Why Oh Why?
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Why Oh Why?
In the early minutes of this game, Kansas started to assert itself inside. Perry had a couple of easy buckets and it looked like he was off to the races. This was the perfect game for Perry to put up 20+ points and lead this team to an easy victory.
Then it came. Perry was called for a reach 223 miles away from his own goal and captured his second foul and an invitation to watch the remaining 1st half on the sidelines.
Come on… everyone in here be honest. How many of you screamed at your TV? Did you really think Perry could hear you? What adjectives did you use? I think I yelled so loud at my big screen TV that I voided it’s warranty. My TV will start psychological counseling today. I’m sorry, dear Samsung.
Why Oh Why?
Why do Bill Self teams always have big guys two time zones away from the basket playing tight hedges against quick guards? We do this on both sides of the ball. Our bigs try to set high ball screens on offense, too. I understand the concept. I understand the theory that we don’t want our bigs stuck on a mismatch, and on offense we hope to create mismatches. I know it is a big part of the game of basketball.
How effective are we with this? I better understand the offensive side of the ball, even though we pick up a ton of fouls on our bigs for moving screens. How hard is it to learn how to stand still? I do realize that part of this relates to timing and spacing of the ball handler.
Flipping back to defense now… what was Perry thinking? We often get calls on our bigs trying to hedge a guard’s play out in never-never land. Do we really get something out of that? Does Perry and the rest of our bigs realize that they are ripe cherries waiting to be picked by any guard in the country if the guard chooses to drive right into them. It is the most automatic call in college basketball. Buddhist monks can make that call.
This game illustrates just how important every single play on the floor can be. It doesn’t take too much imagination to see the possibility that this one dumb foul Perry made could have cost us #11. TCU was given a chance when Perry had to sit. We all know how hard it is for a guy to get back on track in a game when having to sit for half of it. TCU had no answer for a hot Perry Ellis. This was the turning point in the game.
Once again, Kansas basketball remains at the top because no other team in this league knows how to win our league, many don’t know how to win a single game.
I’m on board with those saying “a win is a win” because we always have some dud games like this that we hold on to win. These games are as important as the big wins in Austin because “a win is a win.”
I’m frustrated like many others, but thankful we know how to win. The frustration comes from the aftertaste from a game like this. It so closely resembles the aftertaste in March after our national contender team drops one to a Mo Valley team. Nothing against the Mo Valley, but… come on!
Why Oh Why?
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Sorry, the last one was my fault. I paused the game with KU up 23-10 to eat. The rest is ugly history. My bad. It won’t happen again.
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@drgnslayr - That’s quite the display of hyperbole.
There’s no way Ellis was more than 222 miles away when he got that second foul…
Please be more journalistically responsible from now on.
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On the positive side… we got a win, and we have another example of issues where Self can hammer down on these guys in practice to become a better team. A lopsided win would have just built our egos higher and take the focus away from improving at a high rate.
We will eventually look back at this and snicker.
