Well, that wasn't good.
-
Offense was terrible in the 2nd half. Nobody could guard Niang. Wiggins wasn’t hitting. Tharpe was invisible, for the most part. They were hot from 3. Did I miss anyting?
-
Actually, we couldn’t guard any of their guys.
-
@Hawk8086 Yep. That was the problem all night. They did not appear to have as much energy as they did against OSU.
This does not mean that they are a bad defensive team. They are an inconsistent defensive.
Not sure why I even read the posts on KU Sports. Pretty much a bunch of morons over there.
-
@DinarHawk Amen to that. Aside from Oakville (Tony Bandle I think is his name), all the intelligent talent migrated here.
-
@icthawkfan316 I know. Its funny when they say one moment (like yesterday) that they play good defense, then today they say they’re the worst defensive team ever!
I prefer the intellectual and adult conversations over here.
-
We exerted no pressure on defense. Aside from a few scattered plays, we never made them uncomfortable. It was like we were content to wait around for a rebound that often did not come. Did we roll out half court pressure at all or hedge at all? I don’t remember seeing it.
If our defense doesn’t improve, we won’t go far. There is no doubt of that.
But, on offense…
Naadir turned down a few open 3’s. He didnt shoot a single one, and was 0 for 3 from the field. Why?
Checking the box score, I was shocked to see that Naadir had 9 assists vs 2 turnovers. Why did he feel ineffective as a facilitator, other than the lack of scoring?
Perry was 11 for 12… Why wasn’t he 11 for 15… it seemed like he was unstoppable, so why didn’t we keep feeding him? Look at Niang. He was 11 for 22.
These are maybe nitpicking, as the game was lost on the defensive end, clearly.
-
@DinarHawk I lost my temper over there, Rodney Crain and allin herring are just nasty!
-
@Crimsonorblue22 Yeah, I’m going to stop reading that stuff over there. Really drives me nuts.
-
@approxinfinity There appeared to be very little energy on the defensive end that was there yesterday. Not sure why.
-
I was surprised looking at the box score that Tharpe was credited with 9 assists. Must have been of the “I was the last guy to touch the ball on the 3 man weave before Wiggins drove it and scored” kind of assists. He was a complete non-entity out there. With Embiid out, I was hoping that he would show some leadership, but I’ve seen none. I’m actually disappointed that Self played Tharpe so many minutes and Mason so sparingly during the past 2 games.
Still, not completely devastated by the loss. A lot of things had to come together for ISU to win: Embiid injured, Wiggins having an off shooting night, Selden having an off night, Niang being unstoppable, their team staying hot from 3 all game.
-
@icthawkfan316 Exactly. A bunch of things went their way.
I agree that Nadiir should have done more. It doesn’t help his confidence that he cant make a shot. That may very well be the problem. It would be nice to see him more aggressive driving the lane.
-
@DinarHawk He didn’t shoot a 3. He needs to shoot 3’s to contribute to the offense, especially when it isn’t going for Wiggins/Selden.
-
Well hell that wasn’t what I expected.
Traylor looked slow.
Wiggins looked timid.
Ellis started red hot but then the second half he Dolby Grayed it and drifted away.
Selden couldn’t get it going.
Green tried.
Mason was two little as in his height was an issue on D.
Agree about Tharpe why wasn’t he shooting? But 9 assist is a good thing.
Defense? Well that needs some consistency. Effort. Weak side help.
-
@JRyman Consistent defense has been the problem all year. And Iowa State is definitely a game where you have to bring 110% effort on defense. I’d say they only brought about 70%. That doesn’t cut it.
-
@JRyman The difference between this KU team and others is not necessarily that they are not capable of playing comparable defense, but rather the ability to play defense consistently. That is why one moment they are playing great defense and the next, well, not so much.
-
@approxinfinity didn’t he shoot a 3 the very first time down?
-
didn’t he shoot a 3 the very first time down?
@Crimsonorblue22 I thought so too, but they must have decided his foot was on the line. A look in the play-by-play lists that possession as “Naadir Tharpe missed jumper”
-
@icthawkfan316 Tharpe needs his shot back! He’s doing a decent job handling the ball, defense ugh!
-
5 new starters. Toughest schedule in college basketball in 20 years. Losing the potential number 1 pick in the NBA draft (if he jumps) to injury…I think we’ve done very damn well, thank you very much. I’m proud of our team, and not the least bit concerned about a meaningless conference tourney game. I think our guys could use the rest. The NCAA tournament will be a step down in competition for us, at least in our first two games, then Mr. Embiid returns. Have faith, fellow fans…all is not lost.
