Dead ringer for Bobby Portis. Like, I had to keep from thinking it was actually Portis out on the court. Identical size, identical game, identical white headband, and so I checked out their Rivals.com rank:


2013: Portis #15
2015: Bragg #15

I didn't expect that. I have a lot of respect for Donovan. He's a hell of a coach.

Is he catching some heat for not winning down there? It wasn't long ago they were spanking that whole conference.

He wants to give it a shot before he's too old. If it doesn't work out he can go back to the college level.

This season - and esp the NCAAT - exposed some serious fault lines in Bill Self's coaching philosophy. His lack of offensive imagination, total disdain for ball security, and inability to recruit any shooters put him at a major disadvantage vs the top teams.


Tomorrow night, Pomeroy's #1 offensive efficiency team in his 13 years of ratings (Wisky) will play for the title. They will face Duke, his #3 team this year. #2 Notre Dame came within an eyelash of knocking off Kentucky last week and probably should have. Any pattern here? Self's obession with defense and not giving up the easy bucket wins at a tremendous clip in the regular season and it's damn consistent on an annual basis. But in a tourney it's a flop.


Wisky put up 1.28 points/possession this year. They faced Kentucky who allowed only .86/possession. So we had the top offense in Pomeroy history vs the top defense. Wisky ran at an insane 1.22 clip last night and won by 7.


Net: If BIll Self believes "defense wins championships", he isn't watching the Tourney this year. He needs to change with the times.

Good post. Self simply isn't looking at guys like Dekker, Kaminsky, and Koenig. These are three great basketball players. We continually get great prospects and athletes which looks great for the media guide but falls flat when a game NEEDS to be won.

Too many times Self is taking the easy way out and simply flipping through rivals and visiting the top ranked players. There has to be more to his position than that.

There's no reason to play guys like Traylor or Lucas in today's game. They provide nothing offensively. They cannot hit open shots and don't ever require double teams. The court becomes "clogged" when they're on it. Self would've had Lucas posting up Cauley-Stein last night and Mason driving wildly to the bucket.

If you don't spread the court and have guys who can hit 15-foot jumpers, it's way too easy to help-side defense in the event Mason or Selden or Oubre even do beat their guy. And that explains why we led the NCAA in shots being blocked this year.

Don't be a ****ing moron.

Any new stuff on Diallo?

Coaches change all the time. Coach K didn't always run his teams the way he does now.

Christ, Bo Ryan basketball for YEARS was synonymous with the type of team you describe that gets regular season wins but can't shoot or win tough tournament games. I am absolutely shocked at the teams he's fielded these past two seasons. And don't get me wrong-- guys like Kaminski and Dekker are great players, but Bo Ryan has HAD good players on previous Badger teams. He chose to run white stick boy offense that MAYBE is good for a win against Ohio State or Michigan State in the regular season every other year.

Bo Ryan made a change, and it has worked. Self is capable of doing the exact same thing. Not that I would tell him when or how or even if he should make the change, and if he does what that would look like. I admit my cluelessness when it comes to specifics like that.

I'm just saying-- it's not like we're doomed to only watch future KU teams like the one we just saw in 2014-2015.

I guess you're respect is leaving out the part where he flip-flopped, when he bolted Florida for the Orlando Magic.....was announced as the new head coach by the magic, then four days later, CALLS the magic by phone, and tells him he cant coach the magic after all, and his heart is with the gators.

THAT billy donovan??

I don't understand this at all.

What about 2012? That team was carried to the national title game on the strength of its defense. And we lost to another team because of their defense.

Bill WANTS to play with an efficient offense. That's why he wants to put it inside to the big men. That's where you score the most efficiently. It's not from jump shooting.

The fatal flaw lately has been a lack of a post presence come tourney time. Missing Embiid and now missing Alexander with a hobbling Ellis. The problem isn't that we don't have good shooters. We do. But the inside-out game only works when the defense has to collapse inside to stop the post scoring, which we haven't been able to force. That's what frees up the shooting. When our big guys can't go 1-on-1 in the post, the offense stalls.

It's not that the offense is flawed or somehow inherently prone to failure. It's the lack of the personnel to run it. Bill's flaw is not being able to adjust to the personnel he has. When he has the personnel, it's going to work beautifully. And I think we'll be getting back to that much sooner than later. No one was complaining about our outside shooting when Bill was running the same offense in 07 and 08. Chalmers and Rush shot great outside, but it was the inside game that made the offense work. It will happen again.

I see you've changed your trolling narrative. Last week you were complaining about Self not playing at a quick enough pace compared to the rest of the NCAA (even though they are well above average in that regard). Now this week, considering Wisconsin won with just about the slowest tempo in the sport (345th), you've set your sights on Self offense. I wonder what it will be next week.

As long as it draws a reaction, it doesn't matter if it makes any sense (and that particular criticism doesn't at all).

I agree with a lot of what you said, and we REALLY need a good big or 3. But it's not like Traylor is completely worthless. Traylor was the best offensive weapon against the zones, because he could get the ball at the high post and distribute it. Nobody else on this team showed they could do that.

Later on in the year Traylor was posting higher and using his athleticism to get to the bucket. Nice to see.

Traylor's problem isn't necessarily his offense. It's not good enough for sure. But if he wasn't such a damn bonehead half the time, he'd be a contributor on a good team.

Your point still stands though. We need a good big.

Guess I missed that. That's a pretty shite move.

Yep, neither does Roy. After his post-Raef/Pierce swoon where we were putting up garbage (by our standards) squads, he ditched his stale 2-man game and went full-on blitz running the court. And this was a guy who worships Dean "Four corners" Smith.


Ryan's a really weird case that I can't explain. It seems like his teams are doing mostly what they've always done (ball control, spread the court, getting open looks, not fouling on def) only with better players.

Self must change, or he must bring in offensive machines like McLemore and the Morris Twins. One or the other. If he has those guys he can play his high-low and work it inside because teams have to respect the outside shooting so much. The last 2 years, they've packed it in on us and dared us to shoot and we've proved entirely unable to make them pay.