Random ?s
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I think that Svi has lost money coming to America. The Big 12 is way tougher than Eastern European Pro League. He planned to stay two years, Now He might just graduate. There was no way his 17 year old frame was going to play against Texas or this last ISU game. He will be a star, but now, he is backing up a back up. Let’s hope he falls in love with a Local girl that knows how to cook. Also, the University could hire his parents as instructors.
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I look at Greene and I believe his limitations for turning pro are a bit more systemic than just saying he needs to improve his defense.
Brannen needs to improve his physicality. Part of it is strength… part of it maybe be structural and flexibility. Part of it may be mental.
Brannen is aware of his shortcomings, and he is working on it. And he has made gigantic strides in his physicality, both physical and mental.
This will be best shown by taking video footage of his play this March and comparing it to footage from last year. You will not recognize him as the same player. He has made huge strides this year in many areas. He started addressing his stance issue. Last year he played too upright. Part of this was a flexibility issue, part a strength issue, part a structural issue and part a mental issue. He had to address all of this to start bringing his stance down lower. He wasn’t going anywhere with his upright stance. It completely prevented him from being able to defend. He couldn’t burst on a first step, or change direction quickly… and his upright position made him collapse on any contact. Players that play too upright are just not engaged in the game enough to be effective. It takes bending knees, widening stances and finding the right upper body positioning to be effective. This is not something easy to overcome. The entire body has to be retrained and converted. Flexibility has to be increased along with strength and strength in a broader range. The mind has to accept it and push for further increases in not being upright.
All of this is about Brannen being able to engage the game properly. Then he can learn to hang (defensively) with a guard who has a quick first step. He can fight through hard screens. He can better seal off the boards to rebound. He can develop a quicker one-step and no-step jump and go higher. He can absorb contact and not fold, but maintain his position and strength.
I don’t know how he has improved in this… but I’m guessing Hudy has had everything to do with this! I think Brannen has put in a lot of extra personal reps in to improve. He’s a different version of a Jeff Withey… a guy who really dedicated himself to adding weight, strength and execute performance.
Brannen should keep on this path and stay 4 years in college, because the next jump is huge. If he keeps going like he is going now, the doors will be wide open for him at the next level… I’m certain of that!
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Hard to say if Svi can maintain enough patience to go through the Kansas system. He is no where near being a NBA player yet. But the investment in staying at Kansas for 4 years would really lift his game. He is a different case than Brannen… but he should be able to stay motivated by studying how Brannen is developing (and has developed) during his Jayhawk years.
Svi has all those gifts that Kobe mentioned USA players are lacking. He just needs the physicality to be able to execute his game in the NBA. He also needs to learn a bit more about the play of US ball versus Euro ball. I could easily see him being a life long player in SA! Hopefully Coach Pop will still be there in 3 more years.
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@jaybate-1.0 Does anyone else recall two different plays at about BOTH the 5 AND 4 min marks vs ISU that Landon advertised a well controlled aura of chippiness & attitude when scrapping tough with Long & Hogue for tie ups & loose balls & floor burns? Maybe just me but he displayed a low browed, don’t tread on me look both times, that had the ISU guys leaning backwards a little? I LIKE THAT !! We need more of that mean streak in the paint every op he gets from here on out. Maybe this can light a fire under the butt & we get more than serviceable min from him in the remainder of the season. He has the size to be a real load for an opposing 4 or 5 even if his foot speed & hands are lacking. Often that drive & desire can make up for a considerable talent discrepancy. RCJH, Kickass from Lucas !!
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@globaljaybird I don’t recall the times, but yes there were a couple of instances where it looked like he had a definite mean streak showing. Loved it!
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I think your comparison of the Eastern European Pro League wit the Big 12 might have been true 20 or even 10 years ago but that is no longer the case. Euro basketball has improved dramatically in the last 10 years and now it sits just below the NBA and above college BBall. NBA teams used to tour Europe in the pre-season and win going away; last October the defending champion San Antonio lost a game against a German team, and the German League is considered one of the weakest in Europe.
Here is another article with a little more context.
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@wrwlumpy Broke the silence around me with a huge laughter. Good thing I wasn’t drinking coffee. Yes indeed, a nice Kansas girl who knows how to cook for Svi. As for his parents, learning English will be a challenge at their age, and Svi will have to be an interpreter for them - too much distraction for his career in development. Good idea though.
