3 small steps forward, one gigantic step backwards...
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@Crimsonorblue22 Agreed. We desperately need a rim protector.
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@DinarHawk I can’t understand how a kid that wants to play in the nba, can’t find his own desire and energy!!! I also can’t understand how a kid that wants to start and get more minutes, is late to weights?
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@Crimsonorblue22 You’d think that they would be giving 110% every second on the court but that is not the case.
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I guess for many season we were absolutely spoiled by bigs that in many ways we took for granted. The twins, Aldrich, TRob, Withey and Embiid were beasts inside, be it at scoring or defending and we always assumed that new player would replace them, after all KU is Big Man U, right?
We really don’t have any reliable bigs. Ellis is a SF playing out of position as PF. Alexander is starting to look like a tweener, not big or strong enough (at least not yet) to play PF and not a a good enough shooter to play SF; same situation with Traylor. Lucas and Mickelson are Mid-Major level starters but not good enough, at least not that I have consistently seen, to start for a top tier team.
KU has better potential on the perimeter and I believe Coach Self knows that this year and against better competition, KU will have to live and die by the outside shooting and penetration; today the shots were not falling and there was no help inside. I have to admit that Temple made some shots that even their coach could not believe went in, but regardless, KU should not have been in a position of having to play catch up. It had a good chance in the second half when it cut the lead to 6 with 17 minutes to play only to go frigid cold and Temple upped the lead to 15 in the next 4 minutes and that was pretty much the game.
Here is a story by Eamonn Brennan that presents a less emotional and perhaps more objective view of what this loss means. Deep inside I know that he is probably right, but the loss is still too fresh to get any consolation. I will mop some more this evening and hopefully in the morning I will see it a little less harshly.
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I can’t really pile too much on Ellis. He almost NEVER gets an easy bucket inside. Opposing coaches all now know the way to stop him is to frustrate him by collapsing the defense around him when he gets the ball.
So–even though we all know this defensive plan–Mason forces the ball into Perry who initiates his spin cycle, three defenders surround him and yet the remaining two opponents manage to cover our other four players who are standing like statues apparently mesmerized by Perry’s spin moves. Rinse and repeat. Gotta pound the ball inside.
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Cheer up, some of our best teams have had horrible losses. Not a fan of small lineups to start the game. I will referred to this game as: “Perry Anna Jones and the Temple of Doom”. It was a show I never hope to see again. Oh well, can’t wait to the next game!
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@JayHawkFanToo Many thanks. Excellent post!
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@Crimsonorblue22 looks like a little success went to their heads. Welcome back to reality, lots of room for improvement from everyone.Mason is a real fighter.
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@DoubleDD **The Most interesting team in the world.
KU doesn’t always lose but when they do, they get blown out.
**Stay thirsty, my friend.
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Ouch, no really that hurt. What a bad bad game.
You could sense it from the opening 3 minutes. Heck you knew with 15 minutes left the game was already over. Missed dunks, pansy attempts at the rim, dribble off the foot 3 times (maybe exaggerating a little but you get the point). In hindsight it wasn’t very good game to schedule 2 days after a home game, but this is the same in Big 12 play. We’ll have a home game and then Monday comes we are on the road in a hostile environment.
The game boiled down to 2 things. Missed shots and turnovers. You can’t miss everything under the sun and turn the ball over what 10 times in the first 10 minutes of the game. Effort wasn’t there, but to lose by nearly 30 points again is unfathomable. Will this happen again? It’s likely because when things don’t go well the guys just don’t compete. At least we have the winter break to improve and learn from this debacle.
The one bright spot, Frank Mason. What a shooter he is becoming. He can’t do it alone, Perry and Wayne need to get their head straight. Oubre was fine, I liked his effort for the most part.
Is #11 in trouble? We will see how we respond next week
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@JayHawkFanToo My exact thoughts about being blessed with the big men before this year. Going on the road cross country to play a team of Seniors with a group of Freshmen and Sophomores with our one Junior having the worst night of his career, when our shots aren’t falling equals blowout. Even the announcers commented on Greene’s poor defensive ability, as he followed his man twice around a screen to watch a layup. Greene’s defense ability seemed scouted by the other team. I don’t want to pick on him, but we are going into conference play against the #1 RPI rated schools to play on the road against teams foaming at the mouth to play us. The quality coaches in our league can’t wait for revenge after 10 straight years of having the Withey’s and Embid,s and Aldrich’s ruin their plans. Nike is loving this.