-
A few scattered thoughts about yesterday’s game.
The offense played reasonably well. If you score 83 points, there is a good chance you will win.
The defense was out of sync with no weak side help resulting in many uncontested baskets; Coach Self will fix that.
The technical on the Mayor turned the game around. After that call, all the calls started going to ISU; I wish Coach Self would have gotten a “T” to get the refs back to normal.
The defense allowed too many open shots; however, when the other team shoots close to 60% from the 3, your options are limited; if you play tight a foul is called, if you try to contest the shot, it probably ends up in a foul as well. This is one of those games for ISU that Fraschilla calls playing “out of their minds” and can do no wrong. Also, when two good teams play 3 games in a season, it is very, very hard to get a sweep.
This was game of runs and KU ran out of time to put together one last run. Oh well.
On a good note, with all the upsets happening this weekend Lunardi still has KU as #2 seed; before all is said and one, it might end up a #3 seed, but either is not too bad.
How spoiled of a fan base are we? At this time of the year, fans from most other programs worry if their teams will make it to the dance in the first place; we, on the other hand, complain loudly about KU not trying hard, playing poorly…you name it. In the mean time, the teams will quietly secure a high seed like it does year after year. We should be so happy to have the team we have and count our blessings we live in Kansas, the only state with at least 3 Division 3 teams that will send all 3 teams to the dance for the third year in a row. We could live one state East and have only the non-state school (St. Louis) going to the dance and the flagship university and former rival headed to the NIT. Something to ponder.
-
@JayHawkFanToo nice post, counting my many blessing! Just getting a little scared, not wanting to say good bye to these great kids playing for all of us!
-
I got to see pretty much everything I opined would be a good idea in this game and we got our asses handed to us. Shows what I know…
-
5 new starters. Toughest schedule in college basketball in 20 years. Losing the potential number 1 pick in the NBA draft (if he jumps) to injury…I think we’ve done very damn well, thank you very much. I’m proud of our team, and not the least bit concerned about a meaningless conference tourney game. I think our guys could use the rest. The NCAA tournament will be a step down in competition for us, at least in our first two games, then Mr. Embiid returns. Have faith, fellow fans…all is not lost.
Steve, despite what we saw yesterday, I do absolutely believe we can advance in the tournament, but it’s going to be really difficult to play a team like ISU or Creighton without JoJo. I vastly underestimated the impact he was having on those games. We’re still a good team without JoJo, and given the right match ups, we can go far, but Embiid smooths over so many of those rough areas for this team, and our weakness were truly exposed yesterday.
That doesn’t mean I’m down on us at all. We rallied to beat OSU and Wig was worn out from having played all 45 minutes the previous day. If we didn’t have the toughest first round opponent and Wiggins shots were dropping, I think we could have matched ISU’s firepower, but whatever. We have plenty of time to solve the problems we have. The only down side is that we didn’t get to see how we match up with a team of length like Baylor without JoJo, so there will be that question. We’re unlikely to face a team with more than one really good player in a 15 seed, so I’m willing to bet we can coast on star power through the first weekend, but advancing beyond that will really take some ciphering on Self’s part. Either that or we need Wiggins to sustain those 30 point efforts over the course of 6 games. That, I think is the less reliable path.
-
“Embiid smooths over so many of those rough areas for this team”
Good way to put it… and right on!
I was hoping for more with JoJo out. I was hoping to see this team fight back harder, especially against the critics that say we can’t play without JoJo. I wanted to see them play their most-inspired d all year and prove everyone wrong!
Then… make it to the 3rd round and we get JoJo back and he just adds icing to the cake of an already great defense!
That is what I was hoping for. Instead… we gave up 92 and 94… a bit better against OSU, who really played out of sync. 94… isn’t that a record for most points given up during the Self era?
I grant that ISU was hot and enthused… two typical factors that you can expect to face in March. But come on… so many of their shots from the outside were totally uncontested. And we just couldn’t get a stop in the second half. We fell for every single gimmick they ran!
Let’s face the facts… ISU has plenty of seasoned players. They schooled our rookies… big time. I remember one play with 4 Jayhawks (under their basket) all left their feet from a head/shoulder fake. It was almost comical!
School is out… we need execution from here on out!
