Norm Roberts appreciation thread

[pdub]

I don't think we made the necessary adjustments and didn't have the, oh shit what a fucking play out of timeouts/stoppages. Arkansas ran three or four of the same plays on multiple trips down the court during their run and we didn't adjust. I think maybe we risk bringing in KJ a bit earlier. I think we maybe run some zone for a couple plays to stop their run.

The players lost the game.
I don't think Norm helped in the way Self would have.
It shouldn't be such a knock on Norm to say he's not as nearly a good a coach ( out of game, and in game, which is actually important ) as Bill Self.

[RainbowsandUnicorns]

It may or may not be a knock on Bill for me to say I feel the 2005, 2006, 2010, and 2014 tournaments I questioned Bill's decisions/lack of decisions during and after our loses.

[pdub]

Not 2014 for me -- but I don't specifically recall the game that well.
That wasn't a very good team at the end.

[TDub]

I was pissed in 05 06 and 10.

14 was a disjointed team, no embiid (hurt? embiid) and a one and done who really couldn't have cared less about the tournament and was already, in all intents and purposes,....gone

[ousdahl]

not Norm's fault:

Jalen and Mc missing the front end of 1-and-1s

Yes missing a bored and letting AR get the offensive rebound

Dajuan's 5 second inbounds call

Dajuan's 10 second half court violation

or, do we wanna blame Norm a little for those last two, for not burning a TO to try and save the possession?

Sort of Norm's fault:

no plays out of timeouts, or when we needed a bucket in crunch time

no adjustments in the 2nd half

no/limited TOs to stop game swings in the wrong direction

not throwing some junk zone at AR who only had a couple guys really scoring

we just, collectively as a team, made some critical mass of mistakes. Maybe just one less thing from that list above (which isn't even exhaustive), and we win.

But, we end up loosing by 1 instead.

[MICHHAWK]

arkansaw made 1 more play than we did. if we have our head coach on the bench. we win that game. and are on cloud nine.

[pdub]

Another option, and i'm not saying it's a no brainer because of how good a FT shooter Council is, would have been to have a big guy come in for that second free throw ( in place of McCullar who got charged into ) just in case he missed.

170 lb 6 foot Yesufu just kinda got knocked out of the way.
Put in your 7 foot guy and shift everyone around and then, with a timeout in your pocket, advance the ball up and figure if you need to call it or not.

[MICHHAWK]

to put a finer point on it. they beat us by 1 point. so that implies they made 1/2 of 1 play more than we did. if we have our head coach on the bench. we win that game.

[KUTradition]

your logic is truly baffling sometimes

[pdub]

That math assumes you score 2 points on every play.
We'd average over 125 points a game if that was the case.

[randylahey]

Why are we even arguing the bill/norm thing?

This team just wasn't that good this year (by KU standards)

[randylahey]

Ku overachieved this season by winning the big 12 and winning all those quad 1 games. I thought it was one of selfs best coaching jobs ever adjusting to his roster and getting the most out of them. But it just wasn't realistic to expect a deep run with this squad. Too many weaknesses

[randylahey]

We weren't even the best team in our conference. Texas was clearly the more talented team

[pdub]

We were good enough to beat Arkansas.
We just lost to Arkansas and our season is over.
Bill Self wasn't coaching in the game.

That is why.

[twocoach]

Ku overachieved this season by winning the big 12 and winning all those quad 1 games. I thought it was one of selfs best coaching jobs ever adjusting to his roster and getting the most out of them. But it just wasn't realistic to expect a deep run with this squad. Too many weaknesses

I agree. And frankly, Self gets his teams to earn a better seed than their roster would earn under just about every other coach in the sport. It's an overachievement that happens almost every season.

[randylahey]

We were good enough to beat Arkansas.
We just lost to Arkansas and our season is over.
Bill Self wasn't coaching in the game.

That is why.

We were good enough to beat Bucknell, Bradley, Northern Iowa, vcu, etc. Self coached all those games. Doesnt magically guarantee wins no matter how well he prepares us for these games

[randylahey]

I dont remember any big coaching lapses where norm got outcoached and thats why we lost

I do remember quite a times down the stretch where our players made mistakes and Arkansas made plays.

Norm had us prepared and positioned to win that game, we just didn't execute down the stretch

[MICHHAWK]

this team was one of the best teams in the country. all season long.

this team won the best conference in the country.

this team was on the short list of favorites when the bracket came out.

if HCBS was on the bench this past saturday evening. we are in the sweet 16.

the idea that we were not good enough this season to play into the 3rd weekend of the tournament is nonsense.





bad breaks halted our run. that's the way it goes more times than not.



but. we were good enough.

[pdub]

"I dont remember any big coaching lapses where norm got outcoached and thats why we lost"

Very hard agree to disagree.
From about 14-12 min left in the game on.

"I do remember quite a times down the stretch where our players made mistakes and Arkansas made plays."

In game coaching helps with this believe it or not.

"Norm had us prepared and positioned to win that game, we just didn't execute down the stretch"

This is a true statement in that, we only lost by one point.
I think Self would have us positioned to win that game by at least two possessions.

[ousdahl]

We were good.

But not exactly our usual good selves.

We lacked a postman, we lacked shooting, and we struggled to score on multiple occasions. We had no bench.

We lacked eliteness in general. Maybe Jalen, sort of, but he wasn't very efficient. Maybe Mc as a defender, but he didn't even get defensive POY. That went to Dajuan, whose defense maybe was elite, maybe even his floor general status too, but I still dunno if he was really dynamic or consistent enough to truly be called elite.

we were missing our elite HOF coach both to start the season, and to end it.

We got beat by 14 or more on 5 different dates, including 2 double digit loosses to the same conference pho the week before the big dance. That's not good.