Basketball Season



  • Maybe Griffey has some basketball eligibility left and could help us.



  • @Texas-Hawk-10 Not even close. I think you are thinking of last years team lead by d2 and Hunter gave up 89 to Samford and 89 to Gonzaga.

    Mayo better athlete than juan

    Griffen better defensively than Murphy

    Storr miles better than Mccullar athletically and just needs to give a darn on the defensive end

    Kj is kj

    Hunt isn’t even that bad it’s how coach schemes him to play ball screens that’s bass ackwards



  • @BShark Poor in what ways?

    Because we don’t have Juan we’d lose what? Ball reversal guy?

    He doesn’t ever get a paint touch off the bounce as he can’t get by his man like tyshawn or mason.

    He doesn’t hardly look to shoot so teams play 5 on 4 and pack it in.

    Griffen and Mayo create spacing and both can attack better than Juan

    The opinion of Juan by the staff is so inflated it’s comical. They act like he’s Tyus Jones when in reality he had the worst play in a title game at the most crucial moment in Kansas bball history. Luckily we defended them up and bailed him out



  • @kuballin10 he also had 3 of our 6 steals and a block. Coaches love winners.



  • @kuballin10 said in Basketball Season:

    @Texas-Hawk-10 Not even close. I think you are thinking of last years team lead by d2 and Hunter gave up 89 to Samford and 89 to Gonzaga.

    Mayo better athlete than juan

    Griffen better defensively than Murphy

    Storr miles better than Mccullar athletically and just needs to give a darn on the defensive end

    Kj is kj

    Hunt isn’t even that bad it’s how coach schemes him to play ball screens that’s bass ackwards

    This is how I know you have no idea what you’re talking about right now. Zeke Mayo is nowhere near as athletic as Harris. Mayo isn’t quick enough to beat Summit League players off the dribble. 90% of his highlights are him doing stepback 3’s because he can’t beat his defenders off the dribble. Mayo was also a black hole on defense in the Summit League, but is suddenly going to be able to defend Big 12 guards like LJ Cryer, Caleb Love, and Jeremy Roach?

    Furphy sucked on defense, Griffen is marginally better, but still below average.

    AJ Storr might be a better athlete than McCullar is, but it sounds like he’s still not playing any defense and is still a ball hog who might be trying to top his 32% usage rate from last season.

    Hunter is slow and unathletic which is why he’s entering year 5 of college instead of year 2 in the NBA. I agree that Dickinson was misused on defense last season and should’ve been used the same way McCormack was down the stretch in 2022. Putting 3 bad defenders in front of him doesn’t hide those weaknesses, it magnifies them and means KU has 4 terrible defenders on the court at the same time.

    You’re also right that this group wouldn’t give up 89 to Samford and Gonzaga, they would’ve given up at least 110 in those games.

    The offense also isn’t going to be as good as people think because this team still won’t be able to space the floor well enough due to a lack of 3 point shooting to allow Storr to do what he is best at which is drive and draw fouls.



  • @Texas-Hawk-10 You aren’t wrong about his tapes but he’s still more athletic than Juan. Juan couldn’t beat those guys off the dribble either…you forget how much more athletic and quicker Samford looked - go rewatch it. They sped Juan up easily

    Best lineup is

    Moore (when healthy)

    Mayo

    Griffen

    Storr

    Hunter

    Best shooters, scorers and Storr can’t do worse rebounding wise than your favorite rebounder kj



  • @kuballin10 said in Basketball Season:

    @Texas-Hawk-10 You aren’t wrong about his tapes but he’s still more athletic than Juan. Juan couldn’t beat those guys off the dribble either…you forget how much more athletic and quicker Samford looked - go rewatch it. They sped Juan up easily

    Best lineup is

    Moore (when healthy)

    Mayo

    Griffen

    Storr

    Hunter

    Best shooters, scorers and Storr can’t do worse rebounding wise than your favorite rebounder kj

    That line up couldn’t stop my middle school team from scoring and isn’t the offensive threat you think it’s going to be. Zeke Mayo isn’t going to be anywhere near the impact player you think he’s going to be. He’s not someone that can play 30 minutes against B12 level competition without being completely exposed on both ends. He wasn’t even SDSU’s lead guard, but you have this weird fascination with shoe horning him into that role here. AJ Storr is Temu James Harden without the 3 point shooting.

    I also hate to break this to you, but Harris is the superior shooter at 44% to 42% and a much better 3 point shooter at 39% compared to 31%. Moore does have a better PER than Harris, but his PER is also below average.



  • Dajuan, Moore, Griffin, KJ, Hunter.

    KJ will not come off the bench.

    Bidunga can spell KJ when we need interior defending.

