Mar 8: Post-game Roundup - KU vs West Virginia
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@icthawkfan316 let’s stay hopeful!
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@icthawkfan316 do you have cox cable? Playing the 93 game w/Indiana. Love the way the play, attack and defense.
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@Crimsonorblue22 No I don’t. '93…that the Calbert Chaney led Indiana team?
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@icthawkfan316 had to look it up, he was a sr, 92-93.
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@drgnslayr Ha, the thought of anyone on this team carrying a chip is pretty exciting at this point!
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@nuleafjhawk Agreed. Wiggins can’t do this alone, he needs at least some solid backup. Ellis didn’t do much today. Selden was hardly better, but he scored a few. Beyond that… Conner played some D. What other positives am I missing? I hate to think of this team as depending soley on Wiggins and Embiid, but that’s what it looks like after today’s game.
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I thought Self lost the game as much as the players with their first half and early second half performance. It was clear that they were making anything they wanted so why not change defense’s. I’m sick of the we have to play man because that’s KU basketball. His pride get’s in his way in these situations. I don’t care if they haven’t practiced zone, or any change of pace defense, that’s on him for not getting these kids practice time at it. It was awful watching players continually come off screens and knocking down non contested 3 point shots. Or Staten getting to the lane at will. The Ref’s sucked, our effort was even worse for 30 minutes. Missed free throws and rebounding cost us the game in the comeback. Mason, Lucas, Traylor and Wig’s all missed free throws that would have made it closer. WV got a lot of 2nd chance rebounds during the comeback that just proved it wasn’t KU’s day!
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@BeddieKU23 Could be the case that Bill Self is still holding back on showing his hand until a modified zone is called for in desperate moments vs. a mid-major in the first or second round of the Tournament? My take: Wily BIll ain’t yet walked away in dejection from the card table.
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@REHawk AGREED! No reason for Self to expose his Tournament “hand” for what amounts to a pride-only type of win vs. WVU. I say that knowing we probably lost the 1-seed at the moment because of that loss. I just dont want to get a 3 seed. We need to stay a 1 or 2 seed.
Interestingly, I thought Self saying a 1-seed wasnt the most important, and that it was “more about matchups” sort of let his players off-the-intensity-hook PRIOR to the WVU tipoff.
Of course, if you are a hardcore fan, you are left wondering why our guys wouldnt be “up” for even just a “pride” game? After all, Wiggins sure was.
And regarding the “its about matchups”…well, if we cant defensively “matchup” with one of the bottom 3 teams in our own conference, what does that mean for the BigDance? Some opponent hanging 50 in 1 half on the Jayhawks in March is NOT A GOOD SIGN. Glaring problem on this year’s team. We’ll see if its THE terminal problem. Hope not.
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Gotta say I really noticed Mason’s D on Staten, cut off several drives in a row, but of course fouled with 2sec left on the shot clock. At least he has the tools, and he did hit 3-4 treys. Here is why I like Mason better than Tharpe: you dont have to worry about intensity with Mason. You can say he has suspect decision-making, but dont we say that also about Tharpe’s bad games?
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@ralster I am totally with you that I would strongly prefer being a 2 seed. I suppose that is obvious but the 2 seed really should have a very easy first round game and a #7/10 in the next round. I have no stats to back this up but I feel like 2 seeds simply get to the Sweet 16 more than 3’s.
We will likely see OSU in the Big 12 and that should be enough to get our guys really fired up. Worst case scenario we lose…do we get a 3 seed?
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@joeloveshawks Good points. I hope we get Embiid back, as he changes things significantly vs OSU. Of course, even without Embiid, Self may have the guys jacked to the moon after the WVU loss, and it may be a case of ANYBODY we play “after WVU loss” is going to get our A-game…
I think the problem with 3 and 4 seeds is they “battle” other middling teams, and the fact that a team is a 3seed to begin with, means it has problems that led to 8-10 losses in the first place. So the middle of the brackets are a battle-zone for the imperfects. And basically, as our own squad has proved: KU isnt near-perfect this year either. We can make an opponent look really good, and that is NOT Bill Self ball. We are supposed to “make the other guy ugly”.
Definitely want a 1 or 2seed, if possible. Committee also doesnt want to see a team finish the season and conf tourney in a weak fashion. Whatever “bubble” a team may be sitting on, will surely get popped if it fails to finish these last games strong. There will be BigXII teams fighting for their MarchMadness lives in the conference tournament.
If our freshmen think they can simply “turn it on” for the BigDance, they are going to learn a hard lesson. OR, I could be wrong, and the BigXII gauntlet has actually prepared our guys far better than we think + the fact in a OAD tourney, they will be amped “up”. Maybe it all takes care of itself. We do need Embiid’s 12/12/6blks in ANY game. One could argue that he is more of a game changer than Wiggins, especially after Wiggins dropped 41pts in superhuman, statsheet fashion, and we still lost.
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@ralster I can’t imagine we are in the #1 seed conversation at this point. We have lost 2 of our last 3 and even if we win the Big 12 Tournament I think our 8 losses will be too many. Also I saw that Nova is now a projected #1 and if it comes down to that obviously they beat us head to head.
