What do we make of Bill Self losing again?

[Russ Smith]

Very odd, I think he's a terrific coach. I think they play good defense, run good sets. So how come he keeps losing too early now?

3 losses as a double digit favorite since 06. I had Wichita State favored over them yesterday so I don't consider yesterday an upset but it's an odd trend.

Usually well coached teams don't have this much trouble. This wasn't a particularly talented KU team so winning the conf title seemed really impressive until the whole conference flamed out early this year.

Still would be very high on my list of dream coaches at UCLA but I have to admit I'm perplexed.

 

[Ronin]

I would say he's an okay coach, nothing special. Yesterday's game wasn't even a game...it was basically a blowout from the word go.

 

[Southpaw]

Some coaches make better recruiters than teachers and bench coaches. The coaching ranks , as a whole, has fallen prey to defense only and fear of losing style. Anything can happen in these low scoring contests. Every mistake becomes crucial. Billy Donovan is another prime example. NCAA rules committee needs to do an overhaul. Cure the anemia. Not much to get excited about this go around.

 

[Russ Smith]

Some coaches make better recruiters than teachers and bench coaches. The coaching ranks , as a whole, has fallen prey to defense only and fear of losing style. Anything can happen in these low scoring contests. Every mistake becomes crucial. Billy Donovan is another prime example. NCAA rules committee needs to do an overhaul. Cure the anemia. Not much to get excited about this go around.

but that's not Self IMO. Watch them play, they are very well coached. They move the ball, they get good shots, they play good defense. They lost lots this year and had problems with Alexander being ineligible and Oubre taking so long to get it as a freshman, but they still won the conference.

I suspect from the postseason that their conference was a bit overrated, but I don't think they lose because Self can recruit but not coach. I almost wonder if they're in a position now where they're sort of Don Nelson's Bucks where they won 50 plus games every year and then lost early in the playoffs because everyone plays hard in the playoffs? That is Nellie got his teams to play hard all year so they won some games in the regular season they shouldn't win, but in the playoffs they lost them because the other team played hard too. I wonder if Self has that happening now.

UCLA under Lavin was the opposite, poorly coached, under achieve, get seeded worse than should be and then play hard in the NCAA's and keep winning games that were "upsets". Selfs team plays hard and well coached and wins games but then in the post season they're playing other teams that are well coached and play hard and suddenly they look overrated?

Weird. I think he's a very good coach.

 

[Dback Jon]

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[Dback Jon]

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[Dback Jon]

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[overseascardfan]

He does have a NT on his resume. I'd like to see what KU fan's opinions are of him. I'm sure he's not on the hot seat.

 

[Russ Smith]

He does have a NT on his resume. I'd like to see what KU fan's opinions are of him. I'm sure he's not on the hot seat.

There's actually several threads on how many more early exits before they hire another coach on their Scout boards right now.

Part of why I asked. if you poll college fans about coaches I think the vast majority would consider Self to be an excellent coach. He has a school with great tradition, they don't have difficult academic standards, they don't lack a rabid fan base. There is essentially no barrier to recruiting or having a great team. He's been incredible in the regular season. Really odd to me he keeps losing early.

The best team doesn't always win, but it's odd how often in recent years Kansas has lost under Self in the postseason to teams that clearly aren't as good.

Again I expected Wichita State to win, but some of the recent ones are pretty baffling.

 

[overseascardfan]

There's actually several threads on how many more early exits before they hire another coach on their Scout boards right now.

Part of why I asked. if you poll college fans about coaches I think the vast majority would consider Self to be an excellent coach. He has a school with great tradition, they don't have difficult academic standards, they don't lack a rabid fan base. There is essentially no barrier to recruiting or having a great team. He's been incredible in the regular season. Really odd to me he keeps losing early.

The best team doesn't always win, but it's odd how often in recent years Kansas has lost under Self in the postseason to teams that clearly aren't as good.

Again I expected Wichita State to win, but some of the recent ones are pretty baffling.

Well if you compare this year's team to their NC team, this year's team lacks the upper class leadership that team had plus the 4 future first round picks (Rush, Chalmers, Arthur & Aldrich). This year's team lacked a guy that could take over a game like Chalmers could. Seldon & Oubre will be Top 15 guys but they were not on the same level as Chalmers & Rush were in college. Cliff Alexander could have made a difference but there were questions about his amateur status before he stepped foot on campus so KU has only itself to blame.

So to answer the question, Self is a really good coach who just didn't get enough out of the talent he had, Oubre & Alexander were highly rated recruits but one was out and Oubre didn't have the impact he should have had.

 

[Russ Smith]

Well if you compare this year's team to their NC team, this year's team lacks the upper class leadership that team had plus the 4 future first round picks (Rush, Chalmers, Arthur & Aldrich). This year's team lacked a guy that could take over a game like Chalmers could. Seldon & Oubre will be Top 15 guys but they were not on the same level as Chalmers & Rush were in college. Cliff Alexander could have made a difference but there were questions about his amateur status before he stepped foot on campus so KU has only itself to blame.

So to answer the question, Self is a really good coach who just didn't get enough out of the talent he had, Oubre & Alexander were highly rated recruits but one was out and Oubre didn't have the impact he should have had.

That's sort of what I mean. I suspect he gets more out of his teams than he should and as a result they tend to "come up short" in the tourney because everyone plays harder.

 

[DWKB]

There's nothing to "make" of it. This is nothing more than troll bait for Jon and his total butt hurt because his joke of a basketball program was left in the dust by Self for greener pastures.

