Is today the day? (Preston & De Sousa)
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Hmmm, now remember how I said last night I just had this feeling - -I couldn’t shake that we were going to hear something this week on our boys? - -Well maybe this is it - we shall see. - -FWIW - -here is what I think - - I think we end up with both - -maybe it’s crimson and blue blinders BUT that same feeling I have about finding out something? - - I have the same feeling we get both cleared - so to that I say a mighty - - -ROCK CHALK ALL DAY LONG BABY
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I’d guess there’s a different perspective from the NCAA. There’s probably a track athlete at UC Santa Barbara, a baseball player at Hofstra, a rower at some ivy league school, a softball player at Tennessee, and etc. that are all waiting to hear also. In other words, the NCAA would tell us that they’re overworked and understaffed, and they’re probably right. With an influential school like KU depending on them to certify our guys that they wouldn’t want too much unnecessary negative publicity so like I said, there’s probably a lot more to it than we understand.
I was wondering if Desousa said phooey on it, I don’t want to waste one of my four years of eligibility, he could just decide to sit out til next fall, correct? I know if I was a college basketball player, I’ll wait til the laughter stops, I wouldn’t want to spend one of my four years of eligibility with half the season already gone. Now if he has leaving early plans, well, that’s a different story. I don’t know enough about him to know if that’s the case.
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This is only my humble opinion…
I feel like we will get a judgment on Silvio this week. The reason Self said we would have answers today is because our Athletic Dept or Compliance Dept will inquire today for an update. My gut says we will receive a small sign concerning Silvio that there has been advancement on his clearance. Read through the fog on this and I interpret it to mean we will get a decision by the end of the week.
Concerning Billy… I don’t expect we will hear much yet. I think his timeline will stretch out because it has more involvement in the investigation process. Those always take a long time. On a positive note… if they ever do resolve his issue, and their determination will include a penalty, more than likely they will allow his current suspension count against his penalty, which will probably mean he will be cleared. That is only if things go right for us.
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Don’t spend too much time worrying about Silvio. From what I have heard, he has a GREAT character to him. Silvio is legit!
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I don’t think the NCAA will be swayed by how much Kansas needs Billy. And to that, I have to agree with the position of the NCAA.
But they do have to worry about harming Billy’s future excessively. The negative PR theme against the NCAA is about the perceived harm they do to student/athletes.
When this is all said and done concerning Billy’s situation, it will be reviewed by everyone. The NCAA will be under a microscope. Did the NCAA punish Billy excessively over something that turned out to be nothing or quite small?
Look at what this does to Billy and us? Wow! It is hard to see Billy as an OAD after this. Hard to imagine him being on the NBA radar this spring. I think we were counting on him being OAD, hence the recruitment of plenty of bigs. But that isn’t the problem for the NCAA.
The potential for future problems with the NCAA is if this slow response pushes Billy into returning for another year when it clearly showed he would have gone OAD otherwise… then Billy returns and has a career-ending injury. Billy never receives a NBA paycheck…
Then what? My guess… litigation!
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Unlikely that DeSousa will be a 4 year player anyway.
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I think De Sousa and his handler were dead set on getting him enrolled early to jump-start the process. They knew he wouldn’t be able to play basketball after the fall semester having exhausted his HS eligibility. From what his handler said they weren’t keen on Silvio sitting so long which is why they started making preparations (academically) as far back as August… It’s also speculated he wasn’t going to be in College 4 years early.
KU just happened to fall into a situation where him enrolling early was potentially beneficial having been dealt the Preston situation and having an extra scholarship to award for 17-18. If we didn’t have an open scholarship or a need for big men Silvio would have been forced to wait until his orginial class, or joined as a walk-on and paid his own way…
Before KU got him on campus and he committed it was speculated he would go to Maryland where his friend Bruno Fernando is a freshman. Maryland could have be in the same situation as KU is now (Maryland is down 2 big men to season ending injury). I’m sure their fans would be just as impatient for his amateurism to be cleared as some KU fans are.
