Dear Bill: Can We Chat?
by Warden11 on Dec 21, 2011 10:53 AM CST
in Kansas Jayhawk Basketball 2011-12
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PrintDear Bill,
Let me begin by saying you're clearly a genius and I'm not. You've ran one of the top programs in college basketball for almost a decade now. You've got seven Big 12 Championships in the last seven years. You're one of the few coaches in the nation that cannot be upgraded, wouldn't trade you for anyone. But can we talk about the season so far? You said the team would struggle with depth. We knew that was going to be an issue. You said that defense would have to be the key. We're also with you on that one. Ten games into the season and you've already beaten one of the best teams in the nation and went toe to toe with another. We're not complaining one bit, enjoying the ride.
What happened the other night against Davidson wasn't fun though.
"I’d like to see a lot of things," Self said of improvement for Thursday. "To see us actually attempt to guard, to get in (defensive) stance, to win 70 percent of the 50/50 balls, to not give up layups, to have enough discipline to guard the entire clock and not break down. For us to not play tired, to have more energy and passion, to run our stuff and try to execute what we do instead of being out there on our own."
Sounds like you agree. Good, we're on the same page so far. The part I'm curious about, why won't you use your bench to address the things listed here? Almost everything you listed for improvement is a sign of guys playing fatigued. Not going after loose balls? Tired. Defensive breakdowns? Tired. Not playing tired? Tired. I'm sure you're aware of this but do you realize your top 6 average more minutes per game than the rest of the conference? It's true.
It's not a massive difference and it's probably not the best way to gauge who uses their bench. However, your top 6 are playing more minutes per night than everyone else. Of those six, four are playing over 30 minutes a night. One of those four just had some minor knee surgery and came back to play 33 minutes a week later. The same guy has had an offensive rating of 92 or below the last three games.
Against Davidson, I'm sure you're aware that they turned the ball over twelve times in the first half and zero times in the second half. I'm sure you agree that is unacceptable and reflects poorly on the defense. We don't know but I'm guessing that Taylor playing on a repaired knee for 33 minutes didn't help the defensive intensity. I'm guessing that Conner Teahan playing 17 minutes in the second half didn't help on the defensive end. Actually, the bench playing only a combined 10 minutes or so in the second half probably didn't help at all.
What I'm asking is let some of the newer guys go, let them get in and get after it here and there. Jeff Withey played his way onto the bench in the first half of the game and only logged around 12 minutes. That's not a problem by itself but you're giving up any rebounding advantage by replacing him with Teahan. The offense also becomes pretty limited with Teahan and Releford sharing the 4. Remember Kevin Young? He looked great against Ohio State at the 4 and was solid in the first half against Davidson but only got to play about 3 minutes in the second half. There's also a young guy that can help spell Tyshawn at the point. He has struggled at times and him falling down while dribbling was a little embarrassing but he has some skills. A few minutes here and there isn't going to ruin a game and might help keep Taylor a little fresh.
As I was looking through some stuff for this chat with you, I went back to an old post I'd written about something called "depth ratio". It's a made up stat by a guy that used to write for a Michigan State blog but it compares how much your top two guys play to the 8th and 9th guys. As you can imagine, your ratio is pretty high this year. 4.06, over your time at Kansas that's the 3rd highest. 2008-09 was higher, coming in at 4.46. Remember how gassed that team looked towards the end of the year? We're heading down that road again here. Using that year as a comparison, I also wanted to see how they stacked up in the simple plus/minus to this year's team.
Pretty comparable for the top seven but nothing is coming from the 8th and 9th men this year. Not a thing. The chart for this year doesn't even include Tharpe because he's been so inconsequential in regards to playing time. Kevin Young is the sixth guy down on this year's team, that's while averaging 9 minutes a game or less than half of Teahan.
Let it loose a little bit. Give Young a chance to help. Give your guards a quick breather here and there by using Young at the 3 or Tharpe at the point for a couple of minutes. I know you don't like the idea of using young guys unless you have to but I'm telling you right now, you have to.
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Would like to see more use of the bench as well.
A couple of thoughts from me:
Tharpe – In discussing only the Davidson game, I’m not very surprised that he didn’t play that much. When Tharpe did get a couple minutes the other night, he looked like a high school player. It was so easy to tell he was a freshman with a lazy pass he made and a mishandle of the ball leading to a turnover. Just not that surprised he didn’t play again.
Withey – During the game, I was wondering why he wasn’t playing more and then I started looking around at the guys that Davidson had on the floor. I felt that Withey did not match up well with the Davidson lineup and I’m wondering if that’s why he didn’t play as much in the 2nd half.
Kevin Young – I, too, would like to see more of Young and also Justin Wesley.
by I need more Esteban on Dec 21, 2011 11:31 AM CST reply actions
Tharpe also gave up a layup on an inbounds pass.
