We Need a Title
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@brooksmd no, I clearly stated that Bill is our guy. I also said that I think and am hopeful he will figure out the Elite Eight puzzle sooner rather than later. His teams have been close the last few years and I believe if they get there again this coming year they will finish the job.
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@brooksmd I didn’t take his post as a “Fire Bill” meme at all. He raised legitimate questions in a thoughtful manner. These were the same exact discussions the fan base had when Roy was coach. I certainly didn’t want Roy to leave, although his losses in the tourney still sting. The question isn’t whether we have played badly in Elite 8 games ( we have ), the question really is: do you believe Coach can overcome them? And my answer is an emphatic yes. I think this year we break through. Our roster is LOADED for bear. We actually have a front line for the first time in a while to go with some great guards. I think we’ll be much better defensively, and our offense could be prolific. This year the monkey is off our backs.
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Didn’t you know…we have 13 titles. I’ve bee asking the same question and i keep on being told by the Selfers on here we have 13 titles.
So, you can delete your thread.
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DoubleDD said:
@Texas-Hawk-10 The Media doesn’t and won’t view the Big 12 as a good basketball conference.
That’s because the big 12 is not a good basketball conference. Outside of KU, its basically garbage.
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The Big 12 has been ranked as the top or top 2 league for the last several years by just about all ranking systems and it is better, top to bottom, than other leagues such as the ACC which is top heavy.
Do your homework before you post incorrect information. Just because the Big 12 is not recognized by the MSM it does not mean is not at or near the top.
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@JayHawkFanToo I’m gonna side with @elpoyo a little bit. Our league has not done much to prepare us for winning it all. Basically one elite team besides us of course, since we won it all, OU with Buddy Hield. And we saw how elite they were against Villanova. Those conference rankings you must admit, have been exposed come tournament time just about every year as we survive til the sweet 16/elite 8 with maybe one or two other league teams. We’re the only team with a national title in the Big12! (please anyone, I’m racking my brain, if there’s another, correct me!) That’s going back to the greatest generation! I don’t even want to think about how many titles the SEC, ACC, Big10, PAC12, BigEast has had compared to the Big 12.
And to be honest it bothers me not one bit. If Baylor or OSU or whoever won a title I wouldn’t jump up and down. I want KU to win! That’s all. But if we can play in a league that will help us win it all, then maybe this whole discussion needs to change from replacing the coach to switching conferences!
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@wissox I think you are right wissox. I like the suggestion someone had on another thread that we schedule more difficult non con road games. Yes, I am fully aware of how “top notch” our schedule is, but we are also not getting the results in March that we all want. Why can’t we play more at Duke, or Villanova or Michigan State? Seems like it could only help rather than harm.
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I am curious, how exactly is the conference supposed to prepare us? Every team except Texas was ranked in the top 70 last season and the conference consistently had 5-6 teams in the to 30; no other conference has that type of rankings. KU plays a couple of tournaments with Elite teams plus the Big 2-SEC challenge where it is normally paired against the top SEC team and home and home with a few other quality programs and its SOS is normally in the to 10. I am not sure what else KU could do; you have to consider that most top programs do not want to schedule KU and prefer to schedule weaker competition and easier wins.
If you look at consistency The ACC has UNC, Duke, Louisville and a ccouple of other teams that vary from year to year and after that it drop quite a bit, the Big Ten has 2-3 decent team every year with Wisconsin and maybe MSU being the only consistently good team and a bunch of up and down also runs, the Big East has Villanova and at times Butler and Creighton and not much else, the SEC has UK, Florida and that is pretty much it, the PAC ten has Arizona, Oregon and UCLA and then if drops.
The computer systems look at all the variables including SOS, record agains other conferences and individual rankings for all teams objectively and consistently rank the Big 12 as the top conference. I know the MSM ignores the Big 12 and hype the ACC but the cold numbers tell a different story. You don’t have to believe me, look at the conference rankings generated by KenPom, Sagarin, Massey and others for the last few years and see where they rank the Big 12.
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@JayHawkFanToo The Big 12 gets those rankings by not having many bad teams. The middle of the pack is solid and where the computer rankings help the Big 12. The top of the league is KU and that’s it. There is no other team that’s a consistent top 10 program. A lot of 15-40 teams which are comparable to second round and Sweet 16 teams. There’s not much Elite 8 and Final 4 talent in the Big 12 and the tournament results back that up.
The middle of the pack is why the Big 12 is consistently rated so high, not the top of the league.
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That was part of my point; however, in addition to KU, Baylor, ISU, WVU and OU have been consistently in the top 20.
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@JayHawkFanToo Top 20 is Sweet 16 caliber, not Final Four caliber.
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@Texas-Hawk-10 That used to be OSU (other ff/ee team) then it was Texas, then it was supposed to be ISU, but Hoiberg left. Maybe Huggins can get it going and be that team. They sure have KU’s number in Morgan town…and I hate it.
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@JayHawkFanToo you do raise a good question. Does a good conference prepare you for the dance? If we play in the top conference according to those indices then obviously it doesn’t. But leagues that have perennial top ten teams like the ACC or big ten I think give teams a little more of a competitive edge and it benefits them in the dance.
