KUAthletics: KU vs. Fort Hays State
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“Historically, this is the eighth time in the 11-year Bill Self era that Kansas enters the season ranked seventh or higher in the Associated Press preseason poll and the No. 5 ranking marks the 16th time since the 1992-93 season that Kansas will enter the season seventh or higher.”
That stat is just amazing to think about. We are all so spoiled to have our Jayhawks be so successful and consistent. Rock Chalk!
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Last year, I learned that coaches in the Big 12 are pretty good. I’m basing this on how towards the end of the conference and in the Conference Tourney, all of them had figured out how to play against Ben McLemore. Very little offense from Ben over the last ten games and his ability to get 20+ against Michigan when he was away from a long scouting report. AAU coaches did not prepare a scouting report or a complicated defense in any AAU super Stars game.
Wiggins had the ball stolen from him by a D-II guard twice. That came from scouting. In order for KU to win against comparable foes this year, Wiggins will have to be part of a plan for offense and be able to share even though none of us really want him to. Coach is teaching him to draw defenders and dish. Perry was taught last year that when the ball comes inside to him that he must shoot unless a triple team or a good double team hits him fast. All must play in Coaches system and use their talent, speed and height when everything breaks down. Frashilla and Bilas and every other knowledgeable coach knows the beauty of this offense when the ball does not stick and several ball reversals take place for an open shot or a lay up. Expecting Wigs to put the ball up every time he gets the ball won’t happen. Davis didn’t score a bunch of points or block a lot of shots, but UK beat us because of him. We will beat a lot of teams because of Wiggins without him scoring more than 15 per game. These Exhibition games are so important to allow this team to become a team.
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Interesting post, wrwlumpy. I’m hoping Wiggins will quickly develop several more tools than what BMac had. BMac had limited penetration skills. He basically had no crossover moves. He could penetrate when someone gave him a lane, and opposing teams quickly realized how to stop that.
I’m anxious to see Wiggins tomorrow night. He performed much better in the second half last week. You could see his jitters easing up and his aggression coming out. Wiggins is a Type-A personality, and BMac wasn’t. I’m a huge BMac fan, but recall most of his conversations to media being about how he COULD take over a game. Wiggins WILL takeover games and most of the time you won’t even notice. He won’t be doing it by being a ball hog.
I’ve really been enjoying the words from CS this year concerning the development of Wiggins. He is saying all the right things… about how he is teaching Wiggins to keep up his effort in every play and throughout the play. Wiggins should get a fourth or third of his points off of picking off rebounds and lose balls. That means he is converting off an extra possession for us. If it works out like that, it will be pretty tough to keep us out of another NC game. Players who can do this are invaluable to their team, much more than a player who just has a decent conversion rate and using up xx amount of possessions to get his points.
I agree that he’ll even help us without scoring, by drawing over defense. I’m anxious to see exactly what Wiggins can do off the dribble. From what I’ve seen already, he has the best spin move of any player at any level (yes… better than anyone in the NBA). But I’m yet to see other skills, like crossovers and his ability to score when someone is glued on his shot. I’d love it if he could learn that skill as well as Kobe Bryant… one of the true masters of taking a shot under any circumstances and creating whatever space he needs while floating in the air, and then able to convert.
Wiggins has the best wheels I’ve ever seen in basketball.
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Slayer … Great Post !! My only concern on Wigs is his lack of “body mass.” Does he have the mass / strength to force his way to finishing a shot? It could be that Wigs gets out “man upped and pushed around.” We will see as only game play will answer this question.
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Absolutely! If Wigs can show he has improved with his handles, his drive to the lane plus his spin move… It will be unstoppable. No one will be able to guard it.
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Andrew White looks like T-Rob in that photo! He is ripped this year.
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RedRooster… the mistake for Wiggins would be to add mass to his body. He has unnatural strength for his existing size. And his strength is not sluggish muscle ball. His strength in play is his speed, agility and the amount of strength he does have for a player of his weight. He is a lot stronger than most people know. You’ll see that come out when he rips the ball away from opposing players this year.
The years ahead for Wiggins will be interesting to see… and what happens with his body. He can always add strength by using very specific workouts that push his fast-twitch capabilities. Over the next several years I can see him adding just a few pounds, mostly because his body isn’t done developing through the age process yet. His bones will continue to harden and become heavier (for example). But his biggest advantage for staying healthy and injury free is to remain light. Even adding 10 lbs to his frame will add an exponential amount of stress on his joints… especially when you consider the repetitiveness involved in this game.
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Does anyone have a link to a streaming site for tomorrow’s game? ESPN3 has the game scheduled “subject to blackout” and the map shows the entire state of Kansas, which means that I your provider does not carry the “official” TW channel you, along with a big chunk of fans in the metro area and the state, are screwed. Last time I was able to get the game on Surewest/Consolidated Communications, but I am not confident it ill be available tomorrow. Maybe if everybody in this forum (and friends) e-mails Zenger or KU’s Chancellor, something can be done about it, any idea what their e-mail addresses are?
