KU vs Cryclones Game Chat
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Sequence at the end of the first half gives ISU 5 unanswered points:
We were up 1 and then down by 4 at the half.
And we lost by 4.
It is what it is.
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Self on post game that our on ball defense is terrible but we don’t have the personnel to change it and I agree with him. I read a guy on Facebook commenting that only 2 of our players would start across the top half of the conference and I think I agree with that. This team doesn’t have the horses plain and simple imo. I just want to beat KSU don’t care about anything else. This team is prob about 3rd worst in the self era. Everytime we hit the court the opposing team is bigger faster and Stronger.
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This team doesn’t seem that bad to me. But it’s thin and it has a couple of weaknesses that can be (and have been) exploited.
You can foul KJ all day and usually trade 2 points for 1. This has been done repeatedly. You can target the freshmen who don’t have the experience. This has been done.
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Sure glad we have a football team
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We have both and I love it. Basketball is still top 10 even after this loss. Football is top 25. That’s awesome. Both haven’t reached their ceiling.
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The defense is bad at this point. Furphy and Jackson can’t guard statues, Dickinson’s knee has further limited his already limited mobility on that end. This is causing a significant drop in defense from Harris, McCullar, and Adams as well because we know those three range from very good to elite defenders.
This team is really missing Arterio Morris right now. I’m not saying that KU screwed up by kicking him off the team because Morris absolutely deserved that for his actions, but his skill set is desperately missing from this team this season. His defense was up there with Adams and KU would be a top 10 defense with him.
He was also the guy that could’ve gone and gotten his shot whenever he wanted to help with spacing on the floor. He also would’ve allowed Elmarko to play off the bench from the start and taken a lot of pressure off of him early. KU probably has better bench production as well with that rotation instead of what we have now.
Self’s got at least two more roster spots he can fill next season so getting a high level, playmaker guard should be the top priority in the portal this offseason.
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I honestly think we need to scrap the switching on defense. It led to easy layups and dunks when Juan was switching to a bigger guy and the big guys gave up several 3s to guards. This isn’t working with this group.
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@kjayhawks I dont know the answer to that, but I was noticing the same thing.
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Caveats apply but interesting https://x.com/djohnsonradio/status/1751388182761885937?s=46&t=c0LiaNrxev6XfT7LIH8dAQ
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It’s frustrating, but the WVU and UCF games were more frustrating and worse losses. Iowa State is ranked and tough to beat in Ames.
The starters need to get healthy and the bench needs to keep improving.
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@FarmerJayhawk said in KU vs Cryclones Game Chat:
Caveats apply but interesting https://x.com/djohnsonradio/status/1751388182761885937?s=46&t=c0LiaNrxev6XfT7LIH8dAQ
Really hoping we’re using up all our bad luck now and saving the good luck for later.
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@Texas-Hawk-10 Essentially roster construction yet again sucked this year and we don’t have dynamic guards…….
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@kjayhawks My fear is that Hunter is the real problem. He is slow and often doesn’t appear to try real hard on ball screens. One of those last possessions where it looked like Furphy lost his man and recovered super late, in my opinion it was more a lack of communication and effort from Hunter on how they were handling that screen.
But yeah. The switching seems bad. We get torched because at this point everyone knows it’s coming and has a plan for how to deal with it. They either work to get the matchup they want and gone one one (wish we had ANYONE that could take advantage of a bad matchup on the other end) or they work to get Hunter involved in off ball screens where he either gets lost or just can’t get to the spot he needs to to support the guy getting screened.
Usually Bill has some wrinkles and I don’t think we’ve really seen any yet. He’s likely been saving them for what he thinks are the tougher teams but the record now means every game is huge.
On another note, anyone noticed a lack of moving screens being called? And not like disproportionally or anything but just in general. I feel like screeners are getting away with murder this year. KJ had to literally hockey check a guy to get it called today.
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@kuballin10 sucked is an overstatement. Too dependent on Morris and Hunter. This was more indicative of the lingering problems with the roster from the previous year.
Bobby, Udeh, Zuby, Cuffe and MJ all not only giving us at least 1 good year was a big problem, much moreso than the transfers.
We cant miss on that many freshman and not have a multiyear hole.
happy with next year recruits so far? Seems like the freshman will be more athletic than we have had in a long time. Maybe we wont need a perfect pull from the portal to have a well rounded roster.
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@benshawks08 spot on with the moving screens, like the refs were told to slow down on those calls. I don’t mind it when it’s obvious but it was getting pretty egregious at times over the last few years.
I agree that Hunter seems to be incapable of lateral movement at this time. Some if it maybe his knee issues, oddly enough the defense looked to be this teams strong suit early in the season. We just look so tired on that end of the floor. Very little movement, no communication and lack of awareness consistently.
