Answered Questions After IU
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Last night showed the fear that I have with this team. Josh Jackson is a great player, but as an off ball player, he must have quality touches in order to be effective.
Jackson, by my count, had two quality touches in the second half and OT. A quality touch is one where you catch the ball in an attacking position. Once he was fouled on the arm, the other time he passed. That’s it.
Josh is not a shooter. Spotting him up on the corner or on the wing is useless because he is easy to defend from there.
This team needs to run. Every player on this roster other than maybe Lucas is better in the open floor. Svi, Vick, Udoka, Josh, Frank, Devonte, Carlton, Mitch, all of them will be better with the pace up. Self needs to unbridle his horses and let them run.
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Unless we get LL 2.0 like we did the last part of last year, or Dok develops quickly, sweet 16 at best. LL’s injury is concerning. It’s obviously affecting his play, and we’re getting beaten up inside as a result.
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@chriz Pretty obvious Lucas is struggling with his foot issue. That was not last year’s Lucas.
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@justanotherfan Josh is young and he just got his first lesson. Never ever under any circumstances tell the media that you are trying to go undefeated. It will backfire more times than not. Better now than game 40 though.
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I agree, but here is the problem facing both of us.
Self and Crean had them running and fouling.
It was a 103-99 game!
Take away the OT and it was STILL a high trip count. Part of that was fouling and part of it was the hurry up of both offenses. But really, IU fouled us 12 fewer times, so our high scoring definitely stemmed from hurry up.
So the problem is not running, it is the way KU gets shots for Josh on the run, and the terrible team defense Josh (and some others) play on the run.
Let’s hope Josh only takes a few games to get comfy with the speed and physicality of D1 and learns off-ball help defence.
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Copy and paste.
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@KansasComet There was nothing wrong with Josh saying KU was trying to undefeated. He didn’t predict KU would go undefeated, just that it was a goal and it should be a goal of every KU every year because there are very few games KU is more than a toss up to lose.
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@KansasComet Yeah, probly shouldnt have mentioned going undefeated. BUT he did say it with much less bravado than ohh say those kids from Kentucky a couple years ago.
@jaybate-1.0 Thanks for the explanation about the rules and such. I trust Bill Self. I do. We may take another lump or two heading into the conference but he will have this team ready. He needs to talk to Hoiberg again if possible. Hell, taking some notes on how Golden State plays wouldnt go amiss either. Granted we dont have talent like KD or the Splash bros.
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Self is at his best, when his most cherished “who we are” habits are denied him. He resists furiously, but when he has to change he changes in brilliantly unexpected ways. I call them hat rabbits.
Let’s see if he’s got another in the top hat!
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@jaybate-1.0 He absolutely does. The guy is amazing at tweaking his roster, motivating his guys, bringing out their best. We only have to look back at every single one of his seasons here at KU as a reminder.
I just read Jesse’s post game article and Matt Tait’s post game writes as well. I gotta say I like what I read.
Yah, this loss stung bcuz KU could have won the game had a couple calls gone our way…the 3pointer that wasnt a 3 pointer, and the IU kid being out of bounds that got missed too. And we would have won had Frank not missed that single free throw.
But I take this loss as a better opportunity for Coach Self to work his magic with our boys, especially our Freshies and Sophs.
Lastly, Im just glad College basketball is back again.
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@Texas-Hawk-10 Absolutely nothing wrong with saying it. I couldn’t agree more. The lesson is that it is easier said than done. Can we agree on that my friend?
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@Lulufulu Yes, in that case shirts were printed up and the world was theirs. The night that it happened to them was awful for them. The morning after appeared to be even worse from my vantage point. I was in Indianapolis that weekend. Part of me wanted to laugh. The other part of me already had!
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KU bigs need to gain chemistry, heal a foot, and play with a bit-o-not-soft nastiness. Play like Izzo’s bigs. Bragg needs a coming out party. His 12 pts were fairly quiet, imagine if he has a big game, suddenly we are off his back.
By playing 4 guards, the ONLY thing we are masking is our poor post play. But just how much chemistry do our 4g-lineups actually have. I see that 4G lineup as an infant experiment. Think about it: we’ve played a 4G lineup for exactly 3 games, and not the entire games…and to think we could beat a top11 team with it? Right out of the gate? I dont think so. Only Frank kept us in it, or else IU beats us, no OT needed.
