Ochai
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@BShark Yeah, once Dok went down that was pretty well all she wrote. But I agree on Lawson. Where would we have been last year without him?
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Texas Hawk 10 said:
@HighEliteMajor Here’s my issue with switching on the perimeter. KU allowed opponents to make 33.6% from three last year. Final Four teams like Virginia, Tech, and MSU were all under 30% so over the course of a game, that’s 1 or 2 more there’s on average. Switching and guarding the line means sacrificing interior defense. There absolutely is a trade off for everything and that’s the trade off for guarding the line better is the interior defense. Being a poor interior defense bothers me a lot more than poor perimeter defense does.
The reason being that teams shoot much better the closer they get to the rim obviously. The other reasons why are like I said, teams would exploit that philosophy to get a big on a much quicker player which leads to either and easy lay up, easy lay up and foul, or slow rotation for an open 3.
My opinion probably comes from coaching middle school basketball where most kids can’t even make 10% from outside, but a lot think they’re Steph Curry and will shoot when open.
I will probably always be of the opinion of guarding inside as the top priority because those shots are such a higher percentage than outside that if I have to sacrifice something, I’ll risk getting burned from deep than getting burned from the paint.
This is where I’m at as well. Elite teams shoot around 40% from 3, which is equal to 60% from inside the arc on a points/shot basis. Sacrificing defense inside the arc might allow some teams to push that 60% number if they get enough easy looks at the rim. Better to lock people down inside the arc and dare them to beat you from 3, especially now that the line is further out. Even if the percentage made falls by a couple percentage points, say from 35% to 33%, That’s a couple points per game lost from the outside. The median was 24.4 attempts/game. So if 35% of that is 8.5 makes per game, and 33% is 8 per game. That’s 1.5 points less that we’d expect from the perimeter per game, holding attempts constant (which is convenient, but not entirely sure how realistic). Puts more of a premium on inside scoring since 2 pt FG% probably won’t change a whole lot. So on the margin I’m more in favor of not allowing potentially easy buckets inside and more for allowing a few more open 3’s.
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@Texas-Hawk-10 @FarmerJayhawk Both of your emails, in my opinion, miss the point of why I brought up switching.
It’s, again, not to do it all the time, and not against every team as your primary strategy. It’s when their three ball is a primary weapon.
I also think that you are missing an important point – shots “at the rim” are much different than “shots inside the arc.” Percentages are dreadful, usually, inside the are in relation to the relative value of the shot, when those shots are not at the rim. The only players NOT over 60% at the rim for KU last season were Moore, Grimes, and Garrett.
However, regarding the percentage from two point range, NOT at the rim, only three players were over 50% - Dave, Mitch, and KJ, and only Agbaji and Vick were the only other two over 40%. Everyone else was horrible, really.
But more importantly, you do not have to make a large sacrifice at the rim, to guard the three point line. You are just more compromised. You can do both. But you can give up the shot from inside the arc to five feet and guard both. That’s the area that a three point defensive strategy focuses on sacrificing.
There is not doubt that a good shooting three point team like Auburn is still more dangerous at the rim. But the game dynamic also impacts – our number of possession, our field goal percentage, the number of offensive rebounds caused by missed three point shots (which is better than on missed shots at the rim), etc.
The general approach to you comments seem to ignore the value of switching in the correct strategic context.
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@BShark Yes of cousre just KU players. But thanks for proving the point via TT and UVA!
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@HighEliteMajor very true, people tend to forget the worst shot percentage wise in the the game is just inside the 3 point line. I think moving the line back as they have done this offseason will really benefit our team.
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I know strategy on switches is important. But what I put above everything is hustle, team work and hedging.
When was that, 3 years ago when Nova throttled us in March? And with mostly 3-star guys, or whatever? I just remember we had a solid shooting trey team and our guys were never open in that game. And when the ball went inside, they pinched off driving lanes from our bigs and often forced TOs. Perry scored a whopping 4 points. Nova played really good defense. I know Self likes to consider his strategy to be about defense first… but we’ve never played sticky defense like that. Nova took us totally out of our game. We only scored 59 points and I recall we tightened the game up late or otherwise it was worse. They stole the ball from us 11 times in that game. If Devonte didn’t get hot from the outside we wouldn’t have scored 50. Most every shot was contested.
