February 18: News Headlines Digest
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Also see our Daily Threads, February 18, and the News Digest for Yesterday, February 17, as well as Daily Threads for Yesterday, February 17
##Dodd: Black adjusts to being outside KU spotlight##
LAWRENCE — Tarik Black carried a bag of fresh food as he moved through a hallway inside Allen Fieldhouse on Saturday evening. It was nearly 75 minutes after Kansas’ 95-65 blitzkrieg of TCU, and the autograph line outside the Jayhawks’ locker room was still two or three people deep. Most of the Kansas players were long gone, their dinner in tow, but for the last 20 minutes Black had been sidled up next to a reporter from Sports Illustrated.
The conversation was supposed to last five minutes, but it kept dragging on, more and more questions about KU freshman center Joel Embiid. National magazines don’t come to Kansas to write stories about Black, of course. They come to see Embiid and Andrew Wiggins, two freshmen who could go No. 1 and 2 in the NBA Draft. But they still want to talk to Black, the thoughtful transfer who arrived at KU after graduating from Memphis in three years.
##Newell: KU center Joel Embiid set to play Tuesday against Texas Tech##
LUBBOCK, Texas — After returning to practice Sunday, Kansas center Joel Embiid is expected to be a full-go for Tuesday’s 7 p.m. road matchup at Texas Tech.
Embiid sat out KU’s practices last week and also Saturday’s 95-65 home victory over TCU with knee and back ailments.
###Newell: KU basketball forward Perry Ellis named co-Big 12 player of the week###
LAWRENCE — Kansas forward Perry Ellis was named the Big 12 co-player of the week, the conference announced Monday.
The sophomore shared this week’s award with Baylor center Isaiah Austin
####Pirtle: Like father, like son: Tech’s Hannahs learned from major league dad####
Since his youth, Dusty Hannahs has grown up hearing his father tell him to keep his mind on his money and his money on his mind.
“It’s true in everything I do,” Dusty said. “Just keep my mind on basketball and school because that’s what’s going to get to the money in that case. Just keeping your mind on it at all times.”
Also see our Daily Threads, February 18, and the News Digest for Yesterday, February 17, as well as Daily ThreadS for Yesterday, February 17
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I pay close attention to KU of course, but beyond the top competitors in the league I don’t know much so this surprises me to see Texas Tech playing well. I’m suddenly concerned about this game from our inconsistent team.
Tubby Smith, coached at two of my least favorite teams, Kentucky, and then at Minnesota (an intense rival of Wisconsins). I normally hold no hard feelings for TTech, but with Smith at the helm, well, I don’t like them now, but I do respect them.
How does a school like Texas Tech attract two NCAA title winners to come coach there? I can’t figure that out at all. I guess Smith and Bobby Knight were looking to keep coaching and Lubbock seemed like a good place to do it. I just looked at Lubbock on Google street view, and goodness, it is flat, dry and not very attractive. I’m sure there’s good people there. I don’t know how coaches recruit players to a school in a city like that.
I like that I read Bill Self coaches our boys to not talk to fans at all. Maybe if Travis Ford had taught that (and we don’t know he didn’t either) then Marcus Smart is still not a household name among the average general populace. Needless to say, if that fan represents TTech fans, then we must be wary of their fans.
I had a sense that the Commodore Perry follows up his great games with duds so I looked it up. He has only had back to back 20 point games once this year, and generally falters after such high scoring games. A consistent Ellis makes us a more consistent team as well.
I hope there’s nothing good on the Olympics tonight that my wife wants to watch or I’ll be watching this on my computer.
RCJHKU!
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Thought crossed my mind maybe Bill is saying Joel is ready to allow for some surprise mixes vs TT in the paint with LL, Jamari, etc. Kind of like a decoy per say? Surely Joel should not try to play 25 min when UT is on the horizon Sat. If we get the L at Lubbock, at least it’s on the road. So much depends on Embid being as close to 100% the further we go in March- I’d damn sure hate to shoot the foot off in Feb. Just saying.
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Just thought I should though this out there: I like Tubby Smith, but can’t stand Billy Tubbs.
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Wonder if players read websites, etc.?
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I did notice that for all of KU’s ballyhooed schedule they own two victories over teams that are currently ranked, Duke and Iowa State.
Meanwhile my other team Wisconsin has victories over 5 teams that are ranked, four of them are ranked ahead of them by the way. One asterisk, when we beat Florida, FL was missing several starters who I think were back by the KU game.
Rankings are goofy and Wisconsin beat Virginia impressively in VA and have identical 21-5 records yet VA is ranked ahead of UW. VA’s coach Tony Bennett I predict becomes the next UW coach when Bo Ryan retires.
I’m hoping this is the year KU plays UW in the tourney. I hope it happens in the finals! It could have happened in 08 but Davidson got in the way of UW just before we snuck by them
Of course none of you care about that, but since there’s no UWbuckets.com I’ve got to write about this somewhere. Sorry to bore you!