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@jaybate-1.0 Another ?..Anyone else recall seeing Hogue stop dead in front of Frank on a dead run to defense with about 5 & change remaining. Looked like a flippin cross check in a Blackhawks hockey game & neery a foul was whistled. I mean he laid the bulldog flat out. He got up, shook off the damn fur & ran back on defense-albeit a little slower. Again about the 5 min mark he was tripped bringing the ball up against the press & fell really, really hard, but instead was himself called for a TO. Graham & Greene gotta get more minutes if we’re gonna keep Frank outta the trainers room. JMO.
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@globaljaybird saw it!
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@globaljaybird IMHO, keeping Frank on his wheels is essential to Jayhawk Wins. Bill Self the Gambler is most evident in close review of the minutes he leans on his starters and stars. I will beat this dead horse one more time: Miles and Lankford were SPENT, and at a time when Russ Rob wasted away in the fridge. This season, Bill seems to be relying more on his 6/7/8 players, at least recently…and #9 (Lucas) occasionally earns premium time. But Frank still averages a bundle of minutes in league play, with wrapped legs and a bulldog determination not to back off from discomforts (or anything/anyone else). This squad will advance just as far as Frank can play with at least 90% physicality. Vegas odds on KU will tumble if word gets out that Frank is seriously hurting, esp. if he is forced to ride the pine. If offered the choice, I would, right now, take 2 more league losses rather than lose a healthy Frank Mason. Even tho he is nearing max condition, I grind molars when he plays more than 31 minutes.
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I am sure Coach Self agrees with you and I would guess he would like Mason to play no more than 30 minutes per game. Having said that, some of the recent games were critical and KU needed to win; hopefully as the season moves on he will be able to get a few extra minutes of rest.
In the NBA they carefully monitor playing time and often they will take a key player off the court a minute or two before a scheduled TV time out in order to provide him extended rest. College is slowly catching up but in many cases teams do not have high caliber backups that will maintain the level of play and hence key players are forced to play more than what coaches would prefer.
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@REHawk I agree 100% that the bus only goes as far & long as Frank has the keys. DG is a great 2nd option, but as a frosh, face it, he doesn’t yet have what Frank has-Experience on the road under hostile enemy fire. Hey, maybe he can cut it as top dog, but I’d certainly much rather not have to find that out the hard way. Franks just getting the cowboy crap beat out of him. Also I agree about taking one or two for the team if Mason can get some R & R.
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@REHawk Count me in as being in 100% agreement with needing to rest Frank more.
I’ve seen it thrown out there a couple of times the last few days how “Devonte is only a freshman and is still making freshman mistakes.” To that I will only say that Frank Mason is not playing perfect ball either. We saw him drive to the hoop on a fast break 1 on 3 and came up empty rather than pull it back or pass it to a trailing teammate. He missed an open Brannen Greene on the perimeter. He wasn’t flawless in his handling of the end of the game ISU pressure. Heck, on the first possession of the game he turned the ball over with a poor entry pass into the post. Now, I’m as big of a Mason fan as there is; don’t take my nitpicking a few plays as me being down on the guy. My point is I think some fans have put him on a pedestal and have blinders on to his mistakes, yet are overly critical of Devonte. Graham is a superb back-up, freshman or not. His assist to turnover rate is spectacular; better than Mason’s. His on-ball defense isn’t on par with Frank’s, but it’s solid and it creates more turnovers. In short, there’s really no reason to be playing Mason 37 mpg.
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@globaljaybird
Yes, I saw it. And the anomaly of it made me alert to a lot of other contact that seemed to start with the ISU press. Presses don’t have to be physical to work, so when they are physical, they stand out a great deal. It provoked me into trying to hypothesize a possible explanation of the phenomenon.
Hypothesis: what if the contact with Frank were, hypothetically speaking, part of a broader effort by ISU to physically degrade KU, once the game was out of reach, in hopes of making KU lose a game or two coming up.
I don’t believe the apparent roughness of the pressing had much chance of winning the game for the, do you?
But, to continue hypothetically, it might have had a chance of taking someone crucial, like Frank, already reputedly playing with injuries, to the point of maybe only being able to play 20-25 minutes the next few games, instead of 35, and so contributing to a KU loss.
To distill the hypothesis, what if since ISU couldn’t beat KU, the next best thing were to be to get KU in a condition where someone else might be more likely to.
Not very sporting of Fred, if that were in fact the reality.
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@globaljaybird said:
displayed a low browed, don’t tread on me look
I sort of saw that, but what I remember more was McCay’s look. Mr Dreadlocks was owning the low post and then Landen came in and started muscling in and giving it right back to him and I caught some “where did this guy come from” looks. Loved it ! And hoping to see more of Landen toughness in the games ahead.
And yes, saw Frank get hammered a few times. I’m with the other rats, we needed him badly recently, but if we lose a game giving him time to heal the bruises then so be it. I think we still got the B12 locked up.
