KU Pulps Orange Boys: Graham Leads Win from Higher Dimension
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@jaybate-1-0 Can you imagine if Boeheim had half a brain and did some iso posts with young guarding a 6-10 guy? With Clay on the floor we outscored the orange by 9! We struggled to get a couple boards but that was it. Their players were uber long and uber athletic but have zero BBall IQ…lets chuck another contested three and not take it inside against their midgets! I was surprised at how bad they were.
Svi: the time with Hudy has paid off. He got several 50/50s and boards because he was just stronger and could not Be shoved off his spot.
Garrett/Dok: MG did have several lock Down moments on D and a number of good block outs I noticed…things Dok cannot do very consistently. Garret plays smart on D and was more valuable than Malik in that respect.
Malik: with him offering nothing on O he did at least have one nice stick back. He is not showing me much. I was surprised we could win handily w/o him scoring double digits. Needs to drive it.
Vick: love the nickname, it is perfect. He may have more killer instinct than Keith Langford and he is more athletic. He is doing it all. The oop was nasty!!!
Davonte: keep this up and we may have b2b NPOY on our hands. On a night were it could have tuned into one of those 2-23 nights from 3 after our slow start, he just refused to see us lose a game we should never lose even tho we have no bigs. I really thought he was gonna get 40.
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Great team win. Each game is different. There will be games where players like Marcus Garrett and Mitch Lightfoot will shine. They are outstanding basketball players. Devonte Graham has patiently waited, and now it is his time to shine. Malik Newman will win games for us this year. He is an amazing talent and will get opportunities to show what he can do. Vick and Svi are seasoned veterans and it shows. At this point, it does not appear that opponents can “speed up” our team into making countless mistakes. We are able to move the ball and show patience running the offense. It is a joy to watch everything come together. Udoka is still figuring things out, but is off to a great start. Looking forward to Preston, hopefully getting cleared. I am sure he is ready to show what he brings to the program. 7-0, and a long way to go. Enjoying the ride as usual. Go Jayhawks!
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A very good win…no question. I was surprised Self praised our defense as much as he did. I thought, particularly in the 1st half, our best defense was Cuse missing open shots. But they are not a great scoring team.
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"Which brings us to Mitch Lightfoot and Marcus Garrett. Um, these two proved not ready for prime time."
I think it was a one-off. The most complex zone in college basketball. The same thing could be said about Newman, who looked awful. Exotic defenses do that to players. Look at the first 10 minutes of the game- even DG looked tentative. This is the tallest team in America. Like Devonte said in post game- it is one thing to practice against a zone, and quite another to face it in real time. By a weird scheduling quirk, our next game is against Boeheim’s long term assistant, who runs the same 2/3 zone. I expect we’ll see better performances from Garret, Lightfoot, and Newman because it won’t be as big of surprise this time.
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@KUSTEVE That is a good observation. I thought Marcus looked tentative and confused. When you think about it…makes sense against one of the best zone defenses you will see. Only played 8 minutes. He did make some good defensive plays though…as usual.
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@jaybate-1.0 Copy and Paste! Nice writeup! I love colorful language in writing and that was a masterpiece!
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This is great, classic @jaybate-1-0
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Very nice analysis. The zone is something that can be difficult to face, particularly the one by the master of the system, and you are absolutely correct that Young’s experience and basketball IQ gave him an advantage over Lightfoot and Garret and this is why he played more minutes.
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@jaybate-1.0 On Svi, he had another play I thought was pretty legit against their equally as tall freshmen near the basket. Svi stuffed the guy and it went off his hands out of bounds. Replay showed it but the refs called it off Svi. See Svi pointing the right way and trying to argue non verbally with the ref, then just stares him down and shakes his head no after not getting the call. I loved it. Ice cold.
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@approxinfinity Ahhh yah I thought Mitch sacrificing his body for the charge a few times was pretty dammed awesome. Big boy stuff
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Thx 2 all 4 the strokes.
Now let’s see if our Birds can sweep the 2 in 4 vs. Washington and Zona State coming next!
Yeeeee hawwww!
Basketball season in full swing is the next best thing to being young again!!!
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@jaybate-1.0 said:
Basketball season in full swing is the next best thing to being young again!!!
Amen! Living in the afterglow of last night’s drubbing.
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@jaybate-1.0 A real pleasure to read… classic jaybate.
Winning feels good. I think I’m going to feel good a lot this year.
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jaybate 1.0 said:
Thx 2 all 4 the strokes.
Now let’s see if our Birds can sweep the 2 in 4 vs. Washington and Zona State coming next!
Yeeeee hawwww!
Basketball season in full swing is the next best thing to being young again!!!
Washington should be cruise control. They are actually ranked lower than some of the rummies we have been playing.
I like the Cobra nickname for Vick. We need more for other players.
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I’LL work on more nicknames, but I’m only usually good for one a season. Probably others will come up with better ones.
Rock Chalk!
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@jaybate-1-0 , @BShark we have Svi for three, and Moonlight Graham tho no one uses it. Udunka works lol.
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Ah, yes, UDUNKA; that’s the best one.
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Slam, Bam, Thank You Graham!
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Full Monte Devonte!
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3tae
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Galloping Garrett! Lol
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Svi MykSkyliuk
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- Svi - The Ukrainian rifle (remember Eric Piatowski?), the Sniper, the Sviatinator
- Vick- Vick-torious, of course
- Devonte - The baby-faced assassin, although Curry goes by that one. Devonte Graham “I will ring your Bell.”
- Newman - Hello Newman!!!
- Doke -Sir dunk-a-lot. Don’t forget other teams will play “Poke-a-Doke” to take advantage of his poor FT shooting.
