Is this current KU team special?
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@DoubleDD Nice post, man. Good stuff. The sad part of your question is we might not have any clue how good this team is until the tournament. We have 1 tough pre conference game, a run through the weakened B12, and a decent non- conf game against A & M. That’s it. If we beat 'tucky, it is in the realm of possibilities we could make a run at an undefeated regular season ( don’t say it couldn’t happen. it could. We play the Hillbillies at home first this year, instead of having to play them in Bugtussle first, which allows us to use our homecourt advantage, and gain experience against their junk defense for the road game against them. ) And we would go into the tourney with a team with a marvelous record, maybe the number 1 overall seed, and have no clue how good we are because the team hasn’t been tested.
That doesn’t mean we can’t win the national championship - we certainly can. But, everything has to go right. Doke and Preston might be better than Coleby and Lando, but it won’t mean much if they’re in foul trouble on the bench. So, I am choosing to believe we will definitely win the national championship this year. Everything will fall into place, and we win the big 6 in a row is the dream. The downside of never rebuilding is every non national championship season starts to look the same, and we begin to not appreciate the 30 win seasons, the B12 titles, etc. All but a few teams would absolutely kill to have just one season like we have every freakin’ year. Still, I think all of us are aching for that 2nd Self national title - I know I am.
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Right now I could say “NC or bust” as far as making this team special. But in my opinion the 12’ team disobeyed that logic. Even though I still believe they had their chances to win that NC. The run was memorable. I suppose largely it depends on each individual. Last years team was special to some. It really wasn’t to me. I believe they fell short. Frank Mason was special. He was indeed memorable. Unforgettable honestly to my mind. But if we’re talking national perception rather than the opinion of individuals… it has to be the NC doesn’t it? I guess that’s what I have always believed and probably always will. Great Topic!
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Yes, assuming typical injuries, it will very soon be as short handed as the 2012 Team.
It will thus have the need and opportunity for great heroism by some remaining good players and glue guys and improvisational genius by Self.
This is a recipe for a special Team.
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Is this team special? They are the effin Kansas Jayhawks!!! Of course they’re special. For the 35th year in a row (I started following college ball when I was 6) I start every season…every game for that matter, with the same Coach Dale quote: “My team is on the floor”. I firmly believed KU would win the national championship the previous 34 seasons and this year I’m just as excited as any of the others. I’m a complete homer on this though. If KU trotted out Matt Kleinmann, Nick Bahe, Tyler Self, Chase Buford, and Brennan Bechard against 2012 Kentucky…I would still like my chances.
Now saying that…I’m not a Doke fan like everybody else seems to be. He’s a complete downgrade from Landon. Landon couldn’t make a bunny…but what he did do was set a perfect blockout for about 80% of all of Mason’s drives. He cleared the lane, he knew where to be on the court, and knew where to pass the ball in the sets. He was a 4 year player of course and took him until the 4th year to get it together. Doke gasses out early, can’t shoot free throws, an inconsistent lay-up / hook shot, and travels 85% of the time if he dribbles on the block. He traveled quite a bit against pitt state, but the refs were waiting for the foul on him to occur and watched for that more. He’s not terrible of course and played good defense and denied several entry passes forcing Pitt state to pass the ball around more. He looks like he knows the offense pretty good, thus, with the guards we got, he will get several opportunities to excel.
He is the only “weak” link with this team. I would take anybody on KU’s roster over any other roster in the country. Get excited for this team folks…they’ll be fun. Exhausting and frustrating at times? Yes. But they’ll be good and will battle.
For what it’s worth however, I would love to see Vick play all 40 minutes every game. I love that dude. My favorite player since B-Rush.
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Dok is rough, but Bill is working on tapping into that emense potiental. He has soo much more going for him physically than even 5th year Lando had going for him.
It’s cray that in a “down” year for the big 12 all 10 team are ranked in the top 55 out of 351 teams. (Top 48 on the unlinked ESPN list). So if that holds up even when playing a cellar dweller it will be a round of 64 level opponent. No nights off even in a down year.
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That seems really generous that all the Big-12 teams are ranked that highly. But its never an exact science trying to predict in today’s landscape what players step up, how much players are missed that left, what transfers can do, freshman etc.
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I definitely think this team can be special for sure. I think losing JJ and Mason hurt, but to be honest losing Lucas with a healthy set of bigs won’t seem as costly once Doke and Billy get a few things down (mainly getting in the right position before the shot on defense and early post ups). The main thing that could hurt us is a guy like Frank or JJ to drive late in the shot clock and games to get that big bucket. Newman, Vick or DTG could become that but not sure they will. I do feel better about rebounding and a balanced scoring attack. We needed Frank to put up 25 or 30 a few more times than I’d like a year ago. But we had very very little scoring down low after Doke was hurt, that should improve vastly.
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Once Dok learns how to manipulate the defender into a position he can easily seal off; he will be unstoppable at the collegiate level.
