Pessimism or Reality?
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I got up around 5 a.m. this morning and unfortunately my productivity to this point has involved reading the comments on that other site we all used to use.
I am sure a lot of you have already seen these but there is a pretty long thread about missing on Ingram, potentially missing on Diallo and essentially being “the same” team we were last year. Many of the what I consider pessimistic arguments revolve around the idea of this “same team”. Referring to next year as the same old team to me is really selling ourselves short. Honestly, 95% of the country would love to have this “same team” returning whether we land anyone or not and that is our reality.
So, that is at least how I feel. Even if we strike out on the rest of the big names left undeclared I personally think we are fine. We are going to have a team without an above average 5. It will certainly require Bill to change up his scheme. Playing through Landen and Jamari is simply not going to work. Luckily even these less than average guys that will play the 5 spot are old. Two seniors and a junior. Shouldn’t be a learning curve issue.
Also, we are returning more than most in the entire country. Think about the top 10 last year and the Final 4 teams. Everyone is losing a ton. Sure, they are all doing their best to reload but it is going to be tough for Wisconsin, Duke, Kentucky, MSU, Arizona and others to match the talent level they had last year.
What other pre season top 10 team is going to have more upperclassmen than KU? I honestly don’t have any stats to back this up but I have to assume we will be the oldest elite program. Maybe UNC will be up there as well.
This is just who we are for next year. A junior / senior team with one hell of a perimeter, one of the best players in the country (Perry) and a pretty big gaping hole at the 5 spot. Things have been worse and I expect a 6-7 loss season and a 1 or 2 seed from this squad even without any additions from the OAD circus.
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@joeloveshawks They are passing judgement without all the facts. The truth is, we don’t know who will come to KU yet. I have seen our best results from KU when we had experience, and we have plenty going into this year. What to do about the 5 if we miss on Diallo? I don’t know yet, but I refuse to subscribe to the doom and gloom so prevalent at kusports.
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@joeloveshawks well said. Jayhawks basketball is going to be fine next year regardless if we sign anyone or not. We have underachieved in the tournament last two years and perhaps we can overachieve the next year with our post shortcomings. Self usually does his best with his back against the wall. I was so worried in 2012 seeing that our 6th man was Teahan (no disrespect intended) but that team found a way to win. I think our perimeter is top notch and post is more than serviceable. We don’t need a savior. We’ll be better with Diallo but We’ll be just fine without him also.
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I think it would be helpful if our coaches/recruiters quit losing out on talent that’s right in our area. Otto porter, buddy heild, WC stein, olajeie? etc etc. I know I’ve missed a few but this constant chasing of FOOLS GOLD is getting old. Ok so duke won it all last year, that doesn’t prove the OAD way is the best way. They had plenty of upperclassmen and a senior PG quin cook, Jefferson, a mason or Plumlee plus another player or two. We are recruiting like we need to go after all the top 10-15 guys, and it doesn’t seem to be the best way to go about getting the best TEAM on the floor. I’m sure we will keep trying to land these players but it’s so shortsighted and has produced zero in the tournament. Ive wrote it in other threads enough times, this team will be fine and is loaded with talent for next year.
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@5541-james Mason and Ingram do not play the same position.
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@joeloveshawks - Good post this morning. I would toss this in … you never know how things will work out. @FarSideHawk is right. 2012 really looked like it could be a disaster. The thinnest Self team ever. We snag/steal (depending upon one’s interpretation) Kevin Young in June prior to 2012. Perhaps the most crucial off season transaction.
I refuse the doom and gloom, too, as @KUSTEVE said.
Until I see Self trying to feed the post over and over again, and having little success next season, we have every reason to be optimistic. We have a coach who just went through a difficult season scheme-wise, ended up running a four out/one in scheme he probably only envisioned in his nightmares, and got bumped early in the tourney for the third straight season. I may be naïve here, but I sense that this past season may inspire a little more flexibility from coach Self.
And isn’t the lack of flexibility really the only significant fault we (most of us) find with him?
Optimism is a good thing. If Diallo goes elsewhere, we move on. The sun comes up. Good, bad, indifferent. It just needs to be over.
Right now, Diallo is the most important recruit. But in the final analysis, he might not be. We have some time for this to play out.
I say we pitch in and buy Georgios Papagiannis a Mercedes, though. Would that help? I don’t know if that’s what @drgnslayr was thinking about.
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@joeloveshawks I’ve been thinking the same thing, but didn’t have any spare time this morning - until I got to work. Lol
Personally, I think I’d be happy if we don’t get anyone else. I think with the mixture of Juniors & Seniors we have (did I really just say that? We have juniors and seniors?) and the incoming players we have already - I look for us to have a much better year than the last couple of years. Wait and see - I’ll bet money on that.
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Quality post. A few rebuttal’s though for thought.