    Griffin will learn to be an average defender.

    I think this team will be an almost average defensive team, perimeter above average, interior below average, and bench below.



  • @Texas-Hawk-10 You may be right on Mayo but I’m just going off the smoke coach was giving him on the podcast

    Man Self has matured and changed his perspective. The part where he said as a young coach you want guys to run your play your way to score versus as an older coach you give your players guardrails/parameters to play within and let them go make plays - as the older coach.

    That is gold right there and hope he takes some of his advice without the quick hooks and “trusting players that lower the teams ceiling”.

    Juan shoots 1.2 threes per game so his percentage compared to Moore’s isn’t some argument you think.

    There’s a reason Moore’s pers are better and glad you mentioned that



  • @approxinfinity If Bill can loosen the reigns and trust Flory I think he comes in for Kj/Hunt and we go 4 guards around him

    Curious why you think Storr doesn’t start?



  • @kuballin10 A 31% career 3 point shooter is someone I’m not worried about beating me from 3 because odds are they won’t. In regards to PER, Moore’s career PER is 14.2 which is also below average. There’s a reason why Moore has never been a full time starter for mediocre MSU teams.

    We all know Harris has his limitations as a player, but none of the other PG’s are a clear upgrade over him. Mayo is probably the best shooter on the team, but he’s a black hole on defense and an average passer and ball handler. He has a role as a spark plug off the bench because of his shooting, but I don’t see much else in his game that translates super well to the P4 level.

    Shakeel Moore is a better athlete than Harris and on par with him defensively, but he’s not a shooter and he’s not a great passer and is an overall below average offensive player.

    David Coit was also brought in, but if he’s playing relevant minutes this season, something has gone terribly wrong.

    The PG with the highest upside in the roster is out for the season amd that’s Elmarko. Hopefully it’s not a Wayne Selden situation where he loses some of his athleticism because of this injury.



  • I will say that the roster combo’s are going to be interesting because this going to be a flawed team. Nobody on the roster is close to having a complete skill set for their position. Nobody on this team is top level on both ends of the floor.

    If Self says screw defense and wants to outscore people, then roll with Harris, Mayo, Griffen, Storr, and Dickinson. Harris is in that group because you still need someone to initiate the offense.

    If Self says screw the offense and goes with a full bad ball line up, then Harris, Moore, Passmore/McDowell, Adams, Bidunga.



  • @Texas-Hawk-10 Shakeel in our system could be more efficient offensively

    If Shakeels per is better than harris’ and Harris has been in our system 5 years….what does that say about Harris

    Coach loves him yet he’s the 6th or 7th best pg in our league



  • @kuballin10 said in Basketball Season:

    @Texas-Hawk-10 Shakeel in our system could be more efficient offensively

    If Shakeels per is better than harris’ and Harris has been in our system 5 years….what does that say about Harris

    Coach loves him yet he’s the 6th or 7th best pg in our league

    It says Harris has always been pass first player because PER punishes players who don’t take a lot of shots. 15 is considered an average PER, Moore’s is 14 for his career and Harris is 13. It’s not that big of a difference and both are still below average on the offensive end and more know for their defense than their offense.

    Tell me what it says about Shakeel Moore that he could never lock down the starting PG job for a mediocre Mississippi St. program and couldn’t find a starting PG job at another P4 program once he entered the portal.



  • @kuballin10 Griffen can’t dribble. If you put those 5 out there you are looking at a guy that has never handled at the P5 level before (Zeke) with…Storr as the secondary handler? That’s inviting disaster. Hopefully we don’t see that line-up much.



  • @Texas-Hawk-10 said in Basketball Season:

    He wasn’t even SDSU’s lead guard, but you have this weird fascination with shoe horning him into that role here.

    This is a big part of why they went out and got Shak Moore (and to a lesser extent Coit later). Zeke is not a lead guard.



  • @kuballin10 i am just going off what people said that Griffin is closer to being a capable defender than Storr, knowing that Bill favors players who can defend.



  • We should have a good squad



  • From what I saw of Storr last year in Madison I can’t imagine him not starting, warts and all. He’ll provide a lot of scoring. Double digits in all but two early season games. Scored 94 in the BIG tournament. But like I said he’s got some warts. Maybe competition for minutes, which wasn’t present last year, will cause him to refine his game enough so that he can stay on the floor without the head coach tossing him off the top of the campanile in frustration some day.



  • @wissox Can he rebound? If not I am not sure Self will let him play that much.



  • @AsadZ Averaged 4 per game. Not sure what Bill’s requirement is but 17 points a game against very good competition is relevant too.



