Bill's toughness games and players.
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From our friend @Jesse-Newell
What other games come to mind? What other players come to mind?
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How do you narrow down 300 some odd KU victories?
I think that beating Florida in Vegas during one of their championship years was a toughee.
The Duke game two years ago ranks up there for me as well.
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We all knew it, but I’m surprised to hear Self admit this:
Frank Mason:
Self’s comment: “…that dude will do anything you ask him to do when the game’s on the line. Last year, we had crap offense 50 percent of the season. ‘Hey Frank. Just drive it. Just take it.’ And he liked it…”
LOL
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This is one of the core values of Self101: toughness.
Beating Duke in Madison Square garden with the main stars being:
- Frank Mason (told me all I needed to know about that frosh in Nov., no less! And he shines ever brighter).
- Andrew Wiggins. (Game on the line, the last 3 min were HIS! NBA step-back J. Fouled-out his counterpart, Jabari Parker.
- Perry Ellis. (This McDAA came to play, and provided much of the early scoring.)
- Wayne Selden. (Key defense and hustle, especially late in the game. Key defensive stops, steal.)
- Jamari Traylor. (Surprised the crap out of Dookies, as the scouting report on Traylor driving the ball into the paint was scarce at that point. An athlete doing what athletes do. Energy. Nobody believes in him, yet he delivers when you don’t expect. Penchant for big games. Played his ass off vs MichSt last year, one of the few reasons we won that close contest also).
Other recent toughness games: KU vs UNC 08: Your first glimpse of Royball vs Selfball, and Self’s tough cookies from RussRob all the way to Cole, beat the schitt out of PsychoT & chums–twice in the same game.
KU vs Memphis 08: The penultimate KU toughness game of this generation. Period. Never say die.
KU 2012 Runner Up finish: Truly, folks–that team with Thomas Robinson + Withey, Releford, EJ (his best role), and Tyshawn–was right up there with 08 in toughness, just lacked a bench. The way they came back from the dead against Purdue & Robbie Hummel, was truly special. And they blasted UNC again outta the Tourney.
KU @ OU, Sherron vs Willie Warren and the World: Sherron’s personal never say die cements him as one of Self’s toughest players ever, even to the point of ignoring Self on the sideline, to serve Willie & his Sooner a big fat L right there in Lloyd Noble Arena.
KU @ IowaState, EJ pushes every button the Cyclones have In an unbelievable dogfight, EJ’s 39pts make him top dog. And turns Cyclone students, fans, administration into ridiculous goats by their sordid reactions. My lasting melancholy, however, is purely for Elijah’s sake: if he’d shown about 8-10 games/season over 25points, he’d have been an NBA draft pick.
3 successive B-tch-slappings of Purple in their own house: Sherrontagon-o-gloom, Tyshawntagon, Elijahgon. (Rock back and forth a little harder in your prayers, purple fools!).
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@wissoxfan83 You ask ‘how do you narrow down 300 some odd KU victories?’ Well, let me answer a little bit in the abstract: Any W that had players named Russell Robinson, Sherron Collins, Thomas Robinson, Cole Aldrich involved… That should about cover it, since they set and upheld the standard.
That being said, I totally agree with Self’s 6 picks: Tyshawn, Sherron, RussRob, TRob, Releford, and rock-solid F.Masonry.
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I’d like to say the 2013 team until they went brain dead against Michigan should be considered a tough team which won some tough games. We sometimes forget how close that team was to playing for the National Championship. Quite a roster with Jeff and Travis and BMac and Elijah among others.
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@wissoxfan83 I liked that team, too…but a few things changed from the year prior: gone was the heart and soul with Thomas Robinson and Tyshawn gone. Elijah needed Tyshawn, and perhaps didn’t like the spotlight on himself (unless you made him rarely mad, like at IowaSt and at Manhattan). Also, this team is responsible for the post-TCU comment by Self about “Topeka YMCA”. And that final game against Michigan, there were several things that happened the last 2-3 min by not only EJ, but BMac (missed right baseline drive point blank), Withey + KYo (didn’t go for a 50/50 ball that McGary quickly took for a reverse layup), and Releford absolutely disappeared. Also the backcourt “violation” was about 8.5-9.0 sec, so even the refs jumped in on it.
Also, the stiff-fist screen by EJ on Mitch McGary, was a bit manufactured, probably on Self’s order to the team to do it (as K.Young did to Marcus Smart same season), but if anybody knows EJ personally, that wasn’t him or his personality. He’d never done such a thing in his entire 4 years. Which is why I think Self gave the order, and maybe felt he had to, since this team lost a good bit of toughness when TRob and Tyshawn departed. We replaced Tyshawn with Naadir Tharpe, who was not like Tyshawn, nor like Frank Mason. He had a lot of self-doubt and was also not a physical player.This being said, I wanted a better ending for those seniors, Withey, Releford, and EJ!
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@wissoxfan83
Any game with Durant.
The Beasly-Huggins KSU games.
EVERY RATSO IZZO GAME.
That tourney game with Painter and Purdue.
MU games with Anderson.
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@jaybate-1.0 I presume that you mean MIKE Anderson?
