For Those Handwringing about the State of this KU Team...
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I’m curious where the injuries really occur. They play at most 120 minutes of basketball in games a week, usually just 80. No one for KU is playing all 40 minutes so more like 70 minutes per week max.
How many minutes of practice each week? In my experience the good coaches had practices so hard the games were easy by comparison.
So where does the wear and tear occur? In practice due to the strenous nature (long burn) or in games because of players giving 110% (hard burn)? I don’t know when Frank hurt his knee, but Dok was finished off in practice. How many black eyes did the players sport last year from practice?
I just don’t know where the true fault lies. I do know if you don’t practice enough in contact sports you definitely will be injured in games. Where is the line?
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I played something like 25 years of organized basketball, starting in my youth. I continually moved up to a higher level of competitive basketball. I finished a far cry from the level of play KU is at. But I did make considerable gains along the way.
I suffered one very major injury that ended my play. I had several semi-severe injuries earlier.
From my experience, the risk of injury grew considerably as I became better conditioned and played at a higher level. So I know the risk of injury is higher as the level of play becomes higher. Even knowing that, I can’t really imagine what our guys go through at that level of play. I feel like we are lucky if we only lose one player per season.
I think strength and conditioning are important on many levels but is not the panacea. Kind of a double-edged sword. On one hand, getting in better shape helps players from getting tired to the point where injuries become more possible. Strengthening muscles and joints is a huge help preventing joint injuries. To a point.
But the other edge of the sword is that the improvement in strength and condition also raises their competitive capacity. They are jumping higher and running faster. The hardwoods always remain the hardwoods. With the added athleticism they hit the floor harder and they collide with each other harder.
To a lesser extent it reminds me of where football has gone. When you have a 400 lb lineman running a 4.4 40 you are going to create problems. The NFL is trying to reduce injuries with more rules, and I’m sure those rules are helping. But they can’t stop what is happening. Watching the game on TV does not really give you an understanding of how hard those guys are hitting. If you are watching the playoffs so far, there have been some insane hits, often to the head. Most of the time those players keep playing and just had their “bell rung.” But there is no way they escape long term consequences. No way.
The game of football is being outgrown by the level of athleticism developing.
Basketball is suffering this same situation, but at least the injuries are not so often to the head.
Here is something where stats would be very helpful. I’d like to know if severe injuries are on the rise in college basketball. Does anyone out there have the numbers?
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Injuries can occur during either, obviously.
Freak injuries, like the one that took out Azuibuke, can happen basically anytime just by falling the wrong way, or getting tangled up or whatever.
Those aren’t the injuries I am concerned about because you can’t do much to prevent that, other than wrap everyone in bubble wrap and not play.
The one’s I am referencing are the compounding ones. Let’s say Frank bangs knees with Tyler during a drill in practice before the Armed Forces game in Hawaii. So Frank’s knee is sore, but he’s not hurt by any means. He can absolutely play (and should). So he plays three games in 7 days, with a practice between each game, plus a light shoot around thrown in.
He doesn’t re-injure the knee, but it’s still sore and he has to wrap it up. It gets stiff after flights, and in the morning sometimes, but again, he’s not hurt, so there’s no need to pull him from the lineup.
Except next is a three games in five days stretch. Knee is holding up, but still sore. Hurts after practice and games sometimes now. Not nearly enough to keep him off the court, but now they are trying to monitor his activity in practice. It’s just sore, after all.
Another three games in a week stretch, knee starting to feel better. They back off his practice load a bit, so he’s not sore after practice anymore.
Bangs the knee again right before the Finals break. Not as bad as the first time, but we’re right back to where we were a month ago. The cold weather isn’t helping, as it’s stiff every morning. Not limiting him in games or anything, but it takes a while to get loose. He’s getting more time off in practice, but a lot of that time is spent getting that knee to behave so it doesn’t stiffen up.
Which brings us to this weekend. Saturday game. Monday game. Knee couldn’t quite get loose on Monday and was flaring up during the game for the first time all season. Thankfully, there’s no other games until Saturday, but Tuesday has that monster trip to Morgantown, where that knee will get a real test.
Now, I don’t know if that’s what happened at all, but everything I just wrote could have easily happened without Frank ever being too hurt to either play or practice, and showing no signs of any problem until Monday.
Think of the dozens of times Frank has taken a fall and we have all held our collective breath. Any one of those moments could have been a fall that banged a knee or tweaked an ankle or smacked a hip that was already sore from something that happened several weeks ago. That’s the wear and tear, and it doesn’t get better until after the season.