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@JayHawkFanToo Ask and you shall receive. Rock Chalk!
Sheahon Zenger Director of Athletics
Phone: 864-3143 Email: kuathletics@ku.edu
Chancellor’s Office University of Kansas 230 Strong Hall Lawrence, KS 66045-7518 Contact Office of the Chancellor chancellor@ku.edu 785-864-3131 bolded text
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@drgnslayr I think not only the media hype Wiggins, but the fans too, evidently in your comments. McLemore talked about “COULD”, but didn’t. Part of the reason might be his skill set or lack of, part of it was his personality. We came to the conclusion based on the whole season he played. I don’t remember anyone making this type of comments while he redshirted. And of course, we all heard how much the Jayhawks improve after he became eligible to practice, but nobody imagined he would become a player like he did after the redshirt year. He was after a Rivals 34 rated player out of high school. So he jumped almost 30 players to be drafted 7th overall. In other words, McLemore was a bit raw or/and less talented than Wiggins out of high school. But to say Wiggins “WILL” dominate in college after playing only 1 college exhibit game is just hype in my opinion. There is no doubt Wiggins has a lot of talent and potential, but I might be in the minority and believe he needs to prove his worth before being compared to Danny Manning, or even McLemore.
The reply is to slayr’s comments, but please don’t take it as a personal attack. Just disagreeing with some of the “hype”.
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@Lulufulu85 It’s another hype of Wigginsmania. I haven’t never seen either TRob or Wiggins in person, but have seen TRob in picture plenty of times. TRob’s body is a LOT thicker than Wiggins. I’d say comparing to TRob, Wiggins is very skinny.
200 vs 250 at the same height. 
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Wishawk… don’t ever worry about challenging my comments. It is a bigger compliment to me that someone considers my comments worth challenging!
I don’t have a problem comparing Wiggins to anyone… I just won’t easily carry him in the same light as someone like Manning even if he takes us to a NC this year. I remember Manning’s entire career at KU! But if Wiggins goes on to have a huge pro career, he’ll deserve plenty of comparisons in the same light.
Granted… WILL is hype! And I am part of the hype machine… and I’m sure I WILL continue to hype Wiggins! There… I’ve even hyped my hype!
I’d like to elect myself commissioner of “Wiggymania!”
What about my super hype declaring Wigs as having the best wheels ever to play the game of basketball!!
All heed to me and my comments, for I am the “head wig” of Wiggymania!
I’m having a good time with this… if anyone hasn’t noticed! Thanks, Wishawk… and don’t take my remarks negatively either. From it all I’ve landed a new job… head wig!
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Comparisons that are based on past prescriptions of actions already witnessed are basically worthless. To compare Wiggins with Wilt or Danny does not provide any worthy analysis other than they will fit into the category, “they were good for KU basketball”. Personally, I do not care what individually Wiggins does or does not do. Like all life conquests, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one, and the last I read, basketball was played with five on the court. And if Wiggins provides the diversion to make his team members more effective via double teams on his own game, then we should relish his time on this KU team in the most noble of ways in the part he played. We will not know his stature of greatness until this season has passed on, and the rewards for this one and done are posted. This kid is unique because his awareness of who he is and what he has yet to do, are not final products. I expect more like most do. We as fans must continue to have faith in HCBS system, and the players who wear Kansas across their chest. They may not always meet our expectations, but they have pride, otherwise they would have chosen another place to hang their hat. RCJHKU
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@drgnslayr. You said: "I don’t have a problem comparing Wiggins to anyone… I just won’t easily carry him in the same light as someone like Manning even if he takes us to a NC this year. I remember Manning’s entire career at KU! "
I think it is extremely unfair to compare Wiggins to Manning using this criteria. Manning and Wiggins played and will play in different eras and the 4 year superstar basketball player will not ever happen again. When Manning was in college, most every player stayed in school 4 years, where in today’s environment all the superstars-to-be last only one season, and even that season is not by choice. You must also keep in mind that Wiggins will have played his “entire” college career at KU, right? If you need a 4 year career at KLU in order to be a superstar, then Chamberlain, the best player ever at KU and Paul Pierce, the best of the last 20 years, would not be in the conversation since neither played 4 years. Barring a change in NBA rules requiring players that do not go straight to the NBA, to stay at least 3 years, the bulk of the NBA superstar in the next 20 years will have had only one year of college basketball and maybe none. I seriously doubt you will find a NBA star that stayed in college 4 years, I don’t think you can do that even now. This is the sad reality of college BBall.
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@rockchalkintexas. I had those e-mail addresses but they are the generic addresses that neither the Chancellor or Zenger will ever see. If they are monitored at all, you get a boilerplate answer that means nothing. I have a friend that thinks he might be able to get an e-mail address for someone close to Zenger; hopefully he can deliver
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With these new rules can anybody play defense? I guess you just have to out score people?
