KU Basketball in 2026 - Nice Artice By Jesse Newell
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This is a neat article by Jesse.
http://www.kansascity.com/sports/spt-columns-blogs/campus-corner/article112341477.html
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@AsadZ Well i hope Self is still around, we have 4 FF and 2 NCs.
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HCBS will still be using the old method of “texting” while the younger generations have quickly embraced the newest method of “mental telepathy with 1024 bit encryption.”
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@Jesse-Newell : you lost me at…Texas breaks the streak and becomes a powerhouse…dream on.
More likely headline in 2026 is…Shaka Smart’s team shines at the NAIA Tournament at the Old Municipal Auditorium in downtown Kansas City, showing once again that he is small time coach. His departure from Texas was attributed to family issues but in reality it was the result of the merciless beatings he took from KU year in and year out; the 50 point humiliation a the new Texas Longhorn Arena was the last straw.
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Enjoyed the read… but didn’t like “Allen-Self Fieldhouse” mention. I’d rather see us pay tribute to Bill in another way… perhaps labeling the museum in AFH after Bill? I’m sure we will find something… and he DOES DESERVE IT!
Changing landmark names, even though well-intended, is the beginning phase of going way off target. So in 2036 AFH will be called, “The Doritos Picante Chip Bowl Arena.” Why? Because sponsorship will be allowed and we already changed the name to Allen-Self not long ago…
We need to BUILD UPON our heritage, not dilute it by mixing labels in a blender.
I feel very strongly about this!
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@drgnslayr Personally agree with you 100%, but exactly the scenario you described, is already happening. Why? Because of $. We are already known as an “adidas” school, vs the other schools out there that are “nike” or “underarmour”. Various pro soccer teams and bicyclists are human billboards for various brands. Nothing new in the motorsports world. I remember Emerson Fittipaldi’s goofy attempt at drinking orange juice instead of the celebratory tradition of milk, after he won the 1989 Indy 500 (in spectacular fashion over Al Unser,Jr). The controversy died down after people learn he did drink the milk. He owned vast orange groves in Brazil, so the OJ, he explained, was more for his Brazilian fans.
And also unfortunately, in a wider sense your concern about “diluting down” our traditions is exactly what’s been happen to the nation in general. Without getting political, let me just say in a general sense, that from the time of the founding fathers to now, the basic values and principles and work ethic that built this nation into a superpower, have been eroded away over the past 40+ years slowly, to the point we are “questioning” the validity of almost everything, to the point of being an aimless group of hodge-podge peoples. Its OK to question, but when you/me/whoever start questioning things that dont need to be questioned or overhauled, then we are no more learned or experienced than that silly, clueless 19-22yr old “clueless idealism” that college-age kids are infamous for (“but why do we have to do it that way…?”). Only wise, learned, properly experienced people can tell such young idealogues that they are wasting their time re-inventing the wheel, because 50 bright minds in the generations before you thought the same thing, tried it, and failed or proved wrong. But, mankind is known for repeating history’s mistakes, since every generation thinks they’ve got it all figured out, fix all the world’s problems, yada, yada, yada. Which is of course insulting to all those who already tried/thought the same thing, years before.
So, to come back around to your most excellent point, we had better figure out who we are as a people and a culture (“what is American”), and then stop undermining and diluting it.
I dont know if anyone has the words to do justice to the concept @drgnslayr posted here. But it is sooo important for the nation to understand.
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@drgnslayr Agreed. @JayHawkFanToo Idk bout Smart getting Texas to a powerhouse but he got them back to the dance last year and did a great job turning Atlantic 10 doormat VCU into a fixture in the tournament. I’ll bet anybody on this site Texas beats us this year or next. They may not win the B12 but Smart is one of the best up and coming coaches in the NCAA period.
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I couldn’t say it better.
We need to embrace our identity while also building upon it. This is where many people make a mistake… wanting to dilute or change our historic identity thinking this is the path for advancement.
