KJ Rebounding
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Rebounding is 90% want to and 10% skill. KJ has to want to do it and he doesn’t.
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Hunger, hustle, physicality, and skill. All play a part. The skill is about post placement. Some guys can see a ball on the way and know where to go before it makes contact with the goal. Timing your jump is a skill. Knowing how to clear space (or hold space) without fouling is a skill. Then it is all about FIGHT!
KJ has a good body to go fight… but just looking at the paragraph above, he’s pretty weak in all of those areas.
He is giving up HUGE next-level draft potential because of this one area. This bleeds over into defense, too.
I go nuts watching him play… and leaving so much game in the locker room. Has anyone told him yet?
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I think he tens to get more fouls when aggressively rebounding. Maybe Self would rather keep him on the court.
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He plays GREAT DEFENSE, and he boxes out extremely well, pushing his man away from the basket, which puts him in a poor rebounding position, but clears the way for his teammates to rebound.
And the only thing I can think of on offense, where he does stand around and gets easily boxed out, is that the coaches WANT HIM TO DO THAT. Perhaps to be able to get back on D quickly is my only guess. Remember, the reason why Self and the staff like him so much is that he is highly coachable. If they wanted KJ to rebound, he would be fighting to get under the basket .
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The point of boxing out is to put yourself in position to rebound as well as prevent the opponent from grabbing the rebound - he half gets it on the defensive end. But if you can’t predict where the ball is going as it leaves the shooters hand you’re not going to be in position. He just doesn’t see the angles. - I bet he’s a mark at the pool table.
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Zeke snagged 10 because he hustles… little guy… 10!
Muscular KJ, and with more height, 3!
I’m going to stay on his arse all year. He just refuses to go after it. Sorry, but that is pathetic! And I love KJ… but he needs tough love!
Self even mentioned rebounding being an issue with this team.
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The 4-man here has to rebound at a consistent clip and it doesn’t happen currently. He even played the 5 last night and rebounding was an issue with his man during those possessions. It’s a known weakness and not going away.
What I do see collectively is just better rebounding since we have more depth, so we are not reliant on just 2 guys to board like last season. We got 9 boards from the bench and were +4 on Mich St for the night. I think that relieves some stress on KJ but we’ll see.
So far we are +8, -1 +4 on the boards. Should be a coaching focus as we head to conference play where specific teams certainly make it a big part of their identity (Houston etc).
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Regarding Flory and rebounding, there were 2 or 3 plays that stood out to me.
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on the offensive end i think he missed a shot then tried to make up for it by physically going into a guy to rebound and drew an early foul. This one was unnecessary and costly.
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He got called for i think his 4th foul on the biggest ticky tack foul of the game. An opposing player was turned toward basket and Flory got a hand on ball but they called it over the back.
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When Flory got back in he brought a ball down perpendicular to the defender but because he lost it (lack of grip strength) the defender did not get called for a foul.
All 3 of these are freshman things, but imo Flory clearly goes after it and in a few months i think this could be 2 less fouls against and 1 more foul for and an additional possession or 2
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Just so I understand, the argument here is: Our hall of fame coach, a guy that is considered to be one of the best ever, is giving huge minutes to a favored veteran player even though he is limited offensively and can’t or won’t rebound? Is he that blind? Or is there more to the picture?
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@Bosthawk ha, love it. I appreciate your analysis regarding boxing out and defense.
That being said, I do very much want to see more Flory and am happy if the KJ-storr-flory-hunter minutes are fluid.
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@Bosthawk Yes, that’s 100% what I’m saying not sure on the others.
Self has a history of playing guys he trusts even if they limit the ceiling of the team. They are in the right spot even though they can’t always make the play.
If he sat down and discussed this right now he talk about “how athletic kj is, how he can switch and guard anyone 1-5 defensively and he just jumps out of the gym - dunking everything. He hustles big time and dives all over the floor for loose balls.”
All this somehow translates to bad rebounding because he’s got alligator arms but even with that he gets up higher than other dudes yet still sucks at it.
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I totally respect Dr. Bill. But that dog can’t hunt. How many games has KJ been a Jayhawk? His rebounding numbers are low. We all know he has the muscle to fight for balls.
He does do other things. He’s a unique player in D1 that is hard, if not impossible, to prepare for playing against. His little midrange floaters and jumpers have worked out well.
When he gets a monster slam it definitely juices the troops.
Why doesn’t he put up decent rebound numbers? It’s not like we are just comparing a few games here.
I have quickly become a total “Zeke freak!” I love that kid! He’s quicker than KJ… but more than anything, he hungers for the ball.
If we can figure out KJ and get his rebound numbers up, we should be able to bank 7 - 10 extra points per game. It can easily be the difference between an early exit of late March run.
For all we know… Dr. Bill is addressing this with KJ.
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I mentioned it the other day, but the Jayhawker with Bill Self podcast the other day I heard Bill saying something about KJ comparing to Ochai. My eyebrows raised slightly but I tend to trust Bill Self in this too.
