Mellinger Minutes: If a Big 12 tourney happens and KU cares not, did it really happen?
Look, I will spend most of this week at the Sprint Center. I will write about basketball. I will watch the Big 12 tournament. I hope everything we produce is not just good enough for your time but so overwhelmingly amazing that you send me stacks of cold, hard cash as a small token of your appreciation.
But I think it’s going to be pretty bad, you guys.
Kansas is the best team, and that’s not really debatable. Baylor is also one of the country’s best four or five teams. After that, it’s basically a bunch of teams named Fred — four that finished 9-9, two at 7-11, one at 5-13 with its best player injured. And who could forget K-State.
So, at best, we’re looking at three days of forgettable basketball before an entertaining final between Kansas and Baylor.
Iowa State and K-State are crucial to the Big 12 tournament’s entertainment value. Both stink this season and are underdogs in the Wednesday games.
And we haven’t even mentioned the coronavirus.
To review: The best team probably doesn’t care and certainly doesn’t need it, the next two most locally supported teams are awful, and reasonable people will have reason to stay home even if the tickets were free.
Oklahoma is probably on the bubble. Texas and Oklahoma State probably need to get to Friday, and perhaps Saturday, to make it into the field.
Is that enough drama to get you interested?
(No, of course it’s not.)
Look, I understand what this is. I recognize it’s a strange look for a sportswriter to be pointing out the irrelevance and lack of interest surrounding an event he’s about to spend a few days covering. My kids need to eat, so I hope you read everything we do.
But I’m also honest, and at least at the moment this feels like a week that we may remember for years — but for all the wrong reasons.
Remember that tournament when the best team couldn’t give even a microscopic damn about the outcome?
Remember that tournament that relied on local favorites *checks notes* Baylor and Texas Tech to generate interest because K-State and Iowa State stunk?
Remember that tournament that was held in the midst of a pandemic, when Americans were being encouraged not to travel and to avoid big crowds?
I’m just not sure we’re going to be making the right kind of memories here, you guys.
This week’s reading recommendation is Seth Davis on the enduring pain of Dick Vitale and the eating recommendation is, well, the eating recommendation is actually a chance for me to unhumblebrag about my lunch the other day:
Six wings from the Peanut, plus a burger from Shake Shack.
You guys, I just want to take a moment to thank all the people who helped get me to this point in life and to encourage everyone out there — especially the kids — to believe in yourself and work hard because someday you too might conquer the world.
Please give me a follow on Twitter and Facebook and as always thanks for reading and thanks for your help.
Yes.
Newell wrote about this the other day, and this answer will basically read like a fanboy response to his piece but:
- KU is the best team in the country.
- With its specific strength defensively, and enough ways to score, and with the rest of the sport without a true power, this is probably Bill Self’s best chance at a championship since 2008.
- This team is HEAVILY reliant on the three players you mentioned — Udoka Azubuike, Devon Dotson and Marcus Garrett.
- All three of those players are carrying or have recently been through some sort of injury.
- The team was visibly gassed for stretches of its last two or three games.
- KU could literally not show up at the Big 12 tournament — I’m talking full-blown hooky, like they decide to go bowling or something instead — and still be the NCAA Tournament’s No. 1 overall seed.
So you tell me: Other than convention, or some altruistic feeling about maintaining interest for economics or booster parties, why should KU care about this tournament at all?
The postseason matters more than the regular season in every sport, but even by that standard I would argue that college basketball is the extreme. A strong regular season becomes prelude for shame if you lose to a No. 15 seed, or if you’re a No. 1 and don’t get out of the first weekend.
I would also argue that conference tournaments are the least consequential part of a college basketball season, particularly for top teams.
So with all of that in mind, which of the following outcomes most serves KU’s long-term and best interests?
1. They play it straight-up, which means they end up winning (because they’re the best team), but also means they play three games in three days (with Dotson, Garrett, and Azubuike each playing 100 or so minutes).
2. They rig the system with extreme measures, either by sitting the big three entirely for Thursday and/or part of Friday, or by putting severe and rigid minutes limits on the best players — maybe they only play for a half, or no more than 20 minutes in any game. This results in KU losing the semifinal, and none of the big three playing more than a total of 40 minutes.
Either way, they’re the No. 1 overall seed.
It’s a really interesting situation. KU is specifically positioned here in terms of team makeup, injuries/fatigue and standing nationally to treat the Big 12 tournament like a TPS report.
“Let’s play and hopefully get some guys a chance to play,” Self said when talking generally about his approach.
That’s the logical way, but Self in a competitive situation is a little like Marty McFly when someone calls him chicken: He loses touch with everything else other than winning the moment.
