Who do we want? Auburn or Clemson?
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@BShark Wonder how pissed NBA scouts are that Duke is playing zone. Really aren’t a good defensive team straight up. Just have unreal length and quickness to play a great zone.
I would 100% be using this against K recruiting from here on out. But clearly that didn’t matter for next season.
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@Kcmatt7 Agree but K is untouchable at this pt
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Blown said:
that zone of Dukes will give us fits if that match up happens.
We already handled the best zone team in the country. Duke’s zone doesn’t scare me. If KU is making their shots, they’ll be fine. Marvin Bagley is the issue because KU doesn’t have a good answer for him.
We already beat Syracuse by 16 in December so if we played them down the road, I wouldn’t be too worried about that match up either.
Duke is by far the biggest hurdle in the way of KU getting to the Final Four.
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Also, I’d rather play Clemson. Auburn plays blue collar ball mixed with run and gun. They shoot the 3 ball incredibly well, and we defend it like poo.
Essentially, it comes down to if you think you want KU to play a good defensive team or good offensive team though. Clemson is a great defensive team with a good offense. Auburn is a great offensive team with a good defense. Both teams finished poorly down the stretch.
We know Bruce Pearl is a very good coach. Brad Brownell seems to be a slightly above average, but nothing special. Neither coach has had great March success in their careers yet. I’d rather play against Brownell though, if I have the choice.
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Auburn…if they play like they are tonight
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Looking like Clemson by the minute. Geesh how did Auburn get in the tourney? Clemson absolutely drilling them.
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@wrwlumpy Might as well do your pre-game school work up for Clemson as our next tourney opponent.
Clemson is going from Auburn to KU. I’ll be curious how they make the adjustment after blowing Auburn off the court.
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Clemson playing their best possible game tonight. That bodes well for KU, since Clemson is maxing out their potential tonight.
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Better hope devoe comes back to earth
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@BeddieKU23 Them holding Auburn to 19 points in the first half was more concerning to me…
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Kcmatt7 said:
@BeddieKU23 Them holding Auburn to 19 points in the first half was more concerning to me…
They are good defensively and the numbers would say that. You can score on them and I think we matchup really well with them. They were 16-3 with Donte Grantham but just 9 and 6 without him so your talking a team that has had to adjust to life without it best player and struggled against the better teams when doing so.
They played great against Auburn who was in a similar position, missing a key contributor down the stretch.
The key to the game will be the perimeter. Devoe, Reed, Mitchell are 3 good guards but we match them with better guards. I think a key will be seeing if KU can get their perimeter trio in foul trouble as they have nothing but young players coming off the bench that don’t play big minutes. This is an easier matchup for KU then Seton Hall was.
With nearly a week to prepare we have to feel confident that Self will have an excellent game plan for them. Doke gets 6 more days to rehab that leg where maybe he can play 25 minutes and make a big impact on the game again
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Nice scouting report.
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JayHawkFanToo said:
Nice scouting report.
Thanks!
I have a feeling Self will game-plan to limit Reed (like KU did to Rodriguez) and hopefully Devoe in some area’s (limiting open looks).
Elijah Thomas is a 20 & 10 candidate as he’ll dominate when Lightfoot is in but will be a non-factor when Doke’s in the game.
Their guards are not big or super athletic, they are quick though so that can pose some issues for us.
I know a lot of people are going to look at the way Clemson beat Auburn and think that game beats KU. It doesn’t unless KU has its worst game of the year. I can’t imagine we’re going to play poorly
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I know a lot of people are going to look at the way Clemson beat Auburn and think that game beats KU.
Betting on KU losing hasn’t been a good strategy so far, but will likely continue until we cut down the nets.
“Luck is the idol of the idle.”
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StLJhawk said:
I know a lot of people are going to look at the way Clemson beat Auburn and think that game beats KU.
Betting on KU losing hasn’t been a good strategy so far, but will likely continue until we cut down the nets.
“Luck is the idol of the idle.”
That last second 3 by Powell I’m sure lost some people money that played KU covering the spread…
And the early 4 point spread from Vegas seems awfully over-reactionary to Clemson’s win.
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@BeddieKU23 Agree on over-reaction to one game. Look at UMBC - scores 74 against the best defense in the country and then barely breaks 40 against KSU.
Clemson is a solid team, but eminently beatable. Between the ACC regular season and tourney, they went 12-8. 9 of the wins were by single digits. They were a home town hero - 15-1 at home, only 4-6 neutral or away. But, no really bad losses.
We play a solid game and we should win this…
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It’s not a bad move by Vegas either as I think they will take action on both sides of the line because of it.
