OU Game
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Watch Saturday with Iowa St in town and celebrating 125 years with coaches be a completely different team. They will be amped.
We won with our D+ offensive game and scored 79.
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Credit to OU’s defensive game plan, well executed, almost worked. OU matched up extremely well with us. Hill really made it difficult for Wilson and he still got near 20 pts by the end. Guys made plays when it mattered though, as ugly as it was to watch unfold.
Hopefully they get in the layup line today and work on plays through contact. 2 games in a row with poor execution at the rim.
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@rockchalkjayhawk said in OU Game:
@drgnslayr said in OU Game:
Hope it isn’t the case but we better be ready for a trap game. We just come off the road with two big victories and we didn’t look good in our home opener against OSU. We shot the lights out in WV… could it trigger a cold game at home? I hope I’m off base!
Dragon, don’t buy into this trap game nonsense. we simply will not be overlooking Oklahoma. thats silly. no game in the league will be overlooked. if guys aren’t motivated when on the floor, i hope they find a quick seat on the bench, next to Brady.
We were lucky to get past this one. We looked flat, low energy, and we were cold, going most of the second half without a field goal.
We finally showed a little energy in the last 5 minutes and blew by them. This game fit the definition of trap game except we finally pulled it out. No way OU matches up to our talent. We were unmotivated and this is a common situation in college basketball.
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Positives for me were…
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even tho the shots (and bunnies) weren’t falling, we still found ways to score (and win!).
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getting mauled and making our FTs, JW went 10-12! I remember past KU teams where we were lucky to shoot 50%. Man that used to bug me.
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KJ. Every part of his game is getting so good. If he keeps this up he might be joining some of other starters in the big leagues next year.
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we continued our dominance of OU even on an off night to remain undefeated in the toughest conference in college. At the end of the day, the W is what matters right?
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I think it says a lot that we were able to win while playing so poorly. We stepped up at the end and I feel like we are one of the best teams in America in the final minutes.
What I didn’t like seeing… was our body language was bad until the final 5 minutes. We changed our perspective the last 5 minutes and that is why we won… why didn’t we make this easier for ourselves and lift our heads earlier? I’m just glad we finally pulled out of this. We showed more energy on defense and shut them down then even increased the offensive tempo, scoring on a couple of secondary fast break points!
This was a loss without KJ! He had some rough moments missing bunnies, but he kept after it!
I hope we don’t have too many more of these loathing games!
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@stoptheflop said in OU Game:
What does the OU game mean for Zach? He helps on offense; he scored half of our 3s. But, in 12 minutes he only had 3 rbs. and was a turnstile on defense. After 16 games, Coach Self still hasn’t found his backup 5.
I think to be fair to Zach, some of the times he was a sieve on defense it was a mismatch. He seemed to get switched on to little quick guys a lot. He doesn’t have KJs quickness.
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He helped win the game on offense but was offensive to watch defend. He’s not the answer but in home games he might be useful here and there. He seems to play ok in front of the home crowd.
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@KirkIsMyHinrich said in OU Game:
@jayballer67 said in OU Game:
I knew we missed a lot of lay ups early - -Coah just said - -SEVEN - -SEVEN MISSED BUNNIES holy crap time for lay up drill
He said 8 at halftime. I’d guess around 10
ya they said that we missed 21 layups for the game - - -TWENTY ONE - but coach said too now some of those lay ups were contested pretty good but STILL
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@jayballer67 interesting to note that we were fouled 22 times… might be some correlation there.
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@StLJhawk - after rewatching parts of the last 2 games, it appears Tech, and now OU, have discovered that the way to slow down the Hawks and stay in games is the same technique used by WVU: push, shove, hack, bump, etc. It was used with most of the missed bunnies last night. Very close guarding to run/push KU off their line of attack seems to work well. Am I wrong here?
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@Gorilla72 replied to your similar comment in another thread and brought up WVU. The plan seems to be hack hard and hack often and dare the refs to put KU on the line 30+ times. The. Whine about a KU whistle after the loss and hope for a more favorable one the next time around.
Glad we have at least one game before we go to Manhattan because there’s be no way we’d get anything close to a good whistle there one game after shooting so many free throws. It would be like a cage match.
Good thing about this team though is with Jalen and KJ on the floor, good luck bullying those guys around.
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I think Zach played fine. OU went to the hole about every time down and was successful on layups and put backs when he was out. Kudos to Gradey for his rebounding in the last few minutes. The game changed when OU’s Tanner Groves made a layup to put them up by 10 with 5 minutes left and when self called a timeout. Groves went back to their bench screaming like a banshee and I thought it might be an unwise early celebration by OU when it happened. They started missing all the circus shots they had been making especially the layups. We are looking like somewhat last year’s team with crappy first halves and sorry scoring lapses. i’m really hoping we will become a scary good team like last year’s squad did during the very last part of conference season. We looked amazing for 20 minutes and then WTF all that year.