Spin it the other way: If it wasnt for Frank, we get a 15-20pt loss at a neutral site.
Spin it the Self way: He put the 5 odd-fellow lineup pictured above simply to allow the “L” to happen, and let this team taste defeat, and all the focus and intensity that will allow. And if Duke beats us, and we are 0-2, you might go ahead and pencil us in to the F4, as it could be that motivating, with a true test looming Jan.28 (KY).
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You don’t replace 2 three year starters in Bill Self’s system with a freshman and a seldom used Soph. and expect results the first game. Especially against a quality opponent in the first game. A few missed calls (shot clock violation etc.) a few missed plays by our guys and they lose. No margin for error early, but this is what we all wanted! This is Josh starting and playing thru mediocrity unlike Oubre. This is Josh getting to learn and the team a chance to take it’s lumps and gel.
This is how you prepare for April.
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You are both onto some things.
Self had to work on this 4 guard thing sometime, because:
a.) we will play small teams and need to be able to go small, because of bigs that may not be able to hedge to 20 feet;
b.) our bigs are injured and other than Lucas in embryonic stages;
c.) Self wants to create video of Josh showing up everywhere ASAP to force opposing coaches to prepare; and
d.) until (if) Colelby can play, KU doesn’t have enough developed bigs to go big and stay big for 40 minutes, so KU has to learn to play small regardless.
He is also getting on with all the above from the start, because this bunch minimizes TOs and fouling while learning new rules.
Notice KU “only” had 38 fouls compared to IU’s 50.
Self guessed right and almost stole one from Crean, who has probably the best big man in the country in Bryant.
Healing from injuries after Duke is paramount.
But Duke is another “play through” game.
P.S.: Bragg, like all. bigs, always wanted to be a stretch 4 and his harried unsettled play explains why there aren’t many doing it successfully: it is two positions at the same time. Bragg will get it over time. For now it is: be careful what you wish for.
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I was really surprised we struggled so much. Devonte and LL both had subpar games. Our rebounding was terrible …worst i’ve ever seen from a Self team. We are far behind where i felt we’d be in every possible way, shape, and form. That said, there’s going to be a switch that is going to go off at some time in the future. And this team will be transformed - don’t know if it takes the next game, maybe it takes 20 games … but this will be a great team. Just don’t know when.
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Unreported injuries + heavy reliance on OAD early = what we saw
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@jaybate-1.0 I’d like to see Bragg in a point-forward position due to his vision and passing ability, but his handles won’t allow it. I’d love to kill small teams with size. Svi and Jackson are as tall as 2/3 the post players out there.
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There are many killer app strategies and tactics waiting for players with the right skill sets.
Bragg might get there next year, but agree he is not there now.
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Coach Self has been open about injuries, he has indicated that Devonte is having issues with cramping, Coleby is not fully recovered, just to name a couple. I don’t understand where the talk that he is hiding injuries comes from, it certainly questions Coach Self honesty.
I posted this on another thread but seem more applicable here.
At this point KU is a work in progress. All the pieces are there but they are not fully operational yet. Positioning for rebounds and rebounding in general needs work. No question it is hard to stop a team that is in the zone from the 3, like Indiana was, but there has to be a contingency plan anyway.
The guards are fine but Devonte does not seem to be 100% and the cramping issue apparently has not been resolved. This team will go as far as Mason’s legs take it.
The referring sucked and, from my biased perception, it looked like the critical bad calls went against KU. I cannot recall when is the last time 4 starters fouled out for KU. I suspect we will be seeing more Lightfoot in the future; he was in a very short time but was solid and could give meaningful rest time to the players we need on the court at crunch time.
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@JayHawkFanToo Coach Self hasnt always been forthcoming about player injuries. Its reasonable to assume that there may be some info that we arent getting in regards to player health.
But, I agree with you on the calls, the refereeing. There were two very bad calls that absolutely affected the outcome. 1. the trey that was a shot clock violation. 2. the out of bounds guy getting that rebound.
