BIG week ahead
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2 home games this week against Iowa St & West Virginia. KU has had 3 mostly dud games since Jan 1. The offense is struggling, the defense has more holes then swiss cheese. I know, I know we’re 12-2 and still a Top 10ish team so why be concerned right?
This is a pivotal week for this team, heck with anything else. Next week they have back to back road games again which is ridiculous scheduling if you ask me. After that 5 straight games against ranked teams. This team needs to get back to playing KU ball because the next month is brutal. This is the week to turn it around.
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It’s kind of funny. All off season, the sour taste of the really poor ending to the tournament, which interestingly was just a few weeks after we thumped Baylor, I was pretty guarded in my expectations. Even the team looked drastically different at some key positions it was still nothing I got really excited about. But then Ochai made the big leap forward and Christian did maybe even moreso than Ochai, and I was excited again. I’ve believed in this team all year, but the scoring issues that arose in the lost two have me concerned all over again.
I take the TT loss with a grain of salt because I seriously think it should have come down to a final possession type of game but there were some truly horrendous calls that repeatedly kept the ball out of our suddenly hot shooters hands. But the loss did show some of the same tendencies as the OSU game although TT was more talented and therefore able to pull it out.
BTW, as a non ESPN+ person, I’m really hoping ESPN will come to its senses and realize they have a top twenty matchup that much of the country won’t see. I can probably live without seeing a KU TCU game, but I want to see ISU, like a lot.
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Roy and Wanda will be here for isu game
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Agree. What makes the loss difficult in the big picture is Tech played without its 2 best players and won anyway. And they didn’t just look like the better team because they weren’t but they looked way more athletic at every position and seemed to have that extra effort for boards and loose balls. Tech has a good defense, ranked 5th nationally so it’s another concern to see the offense dissappear playing good defenses recently. My point being I believe KU’s offense is good enough to make good defenses look bad and we are not doing such lately. I haven’t liked much about our offense from execution to scheme.
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KU isn’t a super athletic team. Looking at the roster, other than Agbaji, there aren’t any guys that are just incredible athletes.
Braun is more athletic than he gets credit for, but he’s not an elite athlete. Even Agbaji is probably more along the lines of above average rather than elite.
Wilson is average or so. McCormack is average. Lightfoot is average or maybe even slightly below. Martin is average or slightly below. Harris is average or maybe slightly above. JCL is average. Yesufu is probably above average. On and on down the roster and its average, slightly above average, slightly below average.
This is a good team, but not a team that can blow you away with athletes. That’s why shooting is at a premium for this team. They have to shoot it well because they can’t just press and trap to turn the tide. But this team can still win. I don’t love the matchups with Baylor and others, but they can still get it done. In the tournament, they will have to find a way to win in a game where their shooting deserts them, but that’s where Agbaji and Braun have to take a hard hat approach to offensive rebounding when they aren’t shooting well. Six total offensive rebounds won’t cut it when Braun, JCL and Martin combined to shoot 6-19. You have to offensive rebound if that’s what it takes to get involved offensively.
Also, 4 points, 6 rebounds in 24 combined minutes for Mitch and Dave is not good enough. If that’s all you’re getting productionwise, that 24 minutes needs to drop to 17 or 18. This team is better with the floor spread. Let’s give Yesufu more run.
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Norm is out for tomorrow has covid
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@justanotherfan said in BIG week ahead:
KU isn’t a super athletic team. Looking at the roster, other than Agbaji, there aren’t any guys that are just incredible athletes.
Braun is more athletic than he gets credit for, but he’s not an elite athlete. Even Agbaji is probably more along the lines of above average rather than elite.
Wilson is average or so. McCormack is average. Lightfoot is average or maybe even slightly below. Martin is average or slightly below. Harris is average or maybe slightly above. JCL is average. Yesufu is probably above average. On and on down the roster and its average, slightly above average, slightly below average.
This is a good team, but not a team that can blow you away with athletes. That’s why shooting is at a premium for this team. They have to shoot it well because they can’t just press and trap to turn the tide. But this team can still win. I don’t love the matchups with Baylor and others, but they can still get it done. In the tournament, they will have to find a way to win in a game where their shooting deserts them, but that’s where Agbaji and Braun have to take a hard hat approach to offensive rebounding when they aren’t shooting well. Six total offensive rebounds won’t cut it when Braun, JCL and Martin combined to shoot 6-19. You have to offensive rebound if that’s what it takes to get involved offensively.
Also, 4 points, 6 rebounds in 24 combined minutes for Mitch and Dave is not good enough. If that’s all you’re getting productionwise, that 24 minutes needs to drop to 17 or 18. This team is better with the floor spread. Let’s give Yesufu more run.
This is what I said over the summer when talking about the overall make up of the team. Self didn’t necessarily improve the athleticism because KU brought back 6 of their top 7 rotation players from last year and only replaced Garrett with Remy which is a basically a push because as good as Garrett was defensively, that’s how good offensively Martin can be. This is why many of the same issues from last season still exist because it’s essentially the same rotation of players.
The freshman and young transfers brought in are the upgrade in athleticism, but they’re also not ready for extended minutes yet. As tge competition has stepped up, we’ve seen Clemence get exposed for his inexperience, we’ve seen KJ’s lack of skill on display, we’ve seen Yesufu’s inconsistencies come through. Pettiford’s been the most consistent of tge freshmen, but we’ll see what happens with him once he’s healthy and how much his injury hurt his development. Kyle Cuffe is a complete wildcard with what KU has in him going forward.
Combine this group with what KU has in the 2022 class, and we’ll see a much more athletic team on the floor next season, but there will also be growing pains as they develop and gain experience.
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@BeddieKU23 oh no
