Tubby and Tech give KU the Big 12
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I’ve said all along… Kansas wins the Big 12 because no other team knows how.
All we have to do (moving forward) is win the games we are supposed to win (home games and TCU, TT away) and one more that we aren’t supposed to win, like the purple kitties, one of the oklahomas or WVU away.
The rest of our league will implode.
ISU is completely over-rated. They rely on gimmicks for victories… like run outs. Their defense is marginal, they lack rebounding and size… and they lack bench. I still can’t believe we lost to those clowns.
But, like others have said… there is a lot of basketball yet to be played. If we beat Texas at home they will prove to be our biggest ally moving forward because they should improve substantially over the next month and I’m sure they will win some good games against some of our other foes.
Myles… I’m not going to tell you “I told you so” but… the rest of it will prove out in March. “you should have chosen…”
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I respectfully disagree on ISU. I believe it is a very good team that has been ranked all season long and arguably, the best shooting team in the conference; perhaps not a top 5 but maybe a borderline top 10 team. IMHO, ISU is one of the top 3 teams in the Big 12, the top rated conference. If you think they are over-rated, other than KU, would you say is better than ISU in the conference?
They are not only good and well coached but more importantly, they match up well with KU and gimmicks or not they beat KU in Ames and they are the one team that can beat KU in Lawrence as well.
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@wrwlumpy KU will absolutely protect its home court advantage this season. No one wins in the Phog this season! No one! Its our house! AFH.
We owe payback to ISU for the loss in Hilton and we will get it in spades!
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@Crimsonorblue22 YES! ! ! !
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@drgnslayr I for one am actually glad that Turner did not choose KU. After watching the game yesterday he is obviously a stud. He is a 7 footer who can play D, shoot 3’s, grab boards, etc. But the other thing I saw yesterday was Cliff, Perry and Jamari win the battle of the bigs vs. UT. If Myles goes to KU that is just another cook in the kitchen. He obviously takes away minutes from all 3 of those guys and we probably don’t have the chemistry we have now…Perry the smooth and calm veteran, Jamari the energy / floor burns guy, Cliff the “I will try to dunk everything” tough guy freshman. I think we are doing just fine without another superstar in there to take minutes away from a group that is really starting to come together.
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No longer are they the three little Bigs.
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@JayHawkFanToo I agree with slayer … they aren’t that good. I fear WVU’s high pressure game more than the Clones. If Iowa St played defense, it would be different. Fred’s offense has to be good because his defense is so bad. It will be a brutal game for the Clones in Lawrence.
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@KUSTEVE After watching WVU almost lose to TCU yesterday I am not quite as scared of them…or the fact that UT beat them by 20. WVU plays a style of D that could get them tons of TO’s and lead to a lot of easy points but it could also have the opposite effect. KU has the right guys to break that press and we should see a lot of dunks in our 2 games against WVU.
Well said about ISU. They live and die by the offense. That said, if they are clicking on offense and 3’s are falling they don’t really have to play D. Very streaky team. I would still hate to see them in March.
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KU Athletics - great highlights
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@drgnslayr Your words are proving prophetic.
I agree with some of your points about ISU. I do think they rely on gimmicks, and are an extremely one-dimensional team that can’t play defense. It’s upsetting losing to them. But they’re not overrated. They’re a good team. The thing is, they’re an average team on the road. Texas Tech played pretty well, and ISU looked very content to let them shoot 3’s. How ironic.
Wins on the road against Texas and Baylor make them our best buddies now. And Texas can become a little closer to us with a win in Ames on Monday.
As for Turner. Turner didn’t want to play in Self’s system. It’s not that he didn’t fit, it’s that he wants to play on the perimeter. Whereas Self would say ‘Myles, you’re seven foot. I’m putting you in the post.’ What did Rick Barnes say after the game yesterday? “Myles needs to learn how to play in the post.” Barnes was willing to give Turner the Wiggins treatment, while Self was not going to let a seven-foot center with that skill set play shooting guard. But slayr, you’re right, this will all play out in March. If KU doesn’t do anything in the tournament, the rest of this doesn’t mean anything, and who cares where Turner chose to play his one year in college.