Instead, we should honor and embrace what has got us here, and use our rich traditions as an anchor position for which to move forward and ADVANCE. Nothing wrong with change… either we do it or we die! But change doesn’t have to mean ABANDONING known winning attributes!
Bill has sometimes been called “hard-headed” for taking this approach. But he is spot on! Yes, he could add in changes quicker…however, I think he moves slow because he knows changes can impact other areas, so he moves with caution. I don’t think he gets the credit for the changes he does make EVERY SINGLE YEAR! He is adapting our offense towards the uniqueness of each team. And he sticks to his fundamentals on defense, which is still his main calling card.
I look at our nation and our basketball program in that same light. I don’t think it matters, Republican or Democrat or Independent. They all have different ideas but if we maintain this overall ideal, we will be in good shape moving forward!
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Unfortunately, the younger generations is being brainwashed by academia types that have never held a real job outside the university and are truly clueless about the real world. I have met professors at conferences and I just shook my head at the nonsense they talked. I am an engineer and at one conference I had to ask one college professor…are you actually teaching this to your students? and, have you ever actually been to a construction site…ever? The answers were yes and no which explains a lot. No wonder why so many college graduates come out knowing very little and they have to be re-educated in the way things work in the real world. Not that different than college coaches having to fix all the bad habist taught by incompetent HS coaches.
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@drgnslayr The trouble is if you embrace our history in this day and age you are racist. Everyones too offended to make progress or errors in doing so. I honestly think this country could be fixed easily bye having elected officials with common sense and knowing what its is like to be a common man, I’m sure our founding fathers didn’t start this democracy thinking everyone involved with the government would get filthy rich.
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Strongly disagree. Smart is a legend in his own mind,
Atlantic 10 doormat? Where did you get the that information? VCU moved to the A10 with Smart as its coach and was there 3 years and then Smart left. He coached for 3 years in the Colonial and 3 years in the A10 Conferences and not once he won a conference title in either conference. His Conference record in his 3 years in the A10 was 12-4 (2nd), 12-4 (2nd) and 12-6 (tied for 4th). After he left VCU, his successor Bill Wade had a 14-4 record and tied for 1st in the conference and made to the second round of the NCAA…and improvement over Smart.
His whole mystique is based in one lucky run that included one win over KU. In his last 3 appearance, including last year with Texas, he never made it out of the first round. Last tournament Texas lost to none other than Northern Iowa…poetic Justice?
With all the resources available to him (largest AD budget in college) and fertile recruiting territory, he is an unique situation to succeed and should be kicking ass and he is not. Granted he has not been there long enough but with the classes he has recruited he will be expected to have big success or else he will be gone.
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@JayHawkFanToo I think he’ll do well i stand bye my words, Colonial doormat before he was or Atlantic 10 it doesnt matter he put them on the map. As you say he has twice the backing in Texas to get them going. But its all opinion at this point we will see what happens.
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Sorry but wrong again…
At VCU the coaches were:
2009–2015 Shaka Smart, 6 seasons, Overall record 163–56 (.744), Conference - CAA/A-10: 74–30 (.712)
2006–2009 Anthony Grant, 3 seasons, Overall record 76–25 (.752), Conference - CAA: 45–9 (.833)
2002–2006 Jeff Capel ,4 seasons, Overall record 79–41 (.658), Conference - CAA: 50–22 (.694)
Hardly a doormat in the Colonial Conference; in fact, in the 3 years before Smart, Grant had a better overall and conference record and Capel was right there too. I already showed you that his successor, Bill Wade, had a better record than Smart and actually finished tied for 1sth in the A10 conference, something Smart has never been able to do…in any conference. You are just buying into the hype, Smart is all smoke and mirrors.
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@JayHawkFanToo smart won the conference tournament 3 times, which equaled their amount from the previous decade and made the final four, lead them to their most NCAA apperances in a row, they may not have been a door mat but that put them on the map and has to stand for something.
