Nothing to prove... nothing to win.
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It's that time again in the year... when I have to mention "chip."
For all of you who have read my preaching for years, you may want to find something better to do.
Statistics show that we play better as a team without DP. That's not fair to DP. His offensive stat numbers are at the top in D1. And his defense and rebounds are substantial, too.
What it points to is how average our team is when guys don't bring 100% effort to games.
If this team, with DP, can bring full effort for 40 minutes a game, we are a Top 10 team. When we don't, we can lose to anyone.
There were times in today's game against WVU I thought we might have learned from our heroic victory against TCU. Then in the second half, we went up by 8, which proved to be the big disaster in the game. At that point, WVU stepped it up a notch, while we didn't. At that point, we stopped getting WVU turnovers, stopped attacking them in the open court, and we reverted to our old ways of losing; not disrupting their game and hoping we can outscore them.
My hope for this team is dwindling. My last bit of hope is after we lose many games and drop off the radar completely, we may then suddenly feel motivated to give what it takes to win. It worked in 2022, after Kentucky kicked our butts in AFH.
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Yeah i am not going to give up on this team simply because our ceiling is much higher this year than last. We just werent athletic enough last year. That isnt the problem this year.
We are losing to anyone this year because our defense and offense is garbage, the question is “it garbage in design or implementation?”. Wheres @kuballin10 at?
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I HATE the switch everything defense. Causes us to rebound poorly and double team too much in the post.
Offensively I’m not sure we shoot it well enough to get much better. Offense for this group has to come from defense in a sense.
I still think they will get better as a team. But we are certainly not a good team right now. Incredibly lucky to not be 0-3 in conference play.
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Switching 5 needs to change at this point if Bill and this staff can’t see that, we need to move on from them. We are looking like a bubble team with the number 1 recruit. Either way you slice it, it’s unacceptable. Offensively we ain’t that bad just need to move ball better.
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I'm watching the WVU game... On any given shot on either side of the court, no one crashed the boards. Google and watch Sampson at Houston. He uses these in rebounding drills. I really don't think we have rebounding drills because guys stand there flat footed watching shots go up instead of crashing the boards while the ball is in the air headed towards the goal. I'm more than happy to supply a couple of these to the team if need be.
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@drgnslayr To quote Self and every other coach in America, rebounding is 90% want to and 10% skill.
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There have been sustained coaching issues since 22.
Recruiting, Roster Building, Development, identity/scheme weaknesses on both sides. The first two might be trending for the better going forward but they are a part of the cog of issues.
I've certainly been humbled the past few years. This year looks like we'll be humbled even further fighting just to make the tournament if the level of play doesn't take a 180 real quick.
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I hope Jayhawk Nation will always appreciate Coach Self's accomplishments for KU. And, when many of the other long-term, amateur college bball coaches fled the scene when the game went pro, Bill stuck around. He thought he could change with the game and win another Natty for us fans, for the school and for himself. He may have been wrong in that thinking. If our program can't return to excellence this season, then I have to think, regrettably, that it will be time for a change.
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@JoJoAndMe this sums it up well. Hard to overstate the magic of the build ups to 2008, 2012 and 2022.
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@kjayhawks2.0 said in Nothing to prove... nothing to win.:
@drgnslayr To quote Self and every other coach in America, rebounding is 90% want to and 10% skill.
I agree... but Sampson takes it a step further. His guys are so trained up to rebound they don't even think about it anymore. It's become instinct. And if you watch his team closely... the second the ball leaves the shooter's hands, his guys start a motion towards the goal.
Once it becomes instinct, players stop thinking and let their instincts take over. There is NO HESITATION in their movements! When I see guys like Tiller (and I don't want to pick on a newby) you can almost see his brain calculating before he makes any kind of movement. Poor guy. He will, at some point, learn to play through his instincts instead of his brain.
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Overall, great game! It's amazing how much of a difference it makes by having our guys give another 10% effort. They steamrolled ISU, but for 7 minutes in the second half, we got steamrolled. It's just about giving a bit more effort, that's all.
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I think it was farmer or maybe someone else in the live game chat that brought up the difference it makes having Melvin as the primary ball handler. I think that is right on. I think Melvin is our most consistent in terms of effort and just the act of him being the ball up the court sets a different tone.
Privilege isn't nonsense.
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I'm with you on that. Even when he brings it up in a half court set, he moves faster, giving defenses less time to set, plus, when we get him to play aggressive, he's usually pushing by his defender, requiring help defense that creates openings for others.
We haven't moved the ball this well all year! Passes were crisp, and the ball didn't stick. Our spacing was good; timing good; pace good!
We got off to a great start by feeding into the post. We need more of that moving forward! But our bigs have to stay more active like they did in this game!
This was a great game to watch!
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@benshawks08 said in Nothing to prove... nothing to win.:
I think it was farmer or maybe someone else in the live game chat that brought up the difference it makes having Melvin as the primary ball handler. I think that is right on. I think Melvin is our most consistent in terms of effort and just the act of him being the ball up the court sets a different tone.
Seems like from the post game comments Bill made that it was not by design. Hopefully that changes...
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@BShark I'll have to go listen to the postgame. It might be some more deflection because the reality is that this is Melvin's team and DP is just playing on it, but that can't be the narrative from the staff on that.
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@benshawks08 What is interesting, though it might just be a coincidence, is that our most successful teams did not have out best player as our primary ball-handler. We have had lots of really good teams where our primary ball-handler was our best player (Frank Mason, Devonte Graham, and Sherron Collins teams). However, our title years both had floor-general specialists handling the ball and running the offense while our best players played off ball.
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@Jayhawk_69 also 2012 title run. Def a team there.
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@approxinfinity Even in our 2018 FF run this holds somewhat true. While Devonte Graham was our best player throughout the season, Malik Newman emerged as our best player in the postseason allowing Devonte to shift into the roll of a secondary star/facilitator.