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drgnslayr said:
I know strategy on switches is important. But what I put above everything is hustle, team work and hedging.
When was that, 3 years ago when Nova throttled us in March? And with mostly 3-star guys, or whatever? I just remember we had a solid shooting trey team and our guys were never open in that game. And when the ball went inside, they pinched off driving lanes from our bigs and often forced TOs. Perry scored a whopping 4 points. Nova played really good defense. I know Self likes to consider his strategy to be about defense first… but we’ve never played sticky defense like that. Nova took us totally out of our game. We only scored 59 points and I recall we tightened the game up late or otherwise it was worse. They stole the ball from us 11 times in that game. If Devonte didn’t get hot from the outside we wouldn’t have scored 50. Most every shot was contested.
You’re right, of course. But don’t underestimate scheme. The foundation is what you suggest and have suggested in past … hustle and desire. You can’t have good defense without that. If we are not in the scheme to properly defend, if we’re defending a different game (one that didn’t emphasize the three), we’re looking like we did against Nova in the FF. They shot open three, after open three.
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Right. I’m just on my high horse about hustle. I feel like a lot of years we underachieve in that department. I do have a great feeling about this coming team and I rarely feel that optimistic when it comes to hustle.
I know Devon will play with a chip all year and surely others will, too, regarding being the team that lost the streak.
I see this as a team that will be all-in for Selfball.
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@drgnslayr last yr and wigs are the only two recently. Usually Self teams play very hard.
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@drgnslayr That team quit in several games last year. As a team, it’s like many of them were disconnected from wins or losses. Thank God we lost a bunch of them, and kept the team players.
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@KUSTEVE I agree one all counts. I just didn’t feel last year’s team, even when we were winning. This year, though, I think we can be special. De Sousa is going to foul out of alot of games, because he’s going to play like a mad man.
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@Marco This is a throwback year for us. This team is reminiscent of Bill’s best teams in the past. Tons of experience and talent, the most formidable front line in college basketball, with some really incredible guards. Defensively, we’ll be light years ahead of last year. We’ve all discussed the Ochai break out, but there will be a Dotson break out as well, and a Doke break out, too. I also think Dave is going to force his way onto the court, and him and Silvio will be a dynamic duo. I think we’ll be talking about this team’s roster for years and years.
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Let’s hope we are talking about this team like the 2008 team for years to come… along with the hardware!
Notice, last year, there were very few teams we pulled away from. We struggled against most teams. We can call it “lack of killer instinct” or, more accurately, “lack of hustle.”
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@drgnslayr I would say it was alot of both.
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So hard to find reason w/last years team. We were 2 separate teams, lost doke, then Vick, gained Ochai. Wonder if Vick hurt team while still here? Ranked 1, then doke went down, not sure it is fair to judge last years team as harshly. No subs we were counting on playing as much, or if at all. Scrambling all year. Rode d dot hard, 'bout had to depend on grimes. Rough year. Positive in developing d dot, d Mac and Ochai.
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Last year’s team absolutely took on Lagerald Vick’s personality. Think about all of the complaints about Vick while he was at KU, then think about the complaints with last year’s team. They match up almost perfectly and why I was hesitant about wanting him back last season. Had there been other senior leadership on that team last year, I don’t think it would’ve been an issue because Vick never wanted to be a leader. Since Vick was the only senior, he was put into that role against his will basically and it reflected on the team as the season went on and faced some adversity which Vick had never handled well.
Leadership will also be the biggest question mark for this team as well. Is Doke capable of filling that role? Will Garrett or Dotson step up into that role? Can Isaiah Miss come in and take that role? The answer to the leadership question will play a much more significant factor in determining what KU does in March and hopefully April than any other question mark this team has.
