Who is responsible?



  • @nuleafjhawk

    We are of a similar size, especially in the heart!

    I could never stand losing… even playing pickup ball on my driveway goal. Even as kids, we’d dive for a loose ball on our concrete drive! My mother started saving herself some time by showing us how to bandage our own scrapes.

    I feel like you and I and 3 others in here could have taken them last night. Granted… it would have to be a half court game because we couldn’t run up and down the court for more than a minute! I would play in the post, and I wouldn’t let Perry near the lane area.

    Frank would have been their big scorer… he’d probably have gone for 50 or 60.



  • @wrwlumpy “How often on the same day does Manning throw 4 interceptions and Self lose by 25.”

    I just read somewhere today that Self has had three 25+ losses in his career at Kansas.

    The fact that TWO of those have come this season is really concerning me.



  • The question is whether Self needs to rethink his recruiting. Recruiting elite wing players is nice, but only if you are going to play through your elite players. Recruiting elite wing players and then having them continuously throw the ball into the post is not the best use of talent. We can recruit a bunch of Brady Morningstar’s to throw the ball into the post.

    If Coach Self wants to always run his offense through the post, he should focus all of his energy on recruiting elite interior players. All of the efforts should be directed towards recruiting Rabb, Diallo, Swanigan and Zimmerman. There isn’t much point in recruiting Jaylen Brown or Malik Newman if you aren’t going to let them be who they are - elite perimeter scorers. Better to go land the bigs and fill in with lower rated perimeter players if necessary.

    Either that, or we need to focus our offense on the perimeter because that is where our best players are. The lions share of shots should be going to Selden, Oubre, Mason, and Svi. Ellis and Alexander should get touches, but not at the expense of getting those four guys shots (and Brannen Greene if he is playing defense, too). It’s time to unleash the guards and let them play.



  • We have a bad game, and now we want Roy back? Oh Lordy…lol. I hate getting blown out. I hate losing any game, especially games where we act like we can’t find the arena. But, it is what it is. Remember when you were a kid, and the day before xmas, the excitement built up so much that you could hardly wait for it to get there? Neither can our team. No matter who we blame for this fiasco, we’ll come back and play much better … more focused, more in tune. As for Roy…you’re kidding, right?



  • @justanotherfan

    KU has been playing lately from the outside in; however, Coach Self cannot eliminate the inside game all together, maybe you don’t use as much as he has in the past but you still have to have it.



  • @justanotherfan first, wasn’t Embiid expected to stay awhile? I think Self is giving them the green light, they are either cold or their defense is so bad he can’t keep them out there. Not counting dribbling off their foot, or being late to weights-tutoring, etc. Discipline!



  • @KUSTEVE If you’re talking to me - I didn’t say I wanted him back. I said I liked his “fire”. He could motivate. He didn’t have a bunch of little sissy girl prima donas standing around admiring their credentials. He had floor-divers. His teams out-hustled everyone they played.

    Well, you talked me into it. I want him back.



  • @justanotherfan said:

    Recruiting elite wing players and then having them continuously throw the ball into the post is not the best use of talent.

    Phenomenal point. Seriously, great all around post. The thing that sucks after these losses is that good posts get overlooked. One thing that really sucked about this loss is that Zimmerman was talking up KU, and then we go out and lay an egg.



  • FwNFYPS.jpg

    “Text me with your suggestions.”

    Photo provided by Jessie Newell.



  • @drgnslayr I waited for a whole day to respond. For various reasons of course. But, KU did not come to play last night at all. Frank was the only guy out there on the court for KU as far as Im concerned. Yes he made his mistakes on D, but over all he was the only player on the court that came out ready to play for KU. Perry might as well have stayed in Lawrence. Landon and Traylor and Greene too. NONE of our bigs came to play and be competitive. NONE.
    Is that on Coach Self and him alone?
    Ultimately yes it is. He is in charge. But, I find it hard to believe that he did not try his best to prepare his guys for Temple with less than 24 hrs of prep time. They played saturday, probly traveled to Philly the day after or the day of. They got time to review tape and practice the day before maybe and the day of a little bit. Then ALL of KU’s players just gave zero effort. I saw during time outs how Bill almost popped a cerebral artery trying to get his guys in the game. I dont believe he didnt try. I just dont. But, again, yes ultimately it is on him how bad KU got beat yesterday. I hope he ripped into his guys for how badly they played. I hope he makes them run every step in AFH 3 times over for how bad they played. I hope he makes them shoot 150 FT’s for every missed FT and field goal. I hope he makes them get up at 6 am for a beat down boot camp style.
    And who knows, maybe this will open his eyes. Maybe this beat down will tell him, hey we need to quit trying to play inside out and play to this teams strengths. But, clearly they did not have any strengths at all against Temple last night.
    I saw the whole game. Again, I am not a basketball coach or x player or anything. But even my laymans knowledge of the game can tell when a team has no toughness. Only Frank came to play last night.