You have to manage that, and for a guy with Frank’s style, that means days off in practice, and limiting minutes in games when you can so he doesn’t take a hard fall when you’re up 18 with three minutes to go in a game that was long since decided so he doesn’t re-tweak that ankle, or smack that hip again, or bang that knee one more time.
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Good points… and don’t all our guys get more used to playing with pains anyways?
Don’t you wonder just how much pain a guy like Frank has played through without making notice to it?
Pain is there for a reason. It is a warning sign.
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It’s certainly possible that could happen with how slow his injury has healed.
If he did it could make KU attractive for any late signing Bigs (Euro’s, transfers, de-commits).
I still think Tilmon is one to watch with Illinois 12-7 and likely headed for a 12+ loss season that would put Groce clearly on the hot-seat. Getting any Top 100 big to pair with Preston would really be an ideal situation to end this recruiting cycle.
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@BShark Why is that? Injury? Ability? or Attitude?
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@Hawk8086 his attitude looks great on the bench.
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@Crimsonorblue22 That;s what I thought…
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@BeddieKU23 said:
It’s certainly possible that could happen with how slow his injury has healed.
If he did it could make KU attractive for any late signing Bigs (Euro’s, transfers, de-commits).
I still think Tilmon is one to watch with Illinois 12-7 and likely headed for a 12+ loss season that would put Groce clearly on the hot-seat. Getting any Top 100 big to pair with Preston would really be an ideal situation to end this recruiting cycle.
Tilmon did sign though, so that makes it tougher.
@Hawk8086 said:
@BShark Why is that? Injury? Ability? or Attitude?
Some combination I’m sure. I didn’t read much beyond the first few posts about it since it’s just speculation.
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@jaybate-1.0 said:
Still, what makes most sense is to amp a little for ISU in Ames in order to steal a W early on the road against a top half team; that is Self’s MO in the past.
Which he did very specifically by saying Vick and Bragg were gonna win the game for KU.
Excellent tactics.
Personally Im not worried about the conference season. KU will, at very least, share it with WVU or Baylor, or both. Im fine with that.
What I am worried about is KU’s defense. Ranked #30 per kenpom the last time I checked. That is not final four material. Sweet 16, yah sure. But if they dont lock down their defense by late March, well, lets just say Id have a bad feeling about this Chewie.
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@Fightsongwriter Come on! The 2012 team only had 6 guys! Six! plus Justin Wesley…
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@Lulufulu Sorry, not correct. 8 guys on that team played in 37 games and averaged 10 min per game ot more. Wesley was not one of them.
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@jayballer54 Agree… It sure looked like he tripped himself.
In any case, the refs continue to put a damper on JJ. That call was within the first 2 minutes of the game. Maybe the first minute. That changed the way he could play for the rest of the game (and he still had the amazing block from behind).
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Wrong. Only 7 players averaged in double digits MPG and Jamari averaged 9.6 mpg like I posted above; the next two guards were Anrio Adams and Evan Manning…again, like I posted above since the discussion was about “guard depth” outside the top 7 players. During conference play the main rotation players mpg increased and the bench players mpg decreased…juts like I posted…
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@JayHawkFanToo Not wrong and @Lulufulu was sort of right. Come on you are grasping at straws. Jamari was the 8th in 12-13 (and the accusation was we only played 6). 9 or 10, or 9.6536217892 for the hair splitters are generally substantive minutes per game. You can have a legit role and play more than mop up. Look at this year, and with Doke out, we only have 7.
In 11-12 we did, in fact, play 7 + Some noble effort mins by movie Wilt. Makes you wonder what might have been had we had one more able and talented player.
And by the way, an aside is quite different than a topic change. The aside had to do with assessing Tyler’s ability, not the 7 vs. 8+ debate.
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Ok this settles it. Keegan just “reported” ( I use that term VERY loosely with him) that a 7 man rotation was enough for Ted to make the F4 in 74. If keegs is saying it’s an ok idea then we can assume it’s not.
Generally speaking, I want the example to be a team that wins it all not the one that come up short.
- @jaybate-1.0 All truth, no malice
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- @jaybate-1.0 All truth, no malice
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The truth is always a work in progress.
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Et al,
I’m not taking sides in this one. I know everyone is disputing a specific season with better memories than mine, but to redirect slightly, a 7, 6, or 5-man rotation could go deep, but the shorter the rotation, the more the team is vulnerable to bad match-ups, fouls, sickness, injury, cold hand, and broken heart.
So: we are looking at trade offs between a group of players that play the most, because they are the most net productive together most of the time, plus the occasional out of nowhere performance usually needed by a guy who really isn’t a regular rotation guy. Thinking here of Cole against UNC in '08.
