Wiggins 41 points and 2 Assists and Other Take Aways
-
@JRyman b
-
Who would you take just looking at those numbers?
@JRyman B here too. although the TOs are not good.
-
If you chose player B you picked Wiggins in a game KU lost.
Player A is Doug McDermott of Creighton on his last home game as a Blue Jay against a Providence team that had beaten them earlier in the year.
-
They say it for the same reason Self and others note it: because at times he is not aggressive and disappears, when trying to play within the offense.
I understand your consternation. Its like people are doubting his character, or his handler’s intentions, when he plugs into the offense, and call him a ball hog when he takes over the game like people want him to.
And I suspect that Andrew Wiggins sometimes views it exactly as you do and with even more frustration.
But what people don’t understand, and what Andrew is only beginning to grasp, is that playing basketball in a team framework involves mastering a continuum of activity ranging from individual impact to selfless glue and back again over and over and over, possession after possession, and pass after pass, while playing at a high level of intensity with serious competitiveness.
It is not just about guardian on one end, keeping the ball from sticking, and periodically winding up from 28 feet out front and making an arcing three step drive that opponents are helpless to stop without denying him his strong hand, or if he lets up a little muscling him into missing, or failing those fouling hell out of him.
To become a good basketball player in a team framework requires learning again, at each level of play, and on each team, with each set of teammates and starters and subs rotated in with you how to read what the offense needs from you to keep flowing from once set of actions, within an opportunity set of actions, to the next during a possession until the the hoped for shot opportunity, or go get a basket opportunity, manifests. This is IMHO one of the hardest things to master in sport. Mastery of this insight–of being able to be within the flow of the offense, and at the same time to see it omnisciently as if from above–to be able to know when to enable its flow and to know when to capitalize on its flow–is one of the most remarkable fetes in sport.
Hitting a baseball in fair territory 40% of the time against big league pitching probably is, as Ted Williams said, probably the toughest individual skill to achieve in all of sport.
But learning to play inside and outside the flow of basketball is the single hardest “spatial insight” to gain in all of sport. There are persons that can never gain the insight. The young men you see on a D1 court on a good team that flows fluidly through its offensive actions, not mechanically, or awkwardly, but fluidly and effectively to desirable made shots are extremely rare human beings in the grand scheme. And many of them, no matter their talent levels, struggle with gaining and maintaining the insight. We notice the ones with great talent struggling to gain the insight more, precisely because they seem so awesomely talented in their individual skills and athleticisms.
The truth is that what you are perceiving as harshly and unfairly judging Andrew Wiggins–putting him in a box where he is damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t–is nothing more than observing that one of the game’s great talents recently is struggling with the gaining of this dynamic spatial and strategic insight.
It is not a character flaw in Andrew Wiggins that prevents him from knowing how to master the simultaneity of staying plugged into and offense and staying aggressive and taking over games. It is a developmental process that he will achieve over time. Kobe Bryant struggled mightily for two season trying to figure out how to do it in the NBA, and probably for another 3 as a starter. And Kobe Bryant is one of the greatest players to ever play the game. Wilt Chamberlain struggled with it endlessly. It wasn’t just that Wilt often had less talent around him. He didn’t always. He was so phenomenally gifted physically that there was then no blue print for knowing how to plug his talents into an offense without completely overwhelming its integration. Wilt finally figure it out with a brilliant man he could trust–Alex Hannum. And he later perfected it under a man–Bill Sharman–who had learned team play from the greatest professional coach of all time–Red Auerbach–and the greatest NBA big man team player of all time–Bill Russell.
It should not be surprising that Andrew Wiggins might be the hardest working human being on the planet, best teammate, and perhaps the most gifted young player since Lebron, that he might struggle with acquiring dynamic spatial insight in his first season of D1.
It does not mean he is a ball hog. It does not mean he is dogging it until draft day and avoiding injury. Even the greatest pianist in history has to learn how to play with an orchestra of mere mortals of sound and well trained talent.
It means that he is still finding the way to modulate in fine gradations and in real time against a new level of defenders how to transition between impact and glue and back again, how to see who can be made better from his position and who cannot be, and so on.
And for me to say that he can score 41 on a phenomenal night of shooting, but only get two assists in a meaningless loss is not to damn him at all. It is to say as of yesterday, he still does not know how to transcend his team’s problems with his incomparably great individual play. It is to master the obvious, not to attack him. It is to say that if Embiid cannot come back for the remainder of the season, Self may in fact have to repeat this experiment a couple more times in the B12 tourney, knowing full well that doing so could get the team beat the second round, because Andrew has NOT been trained to take over the team and help it win with him largely running the offense.
