Mitch Lightfoot, is this a good thing or bad thing
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@jayballer54 Lightfoot doesn’t impact KU’s ability to sign Bolden, Herard, or Azubuike individually. It does impact KU’s ability to sign both Herard and Azubuike which probably wouldn’t have happened anyway. Lightfoot is at worst insurance for next year. If he doesn’t show a ceiling worthy of playing time doen the road at KU, Bill Self has never been shy about recruiting over somebody and encouraging them to find other opportunities elsewhere.
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I remember that. Many people were downright rude about us signing Mason. They saw his size and barked out.
At some point we need to put a little faith in Self!
This guy might be the perfect grab for one of those spots. Especially if he has basketball IQ. Most of what the guys ahead of him pickup (development) will be executed through another big. One big with good basketball IQ can be a major help to our other bigs and if sold right from recruiters, could even help a tiny bit in recruiting elite bigs.
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I’m definitely happy to add Lightfoot in the same way I was happy to add Jamari. I think he has potential to be a really useful player. I think Jamari did too. I wasn’t under any apprehensions about Traylor, though. I never saw him as the next TRob or McMorris, but I thought his ceiling would be that of a Quincy Acy: High-energy guy that adds value with trash man buckets. Clearly that hasn’t happened with Mari, but oh well.
The guy I’d compare Lightfoot to wouldn’t be Sam Dekker, though. Dekker actually finsihed the rankings as a 5-star, top 15 guy coming out of HS, even though he got snubbed on the McD’s AA invite. Lightfoot more closely resembles our own Kevin Young: High energy, high BBIQ. I was thrilled when we signed Young because he was a guy that obviously knew how to play even if he wasn’t a top talent. And that was borne out when he was nearly as productive as Darnell Jackson on a team that didn’t have half the quality of penetraters or shooters.
Lightfoot has more time to add a face up game and the ability to attack off the dribble, so his ceiling should be higher than Young’s. I’d even venture to guess that he’ll finish HS as a consensus 4 star, probably in the 70-80 range. The question is whether or not he develops. And it’s that question that is really the rub. When Manning was on the staff, you knew our big guys would improve because that’s what Danny does. I love Norm Roberts as a recruiter (and he has been killing it for us when no one else has), but it’s not hard to notice the drop off in how bigs have improved under Norm vs Danny. Self really needs to re-evaluate what we’re getting out of Snacks.
Although I’m not the only voice in the fire Snacks chorus, I’m thinking of starting a fire Townsend chapter. It’s not that I don’t like him as an assistant, but as a recruiter, he hasn’t been cutting it. Yes, he was lead on Wiggins, but as much as I loved having Wigs with us, we’d have done just about as well without him. Other than that, his west coast connections have dried up big time. Young was the last west coast impact player Townsend brought it. Withey was the last top 50 west coaster to commit, and only by way of transfer having been the 2nd choice. Beyond that, you have to go all the way back to what, Giles? The fact of the matter is, we haven’t recruited Texas well, we haven’t recruited Chicago well, and we haven’t recruited Cali well in too long a time. Norm’s kept us afloat with his east coast and south east pipeline, but if we want guys like Lightfoot to be more icing and less cake, we need to sort out that problem and sort it fast.
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@drgnslayr Yeah he kind of came out of no where and we already had Frankamp on board. I think it left most of us scratching our heads. I remember that recruiting class and Coach Self talking at media day saying he knew everyone was talking about Wiggins, Frankamp, and Greene (and they should be) But that 2 guys everyone will be talking about after the season started would be Embiid and Mason. He was spot on. Maybe this Lightfoot will be the guy HCBS is raving about next summer?
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Kevin Young was 6’-7" 185 lbs. soaking wet, Lightfoot is 6’-8" 210 lbs., much stronger, better athletically and a good 3 point shooter. Young was a very opportunistic and smart rebounder and very good for is size but, IMHO, Dekker is the better comparison.
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Let’s not forget that Self just flat got lucky with Mason. If Self would have signed one of the six or seven PGs he was seeking to sign ahead of Mason, we’d never of had Mason – Hill, Harrison, Jackson, Jones, Jordan, Barber, and Peters (we got in late on him, and not a real PG). Credit Self for having a good back up plan that worked out. Other back up plans haven’t been as positive. And the fact is, Self gets the credit for Mason because he signed him.
Lightfoot is perhaps a little different in that regard. We aren’t signing him because of big swings and misses.
