Late Season Dissection
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@drgnslayr Great post. Love the term “dissection”.
One thing I don’t fully understand though, is why you don’t think Greene is going to be a factor and we should “put him on ice”? He needs to be in the game and we need to actually design plays for him. If he is open he probably hits 65% from the floor. If he is taking guarded 3’s obviously his percentage is not terribly great. He is our best 3 point option and one of the best in the country. If anything he should get 5-7 clean looks from 3 each game and not by accident…by design. Set plays for Greene.
My reasoning behind this is our offense seems to either be
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Give Perry the ball and let him create against an inferior post player.
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Attempt some form of the hi / low with Cliff/Mari/Landen.
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Weave the ball at the top of the key and take a guarded 3 or long two.
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Frank Mason or Wayne Selden drive out of control into the lane and occasionally score but usually get a charging call or turn the ball over trying to make a difficult pass.
I am sure there are plenty of other examples but to me it just does not seem like we are running a great deal of set plays to get open looks for our guys who can shoot. Am I nuts? I feel nuts watching these games as Cliff has looked awful, Landen is awful and Jamari is undersized yet we keep trying to feed them instead of Greene/Oubre/Selden from the perimeter.
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It is really tough winning on the road, especially in the B12, and especially with a young team.
But we shouldn’t cop out to that. We have a team stocked with talent. And though they are young, we have guys capable of bringing big performances, even on the road!
All they need is support for the talent that they have! Enough of the forcing a structure that doesn’t focus on their strength first, then take the other parts with the success of their strength. That is real Hoiberg ball. He has carefully focused on his strength first (Niang) and from that, he has built out his team. Niang doesn’t really have to carry his team on his back any longer. Any of their guys can score offense, and they are doing it… 6 guys averaging in double figures. Why? Because Hoiberg focused on his strength first… then found ways to incorporate the other pieces.
We have effective perimeter shooters… Brannen, Kelly, Wayne, Frank and Devonte. All of those guys are dangerous from 3.
We have one effective post player… Perry. On offense, Jamari and Landen are often liabilities. Cliff… he is only a slam dunk artist who fouls a lot.
So where is our strength? Force it into Perry? Can his 20+ a night carry this team? Doubtful.
The thing is… if we did this right, and focused on our strength, Perry wouldn’t have to score on double teams any longer. The defense would be spread and he could attack through an isolation. Real Mayor ball.
I really thought we would get there this year. I really thought the light bulb would go off in Self, and he finally learned to appreciate high-octane offense. I was wrong. His way is the low-scoring struggle games. The games he deems as being “character building.”
If you watch NBA you will see how offense has overtaken the world of “character building.” Teams do step up and start playing some d in the playoffs. But teams that run high-octane offense wins championships, too. The 3 ball is absolutely vital in the NBA. Players make hundreds of millions of dollars playing the game of “fool’s gold!”
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You are right on! Greene should be one of the players we focus on for points. But we don’t utilize him properly, and the most we can count on at this late stage of the season is for Self to put in one or two tweaks to help him get an open look once in a while.
We have committed to the hi/lo. It takes time to install another offense, especially with young players. I don’t see that happening now. I see us having another one of our typical March upsets. A game where a team scouts us well, comes prepared with lots of energy and executes. They don’t really have to do a lot to beat us. They just have to throw down a double on Perry when he is low in the post, and keep their perimeter guys within range of our shooters. Very basic defense.
Our only hope of winning with the hi/lo is if we turn Perry into more of a passer instead of a shooter. He has to get the ball in the low post and quickly bullet a pass to a wing on the trey line, directly in his sweet spot for a quick-release catch-and-shoot. That has to happen enough to open up the defense so Perry can attack.
All of those points by Perry last night became a liability. It lured us in to trading more 3s for 2s. And it was the right thing because we weren’t running perimeter offense. Our guys weren’t really wide open from trey. Brannen is very ineffective if he isn’t flowing out in a catch-and-shoot scenario. When he dribbles, or adds motion to his flow, he’s good for an air ball.
So unless Self realizes this… it’s best just to put Brannen on ice the remainder of the year. I don’t want to see him go out there and throw up more air balls and get humiliated. The guy doesn’t deserve that. All sharp shooters require special offense for them to be effective, unless they can score off the dribble. What we are doing isn’t fair for Brannen.
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@drgnslayr I agree with many of your points. And if this was the first time, then I would not say anything negative about Mason. But unfortunately it has been the norm rather than the exception the past 8 or 9 games. Against WVU, he played a fantastic game. But go back and rewatch how Mason played in other games. If you look beyond the box score (which isn’t terrible), Mason just isn’t a player a player that can take us to the Final Four yet.
He was a 3 star. But he is now the starting point the KU and needs to be judged like it.
