A Pure Embarrassment
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I just want to stay in bed and CRY this morning.
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So I just checked the box score and according to ESPN Devonte had 38 minutes! 38! That means he was only not in the game for 2 minutes! The only other player on the floor that much was Valentine! And what in the world did Devonte show that game to cause Greene to sit? Or move Perry to the 3 to help the awful rebounding? Or play 4 on 5?
I love Devonte. Last year he quickly grew to be one of my favorites. But ask him if he had a great game last night. Even a good game. Was he the best player on the floor? No way he says yes! And this is not on Devonte. He did not show a lack of effort. He made some bad decisions early that plagued his mindset for the rest of the game. Did he ever have a chance to think about his decisions? Reboot his mindset? Bad coaching decision.
That said, the players should have won this game in the first half and never allowed poor coaching down the stretch to matter. KU was way better all half and left up 6 due to poor execution of a solid game plan.
Second half adjustments? Odd substitutions (or lack there of)? Those are questions for Self. But again, none of that should have mattered. This team didn’t “crack it open” as Self likes to say when they had many chances to do so.
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FYI I am still crying.
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I don’t believe Graham has looked good so far in exhibitions games etc. small sample size but he’s seems to have the green light whenever he feels like it, the same guy who’s supposed to be the opposite of Mason and gets people easy baskets. 20% from the field and 20% from 3 are just awful #'s to look at. I get its early but man talk about throwing up some bricks
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“So I just checked the box score and according to ESPN Devonte had 38 minutes! 38! That means he was only not in the game for 2 minutes! The only other player on the floor that much was Valentine! And what in the world did Devonte show that game to cause Greene to sit?”
Well… you are right! Devonte had a horrible game!
But let’s step backwards for a minute, and broaden our perspectives.
I’m pretty sure I have some others who also feel this way… but isn’t Devonte a player that has potential to be a real game-changer?
What if Devonte can become the one to carry a chip? He seems to have a personality drawn towards wanting to be the leader and to be at the top. Maybe a game like this, having played all but 2 minutes, is what he needed to take OWNERSHIP of his failure! He can’t really put the blame somewhere else. Yes… it is a team effort, but accountability breaks down to individual performances. Maybe he can bounce back from this with desire, energy, aggressiveness and start leading this team.
What bothered me the most was the performance from Frank.
I really expected him to come through…
Is this the beginning of the “changing of the guard?” Is Devonte going to step up now and lead this team instead of Frank?
We’ve been edging towards this for a while.
I hope CS realizes that it can be a great thing to have two PGs in a game… but there can only be ONE LEADER!
One of those guys is going to have to take possession of that team.
'08 is not the norm. We had leadership through 3 guards. That is very rare, and it took a miracle come back to win and beat an opponent that didn’t have near the talent/experience we had.
I’ve always kind of wondered if that was the wrong message learned by CS.
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“FYI I am still crying.”
Come on, Stat… BOUNCE BACK!
The only reason this can hurt for too long if you had ambitions of “perfection.” The same “perfection” Calipari had last year.
That isn’t a healthy perspective to have.
You better prepare yourself for more losses… because they are going to come. And unless we find the missing piece it will come in March, too.
This team was over-rated. WUG built plenty of delusion of the quality of this team. I say that, but we DO have the potential for greatness… but it isn’t going to come over night. Lots of hard work and struggle to get there.
There will be a new day for battle. Jump out of the trench and run forward with all guns drawn, buddy!
This could easily be the best thing to happen to us!
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Frustrating last ten minutes last night, but it’s so fun to have college basketball back. Couple thoughts from the game…
The only justification Self could ever have to play either Lucas or Traylor is that they help on the glass and on the defensive end. It’s clearly never been about their offense (understatement of the year). What we saw last night, especially in the last 7 minutes, was a team that couldn’t get a defensive rebound and an MSU team that had no fear of having their shot blocked at the rim. If Lucas and Traylor can’t provide blocked or altered shots at the rim or get a defensive rebound, then they have no purpose being on the court. It’s been multiple years and we’ve yet to see either of those things from them so to expect that to appear now seems a bit too optimistic for me and why it’s so frustrating to see them continually get the playing time that they do.
