How to fix the Jayhawks in four steps
On Monday night, USC dropped a Stone Cold Stunner on the Jayhawks, handing KU their worst-ever NCAA tournament loss. It was the third-biggest defeat in the program’s 123-year-old history. That it happened Hinkle Fieldhouse, the site of the events from Hoosiers, is one particularly poetic detail. A lot of factors have to come together for this epic of a blasting.
So, what happened? And where do we go from here? I have a few ideas for how to flip this low point into a few positives. Like I mentioned in my after-hours blast postgame, I don’t think things are as bad as they look, but I would admit some things around the program are certainly bad right now.
Here we go.
Recommit to recruiting
On Monday night, three Kansas City players got serious burn. Problem is, they were not exactly the city’s best products of recent vintage. Ochai Agbaji has come a long way from being a lightly-recruited redshirt, but he didn’t start for his AAU team. High profile prep players in the KC Run GMC pipeline—Jeremiah Robinson-Earl, Bol Bol, Mitchell Ballock—aren’t picking KU. Instead of signing with KU, RJ Hampton elected to hoop in New Zealand, and the fact that he’s become the program’s biggest fan (at least according to his IG stories) is an ongoing taunt.
What’s the deal?
The looming NCAA punishment has hung over the program like a black cloud—this is not new information, but Monday night’s game feels like the latest fallout. The situation has made recruiting tougher—Bryce Thompson had to address the situation in the letter he wrote explaining his commitment—but the near-misses have really added up.
Kurtis Townsend, once the staff’s best recruiter, effectively can’t recruit with sanctions against him potentially coming down. (Townsend is probably on his way out at KU). As Sunrise Christian Academy has risen to prominence on the national hoops scene, KU hasn’t taken advantage—Zach Clemence is a Sunrise kid coming in next season, but he’s the team’s third-best player in his class. Kennedy Chandler (Rivals #11) picked Tennessee, and Kendall Brown (#16) picked Baylor. Baylor!
Now that we’ve had this hard reality check—we’re shaking down UMKC and Northeastern for roster upgrades!—KU has to reboot how they approach recruiting, and that probably begins with a bench shakeup. While my overarching hoops theory is that the talent margins are thinner than ever—and the line between good college players and great ones is harder to see—KU needs to come out of quarantine blazing. KU will always get players, and Self knows our length and athleticism is below the program’s standard. The trend of blowout tournament losses is telling; overachieving KU teams ran into squads with more firepower. What’s most troubling about it is that those teams weren’t other bluebloods Kentucky or Duke: they were Auburn, Oregon and USC. We will never know what last year’s team—a deep and talented group which represented the culmination of a two- or three-year talent cycle—would have done.
The Gradey Dick (Rivals #28) signing is promising, and he’ll probably climb up the rankings during his senior year. The next 12 months will be telling. The fanbase and media pressure will be high.
Stop the legal fighting and get a ruling
Kansas’s NCAA violations case has been referred to the NCAA’s Independent Accountability Resolution Process, which will hand down a binding final decision about KU’s sanctions. No one knows how that panel will act, because they haven’t reviewed anything yet—COVID-19 effectively shut that machinery down entirely, as the NCAA had other fires to put out.
Kansas met the accusations with bravado. The AD has thrown millions in legal fees at the fight to clear their name. It appears none of that will matter, ultimately, and that punishment is coming. As recently as last year, most KU fans I knew supported a long, drawn-out process that drained the NCAA’s resources. But now, I get the sense that most people (including myself) want closure as soon as possible. So, KU has to get it. But how?
I don’t know if I’m being naive, or if I’m not being naive enough, but KU needs to initiate the endgame here. A friend pointed out that many of the panel’s members are former student athletes—that makes me think they will punish administrators and coaches more severely than the student athletes, who have no control or fault in this situation. I don’t know if KU can self-propose punishments to the IARP, but if they could, they need to start by vacating the 2018 Final Four and offering a prolonged Self suspension.
It seems unlikely that the program can avoid a postseason ban.This scenario sucks. Bill Self’s contract is up in a year, and no one seems to know why there’s a holdup in extending him, outside of that it’s probably related to the forthcoming NCAA punishment. Could Self feasibly walk after that contract is up? No one knows.
But, indulge me here. Say that Bill Self has to sit for an entire season—KU could survive that. Bring in a friend of the program—Larry Brown, Danny Manning, Jacque?—to be the interim coach, offering a new dynamic. I don’t think the phrase “postseason ban” is commensurate with a recruiting bonanza, but those three individuals all have potential availability and offer an intriguing, pro-ball-infused dynamic. If you’d committed to Kansas, you might think about that before transferring. A year with Larry Brown, or with Jacque immediately after his coaching helped my BK Nets to a title? (😉😉😉) Honestly, I’d love to see the program through a new perspective, especially if that lens was only temporary.