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@HighEliteMajor I remember after beating Marquette in 03 at the final four I thought, Roy better keep these guys away from ESPN/newspapers/websites, etc. because there’s going to be a lot written about the team which could lead to overconfidence. I don’t know if overconfidence makes a team miss FT’s that Monday night, but we sure didn’t do to Syracuse what we’d done to Marquette, still one of the most thorough dominations of a team in a final four I’ve ever seen.
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Just purchased tickets for the Iowa st Texas game. I’ve wanted to experience Hilton for a long time now, and happen to be in the area on business. I hope it lives up to my expectations, but more importantly that Texas loses
sooner than later business will coincide with home games at chapel hill and Cameron Indoor.I’m a little concerned about playing Tech tonight. This is a potential coming out party for them and I expect s very high level of energy amd competitiveness from them.
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…but there is also a small part of me who believes Tubby might still be living off if Pitinos recruits.
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I’d like to see us repeat some of the attributes we possessed in the TCU game against Tech tonight. We should push tempo! The secondary break will be there, and we could push for some primary break opportunities as Tech tries to score at the rim and send several players for the offensive rebounds.
We need a strong performance from Embiid… and when he snags defensive rebounds he needs to look quickly for an aggressive outlet pass to push the break.
Perry should stay playing aggressive, too. Not only on scoring, but defending and rebounding, too.
This should be a game where we push for scoring in the paint, and to win the foul war in the post.
Our post guys could get into foul trouble if they don’t play smart.
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Win or lose (I think we win by 10) I hope that Jo Jo does not play much. It is hard for me to believe that he is healed up after such a short break. I’d like to see him play if needed and be closer to 100% for the UT game and for the rest of the season to come.
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JoJo needs to play tonight. Be it 15 or 25 minutes. He has to get into game shape. He needs to play with his teammates at a high speed.
If not he will go into the Texas game slow and have 5 passes go off his hands.
The key is if he is feeling any pain he needs to get out asap and not ‘man up’ and make it worse.
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I did notice that for all of KU’s ballyhooed schedule they own two victories over teams that are currently ranked, Duke and Iowa State.
Meanwhile my other team Wisconsin has victories over 5 teams that are ranked, four of them are ranked ahead of them by the way. One asterisk, when we beat Florida, FL was missing several starters who I think were back by the KU game.
@wissoxfan83
By the way KU beat ISU twice so that would make it three victories, right?
In any case, your premise is misleading. KU beat many more teams that were in the top 25; in fact, it won 4 in row at one time, as it was widely reported. You cannot take away wins against teams that are currently not in the top 25; they were in the top 25 at the time KU played them.
Teams go in an out of the top 25 particularly the ones near the bottom, such as Oklahoma or Kansas State, where one win might put them back on the top 25 and one loss might take them out. At one time Oklahoma State was in the top 5 and definitely worthy of that rank; now they are not in the top 25, so does this mean that they were not a top 25 team when KU played them? I think not. At one time the Big 12 had 6 teams in the top 25 and now it has only 3, a result of the strength of the League (top rated) when in any given day, any team can beat any other team. To a lesser extent, this is also true for the Big 10.
A better indicator would be to use the top 50, since this would account for teams that at one time were top 25. According to Jeff Sagarin, KU has 10 wins against top 50 teams; this is 2 more wins than the next teams Arizona and Syracuse that have 8 top 50 wins each.
Taking Crimson and Blue colored glasses off…:)
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Good catch on that! I’m fully aware we’ve beaten more ranked teams, but as I was looking at the rankings I just noticed all the ranked teams UW beat, 3 which are right above us. Of course UW has some victories over teams that were ranked at the time too, like Marquette and Illinois I think.
I am proud that the Jayhawks have the best schedule and the Badgers the third best.
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@wissoxfan83 In " Commodore Perry’s " defense, there ain’t a whole lot of people anywhere that have back to back 20 point games.
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@wissoxfan83
Right on… wissox! I’ve caught plenty of Badgerball this year! Glad they’ve played so well and beat so many quality teams! I have a friend who is a huge fan of Badgerball and I’m happy for him, too. I recall some very unsatisfied seasons for him and Wisconsin is a good basketball state! Maybe the best sports state in the country! Fans for all sports!
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I’m looking for Melvin Weatherwax to show him how it feels when random people decide to scream in his face. Just kidding. But seriously.
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Live blog is up for those who want to check it out …
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@Blown hope you wore the right shirt! Watch your teeth! Have fun!
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@Crimsonorblue22 good job, now if we can take care of our business!
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@Blown Have been looking for a post from you about your ISU v UT experiences. Anything you can post would be appreciated!
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@RockChalkinTexas me too. Hope he didn’t run into Melvin! Jk