I’ve never been that impressed by our schedule to be honest. We don’t go on the road to play top teams in their gyms (except for league games). We have a tough neutral site schedule every year. We don’t even have a great home schedule outside of conference play. We play good but not great teams in AFH. This is why entering a home and home with WSU would be beneficial.
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Everything comes down to coaching and the players.
It’s the coaches job to figure out how to get these guys over that Elite 8 round which has been Self’s thorn at KU.
The game against Villanova was a tough game. Arguably Self was out-coached and Perry and Selden didn’t show up offensively.
Against Oregon everyone not named Frank Mason left their lunch bag at the hotel and the pressure got to them while Oregon came out as the underdog and kicked our tails in.
So what’s the cure for that? It’s not playing a gauntlet schedule. KU already plays a conference schedule no other Power 5 conference does.
Let’s see how this years team comes together but I’m sure Devonte, Vick and Svi are all going to use last seasons loss as motivation. I’m sure Doke, Newman, Mitch and Sam all learned some valuable lessons sitting on the sidelines. Either this team is good enough or its not. The potential for them to be a championship team exists but there is a lot of work to be done to get there.
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@wissox How do road games better prepare a team for the NCAA Tournament over neutral court games? The NCAA Tournament is played in neutral courts so why is stuff like the Champions Classic and Maui, Battle 4 Atlantis, and other preseason tournaments inferior to games at Rupp, Cameron, Pauley, and other road environments?
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@Texas-Hawk-10 Practice (regular season games) is supposed to be harder than the games (NCAA tournament).
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@BeddieKU23 I agree with everything you said, but there is just something wrong with the prospect of winning the NC the year AFTER Frank leaves. It’s still a gut punch. Mitch with a ring but not the greatest guard to play at KU? I know I need therapy, but it is still bugging the crap out of me.
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Fightsongwriter said:
@BeddieKU23 I agree with everything you said, but there is just something wrong with the prospect of winning the NC the year AFTER Frank leaves. It’s still a gut punch. Mitch with a ring but not the greatest guard to play at KU? I know I need therapy, but it is still bugging the crap out of me.
Couldn’t agree more, I really did believe we’d win the title this past season with Frank but again we fell short. We just didn’t get it done and I think we look for a million other reasons to justify the disappointment.
I just hope this years squad continues to learn from the disappointment of the past 2 years. The leader of this team (Devonte) has been through 2 excruciating years of this and I think its going to be a great motivator for him and that hopefully rubs off on the team. If this is the year we get over the hump and get a title its going to be really satisfying even if Frank isn’t responsible.
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Hopefully Devonte and crew look to Frank for inspiration. Mason made a huge leap Jr to Sr years by busting his ace in the gym all summer long.
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dylans said:
Hopefully Devonte and crew look to Frank for inspiration. Mason made a huge leap Jr to Sr years by busting his ace in the gym all summer long.
From what Self has said about Devonte this summer it looks like he has been putting in the work to make that possible. I like how he’s already said this is Devonte’s team. Vick has been another that has been talked about taking another leap.
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@BeddieKU23 “I really did believe we’d win the title this past season with Frank but again we fell short. We just didn’t get it done and I think we look for a million other reasons to justify the disappointment.”
All the discussion of reasons for last year’s inability to go all the way–like poor defense, 3 pt shooting, no rim protection, too much LL lead-footed offense and brick-handed offense–all these things are related to the thing I in retrospect theorize was the most fatal flaw.
That being, the woeful, ridiculously inconsistent performance by the returnee who gave us maybe 50 good minutes at most all year, Carlton Bragg. I recall perhaps two games where he played to his potential for about 15 minutes each, but any good minutes he had in other games were scattered so much that the team simply received no benefit from him being there.
And we saw the price paid for his lack of performance: the staff didn’t even trust this 5-star to even appear in the Oregon game when we desperately needed a spark, some rebounds, and someone who could power through Bell to the rim. Something like that is a cancer on a team–people here think Self made the team “tight” but I think the team went into the game feeling betrayed and knowing they were undermanned.
I have always despised people who blame a loss on a player’s failures in one game when that player has busted his bootie all year. Yeah, Devonte missed all 7 shots, but we wouldn’t have been there without him. To say he “didn’t show up” is a short-hand method of saying he had a horrible night, but it implies a lack of effort, which is simply gratuitously insulting.
Carlton, however, spent the year f’ing around off and on the court. He did not focus, or if he did, he zoned out immediately afterward. The team needed him desperately after Doke’s injury. All those games we won by the skin of our teeth were a tribute to nearly superhuman performances by the others, especially FM, DG, and JJ. We can now see that those games were really probably only a prelude to our eventual disaster staved off temporarily only by a run of amazing performances, mostly by a POY that hid a monster mess reclining on the bench.
CB didn’t show up, the only KU player in my memory who for an entire season just simply didn’t care enough to even try to live up to his potential. Had he even performed at half his talent–and maybe even if he had decided not to come back so no time and attention had to be wasted on him–I say the championship would be ours.