With how good of a shooting team this is, I think it’s great to have guards who can break down defenses off the dribble. That said, when Mason/Graham/Selden drove last night, it was often reckless and out of control. Rarely saw eyes up looking for shooters to dish to and often left them taking tough shots or getting a charge. Add that to having no real offense other than having the guards just drive and create their own shot, it makes for just plain bad offense.
I always enjoy the discussions here. Glad to have a place to talk KU hoops.
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@drgnslayr I hope you are right. We surely can’t complain about Self using the early hook on him and wrecking his confidence that way. I wonder if playing through some early losses could be a benefit for this team. Will we have a better chip with a mediocre season and a 3-6 seed for the tournament?
A chip is usually developed after going through or overcoming some form of adversity. I’m not sure whether it is fortunate or unfortunate that these early season games (especially against good teams) end up mattering very little for us most years. Will this early season loss be enough to build that chip or will we need to suffer a few more setbacks?
I too worry that constantly trying to recreate 2008 is the real fools gold. That team was special and times have changed.
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This was me last night!
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@drgnslayr This team was over-rated. WUG built plenty of delusion of the quality of this team.
But Self didn’t play the WUG roster…he left Mickelson on the bench all but 3 minutes.
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@Bwag do you think our ranking was due to having diallo?
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on paper there isn’t 4 better teams out there, we just didn’t play to the ranking last night in the last 8 minutes or so.
Even without Diallo we have what 9 guys Soph & up…Hard not to be ranked high. Duke was a top 10 team on paper but they didn’t play to their ranking either.
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Thanks for the laugh. I think you set me straight again. It was a little warped after that KU game last night.
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@Crimsonorblue22 probably, but everything we have heard about Diallo was that he was more raw than Bragg. So I’m not sure having him now would be the magic in the near term. We are good enough to protect the ranking we have, but not if Self plays Lucas/Traylor consistently.
I’m not sure with them in the game that it doesn’t upset the balance of the overall system, putting pressure on the guards to feel they have to compensate and thence come out like they did last night.
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What was most frustrating to me is to again see Self panic halfway through the second half and go to the “just drive it to the rim Frank/Andrew/Elijah/Tyshawn/Sherron offense”… you know, the offensive strategy that has ended every NCAA tournament since 2008.
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What O What could be going on between Bill Self and Hunter Mickelson??? There is hardly one poster on this Buckets site who does not believe that, given court time, Hunter Mickelson could play circles around Lucas and Traylor. The cautious insertion of Bragg last night I can well understand; altho the way MSU played the game was perhaps conducive to Carlton’s gleaning more minutes. But the real enigma so far this season has been Mickelson’s limited duty. If not due to injury, there must be some serious disciplinary stuff going on between Hunter and his coach. His inactivity appears to be snuffing the chances for this squad to develop into a top contender.
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It looks to me like the key to beating this Kansas team (or lineup, anyway) is to defend the three point line. With zero looks for our two best shooters, we look just average. Unfortunately, Bill makes it very easy to defend the 3 because he runs no 3pt offense. You just have to stay within 5 ft. of a stationary man when the ball’s on this side of the court. I don’t doubt that that was part of Izzo’s game plan and I’ll bet we’ll see more of it throughout the season.
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Good points have been made. Self leaves himself open to second guessing on the line up when the guys that play don’t get it done (Lucas, Traylor). My biggest gripe is the wild shots off of penetration that Devonte (especially) and also Frank continued to put up. A lot of those had no chance. And give Greene and Svi a chance to show their stuff a little more. Shave some minutes from Graham and Selden. The criticism of Self is probably justified…some of the same things keep happening. That will continue to be the case. I’ll still take him. But you have to sit back and take this for what it was…an early season loss to a ranked opponent with a great coach and a very good player (maybe great…I don’t know) that had a great night. We didn’t play well…Is that the first time that has happened? No, and it won’t be the last. It happens.
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@RockChalkinTexas I don’t disagree with your sentiment. Its a young season, and maybe this team (that couldn’t take 1/3rd of the roster to WUG/Korea) needed a reality-check that a top15 team isn’t going to fold up and go away. Yes, they will learn. Yes, our gold-medal winners need to feel the sting of defeat just to refocus them.