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Great post.
I think it is about time we clean house on assistant coaches. We need to bring in young assistants that are hungry, have lots of energy, and very capable at teaching and recruiting.
We can spend millions of dollars on shiny-box dorm rooms and have all the history and legacy imaginable… but the buck stops on our coaches’ abilities to bring in recruits. I think they are just getting too old and what recruits see is recruiters and not so much what their lifestyle would be like beyond the old guys recruiting them.
I hope having Miles around is more than just a temporary thing. I hope it is step one into bring him on board as an assistant coach.
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“The fact of the matter is, we haven’t recruited Texas well, we haven’t recruited Chicago well, and we haven’t recruited Cali well in too long a time. Norm’s kept us afloat with his east coast and south east pipeline, but if we want guys like Lightfoot to be more icing and less cake, we need to sort out that problem and sort it fast.”
@konkeyDong Great quote. Great post, as @drgnslayr mentioned.
Look at our roster – Mason (East), Graham (East), Selden (East), Bragg (East), Diallo (East), Greene (East), Vick (East). From a core talent standpoint, a big chunk comes from parts east of Lawrence, Kansas. That’s seems big. And nothing in Texas, nothing in California, nothing from Chi-town, as mentioned by @konkeyDong.
The rest – Ellis (in state), Svi (International), Coleby/Mick (Transfers), Traylor/Lucas (seriously, who cares).
But maybe I wonder why geography is important. Either we get good players, or we don’t, right?
Seems like Texas would be fertile Kansas country for hoops. That seems the most important area in my book.
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He will have to get used to playing the game of basketball at Kansas once he gets going he should be fine
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Lightfoot is no Dekker, remember Dekker was a 5star recruit out of high school. Whoever is comparing him to Dekker just googled a white dude with similar size. Comical.
The difference between Lightfoot & Mari is all physical attributes. Mari had a college ready body & athletic ability coming in. He’s actually lost a lot of his explosiveness over the years… Lightfoot will need at least 1 year just to be physically ready to play in the Big-12. 1 year might be being kind, he’s going to need to change his body completely.
What he does offer is hopefully a more skilled offensive player, maybe in year 3-4 or 5 if he red-shirts he will be a glue guy we need. Can we afford as KU to take on a project as opposed to a High 4 or 5 star potential OAD. Remember signing Lightfoot can mean his scholarship is used just on him for the next 5 years… Just a thought
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We’ve always had Chicago players on the roster including Jamari this year and Cliff last year.
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@wissoxfan83 I don’t know. Seems like things from Chicago have been a little slow. Julian Wright, Sherron Colllins, Jamari Traylor, and Cliff Alexander.
Traylor was not a recruiting coup, or even near a top player. Not even top 100.
So since Collins graduated in 2010, we’ve had one player, who played one season, that was at top 100 player.
Of course, we snagged Milton Doyle for a few months.
Shouldn’t we have a touch more activity there? Maybe my expectations are unrealistic.
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No offense to beddieKU23, but I shudder at the thought that we start thinking about scholarships being given to 1 player in such a manner: “…means his scholarship is used just on him for the next 5 yrs…”. Sounds like the OAD circus may be changing our core values?
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Also, some of the Chicago decline is Self delegating to assistants more than in years past. In the past, Self did a LOT of facetime, and man, he is one charismatic dude. Self went to see Ju Wright in his home, and Julian committed to KU sight-unseen.
Note to Self: FIRE Jerrance’s sorry, incapable butt, and go put the time in yourself! I think @HighEliteMajor might agree, that when recruiting top30 or top50 guys, would we rather “bet” on our assistants vs Louisville’s or KY’s or UNC’s assistants, or would we rather have Self vs. the other schools’ assistants? They’d have to send SlickSales Calipari himself or UncleRoy or skirtchaser Rick head to head vs Self, if not, then Self would conceivably have the recruiting advantage in a kid’s living room in front of his parents…
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@BeddieKU23 said:
Can we afford as KU to take on a project as opposed to a High 4 or 5 star potential OAD. Remember signing Lightfoot can mean his scholarship is used just on him for the next 5 years… Just a thought
There’s an easy question to answser: YES!