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@joeloveshawks WVU is running the same type of pressure that gave us fits last year. I want to see our team beat that defense- I think Frank and Devonte will make them pay dearly for pressing us. Still, we have shown this year if opposing teams can speed us up, our youth takes over, and we start playing too fast, making dumb turnovers, wild shots, etc. WVU will be perfect for our team to get ready for the tourney - we get two intense games against a high pressure defense.
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@MoonwalkMafia wiggins treatment? Coach let Wigs call the shots? Wasn’t aware of that!
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@Crimsonorblue22 Yes. Bill let Wiggins put up stupid shots and make the mistakes that normally draws a hook. You weren’t aware of that?
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@MoonwalkMafia nope! I thought you were comparing that to Barnes letting turner play outside. Didn’t think wigs was calling the shots. I thought wigs was the most talented, humble, unselfish player we’ve had. I loved the way he represented us then and how he still does now. I thought we were blessed to have him, Embiid and Tarik, really super guys! Jmo
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@Crimsonorblue22 - You said, “I thought wigs was the most talented, humble, unselfish player we’ve had.”
The issue I have is with the term “the most” – meaning in each category, you say Wiggins was better than any player ever at Kansas?
Really? Let’s assume you may have meant under coach Self to limit the scope.
I don’t know how you define selfishness, but Andrew Wiggins was plainly a selfish player on the court. He wouldn’t dive on the floor (the first time was in early February), he was many times lazy getting up and down the court, and when he got the ball, he was a black hole. Wiggins had enumerable opportunities to pass and create scoring for other players. Instead, he flailed away at the hoop. And most of the time, taking bad or guarded shots. All the guy did on offense was hunt his shot. In my book, he was the second most selfish player in the Self era, behind the king of selfish, Tyshawn Taylor.
I’ll grant you that he was humble. I’ll grant you that he was talented. I challenge the “most” comment. Regardless, the Wiggins we saw last season is not a player that I want on a Kansas basketball team.
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@HighEliteMajor I said, jmo.
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@Crimsonorblue22 Right, I’m noting my disagreement with your opinion. I assume that you are posting your opinion for a reason.
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@HighEliteMajor and I disagree w/yours, as usual. I’m glad you don’t recruit for us.
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@joeloveshawks I agree about Turner. Why give the min to another guy that clearly wants to raise draft stock when we have a group of guys that are busting butt to get better & make the entire team successful? I think the Wigs experiment made Bill take a minor step back in the OAD sweepstakes. Good analogy from HEM-the “black hole” effect.
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@HighEliteMajor @Crimsonorblue22 Have to weigh in here. I wouldn’t say that Wiggins was selfish. But I do agree with some of what HEM says. He did hunt his shot, but you can’t be considered selfish for hunting your shot if coach is asking you to be the alpha and take more shots, can you? Or if you have 2 stiffs on the perimeter and maybe another guy or two in the post standing around watching you.
I don’t know that selfish guys play lock down defense as freshman. Yeah he didn’t get any Jamari Traylor floor burn awards, but the guy did a lot more to carry last year’s team than anyone else. I know HEM doesn’t care much about them, and I don’t hold them in as high regard as a lot of fans, but we don’t win the Big 12 last year without Wiggins.
I will always wonder what Wiggins could have been like on a team like this year’s squad. With competent point guard play, or playing with a full compliment of back court talent. Which isn’t to say I’m pining for Wiggins on this year’s squad. I just wonder if we might judge him differently if things were different last year.
And to the original point in which he was brought up, Wiggins wasn’t “calling the shots” last year. It is in no way comparable to Turner this year.
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@Crimsonorblue22 Perhaps instead of making snide remarks, why not defend your position. Why was Wiggins “the most”?
For the most talented player ever at Kansas – all others be damned, of course – he sure as heck couldn’t do much against the vaunted Stanford Cardinal. I recall you being of the position that coach Self’s scheme was not the problem, so perhaps your boy Wiggins was? 1-6 shooting, four points, and of course, one assist. THE most talented player at Kansas. Ever. Wiggins checked out in the most important game.