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@icthawkfan316 I promise I won’t take your Frank comments as nitpicking. Don’t take my nitpicking Devonte on his last game as I’m down on Devonte. I think he’s still getting it together, and by tournament time, he’ll be able to run the team in his sleep. He’s very, very close now.
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@jaybate-1.0 said:
part of a broader effort by ISU to physically degrade KU
Wow, that would really suck if true. It’s a sick but possibly effective strategy that should be recognized and penalize if at all possible.I wonder how much of that stuff goes on.
In football it happens all the time, but jeez this isn’t football… yet!
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@jaybate-1.0 I can’t think Fred would intentionally do that. I know he’s sick of losing in AFH, but it seems he and Self have more respect for each other more than the rest of the coaches. Jmo
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@globaljaybird @REHawk @icthawkfan316
Self wants to rest Frank more than all three of you combined and raised to the tenth power, but…
Defending leads requires shortening possessions AND maintaining a 1 PPP average, while the opponent plays BTWs and shoots treys every which way but loose and gets to 1.25 to 1.5 PPP.
To achieve that measly 1 PPP the ball has to get across mid court, then be held, for 30 seconds, or so, and driven to the rim and either shot in an inside trey, or dished to an open look trey. Doing all this against a pressing, scrambling, pressuring defense,can easily result in TOs.
It also requires keeping 3 70-80% FT shooters in the game for ball handling in the press.
It also requires guarding hard without fouling on the other end to keep the clock going and prevent a lot of freebie baskets.
So: who among KU’s perimeter players can:
–shoot the trey;
–make 70-80% of his FTs;
–protect the ball during a press; and
–drive it.
Self thinks Frank and Devonte can do all of the above.
And he needs a third.
He hasn’t got a third.
But he does have Mr. Lack of Conscience from trey and the FT line: Brannen Greene, who, suprisingly, is a decent dribbler when not trapped.
So his choice is Brannen, who is money at the line, but shakey on D, or Wayne, who is shaky at the line, and Svi, who the last time he took a trey accidentally banked it in.
Self is making a choice: he is reasoning that when an opponent is down 10-15 and closing with threes, Brannen can guard the trey stripe as well as Wayne and shoot FTs much more accurately. If the game gets within 1-2, he brings Wayne for D and brings Brannen for O. Svi is in the Absolute Zero Cooler with Hunter.
So: since Self is strategically committed to the build a lead/defend a lead model, there really is no time with a lead that he can take Frank out, except for the most minimal breather first half or mid point second half, and then it is a huge risk to the PPP needed for the defend a lead strategy to play out favorably.
So: what does Self do help Frank through this ordeal.
Self always uses the weave to let our guys jog around, rather than go directly into explosive mode driving the ball. Three man weaves are a relative breather, when Frank does not wind up driving the ball. And they force a lot of sliding by the defenders.
Self knew he had a VERY tired team, and a nearly spent Frank vs. ISU.
So: Self went to his first ever (that I recall) use of the four man weave. It forces the opponent to slide even more. And it makes Frank only have to jog one weave out of 4, instead of one out of three.
Isn’t Self thoughtful.
Its like Frank Merrill telling his Marauders on the way to Myitkyina that they don’t have to run their they can weave there on a jog. Its not much, but its something…maybe just enough to get them to their objective.
Self this season is about “just enough.”
He is about: if you can’t win, don’t lose.
Find the moment to build a lead that can be defended.
This is not about stepping on people’s necks.
The Nike stacks we are up against are too big to step on their necks and win.
Self and is team have to be about “just enough” this season.
He and they are trying to figure out how to beat UK with 10 OAD/TADs and Duke with 9.
Self only has 3…about one game in 3. More often he has 1, or 2. Sometimes just one. We have to hope that gets better, that we get to three, but “let us not talk falsely now/the hour is getting late…”
Self can’t develop a strategy based on a deeper bench, or even a shorter bench. He doesn’t have as much depth, or a first five with as much talent. Period.
But what he does have are the Jarhead Jayhawks, or for you Army fans, Merrell’s Marauders.