For one, you only need 7 quality players to have a championship caliber team. More than that and there are diminishing returns on depth. And every top team takes and keeps developmental guys on scholarship. You absolutely need to if you want to have any continuity year in and year out in the OAD era. Remember, the one year that UK failed to make the NCAA tournament, let alone the Final Four, out of the last 5 was the year where there was basically no carry over. They had a lot of 5 star kids, but there was only seldom used reserve Jon Hood (coming off an ACL tear) back from prior seasons. That particular humiliation changed the way Cal recruits. He is no longer laser focused on OAD guys, and has tried to get multi-year guys to put around his stars.
And it’s not just UK. UNC, Duke, Arizona, Ville, UCLA, MSU, and UConn all have low-ranked (we’ll call this guys who were not consensus top 100, even if they cracked the rankings somewhere)/un-ranked players filling out their rosters. UConn even won 2 NCAA titles with guys like that (exception, not the norm, I know) playing major minutes. Here’s a list of the low/un-ranked players currently on those teams (walk-ons not included)
Arizona: Elliot Pitts, Kadeem Allen, Ryan Anderson, Mark Tollefsen, Dusan Ristic
UCLA: Bryce Alford, Noah Allen, Gyorgy Goloman, Alex Olesinski, Ikenna Okwarabizie
UConn: Sam Cassell, Jr., Shonn Miller, Phillip Nolan, Amida Brimah
Duke: Sean Obi, Antonio Vrankovic
UK: Mychal Mulder, Dominique Hawkins, Derek Willis
Louisville: Trey Louis, Damion Lee, Mngok Matiang, Anas Mahmoud, Matz Stockman
MSU: (It’s actually faster to name who is consensus top 100 on scholly) Matt McQuaid, Deyonta Davis
UNC: Nate Britt, Stilman White, Luke Maye
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I’m against the OAD circus. I initially thought that it would have some value but its proven to be the opposite. Make kids stay 2 years or nothing, kids these days aren’t ready to step into the league like in the past.
I thought I was bringing up an important point about Lightfoot. Can this program, one that wants to keep in the elites with Kentucky & Duke recruit borderline top 100 kids if their are better players out there. Can the future of this program count on him? How many years can KU wait to get the rewards from him.
Self put KU in the business for 5 star recruits & OAD’s. In the culture of instant gratification players that take 3-4 years to develop now are becoming a thing of the past. We all like to remember the kids that stuck it out & waited their turns, but the fact is that age is gone.
I have to trust that Self knows what he’s doing, we’ve had a good track record of coaching up players to above their perceived skill level.
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Valid points, your correct that every team needs those glue guy types. There great security blankets as you could say.
I just think Lightfoot is a risky recruit for KU. He’s played at a lower level of HS & AAU ball all of his career. Reports of him playing well in the bigger tournaments do help his case but the fact is his film looks great when your playing overmatched competition. I’ve pointed out phyiscally he’s a few years away from being at a level where we can reasonably expect him to hold his own in the post. When you don’t play the best out there on any regularity its going to leave him with a lot to prove. Hopefully Self knows what he’s doing.
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@BeddieKU23 I agree with your concerns. I do think we fans are truly on the “outside” when it comes to talent judgement…and I mean the kind of “fitting of the pieces” thoughts that are running thru Self’s mind when he sees some prospect play live or on film.
@HighEliteMajor mentioned Self got lucky with Mason and Graham, and beddie brings up the concern on Lightfoot. But it would be very illustrative to ask Self what exactly he saw in Frank Mason to go and “plead” with him to come to KU. Clearly he was right, I personally think it was more than luck, as Self saw something in him from the outset, and has only been proved right. And Devonte Graham is a home-run find from the heap of sub50 players out there.
And I must also put this concept out there: the 50-100 ranked players of today are likely a bit better than the 50-100 ranked guys of 10-15yrs ago. We have 2 starting on our KU team, Mason and Graham, and they are our 2 most consistent guys. Another, Tyshawn Taylor (#70), led his team to the NC game. I’ll take Tyshawn’s senior season “developmental payoff” anytime, if we want to call such guys “projects”. Graham, eventhough a sophomore, actually spent a year in prep school after high school, which may explain why he is so smooth. He could have been a junior. But we still have him for 3 years!
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I understand what your saying, but the reality is KU isn’t UK and Duke in recruiting. I’m sorry guys be we aren’t. It doesn’t mean KU can’t have a good or even great recruiting class. It’s just KU has to work a little harder to get some of those top recruits.
Now before you guys beat me up, hear me out. Ever notice UK and Duke (as of late) always have a few studs already locked up and KU is playing the waiting game.
