Diallo- First Impression
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…dealing with mild-mannered Perry Ellis caused Fred Hoiberg to throw a chair (during a timeout in the BigXII conf championship tournament 2yrs ago). Seeing KU load up with Bragg + Diallo, and having a senior Ellis playing better than ever…caused Hoiberg to throw in the towel.
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@ralster Bragg is so good and we aren’t really even talking about him! He, along with Traylor, were the guys to really go out and get offensive rebounds to get us rolling in the second half.
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Wow, what a blast it was to watch that game last night. Its been a while since I enjoyed watching a game that much. My comments/reactions:
- Finally, we won the opening tip off! As long as Mari is still taking them, he should make that a focus of his to win that for us every game.
- First half was blah. Team was flat but you could tell that Self’s rotation wasn’t focused on trying to push us to a lead. It was more of an attempt to get deeper into the bench early in the game while it was still close.
- Traylor: I agree with most on here that he has improved this year and he shows flashes. My opinion is that he is at his best when he is fresh, he seems to get tired quick and that’s when he gets lazy and his game falls off. So I am ok with him in the game for 2 minutes and then after that I’m ready for the others.
- I hope HCBS keeps working a deep rotation and does not feel like he has to trim it down come conference play. Keep using the bench, keep pushing the tempo. I am so excited to see how fast KU plays, it reminds me so much of the 2008 team out there. There are so many players that can be the high scorer on any given night, its too hard to stop everyone. Also, beating the other team down the court for a layup after a made basket is absolutely tremendous. If they keep that pace up I think there is a great chance that we hang another banner this year.
- Seems the press has been abandoned for now. Would like to see it employed but as long as they keep the pace at full throttle on offense running the break we can win without it.
- CD was exactly what I expected. He showed flashes of greatness. He also showed flashes of inexperience/rawness. I think coach needs to get him as many minutes as possible in December and get him some experience before conference play. At this moment, I think Bragg is the better player for KU in a close game scenario. I would rather have Bragg on the court than CD. As @benshawks08 posted above, nobody is really talking about him much but he has been tremendous too.
- Vick has a bright future. The guy has big time hops and can defend well. He showed he can score well too at the WUG. If he gets enough work in December and gets familiar with the systems, etc., I could easily see him being a key to a win a few times this year if Frank or Devante get into early foul trouble and we need him to step up.
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@Statmachine Chieck undoubtedly WILL PLAY a lot of minutes if he can keep himself on the floor & fouling under control. Traylor will see his minutes reduced slightly, but the biggest losers may be LL & Mick…it all depends on Chiecks ability to stay outta foul trouble. However conf is all about attrition so a deep roster in the frontcourt will ultimately be very valuable. Injuries begin to pile up at some point, so how this all shakes out is really anyones guess.
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Last night was (or should have been) the beginning of the end as far as double figure minutes for Traylor and Lucas. They have represented KU well during their time in Lawrence. They have been great Jayhawks and I will be happy for both when they start and give their speeches on senior night in a couple of months. They both deserve that and should be applauded for it.
But from a pure basketball standpoint, last night made it quite obvious that the rotation should be Diallo and Ellis starting up front, with Bragg off the bench and Mickelson picking up some minutes as well. On the perimeter, it should be the current starters plus Svi and either Vick or Greene, depending on if we need offense or defense. That’s the rotation that our talent dictates. At this point, I think we even should go Vick over Greene because Vick provides another potential ball handler.
There were so many moments last night where it was clear that our best four bigs are Ellis, Diallo, Bragg and Mickelson. Diallo’s chase down block in the second half comes to mind. There aren’t many college bigs that can make that play. Seeing him play last night, Diallo confirmed my suspicions - he raises the ceiling on this team.