I think this team would be a great group to run a 1-3-1 match up zone or a triangle and 2 zone. I think switching everything is gimmicky as hell and for teams that are incapable playing solid man to man defense. I think this team is similar in a lot of ways to the 2012 national runner ups. That team late in the season Self ran a triangle and 2 often. It worked very well for that group. Self is a great coach but some times him being set in his ways hurts us. He has to be able to adapt to what he has and his refusal to has hurt some good teams here.
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We played them close. Better than I expected.
We don’t need points off the bench. We just need them to not give up points.
I feel like we deserve a B for execution today. Might have turned to an A had our starters not been so exhausted.
We know our weaknesses:
- Lack of depth
- Playing soft (partially because of depth)
- Need 1 guy who can go get his own shot (besides Kevin)
- Lack of on-court leadership
It’s the #2 that is going to end our season early this year… and a big part of that is lack of depth. We have a hard time guarding the trey line. A lot of that is because of how we guard. We play too much weakside D. That opens the perimeter for someone wide-open. We should just play it up straight and make each man responsible for guarding. I’m afraid it’s Self trying to prevent foul trouble. Everything about how we play now is to compensate for having little bench. Just like… now… we live on defensive switches. We don’t want to fight through screens to guard. It so isn’t a typical Self team. We switch on everything. Saving energy, and maybe a few fouls, though we are getting murdered on the switches. It’s painful watching other teams methodically working us over (like what we used to do).
At this point in the season… I like Houston to take our conference. The difference is Shead. Big strong scrappy PG who shows definite leadership… can also go get his shot whenever needed. They molested the purple kitties today.
I’ve lowered my expectations this year… just hoping we win-out at home, beat the purple kitties, and earn our ticket to the big dance to keep our streak alive. Beyond that… I will take it as a huge plus.
Never thought I would be disappointed in being the #1 assist team in the nation! It just proves we don’t have players that can create for themselves. Pretty much just Kevin! Though I see Johnny taking on more as the season progresses!
I hope we get shot down in polls. We should. Maybe it gives us a chip and it would be nice to fly below radar for a change! It didn’t even seem like the ISU fans were as jacked up as in past games there. I know they expected this win, and I’m sure by more points than 4.
Holy cow! Just looked at the stat sheet. Parker -13 on +/- in 5 minutes! Actually… he scored a basket and an offensive rebound. I’m thinking he’s so far negative because he replaces Hunter. Just shows us how valuable it is to have Hunter on the floor, even though his +/- was 0!
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I don’t think there is any shame in losing a tight game to a ranked ISU team on the road. The thing that worries me going forward is 9/10 the team that is cutting down the nets has 2 things. Elite athletic NBA guards and great coaching. We don’t have elite NBA guards IMO at the moment. Kevin I think will get drafted but I highly doubt it’s first round. Juan as much as he can be a good player likely never steps foot on an NBA court.
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Kev last 2 games 10-35 FG. He’s gotta figure it out.
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@BeddieKU23 ya I was gonna say he turned into a volume shooter in a bad way. If it takes you 25 shots to get 20 points, that’s not efficient in the slightest.
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@BeddieKU23 I’d really hoped he’d turned a corner as a scorer after his hot start. But apparently that was a hot start rather than a legitimate change in who he is as a shooter. I do think he’s continued to be aggressive and has taken on the toughest role as being the ONLY guy that can drive to score or try to go get a bucket, but yeah, more efficiency would be great especially because I don’t think we can count on Furphy to maintain the level he’s played at the last several games.
But really, scoring hasn’t been the big issue the last several games. This team is getting picked apart on D. It feels very easy for the other team to score at times. Run ball screens until either Johnny, Nick, or Hunter are guarding you, then drive or step back. If that doesn’t work, make two passes and someone will be open because the help Juan, KJ, and Kev are trying to provide to the weak links.
I imagine Jay Wright was chuckling all game watching Iowa State do to Self what he did. There will be adjustments and wrinkles thrown in especially against teams like Houston and Baylor if I had to guess but we let too many BAD shooters feel so comfortable that they can heat up and make 3s in bunches. Hopefully the law of averages will help this team later in the season as we’ve already had our share of fluky performances shooting wise from teams who don’t usually light it up from out there.
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I hope it’s just a bad week of shooting. We demand a high level of play out of him because he took on the role and wants it. When you don’t produce it impacts the team. Winning on the road against a Top 25 team is really difficult when your best player(s) don’t play their best. I don’t think Hunter or Kev has played anywhere near their best in weeks. Furphy has masked a lot of issues on offense. How we get Hunter/Kev rolling is something that needs to be addressed.
No doubt the defense is a mess. The switching 1-4 isn’t working.
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I’m no expert, but it seems like a switching defense is an ‘advanced’ or ‘next level’ defense and therefore requires experienced players.
