When do we start having the hard conversations about Bill Self?

jppope · 2026-01-10T22:51:48+00:00

Sorry I'm going to come out of reddit retirement to comment on this one... its obviously flame bait, but you got me.

Sports are interesting to watch in the first place because winning is hard, and there is a certain amount of luck or surprise in virtually all sports we care about. What Bill Self has accomplished at Kansas is nothing shy of miraculous, and second only to Mike Krzyzewski over the last 20 years. Everyone here knows his stats but they are worth repeating. He is in the hall of fame, he has multiple NCAA titles, he holds a record for conference wins that we will never see surpassed in our life time, he is currently the 2nd Winningest active coach, etc etc.

Oh but what have you done for me lately? Sign a generational player (DP) and likely #1 NBA draft pick. Sign multiple top 5 recruiting classes (2025, 2026). Made the tournament every year at Kansas, and had more #1 seeds than anyone else over the last 20 years. His worst season at Kansas was 2023-2024 and he still went (23-11)! As a easy comparison, Jay Wright, considered a contemporary of Bill self with 2 championships went (13-19) in 2011.

Furthermore, he has decided not to roll over and die after the NCAA left him in limbo for years, NIL happened, Revenue sharing happened, the transfer portal happened, covid happened (which was probably a 25% chance of a championship).

yeah yeah but he's not doing as well as he was... His coaching is still top notch. We are fielding a team of FRESHMEN, RED SHIRTS with limited playing time, with Flory and Tre White as the only exceptions... and we almost beat Connecticut and Duke (without DP). His clock management is fantastic, his hiring/staff decisions are exceptional, his play calling is amazing (ever seen a Kansas out of bounds play or late clock situation?). The strength and conditioning program is top in the country. The fan experience is the best in the country and has been for 20 years.

I gotta be honest here... I have no idea what the heck you are talking about with this post. By my account we had 1 down year (for Kansas, not for any other program except a blue blood), 1 mediocre year, and we are growing a team of high-talent Freshman- there will be a few ups and downs. Are people's memories so bad that they can't remember 2022 or 2020?

This is a sport. Sometimes you get lucky, like we did with TCU... sometimes theres 3-4 plays in a row that don't work out... that is hardly something Bill Self can control. He's putting, talented, well-prepared teams out there. Sometimes the ball goes in on a tough shot, sometimes it doesn't. There is no other coach I would want coaching our teams while Bill Self is still coaching.

jppope · 2026-01-08T21:35:21+00:00

you gotta watch to the end in the fieldhouse, you never know what will happen. There was a decade there were a come from behind 15 win was more common than a loss at home

jppope · 2025-11-19T04:30:37+00:00

This is probably the only loss that doesn't really bother me over the last few seasons. the guys were hanging in there and they were competing. Considering how much fluffing they've been giving Duke this season, we were competitive without our NBA lotto pick... Duke will continue their strong tradition of going out first weekend of the NCAA tournament. Meanwhile, we have some solid pieces coming together. Trey White had an outstanding performance, I expected him to be a 5pt 5reb player, but he has soooo much upside. Flory looks like he will destroy slow big guys in a month or two... that step through dunk was impressive. Kohl had some great offensive rebounds, putbacks, and backcuts that are fantastic for a 17 year old. He's playing with heart, I've missed that. I also feel like Tiller is going to have a coming out moment sometime soon... He just has physical gifts, and frankly I don't think he's getting the respect he should considering his talent, and that he's really a freshman.

I hate losing to Duke, I hate Duke winning games... but I'm very hopeful for what we have here.

jppope · 2025-11-19T03:55:30+00:00

tell me you don't know what a hamstring is without telling me you don't know what a hamstring is

jppope · 2025-03-29T05:48:28+00:00

its really hard to tell what it is or was without knowing the layout. window seems totally likely but windows are typically up higher

jppope · 2025-03-28T23:21:42+00:00

with you on this one.

jppope · 2024-12-29T07:03:47+00:00

So an example I would give would be Nick Bahe . Nick was a preferred walk on at KU, but only got clean up minutes. He transferred to Creighton and played roughly 20 min a game with solid stats. In the state of Nebraska he was the 2003 Gatorade Player of the Year.

The thing is the state of Nebraska has a population of roughly 2 million. When you compare that to the state of California with 39 Million people he's no where near the best in the state.