My point is bench depth has two aspects: frequent rotation, infrequent rotation.
Number in frequent rotation tends to shorten, as competition heightens, because increasingly few of your guys are good enough to keep up with opponents.
But even so, once in awhile there are situations that require you to go to the bench and ask a guy to rise to the occasion.
The '08 team was arguably 3 guards, Rush and 3 bigs, for a 7-man rotation down the stretch, regardless of how many played significant rotation minutes in rotation during the first 2/3s of the season.
But even that 7-man rotation required that one half of one game from one guy to get her done.
So: you can (and Self does) shorten to 7, or 6, sooner or later, BUT…
Self without some quality players beyond that 7-6 shortened rotation is almost certainly going to get clipped over 6 games.
The 2012 second place team was that situation.
The first six played together the best of any six man team I can recall. They were magnificently complementary.
But against U.K. they needed one more guy with D1 talent to come to the rescue for even just that first half…someone that could have afforded to get physical with Gilchrist, or the UK PG, and take them out of their comfort zone that first half. Not great play, but passionately aggressive play with enough raw talent to be out there.
This year’s team increasingly appears shy of that kind of player come March, too.
Lightfoot or Coleby do not appear capable of delivering a truly disruptive half in a pinch inside against an All American big that KU has to disrupt to win, as Cole did in '08.
I frankly have no idea how Self has kept winning with Doke out. It’s apparently great guard play, using Josh to run their 4s ragged, Landen guarding and boarding, and some weak teams.
But what will Self do against a true stretch 6-9 230 pound 4 that can guard Josh inside and out, and has a money move inside?
The genius seems to have his work cut out for him this year.
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If KU is 10 deep there is no chemistry. If KU is 7 deep they develop chemistry. Roy’s teams used to be deep and they could run you to death in the regular season by throwing bodies at you and keeping the pace up. However, come tournament time there are sooooooo many tv timeouts the conditioning edge he held is moot. A 7 man lineup will have plenty of energy and will have great chemistry. Fouls are one of KU’s biggest enemies.
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@jaybate-1.0 You summarized my fear come tourney time. I was glad you mentioned Cole in 2008…we do not have that guy this year…unless Lightfoot or Coleby turns in such a performance in a pinch.
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@jaybate-1.0 Would Bill Self have the cojones to use both Mitch and Coleby for a spell in March? he might need to. I fully agree with your point about Cole in 08
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Did you bother to notice that once conference play started Jamari’s minutes went down? Also the mpg for Perry, one of the 7 members of the rotation also went down and the mpg for the other 6 players went up. Basically, once conference play started, Coach Self tightened the rotation and relied even more on the core 6-7 than he did before. The number are there and they tell the story.
We are losing track of the gist of the discussion which was that Coach Self has relied on a 7 player core before and the current situation is nothing new…would you agree that this much is true?
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@dylans excellent point.
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@jaybate-1.0 dude, there aren’t many guys like that. Maybe TJ Leaf? Hes not a banger inside and prefers the perimeter. Justin Jackson? Probably not - hes a perimeter player. So you see, there is no Kevin Durant or Michael Beasely to worry about. I’ve watched a lot of basketball this season and I don’t recall a guy like that that could effectively guard Josh thirty feet from the basket. Isaiah Hicks MIGHT be quick enough, but I wouldn’t bet on it. Fortunately, we probably wouldn’t see UCLA or UNC before the final four.
You say what Self is doing is genius - maybe but do you remember Nova last year? We are almost an identical team. The recent UConn championship teams and Michigan in 2013 are also very similar to us, so clearly other teams have done well in similar circumstances.
Also, Cole was a big boost in San Antonio, but he wasn’t the reason we beat Roy if that is what you are implying.
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"dude, there aren’t many guys like that. "
Master Dude, In March it only takes one stretch 4 and there are almost always 1-2 teams in the FF with a stretch 4.
Re Cole–no single player ever won a basketball game. Ergo: No team can win a game without all the guys that played. Period. Clearly Cole was critically necessary, because he played a lot. So the question is: can anyone on this team give it what Cole gave it inside. So far the answer appears no, so Self will have to string the bow differently to give some guy on this bench the big chance at another position and hope KU DOES NOT GET MATCHED UP WITH A STRETCH 4.
My assumption is always that the team that wins the ring never ran into too many matchups it could not handle. Only one team does that each tourney.
Finally, the difference between KU and Nova in March is time zone. My hypothesis is that Nova would not have won last season’s March Carney had Nova been located in Topeka.