Don’t get me wrong KU is still a destination for top talent. It’s just not the top choice.
My point? If HCBS recruited this kid, then as fans lets be happy to have him. After all having BS as HC is what allows us to hang with those other programs.
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@DoubleDD said:
My point? If HCBS recruited this kid, then as fans lets be happy to have him. After all having BS as HC is what allows us to hang with those other programs.
I would have to disagree with this.
KU has never gone more than 8 years without a conference title (that happened from 1978 to 1986). Since the NCAA tournament modern era (after 1979) KU hasn’t gone more than five years between Sweet 16 appearances (1981 to 1986).
KU has almost literally never been bad. Since Phog Allen took over in 1907, KU has reeled off win after win after win.
I know I am critical of KU, and critical of Bill Self, but KU hangs with the other programs because you can look through the last 110 years of program history and you will struggle to find a “down” period. There are some disappointing seasons here and there, but no true “down” period.
I don’t want to act as if being good is a KU birthright. It takes work. But KU is good year after year. We can hang. We have hung for more than a century. I see no reason why that would change.
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Good point about talent evaluation. I’m certainly no guru but I would like to think for all the years I’ve been a fan of this program and watching high school talent more than ever that I can at least have a semi intelligent opinion on kids. Like Lightfoot, my concerns have nothing to do with his ranking, but more to do with the lack of competition he’s played & lack of physical attributes needed for next year. He cannot be the single egg we get in this class in the post. I don’t believe he will be the only guy we possibly get either.
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well got to say to @ just another, I am afraid have to disagree on a point, and that is to say we have never went through a down period isn’t exactly true, I was around when Ted had some rough times not really very good just mediocre teams didn’t have problem getting a ticket at times for a spell, don’t get me wrong we didn’t stink but Ted was catching some heat use to be a theory he could recruit but couldn’t coach back in the old BIG 8 days I suffered though some of those years we were not even close to the power we are now, so to say we didn’t go through any down spells is not really correct
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Then you should also have a problem with Carlton Bragg since he played in one of the lower HS basketball division in Ohio…but he had that East Coast exposure that Lightfoot did not. School Divisions are based on school sizes and not the level of competition; although statistically one could argue that the bigger schools could have the better talent, but then, a lot of the smaller prep schools/basketball factories play in lower divisions as well or in no division at all. As far as AAU, TTBOMK, there is only one top division and different zones and he played decent competition in the Arizona/West Coast regions. The camps he attended are by invitation only and you have to be top 100 to attend; once he got the exposure, a lot of big programs came calling and he started the recruiting process again. After watching quite bit of video from him, I am of the opinion that he will be a pleasant surprise. While he is listed as PF, he really played Center in HS but a lot of the scouts think that he can easily switch to SF since he has decent outside shot. I believe you are underestimating Lightfoot
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@BeddieKU23 I hear ya, and of course I have been watching kids play ball for a long time…but what I failed to say was that I think Self watches kids, and mentally is able to “plug” their attributes and mentality into his plays that are in his head. He may have an idea of what type of PG can actually feed the type of bigs he has on the team already. The complimentary pieces concept that only a coach’s direct perspective can offer, and I think Self is “better” than most other Div.1 coaches in that aspect.
You can say he was “wrong” about Selby, and the fact that he was NOT another Sherron, but one that was too headstrong and not even coachable. Ive talked to people who knew Selby in highschool and on the AAU circuit–> cant tell him what to do. He’d run different plays than what the coach called. He did that at KU, too. Maybe Self thought he could reel him in a bit, but that didn’t happen. Once Selby got physically healthy post-KU, he was a force, but alas, his problem was squarely between the ears…Its the reason he is toiling away in China now, or wherever.
Finding the right “fit” is so important. All these guys can jump out the gym (except Lucas and T.Self, poor chaps…). Man, I’d love to hear Self’s candid comments on a prospect in question.
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I don’t think adding Lightfoot will impact recruiting elite bigs. He doesn’t have a high ranking or big rep in that world (beyond his local area). He could be a plus if he can actually develop into more than his current rank is.
I’m sure this has a certain amount of risk. There is always a gamble. I just know we need more than Lightfoot from this recruiting class if we want to put a competitive team on the floor.
We should be bringing in a couple of top elite bigs. They will be supported by the best and most-experienced guards in the country! That has to count big! With the right bigs, we can compete for a NC next year because of all the experienced talent we have. We should be recruiting on that. Kentucky and most other schools, won’t have that. It is a crap shoot every year at Kentucky because they replace the majority of PT minutes every year. Big gamble. Not a gamble next year at Kansas.