We run a system that is absolutely dependent on our big men being competent scorer’s. We currently have 1, we have 3 unproven (and presumably less talented) versions of the post players we are accustomed to having. We signed one gifted Big who’s minutes will have to shift between backing up Perry or being used at the 5 which is not his cup of tea. And we’ve all seen how much time it truly takes for Self to be comfortable with freshman bigs. So the likelyhood that Traylor will play more minutes than Bragg is not a fluke.
Again without the post players to play in this system correctly, the system is flawed. That’s why Self has reached so far and so wide for any post player he can plug into the system. He knows that without a player like Diallo we face the same hole we dug into this past March.
Without the quality posts, we lose our advantage on the competition. Every team searches for that advantage and ours is the H/L. Add in stingy defense and that’s how KU has built itself into a powerhouse since Self took over. Without those advantages we become a vulnerable team, a team that runs a system that could focus on a perimeter attack.
We definitely have a gifted back-court but we saw that you cannot overcome a weakness in the post with the offense we run. Shooting 3’s is just not Self’s way, or taking shots when you want to. Our system isn’t meant to showcase individual play or guard play. Our guards are terrific and we will need them because the Big 12 has great guard play coming back again.
Without added talent at the 5 or more bodies to throw in, we are essentially the same team just a year older. The Big 12 didn’t get any easier in fact it could be argued that its even better with the talent returning. We might be a more seasoned team that can deal with the Tournament pressure. We might be more ready for the season with the Summer we have planned. We might see certain players step up into a bigger role. Right now we are in the same boat as everyone, a lot of returning pieces and a lot of questions still to be answered.
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@RockkChalkk Right, I don’t why I was thinking he was a PG
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@BeddieKU23 And you are very right. If we run the same offense, the same high/low, the same throw it into the post and hope for a basket – with this post personnel – barring significant improvement from the post personnel – we’ll get the same result as last season. It astonishingly took Self months to adjust, and then when he did adjust, it lent itself to worse results.
My perhaps naïve optimism is that this will not occur again.
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Until everyone is signed, I can’t really figure out what we will look like next year.
The other X factor is Brannen Greene, specifically how healthy he will be and how durable that hip will be through the season.
The presence of Ellis, Selden, Mason, Graham, Bragg, Lucas, Traylor, Greene and Svi will mean that KU will not be bad next year. That’s an NCAA tournament team easily, top 3 in the Big 12 easily, probably top 20 nationally, even if Greene is not healthy.
The thing is that without adding another piece, this team is not a national title contender on paper. That doesn’t mean they can’t become a title contender, but I look at that group and I don’t see a title contender right now.
That group is a 25-9 team, Sweet Sixteen, competing for 12 in the XII.
Add a Cheick Diallo to the mix and maybe they are an Elite Eight team. Add Jaylen Brown and I’d say the same. Add both, and now we can talk about title potential.
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@HighEliteMajor said:
Optimism is a good thing. If Diallo goes elsewhere, we move on. The sun comes up. Good, bad, indifferent. It just needs to be over.
That is the biggest thing here. I’m sorry, but at this point, there really aren’t any wrong decisions. Just hurry up and make one. If you’re good, you’ll be gone in a year no matter where you go. I can’t imagine staying close to home is that big of a deal. You’ve already left home-home, so will it really matter if you leave NY? The only wrong decision is continuing to drag this out.
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“I think it would be helpful if our coaches/recruiters quit losing out on talent that’s right in our area. Otto porter, buddy heild, WC stein, olajeie? etc etc. I know I’ve missed a few but this constant chasing of FOOLS GOLD is getting old. Ok so duke won it all last year, that doesn’t prove the OAD way is the best way. They had plenty of upperclassmen and a senior PG quin cook, Jefferson, a mason or Plumlee plus another player or two. We are recruiting like we need to go after all the top 10-15 guys, and it doesn’t seem to be the best way to go about getting the best TEAM on the floor. I’m sure we will keep trying to land these players but it’s so shortsighted and has produced zero in the tournament. Ive wrote it in other threads enough times, this team will be fine and is loaded with talent for next year.”
There are several issues we have because we are just chasing our own tails by STRICTLY going after OADs. First off… we’ve passed up a lot of quality guys that would have stayed more than one year and actually had time to learn Self’s system. Second… if you examine our current roster, in two years we lose a boat load of guys that came in the big haul we had two years ago. We will probably lose a couple of OADs then, too. So… in two years we will lose something like 6 top guys in one year. That is what happened 3 years ago and we are still trying to recover from that.
Recruiting is more than grabbing guys for this year’s team. Going only after OADs is a strategy of only filling this year’s plate. It doesn’t help us plan for the future and install real building blocks to the team. It creates an insatiable appetite for the temporary player… and by saying “temporary” I’m saying players for only a few months.
