Putting things in context
-
I believe this team is more capable of winning a championship than more than half of the teams Self has had here.
And i also think you guys know it and nobody has really given up believing, despite all the handwringing.
Close losses to good teams is not going to keep us out of the post season. Maybe our recent football season has conditioned us to be a little more reactionary to such losses.
I don’t care about the conference any more (unless we claw our way back), I just want to play the right guys, gel, and be dangerous in March.
-
Yes indeed. March is the goal now. Lots of our exciting conference championships? I really don’t remember them except we won 14 or 15 in a row. Maybe if I looked back I’d say oh yes, I remember that game that won us the championship.
But March Madness games? I honestly can remember nearly every end to the season back to when I came to KU. One example. Peacock had the Badgers and UCLA and the announcer was Darren Collison. Maybe an unfamiliar name to many but he destroyed us as a member of UCLA in 2007. We played the Bruins and it was a frustrating end to the season in the elite 8. I was watching the game and kept thinking this announcer is decidedly pro Bruin. Figured out who it was and then the memories came flooding back. It’s like that every tournament back to 80’s. Glenn Robinson, Lamar Odom, Laettner, Freaking Bill Self and Illinois in 2001 beat us. GTech in 2004 OT, the killer B’s in 05-06, MSU in 09. Farakmush in 10, Shaka in 11, Unibrow, meltdown in 13, and then a bunch of bad losses to the likes of Stanford and Wichita and Nova, and Bama and USC and Arkansas, and Auburn and Oregon and wow. The memories are all there. The only good memory of those losses? 2012 because we exceeded expectations and made it all the way to the championship. 1991 fits in that category too, but wow, hated losing to Duke that’s for sure.
So this team has the ability to go a long ways and in a wacky tournament could well make a FF. It would be nice to make it past the round of 32!
-
I will never stop rooting and believing they can win a championship but it’s really so far from reality with this team
-
@BeddieKU23 so…uh…why do you want to believe something that’s so far from reality?
-
We root for a mythical bird
-
@approxinfinity said in Putting things in context:
We root for a mythical bird[…]
…or a Civil War band of vigilantes waging war on slavers. That might be more relevant now than it was when we all attended!
-
What the hell is this I’m the only negative person odd….
-
@kjayhawks go to bed homey! Lol. I gotta pack lunches .
-
@approxinfinity … that rises from its ashes and flourishes once again…. Oh, sorry! Wrong mythical bird.
-
@approxinfinity Ha, is that mythical bird named Devin Neal or Danny Manning by chance lmao
-
I see it the same.
We all get frustrated with this team. We see moments of solid play, then a lot of ho-hum basketball. This team lacks consistency on so many levels.
I know we botched the Houston game. That was frustrating, but didn’t bother me too much. I saw lots of solid play and against a true Top 5 team.
This UCF game frustrated me more. I know we live and die on Juan, and that was obvious in this game. Our defense was ridiculous. If we do that one time in March we go home.
I still see a big lack of toughness. Maybe we need more leadership. Maybe we need an alpha player to step forward. This idea of “leadership through committee” has never been something I totally embrace.
Flory and Zeke keep me excited! We need more from other players. ALL other players.
Will we have a good March? Seriously… I have absolutely no clue. I do believe we will need a lot of luck to make it too far.
-
@drgnslayr sadly, i think “leadership by committee” may be caused by our longest tenured starters not being our best offensive players in a system that is complex enough that it causes less tenured players to defer to said lesser stars.
I will say Selfs championship teams and runner up all had elements of leadership by committee but the best offensive players were some of the most tenured.
-
I think the more you have to assemble the pieces and parts, the harder it becomes if your leaders arent your best scorers, it is a logical default people can rally behind.
And when you bring in a bunch of “defense optional” scoring transfers, that confuses the situation all the more.
-
Transfers know it all, don’t want to be led. The young rooks always praise the seniors.