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Lightfoot is up to #99 as per the ESPN rankings. With the KU bump and a good senior H S season and the additional exposure that he will get now that he is on the radar of the press, it is conceivable that he could finish in the top 50.
BTW, Thon Maker is still available and apparently much improved and beefier than last season; is KU still interested? Is Maker going to skip college and go directly to the pros?.
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@justanotherfan I have to agree with jayballer…I lived through some of those down years too.
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I don’t really know how good Lightfoot is. I trust Self. If he thinks he can play here…good enough for me.
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@Hawk8086 Blind trust. What a wonderful thing.
Tharpe, Thomas, Traylor, Lucas, Adams, Appleton, Peters, Anderson, Frankamp, Giles, Alexander, Doyle, White, Wesley, Lindsay, Selby, Mickelson, Case, Galindo, Downs.
While there have been far more hits than misses, I wouldn’t bet your mortgage payment on it.
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I don’t think Bragg is a valid comparison although I get your point. Bragg has played at the top level of AAU for years, although his high school isn’t the top level, he played plenty of top level kids over the years. Just plug his name into youtube & he’s played a lot of good players in HS. His talent as well is also undeniable which really explains everything.
Lightfoot has spent most of his life as a low level recruit. I don’t doubt he’s improved or he was simply missed on the recruiting front because he was a New Mexico recruit early in the process. After opening up, he became desirable to programs & recruiting services noticed & watched him closer than they may have ever. It’s probably to his talent that he’s now become a sought after recruit by KU AZ Utah & others. He sounds like a high character kid that Self covets.
If he does pick KU, then I’m hoping he will prove me wrong. The facts seem to point that he’s got a long ways to go to proving that. We really wouldn’t know what we are getting until he was here. Maybe he has a great Sr year and gets more notice.
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I love your insight, especially since you’ve been able to be near Self and experience him first hand. Your thoughts on Self and what he looks for in recruits are probably close to the truth. He’s not always right, because the fact of the matter is he’s not able to mold everyone into a minnie version of himself.
He’s missed reaching the top talent and the lower rated players in the past. I think he recruits any top rated players regardless of backround unless he ethically can’t stick with him. Sometimes doing your homework on kids will not be enough to see the flaws some kids have maturing (Selby, Cliff) among others. I think Thon Maker is a situation where they left him alone due to red flags & the uncertainty in his situation. There’s a good reason most schools left his sweepstakes. So that’s definitely a situation Self has probably taken the caution flag out for and gone in another direction.
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@BeddieKU23 Bragg had a really good hs coach. A d-1 coach told me that most of the kids we recruit have been taught very little and they start so very far behind. I think a good example would be Cliff.
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@HighEliteMajor Some of the guys you mentioned…Traylor, Lucas come to mind…are good to have on the team. If a player doesn’t play up to expectations…he can become a role player, or transfer. My point was not that he would become a star…but if Self feels that he has a chance to be a good player, or at least is good enough to offer a scholarship to…I trust he is doing the right thing.
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Exactly, his coach has been highly thought of & according to Self has helped Bragg adjust well. Korea couldn’t have hurt him either, it was almost like the ice-breaker for him. Bragg got to play against men, not just 18 year old kids in the same boat. Especially with the Diallo situation unlikely to be positive for us, Bragg’s development is probably the biggest thing KU needs.
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He seems to play hard and looks like a guy I’d love to hate if he was on an opponent’s team.
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@Hawk8086 Ok … but really, do you ever want Lucas or Traylor playing for a Kansas team?
They’re both below what our standards should be - to be an elite program.
Both were signed when our other options signed elsewhere (Lucas after Tarc went to AZ) and Traylor during the spring of 2011 fiasco. Both were forced signings to fill roster spots.
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Yea but how many of those kids where recruited over? It’s not so much Lightfoot is the man as it is we need some players. I believe we will have quite the turnover after this year.
I’m sure even yourself would be against filling every hole with a OAD? Well the reality is the Lightfoots of the world can be hits, misses or just recruited over.
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I am not sure what you mean by top level of AAU. As far as aI know there are U14 and U10 programs but basically anyone older than 15 plays at the same level, just different regions. So Bragg and Lightfoot played at the same AAU level just different regions. Yes. I understand that some of the regions. such Chicago, New York, LA, Washington DC are stronger, but Bragg played in Ohio which is not necessarily at the top of the list.
