Sam is our new guard depth. He gets better and better, with each minute on the floor! He has his mind right about defense. He takes defense personal! Right now… I see our team anchor players as Mitch and Sam is coming up. These guys have made “hustle” their calling card. I’ve been wondering what is up with Vick. In my head, he shouldn’t be worn out at his age and his condition. But I said this long ago… that NONE of us have played at the intensity these guys have. Their athleticism is at another level than most of us. And that means it carries it’s own drain when put to the test. I learned that when playing at the highest level I played at… far, far below D1! And a million miles away from Kansas basketball! I learned what exhaustion was when I did that. But these guys are at a different level… and I don’t know the level of exhaustion they go through. It surely must be extreme even though they make it look easy out there. I hope we see more and more of Sam. He already does some things better than all of our other guys. He’s probably the only player we have that has used a hedge against the drive. When we decide we want to get serious about winning… we will scout our opponents well, and we will use tools (like hedging) to DISRUPT the strengths of our opponents. That means… hedging and playing tight on players we want to deny the ball… hedging against left or right side drives of driving threats (related to which side they primarily use)… This may sound like I’m being critical about Self and his coaching. No. He can’t teach these things if our players aren’t up to that level yet. Until we get our guys really focused on defense… forgetaboutit!