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All good points. I know, in the past, HCBS has played guys that are scorers, but couldn’t play defense (Perry Ellis, Dedric Lawson come to mind and I’m sure you guys could come up with a bunch more past players that fit this catagory). Or guys that could rebound and be a defensive force in the paint but really poor scorers ( Landen Lucas, etc) The reasoning is that Self had really no choice I suppose… but I still think that KJ’s lack of rebounding doesn’t bug Self enough, because if it did, he would limit his minutes or, because KJ will do whatever the coaches ask him to do, really try hard to get under the basket a lot more than he is now. As we all know , rebounding is a HUGE part of basketball and can be the difference between winning and losing.
And speaking of working on important things, is it just me, or does it seem that every dam team we play can shoot free throws better than us??
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@Bosthawk I don’t disagree with your assessment of Bill in the slightest. But the putting him on the pedestal like he never makes a mistake is what drives me nuts. Not saying you are but quite a few do on here. He’s great and we all love him but he’s also not made the FF with some of his most talented teams here. I’ll still beat my drum that people get mad at me for beating the last two years…… we ain’t going past the sweet 16 with KJ playing 30 plus minutes a game.
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@kjayhawks Bill is the king at winning meaningless big 12 titles to only fall flat in the tourney
He is the absolute definition of consistency as we’ve never missed the tourney like uconn, uk, Unc ect but we’ve only won 2 titles in his time here and we honestly should have 4 or 5….hes underachieved with some incredible rosters
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NEWS FLASH: Right now, most of our guys can’t individually guard, and they also don’t know how to play weakside defense. All we are doing is seeing if we can put up more points than the other team. This is going to backfire, big time, if we don’t get our act together!
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I like the first part of your post. Yes… he has consistency! He screams consistency!
Realistically… he most likely would have had a third championship in the Covid close-down year.
I will quickly put this in perspective… name a better performing team west of Kentucky for the last 20 years?
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@kuballin10 Speaking of under achieving ,with the talent he has – UMM Coach Cal calling on Line Fuck up-- - oh ya and by th e way wonders if your still on for Dinner
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@kjayhawks I agree there is no reason to put Bill on a pedastal. I gripe about both him and Andy Reid during games on specific decisions (get someone out before a 3rd foul in the first half; give Morris more chip blocks to seal the left side; etc).
But it is a huge stretch from that to constantly be bitching about his strategic decision-making. For example, I don’t know anything about why they make certain choices on whom to play but I would infer that a heckuvalot more info is available to the coaches than to me. (Practices, trainer’s reports, ass’t coaches’ scouting, etc.)
What gets my dander up (now there is an old fogey phrase) is when people attribute those decisions to some presumed reason they set forth (Bill just plays favorites who hurt the team; Andy is dumb to never let PM do a QB sneak on 4th and <1; etc.), and then go on rants about how wrong that reason is.
In other words, both these guys have more experience AND more information about the small and large pictures both, and over time I have gained perspective about how in contrast much of my analysis is colored by my reactions that are often emotional in the heat of the moment. That doesn’t make these guys infalible, but their records so far give me great confidence in giving them the benefit of the doubt that on the whole they are much smarter coaches than I ever could be. They’ve earned it.
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If KJ has an injured ankle, shouldn’t he take the next two game off? Or is it the type of ankle injury that playing won’t further injure?
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@mayjay said in KJ Rebounding:
whom to play but I would infer that a heckuvalot more info is available to the coaches than to me. (Practices, trainer’s reports, ass’t coaches’ scouting, etc.) What gets my dander up (now there is an old fogey phrase) is when people attribute those decisions to some presumed reason they set forth (Bill just plays favorites who hurt the team; Andy is dumb to never let PM do a QB sneak on 4th and <1; etc.), and then go on rants about how wrong that reason is. In other words, both these guys have more experience AND more information about the small and large pictures both, and over time I have gained perspective about how in contrast much of my analysis is colored by my reactions that are often emotional in the heat of the moment. That doesn’t make these guys infalible, but their records so far give me great confidence in giving them the benefit of the doubt that on the whole they are much smarter coaches than I ever could be. They’ve earned it.
Pretty much 100%. These are two of the most experienced and successful coaches in their sports. I gotta believe they know more than those of us in the stands.
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@mayjay I’m not @kuballin10 I just calling it like I see it and the two years I was a 100 percent correct
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Yikes! Some of us are going to H - E - Double hockey sticks because we think KJ is hugely underperforming in rebounds. I guess now Self is defending KJ and others from fan challenges:
I don’t see how anyone can defend a guy his size getting so few rebounds. In a certain sense… KJs poor rebound counters the rest of the optimism he gives the team with his dunks. I’ll take Ws over dunks any day of the week. At some point we will face a more challenging stretch of the season and I’ll bet the ranch we will be right back here screaming about lack of rebounds, though I will compliment some of our new guys for really going after balls… Zeke comes to mind first!
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@mayjay Andy and Bill are really similar. Consistently good all the time but until they have those elite players they can’t achieve prominence
Jimmys and joes > X’s and O’s But ultimately you need both
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@drgnslayr Kj hasn’t rebounded well for half a decade here as @Texas-Hawk-10 has pointed out for years
Bill can defend his guy all he wants but KJ’s lack of rebounding isn’t because the coaches are telling him to just take his man off the glass