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“He seems to play hard and looks like a guy I’d love to hate if he was on an opponent’s team.”
Good comment. He’s the guy that we usually play against in March and lose.
Sounds like we better get used to the idea of him being a Jayhawk. We’ll know in a couple of days, but it will not be a surprise to anyone if he picks Kansas.
Everyone has their first impressions. He’ll be given a chance to prove himself. I hope he has a high basketball IQ. We can build muscle on him and improve a bunch of his skills. But it seems hardest to improve basketball IQ. Jamari is our biggest example of that. Crazy athleticism and largely wasted because he doesn’t know how to apply his athleticism to the game. He’s built right to own the boards, but can hardly snare a rebound… the game just doesn’t “click” for him.
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@DoubleDD You are exactly right. We need to fill a roster, and we need bodies and insurance. I just suggest that is to fill roster spots 10 or 11- 13, roughly.
I have no problem with Lightfoot as the third big in this class, if we have two top 50ish guys ahead of him. Guys like Traylor and Lucas are fine on our roster as insurance. As the 5th and 6th big. No quibble there. My emphasis is on playing.
I don’t want guys like Lucas and Traylor having to play if they prove that they play at a talent level commensurate with their ranking (Lucas unranked, Traylor 132). Haven’t both of them been exactly what their ranking told us they would be?
Look, neither can score back to the basket. Both are liabilities. We commiserate about losing Cliff and Embiid, or Cliff underachieving, as a reason why we didn’t advance further last season or the one before season. That means, by consequence, that playing other guys in lieu of Cliff and Embiid cost us – and it did. Lucas and Traylor. We know they did.
How much has playing Lucas and Traylor cost this team? We can see some of it as a partial excuse for our 2nd round losses. We couldn’t do what Self wanted to do (and Self didn’t adjust to what we had).
I’m usually against filling any hole with an OAD if it can be avoided.
I hold to my position that we can get guys outside OAD range, but in the high talent area (roughly top 60ish/or proven transfers). And sure, we’ll get some lower than that. If we have an OAD here and there, or guys say outside the top 100 occupying rosters spots 10 and lower, that seems reasonable.
Lightfoot? Sure, welcome aboard. But if we don’t snag two high talent bigs to fill our needs, then we’ve underachieved in recruiting.
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You made two points that I couldn’t agree with more.
- If we don’t snag 2 high talent bigs to fill our needs, then we’ve underachieved in recruiting.
Yea if Lightfoot is the elk we recruit for bigs in this class, then @jaybate-1.0 will be doing cart wheels of his prediction that bad ball is here to stay at KU.
- And Self didn’t adjust to what we had.
Sadly this maybe the chink in the HCBS armor, and keeps him from becoming legendary. Lucas and Traylor are good kids and play hard but I’m afraid HCBS is trying to use them in ways I’m not sure they can. Especially Traylor. These kids aren’t stars they are good role players. They should never be the focal point of the offense, as they we’re forced to be last year in HCBS determination to pound the ball inside.
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I agree.
But really I think our biggest issue concerns player development. We took a definite hit when we lost Manning.
Just look at Jamari. He is a 5th-year senior. 4 years of elite D1 behind him and you know he is going to continue to make bad freshman mistakes again, in his 5th year! That is inexcusable! If the kid can graduate from a university, he surely can pick up more of the game of basketball.
I can’t count the times he has made monstrous mistakes that cost us. Half the time you will see him look down afterwards or towards the bench, and he will hit himself on the side of the head. He knows he made a bonehead mistake and he is trying to beat it into his own head to remember and learn.
You can count on him doing the same thing this year. What a pity. Not only for Kansas basketball but also for Jamari!
If he had developed his basketball IQ (and a few more tools) we wouldn’t be having this conversation because we know we can develop 3-star level players to play with the big boys, at least by their junior year! Jamari is a stud on physicality… 5 years of D1 should have rounded out his game and polished him up to be a gem by now. And he certainly has had plenty of PT for experience!
Like I mentioned in a previous post… it is about time we clean house on assistant coaches. Bring in some youth that has the energy, knowledge, drive and focus to improve our recruiting and also our player development.
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Given the constraints put on Self by the PetroShoeCo-Agent complex, and especially with @drgnslayr 's recently linked insights about Nike, William Wesley, Leon Rose and CAA, I suspect the approach you are describing is pretty close to what Self is pursuing.
