Is Self ahead of the curve this time?
- Thread starter JC43
- Start date
Cal is going to get criticized by the BBN 10x more than Self ever will be.
No matter how many kids commit crimes in Kansas, they will never be held accountable or impact the team.
I do recall Josh Jackson getting suspended for threatening to be a woman player. But Self said no way he misses the NCAA tournament.
No matter how many kids commit crimes in Kansas, they will never be held accountable or impact the team.
I do recall Josh Jackson getting suspended for threatening to be a woman player. But Self said no way he misses the NCAA tournament.
People would be going nuts. Here is what we've done under Cal:
1 Championship (1 seed)
3 Final Fours (4, 8 and 1 seeds)
2 Elite Eight (1 and 2 seeds)
1 First weekend exit (4 seed)
Under Cal, UK has performed to their seed or better 5 out of 7 years and under performed in 2 years. Pretty damn good.
OK, for sake of argument, I will include that. Cal has performed to UK's seed or higher in 5 of the 8 years and under performed in 3 years. Kansas has still performed to or above their seed 2 times over the last 9 years and under performed to their seed 7 times.
Not sure that makes Self look any better.
No question Cal has performed better in the tournament especially relative to expectations than Self. However, the expectations are somewhat controlled by the coaches' regular season and offseason performance, which also has relevance here.
09-10 - KU 1 seed, UK 1 seed
10-11 - KU 1 seed, UK 4 seed
11-12 - KU 2 seed, UK 1 seed
12-13 - KU 1 seed, UK NIT
13-14 - KU 2 seed, UK 8 seed
14-15 - KU 2 seed, UK 1 seed
15-16 - KU 1 seed, UK 4 seed
16-17 - KU 1 seed, UK 2 seed
So, in essence, if you're going to give Cal extra credit for exceeding expectations, then you have to give Self some credit for creating his high expectations in the first place.
- Self's teams have had a better NCAA seed 5 of 8 years, Calipari has had a better seed 2 of 8 years.
- Calipari has won 26 NCAA games over that span and Self has won 19.
- Self has won 226 regular season games (including conference tournament) and Calipari has won 223.
- Self has won 8 conference titles, Calipari has won 4.
Did you seriously just ask for self to get credit for building a high expectations team that fails?
Self is a very good regular season coach...zero debate on that. Personally, I'd rather have a coach who has more postseason success. Even if you take away any expectations based on regular season success or seeding.
Aside from Embiid, what other big injuries did Kansas have to deal with, potentially derailing them in the tournament?
Because Kentucky losing Noel in their NIT year was one of the most detrimental injuries over the last decade (Hummel and Irving are up there), and then lost Willie and Alex in seasons that we probably win the title with them..
Because Kentucky losing Noel in their NIT year was one of the most detrimental injuries over the last decade (Hummel and Irving are up there), and then lost Willie and Alex in seasons that we probably win the title with them..
I'm sure most Kansas fans would swap your recent run of postseason success as well. The question that will be answered over the next 10-15 years is whether there's a definite skill to winning in the postseason that results in Cal consistently going further than Self in the tournament or whether, in retrospect, we were looking at rather small sample sizes that evened out over time. The 2 theories on Self's relative underperformance are that he can't beat a mid-major and that he can't win in the elite 8. I completely disregard the elite 8 theory. Everybody but one team loses somewhere along the line and carefully scrutinizing them one by one can yield some interesting statistical anomalies, but I doubt very seriously whether basketball is a lot different in the elite 8 than the sweet 16. The Mid-Major theory might hold some water in that Self has obviously proven to be a superior coach against major level talent, but mid-majors offer a diversity of styles and an unknown quantity that may limit his edge. I don't think at this point that teams usually overlook anyone (maybe we did VCU), but 40 minutes isn't that long to buck the odds.