His man was throwing it in and he just floated in between pressuring the ball and covering the lane, not a good approach. Guy cut down the middle for an easy basket.
Glad I came, just wish I hadn't stayed so long.
Rock Chalk Talk
See I'm torn on this issue
One side of me completely agrees we need to use the bench more to spell our guys and get the bench/role players ready to contribute more later in the season.
The other side of me sees guys like Tharpe, Young etc. enter the game and make some big mistakes (especially on defense) and prompts me to say “put them back on the bench.”
I know we will need these guys later in the season, especially in the heart of league play. However, we need to win games. I can’t make up my mind as to what a good middle ground is either.
Ideally, Young, Wesley etc would step up, play consistently and solve the problem for us. It just hasn’t happened yet, and I’m starting to wonder if it is going to happen at all…
Shit happens when you win championships
When I see things like this though, it's hard for me to think the bench is going to do much worse.
Releford and Teahan just take the wing guys and give up a wide open layup. EJ could have gotten in front to stop the ball instead of going to behind to try and knock it loose.
Or this one:
That one’s intercepted by the defender who read it before Taylor even released the ball.
I’m cherry picking these obviously but they’re still mistakes that can be made by the other guys. I’m afraid of a Mario Little situation developing, a guy with talent that really struggles to find his role because of inconsistent playing time.
Glad I came, just wish I hadn't stayed so long.
Rock Chalk Talk
Fair enough
I can’t argue with something backed by visual evidence
Shit happens when you win championships
by Andrew Clark on Dec 21, 2011 12:13 PM CST up reply actions
Haha. I just see enough mistakes out of the guys getting minutes that I'm not too worried about a dropoff when going to the bench here and there.
Especially when I think Young has a lot more potential than Teahan. And I’m afraid of Taylor getting Sherron’d.
Glad I came, just wish I hadn't stayed so long.
Rock Chalk Talk
Can someone explain to me what this means
“young guy that can help spell Tyshawn at the point”
“use the bench more to spell our guys”
I ran into this word used this way for the first time last week and since then I’ve seen it pop up 4-5 times. What exactly does spell mean outside of stringing letters together to form a word.
Write or name the letters that form (a word) in correct sequence.
Allow (someone) to rest briefly by taking their place in some activity: “I needed her to spell me for a while at the wheel”.
Glad I came, just wish I hadn't stayed so long.
Rock Chalk Talk
Should have just google'd apparently
I figured it was some sort of slang. Thanks.
In case you really want to know
spell (v.2)
“work in place of (another),” O.E. spelian “to take the place of,” related to gespelia “substitute,” of uncertain origin.
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=spell
Kila's slash for Apr 20 to May 4, 2011, right before he was sent down: .276 / .344 / .448
by SagehenMacGyver47 on Dec 21, 2011 6:38 PM CST up reply actions
I just thought the etymology was interesting (Old English)
adding that it’s not some sort of new term or usage.
Kila's slash for Apr 20 to May 4, 2011, right before he was sent down: .276 / .344 / .448
by SagehenMacGyver47 on Dec 22, 2011 1:16 AM CST up reply actions
please please
please find a way to get this in front of Bill’s eyes. i know the bench guys make mistakes and we need to win games, but when he complains about depth and then refuses to use the bench we have, something is wrong.
by downtowneddiebrown on Dec 21, 2011 12:23 PM CST reply actions
I wish we had better depth, but I'm not sure I want our bench guys playing
I assume when you say that the bench guys couldn’t be worse than the starters, you’re mainly being facetious. All of our starters make mental mistakes too frequently, but they’re all significantly better basketball players than anyone on the bench right now.
Would you take a loss to LBSU if it meant getting Tharpe more minutes? What about to Ohio State? How much lower team performance are you willing to accept in order to get more bench play? Even though Tyshawn looked absolutely exhausted out there in the second half, he was still having more success fighting through screens than most of the bench players (this is, oddly, a strength of Teahan’s — he almost seems better keeping up with a player who’s running though screens than one he just has to chase).
I really wish Kevin Young would have played better last night so he could have played more, but given that he didn’t play better, I’m not really sure I wanted him playing more. I do hope the bench players get to play against NDSU or in any other blowouts, but they’re so inconsistent that I’m not really sure it’s helping the team in the long run to play bench guys more in tight games. Are we really going to learn how to win by throwing away some wins in the cause of giving some minutes to the bench?
My question is how much of a chance of a win are we really throwing away?
If we think about it in terms of possessions, giving Taylor four minutes more rest throughout the game could help him in the end. Four minutes and we’re talking about ~15 possessions total, that’s about seven for each team. I highly doubt that Tharpe or Young will cost us a chance at victory in those possessions. That’s doubly true when Taylor’s turning it over on ~30% of the possessions he uses. Replacing Taylor for a full game and there’s a huge difference, for a few minutes here and there and I’m not convinced that we’re throwing away a chance to win games.