And you don’t even consider why I would not want him at Kansas. He doesn’t play coach Self’s brand of ball. He was the proverbial square peg in a round hole. He was not a fit at all. A high level of talent does not equate to a high level of team productivity. Self made much to do about losing two of the top three NBA picks, and how can you replace that? Quite easily, it appears. And I said that before the season started. Subtract soft, finesse guys. Add in guys that better fit the system. Perfect example – Did you see Oubre at the start of the OU game? You never saw Wiggins give half that effort or sacrifice the entire season.
Maybe the softest player ever at Kansas (at least in recent years among high minutes guys) – soft as a baby’s bottom.
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@icthawkfan316 I grant you the defensive point. How about I qualify my selfish remarks to the offensive end? That may be a better statement of what I intend. Tyshawn worked hard defensively, too.
And I do think we would have been a better team last season without Wiggins. Thought it might be true before last season, and I believe it now. When you have a guy that is the presumed focus, it changes the team dynamic. I can’t prove it, of course.
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@icthawkfan316 As I was reading the posts, I was thinking what you posted…it was probably hard for Wiggins to be unselfish when Self was pushing him to be the Alpha Dog. In today’s AAU, OAD environment, I can see why it would be hard to be both a team player and a star…some guys do it, of course. I do think that Self’s system is not ideal for the player who sees himself as a for sure OAD player. I would note that some of the top guys that have come here (Oubre, I think Alexander, and now Bragg) have said at some point that they are not necessarily OAD. That type of attitude probably fits Self’s team better than some of the other guys.
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@HighEliteMajor You’re showing your bias. He gets criticism for hunting his shot, then for taking only 6 shots against Stanford. So…did you want him to be selfish and hunt his shot against Stanford, or not?
I know your position was against signing Wiggins from the beginning. That it wasn’t worth it unless he led us to a national title.
Here’s what I’d say - I get why you were against Wiggins. That by bringing him in we didn’t have the minutes to play Greene and AW3, and as such we didn’t develop Greene as much and it led to AW3 transferring. Fair enough. To that I would say that we weren’t going to win a national championship with Greene & AW3 instead of Wiggins last year. Not with JoJo hurt. Not with Tharpe at PG. And because we had Wiggins and he left instead of having a solid platoon of Greene & AW3, we were able to sign Oubre. I know Oubre signed early (or declared, I forget if he had actually signed in the early period), but does he if we don’t have Wiggins, who was all but guaranteed to be a OAD? I doubt it.
The other thing you say is that we would have been a better team last season without Wiggins. As you say we can’t prove it so we’ll never know for sure, but just looking at it: Tharpe was going to be Tharpe. Not sure he would have been significantly better. And honestly, I’m glad he was as bad as he was. It allowed for him to exit, paving the way for Mason to be the starter this year and for Graham to come on board. And Selden - has he been any better this year without Wiggins around being the presumed focus? Not really, at least not to me. So I can’t see the other 2 starting perimeter positions being all that much better. So then I’m left to wonder if a combination of Greene & AW3 would have been a straight up upgrade over Wiggins. I don’t think so, so I guess I can’t see last year’s team being better without him.
I’m the last guy to say “everything happens for a reason”, but I’m pretty stoked about the make-up of this team, which might have been very different had Wiggins not been here.
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Regarding the Wiggins talk it is very hard to say that we did not benefit from him. Maybe last year he was not the Kevin Durant / Melo / Beasley we all thought he may be but he was a very good defender and of course lead the team in scoring.
But to me the above is secondary. He was the most coveted recruit in decades and we landed him. Now he is kicking butt in the NBA as a rookie and the fact that he went to KU will help recruiting for years to come. Oubre is here in large part because Bill said “You can step in and be the next Andrew Wiggins”. It says a ton. Coach Cal is of course known today as the best recruiter and I am sure he makes his own life easier by saying “You could be the next John Wall…D Rose…Anthony Davis…” You can fill in the blank. Wiggins being at KU last year is about the residual effect. We are going to land good recruits based on him. At least that is what I see coming.