I’m fine with recruiting a few of these. But we should be living off the guys just a notch down that will stay longer. We were devastated 3 years ago by losing 6 or so top guys… and now we are about to walk right into the same problem because we didn’t use at least 2 of our available scholarships this year on quality developmental players. Who knows… it still may work out, but it will only work out because of luck. The quality stock of 4-starish players are gone. We will probably land someone with just a year or two of eligibility left, when we need a couple of long range players with full eligibility to give us some experience on our team two years from now.
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@joeloveshawks Solid post. I agree that KU should be better next year regardless of who we get or dont get from this point on. Coach Self’s best teams have been more experienced, seasoned vets. We got that this fall. What we dont have, like you said, is a solid post presence. Will Bragg be that for us in his first year? Probly not. Will Diallo give us that? Yeah, to an extent. Not like Shady or Cole or the twins, or Trob or Withey or Biid.
Im not really holding my breath that we get Diallo at this point though. I mean we’ve missed out on literally everyone else.
Again, our returning guys will be more experienced and I think they will be better in the fall. But, it will have to be done without a next level big man.
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@HighEliteMajor HA! I love it! I’ll add to the Mercedes fund.
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@BeddieKU23 Seriously, thats exactly why Coach Self is going to have to exercise a bit more flexibility. We wont have Coach Self’s typical 5 man again next season. Diallo is more of a face up guy, not back to the basket type at all.
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My optimism thinks we will be a better team, a 30 win team is very possible. From all reports, the schedule again will be brutal, and the Big 12 is just as brutal again.
I just have a hard time envisioning this team in March being great with Traylor, Lucas & Mickelson getting meaningful minutes.
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You can’t pursue only OADs, but Duke showed why the OAD is important. Could Duke have gone to the Final Four without any of their three OAD’s? Not even talking about winning the title - I’m talking about making it to Indianapolis. Take any of those three guys (Jones, Winslow, Okafor) off that team, and they are a Sweet Sixteen team.
I agree that going exclusively OAD isn’t the way to go, because some years you will miss.
However, you should always be looking for the OAD that will put your current team over the top because, as I have advocated before, you never know how a lower ranked guy will develop. Will that guy ranked in the 70s become Tyshawn Taylor or Royce Woolridge. Tyshawn Taylor can take you to the title game. Royce Woolridge can’t. But it will take you 2 years to find out which one you have.
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@justanotherfan I’m w/you!
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Kudos to all those putting a positive spin. I was kind of like maybe we need this kid and when they signed somewhere else, I then thought maybe we don’t need this kid.
I think I have to join the crowd in thinking KU will be fine next if they don’t sign another player. After all we are kind of reaching that point any kid we get know is going to be riding the pine anyways.
I also think we KU fans maybe sleeping on a player already on KU"s team. To me Svi has that chance to really break out. He’s spent a year studying the system. He’s spent a year under Hudy building muscles he didn’t know he had. He’s spent a year getting used to American basketball. He’s spent a year understanding what basketball means to the KU faithful. Look for the kid to be locked and loaded.
As a bonus yet to young to tell, but this Bragg kid seems hunger. He’s not the typical OAD kid who thinks he can play in the NBA yesterday. Yet he seems humble, hungry, and carries a resolve I will succeed.
Either way I feel the future is bright.
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@DoubleDD I agree about Bragg, I think he is going to quickly become a fan favorite at KU. Really glad we have him as a part of the team.
My fingers are starting to hurt, they’ve been crossed for a long time waiting for Diallo’s decision. With him, the team goes to the next level. Without him, it will be tougher but not impossible. I like what I see from Tevin Mack and supposedly there is strong mutual interest. He won’t fill the void down low but would be a solid player here for multiple years if we were to land him.
I fully expect Self will fill all of his scholarships this year. In a perfect world it would be Diallo, Brown or Mack, and someone else out of the woodwork, maybe a developmental footer transfer (Withey type) or high energy guy (K-Yo) that may have to sit a year but could still be a big contributor down the road. I think once all of the top recruits are committed a few other guys will pop up on the market that we haven’t heard of yet. It has a tendency to happen like that. Well… I’m still drinking the Kool-Aid here, hope you all are too!
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I don’t think your drinking the Koo-aid at all. Though I’m starting to think Diallo is becoming a reach. No proof but Nike seems to be pulling out all the stops to get these top kids into Nike schools. I will say kind of love Nike turning it’s back on Coach Cal and UK. I had a feeling Slimy Cal and his arrogant ass would cost him in the end. At the end of the day for Nike it’s about selling shoes and apparel, and Coach Cal is bad for business.
HCBS has done it before. Getting gems in the rough of what’s left over, and you’re right He’s done pretty good with transfers. Just off the top of my head Young, Whithey, and Black all turned out to be pretty good pickups. Though Black under preformed a bit he was a presence on the court. I’ll never forget when he backed down the opposing team all by himself. LOL That was classic.