Bill Self is one of the top 3-5 NCAA coaches in the nation right now. Nobody wants him gone at KU except maybe some over-reacting spoiled adolescents. Only two programs have made the tournament each of the past 12 years, Duke and KU. Going into this year, in the past 10 years Duke has had more first round losses and just as many first weekend loses as KU. UNC and Kentucky have missed the tournament completely (which always seems to be ignored). KU has been in two NC and won one of them in the past decade as well. I think less than 5 programs total can claim that. This theme is only something to be "made" of when you first compare Self/KU to the field, discount tournaments missed as being total failures, and assume that "seed" has the huge gap in talent that the literal numbers represent.

I doubt there is a CBB fan on here that wouldn't trade their teams basketball results the last 10 years with KU outright in a second.

 

[Russ Smith]

There's nothing to "make" of it. This is nothing more than troll bait for Jon and his total butt hurt because his joke of a basketball program was left in the dust by Self for greener pastures.

Bill Self is one of the top 3-5 NCAA coaches in the nation right now. Nobody wants him gone at KU except maybe some over-reacting spoiled adolescents. Only two programs have made the tournament each of the past 12 years, Duke and KU. Going into this year, in the past 10 years Duke has had more first round losses and just as many first weekend loses as KU. UNC and Kentucky have missed the tournament completely (which always seems to be ignored). KU has been in two NC and won one of them in the past decade as well. I think less than 5 programs total can claim that. This theme is only something to be "made" of when you first compare Self/KU to the field, discount tournaments missed as being total failures, and assume that "seed" has the huge gap in talent that the literal numbers represent.

I doubt there is a CBB fan on here that wouldn't trade their teams basketball results the last 10 years with KU outright in a second.

That is sort of the point and I assure you I'm not trolling, I'd love to have Self at UCLA.

But I'm baffled why other than the one title, why Kansas seems to be losing earlier than seeded fairly often. I believe it's 5 of the last 10 years but don't quote me on that.

I think they're a very well coached team. Like I said my suspicion is KU is over achieving in the regular season, due to good coaching, and then getting over seeded respective to their talent.

This year essentially everything that could have gone wrong did, the PG left, Oubre wasn't ready, Alexander was ineligible. Given all that in a conference that had lots of ranked teams, that KU won again was a pretty impressive coaching job. On the current roster they're not really NBA loaded, Oubre is probably the best prospect. Perry Ellis is an undersized 4 who's not skilled enough to play the 3. Selden doesn't shoot well enough to play the 2 in the NBA. Alexander will play in the NBA but he's another Cliff Levingston an undersized 4 with great ups. Greene, Graham, Lucas all good college players not pro prospects. I love Mason but he's an NBA longshot. Outside of Oubre the next best pro prospect might be the foreign kid Mykhailuk(sp?) but he's like 17 years old, no surprise he struggled this year.

I genuinely think KU won 4-5 more games than their talent level would suggest they'd win, especially given Oubre and Alexander having limited impact.

If I were asked to rank the top 5 college coaches Self is in my top 5 and maybe my top 3. You could ask a similar question about Duke and Coach K but I don't think they're losing because they're overseeded, I think they're losing because Coach K is overly reliant on the 3 pointer and when they have an inevitable off shooting day, it costs them in the tournament.

 

[Dback Jon]

There's nothing to "make" of it. This is nothing more than troll bait for Jon and his total butt hurt because his joke of a basketball program was left in the dust by Self for greener pastures.

Bill Self is one of the top 3-5 NCAA coaches in the nation right now. Nobody wants him gone at KU except maybe some over-reacting spoiled adolescents. Only two programs have made the tournament each of the past 12 years, Duke and KU. Going into this year, in the past 10 years Duke has had more first round losses and just as many first weekend loses as KU. UNC and Kentucky have missed the tournament completely (which always seems to be ignored). KU has been in two NC and won one of them in the past decade as well. I think less than 5 programs total can claim that. This theme is only something to be "made" of when you first compare Self/KU to the field, discount tournaments missed as being total failures, and assume that "seed" has the huge gap in talent that the literal numbers represent.

I doubt there is a CBB fan on here that wouldn't trade their teams basketball results the last 10 years with KU outright in a second.

Slimy Self should be doing better at KU - the recruits he buys should do far better.

 

[DWKB]

Slimy Self should be doing better at KU - the recruits he buys should do far better.

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[ajcardfan]

I think anyone turning their nose up at Self is crazy. Twelve straight conference titles and and National Championship? Other than Duke, Kentucky and maybe Louisville, any program would be thrilled to have him. It's damn hard to win it all in the NCAA, when one loss means your done. Timing and luck have so much to play into it.

Ok, after watching the job Izzo did today to get the Spartans into the Final Four, I'm sure MSU would not take Self over him.

 

[Russ Smith]

I think anyone turning their nose up at Self is crazy. Twelve straight conference titles and and National Championship? Other than Duke, Kentucky and maybe Louisville, any program would be thrilled to have him. It's damn hard to win it all in the NCAA, when one loss means your done. Timing and luck have so much to play into it.

Ok, after watching the job Izzo did today to get the Spartans into the Final Four, I'm sure MSU would not take Self over him.

To be clear, I think he's a terrific coach, I'm trying to sort out why he keeps losing to teams he's seeded to beat. My guess is they over achieve during the regular season and end up over seeded.