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@joeloveshawks Agreed on the residual benefits of bringing in Wiggins. Something I’ve mentioned on these boards before is that both Self and KU in general need someone in the NBA carrying the torch for the university. Paul Pierce has been the last and only star we’ve had in the league for quite some time, and he can’t play forever. Self has needed his own guy in the NBA to point to and say “look at what this guy is doing in the league, and he played for me here at KU.” Nevermind that Wiggins was going to be in the NBA regardless; we didn’t “develop” him anymore than Calipari developes most of his OADs. But the perception is there at least. And the reality that he didn’t hurt his stock after coming to play for Self. I think that is important after the Selby debacle (which wasn’t Self’s fault, but again…perception).
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@icthawkfan316 Here’s my issue with Wiggins vs. Stanford. And it’s my biggest issue with Wiggins in general – one assist. Stanford schemed to stop Wiggins, lots of attention. My position on the Stanford game was that our scheme failed us, not Wiggins. But what Wiggins didn’t do, what he never did, was make anyone else better. Every game, over and over, he would drive and refuse to dish to open guys.
I do think we could have won a national title without Wiggins. But I agree with you … I think to win the national title without Wiggins, we would have likely needed a healthy Embiid. But who knows. Greene/White could have been a deadly combo. But as posted prior to the tourney, I think we could have won the national title with Wiggins and without Embiid IF we would have adjusted our style of play. Faster, more possessions – I spent too many paragraphs on it at the time.
And that hits on my opinion of Wiggins. I like Wiggins a lot as a player. Just not under coach Self. @Crimsonorblue22 said he’s glad I’m not recruiting. If I was, I certainly would have recruited Wiggins. It’s just that I wouldn’t have used him in the same type of system. Tharpe’s softness, Ellis’ softness, Embiid’s finesse game, all could have been exploited. We see this season how our time responds better to a certain type of game. It really is that simple. Our system was not what Wiggins was built for. I think we all can agree on that.
Here’s another belief that I have, and I think others have expressed this, including @drgnslayr. The entire dynamic of the team changes without Wiggins. Wiggins was the anointed one. He was the guy that got to shoot whenever, wherever. It seemed clear that there were “Wiggins-rules.” We can look no further than his refusal to dive on the floor. Greene got sat earlier this season when he lamely bent over for the basketball (someone pointed that out here). Wiggins didn’t get put on the bench when he loafed back on defense, which happened frequently in the first half of the season. I think guys, many times, looked around waiting for Wiggins to do something.
It is subjective, but I feel strongly that we would have been a better, more cohesive “team” without Wiggins. And that would have created better results with White/Greene manning the three spot, or with Mason, Tharpe, Selden in from time to time.
And you’re right, we might not get Oubre if we didn’t have Wiggins. I may be the one in need of psychotropic medication, but if we still had Andrew White, I’d be completely fine with that (even though I really like Oubre). And I don’t think our record is different right now. We see what Greene brings to the table. White just got caught in a bad set of circumstances. The anointed one arrived, Greene was a class behind him, and Oubre inked. White’s numbers were pretty darn good when he got the bench. And he got the bench for the same reason Svi has – circumstances. As we know, guys that sit can be just as good or better. Opportunity is a big deal.
But like you, I love the make-up of this team. Things do seem to fit real well.
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You think we would have been a better team offensively without Wiggins? Didn’t he lead the team in scoring? Didn’t he broke Danny Manning’s freshman scoring record? Only Embiid and Ellis (yes, that Ellis) averaged more rebound than Wiggins and only Tharpe, Selden and Mason (all of them primary ball distributors) averaged more assists than him…and you think that Coach Self is on drugs
…but then, you also think that Ellis should be on the bench, so I (we) have to take your comments in context. 
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I still believe ISU is over-rated.
I tip my hat to the Mayor though. He gets every ounce of delivery out of the players he has… but this is NOT the quality of team they had last year, or even close. They have to count a lot more on Niang this year, and he looks just a bit slower after his injury.
The Mayor really is a fabulous coach. I’d take him in a second. Imagine what he could do if he was bringing in top tier talent? The guy knows how to execute a plan with the talent pool of a mid-major. If he can ever recruit near our level… we are truly in trouble.