But, but, KU got out rebounded by 11 or 12. Its not like we are a small team. Bragg, Lucas, Udoka, all very big guys, should be perfectly capable of boxing out and grabbing boards!! Its maddening! I cant even imagine what its like for Coach.
KUs lack of ability to rebound defensively absolutely shook the game up too.
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The problem that I saw with the 4 guard offense is that Self just ran the same offense through it. What exactly is that supposed to do? So you look to get your best players on the floor and run the same structured offense that only works with the right lineup. We plugged guards in all game and saw the results of that.
I know its game 1 but if Self is going to Change, you actually have to Change the offense your running to get the results you want from it.
It was game 1, again, I have to remind myself of this. So much time to make things work. Devonte had a bad shooting game and didn’t impact the game at all. Same with Jackson and we were more then 1 pathetic officiating call (missed shot clock violation & in OT player was out of bounds and scored on resulting possession) from winning or a made FT (Mason). Things will get better but we might be 0-2 before we start seeing it
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I agree. As I mentioned in my post rebounding is a big issue and it has nothing to do with size, which KU has. It has to do with not boxing out and getting in position to rebound. If you looked under the KU basket after a IU miss, it was like Grand Central Station with 3 or 4 IU players that had no business being there and should have been boxed out. I am sure Coach Self will be working on that.
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Vick and Jackson. Assuming Svi and Bragg have shown us what they can do, it’s all about the development of our other guys. With Jackson, he didn’t contribute much either in driving to the basket or producing steals. I’m left wondering what his value is and whether I’m going to have to eat my words about him affecting the game more than Wiggins. Vick needs to produce steals, blocks and shutdown defense. Period. If neither of these things happen, we will have to play at our absolute peak this year to go anywhere in March.
People said we played “bad”. We played about as “bad” as Indiana. They simply look more talented to me, and there is rumor that this year has more incoming talent than last. So either Indiana is a top 5 squad, or we have to lower our expectations.
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@JayHawkFanToo exactly. I don’t know what is so complicated about blocking out. We can’t do much when a team is hitting threes with a hand right in their face, but rebounding is completely under the defense’s control.
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@betterfireE to me, it doesn’t look like certain guys are maximizing their potential. Jackson is settling for shots and I personally think, contrary to what Jaybate thinks, that his one on one defense is not the best, Carlton is not putting in enough mental effort to rebound, and Devonte has been fooling around ever since the exhibitions started. I know Devonte has been dealing with cramps, but he needs to tighten things up and stop having crazy drives. Frank and Svi have played well. Landon has played better than what others are giving him credit for, though his rebounding numbers could be higher.
In regards to Indiana, things always look better when shots go in. They made 15 threes and shot 50%, with several of those being contested and a hand in their face. They are a good shooting team, but they won’t have many games where they shoot that well.
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Talk of possibly under- and un- reported injuries comes from:
–DG grabbing an unreported hamstring, in addition to whatever cramping may have been reported;
–saying Lucas has just a “sore foot” despite wearing a boot off the floor and some kind of apparatus in the last game that makes his shoe bulge while he favors that side and underperforms for 3 straight games including two D-II teams;
–Bragg getting few rebounds in three games and taking few jump shots and getting few dunks or blocks suggesting an unreported injury is keeping him from getting up;
–the best recruit in the country going 3-11 and only occasionally being able to get up; and
–Coleby going from a few minutes vs. D-II team’s to no minutes vs a big IU team we got in foul trouble against and were facing with a gimpy Lucas and so could have used at least the same few minutes Coleby gave previously.
I didn’t watch Vick, so not sure on him.
Regardless, when Tyler starts playing in a close game one wonders about injuries to other perimeter guys.
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Copy and paste.
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One of the problems starting an OAD early is he can only learn so much of the offense and defense schemes.
Self looked like he was keeping it a 10 page playbook and Josh was struggling with that!
The 4-1 looked pretty good last season when a lot of guys could make treys.
But I agree. I’m not sure how the 4-1 is supposed to work with Josh on a wing where he’s not a threat. It’s like moving Kevin Young outside.
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@Lulufulu when a player does not play well, you can’t always assume “he’s injured”. Sometimes, believe it or not, guys don’t play well.