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nbadraft.net has Ochai as the #7 pick in 2020 draft. https://www.nbadraft.net/2020mock_draft
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@Texas-Hawk-10 I don’t question the leadership on this team. The team is stacked with leaders, not just one guy. I think without a doubt that Devon Dotson is #1, and Marcus is 1A. Then you go to a 4 year Doke, along with a grown man in Silvio. Both of those guys are not here to play around, or pout. Now, that’s not counting a true leader named Lightfoot that is going to be in all those guy’s ears the whole time. Then we get a 2nd year Ochai, who is simply brimming with confidence. Ochai plays with a confidence that is very rare to find. And the cherry on top is a senior coming out of the B10 that has been through the wars, been there…done that…has the t-shirt. Moss will win some games for us because he absolutely loves the ball when the game is on the line.
I think our whole freshmen crop are guys that are pretty humble guys…guys that are working their butts off. There’s only one guy that I think is in line for adjustment, and that is JW. Hopefully, he’ll realize he is in a much larger arena than what he’s been in. I think the power of the team will work on him, and he’ll realize he has a lot of work ahead of him. In the end, I think JW becomes a nice weapon for us, but I certainly see some growing pains ahead.
All in all, this team is a true throwback to the best teams that Bill has ever had. I see comparisons to 2007, 2008, 2011, 2012, and even a sprinkling of 2016. More than anything, we simply have more experience …more guys that have been through the trenches. Getting Doke, Dotson, and Silvio back is astonishing. We’ve never had a freshman point guard do what DD did last year. Never. His first year, he had better number’s than Tyshawn’s junior year, Frank’s sophomore year, and arguably Devonte’s sophomore year ( although Devonte smoked him on 3point%). Now, the argument could reasonably be made that Frank and Devonte didn’t have the same opportunity that DD did, and when they did get the chance, they put up similar numbers. Fair point. BUT… first year coming in …never played a second of college ball, and being thrown into the fire from the git-go…that’s pretty amazing. That’s the mark of a leader to me…
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@KUSTEVE I’m in awe of the guy who transformed his body from this:
to this 
.Pretty sure this guy can lead by example.
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@KUSTEVE I question if any of those guys truly can step up though when it became apparent last year they all followed Vick who was never a leader. None of the players appear to be a locker room cancer, but that doesn’t mean any of them are natural leaders either. We can speculate all we want, but until we see what happens in November on the court, I’m going to be skeptical.
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@approxinfinity he’s amazing!
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I don’t see a DG in that group, doesn’t mean one won’t step up. I think lightfoot has leadership qualities, but can he do that on the bench?
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Dotson’s team imo
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One thing to remember — chemistry can be the leader. A bonded group focused on team goals, a commitment to the guy next to them, and a complete buy in to what the coach is selling. The strongest leader is team. Negative forces are squeezed out.
We don’t have an obvious natural leader it appears. But so long as we don’t have an anti-leader or anti-leaders — a manipulative voice of dissension that has persuasive influence — the idea of team chemistry being the leader can easily prevail.
And out of that, leaders can emerge. My bet is Garrett, but given what SDS went through, he’s a clear choice for me.
**we know why Vick was shown the door.
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@Texas-Hawk-10 I don’t necessarily see freshmen standing up to seniors as the litmus test for leadership , but that’s just my opinion. We never saw a freshman Devonte go up and bitch out an upperclassman, but that doesn’t mean he was disqualified to be the team leader in later years. I certainly wouldn’t disqualify Devon because he didn’t get into with Vick. Or maybe he did get into it with him, and that’s why Vick left, and we just haven’t been told about it. We truly don’t know, and we’re not privy to things like that very often. I know this - the more experienced a team is, the less we need the stereotypical “leader”. I would say that Russ Rob was as much a leader as Mario when they won the national championship, but that’s simply my view from the outside in. I could certainly be wrong. Like I said, we have 4 or 5 guys who could deemed leaders this year. My money is on Devon to be leader of the pack.
