over. Reed and Brady were auxiliary. They were guys you should be looking to when you want to go with a smaller lineup, or when you have a guy in foul trouble, or when you need a shot, and you want to have as many shooters on the floor as possible, or when you want to close out a game and need another ball handler or foul shooter. The were NOT players you would want to call upon to outplay somebody else on a Tournament team. I understand Reed hit a big shot against MU. I also understand that KU had the lead on that play; that Reed was passed the ball and wide open; that he did not create the play he made. When KU needed a play- not just a shot, but a play- against USC, who did they give it to?
Put simply, Self's job is NOT to try and coach up Brady and Reed into being Selby. His job is to recruit and coach Selby. His job is to make Selby fit. You know how you beat a team that you're athletically superior to? You don't try and outfinesse them. You put your athletes in position to win. When you're playing Virginia Commonwealth, you don't need to run 20 seconds off the play clock looking for the perfect shot. You line your players up against theirs and say, "I'm better than you." When you only have 48 hours to prepare for a team, it's not like in the regular season when you know the team you're playing like the back of your hand; you don't, really, even know which team you'll be playing. You have a day or so to make a key adjustment here or there; to put in a play or so. But, more than anything, you let your better ballplayers just go out and play. Self hampers his team by hampering his better players.
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