  • @Lulufulu Almost looked like Mr & Ms finesse danced through the game to me. If Greene wasn’t in the doghouse prior to this one he sure as heck should be now. Reaching for the ball while others are getting floor burns & a defender dunks on you while you looked shocked? Pleeeease. Frank was at the top of his game & the rest just mailed it in. At the 10 min mark I was done.



  • @drgnslayr IMO but Bill has missed substantially recently in recruiting a lot of not only former (AW III), but present (Nadir,CF. & Perry) players to plug into his “system.” Without Embid, how good would Wigs have really looked at Kansas?Just a though to throw out, but perhaps he’s losing a little bit of his edge, or even a little interest & thinking of greener pastures where recruiting is not an issue? The cupboard’s not completely bare in the frontcourt, but there certainly isn’t the stable of rough stock we’re accustomed to under Self. Maybe somethin’s up guys? What are your thoughts?



  • I think the comment about selective memory is appropriate here. Are we really questioning Self’s track record here? Look at Texas Southern over Michigan State at home…and that team is coached by “Mr. Toughness” Tom Izzo. It happens folks. The only thing that you can question Self on, in the big picture…in my opinion is the history of early exits to inferior opponents in the tournament. Although I can’t think of any specific examples of lack of effort (long time ago)…Roy’s teams lost plenty of games they shouldn’t have. And I get all the points about being able to handle losses, but not losses that involve lack of effort. This is a young team. Their minds were probably more on going home than they should have been. Temple was playing AT HOME. It is much easier to get pumped at home than on the road. The sky is not falling. We’ve got a great coach. We will have a very successful season. Conference title? Who knows, but we’ll be in the hunt. But if we don’t win ANOTHER conference title…please no pitchforks. 🙂



  • @justanotherfan If I could give you more than one upvote I would.



  • Maybe HCBS saw UNLV looming at a home date and need a wake up call for his team before they feel too good about themselves.



  • @nuleafjhawk ‘I’m wondering how that’s possible.’ Amen.

    ‘His teams don’t seem prepared or motivated.’ Amen to that too.



  • @nuleafjhawk

    ‘Thank Sherron and Mario, not BS.’

    That’s what Coach BS himself did–remember the pre-game speech?

    Still speaks volumes…

    Oh, and btw, at least Roy’s teams knew how to run a fast break. When Bill’s teams get a fast break, more often than not, they screw it up.



  • @nuleafjhawk 'consistently losing to 10-15 seed teams in the NCAA’s ’

    Hmm, that’s a familiar thread…



  • @globaljaybird

    ‘Without Embid, how good would Wigs have really looked at Kansas?’

    You’re kidding, right?



  • @KUinLA Not really. How hard was it for Stanford to take him out of that game?



  • @Shanghai_RCJH said:

    Maybe HCBS saw UNLV looming at a home date and need a wake up call for his team before they feel too good about themselves.

    Good point. They did just beat a very good Arizona team AT their place. If they can beat Arizona, they could throttle KU!



  • @globaljaybird

    That was actually Bill’s offense that took Wigs out of the game. Stanford was just reacting to what Bill’s team was doing.



  • I didn’t want to turn this thread into a pitchfork scene, with Bill poked on the stick hanging over the fire.

    Bill is a fabulous coach, and I’m grateful he is a Jayhawk!

    I just wonder about things.

    I know KU basketball is holding up the financial pants of just about all our athletic department. That is a huge load!