  • @wissox said in Basketball Season:

    From what I saw of Storr last year in Madison I can’t imagine him not starting, warts and all. He’ll provide a lot of scoring. Double digits in all but two early season games. Scored 94 in the BIG tournament. But like I said he’s got some warts. Maybe competition for minutes, which wasn’t present last year, will cause him to refine his game enough so that he can stay on the floor without the head coach tossing him off the top of the campanile in frustration some day.

    Given that Self is saying things publicly about AJ* I can only imagine what’s being said in practice ahahaha. It should be an interesting year, as you said we will need his scoring.

    *“I would say it’d be hard to keep Juan, KJ, ‘Hunt’ and Zeke out of the lineup,” Self said Wednesday, speaking as a guest on the Field of 68 podcast.

    Self was asked about a player that logically could fit into the Jayhawks’ starting lineup: junior guard AJ Storr, Wisconsin’s leading scorer from a year ago. “I don’t know yet,” Self said, asked how the 6-foot-7, 205-pound Storr will “fit in” during his junior campaign. “I know how we want him to fit in, but how (do) we get him to do what we want? You know what I think he should be? I think he should be the best offensive rebounder in the country. I don’t think that’s how he’s thought (about his game). That’s not a knock to anybody else… He’s thinking, ‘Just give me the ball and get out of my way.’ The way that we play (is), one, ball and body movement. When you get it shoot it, drive it or pass it, but it can’t stick. It’s a different deal for him. “The other thing about it is as strong as he is and as athletic as he is, he shouldn’t get screened. He should be a tremendous defender. I’m talking about offensive rebounding, being a lockdown defender. He’s probably thinking, ‘Whoa, whoa, what have I gotten myself into?’’’



  • @BShark lol. I love that.

    Did AJ or Rylan vomit in a trash can this bootcamp?



  • @BShark Thanks, I don’t read up on the team as much as others. I hope Storr gets that message because if he does become a more complete player he’ll leave a mark on this program.



  • @approxinfinity said in Basketball Season:

    @BShark lol. I love that.

    Did AJ or Rylan vomit in a trash can this bootcamp?

    I was told that most of the newcomers struggled with bootcamp a bit. AJ, Kease, Flory and Rylan specifically. Zeke and Diggy did not struggle but they are also SRs and sounds like they knew a bit what more to expect.



  • Circus font. Tomorrow.







  • @FarmerJayhawk ah looking good



  • @FarmerJayhawk said in Basketball Season:

    @approxinfinity https://www.adidas.com/us/ku-swingman-jersey/IW8200.html new uniforms this year!

    Sweet! Love em. I for one am all aboard with Circus!



  • I’m going to go out on a limb and state my concern that Hunter just isn’t the kind of player a winning team can be built around. I know that sounds crazy, but based off of what I saw last year, that’s my biggest concern. He takes up a lot of space on the offensive end, and while he scores fairly regularly, there was maybe 1 or 2 games he really took over and dominated and I feel like they were all early on. He puts up numbers, but is he actually making winning plays? Is he a leader that makes a team better than the sum of its parts?

    Say what you want about big Dave. He was a clearly flawed player his entire time at Kansas, but his energy and leadership did contribute to a culture of a team that overachieved. I’m not sure Hunter has that. Hope I’m wrong. Culture and interpersonal dynamics of a team really matter and I worry about this years team being… Soft. And a lot of that starts with your “best player.” So either someone else steps up as a leader or we may struggle to win the conference again this year despite the influx of “talent.”



  • @benshawks08 Hunter, Dave, Wilt - it doesn’t matter. Nobody will be here long enough to make a difference. Thank you very much NIL / Portal.



  • @benshawks08 said in Basketball Season:

    I’m going to go out on a limb and state my concern that Hunter just isn’t the kind of player a winning team can be built around. I know that sounds crazy, but based off of what I saw last year, that’s my biggest concern. He takes up a lot of space on the offensive end, and while he scores fairly regularly, there was maybe 1 or 2 games he really took over and dominated and I feel like they were all early on. He puts up numbers, but is he actually making winning plays? Is he a leader that makes a team better than the sum of its parts?

    Say what you want about big Dave. He was a clearly flawed player his entire time at Kansas, but his energy and leadership did contribute to a culture of a team that overachieved. I’m not sure Hunter has that. Hope I’m wrong. Culture and interpersonal dynamics of a team really matter and I worry about this years team being… Soft. And a lot of that starts with your “best player.” So either someone else steps up as a leader or we may struggle to win the conference again this year despite the influx of “talent.”

    The big issue is we had zero guard play around him last year. Kevin was the only guy that even tried to create but his game was more junkyard dog.