Glad I came, just wish I hadn't stayed so long.
Rock Chalk Talk
I'd be curious to know what Tharpe or Young's +/- per possession is against opponents in the top 150
That would give a better sense of how much of a shift we’d expect with them in.
Also, isn’t Tyshawn’s OEff rating much higher than Tharpe’s despite the high % of possessions ending in turnovers?
Taylor's offensive rating the last three games have been at 92 and below.
Been an inefficient shooter and the turnovers are catching up. I get that he’s been hurt but that’s not a reason to keep him on the court. Young’s O-Rating has been very high leading up to the Davidson game, though it’s a limited sample. Either way, I do not understand how he hasn’t been able to get 20 minutes per game. Penhawk was on it early and I’m definitely sold now.
As far as the +/-, I put very little faith in that because it’s so context dependent. Anyhow, Tharpe was +2 against Davidson. Young was +1. Statsheet has game +/- and the +/- on player pages, here’s the game chart. Though without lining up the numbers with solid video, I will argue that it’s very hard to take any meaning out of those numbers. (Also just to be clear, that’s not what I call plus/minus in the post).
Glad I came, just wish I hadn't stayed so long.
Rock Chalk Talk
What was the plus/minus in the post?
I thought it was the standard plus/minus but just assigned by number of minutes in each game rather than to a consistent player.
What I call plus/minus here is just taken from the box score.
+1 for points, rebounds, steals, assists, and blocks. -1 for FGA, missed free throws, TO’s and fouls. I use it as a quick and easy way to see who is doing what on the court.
Glad I came, just wish I hadn't stayed so long.
Rock Chalk Talk
speaking of which, are you going to post those for future games?
Have they been posted and I am just somehow missing them?
Kila's slash for Apr 20 to May 4, 2011, right before he was sent down: .276 / .344 / .448
by SagehenMacGyver47 on Dec 21, 2011 6:40 PM CST up reply actions
They haven't been posted.
At times it seems redundant with fetch’s game recaps but I’ll keep track, so they’ll show up sometimes.
Glad I came, just wish I hadn't stayed so long.
Rock Chalk Talk
See this is my big hesitation too
Shit happens when you win championships
by Andrew Clark on Dec 21, 2011 2:59 PM CST up reply actions
I can't speak for others, but I place much less value on the non-con games compared to
conference and beyond. MUCH less.
Would you take a loss to LBSU if it meant getting Tharpe more minutes? What about to Ohio State?Yes and yes, assuming when you say a “loss” you mean “bigger chance of losing” – of course I’m not willing to trade a sure win for a sure loss just so that Tharpe can play 10 minutes.
But what does the LBSU game really mean in a down season? I’d rather have the starters fresher and the backups more competent by conference play, even if if means putting a couple W’s in jeopardy.
This all hinges, though, on the idea that more PT makes the bench players better (or at least gives Bill (and us) a clearer picture of how well the can play). I think it does, especially for the younger guys, even if it’s just to expose their flaws and prove to them just how much they have to learn.
Kila's slash for Apr 20 to May 4, 2011, right before he was sent down: .276 / .344 / .448
by SagehenMacGyver47 on Dec 21, 2011 6:51 PM CST up reply actions
Great point and great post...
It’s been Bill’s dirty little decret for years. He will not play you unless he trusts you. Remember him starting Stephen Vinson over Mario Chalmers? And it only gets worse in league play.
I will always point to last year @ Colorado with Selby. He was playing his best game of the year, but we had just lost to Texas, so he knew we didn’t have much ground to give in the league race….with the game on the line, Selby got benched. Right then and there, I knew he was lost for the season. If we couldn’t trust him in a mid-season game against Colorado, we were never going to trust him.
Everything you said about Bill is true and there is not a single coach I would rather have at Kansas. But this is one of his flaws, and it’s one I think has cost us before and will cost us again.
Stephen Vinson won us the Cal game in 2005
But…. yeah I see your point
Shit happens when you win championships
by Andrew Clark on Dec 21, 2011 3:00 PM CST up reply actions
To a degree that's true...
And I believe you already know exactly what I think…but sometimes it’s better to lose to Cal in December if it means getting other guys more run. The Vinson/Chalmers example is extreme and as we all know, didn’t last long because of the monumental gap in talent. But that’s not always the case and it’s especially not this year re: Teahan/Young, etc…
It’s debatable whether or not my point is even correct. Bill always says that his first goal every year is to win the conference. And with that as the goal, he’s certainly doing the right thing in only playing those he trusts. But for us spoiled fans that often overlook the Big 12, I’d much rather we take a loss or two more per year in the name of preparing for a much larger goal.
by hiphopopotamus on Dec 21, 2011 3:58 PM CST up reply actions
My counter is this:
The tournament is such a crapshoot, I don’t know if those one or two losses make a difference. In the end, I think the whole “this made us more prepared for the tournament” thing is B.S. I’ve seen too many good KU teams lose early (2010) and average KU teams make runs (2003, 2009).
