Several thoughts
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@jayballer54 Agree with all of your several thoughts. As to the final point, we might be ranked number 1 this week, I really hope not. And, I agree that we haven’t really earned it. Who have we beaten? Duke, but without their bigs and they’ve now lost 4 games. No one else. No of the other top teams in the B12. With the stretch we have upcoming, we could well have 2-3 losses in the next couple of weeks - unless we really step up our game. 5-0 in conference is nice, but deceiving - we’ve had about as easy a first 5 games as you can get. Of the remaining 14, there are only 4 that I would be comfortable penciling in as wins right now. Doesn’t mean we can’t win each game, but I don’t recall struggling to put away the lower echelon teams in the conference at Allen like we are this year…
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@DCHawker I agree. Unless there is a sense of urgency or a little more pride, no 13 will not happen this year. Maybe that would be good for them to have that happen. They would probably get a 2 or 3 seed with no guarantee of being in the midwest regional, as well as the possibility of being in the same bracket as Kentucky or UCLA. Yikes.
Or they could play to the level they are capable of and stop screwing around.
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Other than the dumb FT shooting late, I thought KU turned up the D heat with many steals, & not allowing Forte to get looks. Look at the HUGE disparity in FT attempts & that’ll tell you who the aggressor was for the final 75% of the game.
I watched IowaSt few days ago, they played ugly, took poor shots, poorly disciplined bunch. Now that we play 4+1, we should be better against them both on O & on D. And, I’m making that oh-so-dangerous assumption that Self>Prohm…
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@jayballer54 agreed about this team not being #1. That honor goes to either Nova and UCLA. UCLA is the real deal and will be my pick to bring home the title this year.
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@ralster I disagree. Morris and Burton are going to have fun playing against our defense. They are probably smiling and licking their chops after seeing how even Forte was able to get in the lane at will.
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Game is gonna be in the 90s if not both teams over 100 barring horrid shooting.
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@ralster ISU is struggling now. Morris just got his 3rd foul
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@HawkChamp hopefully you don’t mind being wrong
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@Crimsonorblue22 I’m don’t mind being wrong. That is my prediction
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@HawkChamp Will be an interesting game against dear Melvin Weathermax’s team…
Burton is a 6’6 250lb body trying to do dirty work against 6’8 JJ, 6’10 LL, or 6’10 Bragg. I heard announcers say he has a fragile psyche, which makes me wonder of he’s an oversized pussy?? Wouldnt the competitor in you want to test that? Make him chase JJ & get some early fouls.
Monte is minus Niang and minus 7ft McKay.
Cant wait to see this chessmatch mgmt by Self…
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@jayballer54 I certainly agree with you that I don’t think we should be #1. We’re not playing well enough. Seems like we just play well enough to win? The stretches of really poor defense confuses me…we replace Selden and Ellis with Jackson and Svi/ Vick…should be close to the same defensive team that we were last year…maybe Ellis, with his experience made a big difference…I don’t know. The FT shooting (mainly by Josh) is going to bite us. Maybe we need to get our rears kicked in a game to light a fire under them?
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@Hawk8086 who is playing consistently good?
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@DCHawker Agree about putting these teams away But a couple of thoughts, could be a couple of reasons - - ONE every team is getting better - - there are no easy wins whether home or away, Two we are just not playing really well at the present sparodic just got to shore some things up. This year more then ever, if you can steal a win on the road means like twice as much this year - - JUST a tough Conference. TCU better, TTbetter, K-state better just got to grind them out – ROCK CHALK ALL DAY LONG BABY
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@HawkChamp Might have top disagree just a lil I don’t really think Morris any better then Evans and look how many shots it took for Evans to get what he got. - - I think Frank matches up better with Burton I’m not that concerned about Burton, ya he is good but I think we can hold our on with him. - -ROCK CHALK ALL DAY LONG BABY
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@jayballer54 good points buddy. Offensively we just had an off night but still put up 87. I continue to worry about the lack of defense especially in the post to go along with rebounding. It like which ever big we are playing is gonna have his career day, not all of this is on LL because he had to help too much with our guards letting up drive byes. Which lead to Soloman getting easy buckets. We are not close to playing to our capabilities and with that I’m not sure we are a top 5 club, but I’m a guy that don’t care about rankings just about winning when it matters. Monday is the start of this tough stretch and if we don’t play better it will be tough to go .500 in it. I’m looking for toughness and composure. We will find out a lot about this club in the next few weeks. RCJH.