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@BeddieKU23 Yes, I heard Bill say in an interview that Devonte has gotten better. I would like to see him show improvement in three areas. 1. Ball handling/protection - honestly, he was not that great at it this past year but there’s no reason he hasnt improved it 2. Driving the lane - I think he was too passive in this area and 3. Defense - which was discussed earlier.
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@mayjay I’m with you on Carlton. His case is baffling and it’s for the best that he’s gone.
Where you are wrong is the portion where you say people blame the losses on lack of effort and Devontes 0-7 night. I don’t ever recall someone saying lack of effort, but when a 40% three point shooter goes 0-7, that’s going to hurt the team. Even if he made his average and made three of those, that changes the entire complexition of the game.
That goes back to the question - why do Bills teams seem to routinely have inexplicably terrible performances in the elite eight? What I’m suggesting is that their entire mentality takes on a “not to lose” mind set, making everyone tight. That’s why shots don’t fall, see 07 against UCLA, 11 against VCU and last season against Oregon, along with other bad showings in 08 and 16.
But eventually he’s going to make it to the final four. Devonte is the type of player that can lead the team over the top and overcome the mental block, imo. We shall soon find out.
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Couldn’t have said it better actually. The situation with Carlton was far worse then Greene or Naadir in the past because at least for all the expectations everyone placed on Bragg in the post, we had this generational talent in Josh Jackson that accepted a totally different role, the team accepted a totally different methodology of running offense and still the pieces fit and we won over 30 games and looked poised to win the whole enchilada.
I will admit I’m probably guilty of using the “didn’t show up” comment at times. If anything I use it when a player doesn’t even come close to executing his average performance on the court and its really just an emotion filled response to what I saw. It doesn’t mean I think they didn’t try, that they did this on purpose. It’s tough to remove emotion when your so passionate about a team and its players and a loss is filled with such disappointment.
I do agree though that Carlton is the only player I can ever remember in a KU uniform where I thought he didn’t care. Maturity played a big part in all of this. Maybe he turns his life around at ASU, maybe he doesn’t. I can’t say I care enough to follow his next moves. I don’t hold him responsible for the season ending the way it did but certainly he played a role in how the pieces on the chess board moved.
We could easily say the absence of Azubuike was just as much a factor in our season ending demise. And really we could point to past bigs such as Embiid’s injury, Ellis’s knee injury, Cliff’s eligibility issues, and Ellis’s ineffective E8 performance as the main factor the past 4 seasons have ended as well. I have often thought when is KU going to catch a break with its big men…
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HawkChamp said:
@BeddieKU23 Yes, I heard Bill say in an interview that Devonte has gotten better. I would like to see him show improvement in three areas. 1. Ball handling/protection - honestly, he was not that great at it this past year but there’s no reason he hasnt improved it 2. Driving the lane - I think he was too passive in this area and 3. Defense - which was discussed earlier.
Agree on all 3. I seem to remember Graham being a better aggressive driver to the lane as a freshman/soph, maybe I’m off there. I really do think he deferred to Mason last season and kept his role as such to give the proper spacing for Mason and Jackson that were elite talents at getting to the hoop. I have to think he can show more and he’ll have to if he’s going to lead this team.
I know we’ll probably never get any confirmation but it always seemed like Graham was nursing some ailment in his leg whether it was the cramping, leg, ankle etc. His defense was still good in a lot of situations last year but he wasn’t dominate and he played a ton of minutes. If he takes care of his body and follows Frank’s lead I think he’ll be better equipped to handle the grind. We’ll see though
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@HawkChamp “Where you are wrong is the portion where you say people blame the losses on lack of effort and Devontes 0-7 night.”
Slight correction: I said that people saying “He didn’t show up” make it sound as if a player didn’t try, i.e., it is implied he didn’t care, was apathetic, or negligent somehow. I am just pointing out the distinction between a bad night compared to actually not showing up, either mentally (laughing at your own stupid mistake, and then doing it again, for example), or physically (being late, getting suspended, failing to hustle, or being held out of the most important game for whatever reason, like CB vs Ore, or BG vs Nova).
That last line suggested something to me: In the past two years, in 400 minutes of possible playing time, we have gotten 6 total minutes out of two available 5-star players (CB twice) and a high 4 star (BG, himself also a 5-star acc to 247), producing zero shot attempts, zero FTAs, zero rebounds, 1 assist, and a turnover. That is not showing up.
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@mayjay it’s whatever you think “didn’t show up” means. To me, that can absolutely mean a bad night, but lets not quibble over trivialities. The point is, the EE performances have sucked and there is an obvious trend - you can call it and describe it however you like.
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@Texas-Hawk-10 I don’t know.
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@HawkChamp We will see the Devonte we’re used to seeing next year. I think Jaybate is right - the kid was playing injured. We get the warrior back this year- the fierce competitor that outplayed Buddy Hield in that glorious game. Devonte’s performance in that game impressed Marcus Garrett so much, he mentioned it as one of the reasons Devonte was his favorite player. Everyone seems to be selling DG short, but I’m not. There is a reason he is my favorite player. There is twisted steel behind that smile.