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@DanR The key for Ellis is expanding his bag of tricks.
Remember Simien and Marcus? Both had pretty sweet fade away shots, and turn around jumpers. The simple problem with Ellis is that defenders do not have to respect him beating them going backward.
Ellis is just easy to defend when well scouted.
Opposing coaches are attacking his spin move and closing up the space. You’ve got this one diagnosed pretty well.
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I Read the comments on KUSports and I am so glad that KU Buckets gave us a home.
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My mood wasn’t helped while watching the Badgers game and hearing Bill Walton say Calipari is a class act.
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@HighEliteMajor said:
Remember Simien and Marcus? Both had pretty sweet fade away shots, and turn around jumpers. The simple problem with Ellis is that defenders do not have to respect him beating them going backward.
I’ve been beating that drum for the last 3 years. Everything about Perry’s skillset says he should be a better version of Marcus Morris. Instead, he struggles against the sorts of defenders that Marcus would routinely embarrass by using his footwork, touch, and turnaround J. George Niang is a full inch shorter and could barely clear a broom handle in his first two years at ISU, but he has a turnaround and a fallaway hook that allowed him to still get looks against the likes of Jeff Withey and Joel Embiid. THIS is where losing Danny Manning has killed us in terms of what our big men can do. Norm Roberts has delivered the goods on the recruiting trail, but he just can’t develop bigs the way Manning could.
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It is really a catch 22 situation with Ellis. I indicated before the season and continue to believe that Perry is a natural SF playing out of position at the PF. However, he is the only “somewhat” reliable big we have (he leads the team ion scoring and rebounding) and we have plenty of other players that can also play the SF but not the PF position, so Coach Self has no choice but to play him inside hoping he can score and rebound. At this point it is a craps shoot figuring out if “Good KU” or “Bad KU” will show up; has the team played one entire good game so far? It seems to play one half at the time and badly needs to acquire consistency and put together complete games.
The conference is going to be brutal this year, not only because KU has some glaring weaknesses but also other teams are greatly improved. The conference has 5 teams in the top 20 in one poll and in 5 teams in the top 25 in the other poll; that is fully 50% of the teams; 4 other teams are receiving or have also received votes and Texas Tech is the only conference team that has not…no other conference comes even close to it.
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@JayHawkFanToo where will we drop to?
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It depends how voters see the loss. If they see it as not important (as Brennan of ESPN does) then 3 or 4 spots, otherwise upper teens?
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A fair perspective on the Big 12 power ranking.
http://www.rockchalktalk.com/2014/12/23/7440761/big-12-basketball-weekly-power-rankings
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I agree. Texas has all the pieces in place to win the conference, provided they can put said pieces together. If KU wants the Conference Title, it will really have to earn it; no gimmes this year. The conference is loaded with 7 teams in the top 25 as per Ken Pomeroy.
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I am glad to see that for the most part the posts on kubuckets are pretty reasonable. We are all of course disappointed and a bit concerned as you should not lose to an unranked team by 25 if you are KU. But hey, it happens. Unfortunately I read a number of posts on kusports and the negativity was incredible. “Season is over”. “May not make the tournament”. “No help on the way for next season either”. What is wrong with people? We got beat and it was awful and terrible but now we aren’t going to make the tournament? Give me a break. This may not be the 2008 team but we are going to be fine…exposed or not.
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@joeloveshawks Actually, I see this loss as pro forma. In every single season Self has coached KU (try saying that 10 times fast), he’s dropped one game that was just a complete ‘WHAT THE HELL’ kind of loss. Last year, it was WVU (or arguably Stanford, but they weren’t as bad as their seeding). Before that, TCU. Before that, Davidson. Before that, VCU, then UNI, UMass, OSU, Oral Roberts, Bradley, Bucknell, and finally Nebraska. If it happens before March, there’s this massive freak out, but we usually do pretty well in the dance. It’s the years where that game happened during the dance that are frustrating. I’d much rather be experiencing this right now.