What was learned in Morgantown is that this guy can hang 40 playing largely individually in a game starting basically with about 10 to go in the first half and by inference that he would be capable of 60 if the need arose and he were played through exclusively from the beginning; that’s how good Andrew Wiggins is.
But what was revealed was that he still doesn’t have the intuitive insight to do this sort of thing and keep his teammates engaged and involved in an effective way. Michael Jordan never was even asked to do this in college and didn’t figure out how to do it until well into his 3rd or 4th season in the L.
Why does this matter?
Because good teams beat great individual efforts, no matter if the individual is a great player like Andrew Wiggins, who is genuinely trying (and struggling) with how to master this aspect of the game, or if they are jerkish ball hog, which he most certainly is not.
To play the game at any level and to struggle to merge into the flow of a basketball team, but then to finally make the transition, at any level, in any role, is to understand perfectly what Andrew Wiggins is up against, only at an exponentially higher level of complexity and intensity of competition.
Asking Andrew in March to take over the team and lead it to a ring now, after having basically said it was his job to just learn to be the world’s most dangerous second option, in March, is IMHO asking the impossible of Andrew.
But here is the thing.
Self has a history of putting players in uncomfortable situations, and the level of discomfort he afflicts them with is often directly proportional to how good they are.
So: if Self knows that Embiid is a serious question mark for the Madness, I don’t doubt a bit that he would foist this on him now.
But no one has produced any quotes or medical opinions leading us to suspect that Embiid is out for the durations, or only minimally capable, when he comes back.
So: until I hear some signal to that effect, the most probable logical thing that happened during the WVU game was either:
1.) Self pulled Tharpe and flushed him permanently to create a situation in which to force Wiggins out of his own personality and into being able to take over a team while plugged into it; or
- Self decided the team sucked so badly that there was no point to try to win the game and so he decided to give Andrew a point padding game that would elevate the chances of a very good kid that has tried all season long to fit into the team of getting back into the hype-osphere of consideration for the Number One slot in the draft.
Since Andrew did not show many signs of making his teammates better with his dazzling display of offensive prowess, and since Self early on seriously seemed to be trying to get the team to play as a team, I decided on Option 2 as being the most probable explanation of what happened.
In any case, let’s dispense with this nonsense that I am trashing Andrew Wiggins, or implying anything improper, or in anyway doing anything but mastering the obvious after a great individual performance mired in a pitiful team performance.
Rock Chalk!!!
-
@jaybate 1.0 #3. Andrew Wiggins played his a$$ off cause he wanted to win!
-
@jaybate 1.0 I understand the team concept of basketball as I played for four years varsity HS and 1 year NAIA ball. I am also a coaches son so I have been taught and coached my whole life about team and that concept.
With that being said, is it really AW’s responsibility to make his teammates better when they have already disappeared from the game. Is he to pass the ball to a cold Seldon who was throwing up bricks? Was he to pass on an open 3 and throw it to Black who was missing dunks?
Until I hear coach Self say he was just trying to highlight Andrew for the NBA I won’t buy it.
There are times when AW misses the open man when he drives, but yesterday that wasn’t the case, he wasn’t taking bad shots to get 41 points. As I stated above he shot 61% from the field.
AW is a team player and he has showed it all year, yesterday in a loss he showed that he could carry this team when nothing, absolutely nothing else was working for them. He didn’t fold, he didn’t bluff, he went all in and tried to win the game.
I have said many times that Micheal Jordan passed the ball out the either Kerr or Paxton for big shots, but everybody remembers him for the right to left hand lay-up vs the Lakers, or his shot of Ehlo or his 63 against the Celtics. But he too was a team player, thats how he won titles. But he also knew when he had to take over a game and do what ever it took to try and win it.
I am not comparing AW to MJ, just situational settings, but what Isaw yesterday was not a kid showing off for the NBA scouts, but trying to make his team win.
What is so wrong with that? Maybe everyone that thinks he was selfish should look at the other players on the court with him and see what they did or didn’t do? Again it’s a team sport a game where you win or lose as a team and what he was trying yesterday was to carry them to victory as the others waited for the ride.
-
If this team is not weak guard play, poor defense, or whatever else has been discussed (getting out rebounded), then Self should quit recruiting guards at all, quit teaching defense, tell all his players to release after shots, and ignore whatever else has been said.
Of course this team had poor guard play that would have made Andrew’s great offensive performance occur in a win. Of course this team played such poor defense that it got down by a huge margin and so determined that Andrew’s great performance would occur in a losing cause. Of course, this team needed to rebound better and whatever else has been discussed.
The team has at times played with great intensity and at times played without it, the team has played competitively and not. No matter what the above shortcomings are deleterious to the performance of the team. It needs to play with more intensity and competitiveness, but without the defense, without the rebounding, without skilled guard play on both ends, great intensity and competitiveness will be as wasted as playing without great intensity and competitiveness wastes the other virtues. Many things are half the battle. We are interested in the whole battle. We want competitiveness and good guard play. We want good defensive commitment and intensity. We want rebounding and whatever else has been talked about along with intensity and competitive fire. A good team needs all of the above.