My guess is that Self’s path will end up being somewhere between those two extremes. That he won’t limit his guys the way I might with the same information, but that he also won’t drive them into the ground the way he might if the tournament mattered.
Well, look. You know I’m always honest here, so I’m not going to pretend that I’ve studied enough of the rest of the country to have a fire take on this.
Mamadi Diakite is pretty sweet, for instance. Zavier Simpson. Romaro Gill is impressive.
I’ve watched more Kansas and Baylor this year than anyone else, and while Davion Mitchell and Mark Vital and Udoka Azubuike are terrific defensively — and, as it happens, keys to two of the four best defenses in the country, according to KenPom — I haven’t seen anyone better than Garrett and I’ll go a step further:
I’m not sure the last time I’ve seen an individual defender quite like Garrett. Dominant defenders are usually rim protectors, and those guys can change the game in front of them. They force opponents to be more selective about drives to the basket, and sometimes change offensive strategy altogether — it becomes about attacking the big man or staying away from him, getting him in foul trouble or playing around him.
Garrett does all that with the versatility to guard four positions — anyone but a 7-footer.
He is naturally gifted — 6-foot-5 with long arms, strong enough to push back but lean enough to move. He has quick hands, with superior coordination.
He’s also something like a savant mentally, with a brain that can work simultaneously on two levels — processing hours of film study to feed what he sees and digests in real time on the court.
He is, in some ways, the perfect college defender. I know I’ve posted this before, but I can’t get enough of this clip and believe it encapsulates Garrett’s ability and effect on the game:
I mean, how is that man not the player of the year? He controlled the second half of the win at West Virginia. He has had so many bursts of both playmaking and more subtle vice-gripping of the opponent that he is as integral to Kansas being the unanimous No. 1 team in the country as two teammates who are national player of the year candidates.
Give that man the trophy.
I assume it’s a trophy?
First, and I know you’re making a joke here and it’s a good one so I don’t want to be the well actually guy but:
Didn’t we all read kickball defenses?
Kids learn pretty early that right footed kickers are driving the ball to center and left center, so the ambitious among them will crowd that area of the field/court/concrete/cul de sac.
That’s when you adjust your path to the pitch and drill it to right field, where that poor sap is just praying the ball doesn’t find him. Or, if you’re willing to shed some pride, maybe you bunt or push it through the hole between second and first.
I mean, I’m not alone here, right? We’ve all done this, right?
Anyway, again, apologies. It’s a fine joke, and a reference to this clip of Patrick Mahomes on an HBO show:
Now, look. I understand how the world works and if there was a line of people who’ve gone early and hard on the Mahomes-might-actually-not-be-human train I’d be at or near the front.
And this line will grab your attention:
“I didn’t understand how to read defenses until like halfway through last year.”
What he meant is that while he understood the differences between zone and man, and blitzes and drops, he didn’t yet grasp the nuances of how to look at the way a safety’s feet or set or how a corner is lined up over a receiver in the split-second information gathering process mastered by legends like Tom Brady and Peyton Manning.
But then he says this:
“Then this year I got to recognize more and more stuff ...”
That’s the tell. When we talk or write about the Super Bowl-champion Chiefs, it’s already (technically) last season. But in the way Mahomes is talking about it here, “last year” is 2018 and “this year” is 2019.
So, let’s pump the brakes a little. He did not win an MVP without knowing how to read defenses. He did not go until midway through his third season (second as a starter) before he knew how to read defenses.
Still, this does have the feel of one of those Boston Dynamics robots learning how to fight.
Because Mahomes threw for 896 yards, 13 touchdowns and zero interceptions in his first three games of 2018 — when “I was just playing,” as he put it.
If we take him literally, about halfway through the season he had 2,526 yards, 26 touchdowns and six interceptions in the first eight games.
Then Happy learned how to putt.
I’m expecting them to dabble, but not jump in.
Which is what they should do.
Brett Veach and his front office have proven adept at finding value in free agency. Emmanuel Ogbah and Alex Okafor provided good value before their injuries, for instance. Those are the kids of deals I’d expect the Chiefs to be looking for — not the big splash of another Tyrann Mathieu.
The Chiefs have a lot of moving parts here. Chris Harris makes a ton of sense, and he’s expressed excitement about the Chiefs. The Chiefs could sign him and retain Kendall Fuller to play safety, at least until Juan Thornhill returns, and then continue to use Fuller in different parts of the secondary.
That’s just one example of the different factors and levels the Chiefs will be working through. Another would be Bashaud Breeland. He’s been playing for a big contract for a couple years now and there is no better time to sign a big contract than after a season in which you play well and your team wins the Super Bowl.