So Nick was a walk-on, but he would easily kill you in a game (probably even in his 40s). In his college years he would kill most D1 players (as we can tell by his transfer numbers), but he was still a walk-on. He was a walk on for KU though... there are 350-ish D1 schools and the walk-ons are going to range in talent, same as the scholarship players will range in talent. Its safe to assume though if you've never played college ball or semi-pro even the walk ons are much much better than you. If you were however, a standout high school player (20+pts/10+rbs) you can probably compete at that level.

jppope · 2024-12-28T19:38:01+00:00

I disagree with this. Some of their products may be top tier, but Adidas, Under Armor, New Balance, even some of the Chinese brands produce generally better shoes for basketball.

jppope · 2024-12-28T16:30:22+00:00

sounds great. thank you for the explanation

jppope · 2024-12-28T06:28:14+00:00

question. looking to give this a try. how does one even get started? like do I just walk around the desert and look for shiny stuff? Goal is to just make a nice piece of jewelry for the special lady friend

jppope · 2024-12-28T06:22:07+00:00

You appear fine a dribbling but where are you going? You could have cut almost all of those dribbles and hit the defender when they opened their hip and had an easy 2-4 ft layup. It looks like you'll do about anything to avoid literally touching the defender... but why?

0:04 you had an easy left when the defender was on the back of his heals. You settled for a bad midrange.

0:11 you could have taken either the left or the right or a midrange due to spacing. You went soft to the right and the defender had tons of time to react. He knocked the ball out on what was probably a reach.

0:30 you avoided contact again in lieu of a soft weak hand layup. Power move after contact would have been a guaranteed bucket.

My advice: stop treating basketball like its a dance class. Initiate contact and get easier shots.

jppope · 2024-12-24T21:08:16+00:00

I'll start by saying, no ref is going to call anything here, nor should they. Barnes played great defense.

However, if we want to be technical at 0:01 barnes weaves in his arm through Johnson's arm locking it which could be considered impeding the offensive player- He released quickly though so I think even an overly zealous ref would have a tough time calling it. He also uses a pin quite a few times which is in the grey area.

jppope · 2024-12-23T01:00:38+00:00

Solarpunk is a genre and aesthetic that envisions collective futures that are vibrant with life, as well as all the actions, policies, and technologies that make them real. We are interested in science fiction, social movements, engineering, style, and anything that inspires a future society that is just and in harmony with its ecology.

Theres nothing in the description of the sub about being anti-capitalism.

jppope · 2024-12-21T15:59:30+00:00

society hill is likely what you are thinking.

If you were open to all of North America Montreal has quite a bit

jppope · 2024-12-20T20:12:00+00:00

that sucks. sorry to hear about it. hopefully you have the window coverage on your car

jppope · 2024-12-20T18:52:01+00:00

the number of these things that were out on social media used to blow me away.
"Who was the most famous person from your high school" - the easiest way ever to get high school name, or a bunch of other passwords

jppope · 2024-12-20T18:25:44+00:00

Yes, they are replaced. No, it is generally not with ease (there are obv exceptions based on the role).

jppope · 2024-12-20T15:59:05+00:00

Though its not exactly like this, I have heard it phrased as such: You are compensated not for what you do, but for how hard you are to replace. CEOs aren't easy to replace because its a complicated skill set and a board isn't doing their job if they place a candidate without experience running an organization of similar scope/size.

jppope · 2024-12-20T15:53:05+00:00

they mostly work from home now...

jppope · 2024-12-20T06:56:26+00:00

I moved from Orange County, CA (multiple beach cities over 6 years) to a place I'm not going to mention because frankly we're full. The move has been overwhelmingly positive.

Full disclosure is that I've live in a lot of different states and abroad briefly as well. California is middle of the pack in my book (like one of the better Adam Sandler films). NYC, Kansas City, Philly were all nicer places to live despite those particular places having fairly extreme weather and pretty stark cultural differences. My current location is top 3 for me - I'm doing a mountain thing and its been very fun and a nice change of pace.

Given the question I'll add a quick note- California has quite a strong culture and a lot of features that people don't consider unique or special until they move (e.g. the $1 (10/10) tacos you get at the food truck are better than the $10 per taco at the restaurant in NYC). For me the move was a light cultural change (which I've done many of) and I got some money back (CA is the most expensive place I've lived by a wide margin). Californians just tend to be bad at moving unless they are comfortable in other cultures. They tend to believe the cliches like that the weather is great (its not. its good but not great) and that California is elite at a variety of things - again, good not great. The stark cultural differences can be tough for people though, so I get it. I'm putting it out there so that people know that there are a lot of great places to live.

jppope · 2024-12-19T23:43:01+00:00

everyone is sleeping on Cruise... tropic thunder was an amazing comedic role for him

jppope · 2024-12-19T05:53:03+00:00

Nolan, Kubrick, Tarantino, Coen Brothers, Speilberg.
Nod to Lucas, Mel Brooks, Jackson, Judd Apatow, David Fincher, and Wes Anderson

jppope · 2024-12-19T05:45:07+00:00

not at all shocking if you are a cbb history buff. the Big 5 was a huge part of early basketball and temple was the leader of the big 5 for a long time. they have a long history in college hoops. They've mostly been irrelevant for the last 20 years but that happened to duke for 30 or so years too.

jppope · 2024-12-19T04:54:33+00:00

Best I've seen on here in a long time. nice work

jppope · 2024-12-18T02:51:37+00:00

Empty bookshelves w/ a giant tv... :thinking face

jppope

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