Why Loyola,MD, or Getting to know GG
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GG Smith is Tubbie Smith’s kid. Self is doing Tubby a favor, and getting some KU branding in the Bo-Wash corridor.
GG played for Tub at Georgia, then Tub got him on the UK staff.
From there, GG joined John Patsos at Loyola MD.
Patsos had assisted Gary Williams at Maryland and turned Loyola into a minor giant killer with an upset of Indiana.
GG replaced Patsos.
GG will probably have Loyola playing some of Tubbie’s physical line side defense.
And Tub will tell GG about Bill’s strength’s and weaknesses, especially about BAD BALL.
Ought to be a blow out, but KU needs to take care of business and not let Loyola hang around too long, Loyola will muddy it up and start putting a hurt on KU players. If KU were cold, this would be how upsets happen.
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@jaybate-1.0 It seems, with the new rules, that a physical Big10 type of game is not as easy to make happen. Cant push off a defensive player with your forearm, cant defend the rim with your arms held out even a bit less than 180*. I suppose hard fouls can still be given. But, I hope things like we saw happen last season are becoming fewer and far between. Cant bash a guys nose into his skull with your forearm, on either side of the ball, without getting called for it…I hope.
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Looking at Loyola (MD), they’re really bad.
That got me looking at Loyola (Chicago) and Milton Doyle. Putting together a nice college career.
I have fond memories of Milton’s brother. He really liked me.
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I always wished we had found a way to have hung onto Doyle.
I knew sooner or later we would be able to use a long point guard, especially if Self moved to two guard offenses.
Doyle would now be the long guard we need Svi, or Vick to be out front, the long, ball-handling guard that Selden has never been able to develop either the passing vision or the dribbling to be.
One thing Izzo exposed was how vulnerable Mason and Devonte are to big guards that can guard, muscle and handle the ball. Frank and Devonte are tough for their sizes, but Frank is wiry and Devonte is synthetic strength, and both fall in the short range of perimeter guards. There morphologies and abilities give them lots of advantages against guards that are tall and slow footed, or short and not very strong. But when they ran into quick, strong and long guards of MSU, they really struggled.
I am hoping Self shifts gears on trying to make Svi a 3, and spends the next three games redirecting him into the first guard off the bench. Svi is carrying to much weight to play point guard now, but Self can move either Frank, or Devonte into that role 5 minutes into the game and come with Svi and KU’s future will be a lot safer than relying on Vick the Stick this season. We have to be able to apply some muscle in the back court against teams like MSU, or we will be an L waiting to happen. I really like Vick the Stick and expect him to become quite an exceptional player, but I just don’t think being able to body with MSU guards is within his reach this season. Hence, I encourage retooling Svi for the 2, and letting Perry be the backup at the 3, especially with Diallo available now in the front court. This lets us keep our composite five with Diallo getting ten minutes at the 5 and ten minutes at the 4, and, if Diallo developed rapidly, then take 10 at the 4 and 15-20 at the 5 by January, February, or March.
These 40 minute nights for Selden are stupid from a long term stand point. I know Self is trying to see if cramming Selden with playing time will finally burn the neural nets in to allow consistency, but I just don’t think Wayne is ever going to be a consistent player. His mood and his focus will likely limit him until he reaches 23-25 and full neural net grow in.
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@jaybate-1.0 I don’t really know why Doyle transferred, maybe he just didn’t like being “insurance policy” that was not needed? I truly felt bad for the spindly-fiber of a kid he is, when he hurt his ankle against WSU early last season.
Personally, I think Self always has preferred to have 2 ball-handling guards on the floor, as he did with Russell/Mario, then Tyshawn/Sherron, then Tyshawn/Elijah. We suffered when it was EJ alone or Naadir alone. I see Mason + Devonte, and I see that old familiar versatility show up again that was there in years past.
If Selden’s aggressiveness on driving the ball holds up, maybe he has turned the corner in developing that. I personally have always thought he had court vision, and that pass ahead to Ellis on the break in the UCLA game, and all the drives he did vs Vandy simply make me hope this is the “new improved” Selden? (we’ll see…)
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@Lulufulu Speaking of nose bashers, WSU took their 4th loss today, 3 of them in a week. Damn the luck…
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@globaljaybird I was just thinking that. They now have as many losses this season as they had all last year. Maybe they will print t-shirts.
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“Svi is carrying to much weight to play point guard now…”
I’ve been holding off on saying this… but Svi looks to be slower than he was last year. Maybe he gained weight the wrong way. He seems to have put on too much weight too fast. I wonder what is body fat count is now versus last year?
We should never try to add weight to a player if it will slow him down.
That seems to be perhaps his biggest hurdle now. He needs to increase his foot speed.
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2-4 with one of those wins being Emporia State and the other Charleston Southern. Marshall should have got going when the getting going was good.
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@Kip_McSmithers think cf will make a difference? Van vleet will be back sat.
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@Crimsonorblue22 Northern Iowa is picked to win conf & if WSU keeps losing at this pace they’ll have to win their tournament just to make thedance…they better hope CF can make a HUGE diff…I agree with Kip; Marshall, Fred & Baker shoulda all beat feet when they were such hot shot commodities…
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@globaljaybird Fred and baker tested the waters, nothing positive there.
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Marshall is probably kicking himself for not leaving when he was a hot commodity; to his credit, he chose to stay with the player that brought the program back. Once Van Vleet is back they should be much better but realistically speaking, the perfect storm at WSU is pretty much over after this season.
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We will take care of business
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If Chita State is not good enough make the tourney and let us beat them into flour there, then let’s offer to replace Washburn with Chita State in exhibition and beat them by a hundred points!
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