3 Point Shooting- Average (Maybe)
Athleticism- Very Good
Handles- Excellent
Passing- Sub Par
Defense- Average (used to think he was excellent but when closely watched, not so much)
Basketball IQ/Decision Making- Sub Par
Finishing at the Rim- Average
Mid Range/Floaters- Sub par
Toughness- Very Good
Granted, we could go through the KU lineup and do the same thing. The result would also be underwhelming. But what Selden, Oubre, Alexander, Traylor, Lucas, and even Ellis lacks have all been well talked about. But for some reason, Mason has not been under the same scrutiny.
Maybe this is another topic and I have gotten away from the original point. If that’s the case, then my apologies. But if you haven’t noticed, I am usually an optimistic to a fault. But for the life of me, Sophomore Mason is not the player that can lead this team. Maybe Junior or Senior Mason. But not this year.
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I think where Frank does well is heart. And he’s not afraid to attempt to execute down the stretch. Remember back just a few years ago… EJ was a highly-touted recruit, with mega potential. But he got psyched out at the end of most games. Look at Naa… I don’t want to slam either of these guys. I shouldn’t because I could never get out there an perform at crunch time. But we do stand a chance with Frank. He can’t suddenly become a 5-star player. I think he’s doing some major overachieving while at Kansas. And he had to learn to be a PG instead of a volume scorer.
And now we are seeing Devonte blossom. That might also be creating a few issues with Frank… feeling his control of the team slip away.
I don’t want to give Frank a free pass… on anyone else.
But would we have won had he been more effective last night? I’m not certain of that. Yes… it would have helped. But should this game have even been close? Rival bologna… this KSU team would have beaten anyone at home if they open the door for them. We opened the door. We kept them within arm’s reach. Teams that are close typically win at the end when on their home courts.
I don’t think our answer is the same answer Cal has at Kentucky. To just sign 9 McDs AAs. Yes, the brute force method can work. It also creates very ugly basketball.
I would like to think we can take a mix of guys and get them to play solid team ball. Run a balanced attack of opportunistic offense and tough defense.
We have counted (for too long) on playing tough d and having low post monsters for the hi/lo. So this year is different, but we have easily enough team to win our conference and really the right talent to win in March. This is actually one of our better March teams (for potential). Forget the big 5 in the post… UCONN does!
We are all complaining because we don’t think Self is flexible enough. Not changing to take advantage of the team he does have. Tries to force them into something else. I think that is a valid complaint. Self will admit it later… like in April. Reflecting back. He often does. We’d like to see him be a bit more proactive. That is what coaching is really all about.
What if Chalmers never hit that shot? I always kind of thought that was both a blessing and a curse. Calipari had to live with the curse. And even if most of us don’t like his style, look at what he has done since '08. Sometimes I think Bill needs the same character-building he always demands of his team.
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@drgnslayr Ok. I understand your points. Unfortunately I agree with you that we may be on our way to another early upset…if we don’t make adjustments. If we let Greene/Oubre/Selden hit 3’s I like our chances. We will all see if this “fools gold” approach is used in March.
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My pessimism is me venting…
I always have some optimism, too.
This is college basketball… and anything can happen!
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@drgnslayr It is one of the craziest conclusions to any sport on earth.
After last night it looks like we are going to all have to get excited about playing the spoiler role for a 2 seed in our bracket as it looks like we may be dropping to a 3. This to me is not being pessimistic but realistic. That was a bad loss to a bad team and if we don’t win the rest of our games in the regular season and at least 1 game in the Big 12 tourney I am betting on a 3 seed. But that is ok. As we all know it doesn’t matter that much. A 1 seed has not exactly done us that many favors over the years.
Anything can happen and we still have as good of a shot as anyone come March.
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@drgnslayr I guess we simply differ on how to judge Mason.
Am I glad we have Mason? Of course! I think he will develop into a player that WILL lead us to a Final Four. But looking into the future tastes like moral victories and at KU, we don’t accept those kind of victories.
I am probably at fault for putting him on a throne so early. And you’re right, I need to look at Self more than I do Mason.
BUT right now, I am judging Mason as the starting PG of Kansas. Not as a 3 star Sophomore. And whether it be injury, being worn down, or just not mature enough, he is not the quality PG yet that we need. The reason for making this point is the fact that I haven’t seen anyone else in their analysis of the season write anything negative about Mason other than “he had a bad game”.
Greene talked about we don’t have the right spacing. His exact words were “We’re on top of each other”. We have seen how this offense goes completely stiff for long periods of time. Is that on Self? You betcha. At the same time, how is not a reflection on Mason?
But I have always enjoyed your analysis and your take on the game!
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@JhawkAlum Worst game of the year for Frank. Of course, his game behind the perimeter is now strangely absent. Frank had the ball wide open behind the perimeter, hesitated, and ran right into the defense in the paint. Greene did the same thing.
