Lauri Markkanen committed to Arizona
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I know he wasn’t considering KU despite his dad being a former Jayhawk, but his commitment to Arizona could have other impacts for KU. Mitch Lightfoot is supposed to be committing in the near future and Arizona was/is one of his choices. Markkanen committing to Arizona probably means Lightfoot won’t be committing there and increases KU’s odds of landing Lightfoot.
This wouldn’t be the kid you build a class around at KU, but an early commit would build some momentum for KU and Lightfoot wouldn’t be a bad 3rd big for this class.
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I just don’t see it with this kid. We’ve all complained on how small Ellis & Mari have been over the years. He’s the same height, & is less athletic than both of them. I just don’t feel his style fits the Big 12.
Arizona needs bigs just as much as we do. They will graduate 3, I think the smart money is still there that he lands at Zona even with that Finish 7 footer going there.
We need momentum, but I would be okay missing out on him
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Lightfoot will be AZ
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BIA RUMOR CENTRAL:
KU lost Markannen, because the interior designer for new McCarthy Hall refused to be flexible in his form language and give Lauri the Neo-Danish Modern look he wanted in his suite. Lauri bolted to Tucson, where he was promised a Hans Wegner Ox Chair. http://www.danishdesignstore.com/products/wegner-ox-chair-by-erik-jorgensen-designer-hans-j-wegner
In turn Self has requested Sheahon fund his hiring of an ASSISTANT HEAD COACH IN CHARGE OF INTERIOR DESIGN. Phillipe Starck is being considered.
Believe it…
OR NOT!
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…except much like his father Pekka. the Markkanens are from Finland and not Denmark…
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…except that most of Scandinavia, including, Finland, embraced both Danish Modern 1.0, and the current renaissance of Scandinavian Moderne.
…and except that some of the best Scandinavian designers, especially industrial designers have been Finnish.
OMG!!! Timo Sarpaneva!!!
http://www.natureillustratedmagazine.com/q/Finnish_industrial_designers
And of course then we have the Saarinens that honored us with joining us in the great experiment in democracy (USA) and provided us with some stellar buildings. And don’t even get me started on Aalto. OMG! OMG!!! I’m having a design orgasm!!!
Quick, get thee to Copenhagen, then cross the bridge, man. You’re a goddamned engineer, if I recall correctly. That is one of the sweetest bridges in all the world. Then get thee to Helsinki and pay your respects to those Finnish phone folks, and no, I am not talking about Linus Torvalds, but about the fellow that was the brains behind Nokia, Jorma Olilla, before he rolled it into Microsoft and moved on to become CEO of Royal Dutch Shell.
Then get back to me.
P.S.: I just love it when board rats try to one up me. It keeps me young. Yeeeee haaaaawwww! Its basketball season and life force is coursing through me once again. It is as if I have awakened from a summer slumber!!!
P.P.S.: Come, Bill!!! Improvise and do things we’ve never seen, so we can all play catch up trying to figure out what you’re up to!!! That is the real sport of being a KU basketball fan. Chasing after the head coach who is always a few weeks ahead of the rest of us.
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P.S.: I just love it when board rats try to one up me. It keeps me young.
And how exactly did I do this? I simply mentioned that the Markkanens were from Finland and not Denmark and you made it into a completely unrelated story.
By the way, Erno Saarinen studied in France and yes, YALE in the ol’ USA and he was not influenced and he did not consider himself part of the Danish or more aptly named Scandinavian Modern movement, but part of the American Modern Movement along with other great architects such as Frank Lloyd Wright.
As far as I know, this is still a basketball/sports forum and I am sure most posters don’t give a rat’s ass about architecture. This is my last post on this subject and I am getting back to sports.
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Oh, don’t worry about saving face.
You couldn’t have known that I had been a student of design.
On second thought, its finally basketball season.
Type whatever comes into your head.
I made it another year.
Sweeeeeeet!!!
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That’s one nice thing about this site. We get a real liberal arts education!
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“Type whatever comes into your head”
Ok, isn’t Lauri a girl’s name?
Is that like “A boy named Sue?”
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@HighEliteMajor Thank you for saying it for me.
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That was the first thing that came to mind and I thought she/he was prospect for the women’s basketball team. Having said that, the boy named Sue was tough SOB…according to the song and maybe Lauri is one as well…:)
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@BeddieKU23 I get your hesitation with Lightfoot, as he’s another undersized PF. To me he appears to be highly athletic, although he his skinny. But I could see him being a Kevin Young type if he can be a pesky defender at the 4. As long as he doesn’t hurt the recruitment of the more talented available bigs, I’m all for signing him.
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The big question may turn out to be if Lightfoot is the son, or grandson of Gordon Lightfoot, because this could well determine whether KU will be allowed to play The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald at time outs.
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As long as we are coming clean on ricochet thoughts triggered by Finnish names, I wondered if Lauri would be worth a peck of Pekkas?
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@jaybate-1.0 Sorry all you by-the-book board rats, but I can’t resist the Lightfoot reference… Just ran across the sheet music to about 50+ Gordon Lightfoot songs last week, hermetically sealed in a rather large Funk & Wagnall’s tote, collecting powder & bones in the attic. Nice voice range from baritone to tenor, tasty, tight arrangements, & was a helluva story teller/songwriter in his prime too. Went to his concert in 74’ at Hoch with my future wife. I even still have her too, but not in a box. Like I said jb, sorry but I just can’t resist when you conjure up the spirits as only you can do…
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@globaljaybird
No apology required. I am grateful for you recalling him so fondly. He was one of my favorites.