I don’t know what has to happen to get a quick resolution, but Kansas should be begging for one. The new AD might help. For the program to better off in the long run, we need to find out where we stand as soon as possible. The longer the ruling the takes, the more damage to the program.
Tweak our system… slightly
[pounding bongos] basketball is a conversation, man. It’s a fluid thing. Ironclad basketball rules-of-thumb that existed 10 years ago could be irrelevant today; you can defend a playing style all you want, but that style might not always translate to the contemporary game. Some elements cycle back, some don’t. New inefficiencies present themselves, and the cycle begins again.
The core of Bill Self’s basketball ideology is simple: get easy, high-percentage shots (dunks, shots right at the rim) and prevent the other team from getting those shots. He’s been preposterously successful in this approach: he is 522-118 at Kansas, which, lol. It’s amazing. But the game is changing, and as USC hammered home on Monday night, KU needs to do more to keep up with surging programs.
Much has been made of Bill Self’s distrust of the three-pointer, and I think a lot of that is overblown. When shooting was a team’s strength in 2018, he let it rip. (Let’s conveniently ignore that they would get out-shot later that tournament, for now). Self is an optimizer; with the best KU teams, our strengths are sharpened, and weaknesses are hidden. It probably won't surprise you to learn that this year’s team was the worst-rated KenPom KU team of Self’s tenure, a seven- or eight-seed that overachieved its way into a three. They either didn’t have the time, or the personnel, to execute the best possible version of the 20-21 season.
It’s one game—one historically bad game—but the USC loss was the latest chapter of a troubling trend. It’s not so much about the three on offense, it’s about the three on defense. I’m sure there’s something to randos shooting their brains out agains KU—Isaiah Mobley had never hit more than two threes in a game before hitting four on Monday night—but from where I’m sitting, we are making those looks too easy. This generation of college player grew up shooting threes, because during their formative years, Steph Curry was melting down the NBA. It’s not shocking to me that USC’s 7th man can, when given the time and space, knock down a corner three in his sleep. And we concede those shots constantly.
At the beginning of the first half, we found a flow on offense by stationing Marcus Garrett at the top of the circle, where he could kick it to the wings or step into a short, high-percentage floater. But KU was trading easy twos for threes—there was no way for them to cut into the deficit. Those shots are literally worth more.
Here’s the good thing—it’s correctible. There’s room within our defensive approach to take away high value spots away (corners, open wing shots) without sacrificing some sense of defensive continuity. The three-pointer is the great equalizer, and there’s concern all across basketball about how prominent they’re becoming. But what I’m advocating for isn’t a complete overhaul—prioritize making high-percentage threes harder just as we’ve prioritized making high-percentage twos harder. I think a full offseason will help.
Get ahead of the NIL
This is my most ambient fix, and if you’ve made it this far, it seems quite possible that you’ll allow me to proceed. When it comes to the macro-movements of basketball, I trust my gut; the specific details are a bit harder to come by. But here’s what it’s telling me:
The program that gets ahead of the NIL is going to win.
Revenue is down across college because of the pandemic. But we just paid a pair of incompetent employees a combined $4M to go away; there’s enough money to hash out a structure for athlete compensation. Using the Overtime league’s proposed $100k player salary as a guideline, here’s a pitch:
Guarantee a stipend for all scholarship players. My pitch is $50k each, but I’m open to something more variable based on revenue. You can arrive at a number here, as much as administrators might not want to.
Like many D-I programs, KU presents a polished social media project. Lend the players those tools with a fair, negotiated revenue share—open the floodgates for players to use their platforms for commercial gain, but lighten their lift as much as possible through resources already in place. Everyone wins.
Be as aggressive about licensing as possible: set up marketing agreements and plug-in marketing opportunities before the athlete is even on campus. Furnish them with agency contacts, e-mails for sneaker company reps, and hire a support staffer (maybe a former player?) to help them navigate that landscape. If the players have to fend for themselves to some degree, set them up for success.
If sanctions come down, tear up the adidas deal and find a more agile and athlete-friendly apparel agreement, even if the topline money is lower.
Being forward-thinking when it comes to the new landscape lifts all boats. However, making a leap into the future will be the biggest challenge for KU, a university that is struggling to adapt right now.
Alright, that’s my piece. I invite you to yell at me in the comments—and I underthinking, or overthinking, certain aspects of this? Is there a level of bureaucracy in college athletics that cannot be hurdled? I’m all ears. Like everyone here, I want KU back on top of the game, where they belong.