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Good stuff @drgnslayr I don’t have much to add except you write a lot of what makes sense to me.
I’d point back to the Temple game as my proof that this team just wasn’t going to thrive. I think that was a worse loss than last night. We got killed against a team that is decent, but mid majorish. Sure we’re totally spoiled at KU. We’re ready to jump off the bridge into the muddy Kaw over a 22-6 record! But it’s how we’ve gotten to that record that has a lot of us concerned. We’ve blown out very few teams. It’d be interesting to compare the point differential of this year to past years. I"m not going to do it, but I’d guess it would show that to be true.
My best hope is we’ll catch fire in March and get into the 2nd weekend and maybe something good will happen.
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@wissoxfan83 Scoring margin this year, just over 7 ppg, is the narrowest of the Self era. Next closest was his first year - a little over 8 ppg. Last year, at 9 ppg, was third lowest - all substantially lower, by half or more, than most other years. Indeed, we were often near the top in scoring margin nationally. 32 and 25 point beatdowns obviously bring down the average - but, to your point, we haven’t really blown anyone out this year - even at home. Too many close games. The end of the bench probably has less PT this year than in any other year.
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@DCHawker Thanks for the info!
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I don’t want to give the team or Self a free pass. Clearly, the points many have made about coaching strategy have some validity. Some players have been inconsistent…like Mason last night. Selden seems to have regressed or not gotten better. Same for Traylor. But, isn’t the biggest reason we have struggled on the road our inexperience? I know…the freshmen are now sophomores and other teams win with youth…I get it. Yes, the core of Ellis, Selden, Traylor (as a guy off the bench) should bring some stability. But, this is Mason’s first year as a consistent contributor that we constantly rely on. He has come up short, no surprise, at times on the road. Clearly, Cliff being slow to adapt has affected us. So has Selden’s play. Look at ISU? A very good sophomore point guard, but the rest of the guys have experience. No surprise they have played well on the road. We don’t have the level of experience that they have.
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I am very confident we will bounce back with a week to prepare for Texas.
I expect KU to win 2 of the last three and tie. If we win out, we are gold. We should lose to OU on the road after Texas and WVU. But OU has to play ISU and KU in a short span of time, so we have a 50/50 shot of beating OU in Norman. If we do we are guarantied a tie and probably an outright title.
I expect ISU to win two, or three of its last four. They have to play 3 in six with the last one being OU. They should lose to OU, because of the 3 in six schedule. Then they get a breather and play TCU, who they should beat. I expect 3 of 4.
All in all, I see what we are going through as quite reasonable.
Any team that gives KU the outside from here on, will see KU shoot 20 treys.
Any team that stretches to guard the trey stripe, will see us go inside.
I suspect most teams will play to deny our trey game.
We will spend much of the rest of the season being lead in scoring by Perry and Kelly and Frank and that is as it should be. Frank has hit a wall. He will bounce back. Devonte is ready to make another little incremental improvement. Greene will find the range.
The bad news is Perry’s is back to 10-16 productivity, which will not cut it. We cannot afford an inside game that only makes 10-16 at its best. I disagree that Perry played a great game. He played a great half. But the minute his spin moves start, the team’s goose is cooked. Perry spinning as The Blender is guarantied to produce 10-16 games inside. We only want Perry dunking and drive to iron. Every spin move needs to be kicked out for a trey, or dished to a driving Oubre. Everytime Perry starts spinning the rest of his game goes soft. It is a barometer of his backsliding. The first half Perry was efficient. Didn’t take too many shots and played forcefully. The second half he went into spin mode and that was really when KU lost its momentum.
Wayne has continued to give us Brady defense, and Brady numbers without the Brady 40% trey. It isn’t what we were hoping for from Wayne. And when Devonte comes in we get Tyrel defense and Tyrel numbers with some better ball handling, but without Tyrel’s 46% trey his junior season, but rather with Tyrel’s high 30s trey his injured senior season. Since I have been a great fan of Tyrel and Brady, I don’t consider this knocking Wayne, or Devonte. Quite the contrary, we had 30 win seasons, conference titles and ups and downs in the Madness with Tyrel and Brady. So: I am confident we can have the same with Wayne and Devonte this season, and even better out of them next season. Wayne is playing up to some of their numbers starting as a soph, and that’s something Tyrel could not do, but Brady could. And neither Tyrel, nor Brady, could start as frosh, or play rotation minutes as frosh, the way Wayne did, and now Devonte has done. So: weak as Wayne’s play has been and up and down as Devonte’s has been, these two guys are good enough to get us to 30 wins…if…they have three guys to carry them the way Tyrel and Brady had. Perry, Frank and Kelly are the carriers. What is missing is that 5.