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In my opinion this whole situation is likely to make Billy sour to College if and when he is cleared. I wouldn’t be surprised if Billy and his family decide to leave and pursue their options at seasons end. His mother did say he could have been an instant millionaire overseas. They clearly haven’t changed their opinion of him even if the opinion of Billy nationwide has changed. Nobody has seen him play. If he doesn’t get to play for KU its likely he won’t be invited to the Combine which will leave them with limited options. It doesn’t mean he’s coming back.
You have to wonder what Billy thinks of KU. He came here to play and get drafted if all went well after one year. Self recruited over him taking Dedric Lawson under the assumption Preston was here for just one year.
KU compliance has held him out of playing for 15 games. KU could have risked playing him and they chose not to. Billy didn’t get to decide for himself, KU did. The NCAA didn’t say Billy can’t play, at least not until his information was submitted to them for review. Do you think Preston believes that KU was right for sitting him? Then his mother gets social media attacks. Can’t imagine they are thrilled with the fan-base or the program for that matter.
As far as the NCAA, I’m sure that all the recent attention and headlines are pushing them towards a decision. It did with Diallo after Diallo lawyered up and ESPN talking heads started giving their opinion. Self seems pretty frustrated about the lack of ruling in his comments this week. I can’t imagine he pokes at the NCAA without having a legitimate reason to do so. We’ll have to see what comes of all this. All we can hope is good news comes today!
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When does Self get tired of all the BS and go to the pros, the NCAA could be screwing more than just our season
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@Jayrawks1 or retire
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Billy screwed up. Seems pretty plain and simple. If he’s frustrated with KU, well, I don’t want anyone bringing this program down no matter how good of a player they are. If he leaves, I’m cool with it. It really sucks for us fans that this keeps happening to us at KU. If he has to sit out this year but still wants to play next after getting everything cleared, then great. Next years team just got stronger.
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@Crimsonorblue22 possible, with him recently saying he wants to coach another 10 years at most so he has a life after basketball, I think our best chance of losing him is to the NBA. Then again, he said he had little interest in the NBA. Either, we lose all around in this situation.
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I think a lot of people screwed up here. Bill screwed up, Billy screwed up, KU screwed up, and the NCAA screwed up. Some more than others, but still. A lot of people involved, as is always the case, and it’s useless to have the “who’s the most at fault” conversation. (Not saying don’t talk about it if it’s fun to you, it’s just not fun to me.)
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@wissox you know that for sure?
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@Crimsonorblue22 No, but if he hadn’t logic tells me he’d have played all of our games. Something he did has spooked our athletic department enough to risk not being in the national championship picture.
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Matt Tait arrived, said if anything it would be soon
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@Jayrawks1 arrived where? Is there a scheduled presser?
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Matt Taits twitter
Just got to KU… Couple players first then Self outside of the locker room before practice. Not sure if there’s news yet, but that’s when we’ll get it if there is. Hang tight, #KUbball fans.
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Mitch Lightfoot being interviewed now
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Would seem odd that Tait would be the first to report no?
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@BeddieKU23 It would be its just who showed up first on my Twitter feed
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Self and the NCAA are conspiring to deliver us Chiefs fans good news after the playoff loss!
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Yeah but how many are getting access before his practice. I’m not seeing any other people reporting being there?
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@BeddieKU23 scott chasen is the one who mentioned lightfoot was being interviewed so I guess he is also
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Jayrawks1 said:
@BeddieKU23 scott chasen is the one who mentioned lightfoot was being interviewed so I guess he is also
thanks for info.
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@BeddieKU23 no problem, i def dont have any inside info I just have twitter lol
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doing the same! didn’t have scott on my feed
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svi interview now
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per scott chasen, do I need to give credit here? Im honestly not sure
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Jayrawks1 said:
per scott chasen, do I need to give credit here? Im honestly not sure
Your good!
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Self is up
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@BeddieKU23 why oh why do we keep believing ugh. same story, just like the Chiefs lol
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Bill Self: No news on Preston or De Sousa. Confident that news is coming soon, though not necessarily today.