That is my bittersweet assessment of the Cyclones. Very fun team to watch, and a team capable of beating anyone… but they were exposed at TT. And praise to the players they do have.
In some odd ways, they remind me of Wichita State. They take from the same talent pool and play to their potential.
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Oh come on? Are you that bored that you would stir the pot over someone using the term “the most”? What is this called?? Extremism.
How many times have you been watching a KU game or a highlights of a game and said to yourself or someone that is “the best” play I’ve ever seen? We’ve “all” done it.
However most likely it’s not the best play you’ve ever seen or in this case why Wiggins isn’t really “the most”.
It’s called living in the moment. It’s hard to compare apples to oranges. Some were lucky enough to watch Wilt play, but what about those that didn’t? Are they wrong to make a claim that’s “the best” player, or That’s the most talented player? As they are living in the moment, and imprinting their minds and their being with what they are seeing, and feeling. Which is the most talented and so on.
Just my two cents
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So, you are basing your entire opinion on Wiggins on the Stanford game? I sure would hate to be judged for the occasional bad day or two I have at the office and not for all the other outstanding ones. BTW, Wiggins did not cost KU the Stanford game, paint play did. These are the paint numbers
Stanford Game:
- Perry 3-10, 9 points, 8 rebounds. 2 fouls in 26 minutes
- Traylor 1-8, 3 points, 5 rebounds, 3 fouls in 25 minutes
- Black 6-8, 12 points, 5 rebounds, 5 fouls in 23 minutes
Combined 10-26 (38,4%), 24 points 18 rebounds in 74 minutes.
And most of those misses were what is commonly referred as “bunnies” i.e. shots with a couple of feet of the basket. In comparison, these are the numbers for the previous game:
- Perry 6-11, 14 points, 13 rebounds, 2 fouls in 34 minutes
- Traylor 7-8, 17 points, 14 rebounds, 2 fouls in 22 minutes
- Black 6-8, 16 point, 6 rebounds, 3 fouls in 26 minutes
Combined 19-27 (70.4%), 47 points, 33 rebounds in 82 minutes.
Can you see where the problem was? KU’s bigs did not match up with Stanford height and bulk inside and once Tarik fouled out KU had no inside game. It did not make any difference how well Stanford played Wiggins, if KU bigs played anywhere near their season averages, this games is not even close; had they made just 2 of the many bunnies they missed, KU wins.
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Regarding the rest of the Big 12. Just win baby. Take care of business and then we don’t need to cheer when one of our challengers absorbs another loss.
Regarding Wiggins, I barely think of him as a Jayhawk. I wish it were different, but with all of the obvious talent was an air of he doesn’t care that much.
@drgnslayr Agree on Hoiberg. I like him more than any other coach in our league. I wonder if he’ll get lured away to some more glamourous job someday? I hope not.
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@wissoxfan83
Congrats on a tough OT win at Michigan!
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I watched the Texas-WVU game and between Felix and Taylor they ripped Huggy’s full court press a new one, and after they broke the full court press, they had easy basket and the Texas bigs had a field day inside; Texas won by 27. Mason and Graham are even better than the Texas back-court and I don’t see much of a problem with WVU if KU uses a similar game plan.
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I thought we just didn’t come ready to play Stanford. We didn’t bring the energy.
Had we brought the energy we brought yesterday, we would have shown more movement and we would have been able to open up Stanford’s defense. And we can shoot over height if we play with speed (energy) because little guys can always create scoring space if there is enough floor space.
Lack of energy pretty much sinks us in probably ALL of our losses. It ends up reducing our scoring space. Crisp passing is not enough to open up scoring space. It takes crisp passes and fast legwork. Self often talks about the ball sticking… but is it the ball or our guys just not hustling with their feet?
There isn’t a defense played where space can’t be achieved. In zones, it is attacking the gaps and help create bigger gaps. In M2M it usually requires properly run screens.
This is a question for @Jesse-Newell :
Is there a tool that can take the video screen of a game and plot the motion of the offense? I bet if there is a way to do this, we can quickly discover that our floor speed relates to wins and losses.