I used to agree with you completely, but over the course of the season I have come to view the team as having great talent and holes in talent, great skills and holes in skills, inconsistent intensity but sometimes great intensity, and competitive fire almost absent in the beginning that is beginning to manifest intermittently.
The team is so young it does not do any singly thing uniformly and consistently well across across all rotation players. Its infuriating, but how it is.
Self never used to put the heels of his palms on his eye sockets in former years the way he does this season so often.
Bill Self has aged this season.
I never really saw him age in a single season before.
It shows in his words.
This team is taking a great toll on him, because he has finally asked himself to do what he has always asked his players to do. He has stepped entirely out of his comfort level.
Some thing great could alchemically occur as a result, just as happens occasionally with players asked to do it.
But it may take a season or two.
If he does throw his rug on the floor and walk off never to return.
-
Everyone wants to win.
All the time.
That means nothing to say that.
Niko Roberts wants to win every time he steps on the floor.
He wanted the bucks.
Everyone wants the bucks.
Not everyone has a chance to use point padding to move back up into the top of the NBA draft.
He also wanted to prove to the world that he wasn’t the over hyped underachiever so many have judged him to be.
He didn’t start out playing like gang busters yesterday.
It began after the chorus of ridicule that was being heaped on him in his own adopted state.
There was apparently some kind of a pact made by Self and him after Tharpe was banished to a parallel universe and Black had to sit and Perry and Jam Tray could play okay, but not control the boards. The pact was apparently: just take over and see what you can do. Forget about plugging in and running the stuff. Just do what you can do.
Wiggins was listening to people in the stands ridicule him mercilessly.
Some combination of that plus good biorhythms or something propelled him to a great individual offensive performance.
He didn’t score 41 because he wanted to win.
He wants to win every game.
Everyone that plays basketball does.
You do.
I do.
Wigs does.
-
@jaybate 1.0 sorry, you have your opinion, I have mine.
-
@DinarHawk-How can you give up 90 points to a team with 14 losses, making them look like all stars & not admit that the entire flippin team played poor defense? Unless they win out the Big 12 in KC, they will not even get an at large bid to the dance-no team ever has with 15 losses. If these guys think a 30-40 game college schedule is too much to “get up” for games vs lesser teams, then damn few will be picking up a paycheck for playing pro ball anywhere, South America, Israel, Europe, the D league-anywhere. Contracts are not secure at all in foreign ball. One or two gooseggs, & done. No job, no pay.Also, guard play is the key to an inside out hi lo game, so respectfully many others would say what is obvious, just as as I did. Hell Stevie Wonder could see it. If Tharpe was not 100% he should be on the bench-that’s where his rear was for 24min. Nuff said.
-
@DinarHawk-So tell us what that is? Apathy?
-
@globaljaybird Could be.
All I am pointing out is a simple observation that their level of defense and guard play is directly dependent on their intensity level. This has been true the entire time Bill Self has been here.
-
Oh boy I’d love to read all of these and respond, but I have not the time. I’ll say this. We sucked, but we sucked without the potential #1 draft pick playing and it turned our defense to mush.
We sucked. Wiggins as you point out had kind of an incongrous stat line, but it still was amazing to watch, no matter what the reason for it.
No more hostile crowds to play in front of. We’re not tough enough for it, that’s a plus. Let’s back up our conference title with a tourney win and then 6 more games, unless we’re in the playin game, then 7
-
I agree with @Crimsonorblue22, to concentrate in Wiggins 2 assists and nothing else is absolutely and unadulterated BS.
First, no one else other than Perry was consistently scoring and chances are that Coach Self told him to take any available jumper or drive to the hoop and score or draw the foul. If he does this without the coach’s approval he would be sitting on the bench; he has before.
Second, Wigging plays the 3 and his job is to score, rebound and get to the line as much as he can; assists are not his responsibility, you have other players charged to do that. Wiggins shot 12-18 or 66%, the rest of the team 16-44 or 36%; why would coach Self ask him to pass when he had the hot hand and shooting 30% higher than the rest of the team? it makes no sense.
Third, Just because he has only 2 assist DOES NOT MEAN HE DID NOT PASS THE BALL. An assist is recorded when the receiving players scores, if he doesn’t then no assist is recorded. Unlike other statistics, the assist is dependent on two players completing the task. Does any one have a count of the times he passed the ball and the receiving player did not score? He could pass the ball 2 times and the receiving players score both times and he ends up with two assists. Likewise, he could pass the ball 30 times and the receiving players score two times and he still ends up with two assists. Given the two choices and how well he was scoring and how poorly the rest of the team was, I am glad that he played like he did. Apparently Coach Self agrees with me as he indicated that yesterday Wiggins was the best player in the country.
