Jayhawks reluctant to run



  • Link to KUSports here



  • Running makes me tired



  • Maybe the reluctance to run, is linked to the reluctance to make a mistake, which is linked to the reluctance to incur Self’s wrath? I don’t think Self has mellowed. The quick hook is his way … and playing through mistakes is not. I’m sure the young guys know that.

    But I do like his focus on running and looking for it every time. That will create more turnovers, of course, but if we get more possessions (the Roy way), it balances out. But convincing new players to do it, when they know mistakes aren’t immediately forgiven, is another challenge.



  • Marcus (stupid) Smart is butt hurt.



  • FINALLY, I found where all the hawks went! I would agree Smart is butt hurt because the spot light isn’t on him. I am really hoping we can get Tyus and Jahlil. Tyus grew up liking KU and being a fan. I am really indecisive to would I rather have Tyus and Jahlil, or Alexander and Turner? I don’t think it is possible for kansas to get all, if so there would be a lot of players heading out the door for the NBA. IF Tyus came then Mason would have no choice but to red shirt because we are going to want our one year with him to last and we are expecting a four year player out of Mason. This room doesn’t have a lot of room for recruiting, we have a lot of big men and we have our point guards.



  • Marcus not so Smart



  • Next years recruiting class is a delicate balancing act. Do you over recruit and cause a potential transfer? Or does the current depth run off recruits who want immediate playing time? What if Selden and Embiid both return for their sophomore years? They would no doubt be better than any freshman, but where do the scholarships and playing time come from? What if Selden, Wiggins, and Embiid go pro Greene tranfers and Oubre is the only incoming freshman? 2015 Tharpe, White, Oubre, Mickelson, and Traylor; 5-8 Lucas, Frankamp, and ? Now add Okafor and Jones (and hopefully no transfers or one of Embiid or Selden returning).

    A swing and a miss on the next class leaves Bill with a lot more coaching to do to make it 11 in a row.



  • HEM,

    Good points. I have always felt that our freshmen are usually very tentative because of the quick hook. Perry was that way until the end of the season. More experienced players get more chances to play through their mistakes. Of course, that assumes that they are also making some plays when they are out there.



  • Dylans,

    I agree that next years class is a delicate balancing act. If you have any potential, but not certain OADs like we have, it becomes just that. I would find it fascinating to know how coaches handle this. You can sometimes get snippets when the player makes statements (i.e. Oubre). I have to believe that Self is pretty up front (while still “selling”) with the recruits. It sounds like he would gladly take 2 more (in addition to Oubre) if not 3, figuring that at least 1, and maybe both of Selden and Embiid will be gone. Turner appears to be waiting to see what happens with Embiid (as well as the players at the other schools he is considering).



  • Taco Tico used to make me run back in the day…



  • Young as these guys are, they should adjust quickly & let it all hang out once they start having success & fun from it. Pine time is part of it, but when it clicks, it’ll be a thrill to watch. Getting back on the other end will be the “Wrath of God” recipe & surely that’ll come faster for some than others. Coaches will enforce that at once, this ain’t HS ball & the level of commitment is like day & night. JMO. Also, welcome aboard HEM. Glad you could join us.



  • I’m pretty sure it will still make you run today, too!



  • If you’re in, I"m in. No reply from jaybate.



  • LOOK AT ALL THIS INCIVILITY!



  • It’s a regular insurrection of civility!



  • Of course, in the Wichita area, now it is Taco Tico that has “run”. Actually shut down due to nonpayment of $400K+ back taxes. How lame.



  • HEM brings up a good possibility about the frosh afraid to make mistakes by getting out and running, since Self’s tendencies are well known, and…well…legend. But Im hoping a few more games and their natural baller tendencies make it second nature. Hopefully that happens sooner than it did for Ellis, who took most of his frosh season to get to that point…Should be fun to analyze. I’ll be at the PittState opener…



  • As far as recruiting for this/next year… I think there is zero chance that we only get Oubre. We’re hot and a hip choice right now. Alexander wants to come here and others want to see how things shake out.

    I think we’ll get no less than what we need. I worry more about becoming a OAD factory and scaring off the 4-star guys we all like so much.



  • Worth noting on the Jones/Okafor front is that Okafor added Hudy to his following list on twitter the other day. Doesn’t necessarily mean anything, but at least we know he made a connection during his visit.



  • I was at the scrimmage yesterday.

    My notes:

    1. Greene is going to be awesome. He has that same basketball mind Larry Bird had in college. Give him time…

    2. Tharpe better push hard because Mason is right on his heels. Mason can drive at will on anyone.

    3. Perry is going to be a machine this year. He’s going to rack up some big numbers.

    4. Jojo has a ways to go. He may have great legs and can dance the cha-cha in the paint, but he’s got to learn more about the game and how to anticipate events.

    5. Wigs sometimes looks like he isn’t putting out effort because sometimes he doesn’t know what to do. Once he figures that out, he’ll be twice as effective because he has great potential for making things happen out of thin air.

    6. If I was taking a team into a prison game or an inner-city, chain-link net game I’d want Mason, Selden, AW3 and Black on my team.