The rebounding is frustrating - I don’t believe for a minute that the coaches have not told them how to block out, assuming they didn’t know. Personally, it’s all about “want to”.
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@HawkChamp said:
. In regards to Indiana, things always look better when shots go in. They made 15 threes and shot 50%, with several of those being contested and a hand in their face. They are a good shooting team, but they won’t have many games where they shoot that well.
I disagree…they won’t always shoot that well…but they will have quite a few games where they shoot that well…JMO
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@betterfireE You may have valid points…but it is only one game. Jackson will contribute a lot…more than Wiggins? Remains to be seen. No question…Indiana is a good team. The game could have gone either way. My sense is that they played more to their potential than we did…but who really knows. I always find it interesting…would our rhetoric be significantly different if a few things had gone our way and we ended up winning the game?
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But Josh can make shots outside, he just has to be smart about it. Releford was not a shooter but became efficient at picking his spots. Josh wasn’t aggressive in this game didn’t even attempt to drive the hoop and missed a gimme layup he could have dunked. I expected different from this one but his first impression leaves you thinking this is just another OAD that isn’t all that again. I hope this was an eye opener for him.
Self has to evolve this offense and let it shoot quick shots and force tempo. We built leads when they played fast. This doesn’t look like a grind it out squad
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Good point, the issues would have still been front and center but it would have felt really good with a win to work on those issues.
Tuesday is important for many reasons. You don’t want to be 0-2 with the type of roster we have
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@BeddieKU23 great point about that missed wide open layup. I was hoping Josh wouldn’t be another soft OAD (or trying to avoid injury, which ever one). It seems as though he is not what we thought he was - not dunking it was pretty soft.
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@HawkChamp did you see his dunk off the offensive board?
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@BeddieKU23 said:
Self has to evolve this offense and let it shoot quick shots and force tempo. We built leads when they played fast. This doesn’t look like a grind it out squad
100%. Will he do it tho…
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No I don’t expect he will but I guess I should let it play out first.
In the game Chat I pointed out tempo several times and that seemed to be key with this group. I think of North Carolina’s style of play as something this team might have to evolve into.
Again I’ve advocated for change after 1 game and I’m not sure how much of it is fueled by being disappointed with the loss. I suspect some of it comes from that. I don’t know what actual changes need to happen to make whatever point I’m driving reality. I know that besides Frank we didn’t see a very aggressive bunch out there offensively in the 2nd half and OT. Missed shots became a big issue, one that made the rebounding/officiating and missed FT’s seem more of an issue in the moment.
The big positive I keep taking away from the game is how beneficial it is to play a top level team so early. It forces Coach and the players to really think about the effort they must give to beat good teams. If Friday’s loss turns into Tuesday’s win because of that experience I’ll be thankful the schedule played out the way it did.
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that was a great play.
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Are we men, or are we Snowflakes? Are we going to come out and kick Dook’s ass, or are we going to lay around caterwauling in the fetal position, and let those pansies win? Our redemption is near: beat DOOK!
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"…when a player does not play well, you can’t always assume “he’s injured…”
I don’t recall anyone in this thread ever assuming that weak performance is “always” the result of injury. I know I never discuss injury and lack of performance in those terms. So far, you are the only one I recall to suggest it, and then you reject it; that appears a straw argument of sorts.
We are looking for likely explanations of 3 consecutive games of apparent underperformance and I have hypothesized a number of likely drivers, including, but not limited to, under- and un-reported injury, converging to produce the phenomenon.
Where did you get the idea that anyone else believes injury “always” causes reduced performance?
Rock Chalk!
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Really measured, articulate and sensible take.
Recall the last two seasons especially that Self has tried to build leads with treys and transition, and defend leads “running the stuff” or Bad Balling. This seems to be what he is trying this season, too.
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Josh played the way many OADs do in their first game against good D1 competition. The lack of driving suggests possible injury, but the 3 position role has long been a tough one for some of KU’s best talent to find the sweet spot of. Previous OAD 3s have struggled with “waiting for the game to come to them.” They get too passive. Others start out trying to do too much. Still others struggle with not being the most dominant and skilled person on the floor for the first time.
I don’t have doubts about Josh being very good and making a big contribution. But it will take a month or two to find the sweet spot.