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Wasn’t DG picked by the marines, can’t remember which armed service it was, as a leader as a freshmen?
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@KUSTEVE Sounds like you’re taking the position of best player has to be the leader based on your comments regarding 2008. I’ve got news for you, Russell Robinson was the leader of that team and there’s plenty of first hand accounts that verify that. Sherron Collins took that mantle from Robinson, Taylor and the Morris twins were next, then, T-Rob, EJ and Withey, then a stretch where KU was lacking a good leader (Tharpe year), then Mason and Lucas took over, Graham took it from Mason, last year was Vick and then nobody stepped into that role after Vick left which is why I’m concerned for next season.
The leader doesn’t have to be the PG or the best player, but it needs to be someone who plays a lot of minutes and will speak up in a huddle when needed.
The one guy who has shown glimpses of taking that role is Marcus Garrett, but it remains to be seen if he’ll fully embrace that role or try to defer it since he’s not a senior yet.
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@Texas-Hawk-10 do you think Vick actually lead? I know Self talked about him preseason, guessing he was leading then.
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http://www2.kusports.com/news/2018/mar/07/finding-his-voice-how-devonte-graham-became-one-be/
Needing a nudge to help the idea take root, Self brought in a group of military veterans who founded the team-building initiative known as “The Program,” to see if they could help bring Graham’s natural leadership skills to the surface.
KU’s time with The Program that season coincided with Self’s already infamous boot camp conditioning routine. Together, the two challenges pushed Graham to new highs — and lows — and inspired him to find his voice.
After a day of getting used to the rigors of The Program, Graham was put in charge of nearly a dozen different challenges during the next two days. Communication, motivation, survival and focus all came into to play, and Graham flourished while leading his teammates through it all.
Kansas forward Cliff Alexander (2) comes in to celebrate with guard Devonte Graham after Graham forced a turnover by Baylor guard Kenny Chery (1) during the first half, Saturday, Feb. 14, 2015 at Allen Fieldhouse.
Never was that more clear than during an exercise in the 13-foot-deep end of the swimming pool, when Graham and former teammate Tyler Self were forced to help Cliff Alexander navigate his way across the pool despite the freshman forward from Chicago not knowing how to swim.
“Mom, I almost died today,” was the way Graham later relayed the story to King.
“It was me and Tyler, treading water, holding Cliff,” Graham recalled. “One of us would go under the water and hold him up by his legs while the other one was on top and then we would kind of switch. And when we were switching, I was going under and Cliff hit me in the face and I sucked in a bunch of water. Man. It got bad right there.”
But Graham got through it. And so did Alexander.
Eric Kapitulik, a former lacrosse player at the United States Naval Academy and retired Marine who founded The Program, remembers it like it was yesterday. That’s saying something given the fact that his company, during the past 10 years, has worked with more than 150 college, pro and corporate teams annually in similar settings.
Their goal, each time, is to develop better leaders and create more cohesive teams. By the time they were done with the Jayhawks, Kapitulik had seen all he needed to see from Graham to know what kind of future the newest Jayhawk had in front of him.
After putting KU’s entire 2014-15 roster through as many physically and mentally adverse situations as they could think of, Kapitulik and his crew named Graham the best leader of the bunch.
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@HighEliteMajor wow. I missed that one first go around. Thanks for sharing.
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@Texas-Hawk-10 I agree it doesn’t have to be the leading scorer, but I’ll never forget the huddle in the national championship game where Russ and Mario were both urging the team on. Great teams don’t have just one leader- they have a myriad of players coming together. They might have one guy who yells the loudest, but leadership comes in more ways than that. Marcus is by far our most vocal leader. He learned that from Devonte. He’s a natural. Dotson will carry the leadership mantle as well this year. Probably not in the same way as Marcus because that’s not necessarily his personality. But no one on that team took that loss to Auburn harder than Devon. And like I alluded to in an earlier post, he performed magnificently in an extremely difficult spot - starting point guard as a freshman. When he announced he was coming back, it was “we have business to take care of”, so he has a very clear idea what needs to be done. The truth is, I believe in both DD and Marcus, and I think both will be leaders of this team this year.