We often clam up at tournament time. Most of the time we lose, you can already tell we might lose in the first few minutes because out guys look slow.
We looked fast yesterday! This has nothing to do with a team playing “sped up”… that is a term for a team mentally speeding up and rushing their offense.
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@JayHawkFanToo Man, I like the way you think! I keep having flashbacks from games last year…namely, last year’s Florida, Nova, Colorado, Eastern Kentucky games…etc, where the slightest on ball perimeter pressure made us fold up like a cheap pup tent last year…
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The back-court difference between last season and this season is HUGE!
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@JayHawkFanToo Ain’t it sweet? I have not seen our offense percolate like that in years…those drives in the middle with the Frank/Devonte dump off passes to Cliffie for the slam were like a work of art.
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I always say that basketball is all about match ups and unfortunately KU did not match up well with Stanford, in the same way that we don’t match up well with ISU…and it is big problem, not only for KU, but for many other elite teams (ask Duke) in March as well.
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@KUSTEVE besides diving on lose balls, a sweet pass is a favorite of mine. Devonte had an exceptionally sweet pass to Cliff! Text book!
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I thought we just didn’t come ready to play Stanford. We didn’t bring the energy.
But…do you think Wiggins was the reason we lost the Stanford game? I certainly do not.
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@drgnslayr Thanks, we really didn’t play that well except for Frank the Tank who ought to be the poster child for Kelly and Cliff and any others thinking of going pro. Frank said at the beginning of the season that the NBA is boring. “Who wants to go play in a half empty gym in Charlotte when you can play in packed houses in the big 10 and other places” is what he also said.
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“But…do you think Wiggins was the reason we lost the Stanford game? I certainly do not.”
No… I put more emphasis on the way our team used Wigs as a crutch. We escaped from being a team and having Wigs on the team enabled the other guys to loaf. We were never a team… nothing like the feel for our current group, which definitely has team energy. All our current guys feel they are personally responsible for winning and losing.
Wigs did his best for the situation. He wasn’t going to beat Stanford single-handed.
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@icthawkfan316 Excellent post on Andrew Wiggins. An excellent player for the Kansas Jayhawks that will payoff for years to come in recruiting. It appears he is on his way to a solid NBA Career. I am glad he spent a year at KU along the way.
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I was at the Stanford game. Wiggins tried to get going. He was called for traveling on at least 3 occasions. He actually scored on two of those possessions. Basket was waved off both times. It appears that the board has spoken. We love Wiggins. We are glad he is a Jayhawk. We look forward to his return in support of the program. We enjoyed the many memories he gave us in a Kansas Uniform. Can’t wait until we get another one!
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@JayHawkFanToo When ISU comes into AFH, KU will destroy them. We owe them one, big time! Its a revenge game for KU in the single most toughest place to play in Div 1. Did I mention we will destroy ISU? We absolutely do match up well with ISU this year.
As @jaybate-1.0 @jaybate-2.0 pointed out, KU has two centers that run the court and are finding their pace mid way through the conference. KU also has 5 guys that can shoot the trey at > 40% KU has never had that many shooters. KU also has two of the best point guards in the big 12. It wont be a contest, KU will destroy ISU. AND, if they end up playing for the conference tourney championship, KU will do it again.
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@JayHawkFanToo I can save you a lot of time. No, I am not basing my opinion on Wiggins on one game. Never said it. Never have said it. It was an example directed at @Crimsonorblue22 who said Wiggins was the “most”.
The problem in the Stanford game was our game plan, and how we attacked the zone. It is easy to be blinded by the success of one post player – perhaps the one they saw as the lowest threat. Of course, those “bunnies” you refer to were significantly challenged. There is a major difference between an unchallenged “bunny” and a challenged one, as we have seen with Ellis this season. Are you really arguing that “missed shots” thing again?
I always love that simplistic analysis. Stanford was 0-9 from three. If Stanford had just hit two of those threes, they would have really kicked our a**.
There’s a clear connection to this season, and exactly what we’ve seen succeed … and fail. Pound it inside. We we overmatched against Stanford inside. You note the mismatch. They were too big and active for us without Embiid. We used our normal post feed attack against a bad match up. It is really that simple. And your acknowledgment of the mismatch inside leads to the obvious conclusion that our post feed attack was misplaced. That loss lays squarely in coach Self’s lap.