Yes, we are trying to win an eleventh conference title, but this whole conference round robbin is really an exercise in learning how to play this way–a way NO other team in the stacked category tries to play, or has to play. Self is trying to turn a vice into a virture, which is what Marine Corp strategy is all about. It can be done. It is what George Washington did in the revolutionary war. It is what Ho Chi Minh did first against the French and then against the Americans. Claire Chenault did it with the Flying Tigers in China before WWII. Chenault: we don’t have as many planes as the Japanese and our planes aren’t as good as theirs in a head to head dog fight. What do we do? Answer: First we pick where we engage and when. We decide when we fight, not them. Second, we attack from above, out of the sun, where they cannot see us, and where our overweight obsolete planes use gravity to accelerate our attack to speeds that the agility of their planes cannot be an advantage against us. We are flying at high speeds in straight lines and their agility no longer matters…if we shoot accurately. It worked. It worked magnificiently. It worked throughout the war, when we had better planes. It even worked in Korea some with propeller planes against jets briefly. Then we got faster jets and just went after them anywhere from any direction and forgot the strategy. Then we got our asses tagged over North Vietnam and had to create Top Gun School to relearn the strategy and tactics of dog fighting.
The right strategy and tactics can overcome an enemy for brief decisive engagements.
The tournament is that kind of warfare–a series of two game tournaments–6 single decisive battles.
There is a slim chance it will work, and Self has found no alternative that he believes fits better.
So: he has to out-efficient and out elegant our opponents (even when elegance involves ugly-ing things up) with his best guys shortening games, building leads, and defending them and hope to force them into keep their best guys on the floor too, only less efficiently.
It is a brilliant idea.
It might even work.
But sooner or later its going to come down to a near death march by KU’s best players, and an opposing team’s best players, and most likely they are going to have one or two footers.
And our very own Frank Merrill believes that when that moment comes, his guys used to playing this way all season, will hold a slight edge over a more talented team that is not used to playing so many minutes per game…in a decisive engagement…once.
Like you only need to win by one point in any game, you only need to beat UK once. You don’t have to be better than them seven times. Just once. And that’s good, because 3 OAD/TADs don’t beat 10 OAD/TADs in a best of seven. Ever.
The mission of this team is to drag opponents, especially superior ones, in defensive straight jackets into close games, then build a slight lead outside in, then play cat and mouse about when they will start defending it, and then draw the opponent into a kind of long possession quick sand and ugly hand to hand combat as each are sinking, and hope that they and not our Jarhead Jayhawks drown first.
This is the mission.
Who is willing to go to Myitkyina?
Think of Frank Mason, as our Frank Merrill on the wood.
God help me, I do love it so.–George Patton
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@jaybate-1.0 Well jb, if they are in fact the JarHead Jayhawks, let’s hope they don’t go through the mine field with both fingers in their ears on tip-toes !!!
No malice intended, only humor !!
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@globaljaybird
Let’s ask the Japanese soldiers on Iwo Jima how the Jarheads walked through Cushman’s pocket.
Um, well, we can’t, because they did not survive the battle.
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Joe Ross just posted a long post on the other site. Interesting article! Mr Page Butler said that Joe could be the new Jaybate.
Good to have you here at KU Buckets. Totally no sarcasm. I enjoy your posts.
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@Shanghai_RCJH …LOL, first thing Joe ain’t new, just a retread many, many times over. Second thing. let’s just say ole JR ain’t the sharpest tool in the shed either…
no malice intended, just the facts…
And for heavens sake let’s hope he stays over there & enjoys his new found fame.
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Criteria for being the next jaybate 1.0:
1.) graduate of KU;
2.) love The Game and The Legacy;
3.) have at least a thimble full of brains;
4.) make the length fit the content;
5.) never participate in organized iLynchings of football or basketball coaches;
6.) be amusing at least sometimes;
7.) do it for free to give back to the game, the school and the state that helped you grow up “the right way”;
8.) encourage interactive journalism;
9.) don’t forget who your Daddy is;
10.) love the players; and
11.) support limited identity posting.
Good to hear from you.
Rock Chalk!!!
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- Quote Bob Dylan
13.Quote Steven Stills
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Quote Chester Nimitz
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Quote George Patton
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Have a photographic memory of all things Basketball from the Late 50’s up to 5 years in the future.
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Make obscure references that have readers googling to understand the post.
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Must be able to defend Bill Self from intermittent detractors that emerge after a loss or a close win.
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Instruct younger readers on who real heroes are in combat and in the vast history of Roundball.
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Be a defender of a Jayhawk player that is being criticized by others and be vindicated within two games.
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sometimes be politically incorrect.
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@jaybate-1.0 #3 just as well be chlordane for board (or boring) rats. It eliminates the entire colony.
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- Be willing to dunk readers into the fast-moving rivers of your imagination, but always throw out a lifebuoy to save them.
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@jaybate-1.0 Recognized that patch. I have it on my grandfather’s WWII uniform.
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@wrwlumpy This is a very good list for the pre-qualification.