But I also thing @HighEliteMajor raises proper discussion points. We HAVE more talented kids than Lucas sitting on the bench (Hunter, Bragg). Hunter a top50 recruit. Bragg an F’n McDAA that you know Calipari would be giveng 20mpg to right from Day 1 because Calipari wants what a 20mpg Bragg can give in March Madness. I’d say that philosophy works.
We’ve given all the mpg needed to see nothing, nuthin!..out of Lucas.
I will differ from @HighEliteMajor just a little bit regarding Traylor, who I think should be the 4th big, because he does hustle, he seems to be boxing out for rbds better, he dives on the floor, he puts pressure on the D with his dribble drive, makes his FTs, and apparently he has developed a 10-12ft pullup J, …none of which Lucas has. Nor can anyone say Jamari lacks in confidence. Wish I could say the same about Lucas’ body language, but when you got no game, how much confidence can you truly have?
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@JRyman Man, Ryman…you…you…actually pulled a rose out of a pile-o-crap…!
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Frankly, lets put the WHOLE ARGUMENT about Hunter’s weight and Bragg’s weight to rest right now!
The logic goes something like this:
How many of Calipari’s 6’9 “athletics” weigh more than 220?
Kevin Young, our starting 4 man in 2013, was 190, a fact which should shame any further mention of the weight issue.
Calipari’s 220 lb kids GET mpg…
Kevin Young got mpg, and had heart…
Jeff Withey never got much past 225lbs…
If we don’t change something in the post-rotation lineup, we will get a Tourney exit, which is exactly what this loss felt like…
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Everyone stop posting for a while, please. I need to get back to reality/work!!
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Anybody who watched the game last night saw just how skinny Carlton Bragg is. According to KU, he weighs 220 lbs. Does anybody actually believe he weighs 220?
I don’t remember if it was here or not, but somebody actually said MSU’s style of play was conducive for Carlton Bragg, really? 4 points, 1 foul and goose eggs in every other category is conducive? Mid range jumper is all Bragg can do right now because he’s too damn skinny and weak to hold his position. He had this issue in Korea as well, but because KU steam rolled just everybody, it was overlooked.
KU needs help in the low post, but Carlton Bragg is not the answer because he is not a physical presence. The rotation really needs to be Mickelson, Traylor, Lucas in that order with Bragg subbing for Ellis exclusively. When/if Diallo gets eligible, he moves behind Mickelson and gets more minutes as his skills develop.
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@ralster I have the same issues with the progress (or lack thereof) of Lucas as everyone else. I didn’t select him or anyone else individually to lay blame or focus on. I was putting my disappointment out there on the whole team. I sense people venting but honestly it is only the SECOND game of a very long season.
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Keegan’s ratings
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I rewatched part of the game and noticed there were times when Traylor didn’t get a rebound, and I know what you guys are thinking, “really!??” But he not only sealed his guy off but pushed his man into another MSU player allowing Mason or Ellis to get the rebound.
I’m not sure what hurt him more last night, landing on the ball on the floor weirdly, or when he lost his footing and almost got landed on by an MSU player?
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“But Self didn’t play the WUG roster…he left Mickelson on the bench all but 3 minutes.”
He did play the WUG roster… for the final game against Germany!
Lucas got the big minutes in that one.
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@drgnslayr What I saw in Hunter last night in limited mins. was he didn’t move on offense, he stayed on the block, he set a screen three feet away from his teammate that couldn’t be used. On D he ran down in the paint which is what he is to do, but he was under the basket, making Graham have to come off his man and leaving him open for a three, it ended up being a make.
He had one foul, no biggie there.
Sparty scored 7 points in his three minute stretch. KU scored 2.
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The problem with Traylor?
He does actually offer us a big weapon on offense. When he commits to a low post drive, he is a threat to either score or feed for an assist. But… that requires us to actually run offense.
This ended up being a BAD BALL second half…
If we are going to run BAD BALL as a game strategy, we are better off giving minutes to Hunter and Carlton. Hunter does give us some defense and boards. Carlton… why not give a star freshman more experience minutes?
If you give a guy just a few minutes of a game, he doesn’t take OWNERSHIP of that game. Carlton didn’t play long enough to take ownership. We can’t point a finger at his play and level the blame on him. If he had received more minutes in this game, we might have won… but more… had we lost, he would have had to carry the burden of ownership on that loss, which will typically help a freshman bear down beyond that game.