    7. Conner is going to have to learn to shoot at least one 3 every minute he’s in the game because otherwise he’s giving up too much on the defensive end to warrant PT.

    8. AW3 worked way too hard in the off-season to redshirt this season. Plus… he’s going to get plenty of minutes this year.

    9. Selden is a man playing a boy’s game. Unless he gets injured, expect him gone after this year.

    10. Where did Black’s tire go?

    11. I’ve become a huge Frank Mason fan. I can see him beat out Tharpe this year for the starting nod… unless Tharpe continues to raise his game exponentially. Tharpe has to create offense somehow. Mason will create plenty with his penetration. Heck… Conner can punch out 3s from point. Tharpe has to bring something, preferably he’ll bring some of Conner and some of Frank to the floor.

    12. Okafor looked like he enjoyed the scrimmage. He did spend plenty of time on his phone texting… guess that’s a good thing. I sat directly across from him on the other side of the court on the floor.



    1. If we learn how to rebound, we’ll win at least 25 games from that skill alone because we’ve got so much muscle on this team. I hope we can play Izzo in March.


  • The offensive repetoire seemed evident from the highlight reel on the KU Sports vid. Who takes the over on scoring 100 in at least one game this year? Given SOS, not sure, but we came close last year, just our bench scoring was anemic. I say over at least one.



  • I saw Self at the Oread with the recruits and their families on Saturday. Looked like they were having a great time. My buddy was their waiter and he said he heard Okafor tell his mom he wants to come here. We will see… Also, Tyus Jones has a hot mom.



  • “6. If I was taking a team into a prison game or an inner-city, chain-link net game I’d want Mason, Selden, AW3 and Black on my team.”

    I want Tharpe on my inner city streetball team based on this alone…



  • Good points made. But this has a chance to be as fast of a starting 5 that I can remember. We push it hard enough and get out of the freshmen/frosh mistakes, we could be an offensive machine



  • So much better! Who gets the credit…well earned!



  • slayr,

    I didn’t get to see the scrimmage, so I only read kusports.com’s article and watched the highlight. It appeared everyone was hotdogging out there. How did Frankamp get the highest number of assists?

    30 minutes: 76 to 46 blue vs. red

    It’s obvious the starters are way better than the subs, but who played defense?

    From kusports.com, "Blue team: Andrew Wiggins 21, Perry Ellis 17 points, Andrew White III 11, Tarik Black 8, Wayne Selden 8, Jamari Traylor 6, Naadir Tharpe 5.

    Red team: Brannen Greene 10, Landen Lucas 10, Joel Embiid 7, Frank Mason 7, Conner Frankamp 6, Justin Wesley 4, Hunter Mickelson 2. Nobody else scored.

    Leaders: Rebounds: Embiid, Black 8. Steals: White 3. Assists: Frankamp 3."



  • HEM,

    Good points. I have always felt that our freshmen are usually very tentative because of the quick hook. Perry was that way until the end of the season. More experienced players get more chances to play through their mistakes. Of course, that assumes that they are also making some plays when they are out there.

    All true but there has never been a freshman class at KU with this much talent. HCBS needs to let this class work through their mistakes. The worst thing he could do would to be seen as impeding the OAD’s progress (even if not true) into the NBA and hopefully into the lottery.

    He will have to walk a fine line this year in order to balance the teams success and the super talented freshmen. At some point, I think he will need to put the goals of the team over the goals of certain players.



  • Kudos for creating this. Glad to see it coming along. It appears that Ryan Michael has created www.jayhawklounge.com. Perhaps you two could collaborate. It may enhance the experience and also prevent the possibility of fracturing the community.



  • @sarcastichawk Thanks. The way Ryan put it out there, it was pretty much that he didn’t like this board because of the layout, which is customizeable. He also made no mention about collaboration.

    As far as real-time chat, this chatboard already updates threads in real time, so I believe just creating a chat thread would suffice for in game discussion, but we’ll have to see how it performs. So far I’m really happy with the feature set on our CMS and I think it’s better than vBulletin, the platform Ryan has chosen. I’ve seen some pretty negative reviews of vBulletin (link) but I don’t have more than a cursory opinion on it at this point.

    Our software is pretty new so maybe we’ll see some bugs surface, though to date it’s done really well. It’s actively being worked on very aggressively, and its built on a cutting edge node.js tech stack that allows features like responsive design for mobile, chat, real-time status updates and it runs fast, whereas vbulletin is built on php / mysql and is more of an old school board format.



  • I think I like this layout better, and it is nice how it updates in real time without having to refresh. But I would hate to have our community split…again!



  • Based on my view of the scrimmage, we will certainly miss Withey’s blocks from a year ago and some of the T-Rel lock down D. Wiggins lived up to expectations, but Greene was perhaps the surprise of the day. The lad looked confident beyond his years, even though every drive, pass, and shot wasn’t a success.



  • Jhawk7782 I agree 100%. If BS doesn’t show he’s willing to play the freshman and not favor the upperclassmen the top recruits will no longer be willing to come here. They will all go to Kentucky like in years past. Wiggins success will be crucial to future recruiting



  • konkeyDong, glad to see you here. One of my favorite posters, substantive and informative.


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