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"We love Wiggins. "
Right on! But I would hope when we sign the next Wigs Self has learned to make a better situation out of it. He formed guys around him but we needed to be a team. There wasn’t even responsibility on this team. The focus was all on Wigs and JoJo… then JoJo was out and it was all on Wigs. The other guys went soft. I never want to have those same team dynamics, and if we can’t become a real team with the super duper star, I’m afraid we should pass on the next one. The most important aspect is team ball. It’s a team sport and you can’t win without a team concept. We really didn’t have a team concept. It wasn’t Wigs fault at all. I thought he did a lot to help bridge the gap. Maybe he avoided some contact to keep the franchise body intact. Okay… but he still put energy into being a teammate. The coaches really demanded that he be an “alpha dog” and that became translated as being a bull hog and not looking for the assist.
Wigs was pushing his drives so hard he usually couldn’t even maintain his dribble or the handle on the ball. The last thing he could do was feed the assist in that situation. He was strung way way way too tight!
Does everyone think he suddenly developed dribbling and handling skills now in the league? Ha… He is playing much better because he is with handlers that know how to maximize his talent. Even though he is “the man” for his team, they have helped him get his mind right and they have relieved the stress on him finishing at the hole. Suddenly he is free to just finish, whether it is at the rim or with a pull up. Just that one tweak has suddenly given him much better handles!
I think Wigs will remember KU as a positive year in his life, and he will always be a great Jayhawk! He’s an outstanding young man that is on the right track. I just wish we would have better capitalized on his one year by not trying to force him into either hitting 3s or taking it all the way to the rack. Yes… he made it to the FT line often. But we didn’t maximize our return and neither did he.
This is just my humble opinion and I understand that many won’t see it the same way.
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Self is a great coach! He’s a college coach, not a pro coach. The skill set is completely different in college coaching than pro coaching.
College coaching is more about the discipline of focusing on just a few areas of the game. Teaching some philosophical aspects, too. The players are young, and coaches only have a short time to get these young players playing team ball. So many aspects of the game are cut out because coaches want their teams to master just certain areas. #1 is playing team basketball.
Pro coaching is more about finding whatever way it takes to win. A lot more goes into exploiting other teams based on match-ups. Seasons and practices almost consume the entire year. Many of the players have been around for a decade or so. They already bring a certain level of play with them (or learn it quickly). So the focus can go wider and it does… often to tweaks upon tweaks, especially tailored specifically for each team.
The great ones, like Jordan, often commented about how relieved they were to make it to the pros… when the shackles came off their games and they were set free to dominate. Wigs is one of those guys. He isn’t restricted by Self’s system anymore. He’s been set free. And like Jordan, he will rule the game, in his own way.
But we shouldn’t take that as a strike against Self. Self has to succeed in his world of limitations. He is doing something right… just look at his record. And if you want to criticize him for this, then also criticize Dean Smith for holding Jordan back. It was the same situation then.
It helps us all to understand these things… because Self and Wiggins are bound to be permanently enshrined in their appropriate HOFs. And we are fortunate to have experienced their paths crossing.
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@drgnslayr I can remember a lot of attention on Wiggins and deservedly so. He was the number 1 prospect and he did not disappoint. He made plays and contributed to the team. He has participated in camps in support of the program since his departure. He did the best he could do. Maybe not the way you wanted him to do it, but he did the best he could do in support of the program and that is good enough for me. We are not going to win the Championship every year. What we are every year, is competitive. If not for injuries to Selden and Embiid, who knows? Selden played through injury and put up quite a fight. Big XII Champions again last year. We lost in the tournament, oh well. Since 1985 there have only been a few teams to win 4 Championships. We have two. We have appeared in 5 National Championship games since 1985. We have one hell of a program. I am proud of every single Jayhawk player and coach that has helped make our program great. To say that Andrew Wiggins was a ball hog is just plain wrong. He was instructed to shoot more by his coach. I hope we get another player of his caliber next year. Rock Chalk!