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@drgnslayr I really like your point about “playing enough minutes to take ownership & responsibility for the loss”. It applies to Devonte as a learning experience, and maybe a bit for Mason. But there were at least 2 or 3 Mason’s missed bunnies that were ohhh, so close…much closer than the weird stuff Devonte was throwing up.
Classic case of forcing the action doesn’t put you at your best, whilst letting the “game come to you” in rhythm gives better reproducibility because muscle memory gets flustered and affected by the adrenaline of stress. Late in games, losing, we call that the “pucker factor”. Interestingly, in 2008, Chalmers and Sherron never puckered.
Lucas, unfortunately for him and for KU, is showing us there is “no” window of productivity, regarding his ability. I am down on him, but not so down on the team. I am a bit down on Self, but, hey, this is his baby to re-adjust. Sink or swim.
My son told me we don’t play a ranked team again until our conference opener vs Baylor in early Jan.
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@RockChalkinTexas I get that it is only the second game of the year, but what makes you think that there will be any improvement? This looks like the same team from the past two seasons.
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@wrwlumpy yep! put bolts on Jamari’s neck, Self’s neck and Lucas too
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Bracketology: Kansas’ loss not as costly as some might think
November 18, 2015 3:04 am ET
Jerry Palm CBS Sports
Last week, we unveiled my preseason bracket projection. The preseason bracket is unique in one important way. It is the only bracket I will do this season that tries to predict what the final bracket in March will look like.
Doing something like that before a single game has been played requires using a LOT of assumptions. If you follow college basketball regularly, you will not be surprised to learn that one of those assumptions is that nobody is going undefeated in the regular season. Oh, sure, it happened last year with Kentucky and the year before with Wichita State, but those are the only two teams in a quarter of a century to finish the regular season without a loss. So, I like my chances with that assumption.
That brings us to Tuesday night. Kansas, one of my projected No. 1 seeds, lost to Michigan State in the Champions Classic in Chicago. Two good teams went at it and one of them had to lose.
However, that loss does not preclude Kansas from becoming a top seed this March. In fact, with the relative expected strength of the Jayhawks’ schedule, they could probably lose another handful of games before you start wondering if they can still be a No. 1 seed.
So, it’s not time to hit the panic button yet. This isn’t football. One loss isn’t going to keep you out of the playoff, and it may not even keep you out of the top four.
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@RockChalkinTexas Well…let’s see if this coach and this team can earn a 1-seed. Nothing is given, it must be earned.
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@wrwlumpy Jamari’s statline of 6pts/7rbds/4for4FTs (100%) is about all we can expect from a role player. Jamari Traylor isn’t the reason we lost this game (see all guys ranked below Mason…). Heck, he had enough wherewithal to stay focused at the FT line and hit every one of them, unlike some of our starters in this 1 game.
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One additional note: KU announcers said during the exhibition games that “the WUG was extremely physical, couldn’t buy a foul call”, while in the NCAA we have a big readjustment to undertake.
It seemed to me that Self’s gameplan was to have Mason, Graham, and Selden FORCE the action and dribble drive to try to draw fouls. But the refs didn’t call it as tight as they did the 2 exhib games, for sure. Self has also said in the past: drive to “pass”, not just drive to score. The 1 time in the 2nd half we find Selden in the corner, he hits a 3. But we let Valentine score 2 x 2pts in the same sequence of 3 possessions. Bad D, net -1 pt.
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So many threads on last night’s game - good observations and analysis throughout. My takeaway. It wasn’t an embarrassing loss - MSU is a very good team and very well coached. In the abstract, losing a tight game to the Spartans on a neutral court isn’t anything to be ashamed of.
What is disconcerting is that we’ve seen this movie before - the second half especially was eerily similar to each of our losses down the stretch last year. Blowing leads, shortening the bench in the second half (notwithstanding that using the bench contributed to getting leads in the first place), abandoning any semblance of running an offense (resorting to Bad Ball), and failing to get ANY defensive stops.
Admittedly, one game is not much of a sample set, but it sure looks like that notwithstanding more experience and a supposedly deeper bench, 2016 will be a replay of 2015 (and '13 and '14) in too many respects:
Limited capability to execute the high-low; no low post scoring threat other than Perry (and although he got his points, he still struggled to score against the Spartan bigs).