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“…three defenders surround him and yet the remaining two opponents manage to cover our other four players who are standing like statues apparently mesmerized by Perry’s spin moves.”
Remnant behavior from last year when it was Wiggins they were all watching.
Is it legal for players to have a sack of popcorn with them on the court? You won’t find better seats in the house…
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@konkeyDong Exactly. You could even expand on this list if you wanted to. Also, this is not a Bill Self issue or a KU issue. Duke, Arizona, Cuse, UNC and all of the big boys (maybe not UK the last few years) have at least one game where they fall asleep and get embarrassed. It is just part of the long season that is college ball. The TCU game was FAR worse than this and that was a superior and far more senior KU squad. Don’t lose faith!!
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" I indicated before the season and continue to believe that Perry is a natural SF playing out of position at the PF."
He is a SF… he’ll never have a chance in the NBA as a PF, not even for a second. And he is getting his butt kicked in D1 at the PF.
But there is no reason why a guy his size can’t score inside. There have been much smaller guys that score a lot better than Perry can inside. His skill-set is one that he brought with him to Kansas. A skill-set that was developed against smaller players. He should be working on a totally different skill-set in D1.
There are four ways of scoring on a post player in the paint:
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Take the ball (and body) into the defender and elevate - this is what you do to draw contact and a foul. The defender either has to foul you or stand still while you score over him.
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Create scoring distance between the defender and the ball - use your body as a barrier and keep the ball far away enough so the defender can’t swat it.
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Race the defender to the backboard - when you are scoring from a side, all you have to do is get the ball to the backboard before the defender can swat it. If he swats it after it hits the backboard, he gets called for goal-tending.
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Use shot fakes to get the defender to leave his feet - another great way to get fouled on the shot, especially if you initiate contact.
Perry does the absolute worse thing… He rarely fakes, he goes right at the defender, but not all the way into his body. He has no scoring space and he leaves enough space for the defender to contest his shot.
You would think the designer would be working on this.
It’s not too late for Perry, if, next summer, we can get him to play a summer of playground ball. Surely, there are games still out there somewhere!
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When this team loses to Robert Morris in the 1st Round of the NIT, then and only then will I be overly concerned. Problem is, when this team is good, it’s very good, and when it’s bad it’s very bad!
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@approxinfinity Frank was the best player in a Kansas uniform, just like in the Kentucky game.
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@approxinfinity Good luck with that-- teams that lose games by 25 & 30 points don’t do ANYTHING in the tournament. Get ready for a first weekend exit come March.
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Kentucky has responded to losing in the NIT to Robert Morris with a trip to the championship game and likely a second National Championship in four years. Why would you be concerned if we lost to Robert Morris in the NIT?
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@JayHawkFanToo They always rebound from any loss. Very very rarely do we see a KU team lose two or 3 in a row. It just doesnt happen. Hasnt for decades
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@KUinLA Right, UCONN didn’t do anything in March last year after they got blown out by 30 against Louisville…or did they go on to win the National Championship?
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@Blown we will never be in the NIT!
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We’ll see…
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@KUSTEVE Thanks for the chuckle… “The Most interesting team in the world”
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@KUinLA : Unless we implode and go sub 0.500 in conference play I don’t see how we don’t make the NCAAs. Out of the top 25 KenPom RPI teams we’ve played the toughest schedule and are 9-2. The only teams that we’ve played that aren’t in the Top 100 are Lafayette at #137 and Rider at #182 so we’ve haven’t played any UMKC or UNC Asheville cellar dwellers. We’re 4-1 vs the top 50 with URI almost in the top 50 at 53.
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@KUinLA said:
@approxinfinity Good luck with that-- teams that lose games by 25 & 30 points don’t do ANYTHING in the tournament. Get ready for a first weekend exit come March.
I can disprove that with last year’s champion:
Louisville clinches share of AAC regular-season title with rout of UConn
One might argue that Louisville was a better team than Temple, but a 25 point loss in the season does not preclude victory in march.
