437th reason to dislike Marsha
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@Crimsonorblue22 said:
@mayjay I missed that. Was he on last pm?
I just watched a video of it. To be fair, he does a nice job of explaining his reasoning for most games.
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@Crimsonorblue22 I Didn’t see him either. - - -I thought he was surpose to be a guest commentator for our game? - – WHEW lol - - - - -ROCK CHALK ALL DAY LONG BABY
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We need to BEAT Marsha.
WE NEED TO BEAT HIM BADLY ENOUGH THE KOCHS WANT TO GIVE THEIR BITUMEN BONES TO A KU ASSISTANT LIKE NORM, KURTIS, OR SNACKS!
We need to let ALL of Marsha’s players attack our guys elbows with their noses.
We need PAYBACK!!
On second thought, the best thing would be to win the ring this season and have a KU VICTORY PARADE–a motorcade–that starts in Lawrence, drives to Wichita, circles through that miserable excuse for a campus of WSU, goes twice around Marsha’s house and then goes back to AFH!!!
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Zaga, UNC and U.K. are the most dangerous for KU, now that Stumpy choked as usual.
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Whichever team wins that UCLA-UK game tonight is a scary, scary team.
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@jaybate-1.0 Skipping Squeaky’s town?
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If you didn’t vote you can’t talk politics. @mayjay
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I’ve watched UCLA a half dozen times the last month. I agree they are good, and Ball is superb, but I’m pretty confident KU would handle them on a night when both teams were playing normally. KU would be another version of Arizona for them, only with a vastly better coach. Arizona won that conference and was just too athletic for UCLA.
Kentucky I flat out don’t want to play.
I’m pretty sure Cal was in development zone and didn’t even give his guys a wrinkle or an amp against us mid season. That game meant nothing to them and the loss was probably good for the AAU-itis Cal has to work through every year with his one season wonders.
Kentucky has all the athleticism we have, plus the all the size and depth we don’t.
If Self were coaching Kentucky, there is zero doubt Kentucky would walk away with the ring this season.
With Cal coaching, it’s a 50/50 proposition. Cal is VERY uneven as a coach. He is superb as a motivator and OAD psychologist,but he really is kind of a simpleton about the Xs and Os, and he frequently gets outcoached. For these reasons about which he appears honest with himself about, he has gone the talent route foremost always. He’s made clear he won’t coach without the most talent.
So: Self over Cal and our experience would be our edges, but they have the perimeter length and athleticism to shut down our Trey game AND sdeny our drives, AND block Josh when he gets through. If Cal gets making shots I just don’t see how we beat them. If they were cold, we would hang with them and Self and our guards would get us to bonus early and we’d find a way to win.
But all in all I don’t want us to have to play the Stillbillies again.
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Gregg ought to know better. So he focuses on UCLAs offense, but forgets KU plays far better D the UCLA. Something’s gotta give there.
Gregg also saw his own team get caught in the mud offensively, awful O. Ugly ending. Where were his wings? And Shamet came to play, but neither he nor Conner are Frank-n-Graham.
Gregg missed a team avg’ing 96ppg in this Tourney? Gregg missed also the 12 of 14 ku games this season that were decided by 2 possessions, that KU won? A scenario KU hasnt had to resort back to our CloseGameFinisher pkg…
Gregg, come on, man!
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Well, I thought about going there, but I wouldn’t want to expose us all to the bio weapons lab at KSU. The farmers are all too crazy right now to take the risk.
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@jaybate-1.0 Nature’s bio-weapon is going strong on the other campuses, too. Called Consequences of Spring Break. (Kids tell their parents it is the flu.)
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U r right!
But where has this defensive intensity we have seen the last two games been all season?
It’s amazing for such a mature team to suddenly learn to guard hard!
Lane jumping and Stripping was an old trick, but I didn’t expect them to be able to do it.
They were great at it!!!
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@jaybate-1.0 Agree with your assessment. UCLA could go off, but neither they nor anyone else remaining can match our combination of speed, athleticism and shooting - except for UK. Hate to say it, but I was impressed by the way the ground out the win against WSU. I really expected the Shockers to win that game. And they did without a huge contribution from Monk, who is the one guy who can really go off. Fox’s speed and Bam’s athleticism will be tough to deal with. If UCLA doesn’t take them down, I would happy to have UNC do it. I think that would be good match-up for us - really don’t see that UNC has anything over us at any position. Our JJ is better than their JJ and Berry can’t light a candle to either BIFM or DG. Meeks and their other front court guys just aren’t that good.
But, first things first - let’s take care of business tomorrow…
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UK is 170th in 3pt% and 49th in 2pt%
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@BShark Good info - not a great shooting team. Does that mean you would prefer to see them rather than UCLA or UNC?
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@mayjay And 438th reason, picking Florida over Wisconsin!
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Hard to say. Athletically they are right there with KU. More athletic in the post, Monk and Jackson is a wash. Mason and Graham combined maybe a hair behind Briscoe and Fox athletically but obviously Mason and Graham are MUCH better shooters I mean that’s a joke to even compare.
I think whether it’s UNC, UCLA or UK then KU is in for a tough game. KU could lose to any of them. UK is probably the most dangerous if they shoot well, but they haven’t shown that they can consistently. I’d probably take UNC if I absolutely had to pick just because of how well Self has done against Roy.
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No richer sweeter recollection than KU coeds breaking out the halter tops in spring after a cold winter. But I also recall the debaucheries of Padre Island and Ft. Lauderdale well just before spring fully sprung in Lawrence. Wonder if they still go to such humble places, or if the world is now their oysters for spring break. Spring break in Sardinia!!! Ooooh!!!