The problem is the complexity of the process creates a lot of variation in observable positive recruiting outcomes and obscures the drivers of a lot of the failures to sign players.
It is increasingly apparent that there are the following tiers of recruits.
OADs
5 stars
4 stars
the rest
Assume Self wants to do exactly what you suggest. Each of these four categories cascades effect and feed back on the other three. My hunch that what Self actually recruits is the end result of trying to do what you seek subject to a lot of variance.
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I believe Bad Ball will remain an arrow in our quiver, but not the main one…UNLESS Bragg and Diallo can provide no B2B scoring, and none of the returning bigs can do so either.
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is it possible for us to play the tough D required in BAD BALL but upgrade our offense slightly to just be respectable?
Seems that we need to make a goal to play a new kind of basketball -
GOOD BALL / BAD BALL
Dr. Jekyll /Mr. Hyde
“Good Cop / Bad Cop”
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@HighEliteMajor I agree with your posts that have always said…rankings matter. Yes…we need high ranked guys to achieve a NC…or even B12 Championships. Recruit too many 100 or 100 + guys and we will not be happy. Traylor and Lucas are role players. Traylor was one that Self would have led us to believe had a higher ceiling than he achieved. I don’t think he (or us) ever expected Lucas to be more than a role player. I know I didn’t anyway. Yes… there is room for Lightfoot, but we need one or two higher ranked guys to go along with him or this will not be a good recruiting year. I think most of us are in agreement on that.
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A broad change of assistants is not something I have contemplated.
You raise some interesting points.
But I am not sure I can walk down this path with you, which is a change, as I usually get and go along with you when you open my eyes to another way.
I agree that player development (aka coaching’em up) has to be a strength of the staff, because lack of KU connection to the reputed Nike/Wesley/Rose/CAA complex means Self will not be able to overwhelm opponents with too much talent for the foreseeable future. Developing 4 and 5 star talent, and finding 3 star talent that can be developed–these are likely going to be the coins of the winning realm. Plugging an OAD or two into that “developed” core will be another strength needed.
I begin to diverge with the assumption that our current assistant coaches are to be considered responsible for Jamari’s slow development. Jamari has been a tough row to hoe for our assistants and would have been for others as well. He is arguably the least talented big Self has ever tried to use in a front court rotation in Self’s KU tenure. Danny never had to coach a rotation player as short on skills and physical attributes as Traylor is. I am not sure Jamari would have been better under Danny.
Roberts seems to have done okay with those bigs that have possessed legitimate D1 talent.
Another variable effecting Roberts: since Snacks got in trouble, Snacks has apparently been marginalized from recruiting; that has likely had a ripple effect of making Roberts recruit even more and work even less with the bigs than usual; and that may be responsible for some of the deficiencies in the bigs we saw in Korea.
Roberts arguably did a great job with Embiid.
Roberts arguably has done a so-s0 job with Ellis, but that has to do with Self insisting on Ellis being a stretch 4, rather than play the 3 as he would have at other schools. Roberts and Ellis should not be blamed for what Self wants Ellis to be in college.
I feel like our perimeter guys are well coached.
I think our stifled recruiting tracks to the shoe embargo, not the age of Kurtis and Norm.
And I think Self has gotten younger with Snacks, Fred and now Aaron.
So: I think he has this covered.
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***"Seems that we need to make a goal to play a new kind of basketball -
GOOD BALL / BAD BALL
Dr. Jekyll /Mr. Hyde
“Good Cop / Bad Cop”
–@drgnslayr ***
You are probably exactly correct about where this could, should and will go.
Self is a genius.
In short order he has discovered two major innovations in my opinion.