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I don’t believe Cole played that much in the NCAA tournament except in the UNC game where most of his play was in the first half when KU was almost 30 points up and he played only 4 minutes in the second half when UNC made a comeback.
Memphis 4 minutes (75-68 )
North Carolina 17 minutes (84-66), 13 min. FH, 4 min. SH
Davidson 5 minutes (59-57)
Villanova 3 minutes (72-57)
UNLV 3 minutes (75-56)
Portland State 10 minutes (85-61
Sometimes our memories are much better than reality or as Billy Joel would say…
You can get just so much
From a good thing
You can linger too long
In your dreams
Say goodbye to the
Oldies but goodies
Cause the good ole days weren’t
Always good
And tomorrow ain’t as bad as it seems
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@JayHawkFanToo thanks for providing the minutes.
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@JayHawkFanToo I think that was the point @jaybate-1.0 was trying to make. Cole, not much used, came off the bench
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@Lulufulu no, I think he was saying Cole was an important piece. The truth is, that team would still have smacked Carolina without Cole.
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Yes you recall references to Cole playing more than ONE VERY CRITICAL FIRST HALF STRETCH AGAINST UNC and i for one only recalled the ONE VERY CRITICAL FIRST HALF STRETCH. He was a non entity most of the season. And that’s what we are missing. A highly ranked guy riding the pines being groomed for next year that gets the call in the tourney and scraps to give us necessary energy against an AA!
Those that do not remember the past, are doomed to repeat it.–G. Santayana
Those that remember and don’t heed it might as well just forget it–jay Santayana 1.0
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@jaybate-1.0 as I said, that team was so good and ready to play they would have smoked Carolina regardless. No one is saying grooming a top recruit like Cole is bad - those decisions aren’t up to me or anyone here and I’m not responsible for it. This year’s team doesn’t have that so wishing for it does nothing for us.
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My point is that what we remember of Cole is him out playing Hansbrough which was great; however, outside of the time when KU was way ahead of UNC and Portland State, Cole really did not play that much or at all during crunch time during the 2008 Tournament. Yes, he came of the bench but he did it at non-crucial times and not for extended periods of time…at least this is what the numbers tell me and others might seem them differently.
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“The truth is, that team would still have smacked Carolina without Cole.” @HawkChamp
This is an astonishing statement.
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Cole smacked Hansbrough! I do remember that.
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@JayHawkFanToo One difference this year is that we are primarily playing 4 guard line up and all 4 guards are playing high number of minutes. So if one goes down KU will be in bigger trouble as there is not an adequate guard back up to fill in for that many minutes. In that scenario Self will be forced to rely more on traditional 3 guard line up IMO
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You are forgetting that Vick is also a guard…
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@HawkChamp said:
that team was so good and ready to play they would have smoked Carolina regardless
You have: could, woulda, shoulda.
I have: DID!
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@JayHawkFanToo Not really. If a starting guard goes down, Vick becomes a starter and then the option is Tyler Self. Can he handle Vick’s minutes? That was my point.
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We would have two injured guards then and at that point we probably go 3-2?
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@jaybate-1.0 uh, I know what happened because I watched the game and have re watched it many times. I was going along with your hypothetical scenario. You say we don’t win without Cole, I say we do. Agree to disagree.
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everyone is such an expert. i need some help. i will be traveling west from wichita to colorado on the 25th of this month and be gone for a week, would someone PLEASE tell me what the weather will be like. would hate to rely on just merrill teller(kwch 12) for the weather. if i receive different (opinions), i promise not to hold any of you responsible. i will just feel better knowing that each of you cared about my safe-fun travels and you want me to make it to my ultimate destination!
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@autohawk Accuweather.com, checking your destinations. Or add the widget to your Android phone if you have one (I have Galaxy S5), add the cities you are going to, and you can switch between them by sliding down on the widget. Gives you instant 5 day projection. Going to the web site (you can do so at the bottom of the screen in the widget) gives you choices of hourly, 3 day or extended forecasts. You can also get radar.
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@HawkChamp I remember Cole being a pretty important part of us pulling away. You are probably right that we win without him…the problem is if you change one thing…or in this case several series where he made an impact…you never know.
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@autohawk By the way, Colorado is pretty big. Where ya goin’?
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@autohawk Sample screen for the website:
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@mayjay What the crap is this for?
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@Lulufulu Autohawk asked for weather help. What is the big deal?
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It really depends on where in Colorado you are going and which way you are getting there.
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@wrwlumpy a very favorite highlight of mine!!!
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@mayjay springs. Thanks for the help! If any one goes , gotta eat at Birddog and Saltgrass!