Regardless I think this game stacks up easier for KU. We haven’t seen our best yet, Self has time to drill that into them. Doke continues to get healthier and has a clear advantage in the post. Our guards are better then their guards and playing 4-1 is going to pose a matchup problem for them. Liking this game more and more
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The line is about getting bets right, not the score. Although the odds makers are very good at their job and usually do get the spread pretty close, that’s not the goal. Vegas needs balanced betting to self-insure. It doesn’t matter who wins, if the betting is balanced Vegas wins. So the line is more about the psychology of the populace than what the actual score will be.
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@dylans But the reason that the line is where it is, is because those are the people that literally put their money where their mouths are. And, when people end up on both sides of that line, you have essentially crowd sourced the score of the game based on what different people see as valuable. I firmly believe that is why it is as accurate as it is.
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BShark said:
Blown said:
that zone of Dukes will give us fits if that match up happens.
I mean Duke is winning the whole thing. It is what it is. If we give them a scare I’d be thrilled.
DUDE!!! Really?? Ok, Duke is good but lets hold off on making with the sharpie on them beating SYRACUSE now.
Besides, I like our chances against Duke should they win. They have one senior leader, the rest of them are freshies. True, they are a tough match up for KU down low but we’ve seen that before this year. They also play mostly zone. We’ve seen that too.
All I am saying is lets focus on one game at a time.
Clemson is next.
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Duke’s length in that zone worries me, because even if they are not perfectly disciplined, they can disrupt shooting and passing angles. And I have no idea how we handle Bagley after Saturday. Delgado destroyed us, and he’s not nearly the player that Bagley is. Bagley could drop a 30/30 on us. Could we win that game? Sure. We would have to hit 15+ threes, but we could win that type of game. But Bagley could also have an all time great game against us.
We haven’t been able to defend the interior either of the last couple of years. Duke is built to exploit that, should that be their gameplan.
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Could Bagley hang with Doke beating his skinny butt the whole game? Well, 25- 30 minutes? I mean Doke has to outweigh Bagley by 40 - 50 lbs.
Its all conjecture at this point but still. Duke would have to extend their zone out past the trey line to even hope to contain our guards driving, kicking, shooting.
Yah, lets just see what happens with Clemson before we get all twisted up thinking about Duke. I mean, Syracuse might beat them too.
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@DCHawker it’s also how they played. If you actually watch the game, you can see that UMBC was trying to kill teams with quickness. Virginia is a slow team, but K-State is not. Just goes to show what speed can do to exhaust and frustrate opponents. Everyone was tired in that game.
I thought we were extraordinarily lucky to beat Seton Hall, but we beat them with contributions from basically everybody. Our defense won us that game (7 steals). So did clutch shooting and FT-making.
People were impressed with Clemson, but what I saw was some garbage defense by Auburn. Anybody have any thoughts?
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justanotherfan said:
Duke’s length in that zone worries me, because even if they are not perfectly disciplined, they can disrupt shooting and passing angles. And I have no idea how we handle Bagley after Saturday. Delgado destroyed us, and he’s not nearly the player that Bagley is. Bagley could drop a 30/30 on us. Could we win that game? Sure. We would have to hit 15+ threes, but we could win that type of game. But Bagley could also have an all time great game against us.
We haven’t been able to defend the interior either of the last couple of years. Duke is built to exploit that, should that be their gameplan.
I feel good about Bill finding a gameplan that will work against Duke. I feel a UNC junk defense coming in the funniest way.
Really, there are multiple ways to beat this Duke team. They are just as flawed as anyone, and that’s why K had to switch to the zone. It is just seeing if Bill can exploit it.
We will be forced to double the post pretty much regardless. It is just about getting the guys to execute the rotation of it. And by that, I mean basically leaving Duval wide open for 3 the entire game. Force him to hit 6 three pointers to beat you.
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@Kcmatt7 is duke longer than cuse?
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betterfireE said:
I thought we were extraordinarily lucky to beat Seton Hall, but we beat them with contributions from basically everybody. Our defense won us that game (7 steals). So did clutch shooting and FT-making.
I don’t believe KU was “extraordinarily lucky” by any stretch of the imagination, it simply was the better team with better players and had the game under control most of the game.
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@JayHawkFanToo We definitely had a hand in our luck. We pressured and bothered their guards. Even Devonte and Garrett, who had “poor” games poked on the ball and bothered ball handlers. Seven steals in this game was how we evened the odds against superior rebounding. This team was waaayyyyy better than an 8-seed. We imposed our will on them and made them play bad (except for our rebounding).
That said, we were still quite lucky that we survived. This could have been another Michigan loss. We weathered the storm.