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Mitch knows the Kansas way. Dotson will be the floor general. Garrett will be the vocal leader. Ochai will keep the teams spirit up - great attitude. McCormack can lead by example - great workout ethic.
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I get the concerns about leadership, its no different then our concerns about shooting. The roster has changed significantly from last season. We have to let that grow on it’s own. We are a while away from knowing what this team will be. Younger players are a in position to show leadership (see Devon, Ochai & Dave for example). All 3 possess the type of character that could take that on. I think we’ll see Devon take over if I had a pick. If I’m guessing, that’s probably what Self is expecting of his returning PG as well. I expect everyone else will contribute in a positive manner. I can see this being a fun team for Self to coach especially in the absence of ego’s. Looks like I’m picking a good year to experience my first KU game in person!
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@BeddieKU23 agreed. We are all amped to see what this team can be but the truth is its alot of speculation until it’s here. Tyshawns comments about it being a young team reminded me. The more we can approach this as a growing year with a championship ceiling and a first weekend exit floor until we get deep into conference play , the more we can enjoy the bumps along the road as these guys find cohesion and roles. The sky’s the limit but we’re currently assembling our wings and probably will be for a good part of the season.
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@approxinfinity it’s to bad moss couldn’t be here earlier.
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I’m super excited by all the pieces we have. I did not imagine a few months ago we’d have Azubuike back, Silvio eligible and have snagged Jalen Wilson & Moss so late in the game. Despite returning some key players with experience this group is super young playing together. I don’t expect this team to look good now, that’s not the goal as you’ve pretty much stated as well. This is a throwback roster with no OAD’s or ego’s to manage. I’m pumped.
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@approxinfinity This is a much more inexperienced team than the classifications next to the players names would indicate.
Doke has played less than 2 seasons worth of games in his 3 years. Silvio is a junior that’s played a little over half a season. Lightfoot has played minimal minutes most of his career. Agbaji has only played about half a season and was playing hurt most of that time.
Marcus Garrett is probably the most experienced player returning this season and if he’s not, he’s not far behind Doke.
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@Texas-Hawk-10 great point.
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So many of these guys are ultra hungry, they have that nasty feeling from last year. Doke from injuries, Silvio, can’t even imagine how much he wants to prove himself, we saw what losing did to d dot, sounds like moss had a bad taste. I’m sure Marcus is ready to prove us wrong and ready to test his ankle. Big Dave wanting to show some range! Lightfoot wants to go out with a bang! I think the new guys want to help out and gel. I feel like these guys know what it means to play for KU!
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Well said!
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Big Mac is special. His game is advancing so quickly. I can’t think of a player that has advanced his game this fast.
Reminds me of Forest Gump… “life is like a box of chocolates” because no one (including our coaching staff) could have guessed David would advance this quickly. Just the improvement in his athleticism has completely changed his game. Now he’s adding range to his shot and it’s come so far as to receive high praise from Self.
When David came to Kansas he was viewed as a 4-year player. Not so sure now.
If he can advance so quickly in his athleticism and shooting… will that transfer over to his handles, too? Imagine that!
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I’m imagining Silvio and Doke being a huge spiritual lift from just getting out there and playing since neither were deciding factors in last year.
And then there is David. His game is transforming daily and it’s hard to not jump on his inspirational bandwagon.
Ochai… someone forgot to tell him he’s not supposed to be starting for a blue blood program!
Devon… why didn’t he go cash in? He might not have been drafted but he would have doors open and would have drawn a paycheck. He’s got something to prove. Losing doesn’t settle well with him at all, and it’s refreshing to see that!
Marcus… there will always be the critics thinking he doesn’t deserve many minutes and he will continue to prove them wrong.
The new guys… who knows what they bring to this but they will be surrounded by a team full of guys who have a high desire to go prove something. I’m hopeful they all buy right in!
We have a team full of guys who can (and will) spiritually lead this team. This will truly be a rare team!