-
@drgnslayr Two questions about this. -Do we have a TRUE leader ?–Then I don’t we have a dog.
Frank Mason was a true definition of a Dog— - Christan Braun I would consider a Dog , Devonte is was more of a Dog then anything we have now.-- For me though FRANK was " the dog "
-
@SlimShaddy54 Flory could be leader with time, but is quickly becoming dog. When he went up against Big Ern you could read his body language “I’m going to kick this guys ass” and he did.
I don’t know if bigs can be leaders though, at least alone, in the modern era. Need guard leadership.
-
I predict a double double for Dajuan and Flory Saturday.
-
I feel like this team is for sure missing an alpha dog. The best teams I’ve played or coached on had them they held the team to a high standard. I think this year, last year and 2019 are the only teams in memory that haven’t had it.
-
Bill has given up completely on offense and thinks the only way we can win is defense so be prepared as kj is going to play a lot
We can’t beat isu, houston, bama, uk, Florida, auburn any top 10 team in the tournament playing in the 50’s. Those teams will all score more than that and our defense is mid against them because it’s slanted based on the unathletic teams we play and dominate. During that stretch isu scored 74 on us and it felt like they could have easily score 80 had their tall shooter had played
https://247sports.com/college/kansas/article/bill-self-kansas-basketball-team-outlook-245007240/
-
There is so much involved in being a real team leader. In some ways, Juan is the guy. He is our player best connected to Self. That counts. Lots of the leadership happens off the court. Making sure the players stay in line in their free time. Being there for them when they get sick. Etc. etc.
Being demonstrative is a HUGE asset! We need more visible enthusiasm. Also need someone reading defenses and directing traffic, on both sides of the ball. Juan is too mellow at this.
@approxinfinity Not sure our floor general has to lead in scoring… but it sure helps tremendously if it is a player who can go get his shot any time he wants. Sometimes… we need a basket desperately, and if that player could just wave everyone out of the way and take his man and score, it would be a big help.
2022 was a wild year! We had many alphas! Ochai finally learned to be more alpha, Christian was probably born and alpha, and Wilson had no problem taking over games! Even with all that… in the final moments for the Championship, Big Dave came to the rescue! I loved that team!
-
@Crimsonorblue22 never thought about it before but the past tense of lead is led, so if you say “they dont want to be lead” is that a grammatical issue or a spelling issue? Crazy that led is a homophone of lead the mineral but also the past tense of lead the verb.
English man, crazy shit.
-
@approxinfinity My English is a disaster. At least I can say, “Not bad for my second language!” I can say that. I can also lie. lol
-
Is Juan going to play Tomorrow? We have seen enough of our players and at this point they are going to have to do it every game and pick up someone like Zeke if he doesn’t get 20+. We will see if they play hard on D and on the boards. Our stats show we are a top tier team. As we said we are either going to take a step up or stay on hold. I think reading these posts no one really loves this team or think it will get on enough of a roll to change some minds.
-
@Zabudda From what I’ve heard, he’s going to play.
-
@approxinfinity Now that you’ve noticed, you’ll see it a lot. Pb gets used as a past tense verb all the time.
-
@drgnslayr Since moving north of the border I’ve become bilingual. I can now speak both Canadian and American.
-
@tundrahok Alors on peut parler avec le joual mon chum!
-
@Jhawk69 Sorry, not that kind of Canadian.
Merely anglophone
-
@tundrahok eh?
-
“Flory and Shak didn’t score today. And at least the other two at least the lid was off the basket a little bit. So yeah, that wasn’t a real difficult decision.”
We are doomed. KJ had 6 points but the lid was off lol.
-
Bill has lost his mind.
-
For someone who has hung his hat on having elite defenses through the years he has a pretty myopic interpretation of impact on the game.
-
If Bill Slef loses to KSU next weekend he should fired immediately. 3-3 vs Tang should be the last straw