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Freakin’ Duke… Bagley will benefit and Dok will suffer. ACC (or Duke) bias or the perception Bagley is a bigger name will cause Dok to pick up early fouls. Dok’s play will thereby get restricted. That’s my greatest concern when playing Duke…
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betterfireE said:
People were impressed with Clemson, but what I saw was some garbage defense by Auburn. Anybody have any thoughts?
I don’t know what was worse the garbage offense or defense really. It was a total collapse on both sides of the ball. It’s not like Clemson played some great defense. I think it was over a 10 minute stretch where Auburn didn’t score a basket.
If anyone saw their first matchup with Charleston and how narrowly they escaped that round this type of game was on the horizon for them
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Crimsonorblue22 said:
@Kcmatt7 is duke longer than cuse?
They start two 6’10 bigs. Duval, Allen & Trent are 6’3 and taller. 6’6, 6’10 & 6’11 come off the bench.
In order to hide Bagley’s horrid defense and starting two bigs that teams could take advantage of K implemented the zone.
Their length makes it difficult for passing lanes in their press zone. It’s very similar to what Villanova did to us two years ago with the only difference being Nova slipped back into M2M.
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@JayHawkFanToo Fully agreed. I re-watched the game last night and we dominated a great deal of the 2nd half and it really didn’t seem in doubt with about 12 minutes to play. Seton Hall hit a bunch of tough shots late to keep it close but that is what it is. If they miss one of those 35 foot 3’s and we grab a rebound we win by more like 10. I personally was very impressed with this KU win. Our star All American struggled offensively, our big guy has a bum knee and foul trouble, their two best players both have monster nights and we still win and advance.
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Well said! Agreed. Tense moments at the end with them making tough shot after tough shot. I think that plays into it
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@BeddieKU23 so they are not taller then cuse.
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@Crimsonorblue22 More athletic, about the same height, maybe a little longer. Unfortunately not offensively challenged like ‘Cuse, so it’ll be a dog fight. I really hope it happens. I’d hate for Duke to choke and not make it… lol …beating Syracuse again just wouldn’t be as much fun.
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@dylans If we are fortunate enough to advance I say I am happy with either team. Cuse is certainly the better matchup for us as they don’t have the 5 NBA players that Duke has and we have already beat them. But if we get past Clemson and play Duke I am ok with that as well as that is the kind of game you dream about all year long as a fan of sports in general.
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@joeloveshawks I was being facetious.
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@dylans ha! I know. I am just saying I think there are pros to both. Obviously it would be pretty great if Duke loses but if we both advance that could be cool too!
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Probably about the same. As @dylans pointed out they can score from all 5 positions (Duval’s outside shot is comparable to Marcus).
If we are fortunate to play them this weekend I think Self should consider a zone of his own at times when Lightfoot is in the game. He is outmatched. This would potentially limit foul trouble for Doke as well
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Just about every team has one game where it plays well above and the opponent well below their averages; the OU game this season that KU won by 30 comes to mind. I have no doubt KU is a better team than OU but, is it 30 points better? Can we keep Young to 3-13 and 11 points considering that in the first game he was 7-9 in route to 26 points? Probably not. The other game that comes to mind is against UNC in the NCAA in 2008 when KU led by as many as 28 points in route to an 18 point win. Was KU 28 or even 18 point better than UNC? Probably not. KU had to hang on for dear life the previous game against lowly Davidson and there was no reason to believe it would blow out UNC, and we know how the next game went…OT win over Memphis.
Last year KU put together and impressive streak of 38, 20 and 32 point wins against UC Davis, Michigan State and Purdue only to take a 14 point loss to Oregon, this is a 46 point swing between the previous win and the final loss. It happens.
The Clemson-Auburn game was one of those games, “Perfect Storm Good” for Clemson and “Perfect Storm Bad” for Auburn. If these teams play more games, I would bet the rest are all within 5+/- points. There is no reason or precedent to believe Clemson will repeat what it did against Auburn or that KU will play dead for most of the game like Auburn did. In fact, it is more likely that Clemson will have a let down and KU will win big.
Analysts love to make outrageous predictions because there is little downside to it. Seth Davis predicting Penn would beat KU had zero downside for him, if Penn would have won he looks like a friggin’ genius and it KU wins nobody really remembers his prediction because KU was supposed to win anyway. I read that more people took Penn over KU than any other 16 over a 1 seed ever and I understand that Clemson is now the trendy pick over KU as well… A lot of the disrespect is no doubt fueled by the East Coast MSM that cannot believe good basketball can be played outside of the East Coast. Funny how Charles Barkley and Kenny Smith, that are NBA analysts and have not done a college basketball this season before the tournament that I can remember are now the experts on teams they do not follow and at times seem to be grossly unfamiliar.
In short, you can get better information about KU and the conference here than you can from just about any other source…of course Trae Young being the exception since ESPN is his official publicist.