First, last season Self discovered, or perhaps rediscovered, a very startling potential in the game of basketball with Bad Ball. It was something others like Ryan at UW had begun moving toward. Others had long nibbled around the edges of it over the years within many offensive schemes. Frankly, Dean Smith’s four corners offense, which started as a stall, but then became a situational offense, is the forerunner of it in a kinder gentler age of basketball. Bad Ball is in principle Dean Smith’s Four Corners in the Age of XTReme Muscle. What Self the genius seemed to add to it was to systematize the idea of collapsing the space between offense and defense GENERALLY. Self took what Dean’s point guards did in the four corners, which was to collapse the space between the ball handler and the defender and generalized it to every position on the floor, and then pretty much did the same on the defensive end, too!!! It was an insanely counter intuitive thing to do, but it worked brilliantly. Geniuses often let genies out of bottles that others wish would not have been released. Generals dearly wish that the brainiacs at Los Alamos had not figured out the atom bomb, because it obsoleted so much of what was venerated about warfare. Generals also wish special ops had not taken over so much of modern warfare, because so much of special ops is just dirty, low down cheating and criminal in traditional military terms. There is not much glory and honor in special ops. You can’t even brag about most of it. You can’t be hailed a conquering hero. You are a hit and run bunch operating in the shadows and using every horrific mode of counter terrorism to win with you can. Where is the glory in that!!! But Atom bombs got loose and triggered limited warfare and Special ops proved the best way to fight limited warfare up to a point, and after that you used conventional forces not to win, but to muck up a country to the point no one could use it. It was a cascade that lead to really ugly business. I think of Bad Ball like that. You can pretend it didn’t happen. You can try to clean it up. You can have the team start wearing black berets. You can hire some PR firm to write the Ballad of the Bad Ball Berets. But bottom line its dirty business that has gotten out of the genies bottle.
And it only helps a little knowing Dean evolved the Four Corners out of the Carolina Passing Game which was Henry Iba’s High Low Offense with some Bruce Drake Oklahoma Shuffle and Frank McGuire improvisations and some old Phog Allen routines sewn onto it making a quilt of many colors, but all High Low underneath.
Bottom line, Bad Ball is ugly, not graceful.
Second, this past summer Self discovered (or at least put on display for the first time) something in Korea that I think is going to take even longer to understand than Bad Ball. Board Rats, including me, were too busy being delighted by the change from Bad Ball to whatever it was we witnessed remotely over in Korea, to understand just what the hell we were seeing. But I am here to tell you that what you saw in Korea was not an accident. It was not unplanned. It had Self’s own weird spin on it as surely as Bad Ball did, too.
Let’s just cut to the chase and call what we saw in Korea “Good Ball,” shall we?
I’m frankly not able to decipher what Self did to the game of basketball in Korea.
But I have a hunch it was profound and I have a hunch we will find its roots in something some other coach of substance had done in the past. And whomever did it, they are probably not likely to have fallen too far from the Iba-Smith-Eddie-Larry tree.
I have a hunch it may be something that Doyle Parrock tried at Oklahoma City University that has been lost to posterity, except a few Okie Ball geeks like Self. Or it could be Paul Westhead. Or it could be something Jerry Tarkanian screwed around with for a time. Self mentioned Tarkanian in a positive light a few times last season, so we can reasonably guess that something Tark used to do has been catching his fancy.
Self has no choice but to improvise.
The Embargo forces him to do so.
The interesting thing is that Self is at about exactly the age the Wooden was at, when he too realized he had to improvise or die. Wooden came up with the final couple of pieces of the UCLA way–one of which was the 2-2-`1 zone press Jerry Norman brought him–to begin winning rings.
Bad Ball was one improvisation.
Good Ball was one improvisation.
Only a genius who can also be methodical about working on his non linear discoveries and improvisations can have a clue right now about where this may be heading.
All I can say after watching Self a lot of years is that he likes the idea of BOTH-ness in what ever he does a lot of.
Right now Bad Ball and Good Ball seem mutually exclusive paths.
But Self signaled where he wants to go in the last game of the WUGs.
After playing a lot of Good Ball, he shifted gears briefly and played Bad Ball.
It didn’t appear to work very well.
But a lot of things that geniuses do don’t look great in development at times, and then they suddenly blossom into unexpectedly great things.
Rock Chalk!
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@jaybate-1.0 So, should we expect him to give the team a bit more free range to “play” this season?
I read one of his quotes from Media day about micromanaging coaches, how they all do it. But, he seemed to hint that he might let his guys play more on their own. With the rule changes, maybe he will have to.
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Not sure how that plays out. Interesting that Self is preparing the fans with the idea that there will be a lot of FTs and fouls this season. In theory (and likelihood) if that happens then teams with a deep bench will benefit most. One more reason why we need to clear Diallo. And hard to say how our perimeter depth will hold out. Matters a lot on player development.
I see it like he may start out giving the guys a longer leash, then if foul trouble occurs he will tighten it up quickly and have an excuse to run things the way he is used to, including with a quick hook on some players, typically freshmen and sophomores.