As to Calipari, he has averaged 3.3 NCAAT wins per season since he arrived at UK. That is historically great, which could either mean he's the best NCAAT coach of all-time or could mean he's likely to regress to the mean. Certainly having a talent edge is a good predictor of success, but it seems an unlikely to continue at this rate. Dean Smith had runs of 8 years at this level, but overall averaged 3.1 wins per year which is the best since 1980 (can't really compare before the tournament expanded). Roy at UNC is averaging 3.0 wins per year. Self has averaged 2.4 at KU.
You really need to research a little. So far I have seen you Wiggins wasn't considering UK many considered him a lock to UK til the shoe company won out. Seen you say we were recruiting 2 JC players. We were after mark Smith hs player from Illinois and are after cam Johnson division one graduate transfer. That self has a national title since Cal has been here. self beat Cal when Cal was at Memphis. That Garret was better than SGA. SGA is ranked top 20 by scout and 31 by rivals and most expected rivals to move SGA too but they inexplicably didn't. Baker may be on par with your guy but he isn't a pg. As for having more talent and we don't have one and done talent. Our roster isn't set. We are still highly likely to get Bamba and Diallo come bsck. That puts 3 lottery picks and another first rounder projected at 16 in Richards just in the fresh class. Gabriel has the ability to be a first rounder next year as well. So I am just not seeing a better roster for Kansas
Omg. You really just said this? And Kansas fans wonder why people laugh at them hysterically.
Your overrated seeds are due to beating up on an overrated league. The big12 is weak, and really it doesn't matter anyway. A Kansas fan wanting credit for beating up the big12 and wants it compared tournament runs is PRICELESS
"Kentucky got that final four but, we beat Oklahoma state twice in December."
Laughing
Laughing
So by your logic Wiggins get negated because KU has a contract with a less popular shoe company yet the recruits Cal obtained via WWW are legitimate? Also you get to take the most optimistic possible outcome with regards to your roster even though both Bamba and Diallo are less than 50% odds. Ok.
I'm still so amazed that Kansas fans are showing up.. after a season that was supposedly theirs, with the POY, a #1 seed, and a pretty easy region to work with.. and at the end of the day all they have to show for it is an Elite8, exactly what Kentucky got.. a team that had to earn those last 2 wins in a ridiculous draw..
To come in a Kentucky forum.. in April..![[laughing]](http://l.yimg.com/j/assets/img/emoticons/classic/laugh.r191677.gif "Laughing [laughing]")
To come in a Kentucky forum.. in April..
I just googled "Xavier Henry dad" and in the first article I clicked on:
"I don't like stepping on people's toes," Carl says, "but I just know what I know. I watch them play, all the Kansas kids. I like all these kids, (Sherron) Collins, (Tyshawn Taylor), they're good kids, man. But they're not better than C.J." ...
"Everybody's gotta be on board," Carl says. "The coach has got to be on board."
Yah doesn't sound like that would cause any issues with teammates at all. Wasn't Collins and Taylor like 2nd team AA's and yet some scrub who was only there because he was a package deal with big bro is supposed to be better?? That's some good comedy that I'm sure Self just ignored the whole time right?
Is this well known to the rest of CBB that the Big XII is weak? Any statistical evidence to support that claim? I assume you watch Kentucky games in the regular season, right? Do you enjoy watching games more when they win or when they lose? Did you enjoy watching KU celebrate on your home court or did you say, "good, I'm glad that happened, now they'll try harder in the tournament." I get that the popularity of the NCAAT has effectively reduced most fans' seasons to 3 weeks, but to entirely dismiss the regular season seems...stupid.
I don't come here to beat my chest I come here to talk about CBB. I thought some of your arguments were weak, therefore I mentioned those points.