No scheming for good three point looks.
Mason (and Graham) driving into the paint without looking to dish.
Selden driving in a straight line and flailing his arms when he gets anywhere near the hoop.
Missing bunnies and inability to finish at the rim.
Inability to protect the rim.
Inability to get ANY stops in crunch time.
Too many minutes going to Jamari and Landon.
Too few minutes going to younger, but clearly more talented players (in stark contrast to the Dukes, UKs, and MSUs of the world) who need the PT to be able to develop and overcome early freshmen mistakes.
As naseum, ad infinitum…
The bottom line is that we were outscored by 17 points over the last 9:30 of the game. We gave up 29 points during that stretch - works out to better than 120 ppg! Again, lack of offensive execution, and, more importantly, defensive breakdown very much like 4 or 5 of our losses late last year.
Do we have talent? Yes. Do we have depth? Yes. But we also have real demonstrable limitations, which means that we have to play to our strengths, rather than playing into the opponents hands.
As a result of recruiting failures running several years now, we cannot run the high-low effectively - it’s Fools Gold to try to do so. It was the hallmark of Self teams during his first decade, but we haven’t had anyone able to score consistently and efficiently down low against good competition since 2012.
Unfortunately, we are also not an especially good defensive team. Our perimeter players are perhaps just bit above average. None can consistently stop penetration and Mason and Graham are undersized. I continue to be of the view, based on 3 years of evidence, that Selden is actually a minus defender against better, quicker players; but definitely not a stopper. That puts more pressure on the interior defenders, but the sad fact is that we have virtually no interior defensive presence. Certainly no rim protection (other than Mickelson). Opposing guards and wings clearly don’t fear attacking the paint against us.
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. Because we do have more talent and athleticism than most teams, we will win 20+ games. But we won’t consistently win against better competition unless we (HCBS) can change stripes, adapt and play to our strengths. That means on the offensive end opening up the court and taking advantage of our speed, ability to shoot threes (with BG and Svi), which in turn should open up things for Perry down low. It means applying more pressure on the defensive end, shortening the clock and not allowing other teams to get into their sets as quickly. And, both mean taking advantage of our depth to wear down other teams and change personnel on the fly to take advantage of mismatches.
We’ll see. RCJH.
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@DCHawker Wonderful post. You explain the sick feeling that many Kansas fans have now. Why is their no development. How can can Michigan State’s post player develop a brand new post move over a summer when our bigs have been stagnant over that past couple of years. Why has Wayne Selden not developed over multiple years at KU. He dribbles the same, drives to the basket the same as when he first arrived here. And so on.
The thing that bothers me the most is really the poor defense. Even for a short interior team, we do not defend well. Look at a team like Wichita State or even Michigan State. They manage to challenge shots that we do not.
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i do not know if I would start Selden even. During the game they did a quick sideline interview with Izzo when they were down early, and he said something about Selden making 3’s and being streaky…He would take Selden shooting for us all day every day.
I am not really going into the sky is falling mode, Izzo may be the best, but I think Self is an elite head coach as well.
Mason, Svi, Greene, Ellis, and Hunter would probably be who I started awhile, ha.
Then you got Devonte, Selden off the bench and Bragg and Traylor as main subs. You could put Ellis at three sometimes and have Hunter and Bragg out there together sometimes. That would be at least more fun to watch than missing bunnies all day.
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@betterfireE You make a great point that I had neglected - player development, or lack thereof. I’m struggling to think of a player over the past few years who has markedly improved his skill set during his career. Perhaps Releford? Selden is almost exactly the same player he was coming in - ball handling skills appear to have not improved one iota - and his production has flat lined. Perry’s outside shooting has improved, and he does appear to be a bit quicker this year, but his overall low post game hasn’t changed much. He has never really learned or won’t ball fake, use an up and under, use the rim for protection - all reasons he struggles and will continue to struggle against L&A bigs. Based on their rankings and reps coming in, as well as early production, one might reasonably have expected them to dominate by this time - be consistent 20 and 15 ppg guys. Perry is still very good and Wayne is solid (most of the time), but as one poster put it in another thread, would either be starting for UK right now? Are they even the best in the B12? Perry will likely make first team all B12; Wayne?