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Now you are grasping at straws. The Conference Tournament does not have nearly the weight of the regular season…ask any KU fan if they remember how many time KU has won the Conference Tournament…we all know how many Regular Season Conferences titles it has won, right?
You musts resist the temptation…Shaka is the dark side…
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@JayHawkFanToo Lmao my wife would love the stars wars reference, Im not saying he’s gonna be a legend or a power house. But i bet he competes for the B12 here real soon. We just hold different opinions of the guy.
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I don’t either, just saying his record to date would not seem to indicate it will happen. Just my 2 cents.
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@JayHawkFanToo you have to remember that in a smaller conference like the Colonial (and even now for VCU, the A10) the conference tournament is EVERYTHING. It often doesn’t matter how good your season is, you’re on the bubble unless you win that tournament.
Shaka Smart was a GREAT coach at VCU. I, like @kjayhawks, believe there is a strong possibility that Shaka will do very well at Texas and contend in the B12, and I hope he/they do. Tired of the B12 puttering out in the tourney with a whimper, and I believe Durant at Texas and Acie Law at A&M were some of the steel that sharpened the steel of our championship team.
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Not true for the A10 which has consistently sent at least 3 teams in recent years. The current Bracketology lists 3 teams from the A10. BTW, VCU won the Tournament only one time in 2015 and it was promptly eliminated in the first game in the NCAA… The VCU coaches before him in the Colonial and after him in the A10 have better records than he does at VCU (see numbers above). Like I sad, the legend of Shaka Smart is based in one NCAA Tournament run that included the win over KU and that is it; you might say that KU made Shaka Smart. LOL. With all the resources available to him at Texas, he is in a unique position to be successful…will he be? I don’t know, the jury is still out. Just saying’
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@KUSTEVE Without reading that article, (so let’s see how well KU educated me since my degree is in history and I focused on Roman history), the biggest reason to me that Rome fell was because the empire got too big to manage. Another big factor was the conversion to Christianity because it took the focus off of worshipping the emperor as a living deity like they did for the first 300 years of the empire. Not keeping the military happy is always a factor because paying the military kept the military loyal to the emperor. The invasions by various barbarian tribes were largely a result of the 1st and 3rd reasons. I don’t know what the reasons listed in that article say as of this initial post (I’ll read it when after this is posted), but those were the 3 biggest ones I came away with based on my years of taking classes on the Roman Empire and various other parts of the empire at the time.
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@Texas-Hawk-10 Also important regarding the army was that it was largely composed of Visigoths fairly late during the Empire. The Roman army at the defeat of the Huns at Chalons in 451 was largely Visigoths. Alaric only sacked Rome because of the ill treatment he and his people were receiving.
Note - fellow history major
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And through all Rome’s tribulations, they consumed their wine in pewter cups, right?
Weren’t they all suffering from some level of lead poisoning?
Or is this all just a myth?
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@et al,
Everyone knows I am an enormous JNew booster. He is the best young, well, only in relation to me, so change that to contemporary, basketball QA reporter in sports journalism today. Period.
But this one didn’t work for me.
I can’t even explain why exactly. Its well written and an interesting angle. But…
The only way Texas, with or without Shlocka Smart, eclipses KU Hoops, for more than a freakish season, is with serial dump trucks from Nike for serial seasons.
I predicted when Schlocka was hired that dump trucks would likely begin rumbling into Oil Barrel Arena in Austin shortly, but that was so a year ago and this is now. Things are changing fast in this old central bank centric world and the big fight on now as to whether the Anglo-American private oligarchy’s central bank gets to keep driving, or a Shanghai Security Pact private oligarchy gets to, seems what has quickly come front and center the last 18 months. Few 18 months ago foresaw a convergence between Russia’s reputedly unexpected leap frogging of USA military technology in fighter jets and god only knows what else, and the PRC’s string of pearls Naval bases converging with a rapid construction of the east-west and north-south super corridors across Eurasian leading to a situation where we could be stalemated in our China Pivot.