“Rosanna knows/ the ways of a man…”
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@jaybate-1.0 http://www.songs-tube.net/134744-Gordon Lightfoot-Second Cup Of Coffee.html
http://www.songs-tube.net/196116-Gordon Lightfoot-The Pony Man.html
No more jb, I promise…
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@globaljaybird So does this mean the lightfoot kid is coming to KU?
no it does not
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We are in the lead for lightfoot in his crystal ball
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Mitch Lightfoot will be announcing his choice of school next Saturday…
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I cannot tell you my excitement level now that we are now in the lead for a guy ranked 117 at Rivals, 134 at 24/7, and 98 at ESPN.
Is this what Octobers are about when it comes to recruiting?
This is Jamari Traylor. This is Landon Lucas.
Unless he is one of the 13% or so that exceed their ranking, we have a roster clogger. We have insurance. We have nothing that will help us win a national championship.
If he’s our third big in the class, and we have say Bolden and Herard as well, I guess ok then. Things could be worse.
Right now, we don’t have Bolden or Herard or anyone else.
Excitement level is zero. Actually less than zero. It’s a negative number.
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@globaljaybird
A+!
I’m a huge fan of Gordy.
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@JayHawkFanToo said:
Mitch Lightfoot will be announcing his choice of school next Saturday… yes this coming Saturday
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I am worried he would affect others, I look at him as a handcuff to future classes. Lightfoot at KU is 2 to 3 years away from being a contributer. Maybe im wrong but guys like mari and lucas while experienced we knew their ceiling years ago. At KU we need better than them and i reference them because both were similar ranked similar scouting reports.
We don’t need 3 bigs, we need 2 at most and if we can get the better players by waiting we have to
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I don’t think we need him at all, if we whiff on others so be it…hopefully spring will bring late signees.
The last thing we need to do is sign handcuffs for future recruits. 17 class is loaded. We need 2 bigs not more. Lightfoot as I’ve stated isn’t an early impact, I don’t even think sophomore year he’d be a factor. SO what’s the point of getting him. I know the staff has found diamonds before, I just don’t think he’s one them
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When has Bill Self ever been afraid to tell somebody they have better opportunities elsewhere to make room for a better player? Merv Lindsay, Quintrell Thomas, Anrio Adams, and so on. Because Self isn’t afraid to engage in this type of recruiting, it doesn’t bother me to sign Lightfoot because if Self lands a better player in the future, he can send Lightfoot to some other school.
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@BeddieKU23 I’m concerned about what signees seem possible in the spring. This seems a bit urgent to me.
If we have 2 post signees, we’ll add those to Lucas, Bragg, and Coleby. So we’d only have 5, and one of them would be coming off an ACL. Another, Bragg, is perhaps a 20% chance he’s an OAD (if the planets aligned). And Lucas could bolt as a graduate transfer (if he’s low guy on the totem pole, and has one more season left, I don’t think it’s out of the realm of reason).
With all of the uncertainties, I think we need 3 post signees. If Lightfoot is the worst one, and we get 3, that isn’t all bad (so long as our other two are top 50 quality). If we stretched it to the spring, I think there’s a chance that our worst post signee is worse than Lightfoot.
Again, though, excitement level is a negative number regarding Lightfoot.
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Okay… I’m all gushy with man love… expecting him to be the next Sam Dekker!
If he does have high energy, basketball IQ and a tool box I am ready to sign him and see what he can do. I’d rather go this way then sign another athletic freak that has low basketball IQ.
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@wrwlumpy Nice write-up…kind of confusing to see a 100-something prospect get that kind of media love. What gives?
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I bet if he signs with Kansas, he’ll get a “Jayhawk bump” in his ratings this coming year.
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@ajvan first consider one of the sources, Fran!
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You have a point, you laid out a worst case scenario that definitely could be in the realm of possibility. Coleby’s ACL scared me, it still does because I know Self didn’t bring him here to be a filler. It’s obvious that he’s very high on the kid, but he just lost a year of skill development, chemistry, & practice time. He should be ready to go by springish… but that puts him no further ahead really than any freshman we will get, beside that he’s experienced in D-1. He’ll take months just to get back to speed and conditioning.
I say we need 2 bigs because 5 is plenty enough, especially if we have a Sr Lucas, Soph, Bragg, Jr Coleby + 2 freshman. Having 6 like we do is a nice problem to have, but with Self he can only really play 4 with any regularity. Depth is nice, but depth can also leave you with too many mouths to feed. We can definitely get talented kids in the 17 class unless the way this year is going is the new normal.
As far as Lightfoot goes, the kid played High School Ball in a lower division class in a state not exactly known for its basketball. It’s kind of like Kansas, just not a lot of guys cut out for a school like KU. The last guy we got from AZ didn’t pan out (Royce) and he was just not prepared to play for KU. I see Mitch as the same thing, he’s got talent but I just don’t feel its the talent KU needs going forward. He’s not going to play freshman year, we need at least 1 impact plug in freshman big. 2 would be great insurance…so he’s the 3rd wheel or potentially 6th wheel next year??
I’ll welcome any kid here, I just have a hard time seeing the vision right now.
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Mitch did not have the elite conference East-West Coast, big city exposure than the other kids have and has been flying under the radar. He might surprise a lot of people.
Frans is not a bad judge of talent and really not a bad analyst…unless his kid’s team is involved…:)
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@JayHawkFanToo I have no respect for him! Can’t stand him announcing our games. He’s a big suck up!
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@franfraschilla: With two of the best point guards in the country, Texas’ Isaiah Taylor and Iowa State’s Monte Morris. https://t.co/ZBk4SxQkc5