I think given the nature of the tournament, the whole “oh we need to play these guys early” or “we should schedule these types of teams” isn’t significant. I just have a hard time believing something in December impacts play in March.
Then again, all the early exits in the big dance have made me bitter, so take what I say with a grain of salt (you already knew that).
Shit happens when you win championships
by Andrew Clark on Dec 21, 2011 4:16 PM CST up reply actions
I meant the 2003-2004 team
Self’s first season, we were a 5 seed that made the Eilte 8 and were an OT from the final 4
Shit happens when you win championships
by Andrew Clark on Dec 21, 2011 4:35 PM CST up reply actions
Actually - More on this team in my post tomorrow!
#ZOMG
Shit happens when you win championships
by Andrew Clark on Dec 21, 2011 4:35 PM CST up reply actions
ahhh yes
if I use one year to say a team I usually refer to the year that March was so that’s why I was confused…agreed with that
by I need more Esteban on Dec 21, 2011 7:34 PM CST up reply actions
I'm not suggesting you need losses...
I agree that’s a ridiculous argument.
I’m saying that getting guys more experience at the risk of a couple more losses is a trade I’ll make every day.
by hiphopopotamus on Dec 22, 2011 8:55 AM CST up reply actions
And getting Young in the game more often will make the team better in March.
Heck, I think it clearly makes the team better today.
Glad I came, just wish I hadn't stayed so long.
Rock Chalk Talk
Also illustrates something I said all offseason
People kept saying “KU has no depth! No bench!”
To which I replied, “does it matter?”
Obviously it does, but all too often we’ve seen Self only use 7-8 guys, and that was with some of his deepest teams.
Shit happens when you win championships
by Andrew Clark on Dec 21, 2011 3:01 PM CST up reply actions
How much you use your bench
needs to be concerned with who’s on the floor as well as who’s on the bench.
Some players are the type who benefit from frequent, short breaks to regain focus. Others may may need longer ‘breathers’ but less often. It should be obvious that a starter gets no help at all when he is sent back in at the next whistle.
When a sub is jerked back out immediately at the first mistake, the coach (and the sub) will never learn if that player can handle a mistake and settle down to play better. If that happens too often, he sure as hell won’t get better at handling it.
RRROOOOCK CHAAAALLLK! JAAAAYYYHAAAAWWWK! KAAAAYYY UUuuuUU!
Gotta ask though
Can we play the fatigue card when the team had 9 days off between this game and the last? Rust would seem more likely. I can see it being a future issue no doubt, especially in the conference grind of 18 games. This game though… we just came out super flat.
I think the old “playing to the level of competition” might be another issue to tackle. For example, I’d love to see the defensive stats/hustle stuff for games like this compared to ranked teams, rivals, etc…
Shit happens when you win championships
Thought about that myself, wouldn't think it'd be a factor but we don't know.
But the things Self mentioned scream fatigue to me. And this post isn’t necessarily about that game, though I do wonder if it played a role in the 2nd half. One thing I think happens is that when a guy knows he isn’t coming out of the game, he always keeps something in reserve to make sure he has enough for two minutes later.
Glad I came, just wish I hadn't stayed so long.
Rock Chalk Talk
I was thinking
moving Tharpe to the 2 spot while giving TT or EJ a break. Just move the other to the point. In regrads to the Chalmers example when he first arrived he was trying to play the point as well and it was not until he moved to the 2 guard did he flourish. Less responsibility for ball handling and play calling. I know they were only exhibition games but Tharpe did shoot the ball pretty well. As far as Young he can’t come into the game and immediately get beat off the dribble the first time his guy touches the ball. At least foul the guy so it does not appear that way.
Have we seen Tharpe and Taylor on the floor together?
I’m not sure, if we have it hasn’t been often. But Taylor has shared point-like responsibilities in the past with Sherron and played some two, so having both out there could be similar.
But I think Tharpe might benefit playing off the ball a bit this year and moving to the point next year when Taylor graduates. Or, perhaps Self knows he is his future point guard, and wants Elijah permanently playing more of the two spot.
Still, got to consider next year too. Will it be Tharpe at point and Elijah at the two? Or would Elijah take over the point guard role? I’d guess the former…
Shit happens when you win championships
by Andrew Clark on Dec 21, 2011 9:49 PM CST up reply actions
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