Experience comes from playing against a variety of teams in a variety of situations. There are at least 2 players with less than 1 year of experience (at KU, and sometimes, guys with less than a year at the college level) on the floor at all times. Guys are getting their experience before our eyes.
It’s hard, but worth the effort and investment because it can separate teams in March.
Coach Self is doing what he must now, to best prepare the team so they can win key games later. It sometimes sucks to see the struggle, but I feel like I’ve seen this before… and it’s turned out pretty good more times than not.
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@bskeet This is good perspective. For how long was this board obsessed with Self focusing more on winning each individual game than preparing the team for success in March? Maybe this is actually some growth there. Then again you have the BIG minutes for the starters really piling up. But he even tried to manage that v ISU too with lots of subs early.
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I can’t tell during the game, but are they communicating with one another on the court about switching? I would think if they are saying it out loud that it makes it less likely that there is an open player left to make an open shot. It is difficult to switch in-game guarding a 3-5 and then a 1-2 with different heights and speeds. Why don’t they switch it up on defense with different looks with zone or a box and 1 or triangle and 2? I can understand why they don’t do man to man because of the minutes they are playing, but I thought that the coaches have them do conditioning and that is what 'hell week" is for. They seem to get tired out more quickly, but that could be due to parity with the portal. The only time I saw them turned up to full capacity was when we played Connecticut. That is what I am accustomed to seeing with KU, but not this team. It could also be related to the physicality of the game. I don’t remember college basketball being this aggressive with respect to contact except in the past 10-15 years and it seems like it is getting more and more physical. It is getting to the point that I think it should be renamed basketbrawl. I understand I may have unrealistic expectations. If they are doing the best they can, then I applaud them, but I have a gut feeling that that is not the case.
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@patoh3 said in KU vs Cryclones Game Chat:
I can’t tell during the game, but are they communicating with one another on the court about switching? I would think if they are saying it out loud that it makes it less likely that there is an open player left to make an open shot. It is difficult to switch in-game guarding a 3-5 and then a 1-2 with different heights and speeds. Why don’t they switch it up on defense with different looks with zone or a box and 1 or triangle and 2? I can understand why they don’t do man to man because of the minutes they are playing, but I thought that the coaches have them do conditioning and that is what 'hell week" is for. They seem to get tired out more quickly, but that could be due to parity with the portal. The only time I saw them turned up to full capacity was when we played Connecticut. That is what I am accustomed to seeing with KU, but not this team. It could also be related to the physicality of the game. I don’t remember college basketball being this aggressive with respect to contact except in the past 10-15 years and it seems like it is getting more and more physical. It is getting to the point that I think it should be renamed basketbrawl. I understand I may have unrealistic expectations. If they are doing the best they can, then I applaud them, but I have a gut feeling that that is not the case.
The way teams are shooting the 3 against KU , I don’t think trying to play zone would be a very good idea. - -I understand these teams are just shooting over their heads when playing us, because WV was like a 32 % three point shooting team when we played they shot- - -57 % against us. - -Same with ISU a 34 % three point shooting team and what did they shoot – like 41 % ?
I’m not sure who ever it was that got the joke started way back when or whatever, BUT if anyone who has EVER played the game of Basketball can sit there and say to your face that Basketball is a Non Contact sport - -ROFLMAO - I’ll call BS right to their face. Having played for years of Basketball in School , Basketball is one of the most physical sports there is. You don’t have near the protection that other sports have. -True they now wear mouth pieces - -well some do anyways , and yet basically mouth pieces and jocks is it - -that’s all you got and a jock isn’t really help protecting against injury - very , very physical game. I’ve seen broken noses - - -Teeth knocked out - - broken eye sockets - -dis located fingers - -so ya.
Then I agree maybe these guys haven’t been getting after it like they should or can, I remember hearing how KU was suppose to have one of the best defensive teams in the Nation - - Juan , Kevin , & KJ. I’ll tell you this - - - true they may not have gotten after it defensively like they should or can BUT mark it down you can guarantee come Saturday against Houston -you can dam well bet they will be able to tell you what brand name Jocks the Houston players are wearing - -it is going to be an absolute war – the Phog will be insane, Hoston hasn’t played in front of right at 16,000 mad dogs in the Phog - -experiencing the Phog, many of good teams have come in there pretty dam cocky and walked out like a pack of whimpering puppies - -It is going to be ridiculous in there , mark it down. Tell the Wife , Brother , Sister , Son , Daughter , the cat , the dog - - -Look out cause there is a PHOG WARNING on the HORIZON - -ROCK CHALK BABY
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I understand that there is potential for a lot of contact, but what used to be fouls are not called as fouls anymore. I have played basketball and had busted lips and split my chin open requiring stitches, so I know the physicality, but it seems almost too physical to the point that players are being put in harm’s way.