I’d love to win the Big 12 or get to the Finals and lock up a 2 seed…hopefully in the Midwest with WSU as the #1. That would be the best thing for KU in my opinion at this point of the season.
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@joeloveshawks Agreed. We’d have to have some big losses by teams 1-4 to be back in the running for a 1seed. Im hoping we can “hold on” to a 2 seed.
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Guess I’m curious why we should think Self lost the game, as we saw him burn timeout after timeout early and often to give his input. I suppose we could ultimately always put a loss at the coach’s feet in a “buck stops here” sort of way…but what else can he do other than benching the nonperformer after trying to give him some in-game time to turn his game around? Which he did.
Problem with this squad is that down by 12 at the half, we let WVU come out and hit us with a 12-1 run…So we are very quickly down 20+. Clearly a young team that doesnt know how to do, or summon up, what it may mentally know it needs to do. So do we have to have a ‘revenge’ game against WVU to show we can execute what Self wanted?
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@ralster I agree there is no way Self lost this game.
He didn’t get a T in the second half and I predicted he would by the 14 minute mark. He didn’t throw in the end of the bench for the last 20 minutes and rest his stars. He tried different rotations, he sat guys to coach them on the sidelines so they knew what they did wrong.
He can’t go out there and make the play for them. They got punched square on the jaw and were out on their feet, but didn’t get knocked out completely. That to me is Coach Self instilling in them to fight and keep fighting.
Wiggins fought the whole game, Traylor fought a lot in the second half, Frankamp did what he could do. But Tharpe, Mason, Seldon,Green, White, Black, Lucas, non of them showed me they wanted it as bad as Wiggins did yesterday.
But to put this game on the coaching staff is unfair. they are kids playing a game that didn’t matter in how the Big12 ended, they knew that. Self had to be pissed at half giving up 50. Self had to be pissed by the effort in the second half by more than half the players he put out there. But his coaching did not lose this game.
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It seems KU is closing out the season similarly to how Michigan did last year. Ranked high (#1) and lost a slew of games down the stretch dropping them to a 3 seed, before going to the national championship game.
I’d like to see KU play in nine more games.
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@Crimsonorblue22 Thanks much… updated in the top post.
I’m also going to post over on the March 9 News discussion…
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@Crimsonorblue22 Thanks for posting the link. Pretty shocked Wiggins is not on the All Big 12 Defensive Team.
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@joeloveshawks me too, and Self coach of the year!
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@joeloveshawks If Wiggins is not on the All Defenseive Team…that is a travesty. He always guarded the best scorer (position permitting) and always did a good job. I really don’t understand that one.
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@Hawk8086 agree, frustrating!
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Maybe I was a little ruff in saying Self lost the game, as much as the players. I think the way we lost left a bad taste and I’m hashing out at anyone. But I did make some valid points about the defense. Why has he been so stubborn about sticking with man defense when we gave up 50 in the first half, and then gave up 12 pts so quickly right after half. By that point Wiggins and Selden had what 3 and 4 fouls each. Why not switch D’s and stop Staten from driving and make them make outside shots. I know they made outside shots anyway (harris made what everything). Williams a terrible shooter made what 7 jump shots and a slew of free throws.
In the past he has switched it up when things weren’t working, but this year has totally forgotten their are other ways to slow a team down. As athletic as we are without Embiid we were truly exposed on multiple levels and I just thought Self did minimal too stop the bleeding.
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Why has he been so stubborn about sticking with man defense when we gave up 50 in the first half, and then gave up 12 pts so quickly right after half
@BeddieKU23 For the same reason most coaches don’t change up their D’s even in football. It’s what you know, what you practice. And on the bad side of a plus it gives you a lot of film to watch and show your team how to get better.
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@JRyman Early on, November, I was in complete agreement with Jesse Newell that we should have switched to zone. Right then and there.
But what makes that hard is what you allude to … Self is a man coach. My guess is, as good of a coach as he is, he’s probably not that proficient in teaching zone. To have a good zone team, you have to be a good zone coach. I’ve always felt that this is why Baylor struggles. They have not identity. Drew tries to be both.
This season, though, with Tharpe and Ellis as defensive black holes, and the length of Embiid and Wiggins, a sweet little 1-3-1 would have done the trick with some half court trap looks.
I love zone defense because it can allow you to dictate pace, and not be dictated to. You can increase the urgency with different levels of pressure and alternating trapping points. The first Texas Tech game would have never played out that way. And of course, some 2-2-1 3/4 court pressing is the cherry on the top. This is not high risk defense. It’s a well planned strategy to control tempo and take away the other team’s strengths, while playing to your own.
This was the perfect recipe for this team. But we’ve have banged our head against the wall all season. We’ve seen glimmers. But it’s tourney time and we just gave up 50 in one half of basketball to a team that doesn’t have Dave Sieger, Mookie Blaylock, or Stacey King.
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@ralster I’m not a big proponent of the “don’t show your hand this early” theory either. I think Self is enough of a competitor that he wants to win EVERY game. If he’s not, then I don’t want him coaching “my” team.
The only way he holds back is by not playing injured or disciplined players, but whoever is on the floor better be playing their butts off.
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Agree, KU ran out of timeouts with almost 17 minutes left in the second half. I have never seen so many timeout called in such a short time.