    I know Zenger and Self are constantly traveling and promoting Kansas to the wealthy to raise capital…

    I just wonder if it isn’t too much? To the point where Bill has to compromise the basketball program for the sake of the entire athletic department.

    I suspect this to be true, and would like people who know more about it than I make comments to educate us all.



  • @KUinLA exactly my point. Read above posts by @justanotherfan & myself. If it doesn’t work fix it.



  • This is all about adapting to the personnel that you have available.

    College coaches have to be willing to adapt because you are not always guaranteed to have a specific group of players at your disposal.

    Much was made of Calipari and his dribble drive motion offense when he was at Memphis. I would point out that, during his time at UK, Calipari has not run much dribble drive motion. Why? Well, if you had DeMarcus Cousins, Patrick Patterson, Terrence Jones, Anthony Davis, Nerlens Noel, Julius Randle and your choice of 7 footers as post options why on earth would you run a perimeter based offense? That’s not a knock on the guards he has had. It’s just a simple truth. He’s had some great inside players and he has used that to his advantage.

    Coach Self needs to do the same thing, except in reverse. Sure, when you have Wayne Simien, Darrell Arthur, Cole Aldrich, the Morris twins, and Thomas Robinson, pounding the ball inside is a great plan because you have talented, NBA caliber interior players to work with. Of KU’s bigs that finished last season (not counting Embiid due to injury), only Perry might play in the NBA, and if he does, it will not be as a post player. Of the KU bigs this year besides Perry only Alexander will likely play in the NBA, and if he does, it will be due to his rebounding and energy, not because of his offensive post game.

    But look on the perimeter. Frank has an outside shot at playing in the NBA. Wayne has as good a chance as Perry to play in the NBA. Brannen can if he ever decides to defend. Svi probably will. Kelly will.

    I don’t think its a requirement to compromise the basketball program. We have the pieces. It’s just time to put square pegs in square holes and ignore the round holes this season because we just don’t have any round pieces. Let’s play to our strengths.

    Is KU good - obviously yes.

    Can KU be great? Yes, but in order to do that, it falls on Kelly and Wayne.

    I’m just putting it out there. Kelly is the player with the highest ceiling on this team. If he emerges, this team could take off. You could see it a little bit on Monday in the loss. This team needed someone to grab the game by the throat and go off. Kelly is that guy. His talent says it. Time will tell if his personality says the same.

    The key now is how Self reacts to this. The safe play is to go back to basics, pound the ball inside and hope that’s enough. The riskier play (but with a greater payoff) is to walk into practice and tell Kelly that they are going to follow him into the fire from here on out. Yeah, it’s scary to look into the eyes of a freshman that was barely in the rotation two weeks ago and say the season rides on him, but Kelly is the best talent on the team. With great power comes great responsibility.



  • @justanotherfan : Great post. I have a feeling next Tuesday we will be pounding the ball inside. And this is very unfortunate… Self has a hard enough time changing things up at half time (waiting too long to press, not switching Ds, never switching Os…). And wasn’t it last year that he mentioned something about the amount of plays they have that makes it difficult to relearn a brand new O or D mid-season??



  • @justanotherfan I reiterate you should get many upvotes for your posts. If I had 3 flippin’ thumbs , all of them would be vertical.



  • To anyone pining for Ol’ Roy, what’s his record against Self? What’s UNC’s record this year? Maybe it’s that people want '97/'03 Roy back. Good luck with that.

    Much as I asked that people not go overboard after the Lafayette win (I think some were stitching Hunter’s name & number on banners), we also shouldn’t overreact to one loss, no matter how ugly, that was on the road two days after the Lafayette game. I don’t disagree with some of the analysis, I just think some of the emotional reaction is over-the-top and unjustified.



  • Maybe “Missing Devonte” was responsible. Take nothing away from Mason who was working hard to create his own shots in a night where most of his team mates seem to have disappeared. Maybe, the option of playing small was the missing part in term of matchup for that game. Maybe while Mason was driving we need a true PG to read the floor and send the ball to the next guy who is available at the best place and time to score.



  • @Shanghai_RCJH Yahtsee. I think having Devonte in the lineup helps Frank’s game, as well as our team. Good point.



  • Frank and devonte are pretty darn good together too.


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