    The best college team HD was on almost made the FF with 2 real NBA players (one of which is a star). I think this roster has some pro talent but it’s young guys (usually the case) and potentially Storr if he can fully buy in. That team also had two not NBA pro SR guards that were good but right around average.

    Now, building around a big man in 2024 is a pretty bad idea in general but Bill Self is the coach and he can’t help himself.

    I wouldn’t say 22 overachieved at all. That team had 3 NBA wing guards. Lots of length, positional flexibility etc They won 34 games which probably should have been closer to 36. Then you had the Kentucky game which makes perfect sense why that game went the way it did in hindsight.

    Softness could be a problem, but the schedule is loaded so they will get punched in the mouth quickly. It will be all about how they respond to that.





  • @benshawks08 said in Basketball Season:

    I’m going to go out on a limb and state my concern that Hunter just isn’t the kind of player a winning team can be built around. I know that sounds crazy, but based off of what I saw last year, that’s my biggest concern. He takes up a lot of space on the offensive end, and while he scores fairly regularly, there was maybe 1 or 2 games he really took over and dominated and I feel like they were all early on. He puts up numbers, but is he actually making winning plays? Is he a leader that makes a team better than the sum of its parts?

    Say what you want about big Dave. He was a clearly flawed player his entire time at Kansas, but his energy and leadership did contribute to a culture of a team that overachieved. I’m not sure Hunter has that. Hope I’m wrong. Culture and interpersonal dynamics of a team really matter and I worry about this years team being… Soft. And a lot of that starts with your “best player.” So either someone else steps up as a leader or we may struggle to win the conference again this year despite the influx of “talent.”

    I think Hunter can be an elite #2 option on offense, and my sense is things will trend that direction as we go. At bare minimum he’ll have 2-3 guys around him who can fill it up (Storr, Griffen, Zeke). So we won’t need him to play the almost career high and minutes and take a career high in shots this year.



  • @FarmerJayhawk LOL - everybody that’s ever played has been paid. I have a friend that was a DE for KU back in the mid 80’s. When Ku was as bad at football as they’ve ever been. (except now, maybe). He said nobody on the team ever paid a dime the whole time they were there. Never paid for clothes, never paid at a restaurant, never paid for anything basically.



  • @nuleafjhawk I had friends that played Juco ball and they got paid. It’s not just big boy ball that gets paid. Pretty wild for the NCAA to ever think it could rein that in.



  • @dylans I actually got paid NOT to play ball. 😉



  • @nuleafjhawk That deal with Alabama basketball players getting guns for each other/shooting -bad deal in general - sounds a lot like things that happen on the regular at GCCC. - home of Corey Dillon, Tyreek Hill, and briefly Arterio Morris. Jucco’s are shady.

    The sports teams were wild when I went to KU - a basketball player and a football player were my neighbors pot dealers. Jayhawk towers was a hot mess. Pierce dgaf who knew he smoked - told the ra to close the open apartment door on the way out if the smoke was bothering him. (90s - nowhere near legal) And that’s the pc stuff.



  • @dylans Yeah. I’m sure there’s so much BS that goes on behind the scenes that the general public is not aware of. I probably don’t even want to know…



  • @Texas-Hawk-10 said in Basketball Season:

    This is how I know you have no idea what you’re talking about right now. Zeke Mayo is nowhere near as athletic as Harris. Mayo isn’t quick enough to beat Summit League players off the dribble. 90% of his highlights are him doing stepback 3’s because he can’t beat his defenders off the dribble. Mayo was also a black hole on defense in the Summit League, but is suddenly going to be able to defend Big 12 guards like LJ Cryer, Caleb Love, and Jeremy Roach? Furphy sucked on defense, Griffen is marginally better, but still below average. AJ Storr might be a better athlete than McCullar is, but it sounds like he’s still not playing any defense and is still a ball hog who might be trying to top his 32% usage rate from last season. Hunter is slow and unathletic which is why he’s entering year 5 of college instead of year 2 in the NBA. I agree that Dickinson was misused on defense last season and should’ve been used the same way McCormack was down the stretch in 2022. Putting 3 bad defenders in front of him doesn’t hide those weaknesses, it magnifies them and means KU has 4 terrible defenders on the court at the same time. You’re also right that this group wouldn’t give up 89 to Samford and Gonzaga, they would’ve given up at least 110 in those games. The offense also isn’t going to be as good as people think because this team still won’t be able to space the floor well enough due to a lack of 3 point shooting to allow Storr to do what he is best at which is drive and draw fouls.

    Dammit, I wish I could disagree with you here, but I can’t.

    I’ve never seen a year where we could do better by using more zone defense. Especially since we have a footer in the paint that is slow.


Log in to reply