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Lucas is now a 6’10, 245lb ENFORCER (who simply needs to finish his bunnies). Tell me he cant do what frosh Cole did as the 4th big in March…
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@ralster Yeah, if we could get him to shoot better than Yosemite Sam !!
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If that patch is on his uniform, he was remarkable.
Learn everything you can about your grandfather’s life before the war, his war service and experience good, bad, or indifferent, and how he dealt with it afterwards.
He was probably an absolute man, whether he viewed himself that way or not. Based on what little I know–not the movie, but what little I have read–what he experienced was different than most of the rest of American combat soldiers of World War II. In some ways, it foreshadowed the warfare of Vietnam.
Don’t let where he went, and what he did, die, even if it seems inaccessible to you, or others in your family. It wasn’t and isn’t, if you try. Write as much of it down as you can. Ask everyone that knew him about what he was like before and after he served. Search on line for his service records at DOD, or the Army. In time, if you look long enough and deep enough, you will come to know him, and through him know your father and yourself, and much of what effect, good and bad you have had on your children. War is trans-generational in its effects on families. And what it did to men, whether known about, or forgotten, understood, or not, continues to echo down the generations, for better and for worse. You owe it to your family to find out what you can and use what you can learn to help you family keep getting better.
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@icthawkfan316 said:
Being drafted on potential is almost always better than being drafted as a known quantity, because almost no one lives up to the hype
An important insight.
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Damn, coach, your molars must be getting round as cue balls!
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Unfortunately I never met him. It is a sad story that I won’t go into but I do know he suffered from PTSD after the war and did not return to see my father.
I’ve read one book on Merrill’s Marauders and just started another called Spearhead. The mortality rate was something like 80%.
I have a email from someone at marauder.org that gives some details about the men in that unit and how much they suffered and accomplished. I also have his medals including Purple Heart, Bronze Stars and a presidential citation given to the unit.
In my office I have laminated posters with pictures of medals and info on the Marauders (and other relatives who served elsewhere). I made it with my children for school assignments on Veterans days.
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You are way ahead of me then. Hat’s off to ya and your gramp.
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You forgot Marvin Gaye.
Also, must HOWL!
Howling!
But not Kaddishing.
Only Allen can do that.
T. S… Eliot. Click!
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Actually I appreciate your counsel. Not that I’m ahead of you-When I finally grew up and got some sense of what others have done for this country I’ve always had a thirst to learn this stuff.
My father and a family genealogist did all the heavy lifting. Dad even went to a Marauder’s reunion to research. As a result of those two I’m in a position to keep passing it along to our descendants.
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@jaybate-1.0 in 1962, the Movie of Merrill’s Marauders came out. My father worked for Warner Brothers and I was able to meet the cast of that movie. With all my siblings grown and in College, I became a child prodigy in Contract Bridge. At age 14, the TV Show “Sugarfoot” was on and it featured Will Hutchins who played the title role. He was also in the film. I played Bridge with he and other cast members. I recieved a Xmas present from him that year and all my classmates thought I was cool.
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@JayHawkFanToo Whatever pro league Svi was playing in, there are many overseas. He is not in the same Pro level league that Sasha is in.
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Cool, thanks for sharing that bit of childhood.
You were most fortunate to hang around the fantasy factory at that time.
Sam Fuller could make war movies move.
And Ty Hardin should have been bigger.
And Claude Akins in any 1950s pic is worth a look.
Remember also Jeff Chandler played in The Jayhawkers. Good movie idea wrecked by Fess Parker, who later put a lousy piece of architecture down on East Beach in Santa Barbara and called it a hotel. Its still there stinking things up.
(Added subsequently for following comment.)
Cherkaski Mavpy? Is that the phonetic spelling:-)
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Svi played for Cherkaski Mavpy of the #13 ranled Ukrainian Basketball Super League from 2012 to 2014. Kaun plays for CSKA Moscow of the #2 ranked VTB United League ( formerly Russian Premier League). They both also play for their respective National Teams. I understand that Svi could play for just about any League in Europe, including the #1 ranked Spanish League.
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@JayHawkFanToo But in the Big 12 he sits on the bench.
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Much like the NBA, Euro leagues also buy potential. He played in one of the bottom teams in one of the bottom leagues, and if he were to join one of the top leagues/teams, he would also ride the bench until his game has developed. Ricky Rubio started the same way and was locked into a long term contract that kept him with Barcelona of the Spanish League for a while and he had to eventually buy out of his contract (with a little help from the Wolves). I see Svi pretty much the same way. If colleges could lock players in long term contracts, don’t you think KU would sign Svi even if he would not initially play much? Kid is only 17.
I would encourage you to watch some Euro basket sometime (lots of on-line streams); I believe you would be surprised.