It also made it clear that Bragg is at worst our third best big. He’s already likely our best passing big man and may be the best overall ball handler once he gets a bit more confident in his skills. Perry will continue to be steady and I think the fact that he can be a contributor instead of the star is really helping him. Perry can get you 12-15 a night and, if at the end of the day we are talking about Selden, Mason and Diallo, I think that helps Perry even more because he doesn’t have the burden of making every play when he ends up in a bad matchup.
It’s also clear that Mickelson is absolutely deserving of that last big rotation spot. His shot blocking and offensive skills make him the easy choice. He can do everything Lucas can, at Lucas’ size, but slightly better. I feel bad that Landen is going to lose his spot while he is injured, but I can’t see a path for him to get back in the rotation now that Diallo is available.
I think Greene is in the same position in his competition with Svi and Vick. Getting suspended is always dumb, but getting suspended when you are competing with a couple of guys that can play is really dumb.
Self has to walk a careful line here, because basketball is the easiest sport to see who should be playing. Self can praise Jamari all he wants, but its abundantly clear that Bragg and Diallo are better at basketball than Jamari is. And if that’s clear to us as fans, I can be pretty sure that’s clear to the players in practice. It’s not like Diallo and Bragg don’t give effort. If that was the case, I would be all for keeping Jamari in the rotation to keep the effort high. But Diallo gives great effort. Bragg actually probably needs to pace himself a bit more so he isn’t rushing offensively.
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@justanotherfan Great post! I like every point you made.
The biggest difference between Jamari Traylor and Landen Lucas: Traylor is by far the better athlete. Lucas can be a got-fouls-to-give “banger”. Hunter is simply more nimble-footed than Lucas also. Foot speed is a commodity in most sports, and you cannot coach that. Nor does it seem that Huditioning changes it much.
Hunter Mickelson was a top50 recruit, and you can tell. Lucas was not in the top100, and you can tell. Traylor is an Xfactor, depending on the opposition’s roster. I DO hold in the highest esteem the fact that Traylor throws his body around like Mason and Selden. We need that! I would easily bestow the J.Haase “FloorBurns” award to Jamari Traylor. He has upheld that KU tradition!
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@HighEliteMajor I’m not as sure about Izzo. Davis comes off the bench and he is pretty talented and touted.
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@JRyman As mentioned, I didn’t see the game. And I just pulled the stats from some site this morning when I couldn’t sleep, I obviously got his stats wrong, my bad.
Also, I’m a big Self fan, and happy to have him here. If he says Traylor was the best guy, who am I to disagree. It’s just there’s been a lot of talk around Traylors play lately and when I saw the stats (either incomplete or I misread them completely) it made me scratch my head and hope someone who did watch the game would fill me in. HCBS, and heck just about everybody on these boards knows more about basketball than I do.
My first post of the season and I hosed it up pretty good! Think I’ll go back to just reading now…
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@Jyhwk_InTigrtwn Don’t stop posting now!! Heck it can only get better. I mean does anyone wrote “the old man and the sea” their first time out? NO.
So keep reading keep posting and have fun.
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Sasha and Darnell were both ESPN top 100 kids. I’m not big on comparing them to Lucas and Traylor.
But you have to admit, the GROWTH of our bigs has slowed down considerably since Danny left.
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@mihawk Fully agree. Darnell was a stud his senior year. The starter on a National Title team. Kaun was really key off the bench. That was what made that team so special. There were really no holes. Great guards. Great wings. Great post and tons of depth.
If Landen ever comes close to being as good as Darnell or Sasha I will be more than thrilled.
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Comments from Perry Elli after the game (from kuathletics.com)
On the change of tempo on the second half:
"Jamari (Traylor) came out and made some plays at the beginning of the half to set the intensity defensively and got the rest of us going."
It looks like the players appreciate Traylor more than some posters do…just sayin’
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@Jyhwk_InTigrtwn What @JRyman said … keep posting.
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@HighEliteMajor I’ve never told anyone to stop posting. Just to try and not be such a negative Nancy about what they say over and over and over again.