Breeland could be in line for something like $30 million over three years. If that’s the case, the Chiefs probably need to put him in the comp pick formula and go searching for this year’s version of Breeland. Might that be someone like Trae Waynes? Ronald Darby?
I’m also curious what the Chiefs do with their offensive line. That group played better than it seems many fans thought, but they were vulnerable inside at times and they could save about $2.5 million by cutting Austin Reiter.
Well, he is the highest profile signing in history. This whole thing is pretty fascinating. The way last year tailspun, particularly toward the end, you had to wonder if Sporting KC manager/technical director/meme generator/muscle/referee advocate Peter Vermes might go for a strategic destruction and rebuild.
Narrator: he did not.
Vermes is betting Sporting’s next few seasons that the injuries of last year were a fluke, and that his aging core still has a few more seasons of glory. Because as talented as Pulido is, he still needs service, he still needs a midfield that can control the meat of the pitch, and he needs a defense good enough to make his goals stand up.
So far, so very good. His work on Sporting’s first two goals in the home opener last weekend was gorgeous:
I’m not sure how many players Sporting has had who could’ve made either of those plays. The goal had to be struck so fiercely but also so precisely, and at just the right moment and just the right angle. The assist was like a mix tape, the touch to get away from the defender appearing too hard at first, but perfect in the end.
Sporting has a very long way to go. We are 5 percent of the way through the MLS season and it’s worth remembering that at this point last year it looked like Sporting was onto one of its better seasons.
But you’re right in the moment. There was a lot broken with last year’s team, and that starts with injuries, because if they’re as hurt this summer as they were last summer we’re all probably wasting our time.
But last year’s team also needed some creativity. It needed some punch. It needed scoring. It needed a better midfield to support, and that’s part of it, but it needed, basically, Alan Pulido.
There is some symbolic significance in Pulido’s presence as well, because he was expensive and is now playing for a club that’s been criticized in the past for not being willing to buy expensive players.
But the most important part is the soccer, and at least two games in the soccer looks dang near flawless.
When my oldest approached kindergarten, my friend Nate Bukaty said something that’s stuck with me.
“When your kids are in school full-time you’ll realize how little they’re in school,” he said.
Like, for instance, can someone tell me when kids started getting THE FRIDAY BEFORE SPRING BREAK off? Are you kidding me with this?
Why is this a thing? What school administrator sat back and thought, you know what, it’s hard enough to get kids focused and used to school when they get back from the summer or winter break ... how about we try to recreate that after spring break, too?
Yes, yes, this all makes sense. Here, kids, to go along with your break we’ll also give you a break. When you’re back, lunch will be ice cream, topped with cake.
Sorry. That’s obviously not what you’re looking for here. But my point here is that I might not be the best spring break resource. The oldest is in kindergarten now, and my weird job means we can’t really have a typical spring break.
The Mellinger family’s spring break is, basically: Dad is off at a college basketball tournament while mom does the real work back home.
For a 13 year old, man, I don’t know. You could make the drive up to Omaha if you’re into basketball. The weather looks nice, and if I could put myself in your shoes (assuming you took off work anyway for the tournament) you could make it a sort of staycation with the kid.
Go golfing one day. Take a bucket of balls and pitch to him or her another day. Play tennis another day, assuming that’s a favorite sport. Teach ‘em how to grill or smoke ribs one day.
Before I give another suggestion, let me emphasize again that my kids are 6 and (almost) 4, so my dad headspace isn’t even close to having a 13 year old. But that seems like a good age to let it fly a little with some things.
So, what if every night you showed him one of your favorite movies?
Maybe that’s corny, maybe you’d be met with an eye roll. Or, maybe you could sell it by including a different perk each day: make popcorn one night, s’mores another, wings, whatever.
This is a big moment. Some of the best memories come when an original plan falls through. You can salvage this, and make it really special. I hope I’m helping.
Jim, you’re here so I know you’re a good guy but gosh dammit don’t you ever talk like that again.
The 3-point line is real basketball.
Real basketball is the 3-point line.
The 3-point line is the equalizer. It’s how most upsets happen. It’s why short people or those of us who are, um, quickness challenged can still matter on a basketball court.
It gives any little kid in a driveway a dream, man.
I think I’ve shared here before that basketball was always my favorite sport to play as a kid. I loved every sport I tried: a great catch in football, the feeling of hitting a baseball off the sweet spot, the look of a good golf shot, a forehand top spinning over the net, all of it.
But basketball took my heart as a kid in no small part because it was the only sport where I felt I could somewhat consistently do one thing as well as professionals. I might not have been tall, or fast, or able to jump much.