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I love this team for beating Michigan St, Florida, Georgetown and Utah in a row. If they had lost any of those games, we would have expected it. The writers were calling for it. But they don’t like to lose. They’ve proven that, by running that gauntlet.
So, they dropped an egg on 2 days rest right before Christmas, it doesn’t make me question their heart.
As others have statistically proven, our interior isn’t performing on either end as well as years past. But again, check out UConn’s roster last year…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013%E2%80%9314_Connecticut_Huskies_men%27s_basketball_team
…and in 2010-2011…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010%E2%80%9311_Connecticut_Huskies_men%27s_basketball_team
While in 2010 they had one footer who played 15 mpg, otherwise both rosters are pretty comparable to ours in height.
I fully expect Self to understand the identity of this team and have the bigs playing well the diminished roles we need from them come March.
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@approxinfinity I completely agree. I’m feeling much better about this team while re-watching the Georgetown game. The free throw shooting against Temple showed me how tired they were.
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@Blown Because at that point, we would be a laughing stock. That’s about as low as it could get. Never mind how someone responded, I mean what choice did they have. They were garbage. One thing for certain is, in the last 30 years, we have not been garbage. I certainly never want to see our Program sink to that level. That is my point! We are 9-2, the sky is not falling.
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@approxinfinity well said Approx
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Well that just goes to show what a good coach who knows how to prepare his team for the tournament can do. As opposed to–our guy.
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@KUinLA Yes…“woe is us”. Puhleez. 82% win percent, and you talk about him like he was a stray mutt.
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"So, they dropped an egg on 2 days rest right before Christmas, it doesn’t make me question their heart. "
I question everyone on this team except Frank Mason. Mason was the only one that brought game, and even though he was surrounded by Jayhawks who brought nothing, he refused to give up the ship. That is a guy that has heart in my books.
When I see a team absolutely bring nothing to a game, regardless if it is just before Christmas or a man landing on the moon, I see a team that has to MANUFACTURE enthusiasm in order to have it. Those are always teams that have an uphill battle with enthusiasm. They will do this again. And they are very capable of doing this in March, and probably will.
I get mad at Self for saying things like this:
“I think, yes, they were ready to go home and see their families. I’m not going to make excuses for our guys at all. We don’t talk like this, (but) it was not very smart to play Lafayette Saturday, travel and not practice really, and play them on Monday. We added to the lack of energy by also being a tired team,” Self said.
Making an excuse about being tired is pathetic. These are kids in the best shape of their lives, and a game is only 40 friggin’ minutes long.
I used to play on what was called “tournament teams” that would travel the Midwest and play in tournaments held in cities and towns. Sometimes we would play 3 games in one day! That was exhausting, and we still didn’t play the “tired card” if we lost. Playing every couple of days, even if they travel, should not be exhausting for these guys.
That comment was a big cop out and the only thing it did was enable the players with a bogus excuse, so they can use that one again the next time they lay an egg.
Pathetic.
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@drgnslayr I remain very optimistic about this team. We have never had a team that I can ever remember that didn’t lose games they should’ve won. National championship teams, and national runnersup teams that flat blew it at times. It was a horrible game- no excuses, BUT it’s still one game out of forty.
This team hasn’t developed yet, and are nowhere near as good as they will be by March. By March, Cliff and Kelly are going to be winning games for us, and Devonte ( praying for good health for this kid ) will be taking lots of pressure off Frank, which I think helps Frank’s game.
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I totally agree. I’m just giving them a good tongue lashing for not showing up.
I gripe a lot, but that was how I was coached as a player. When we screwed up we were yelled at, and we deserved it. The screaming helped motivate us to not do it again, and usually we didn’t make the same mistakes twice.
One thing… we were never criticized for not showing up, even if it was the third game played in the same day. I don’t understand that part… being soft!
I’m old and I’m out of shape, but if asked, I’d run 40 minutes, 3 times a day. I might kill over afterwards, but I wouldn’t lack hustle!
I hope someone carves this on my tombstone.
" Here rests “Mr. Hustle” "
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@drgnslayr Maybe we should’ve had you in the locker room at halftime…lol. We need to toughen up…