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I totally agree that this was the most intriguing lineup:
Mason-Graham-Vick-Bragg-Diallo
They even replaced one of Graham and Mason with Svi.
- This is our most athletic lineup.
- We can balance Vick’s lack of offense with Svi. But we also have Bragg and Diallo, also offensive improvements over our the usual 4 and 5 combination.
- Our bigs will no longer be blocked into oblivion
- This is very close to our best defensive lineup
I agree that it’s time to see what we have here.
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@betterfireE I was most intrigued by Graham-Selden-Svi-Diallo-Mickelson. The length of that lineup is crazy. They were altering and pressuring everything! To me this was the all-disruption team for KU.
But FM-DG-LV-CB-CD could be the all-futures! Though don’t know how long we will hold on to all of them.
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@JRyman You misunderstood. I was reiterating what you said, saying “what @JRyman said” – you had said “Don’t stop posting now”, and I agreed.
But I will try not to be a negative Nancy, nonetheless.
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@HighEliteMajor Ahhh OK no worries. All a good
Rock chalk
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I too, loved this lineup! Got heighth and length on guys and shot and passing lane disruption bigtime.
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@BeddieKU23 Oh yah, I jumped out of my seat when Diallo had that tomahawk jam…with the other hand on his head. Play of the game right there. I agree. With him out there, KU is a different team from a speed and energy standpoint. He is a little raw offensively still but I believe he will be ready for the big prime time match up with Kensucky at AFH on Jan 30th!
Anyone know if there will be celebrities at that game? Seems like we havent seen my most favorite Ms Wilde for some time and Ashley Judd likes to travel with her blue kitties.
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@JayHawkFanToo Clearly perry doenst understand basketball or team play. Hasnt he taken a hard look at jamari’s stats ??
Perry needs to log on to this site to really learn about the strengths and weaknesses of his coach and teammates. Sad really
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Good one…you almost had me going…
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Channel-surfing tonight, I see Jim Boeheim on the sidelines for Syracuse. The same Jim Boeheim that the NCAA suspended a bunch of games.
So let me get this right…according to the NCAA he’s innocent until proven guilty, so he gets to coach while his case is “pending.”
Meanwhile, according to the same NCAA, Diallo was guilty till proven innocent. (Or at least until HCBS and Zenger raised holy hell in the media.)
Where’s the consistency in all this ?
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Don’t forget Rick Pitino who is currently being investigated as well!
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@benshawks08 Poetic justice that they both lost tonite !
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@JayHawkFanToo Perry didn’t say that, self did. Guess I’m wrong, sorry. I watched post game and heard self praise Mari, didn’t hear Perry say that. LJW says he did, so I’m probably wrong.
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@nwhawkfan He is suspended from 9 ACC games. That is actually more important than 9 games at the beginning of the season. Of course that may not be important if he isn’t interested in winning the conference championship. He is also having 108 of his wins removed from his record. His case is no longer pending. His punishment has been upheld.
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@sfbahawk New article on ESPN says that the 9 game ban can start immediately and does not need to wait until ACC.
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Here is the link to the KU AD web site with the recap of the game and interviews from players; scroll down to see the comments from several players.
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@JayHawkFanToo I saw that. I did hear Self say that about Mari.
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I guess his teammates agree with coach that Jamari does bring something valuable.that cannot be quantified or characterized with number and/or statistics.
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@JayHawkFanToo I love the Traylor defenses. He brings something “that cannot be quantified or characterized with number and/or statistics.” Can’t argue with that. But then you had to add the word “valuable.”
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@JayHawkFanToo The poor, deluded guys. I attribute this to a 15 minute session after each practice where Bill Self beats Jamari’s abilities into their heads. Brainwashing at the highest level. What the heck do high level D1 players really know about the game.