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@justanotherfan said:
Whichever team wins that UCLA-UK game tonight is a scary, scary team.
Honestly, I’m usually pretty humble when it comes to KU. But if I’m being objective, Frank Mason would scare the living S**T out of me if I am any of the remaining teams. I’ve followed college ball closely for the last…50 years and I’ve never seen anyone like him. The guy seems dang near possessed. And I love it!
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Frank went into the Psi zone early this season, came out briefly, went back in and STAYED!!!
He’s been a wonder. Best stretch of everything from a KU guard I can recall.
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UNC has a history of collapsing late in games this year. KU finishes strong. KU has beaten UK at Rupp. UCLA doesn’t play defense. I’m not scared whether or not I should be. This game will likely determine the champion as the other side is weak.
Oregon first.
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I am not a simplifier that buys defense flatly wins in the Carney, but its at least one of the crucial elements of the puzzle.
Most important are coaching and talent and shooting well in no particular order.
Less than a whisker after the above comes two things:
1.) greatness at defending the other team’s strength; and
2.) Greatness at offending at the other team’s weakness.
Give a top coach all of the above, plus at your best when you need your best and that coach will win a lot of rings.
Why do I bring this all up?
Well, what concerns me about UK is the same thing that concerned me about Purdue and Arizona and any team with long athleticism outside and some rim protectors inside.
With long athleticism outside and some rim protection that allows those outside defenders to gamble and stretch consistently outside, the opponent can force KU’s strength, trey balling, 2-3 feet farther out, and over the course of most games, 3pt shooting % declines significantly with each foot farther out you go. Its not the hand in the face so much. Some one this season cited some research that how hard you guard out beyond the stripe does not alter 3pt percentage. I agree. But how far out they set up and take the shot from; that DOES lower the trey percentage inevitably.
Couple that rising error factor with distance from the rim with the frustration of our short, good driving guards not being able to drive to counter act the outside over play, because of their ability to block our shots inside, and KU can quickly find itself battling high frustration and going dead in the water. In other words, one of the two worst things that can happen is to have your strength-high percentage trifectation–denied you and having your backup plan b–driving for short treys–denied you, also; so that you have to default to a mid range game.
Part two of the most dreaded duo of denial is them being particularly strong at offending your weakness, or worse, weaknesses. KU’s weaknesses are vulnerability to athletic size scoring inside and the outside long athleticism needed to take our short guards to iron and finish for three, and shortly foul them up.
Purdue had the big men, though they weren’t all that athletic and when Self adjusted to a back side stripping strategy on the Purdue bigs the second half, Painter could not think on his feet and adjust, or he was on the horns of a dilemma (however he responded was a wash of bad trade offs) and so he responded in a way that didn’t work very well.
Painter was right to do what Charles Barkley said he should. Stop playing two bigs at the start of the second half to stop the jail breaks. Just play one, Charles, said, but then Painter didn’t go to his lone big every possession and instead wasted to many outside. Worse, when Painter went inside, his big got stripped by JJ with a little backside help and anticipation of the entry pass. The logical move at that point was to go quickly back to playing two bigs, and passing out of the back side strip to the backside big (or even faking the entry pass so the stripper committed, then lobbing to the backside big) for the uncontested basket. On the other end, the logical adjustment was for Painter to go 3-2 junk zone with his two big men, and forego offensive rebounding completely from the perimeter and release the three perimeter players in anticipation of every shot so KU NEVER beat them down court even with Purdue’s two bigs playing. But Painter just wasn’t up to the strategies and tactics Self was throwing at him, while Self’s players were evidencing competitive greatness simultaneously. It just broke Painter and he began to get dear-caught-in-headlight eyes. It happens to the best of them. Its happened to Self against Coach K a few times. Professionals at the peaks of their careers and at the tops of their games at the time, are opponents greatly to be feared by anyone younger and less experienced. Painter got way in over his head and never recovered. And KU burning down the house shooting was like having a nail gun to drive tons of silver nails into Dracula.
Purdue had shown very strong 3pt defense most of the season, but their longish perimeter guys just weren’t quick enough to stop us when we put it on the deck. And however one wants to put it, we are a freakishly good team at driving on big men, even athletic ones…WHEN we are hitting our outside shots to make them guard us out there. Without putting too fine a point on it, we are running a 4 point guard offense, with one of the points (staffed by Josh/Svi) rotating like a high low post between the blocks and and a wing, instead of between the low blocks and the top of the circle.
Self has frankly leap frogged what everyone else has been thinking and doing regarding the 4-1 style of play. All teams I have seen playing 4-1` have been playing 4 perimeter players and one big. The perimeter players all play perimeter. To be blunt, Self is running a high low wing offense.Josh rotates with one wing inside to outside if you watch them about a third of the time. Another third of the time Josh is on the perimeter solely running chops and weaves. And a last third of the time Josh is running high low with Landen.
Shit! No college coach has run what Self has been running down the stretch of this season with Josh. I don’t know if any other player could have done it. Duke’s four guard offense the year they won most certainly did NOT do this. This is a crazy nonlinear leap into effectively three variations of Iba’s High Low. Anyone that hates the high low should hate this offense because that is exactly what Self is running two thirds of the time. The only difference is that one third of the time he is rotating point perimeter guys inside and out rather than center and forward.
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@BShark said:
@DCHawker I’d probably take UNC if I absolutely had to pick just because of how well Self has done against Roy.
Normally I’d agree but this years KU team is not a typical Bill Self squad. We are playing the way Roy’s boys wouldn’t be physically beaten. It be a run and gun high scoring affair.
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There’s not much scarier right now than Frank Mason at full speed crossing half court. He’s a dangerous, dangerous man, especially on the break.