Still, there are counter strategies to the stalemated China pivot, tragic though they will be, so the worst case scenario for KU (Texas eclipsing us) just doesn’t seem likely to me…yet.
Nike can make so much more hay by continuing to route the dump trucks to the EST, unless I am missing some Texas-Latin American play (Hilary’s leaked admission that she yearns for an American Union in the western hemisphere) coming up as American prepares to engage in limited unlimited warfare with the Shanghai pact over Eurasian Super Corridor control and perhaps hopes to conscript 5-10 million Latin Americans into NORTHCOM and thence into a potential American Union Expeditionary Force, and expects a Texas-Latin American sports propaganda fusion to build the alliance (and so a shoe market) to achieve it. There is a remote possibility of this, what with Putin calling our bluff with the tiny fleet in the Mediterranean, and China reputedly preparing to call our bluff in the South China Sea area, but I still think there is a very slim chance of this scenario-apocalypto.
My hunch is that the EU will be convulsed into ungovernability by the Anglo-American private oligarchy, so that the Shanghai Pact that can decisively supply them cheaper oil and gas, will have nothing left in Europe of sufficient stability to exploit economically, or militarily, and so adidas would along with Germany join the Eurasian alliance should this scenario happen. In turn, that eventuality will likely spell the end of the KU-adidas alliance and propel KU into a Nike, or an Under Armor alliance.
The above being speculated on, I AM glad JNew is spreading his wings and trying to bring his insights to the format of Qualitative Analysis in addition to his already proven virtuosity in Quantitative Analysis.
Go, JNew, Go!!!
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Syphilis, likely more than lead poisoning, at least IMHO, has probably been the greatest historical driver in insane western leadership pushing the world into catastrophe after catastrophe down through the centuries–at least until the arrival of modern medicine. Of course, since modern medicine has enabled what we might call a Post Syphilitic Leadership starting sometime after WWII, and since things are still pretty f-ed up, we have to assume one of two explanations.
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Syphilitic leadership so afflicted the world with not only catastrophic events, but with catastrophic institutions and these syphilitic-era institutions, due to the phenomenon of institutional stickiness, are (and will) continue to plague us for many centuries to come, before all of the syphilitic-era institutions are finally eliminated.
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The ever emerging complexity of reality just stays ahead in a kind of red queen game with our slowly developing intellects.
Since it could also be some of both 1 and 2, I highly recommend humanity form a global allied task force aimed at rapid updating, or eliminating, all the syphilitic-era institutions, known to be causing problems (the Constitution seems not to be one of them, since the Constitution seems hardly to be being made use of at all the last several decades) and sharply ramping up educations for all human beings so that our intellects can somehow leap frog the red queen.
Syphilis-free and faster than the red queen of emerging complexity, I envision a vintage era for humanity.
Rock Chalk!
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@drgnslayr Incest probably had much more to do with the insanity of the early empire rulers. Conceiving with your sister, half-sister, or first cousin to have pure blood heirs was not uncommon back then. Royalty would’ve most likely been drinking out of cups made of gold, silver, copper, or bronze which don’t make people insane like lead does.
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My money is still riding on syphilis. There have reputedly been periods of history where most leaders of European kingdoms and states had it. There were periods when it was almost normal to have it. I have always wondered if Syphilis isn’t what inspired Europe’s insane creativity that let it outstrip other parts of the world.
Randolph Churchill, Winston’s duddy, grew crazy as a loon from syph, while participating in government for quite a long time.
Hitler AND Mussolini reputedly had it.
America has tended to suppress which of its leaders were afflicted, but as promiscuous as our founders were, and given their extended visits to Europe, one has to figure a goodly share had to be crazed with it.
Who wants to bet against a bunch of Confederate leaders from ports like Charleston and New Orleans were bat shit crazy from the clap!?
It comes on so fast relative to lead poisoning. And incest? Well, incest is so hit or miss because of genetic diversity generally. But syph? Combine the rampant alcoholism with syph and you got craziness in 5-10 years.