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…well…his coach and teammates seem to think he does bring something “valuable” albeit no–quantifiable, I believe the term is “intangibles” and most teams in all sports have players like this, not that uncommon really. Look at players like Hinrich and Collison, to name two Jayhawks, if you look at their numbers you wonder why they are even playing but their teams see the “intangibles” they bring to the table and pay them big money to deliver.
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HCBS MAKES AS MUCH SENSE AS THIS GUY WHEN IT COMES TO TRAYLOR!
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OR THIS
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“Did anyone watch the game and think this is Joel 2.0?? I got that feeling watching his variety of highlights.”
I’m thinking he is more like a TRob as a sophomore.
He is definitely more developed than a freshman TRob. But… those two seem to compare closer together. TRob had a great motor… but I think Cheick’s motor is even revved higher!
Cheick is a bit raw, but he isn’t as raw as many like to claim he is. He hit a baby jumper on the baseline. No one too raw can do that.
His potential window is limitless. With his work ethic and hustle I expect to see him become a totally different player by March.
“It is clear to see that he changes this team in so many positive ways”
Bingo! It isn’t just his play. He is going to inspire the rest of our guys to hustle more. I was glad to read that Wayne is very connected to Cheick. Wayne is a guy that needs to focus in on something to keep him inspired. If Cheick and Wayne can feed energy off of each other all year long… we are in for a LONG RUN in March!
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@HighEliteMajor Amen to that brother. Start Diallo now while we have a few practice games in front of us. Or at the very least, the very absolute least, give him starters minutes. 20+
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@BeddieKU23 Gathers might be the best post guy in the big 12 this year.
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“I love the Traylor defenses. He brings something “that cannot be quantified or characterized with number and/or statistics.” Can’t argue with that. But then you had to add the word “valuable.””
Ha…
I’m thinking the main “non-quantifiable” asset Jamari brings is his hustle (that is usually wasted because of poor basketball IQ). His hustle perhaps helps other guys stay motivated.
How will that work out moving forward when Cheick brings triple the hustle Jamari brings and 10x the results?
Will the other players still even notice Jamari’s effort?
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@mihawk Christian Moody MD. He is really cool. I met him at KUMC, when i still worked there, a few years ago.
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I have to admit… the level of my man crush on Cheick is over the top.
Even my wife is rolling her eyes.
But… she said, “at least he will never play like a big p-word!”
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“Gathers might be the best post guy in the big 12 this year.”
Should be very fun for us fans to watch Rico and Cheick mix it up in the paint!
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@drgnslayr Yeah, I think Self is trying to lower expectations big time by constantly saying that Cheick is really raw. But you are right, he isnt as raw as what many think. I have a feeling he will be similar to Joel and learn very quickly.
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Or a subtle way of making it look like our coaches developed more of his game than the reality.
“Raw” players don’t put up those kinds of numbers in just a few minutes by playing raw.
But his upside is so friggin’ off the charts that might as well call him “raw” because by March we probably won’t recognize him as the same player. A big part of that relates to how hard he works in practice.
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@drgnslayr I think he is very special on many levels. I think he makes our team elite.
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Devin Williams for West Virginia is playing at a high level so far and has been a guy who’s always played out of his mind against KU (think Wiggins game 2 years ago). Spangler has shown an outside shot added to his rebounding and solid play as well. Mckay has been solid for ISU. All these guys will see Diallo in the future and hopefully he’s the equalizer that limits these guys…
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He’s just not polished, there’s a degree of unpredictability when he touches the ball, but the risk/reward factor of what we have already seen glimpses of, far outweighs just labeling him raw. He’s got plenty of skill even if his defense is above his offensive ability right now. I think he’s been unfairly labeled raw just because he’s not the traditional throw it in the post, or stretch big that can shoot out to the perimeter. He’s just that athletically gifted hybrid forward that just needs game time and coaching to advance his skill set. I’m certain that his stat lines won’t always be as pretty as the Loyola game but I’m certain its not the last time we see games like that as well.