Bwhaha no I was correcting the Kansas guy who said Wiggins wasnt considering UK. Wasn't giving a crap one way or the other about reason. You guys are not recruiting on the level we are so I was pointing out how many mistakes Baby made. Um ok what you call is the most optimistic outcome I call most likely. We are and have been the favorites for Bamba been around recruiting this time of year enough to know smoke screens build anticipation and gives a recruit and a school a lot of attention. Already have Bambas good friend and AAU pg so it will be a surprise if Bamba goes elsewhere. Diallo is doing exactly what he said he was hasn't signed with an agent really strong draft most likely returns.
So ok? Our worst case scenario is 2 five star caliber guards in the back court. A SF who is projected lottery and looks like he is fully recovered from an injury that knocked him out of being a top 2 or 3 player in the country. A soph five star pf. Who showed flashes of stardom last year and started 23 games. Backed up what many consider a player who could easily play his way into the draft as he is a good rebounding athletic pick and pop forward who hit the 3 at almost 40 percent in HS probably only 2 inches of height keeping him out of the lottery. then at the 5 7ft five star 250 lb center who showed a surprising ability to guard on the wing and had the best standing vertical of all the bigs at the hoop summit.
Not really seeing a better roster from Kansas even if we get no one else and let's be real that's not going to happen. Most likely get Johnson a double figure scorer from the acc at the worst case scenario. Now our best case scenario is Knox Bamba and Diallo comes back. Then our second best is Bamba Diallo and Johnson then either or a combo of Diallo and Bamba or Bamba and Johnson.
I do think Self is using the high number of transfers as an opportunity to diversify his recruiting options. In essence, he gets to pick players who are at least a year older with a much better indication of their talent then he gets to coach them for an extra year and they hit the ground running. Downsides: you're at the mercy of whoever decides to transfer, there's a chance they're chronic malcontents, there's a chance the really good ones go pro (see H. Diallo) before they produce anything for you.
The results have been mixed on transfers with more on the stopgap side than star side, however Jeff Withey, Tarik Black, and Kevin Young were all serious players. Malik Newman will be by far the highest regarded player to transfer to KU (or anywhere) so this is a test case. Sam Cunliffe at semester then the Lawson bros. and Charlie Moore in 2018. Obviously you don't get a 4-year player this way, but a good 4-year player is a rare thing these days, although Perry Ellis and Frank Mason have been recent examples.
I doubt this becomes the norm because I don't think most kids want to sit out a year, but I think as you're filling out a roster it would be better to grab a proven transfer than take a 3-star that has a very low likelihood of contributing significantly.
What I see is a combination of one of the weakest returning groups and weaker recruiting classes that UK has had during the Calipari era. I'm not seeing a difference-maker on this roster at the level that Cal has had in the past.
For Kansas, I think they will take a small step back this year, but the roster is deep and fairly experienced again.
Time will tell... it's great that another blueblood is testing the waters (so to speak), there are certainly multiple ways to field a championship caliber team. I hope Self has success, because Cal (with the UK machine behind him) can get any recruit he wants.
There is some evidence that the Big 12 does a good job of gaming the RPI, which is the foundation for how the selection committee seeds the tournament.
It's really a simple, non-debatable fact that the Big 12 as a whole has under-performed according to seeding far more than any other major conference this decade. It's not something exclusive to Kansas, it's something that's been true for the conference as a whole. If the same thing keeps happening year after year, don't you have to begin to suspect that something is wrong with how the Big 12 is being evaluated during the regular season?
The Big 12 has received 30 top 5 seeds this decade, yet they've only had 16 teams make the Sweet 16. That's only one more than the SEC, which has generally been considered at the tail end of the power conferences for this entire decade.
Perhaps they're all so good... they fly through the pre-conference season... but wear each other down during the conference season. I honestly don't know... but they do tend bloom early.