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@jaybate-1.0 I doubt it was syphilis. Evidence supports syphilis originating as a Native American disease that didn’t start showing up in Europe until after Columbus made his expeditions to the New World. I have no problem with theories that Hitler, Mussolini, and other European and American leaders suffering from syphilis because there’s strong cases to support those claims. Any claim that a European leader had syphilis prior to about 1500 is another issue and there’s just not strong enough evidence to convince me that rulers of the Roman Empire had syphilis 1000-1200 years before the Columbus expeditions.
The type of insanity those leaders displayed points more towards generations of incest based on research I’ve done. The other reason I strongly lead towards incest as a primary cause for Roman Empire rulers being insane is because incest was a pretty common practice throughout the ancient history of western civilization, and as you said, insanity from incest isn’t guaranteed in every generation and there were certainly plenty of Roman emperors who appeared to be of sound mind based on evidence and historical documents. Regardless of someone’s stance on the historical accuracy of the Bible, there are plenty of cases of incest in the Old Testament as well as other cultures of the ancient near east. Back then, most people never traveled more than a few miles from where they were born so that limits mating possibilities. Another factor, which played a much bigger factor in wealthy people of the time committing incest, was that marrying a cousin, half-sister, or even blood sister, kept the family property and wealth within the family. If you married outside of the family then, specifically a daughter, then you were bringing in a new family to split the wealth and property with.
So any European leader after 1500, I’ll listen to an argument about them having syphilis, anything pre-1500 in European history however, I just can’t believe any argument for because the evidence doesn’t support syphilis existing in Europe until about 1500.
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Here is an interesting overview discussion of the origins of syphilis to add to your quiver.
Reading it makes me lean to syphilis being everywhere before Columbus, but its not remotely conclusive IMHO.
I can see why you have found the issue fascinating.
I am most curious about the evidence of the 248 exhumed English skeletons with syphilitic like lesions from the 1300s.
The story speculates a connection to Viking visits to New England.
After reading at most a tiny bit on the issue, I have a question for you, because you have studied this awhile.
What draws you to the new world origin hypothesis?
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@jaybate-1.0 The reason I choose to lean towards the New World theory is that there were major advancements in science and medicine starting with the Renaissance period which began around 1300 and I believe that if syphilis was a common European disease at that point, it likely would have been discovered early on in the Renaissance. The interesting part to me is the possibility of the Vikings bringing it to Europe, but I don’t think the evidence is strong enough to support those claims.
The other reason I choose to lean towards the New World theory is because of the Columbian Exchange. Native populations were decimated by Old World diseases such as smallpox and influenza because native populations had never been exposed to those diseases and therefore didn’t have the same resistances to those diseases like Europe. I believe that native populations had similar resistances to syphilis that Europeans had to influenza and other Old World diseases that weren’t guaranteed to be fatal to European the way they were to natives.
If new evidence comes out that more definitively shows syphilis existed in Europe prior to about 1500, then I’ll definitely consider that evidence, but the current evidence that’s out there leads me towards believing syphilis was a New World disease that Columbus brought back with him.
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RE: Shaka talk
I tend to be on the @JayHawkFanToo side. I don’t think he is great. I want Texas to be good, to rise up at a competent rival to KU. Closest thing right now is Iowa State I guess. We are about to find out though as he is recruiting quite well especially last year. He got a steal in Jacob Young, legit NBA talent in Jones and Allen and a nice multiyear center in James Banks.
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Syphilis and incest. Wow! Perhaps I was thinking too highly of the Romans! LOL
I should have known. I visited Pompeii and one of the lasting memories entrenched in my conscience was the frescoes illustrating all the sexual activity.
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The Romans both as a republic and as a dictatorial empire knew how to live!
Lots of sports, lots of sex, all followed by a good hot bath.
Their big flaws were slavery and making persons fight to the death to put butts in the seats.
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@drgnslayr There’s a reason why the phrase “When in Rome” exists.