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@Hawk8086 IF we don’t get things straightened out - -straightened out soon that butt kicking your talking about will be coming sooner then later, probably even twice - -WV @ Morgantown the Kentucky at Rupp, just got to right the ship. - -would be nice to come out for once from the opening tip and just take control - - ROCK CHALK ALL DAY LONG BABY
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@Crimsonorblue22 UCLA, Gonzaga, maybe. I just think we have had too many close games at home…the obvious question is …what happens when we play in a tough environment? Guess we’ll find out Monday night.
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@jayballer54 Frank and Burton?
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I really hope that you find a way to enjoy this season because it certainly doesn’t seem that way
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@Crimsonorblue22 dam did I say Frank? - -am sorry about that - - I meant Josh - - ROCK CHALK ALL DAY LONG BABY
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Great thread.
JMO: I believe we have had three teams playing as close to their ceiling as is possible – maybe above their ceiling. They’ve easily each played their best game of the season against us. We have withstood that and I think it’s more about how good our opponents have played than about our deficiencies. We haven’t played at the top of our game, and fortunately, haven’t needed to.
Maybe I’m out of touch with what ‘excellence’ looks like these days, but I feel like the athleticism of this team (7 rotation) is top 5. Our guards and outside shooting is top 5. We have more playmakers on the floor at the same time than I can ever recall.
Defense is a question, but it is a Bill Self team and that portends well in the long run.
Ok, here’s for my completely fan-boy comment. (i.e. I may regret this and have to eat my words):
Josh Jackson is the best freshman we’ve had since Wilt (who didn’t play varsity.) Better-- more impactful – than even Manning. He isn’t scoring as much as Wiggins or Manning, but he impacts the game more through all aspects of the game. It reminds me a bit of young Jordan. I know… I’m a homer, but the kid is solid gold – a winner. The combination of him with Mason, and company is dreamy. And improving.
Can they be beat? Of course. The ceiling of the best teams like Villanova, West Virginia, UNC, Kentucky, Baylor, Creighton etc is not far from our ceiling.
But I think they can go toe-to-toe with any team even when that team is at the top of their game. We have to play close to our ceiling against teams playing at the top of their game… But this team is capable of taking any team’s best shot.
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Great post!
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@BeddieKU23 thank you! … And while I’m on a roll, let me add: Vick is way underrated. He’s more of an x-factor than people realize… He didn’t have a showcase game today, but his athleticism is way up there, he’s a good shooter and doesn’t make a lot of mistakes. He needs to be more consistent, but has the raw materials to be Langford-esque by his senior year.
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To reply to the original post, I don’t think this team is playing like a typical #1 team in the nation. We’ve yet to play 40 minutes of consistent dominate basketball. And yet we sit 5-0 in conference play and winners of 16 straight. There is no dominate team in College Basketball so whatever team gets the #1 ranking has earned it for that week and will have to fight like hell to keep it.
Today was a struggle, even when we finally got the lead and kept the advantage we saw struggles every minute. Terrible Free Throw Shooting, sometimes I wonder if they just get up there and close their eyes before they shoot. Some of the misses by Graham & Mason are just out of character. With Jackson, you just pray he can make some. What was he 10-17 today? That’s terrible.
We had three 20 point scorers today. When was the last time that happened. I thought Devonte Graham had another strong game, that’s now 3 straight strong games from him. That comes at a crucial point because Vick & Bragg are not giving us much on offense anymore. Vick had some hustle plays but Bragg had yet another non-impactful game.
We won by 7 and Frank Mason had an off shooting game. He really missed some easy one’s and open shots. Still not his day and he went for 22!
This team has its flaws and it sure is exciting to watch at times. We’ll see if we can weather the BOOOO storm in Ames Monday. We’ll need to play our best basketball to win in that gym.