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Interesting nobody wanting to give any input about whether they thought KSU was ranked to high - at # 11 this week. So going off that I guess your all in agreement that YES KSU is ranked correctly. Interesting , - I don’t think they are I think should be more around the 15 - 17th in rankings. Yet I guess everyone thinks # 11 is right. - we shall see
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The purple kitties are playing legit like a ranked team. I don’t know where they belong in rankings… but I know this isn’t the team we can bulldoze like other past years.
I’m GLAD they are lifting up! I want KSU to challenge us! And that means sometimes we drop one. So be it. Let’s hope not now!
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Was there last night the place was electric those final 5 minutes.
Juan is legit looking to score more and all of our guys have been working on those floaters
JW is the guy as we know and the only one really good at creating his own shot. The constant post up was brutal caused the ball to stick but we couldn’t manufacture anything else offensively
Gradey - He’s way more active on the boards but he doesn’t move without the ball to get it very well except back cuts. Need to run the elevator screen for him and not Kevin (not sure what Bill is thinking there)
Kevin - defensively is a menace - needs to quit worrying about the calls and just play. He’s stepped up down the stretch
KJ - mvp dude is a monster and allows us to guard anyone and everyone by switching. That block was ridiculous I don’t care about his trex arms
Bench - manageable. Clem was huge but just a turnstile on D. Joe had a bucket via the floater and Bobby was okay nothing special
OU is physical to watch it up close like that was sweet. If they could have hit a three second half they’d won but porter didn’t have them prepared final 1:30
Next 8 games are gonna either win us the big 12 or make it close. I love this league our guys will be prepared and my bracket will be big 12 homer picks
Lastly - ksu is legit. Yes, they give up buckets but they can flat out score. Tang has them rolling and confident.
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@BeddieKU23 said in OU Game:
Watch Saturday with Iowa St in town and celebrating 125 years with coaches be a completely different team.
In 125 years, KU has had only 8 head coaches. Truly phenomenal.
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@Crimsonorblue22 said in OU Game:
Their fans are not usually behind the baskets. I saw him hollering but it was right after the buzzer when he caught the pass.
I saw this video last night. JW said “This is our house!”
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@stoptheflop said in OU Game:
@AsadZ said in OU Game:
It will be beneficial for this KU team to lose couple of games, prefer on the road, blowouts, for coaches to use as teaching moments and get players grounded a bit.
Bite your tongue; saw off your fingers. KU never needs to lose a game to improve. I say win them all and win them by double digits. My heart just can’t take 10 minutes of game time with no points.
I would love to believe you… but I don’t.
There is no way in hell we won that Nattie last year without the Kentucky beatdown in our own building. Even Self recognized it and has mentioned it numerous times.
It’s sports psychology (actually LIFE psychology!). Players/teams need a chip to reach the next level.
Heck… watch the interviews with Kirby Smart on what it took to repeat as National Champions in football. Kirby and his staff put in big effort to build a chip with his team this year and it worked! Yes… you can go undefeated with a chip, but it ain’t easy! Self doesn’t go in that direction with his coaching style… so consequently, we need to be punched in the nose sometimes to dig deeper.
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That OU game exposed us in some areas. Teams that are willing to be physical and really guard our guys tight put a stop to our current easy-flow, fast passing, assist-building offense.
It is crucial that our guys start learning how to free themselves up. Run through other players creating your own off-ball screens. This is how players like Steph Curry do it. Everyone in the NBA would love to just be able to put a guy on him and shut him down. They try… and they fail. Why? Because Steph runs around using sharp cuts off of other players standing there. He exhausts guys trying to guard him because they have to try to fight through every screen, usually through at least two players (one from each team).
Running a hybrid chop-motion offense is helpful sometimes, but isn’t the answer by itself. We will have to adapt our offense for more aggressive defense coming up in our league and later in March.
A great example is Gradey. Granted… he is a freshman, but he’s a quick learner. Standing out there on the perimeter making it a 4-on-4 game was not our best strategy. He is one of our most-lethal scoring threats but was almost completely neutralized in this game.
And our defense was not good! We let every player on OU drive with ease! We need to do a better job scouting… knowing player tendencies, like driving preferences. And then apply the right hedging. Hustle harder and draw charges! It’s never been this easy in college basketball to get the charge call! Come on, fellas… get after it!
I have hope that Self and Company will get this figured out!
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@Gorilla72 good deal, he’s always pretty passionate!
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Since they only made 2 3’s, I thought coach might zone it up a lil. Our switching put a lot of littles on bigs and they really took advantage of that, especially w/big shot Bob and juan in at the same time. I watched Hawk talk last pm, big shot Bob was his nickname in high school cause of his last minute winning shots!
no surprise, huh!
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Not every team has that physical defensive style of play that OU was able to slow KU down with. That’s been Moser’s MO even at Loyola. I know I looked at the matchup and saw OU could position for position give us fits and that’s what ended up happening. If KU makes half the 21 layups they missed how much does that change the game? OU got lucky they controlled the tempo and crowd early since KU couldn’t piss in any ocean.