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Very good chance to be special, IF we get performance from our 3rd big I am not concerned about guard play as ours are as good as or better than any we will see. Face it Mitch once more is going to have a ton of pressure on him this year to step up his game. Doke and Billy are by far the better talents but both are raw, as is Lightfoot I know, and both are foul prone and I worry about Billy’s energy level. In Mitch’s 10+ minutes a game he is going to have to not be a star, but be a steady defender and keep his head in the game on both ends. He has the drive and I think the physical capability to pull this off, my concern is keeping up mentally and being in the right place at the right time. There are times he appears to get a bit lost, perhaps a bit sped up is a better term. He will be asked to hold down the fort underneath from time to time this year and when he is his performance will be the difference in the game.
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I think if you had five kids over the past 5 seasons and you thought one could be president, this would probably not be the kid… but they are all VERY special.
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Fine take well turned. Thanks for the insights.
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@cragarhawk I thought last year looked special against Duke and Kentucky. I believe Udoka was on a mission last year. Had he not gotten hurt, he would have gotten us past Oregon’s interior. Bell would not have punked us.
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KU has 10 eligible players right now and 11 when Cunliffe is eligible, there is no margin for error with the depth this year. I’m surprised Self didn’t have tryouts to try and find a big. There’s also a walk on 6-7, 260 lb. TE on the football team that had good numbers playing JuCo basketball last year that could be a good depth addition for the team this year.
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Well…“technically” the season is still on for the football team so I doubt Coach Self would do anything until football season is over which we all know that for all practical purposes it happened a while back for the football team.
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Unlike Kentucky, KU’s basketball programs is not overrated.
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You know I’m really preplexed here.
Does a team only become truly special after they win the NC? I know that teams do great things even if they don’t win the NC. Yet are they special, or are they just a nice story? A footnote in the scrolls of College Basketball history. Only to be forgotten as time moves on.
I really thought last’s year team was special. In someways I still do. The combo of Frank Mason and Graham is something us KU fans may never see again. Also as someone mentioned the loss of Doka really did hurt last years team. They had Vick and Svi coming off the bench. Thank about that? Vick and Svi would be starting on almost every other team in the country. Last years team had the makings of being special. However as fate would have it. They ran into a buzz saw. A team that exploited their one weakness over and over again. However the point is that team was special.
This years team seems to me? To have the makings of a very special team. However it’s the unknowns about this team that have me preplexed. The talent is there. The veteran/experience is there. Three pointing is there. Paint scoring is there. They can run and they can play half court.
Yet the biggest question I have is can they rebound?
Will rebounding make or break this KU team?
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@DoubleDD I think you can have a special season w/o winning it all. It’s not the BEST POSSIBLE season, but only one team gets that, and it’s single elimination. Meh.
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@BShark What seasons would you say are “special” w/o the NC? I could go with '91 and '93 based on expectations. Maybe '03 and '12 too.
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2012 for sure. That team really had no business being in the title game.
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'03 wasn’t special in my view because they should have won. They missed so many dang FT’s. They were way better than Syracuse.
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The 1997 team was by far the best team KU had in “recent” memory. Just ran into a hot Bibby and Simon which is pretty common in the NCAA tourney. 97 was loaded; unfortunately, Billy Thomas is still chucking up 3’s that are bangin off the back of the rim. Pollard and Haase had something incredibly low like 2 shots combined and 0 points between them if memory serves me right. I’m too bitter about the game to look up the real stats. My KU - PTSD gets triggered quite quickly if I look at that.
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@bmensch1 Haase had a broken wrist and Billy Thomas went something like 0-12 from three. Keep chucking them up something will fall. I absolutely loved Vaughn, but he was offensively challenged. Could’ve gone undefeated that year.
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@wissox The only reason I thought '03 because I was at both games where Simien hurt his shoulder – one vs. UMKC and then late vs. Texas A&M. There was just a feeling after the Texas A&M game that the season was done with Simien gone – which helped make Jeff Graves one of my favorite Jayhawks. Hated losing the NC game, and we should have won.
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bmensch1 said:
The 1997 team was by far the best team KU had in “recent” memory. Just ran into a hot Bibby and Simon which is pretty common in the NCAA tourney. 97 was loaded; unfortunately, Billy Thomas is still chucking up 3’s that are bangin off the back of the rim. Pollard and Haase had something incredibly low like 2 shots combined and 0 points between them if memory serves me right. I’m too bitter about the game to look up the real stats. My KU - PTSD gets triggered quite quickly if I look at that.
A young BShark may have cried after this game.
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@BShark I hated that Arizona game. Besides the 03 loss, it’s my most painful KU loss. Other than a loss at Missouri, no shameful thing back then, we just steamrolled teams that year. Hard to quantify if they were the best KU team, 85-86 comes to mind too, but they were such a force it’s hard to believe they didn’t win.
Like 03 that game ended with us making a furious comeback and having a game tying 3 miss at the buzzer. Interesting that 08 would be the exact same memory except Mario of course made it.
I was in the car going on a spring break trip. Fortunately (or unfortunately I guess) the game was on some national radio, so I heard the whole ugly mess and was just muttering and grumbling the whole time!
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@BShark It was a horrible game. That game left every KU fan mumbling.
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@wissox 1986 should’ve been a lock. The Az loss was like a train wreck.
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@KUSTEVE The first appearance of the Duke whistle was that game. 26-14 foul count.