What I see is a an opinion of a rival fan with no basis in fact and an apparent inability to be unbiased. What UK got was perfect. We got very skilled guys Vanderbilt has pg handles and the only reason he wasn't a top 2 or 3 guy is the fact the top 10 is eat up with bigs and when he was hurt he wasn't shooting the ball well. Well according to most he has fixed his shot he is going to surprise alot of people bout as true of a point forward as I have seen as he really is a playmaker. Team USA was plus 15 on the court when he was on the floor at the hoop summit. If you can't understand what I am saying then consider that he is ranked around 15 but is 10th in mock drafts. Will stuff the stat sheet he has the ability to fill in at the 2 3 and 4 and produce at a high level.
Will tell you right now SKJ may not get to show it if we sign Bamba but he is more skilled by alot then Azabuike was coming out and just like azabuike was young almost a year younger than most recruits we're. Google uks blue white game at the begik of the season and look at it unbiasedly. Will tell you right now in the fall and scrimmages I actually thought he was more offensively skilled than Bam by alot. He had a very nice mid range shot is long and athletic virtually no reason other than he wasn't ready mentally last year.Gabriel is capable of blowing up he has the ability and showed flashes of being able to take over a game. Simply confidence with him. He has lottery ability. See and to show you how being unbiased works. I think Preston was very underated and he has top 5 ability as well going to say of the good forwards in the class that I would take Vanderbilt and Preston over Porter and Knox. Plus college basketball will be down as well.
No what self is doing is going after the same caliber of recruit we are doing missing and taking his best option. Was all in on young at PG Duval at PG. Ayton at center got Preston. So basically all your doing is acting like your coach is better than he is by missing on his primary target. It's ok we feel you we know what it's like it was our world with Tubby
Kentucky owns Kansas little man. You're our little step brother.
Only Kansas fans won't shut up about the regular season because it's all you have. You've got 1 more title than Florida and San Francisco. I get it, you're the greatest underachieving program in college basketball history and you've gotta hang your hat on something. But enough. The big12 is weak, it has no real championship threats, rarely sees a final four, and Kansas is able to dominate it. It's the only think Kansas DOES dominate.
You're pathetic.
So the 10 schools have gotten together and tried to guess how they can appear better than they actually are? That's silly. Your RPI improves by playing (and beating) good teams and not playing horrible teams. There's no gaming around beating good teams, just winning games. I suppose you could swap out your games that are consistently ranked in the 300s for some in the 100s, but those are now harder games. Pretty silly line of thought. Your argument that UK has won more in the NCAAT holds water, but then when you expand to say "oh, and the regular season results aren't actually accurate" it loses some power of fact. When the teams within the Big XII conference have beaten more of the teams in other competing conferences they're going to get a better seed, what else would you expect the committee to do?
I agree.
It's all becoming a crap shoot with this instant gratification generation.
KU will be good again, we'll be good again, but, it all comes down to six games in March/April.
Preston is clearly a 4. We got our top target there. Ayton is a 5. Would love to have had him though Azubuike should be a similar player as a sophomore.
No coach since Wooden has recruited at Cal's level. Self is probably 3rd behind Cal and K for overall recruiting. Not sure where Tubby was ranked, but I don't think it was that high.
Regarding transfers just being 2nd option behind high schoolers, that's possible, but it's also possible if more and higher quality players are transferring that you can actually get more proven players through this route than you would out of high school. UK fans should know that some 5-stars are stars and some are duds. With a transfer, you have a better understanding of what you're getting and you have a year to coach them. I'm not saying it's a better way, but it may be an effective way.
What a stupid comment and why certain computer rankings are a joke. A team UK's or Kansas' (not the same) caliber shouldn't and doesn't have to worry about beating a top 100 team anymore than a top 300. There is literally zero difference in the outcome of those games.
Clever scheduling can put a team in the top 25 when they don't deserve it.
Then be clever and schedule those games. So now Kansas' success can be reduced to clever scheduling that is somehow fooling everyone but you guys.
Let's not have amnesia. We sucked that year even when Noel was playing. That being said, we probably make the tournament had he not gotten hurt, but we weren't getting out of the first weekend.