Talk about having an entire fan-base on a swivel
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Agh, y’all remember when Bagley reclassified and was cleared like literally instantly. The B12 and KU just don’t make enough money for the NCAA to give two shits. Remember Terrance Jones at UK had a fancy car that weeks later claimed to be purchased by his grandmother. SMH Adidas send the NCAA money and have a tournament!
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@kjayhawks “literally instantly”?
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I just heard there will be news tomorrow. Can’t give you my source.
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Your source could be Bill Self himself and I still wouldn’t believe it.
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Well… I was hopeful for at least “any second now”.
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@chriz “Bill Self himself”. That sounds funny. Lol
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@cragarhawk yeah i thought so too, didn’t know how else to say it lol
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Literally apples and oranges.
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@HighEliteMajor You should go work for ESPN.
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810 reported yesterday Billy was driving a newer Dodge Charger valued at more then 21k when all this started. First I had heard this about the mystery car. Since it’s an American car and not a bmw, he should have only had to sit 5 games. That must be why bill is so pissed. “16 games for a crappy American car? This is an outrage!” -HCBS
First part true, second part (historical?) fiction.
Incidentally, my first car ever was the Dodge Charger 2.2 in high school. Believe me, it had no muscle.
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I see Billy’s chances of playing abroad at ZERO. It is a million times more complicated than being here in Lawrence, where he is babied on everything.
I don’t see Billy wanting to give up his McDonald’s fries for a boiled squid and smelly cheese. (lol)
I missed where his mom was attacked by fans. If that happened, I expect it to be some antlers still hanging around. They would do that.
I got frustrated with Billy’s mom when she attacked Kansas fans. That created a wedge between the Preston’s and Kansas… a bad thing. That invited the wedge to gap further. I didn’t have an impression of Billy’s mom until then, and it became a negative impression.
Man… I’ve been reading some pretty negative KU fan stuff recently. Fans are feeling lost with this team and they are venting aggression. It is starting to get ugly with focus becoming illogical and going negative.
Many fans are venting on our compliance department. “They screwed around and took more than a month before filing anything on Billy.” What? So I guess Self lied to us. Pretty obvious it took this time because they were waiting for documentation, too… from whatever sources it need to come from. I’m pretty sure our compliance department didn’t see a benefit in slowing this down. Talk about illogical nonsense…
This team is going to make us all show some patience. Fans should be careful what they say (to some degree) because we have no idea what level of play this team is going to be at in March. It is clear we have a great chance of improving a lot all through the time period of now through March. I’m pretty sure we will pick up at least one of these bigs. And if we don’t… at least we know and we can stop using our missing bigs as a crutch and face the reality that THIS is our team!
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We have some really bad fans. It’s everywhere unfortunately. I get the frustrations but some take it too far.
I get his mom was fed up but she just had to become the 1% that speaks up and makes the headlines. That’s my issue with the matter. I don’t believe Preston will be playing anywhere but in the USA. He’s a really talented player and we have missed seeing how good he could have been here. We got some glimpses in those exhibition games and then nothing.
I want the distraction to be gone from both the team and the players. The NCAA can help us in that regard. Winning games helps cure everything, at least to some extent in the meantime. We are a team with flaws, maybe more flaws then we are used to. I’m still excited to see how Self gets this group to play every game and see if there is more we are still searching for. We haven’t peaked and if the players can get to that point we might all find some satisfaction in this season.
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I want the distractions gone, too. But I want the struggle to count for something. I want this to be a mountain we climbed as a team, and as a fan base. Let’s all struggle together and get stronger from it!
What this team needs to learn is we are a great team even WITHOUT post depth! We need a positive image and identity NOW! Adding two rookie post players isn’t going to make us a great team. They just won’t. We need to be a great team that just adds another piece or two to help.
Our players/coaches/fans need to realize that this is only a distraction because we have CHOSEN to make it a distraction!
Come on… let’s get real. This is a walk in the park compared to 2012 and the losses of Thomas Robinson. You want to talk about a distraction! That was it! Yet… our guys found a way to focus… found a way to feed off of it… found a way to come together as a team!