Also, just because he goes 7-11 the next game, instead of 3-11, does not mean he will have found it. Making shots comes and goes. It’s mostly his floor game that he needs to find his way on; that’s what will take a few games.
But the guy is a terrific young athlete, so barring injury, he will settle in in a few games.
He is already good enough to make it a 1-point game against a good Hoosier team.
His trey balling, or possible lack there of, is what I have been calling board rats’ attentions to from the moment he was signed. The logic distills to this:
If strong Trey ball, then open driving lanes for great athleticism to exploit.
If weak Trey ball, then closed driving lanes even Great athleticism cannot exploit.
The video of Josh the first three games will make opposing coaches scheme to give him the Trey and close the driving lanes.
If he can make the Trey, then he will make them pay and shortly those lanes will open.
If he cannot, he and we are in for one of those seasons of intermittent great physical prowess but not high scoring efficiency, unless he holds his FGAs to 7-8.
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I hope that if defenses sag off Jackson on the perimeter that Self puts him somewhere else on the floor.
Why not run him on the high post or down on the block like we did with Perry? Hard to believe we can’t find ways to exploit how a defense may play him. I think it would be a shame to force Jackson all season to sit on the perimeter and create his own offense. So many ways to use his size and athleticism that don’t involve him making a play 20 feet from the hoop.
I’m really interested in seeing how he responds from the loss as well as the team. Have to think we’ll see some better focus in area’s that were lacking.
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I want to see numerous backdoor cuts from Josh. I wanna see him in a Keith Langford/slasher type roll. Aggressive, attacking the basket, keeping the D on it’s heels the whole game. This opens up the three ball for the rest of the team, but could pack the lane. So spacing is important and getting Josh in space is paramount to his success.
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@BeddieKU23 there does need to be more scheming, and I think that aspect leaves a bit to be desired. He did get the ball in the post on one play in the Indiana game - I just wish there was more stuff like that to keep opposing defenses guessing.
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Keep in mind that last year’s team did not have a great start to the year and blew a lead late to MSU - that was an ugly game. Won the Maui tournament, but the teams out there weren’t exactly stellar. February is when they hit their stride and started playing like how we thought they would. This year’s team will improve, it is just a matter of figuring some things out and rebounding better. They’ll get there.
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I’ve got beef and hamburger helper won’t help this time.
Here we are at the beginning of another fresh KU basketball season and us die hard fans are trying to scramble to figure out the holes in this team and the possible solutions. These days I don’t get to watch the games with a my ol college crew, but we still talk in group texts. One thing that is pretty consistent is our disdain with Lucas. I noticed in your initial analysis you gave a lot of players your focus, but did not talk about perhaps the most concerning player on the team. It could be that you, like many fans have just settled on our current situation and are just willing to accept it and defend coach self because he can do no wrong. I saw later you talked about Lucas being injured (classic jaybate). So if he is “injured” why do we play him 35 minutes in the game! I know the obvious explanation of why he plays as much as he does, but that doesn’t make him any easier to watch. How many times are we going to see him get stripped as he brings the ball down? How many times is he going to be blocked this season? It is like he has to power up if he is going to score. We are going to face plenty of D1 teams that have tall players and Lucas literally cannot score over people. Unless he has a pass that leaves him wide open he doesn’t score. His obvious lack of athletism should be a major concern. Anyone see his reverse layup atempt? He looked stiffer than kids trying to do the mannequin challenge. I get that Dok is young and raw, but we gave him 7 minutes. In that time he had two rebounds and one block. Lucas had zero blocks and seven rebounds in 35.
I know KU will be fine in the long run, but it is going to be a painful watching LL for the next 5 months if nothing changes in his game or our game plan.
Just venting by the way, sometimes I got to get this stuff off my chest and I consider this site my safe space. Haha
@jaybate-1.0 tell me why I am wrong, or least help cool my kettle.
Rock Chalk all the way let’s beat Duke!
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As I recall, Coach declared sometime a week or so ago that his team would not abandon learning principles in order to run willy nilly just to win one game. (At least, he stated something along that order.) Of course, what we saw with Frank in his last few minutes on the floor, some of those principles might already have been shitcanned…or perhaps the “principles” finally got kicked into high gear.