I would say no, but when the transfers you get are misguided 5-star players like Malik Newman and Dedric Lawson, you're doing it right. Those guys would've been guaranteed OAD's at UK.
In a year where UK can't keep Isaiah Briscoe, Isaac Humphries or Hamidou Diallo, Kansas lands 2 players with experience and who will be in their 3rd and 4th year respectively when they start at KU.
In a year where UK can't keep Isaiah Briscoe, Isaac Humphries or Hamidou Diallo, Kansas lands 2 players with experience and who will be in their 3rd and 4th year respectively when they start at KU.
You clearly don't understand how the RPI works.
Here
And here
Kansas has certainly appeared to be a beneficiary of this. They got a 2 seed in 2014 and 15, despite having 9 and 8 losses those years. Both those teams then lost in the 2nd round. Other examples would be the 11 loss Iowa State team that got a 4 seed in 2016, and the near sweep of the 3 seeds on 2015 with 8, 9, and 10 loss teams (2 of which proceeded to lose in the 1st round).
In 2014, they played 11 ranked teams and featured a win over Duke in the Champions Classic and a stretch where they played 6 out of 7 ranked teams (they went 6-1). I think 2 of those losses came without Embiid who would've returned the next round making them a complicated team to seed.
In 2015, they played 15 ranked teams including a stretch of 5 out of 6 ranked teams where they went 5-1. Rankings are not RPI, they're determined by people with brains who watch a lot of college basketball. From the eye test, I'll be the first to say that I really didn't think this KU team was that good, but they still beat a lot of good teams.
13-14 was 11 ranked teams, but 8 of them in the conference. OOC, that Kansas team went 9-4, with one really solid win over Duke in early November. Kansas got a 2 seed that year based almost entirely on RPI and what it did in the Big 12- a conference that ended up getting 2 teams into the Sweet 16, and none further than that.
14-15, 12 of the ranked teams Kansas played were in the Big 12. OOC, they were 11-2, with 2 good wins, one over Mich State and one over Utah. Yet Kansas was seeded ahead of 29-5 Notre Dame, again because of RPI and the perceived strength of the Big 12, and again that did not play out in the tournament. 2 teams in the Sweet 16, none further.
This decade, only 4 teams have received a 2 seed with 8 losses, and only 1 with 9. And the results for those teams have not been very good. The 2 Kansas teams lost in the 2nd round, Duke and UL lost in the 2nd round this year. Only Michigan in 14 played up to its seed, losing in the Elite 8.
All 5 of those teams played in conferences that the RPI rated as exceptionally strong (that's the only way any team is ever going to get a 2 seed with 8 or more losses). Yet in 3 of those years, it didn't really play out. I mentioned what happened with the Big 12 in 14 and 15, but in more detail, the Big 12 in 14 had teams seeded 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 9, 9. They finished the tournament with a record of 6-7. In 15, the seeds were 2, 3, 3, 3, 5, 9, 11. They went 5-7. Last year, the ACC received 1, 2, 2, 3, 5, 5, 8, 9, 11 seeds. Their final record was 11-8, which means 5-8 minus UNC.
The Big Ten in 14 is the exception, and showed well in the tournament.
I think the RPI is a mostly meaningless measure, and I think it has a tendency, for whatever reason, to bloat the Big 12's reputation. No doubt the Big 12 has generally shown well in Nov/Dec, but then the RPI locks into a cycle where, because the Big 12 might have 6-8 top 50 teams, it's almost impossible for any of them to drop much. Same thing happened with the ACC this year. As the dominant team in the Big 12 (to a ludicrous degree), Kansas has been a beneficiary of that phenomenon.
The SEC went through the same cycle in the early to mid 2000's, for whatever reason. Great RPI ratings, lots of high seedings, almost no results in the tournament.
Not sure you can say that with Gabriel and SKJ coming back, the Harrison twins who came back, Briscoe who came back for another year off the top of my head. You can say they would have gotten the exposure, but not the guarantee.