We didn’t have a single McD’s AA on that team and we almost beat a team full of them, and would have if they didn’t have their freak unibrow in the post!
We have oodles more talent now than in 2012. It isn’t even close… yet we choose to make this a distraction and make this a crutch. And we have chosen our identity as a team without post depth, instead of what we really are… a team STUFFED with talent!
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Excellent stuff.
Self is still trying to toughen this team up. The Tech loss fueled the TCU win in my opinion. I think we saw Devonte toughen up in that TCU game and a few of his comrades fed off that energy (Svi & Mitch). As you’ve been stating all year Devonte has to lead by example every game. We lose when he doesn’t set the tone for the game. We lose when we don’t defend, we lose when we don’t rebound as a unit.
Now in regard to the guys we don’t have. It’s hard for the players to see it how we do when they are with them 24/7. Preston and De Sousa are battling in practice. Self said those guys took a majority of the reps last week under the assumption they would be playing. Miscalculated move by Self? Shady dealings by the NCAA making false promises? Whatever it is this team is still in transition. There’s no closure until the NCAA provides it. We don’t know what life is like with them.
I still believe we have yet to see this team gel. Last years squad it was easier for them. Guys knew their job. We have so many guys still trying to find their way and that’s created the flaws we see. We thought we had the best collection of guards, they still haven’t proven that. Those guys have more to give. When that unit clicks that’s when this team improves the most. Here’s to Self battling to make this team what he wants it to be and what it needs to be
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I think we just get twisted up in too much “logic.”
We have no post depth because WE decided we don’t.
Svi is considered a guard… but he is 6’8" and should have plenty of strength to play the 4. Gosh… young Lightfoot gets criticized for working in the post and he is the same size or smaller in girth than Svi.
Our team philosophy is wrong. And I mentioned this before… this is part of most legend basketball programs… until they figure this out and heal to become a much better team (and future teams).
We play the “codependency” game. We chuck players into roles… and usually that means taking a backseat until they are seniors. Devonte is a perfect example. Finally… this is HIS team. So he carries all the burden and the other guys just go along for the ride.
Last year, Devonte was going along for the ride when it was Frank’s team.
We look for opportunities to have crutches. We don’t put RESPONSIBILITY on every player! We just don’t. We mumble some bologna that we do… but we don’t!
This year… if we lose the streak… it will be Devonte’s fault. Not Vick’s. Not Svi’s. Etc etc etc.
Right now we are sputtering along for many reasons… a big reason is Vick has just gone invisible. Might as well. It isn’t HIS team!
This philosophy isn’t and wasn’t Self’s. He inherited it with our program. It has been conditioned into everyone… because this is the way it always was with legacy programs. They ran JV squads and you EARNED your way up to varsity.
Did you watch Alabama/Georgia last night? The National Championship completely really decided by freshmen. Alabama got wise and went with the freshman Hawaiian in the second half and made it a totally different game!
One more reason for us to NOT land a player like Trae Young. The guy really needed to step right in and run things. He wouldn’t have been given this much leash at Kansas. No way. He can’t! We can’t disrespect all our returning players who have fought to earn their spots… blah blah blah.
We have codependent situations all over the place. We could easily experience this season in a full-blown collapse. Since we have decided all the weight of our success is on Devonte… he may just MELTDOWN! Devonte is NOT Frank! And I love Frank, but I see a lot more potential with Devonte! But now we need Devonte to just step up and score most of the points now because this is HIS team! He has to do whatever…
I’m not against Devonte shooting… man… he really needs to get a lot of open treys up. And he needs to drive and create opportunities. But he will never be a Frank Mason, who treated his PG position like a running back in football.
If you want to know WHY we almost won a National Championship in 2012 without a single McDs AA… it is because TRob’s situation created a reset. Our guys came together as ONE! Because of that… there were no more status levels. EVERY player became responsible… not just the seniors or point guards.
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Waiting for BP to get cleared is ya might say like waiting on the 2nd coming of Jesus.