Iowa St does play physical defensively and we play them Saturday, however I think we’re going to see a different team in 2 days. I wouldn’t be surprised if we find a way to play to the level that beat Indiana handily. Would be nice to travel to Manhattan for the next battle after one of those feel good games.
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@BeddieKU23 said in OU Game:
Not every team has that physical defensive style of play that OU was able to slow KU down with. That’s been Moser’s MO even at Loyola. I know I looked at the matchup and saw OU could position for position give us fits and that’s what ended up happening. If KU makes half the 21 layups they missed how much does that change the game? OU got lucky they controlled the tempo and crowd early since KU couldn’t piss in any ocean.
Iowa St does play physical defensively and we play them Saturday, however I think we’re going to see a different team in 2 days. I wouldn’t be surprised if we find a way to play to the level that beat Indiana handily. Would be nice to travel to Manhattan for the next battle after one of those feel good games.
we missed 21 layups - -of course some challenged - but like you said if we make half of those - -thats 20 points and we win double digit
On top of that , this game was soooo hard to ge any kind of continuity with this game - - any kind of flow, when you have whisltes every time down the floor.The referees wanted to have this game all about them
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After the memo went out for the league to cut down on physical play we shoot 60 million free throws in a game. Officiating has hit rock bottom
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@drgnslayr I do think it’s possible to get that punch in the mouth while still winning games. It’s all about the mentality that comes from it. If our guys continue to think, “hey we can win any game as long as we turn up the heat late in the game” we will probably not improve. But if they come out and say, “hey, we should never be down 10 in our own building again, we have to find that switch at the start of the game and work to never turn it off” well then we might be on to something.
I know folks doubted Jaybate when he talked about the full amp vs. no amp games, but I do think there’s something to that interpretation. Self said about this game that KU basically didn’t run any offense the whole game. Who decides what offense to run? Is that on Juan and Wilson? Isn’t Self supposed to be getting us into sets as we bring the ball up? Did he not have their attention? ORRRRRR… Did Self intentionally send the guys out there without much of a game plan? Did he hold some wrinkles close to the chest to use in this tough stretch or against OU in Norman? And if the guys sense Coach isn’t putting his all into winning this game, there’s a natural let down energy wise for them as well. I don’t know. Seems like there could be something to all of that. Obviously I don’t know and likely never will as Self would be stupid to even hint that something like that may be the case.
As far as Gradey, not sure he has the conditioning to go Steph Curry on the Big 12 this year. There was lots of talk early in the year about Gradey being tired late in games, or playing too many minutes, etc. So there may be some hesitation to run him all over the court in a game against what is likely a team in the bottom half of the league in Allen when ISU and KSU are on the horizon.
I haven’t paid enough attention to know but it would be interesting to see how well whoever is guarding Gradey scores on a given night. Like, is guarding Gradey going to take a few points per game off whoever gets that assignment? I’d be curious. Not curious enough to look it up and figure it out myself though…
The good thing about this team is they don’t seem to get too flustered by overly physical play. Yeah they missed a bunch of bunnies this game but I don’t see that being a trend yet. They still got to their spots, got good looks, and even won the dang game!
It’s possible that Tennessee roughing us up might have toughened some of these guys and brought them together a bit. We will see if they need another reminder as the season goes on. I know I’d rather not come from double digits down every game, but maybe that’s just a personal preference.
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Interesting post!
Yes… I remember those Jaybate discussions. I’ve never really bought into the idea that Self wants our guys low amped for a game… but I do believe he could give off weird energy he isn’t familiar with that keeps the team down a bit. Like anytime we play OSU, his alma mater.
Could have a point about Gradey’s conditioning. Even Steph has issues though. They very carefully monitor his minutes so he can go full tilt in the right time during a game. Maybe it is something for us to consider. Maybe Gradey tends to hang the most points in the first half not just because other teams figure out how to guard him at half… maybe he gets tired! I do think his big thing to work on in this coming off-season is his strength and conditioning. He doesn’t look anywhere near ready for the NBA with his current body.
I think our biggest plus is we are a team that doesn’t give up! It’s a trait we learned last year and it sure kept us alive in March! I think this team has the same DNA, largely because of Juan and JWil coming back… but I get a huge taste of it with Kevin… and also now KJ and even Gradey. Gradey pulled a few important rebounds late for us in this game!
That “coolheadedness” this team carries surely has something to do with Self, too.
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Our defense must improve, or we’re going to lose. I think we have a thinner margin than what some think, including our players.
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Great posts, gang. This is the kind of content that keeps me paying for this site!
That narrow headspace between high amp play and clutch cool-headedness must be a tough sweetspot to find day in and day out. Crucially, with the right personnel, Self seems to be able to teach and coach it. Boy is it fun to watch!
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Right on! Remember that championship game with UNC. And Davis was about to explode with emotion in that first half while his team spent all their energy in that half… helping us for a monumental comeback. Meanwhile… Self and Company just kept their cool and brought it when it counts!