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I love Vick, he’s been really good for most of the year. Lately he hasn’t been as great but today he had some great hustle plays as you pointed out. I think he struggles offensively to figure out when he should drive or shoot. He’s still getting comfortable with this team. Defense is still a big work in progress as we saw yet again today. He’s only going to get better
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Did I read where somebody said Nova may well jump us for the #1 on Monday? My feeling is … great, let’em have it. It’s bad enough we get everybody’s prayer shots and circus 3 pointers just for who we are. Don’t need that bulls eye on our back with the #1 in the middle of it also. Any other spot in the top 4 is fine with me.
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@BeddieKU23 very true, to me he looks rushed on offense but he hustles his ass off and gets us a few extra possessions.
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I’d be very happy if they did jump us but I don’t see it happening.
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I think he took coaches words to heart. Self has said recently that he’s wanted more from Vick from an energy and hustle perspective. At home he’s played better. We need to see him bring it on the road
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@brooksmd idk they definitely could. UCLA had a close call at Utah so doubt they do anything. Nova has had some trouble with crap teams like DePaul themselves. It’s such a crap shoot these days with parity the way it is nowadays.
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I am not worried about this team. I don’t want our best game to be against okie st. We’ll know a lot more when we play the @ WVU @ Kensucky and home against Baylor trio. The visit to Clone Land will be a good one as well. Bill’s teams always play ugly about this time of the year, then they have their breakthrough. He’ll get them to play defense- he’s going to scream at them until they do.
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@KUSTEVE Need to play well on Monday. I have been saying since the pre season that there are three key games we need to win - @ISU, @WVU and @OSU. Every time we go to those places it seems as though we make them look like top ten teams. No reason we can’t win with a little poise, senior leadership and a few three pointers.
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@brooksmd Bilas said it
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@kjayhawks ucla should have lost, bad call against Utah at the end
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OU looking good vs TT early second half up 10
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@kjayhawks any freezing drizzling yet?
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Maybe we just have really poor focus when there is a big winter storm, like in Morgantown last year.
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@mayjay and late and worried about loved ones getting there and …getting out of there,
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@DCHawker said:
@jayballer54 Who have we beaten? Duke, but without their bigs and they’ve now lost 4 games. No one else. No of the other top teams in the B12.
KU’ record indicates that after the very first game, it has beaten all comers big and small, that is 16 games in a row…only Gonzalo has a similar 16 game winning streak. Yes, the team is not playing as well as we would like it to but putting it down does not do any good.
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@bskeet Agree totally about JJackson. Best freshman contributor Self has ever had. He does ALL the little dirty things. Too competetive not to. No “protect the merchandise” here. At least not yet. But he’s got to get more consistent at the FT line, I’m less worried about the 3%, that will come over time. Right now, I almost thought it could be hack-a-JJack…
To actually have a freshman that you can say “go create” or “get a bucket” or “drive it”, it only adds to what Frank and Devonte can do.
To have a freshman that actually makes a veteran team better is simply breathtaking. Hate to say it, but now KU nation will understand how Calipari does it with 4-5 new top10 guys. When they are that highly ranked, they really can play, and part of being that good, is that even their young minds actually may “see” the game on a whole different level than your usual frosh.
The announcers mentioned it took Josh a couple of games to not look lost. Maybe KU people would say it took him a couple of weeks. But we saw it take Oubre months, Wiggins hard to judge as a bit more passive persona. Sherron was pretty good from Day 1, but sort of did his own thing, didnt quite facilitate like Jackson does. My point is, JJ has been a very quick study, with a remarkable feel for the game. And, he has no fear. I wonder if Xavier Henry still watches KU games on TV, would be curious to know what he thinks, since I’m pretty sure I know what his dad’s advice to JJ would be. Better left unsaid.
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KU 16-1. Lost that first game in OT to Indiana, in a battle of not season’s-end-products, and in a game in which Self pulled Frank out before the end of OT. Almost makes me think he wanted the team to taste an L, right out of the gate. Other posters here have wondered for years if Self “lets them labor” for certain games, while getting them “all geeked up” for other opponents.
So, what I’m saying is: Does that 16-1* record have an asterisk by that 1 loss?
