Self Imposed Victory
Rock, chalk, championship.
I'm not sure if that was the best call ever. I suppose it could have been worse, though.
Congrats to Bill Self, for taking it to the next level. I've always been a fan, so like Roy Williams' Jayhawk sticker, I was rooting for Coach to get it done.
As an Illini fan, watching that game was interesting. It was familiar, in a strange way. The Bill Self offense has evolved a bit. Part of it was that stronger guards that Kansas had (remember, Dee and Deron were only freshmen under Self, and Luther was always drifting on D, doing mystifying things, and jacking up outside shots, essentially being Warren before Warren got there), and the non-dominant bigs (you'll also remember that we had Brian Cook out there in the post). So, less of the high-low. More of an emphasis on the perimeter motion. And anytime that happens, you have the risk of going into a lull, offensively, which is what happened to Kansas for about 8 minutes in the 2nd half.
But some things never change.
Right after timeouts, Kansas was superior to Memphis because they had plays coming out of the huddle that worked well. The same was true for in-bounds plays, where Kansas seemed to be more efficient than Memphis. A couple alley-oops. A couple layups. A press that seemed to surprise Memphis that resulted in the 3 that really gave Kansas something to believe in. The net result is that they steal maybe 4 points off of easy buckets off of dead balls. In a close game, those points are huge. This was something that we got used to at Illinois.
I think that's a part of what I've not liked about the Weber regime. For as much talk about FT shooting that we had about the Illini this year, I didn't hear anyone (other than me) complain about how much we surrendered our in-bounds plays... Really, we had 2 plays that tried to run. 3 if you count the high lob toward halfcourt where we give up any chance of attacking. We had the interior lob to Pruitt, which teams caught on to quickly. And then we would run a high screen that we'd send two guards curling off of. The first guard through would be a decoy, and just run through. The second guard would be Trent, who would jack a 3. Sadly, that was our best in-bounds play all year. The thing is, let's say that you're on offense. With about 22 seconds left on the shot clock, the ball gets knocked out of bounds. If you just surrender the play and lob it back toward half-court, you automatically lose 4 seconds, taking you down to 18. It's easy to guard for 18 seconds. It's even easier when the offense doesn't get into an attacking set for another few seconds. Often, you'd see possessions just evaporate when we'd not attack the in-bounds, and then try to set up a sloppy motion attack with 8 seconds left on the clock. If we had better sets off of the in-bounds, and could have turned just 2 of those into easy layups, we would have been a pretty different team. For us, part of it is teamwork...
...which was the other thing that Kansas did beautifully. Most of the time, people will catch on to the notion of team defense. And that's crucial. Just ask Bobby Knight, who refused to answer some mundane question about what player would be the X factor. He said bluntly. Defense will be the X factor. Playing defense isn't just shutting your guy down. It's understanding that it's a team goal. Your head has to be on a swivel, and you have to be ready to help when your teammates get beat. Kansas did a marvelous job of that against both UNC and Memphis. But where teamwork often get overlooked, particularly away from the ball, is on offense. The slow-motion replay of the weakside alley-oop shows that it's not just a guy that's faster, stronger, and jumps higher than his defender. It shows that it's a teammate (in this case, Brandon Rush - their superstar, NBA prospect) setting a great back pick on 2 guys that opens up the entire play. Again, advantage Kansas.
This is in comparison to watching the Illini set screens (and run off them) like little girls afraid of contact. Part of that is the mentality. It looked like we were coached to slip screens, so as to keep the motion faster. That sort of results in a soft mentality on offense, especially when you're down on the blocks. It also makes you easy to guard, since defenses don't have to foul and don't have to run nearly as far as you do (they're jogging around the perimeter of a smaller circle). Teams that impose their will by setting great screens will wear down the other team. Watch the play against Wisconsin where Randle separated his shoulder. That was a great screen that was set by Wisconsin, where the offensive player punished the defender.
All day, Kansas' bigs set nice screens on the ball out high, which forced Memphis' bigs to come high and play defense, opening up the weakside for cuts. Those alley-oops don't happen on accident. Compare that to watching Pruitt come out high for a pseudo screen that our guard doesn't run off of particularly well, and you see why we didn't open up much on offense.
How you win in basketball is by playing defense, boxing out, sharing the ball on offense, and helping your teammates at all times. Everything else falls in place. This is why a group of 5 guys that aren't particularly great individually can show up to the gym and hold court for 2 hours over a bunch of guys that are better, but have never met their teammates before. Kansas looked like the highly skilled version of the former. The Illini often look like a version of the latter. Who's that on? To some extent, the individuals involved. But also the leader. Can this change? Of course. Sometimes things just get away from you. I think that's what happened after those bad home, non-conference losses this year. But changing the culture of the team is harder, after you've let it slip away.
-Chairman
2 comments:
Hmm, so you give Self credit for what went well but it's not his fault that they were, "going into a lull, offensively, ...for about 8 minutes in the 2nd half."?
Memphis probably should have won last night, and I don't think it was Self's coaching that got KS back in the game.
And likewise, I think that this year's problems for the Illini were very much player based, and less of a reflection on the coach.
Really, the point of this post was that 2 things that Self does well are: a) plays off of dead ball situations, and b) getting teams to do the fundamentals and play together.
Obviously, you don't say that Self gets credit for Chalmers making a spectacular shot off the bounce with time running out. Just like you wouldn't say that he was less of a coach had Chalmers missed. And really, you don't villify a coach if his kids don't make FT's or fail to foul when you're up 3. But you give credit when design/scheme works (e.g., the weakside layups that Kansas got all year, the 3 on 2 attacks that the high motion creates) and when the kids consistently do the little things well (e.g., set screens, help D, box out).
You know as well as anyone that offensive lulls happen in any game, particularly when you miss outside shots, which is what happened to Kansas. You don't fault anyone when your guys miss open shots. And it's not like they stopped looking inside. Memphis' D stepped up - they were playing the ball hard on the perimeter, which makes passing difficult.
Memphis gets a lot of credit for playing some good ball, particularly on defense. Where they ultimately failed, FT shooting aside, was that their offense was still too much of CDR going 1 on 3, which he is awfully good at (though Brandon Rush played some really good D on him). They could have used more of Rose's dribble penetration leading to layups, either for himself or teammates. And Rose took a couple ill-advised outside shots (one of which banked in, dramatically). But Kansas got up 6 or 7 and looked like they were going to run away, but Memphis came answered. They get all sorts of credit for playing well - they just came up a little short when kids who normally shoot FT's better, missed.
However, you give credit for a coach for instilling good fundamentals. And you give a coach for plays out of the dead ball. Set a lousy screen? Come to the bench and hear about it. Do it again? Have a seat for a little while. Don't play D hard? Come to the bench and hear about it. Do it again? Have a seat for a little while. Don't box your guy out? Come to the bench and hear about it. Do it again? Have a seat for a little while.
You didn't see that with the Illini. We certainly did have player issues, but part of that has to be on the coach, who ultimately controls who is out on the floor. We didn't instill the fundamentals. And our plays off of dead balls were awful (you can't really argue with that, can you?). That has to be on the coach.
Can you tell me, from a basketball fundamentals and discipline perspective (nothing to do with offensive scheme here) that Kansas didn't have superior habits (e.g., guarding the pick and roll, guarding the low block, help defense, setting screens, coming off of screens, creating better angles for passes) that were superior to the Illini's? That's gotta be a sign of the coaching.
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