Article about whether HCBS is to blame

www.foxsports.com/college-basketball/sto...016-villanova-032816

VERY well argued and fair i think. i'll take consistency which in college baskeball ball means no lows and slightly lower highs. i understand how others may prefer something else. but especially with a coach who gives us all the "softer" benefits ( ie entertainment value and strong culture) im happy for us to be in the conversation literally EVERY friggin year. who else does that?! if that means one NC every 20 yrs im in. again realize of course that just one view not shared by all.

I concur on the points of this article. A strong case ( and I mean strong) that Bill Self is the best coach from November through early March over the last 15 years. In fact I don't think you could legitimately defend any other coach than Self. But the cold hard reality is (and as the saying goes, facts are stubborn things) Bill Self has been thoroughly mediocre in the NCAA tourney. The data could even be made (albeit I don't think strongly) that he has been worse than mediocre. But when a coach that boasts a resume' in November through early March that is second to none, can mange only pedestrian results in the NCAA tourney, it bears scrutiny. While I have not tried to parse the details of what is the source of this dichotomy (other than a few posits here and there) the overall stats are beyond random at this point. I hope he gets some input and figures out if there is something that is fixable or correctable and fixes or corrects. A this rate he will go down as a great coach that ceased to be great in March.

certainly take your point corpus but mine is that while self may be mediocre in the tournament RELATIVE to the regular season his tournament performance in ABSOLUTE terms is terrific. he manages to get there virtually every year and most years even earns a high seed regardless of talent level. wld we rather not get to the elite eight in half of those loss years-- surely not. another explanation cld be that he way over achieves in the regular season and performs at the appropriate level in the tournament. statistics aside my eye test is that theres not another set of results from any other program i wld take in toto over ours over the last 13 years.

What it seems like to me is that people would rather KU suck some years and go to the final four every 3-4 years instead. So lose 12-14 games every few seasons, miss the tourney or be a really bad seed that could upset a higher seed and that would mean success to some. More so than being consistently good. Am I missing something here?

Does anyone know how many years Wooden coached UCLA before he won his first title? Well I'll tell you. It was 16 years. So what was he doing those first sixteen years was he a horrible coach? No he wasn't. At least with Self we get consistently awesome regular seasons.

I'll take consistently winning through the season and losing in a maddening tourney any day. I'll take a rock sold coach and person, Bill Self, any day. I've met him face to face and talked with him. He made me feel like I'd known him for twenty years. . I'm getting sick of hearing about how Self needs to do this or that or make this change or that change. Yeah, because all of us here on this board can coach KU to a National Championship.

This article was awesome and I'm thankful you shared it.

you and i seem to share the same bias replay but i can see how others might feel differently on the continuum of consistency vs more extreme fluctuations. we shld probably all admit tho that when some of us use statistics we are using them the way mark twain ( i think it was him) suggested most people use them, like a drunk uses a streetlamp, more for support than for illumination.

You seem to be implying that I am saying things I am not saying, at least that is what I am implying about your post (a little ironic comedy to lighten the mood).

1. I do not want to lose 10-12 games every once in a while. I don't want to lose ever. I don't want to trade any regular season performance for any post season success. I like our regular season record and Bill Self is the best. His regular season record is second to none. Good. It brings great joy to my fanship. I was not implying that I would trade that for anything. I hope that is clear.

2. The straw man about Wooden not winning for 16 years is a nice story but has absolutely nothing to do with the point I was making. And to say that Self is not any worse than the worst part of Wooden is sort of damning with faint praise.

3. You apparently misunderstood my well constructed data by saying that Self's tourney record is good because he consistently gets a high seed. Getting a high seed has absolutely nothing to do with my assessment of Self's mediocrity. Getting to the tourney as a high seed is exactly part of my point of regular season excellence. My analysis is that once in the tourney he does not perform overall on balance more than mediocre as compared to expectations. He is not the only one and I don't completely discount the possibility of random chance (although I come close to doing just that). Assuming the season starts anew with the tourney his record is indeed stellar. No denying that. But as this article points out as well only not nearly as in depth as my analysis, Self's record in the tourney is sub-expectations.

4. You or anyone else can deny the facts, you can misdirect by saying none of us are as smart as Self and therefore have no legitimate validity in our questioning of him. As I very adroitly and expertly laid out, Self's tournament record is, on balance, statistically mediocre as compared to seeding expectations. And given that there are many other coaches who range from very good to very bad, random chance does not seem to be an efficacious answer.

I too have met Self, many times in fact. I too can testify to his charm, wit and incredible social skill. I also agree wholeheartedly that he knows something approaching infinity more than me about coaching basketball. But I also bet I will go toe to toe and come out ahead in statistical evaluation. And my point was a statistical one with at worst some implications about Self's coaching acumen. I am prone to pontificate about his coaching decisions, as are many others here like Senex. I think your point that our pontificating is at best debatable and at worst silly is legitimate. But the key point I am trying to get across is that you did not really address my actual point. You built several straw men and then attacked them. So I just wanted that point to be clear.

Pontificate? What? Are you crazed? What a crass thing to say about me. Horrible. When I share my wisdom, it is NOT pontification, it is profundity. Excuse me, Sir Corpus.

On the other hand, it's clear to anyone who cares to look that Self has a mediocre (and disappointing) history in the NCAAs. And don't think for a second that he doesn't know it.

All the stats notwithstanding, it is simply illogical, to me, for KU to enjoy so much consistent success during the season and flame out too often in the NCAA's.

HawkErrant wrote:

Senex68 wrote: And don't think for a second that he doesn't know it.

Him more than anybody else, and that can't be helping when the NCAAs roll around.

Maybe some hypnotherapy might help? So he approaches the games as he urged the guys to do late in this season -- focus on the pleasure, not the pressure?

I figure it couldn't hurt.

I think that I said that 2 years ago!- lol
All one had to do was watch his body language at the beginning of the game to know what was coming. When the man is chewing on the inside of his cheek at the BEGINNING of a game it's not going to be fun or relaxed and the guys pick up on this.
I used to show horses and coach kids at a fairly high level and they most definitely pick up on your vibe and go accordingly.
Bill IS acutely aware of his record and is beyond nervous over it and no matter how hard he may try and hide it, these guys pick up on it.
Sports psychologist, sure might help Bill. Or maybe someone needs to slip him a xanax or ativan before the game.

FTR, I wouldn't trade him for anything or anyone. He makes 6 months of the year just damned entertaining.

Amen, sister sasnak and Bosco.....Amen!!!

before I got to your punch line.....I was thinking "therapy, no way......give that man a pill!!!"

Better living through chemistry!!!!!

WSG

As much as I'd like to STOP the Rock Choke Jayhawk chant; get to the final four a bit more often.....I am SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO thankful that we don't have escorts "on the payroll" helping us recruit players, Cheddar keeps the kids eligible w/o faking course work. We aren't secretly fretting that the hammer is gonna drop because of our cheating/lying head coach (not ours, but the squid----you cannot tell me some UK alums aren't holding their breath) is on borrowed time awaiting an investigation that will wipe YEARS of "success" off our record and tarnish our storied history......

As my Oregon Duck friend said......Last week was a bad week for "birds." Made me smile.