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So what is everyone’s reaction to the second exhibition game? I wasn’t able to watch it. Did out D still look bad? How was Mason at running the show? Were the freshmen nervous still? Any thoughts on red shirts?
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@Mr_Miyagi I think it was raw and inconsistent. Moments of spectacular athleticism mingled with poor shot selection, porous defense. Generally, unselfish.
The bench came in and made a difference by hitting 3s.
You don’t want to look away because you know that something amazing could happen at any moment… but then you spend most of your time watching intently at a work in progress and wondering… will they gel? will there be a go-to guy? can they learn all that they need to learn fast enough?
I’m sure others will have more astute observations but that’s what I’m thinking…
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@Mr_Miyagi The game was sloppy, and the Jayhawks need a lot of improvement from their defense on the perimeter. And often times several guys jumped up trying to block the shots by the FHSU’s penetrating player, but ended up missing the rebound, so FHSU scored quite few points on putbacks and long range bombs.
For the game, White still impressed and made some really nice plays, such as a spin move to the basket and scored. Ellis was very efficient and one of the best players as usual. Mason did really well penetrating and dishing out assist. And I believe bot he and Tharpe had a good game with very good A/T ratio. Selden made a lot of improvement from the first game, but if I were the coach, I’d put White ahead of Selden at this point. Embiid showed a lot of improvement from last game, and I think he will start over Black by the end of the season. I don’t know about Black’s game. To my untrained eyes, he didn’t play a good game, 3 point and 3 rebounds or something like that. It’s very low production for a senior BIG man in my opinion. Manning looked better than Frankamp though Frankamp did hit 2 3pointers. So I think a redshirt year will help him tremendously. Greene can shoot and handles the ball pretty well for a guy 6’7", so my pick for Greene to play over Frankamp.
All of the freshmen made freshmen mistakes, but all of them had good plays. Mason’s behind the back save/pass to Ellis (not sure) was terrific.
Landen Lucas didn’t do much, and for whatever reason didn’t try to score towards the end of the game.
I really love the blocks by Wiggins (3 blocks?), but thought he should have better performance on the offensive end even though he had a couple highlight dunks, a 3 pointer, and a few baskets here and there. Guess I was expecting a superman performance after all the hype.
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Another point that the announcers made: Last time these teams played, KU won 101 - 52. This year they scored 75 and shot probably pretty close to 40% for the game.
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Thanks for the updates guys. Exhibition games are always hard to read. Hopefully on Friday we will get a real look of our starting point and see how far we need to go. To me it sounds like playing D, and coming together as a team that has a clear identity is what we need to improve, which is always the case this time of year.
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Self said on the post game that Connor would be backing up Mason for the next game.
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I’m feeling a lot of hurt with the Packers missing Aaron Rodgers. Hopefully Tharpe will only miss one game.
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Tharpe is healthy, just suspended for playing in that pro-am game this summer.
The perimeter D will be a work in progress. Because they are calling it so tight, guys are having trouble adjusting to the no contact rules. I saw several times last night where guys were closing out on the perimeter and just seemed unsure of how to close out without drawing a foul. I anticipate several early games having 50+ FTs shot while the players, coaches and officials figure this out.
Wiggins didn’t play that well last night, but he still made what was probably the best play, blocking the shot off the backboard and sparking a quick fast break that led to a Perry Ellis dunk. That’s just a special, special play.
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@approxinfinity WOW that’s extreme!
Glad my wife doesn’t watch sports. When KU BBall is on, I want her as far away from MY TV as possible.
We both are KU grads, so she understands.
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The DVR is great … but the wife can get annoyed easily when I use it. I tend to pause when she starts to talk. I tell her I’m really wanting to pay attention to her. That’s one version. The other version is that I simply don’t want to be interrupted watching the game. That’s version she obviously suspects.
Moral of the story – don’t talk during a KU game. I can’t pay attention to footwork, ball reversal, outlet passes, etc. when anyone talks.
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“Moral of the story – don’t talk during a KU game.” That needs to be put on a sign so I can hang it in my living room.
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I have to watch the game in the bedroom. It’s not that I can’t watch the game in the main room. I just don’t like to be bothered when I’m watching the game. I found that when it comes to people watching the game with me. It can only be other diehard Jayhawks fans like me, or it just doesn’t work.
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Several years ago some old KU friends were in town, just available for the afternoon of a KU game, so I invited them over to watch it with me. Big mistake. I felt I had to talk to them because I hadn’t seen them in years. But my attention kept coming back to the game. I was distracted from both, and as soon as the game was over they had to leave. Very dissatisfying on both fronts - I didn’t enjoy the game, or my visit with old friends.
For the last decade I’ve only watched with people who didn’t expect me to talk to them, and didn’t try to talk to me about anything not directly related to the game. Much better experience.
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My dog hides during KU games. That’s normal, isn’t it? I’m pretty sure it’s the “squeaky shoe sounds” from the TV that bug her.