So: I am still optimistic for this team this season. If we could win 30 games and conference titles with those Tyrel and Brady teams that essentially had one, or no, OAD/TAD types, we should be able to match that with 3 OAD/TAD types on the team, even if only one of them is now playing like an OAD. The light can still go on for OAD type players at any moment.
I do think Wayne is going to have to pick it up a little to match those teams, but not much.
But the decisive issue is the 5 and what to do about it. Those teams had some effective post play at both the 4 and 5, not just the 4.
We just can’t have any more 3 point, 7 rebound, 7 foul games out of our three man committee at the 5. If we can’t get any productivity in scoring and points, then we have to start Landen and know he will at least hold down the fouls, as he puts goose eggs up on the rest. If it were up to me, Landen would be starting. I was content with Jam Tray, but since his hip flexor issue he just has not been able to bring what was needed. We don’t need much, but we do need something. And Self is right to try to keep giving Cliff looks in hopes something clicks for the BRD. Nothing much to lose doing it.
But what to do at the 5 is another post.
Anyway, I am still pretty confident we will eek out another title.
But I certainly understand everyone’s disillusionment and dashed hopes after the last three games. The team has hit a February slump and we are not sure if it is because the team has hit the usual January, or February funk, or if it is because the team has a black hole haunting it at the five that is slowly inexorably eating away from the inside out.
At times like these I recall the Texas game. 3 Turnovers. Crisp passing. Timely shooting. Aggressive defense. Good rebounding.
I know Texas wasn’t a great team, but they were a stinker either.
Keep taking your vegetable and fruit juices, keep giving us your wisdom and insights which help me always, but don’t give up the ship.
Rock Chalk!
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@jaybate-1.0 I don’t think ISU will lose to OU at Hilton. If we don’t win in Norman, we have to pin our hopes on KSU beating ISU at home. Which, I think, means we need to win in Norman
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Really… anything can happen!
Look at last year. UCONN had dropped 8 before March. In one week they lost to Louisville twice. Few had them picked to go all the way.
Anything can happen. We’ve taken a hit in our confidence of good things happening, but it is possible.
It is our role to be critical during these periods. Fans should scream, vent, and be skeptical. It’s our job. It is our coaches and players job to prove the skeptics wrong.
If we all remain all kumbayahish then there is no reason for the team to get motivated. The fans don’t show a pulse win or lose.
Dang Self! Ha… man… I hope he proves me wrong!
RCJH!
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KSU doesn’t seem athletic enough, or good enough shooters to stay with ISU, wherever they play. ISU will shoot the trey, where KU would not against KSU. But then I never dreamed KSU would beat KU at home even if KU played with their pants on backwards.
I think OU is very strong, and mobile, and is, like KU, a tough combination for ISU to handle. So: I still like OU stealing one from ISU when ISU will be at the end of 3 in six.
And we might catch OU weakened.
Or WE might be weakened and lose two, or three.
It is going to be one wooly, wild ride, and as always in sports, it comes down to want to mixed with some match-ups and breaks.
Rock Chalk!!!
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@jaybate-1.0 Solid point. I was just looking at, Omg ISU only has 3 games left, no way KU can win out and come away without losing the conference battle. But, yeah, in that situation I think OU could steal one from ISU.
Here’s to hope that KU can win out from here. I need an IV infusion of that right now.
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Am I the only one that thinks the chop play has lost it’s mojo?
Was it the play or the team? I don’t know. But it sure looked feckless last night.
BTW: nice post, @drgnslayr
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@Lulufulu We can only hope that KSU plays ISU like they did against us. Then we have to hope that OU plays them well too. There are KU’s two hopes at this point. KSU (irony) and OU. But then we have to beat UT, WVU, and OU.
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@drgnslayr The team has to decide NOW. You’re right AFH has to get off their lazy backsides, and act as though the season depends on it. I hope they understand it does. We can take Texas and we can take WVU. I think we can take OU. This team has to decide whether they can and go do it.
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@jaybate-1.0 The way this season is going, it wouldn’t surprise me if ISU goes to TCU and gets beat. I think ISU goes to Ft Worth, takes them for granted and gets beat.
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If this team wins the next three games – against two top 20 teams and Texas (top 30-40) – they deserve the title.
And they are guaranteed a share of it.
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We can easily win out! Earlier in the year the players were getting the reputation for responding when things got tough. We won a bunch of close games back then.
Now their backs are against the wall. This is good for them. Make them come out and fight. They either do it or they don’t, and they will always know they are the team that blew the conference streak.
This is a great way to pick up momentum right before March! Win out and take the momentum into March Madness!
Our guys could win playing blindfolded if their lives depended on it. That’s the kind of juice that needs to be pumping through their veins.