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KU is 16-1…right?
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@JayHawkFanToo Yep, post edited/corrected…thnx
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@JayHawkFanToo Not putting down anyone - or, at least don’t intend to. Just making the point that we really have only one quality non-con win and we haven’t yet played WVU, Baylor or ISU in conference. We may be ranked #1 more by default - since we haven’t lost since the first game - than by merit. I would argue that Villanova, Baylor and UCLA actually have better resumes as one loss teams than we do - all with more quality wins, including on the road. That’s all. We’ve beaten everyone we’ve played since IU, which is all we can do - although I think most would agree that we can and will need to play better to beat the B12 teams above, esp. on the road, as well as UK.
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@DCHawker The polls aren’t seeding the tournament teams. They are meaningless in the big scope of things. To “merit” moving up in the poll, you simply win when the games, while the teams ahead of you lose. That’s the rule they use, even though there are several team’s resumes that might look better. It would be funny if we just kept winning ugly game after game, imo. Butt ugly w after w- it would drive people up a wall…lol.
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@KUSTEVE That’s the 2011-12 season you just described. KU didn’t win pretty and heavily relied on bad ball to keep guys out of foul trouble.
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@BeddieKU23 said:
I love Vick, he’s been really good for most of the year. Lately he hasn’t been as great but today he had some great hustle plays as you pointed out. I think he struggles offensively to figure out when he should drive or shoot. He’s still getting comfortable with this team. Defense is still a big work in progress as we saw yet again today. He’s only going to get better
If Vick and Bragg can consistently play better I think this is a FF team. Now, can they be a little less loss on D before the NCAAT? Time will tell but getting minutes should help.
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Nothing personal but you are the stereotype of the expression…the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.
You complain about not playing anybody but if you look at all the other teams’ schedules you will find the same pattern. There is only a limited number of elite teams and they don’t normally play each other in pre-season except for a limited number of tournaments. The best way to determine the toughness of schedule is to look at the record against top 50 teams and the strength of schedule. According to Sagarin who lists both, here are a few…
- Kentucky, 3-2, 31
- Duke, 3-4, 42
- Villanova, 5-1, 14
- Baylor, 7-1, 6
- UCLA, 3-1, 78
- West Virginia, 4-1, 145
- Gonzaga, 4-0, 95
- Kansas, 6-1, 26
Keep in mind that after Gonzaga win over Saint Mary’s its SOS went up from the mid 200s to 95; likewise, had Indiana not lost 6 games, KU’s SOS would be in the single digits. Keep in mind that all of KU’s wins in conference are against top 50 teams…actually top 30s.
Obviously when taken in isolation, numbers do not look as good; however, when taken in context and compared to other top teams that you say are better, KU’s numbers look pretty damn good, wouldn’t you agree.
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@JayHawkFanToo It’s not green grass, brown grass or chartreuse grass… I think we’re talking past one another. You are clearly inferring criticism in my comments. I’m not being critical re the schedule. We typically have one of the toughest non-conf schedules year in and year out - and play 2-3 top teams. Just hasn’t played out that way this year.
You can slice and dice it any number of ways. If you want to use the Sagarin ratings, I would note that we’ve played the (tied for) fewest top 25 of any of those teams - just 2. Louisville, not listed above, has played 8 such games; Villanova 5. If you look at RPI, we’ve only have 4 top 50 wins - Duke at 15, TCU is next highest and then Nebraska (of all things). This year, so far, we simply don’t have as many high quality wins as other teams (or that we typically do at this time). Our overall SOS is mostly a product of the fact that we haven’t played any really bad teams - only 2 in the 200s.
And, it is simply a statement of fact that we haven’t played ISU, WVU or Baylor yet - either at home or on the road.
Our overall schedule strength - and opportunity for high quality Ws - will obviously change in the next two weeks.
Again, we’ve beaten every team we’ve played since the first game - that’s all we can do; can’t control how other teams play. My point and only point is that IMO, there are at least 3 others teams that have better overall resumes at this point than we do - and that if we are #1 this week, which seems likely, it will be more a product of the fact that we were the last to lose, rather than relative merits of each team’s resume…