But when I was in the driveway, if I had a basketball and stood behind the 3-point line and shot it so well I heard that perfect swish, well, a pro might’ve been able to do the same thing but he couldn’t do it any better.
I got addicted to that feeling. It gave me an in. I loved that in. I spent hours outside chasing that in.
I want that in for everyone.
Now, if your larger point is that analytics has taken away something about basketball that a lot of us grew up loving, then, well, yes we agree.
There are two different types of quarantine, at least as I understand it, and each would bring a very different strategy.
Like, if I had the house to myself, I would stock up a dozen briskets and a bunch of charcoal and try to find some consistency with the end product. I’d get a power washer and finally clean the garage, because my wife has been asking me to do that pretty much since we moved in. I would inhale some historical documentaries and read like 10 books, perhaps starting with The Nickel Boys and The Topeka School.
Now, in the more realistic scenario, in which I basically only get the master bedroom because I still have a wife and kids, then that’s a lot of time to plot out life decisions.
I’m still doing the binge-watching and the reading, but I’m also making sure I have some way to get really good at video games. I’d go through my phone and edit and order probably like 500 pictures. I’d think about starting a book. I would definitely wear nothing but sweatpants and long-sleeve tees.
Other than the wondering if I had and had transmitted a potential deadly disease to someone vulnerable, including my children ... it sounds like a pretty good two weeks.
You are something like 100 times more likely to get the coronavirus than you are to live long enough to see an NBA or NHL team in Kansas City.
Sorry, man.
I know it’s not the answer you wanted.
But it’s science. Keep washing your hands.
I first saw this idea from Jay Bilas, but the rule change we need is for the charge call to be jazz hands.
Calling a charge has to be the highlight of a ref’s day. It’s momentum shifting, it’s significant, it’s powerful, and it’s made by punching the air like a damn heavyweight champion.
Who wouldn’t enjoy that?
But what if the call was something a little less showy, and a little more humble? Doesn’t have to be jazz hands. Maybe the ref has to do the I’m A Little Teapot dance. Maybe he has to recite a previously agreed upon piece of obscure civic legislation. Maybe he has to grab the PA mic and win a game of truth or dare.
Whatever, the point is you take away a little of the buzz and see if that helps. After all, your kids wouldn’t want candy if it tasted like toothpaste.
But, anyway. Here I am six paragraphs in and I haven’t answered the question.
I’m probably naive on this. I’m willing to be naive on this. I believe major structural changes are on the way. If we were taking a historical and 30,000 foot view we’d probably see that we’re already in on structure changes: true cost of attendance, more athlete freedoms in terms of transfers and the NBA, even imagine and likeness.
That’s a real gateway to a system that makes more sense including, eventually, agents and shoe companies more realistically accepted as part of the ecosystem.
Man, that’s pretty strong. That’s a story you might end up telling at his wedding. I say well done, sir.
The two closest comps I have:
1. A few weeks ago, I went out for a run for the first time in too long. It sucked. I was basically a corpse for the last mile or so. I was walking up the driveway into the house thinking about nothing but water and the couch when our kindergartner came out of the driveway with a ball and a smile. Honestly, I didn’t much about it. I was too tired. Then I got upstairs and my wife told me reality:
He’d asked to shoot baskets outside by himself. He grabbed his ball, opened the garage, and spent a half hour or so shooting his shot. I might as well have wept.
2. My wife sometimes takes the kids to a friend’s house to watch Chiefs games. Our older son is obsessed with football, but he’s also vulnerable to a friend wanting to play monster trucks or something, so if by the end of the day he feels like he had too much monster trucks and not enough of the game he’ll ask to watch the replay.
Once, the DVR cut off with about 5 minutes or so left in the game, so he watched the rest of it on my Gamepass account while he ate breakfast.
Look, I don’t really care if my kids like sports. I’m just like you. I just want them happy. Whatever that means, that’s what I want.
But, also: it’d be pretty amazing if it turns out that sports is what makes them happy.
Hell yeah.
I went with the Kamado Joe, but as far as I can tell it’s basically the same thing, and it’s the best purchase I’ve ever made other than our house.
The best part is that it’s really the only grill you’ll need. You don’t have to keep a Weber for burgers and a smoker for smoking. It does everything. The heat is even and steady enough that you can cook overnight.
You can become something of a hero with your friends, too, just by cooking a little more than you need and giving out the rest.
Congrats, my friend. But just remember: with great power comes great responsibility.
This week I’m particularly thankful for these hydration tablets. Lets just say I may have had a long night over the weekend and these little miracles allowed me to wake up feeling somewhat normal. It’s like a time machine. A real life time machine.
This story was originally published March 10, 2020 at 5:00 AM.