- Lightfoot - I’ll Mitch slap you.
- Garret - The Mongoose.
- Young - “Cassious, I punch above my height class” Clay
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@JayHawkFanToo I like the Ukrainian Rifle
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jaybate 1.0 said:
Ah, yes, UDUNKA; that’s the best one.
I’ll take credit for that one! You can look it up!
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Damn it lol I thought I had that one
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Many coaches, Self included, cannot bring themselves to isolate on mismatches. I have never understood it. They don’t hesitate to isolate on a guy with 3-4 fouls, but they refuse to feed a guy a foot taller than another guy. Go figure!
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Way to break out with the humor!!!
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@kjayhawks I’ll let you have credit! I do remember on the day he signed writing that nickname for him, but maybe you said it first!
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Put this in my closing statement for the defense of the 4-guard offense…
Not only did we hold our own against the Cusey’s bigs… we also made their high-pressure zone and press look “no pressure” and almost worthless.
There were a few times I thought they might catch us on their press… but then Devonte (or another one of our guards) just cut through it like a piece of soft cheese. Man… I can think back through the years when we could have used these 4 guards on the court!
Hey… we CONTROLLED THE PACE!
If we can control the pace every game moving forward, good chance we go undefeated! Yep. You heard me right! But I know we will probably let down in some games and give in to the opposition’s pace.
Did you notice how we sped up the Orangies? They had a lot more TOs than usual, and often they took contested treys.
What a joy! That is what I enjoyed most from this game. We played OUR GAME! It seems like at least half the time we have to beat our opponent playing their game.
Consider how many of our key players had subpar games… and we still won with relative ease.
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I agree. Self seems to be moving toward dictating tempo, rather than playing it any way they want. Something is changing. It was absolutely weird how easily we took them, given how much longer they were. Usually when small teams play long ones the longs get lots of blocks and alters. Not this time. This was the opposite extreme of bad ball. Ku refused to drive on them, even when it seemed the right thing to do. Compare how little Devonte and Vick drive it this season compared with how often Frank and Devonte drove it last season, and how much more KU drove 2 seasons ago. This is a radical shift in strategy, not just this game, but the whole season. It is striking, too, because Devonte and Vick could drive it very effectively. This suggests Self is massively buying into the spacing thing and that he has decided that these guys are all such good trigger men and so quick that he NEVER wants them taking contested shots. He seems to be saying try to get open close, but if you can’t, then get open farther out, and whatever you do get open soon. It’s a sea change for Self. It’s also expedient, since he has so little depth to work with and wants to minimize injuries to his starters.
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Great posts all!
First half was a struggle. No way around that.
Man can Devonte shoot lights OUT when he wants to. I think he sensed his team needed a Senior moment and we got one.
Vick was awesome. Once he got a little more comfortable figuring out what to do with the ball in the high post that changed the game for us.
Doke was brought down to earth. He seemed off. His lack of urgency to rebound is troubling for someone his size. Self has to light that beast up. This was a great game for him to learn some things.
Clay definitely earned his keep Saturday.
Great Team win. Great individual performances
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@drgnslayr @jaybate-1-0 Svi and Devonte eradicated their length by shooting and canning NBA 3s. Most D1 guards can’t do it, and of course the Orange knuckleheads could not adjust. They inched out a bit at top of key but then DG got it to Vick. Our range and accuracy did them in, Newman not withstanding. They were totally unprepared to address guards with our range and passing ability.
Move ball to open spot (near or far); shoot with no one within 3 feet; can shot; make cool celebratory gesture. Repeat. Simple as putting the old volleyball in the peach basket.
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BUT!! According to Bohemian the zone was near perfection and if it wasn’t for that pesky Devonte they would have done fine! Evidently they controlled everyone else!
If you can stomach the “other” site http://www2.kusports.com/weblogs/tale-tait/2017/dec/4/boeheim-says-grahams-monster-effort-not-/
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Boeheim’s comments are just an excuse to how badly he was out coached by Coach Self and how his vaunted zone defense was rendered worthless by KU.
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Jim BONEheim never met an opponent he couldn’t diminish.
It’s why he appears to be genuinely, deeply disrespected by colleagues and knowledgeable fans.
He’s not just a poor loser. It apparently goes to the deepest part of what he uses as a substitute for character.
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@BeddieKU23 I’m wondering if the lack of depth is what is keeping Doke from chasing after rebounds more aggressively. We can’t get a silly foul over the back from him right now.
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Kcmatt7 said:
@BeddieKU23 I’m wondering if the lack of depth is what is keeping Doke from chasing after rebounds more aggressively. We can’t get a silly foul over the back from him right now.
It could be, however I find it hard to believe that his coach will be happy with his effort in that area on Saturday. This is more then a 1 game sample as well I don’t think generally he’s rebounded well this season to date. That’s a major weakness for his prospects of the next level if he can’t at that size be a + rebounder.
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Rebounding is all about position and opportunity. Some of the better rebounder in the game are/were not necessarily tall but know where to be; obviously it requires basketball IQ. Mason, often the shortest player on the court got a lot more rebounds than most people think he would because he knew where to be; of the regular rotation players only Lucas and Jackson averaged more rebounds than him. Doke could rebound in HS by virtue of his height alone but in college it is quite different and he is not a natural rebounder. This not to say he could not become a good or even great rebounder but at this time it is what it is.
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@jaybate-1.0 I was amazed Cuse did not pound it inside when Clay was in. He did a great job on both ends but they really didn’t test him too much. Cuse did hurt us when they came back a little by driving it. If I were Self I would concentrate our defense on that when the big guy is out particularly.
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Good insight. Bet he will, too.
