Discerning ‘fool’s gold’ from reality is key for Kansas as NCAA Tournament progresses

If you Googled “Bill Self” and “fool’s gold” and “3-pointer” on Friday afternoon, you would have found 542 results — one of which entailed this nugget from Kansas’ loss to Wichita State in the second round of the 2015 NCAA Tournament:

With Kansas having missed three of four three-point attempts and trailing 8-5 at the first TV timeout, Self blistered his team: “All you want to do is shoot threes! Can you be any softer?!”

That proved prophetic in a game in which KU played Stay-Puft against the rugged Shockers, who smashed Kansas 78-65.

And Self’s use of his most scathing term — “soft” — in that context reinforced a perception that three-pointers equal fool’s gold equal … not what you want.

At least on the surface, the stereotype will probably be accentuated as top-seeded KU’s Elite Eight game time approaches around 7:49 p.m. Saturday against No. 2 seed Villanova.

The Wildcats give just about everyone the green light from behind the arc and have made an electrifying 33 of 62 threes in NCAA Tournament play. KU has managed a measly 15 of 42.

The mind-set is by design from Villanova coach Jay Wright, who playfully sums it up as “Shoot ’em up. Sleep in the streets.”

Roughly meaning, he once explained, that if you make them, everyone will love you. If you don’t, they won’t let you in the house and you sleep outside.

Somehow, this translates to just letting it rip and not worrying about it.

“I always remembered as a player, if I felt the coach gave me the confidence to shoot the ball, I always felt like I played better,” Wright said Friday as he tried to remember where he heard the term. “So I always wanted our players to have that confidence, and that’s what we use it for.

“And I never want them to fear having that game. If you’re going to have a game where you shoot eight-for-11, you can’t be afraid to have that game where you shoot one-for-11.

“If your coach doesn’t let you do it, you’re never going to have that eight-for-11 game. That’s our theory.”

This isn’t quite how Self sees it all.

But there is a misconception about him on this topic. He doesn’t inherently disdain the three: He just really prefers the logically easier interior and transition baskets available with the angles and geometry and flow of the game.

He doesn’t think that just any three is lazy or soft or fool’s gold: Only the ones that reflect settling or impatience or winging it out of rhythm.

And this season he’s adjusted nimbly to his personnel.

Kansas does not have a traditional low-post offensive presence, but it does have five players (Perry Ellis, Devonte’ Graham, Svi Mykhailiuk, Wayne Selden and the injured Brannen Greene) making better than 40 percent of their threes. Another, Frank Mason, is hitting 39.3 percent.

This is a special and underappreciated aspect of this team.

Somewhat unnoticed is that with its fifth three-point try against Villanova this KU team will set a school record for attempts in a season even as it is third in the nation (42.3 percent) in three-point percentage.

And its 298 makes already are 27 more than KU’s previous best, 271 in the Jayhawks’ 2007-08 national-title season and the 2010-11 Elite Eight run.

“I’ve always been a guy that played inside-out. This year, we probably play less inside-out than we have,” Self said. “But the reality of it is we’ve got (in) my opinion, really, really good shooters on the perimeter, and I think every coach plays to his strengths.

“So certainly people say … we don’t shoot as many threes. I guess statistically that could be accurate, but that’s not something that we want to shoot a certain percentage or anything like that.”

At least not in terms of percentage of overall shots.

But there is a correlation here between what is stressed and what is reaped.

While neither Graham nor Selden said they feel constrained from shooting threes, it’s clear from their play that over time and through coaching they have come to be more discriminating about what constitutes a worthy one.

Even if what that means might seem hard to describe.

“He’s always on us about taking good shots … He wants us to take the open shot when we have it; that’s pretty much it,” Graham said, smiling and adding, “You can’t just come out jacking up threes.”

So you might see the fact that Kansas is third in the nation in three-point percentage and think … why don’t the Jayhawks shoot them more than 19 times a game?

But taking more doesn’t mean making more, at least not at the same percentage. And this is a crucial aspect in this matrix.

Kansas may or may not be taking the optimal amount of threes, but it’s worth considering the likely diminishing returns on shooting more.

Especially through the long-range implications of the long-range shot for both teams: With 909 three-point attempts this season, Villanova has attempted 203 more than KU.

But ’Nova is 147th in the nation in three-point shooting percentage (35.6 percent), and its 324 makes are just 26 more than KU has made — meaning Villanova averages 8.8 three-pointers a game to KU’s 8.1.

The Wildcats have been playing on another tier in the tournament, of course, but not against defenses as salty as KU’s.

Still, the onus is on Kansas to show that’s not sustainable and force a regression to the mean.

As for on the other end, Self clarified his thinking … softly.

“Taking jump shots all the time and not playing through the post some or driving the ball can be fool’s gold; making threes is not at all,” Self said. “But that can’t be the way we play, all you rely on.”

This story was originally published March 25, 2016 at 6:53 PM with the headline "Discerning ‘fool’s gold’ from reality is key for Kansas as NCAA Tournament progresses."