To take one statistic out of context and and present it as fact is nuts. Again, his job is to be at the receiving end of an assist not a the passing end. He makes the team better by scoring after receiving the pass and not by making a pass that might go to waste.
-
@globaljaybird
You have to consider that yesterday, WVU shot/played well,well above its season average.
FG - vs. KU = ,529, season = .443
3 Pts - vs. KU = .563, season = .386
FT - vs KU = .725, season = .725
RPG - vs. KU = 37, season = 36
APG - vs. KU = 15, season - 13
Steals - vs. KU = 7, season = 6
Blocks - vs. KU = 3, season = 3
TO - vs. KU = 13, season = 10
In the fist half the shooting percentages were even higher. Turnovers is the only statistic that was worse than the season average; all the others were better. Sometimes a team gets hot and shoots/plays well above its average; yesterday was one of those days.
-
@DinarHawk-Then maybe some of these guys can get part-time playing jobs after their KU days are over? Sounds like several resumes should be up to that.
-
Absolutely.
-
@jaybate 1.0 until next one!
-
@wissoxfan83 Great point about no more hostile crowds…I hadn’t thought of that. These pups will play better in our quasi-home in KC and neutral courts in the madness. I hope these pups take every possession SERIOUSLY from here on out! This isn’t AAU where you get to play five games a day and shrug off a loss in 15 min…
-
There are more straw arguments in this thread than what comes out the back end of a combine.
Straw Argument One: someone focused on Wigs assists and nothing else.
Fortunately, no one here focused on Wigs 2 assists and nothing else.
Straw Argument Two: Wigs was bashed.
Fortunately, no one here bashed Wigs either.
Yeeeeeee Hawwwww, I do love it when there are enough straw arguments to stuff a comforter.
Confuciusbate say: straw arguments tend to fly, when biases are exposed and logic masking them won’t fly.
God help me, I do love exposing biases so…
Yeeeeeee Hawwwwwwww!!!
-
Wiggins showed what he can do. I think this should quiet all fears about whether or not he can take over a game.
I think the more significant question, the one that has been lurking along the edges all year, is whether this KU team is good enough defensively to be a factor in the tournament.
At some point, it’s not just about other teams getting hot - it’s about whether or not you have the players to cool them off.
Wiggins is a top notch defender. Embiid is as well. Selden can be above average, but mostly plays very average defense. Black is solid in the post, but fouls too much.
Other than those four, I really can’t point to another player on the roster that is an average or above defensive player.
Devin Williams, who, prior to Saturday had averaged less than 9 points and less than 8 rebounds, went off for 22 and 13 on 8 of 10 shooting from the floor. The 13 rebounds tied a career high. The 22 points was a career high. Williams had NEVER prior to Saturday played as efficiently as he did.
Look at some of the losses this year - against Villanova it was Dylan Ennis going for 14 on 4-5 shooting, including 3-3 from three. That’s his second highest point total of the season. Against Texas, it was Holmes and Taylor going 17-18 from the FT line. Against KSU it was DJ Johnson’s 9 points in just 19 minutes (on 4-5 shooting). Against Oklahoma State Markel Brown scored 21 points on just 7 FGA because he was 10-10 from the line.
This is pointing to a huge problem. Basically, for our perimeter guys, if we don’t have Wiggins on them, there’s a pretty decent chance that they are either scoring with ease or getting fouled.
Inside, if we don’t have Embiid accounting for someone, they are probably shooting 70%+ from the field, or getting fouled.
This is a bad defensive team, folks. There’s no other way to say it.
We have two good defensive players, to solid defensive players that foul too much, and a host of average and below average defenders that are either getting blown by on the perimeter, offer no resistance at the rim, under rotate or foul at alarming rates.
I am not going to point to any one player because its a combination. I worry that without Embiid to clean up at the rim, this team is just too weak defensively.
I think this is why there’s a push to get Lyle. We need another good defender. Looking at the returning players for next season, there’s not a single above average defender in the group, particularly if Selden does leave. Without Lyle, next year’s team could be frighteningly bad defensively.
-
@justanotherfan The frustrating part of it is that we know that they can and we have seen them do it at times. The question is why don’t they do it all the time? What gets them motivated to do it? That is the question I want answered.
We don’t need different players to get the job done when you have guys that can already do it. They need to put themselves in the mental state that they were in when they played Texas in the tournament.
-
The announcer said it was unfair for a big man to try and guard Juwan Staten. Releford and Morningstar both threw up after this play.
-
“This is a bad defensive team, folks. There’s no other way to say it.”
Thank you for clearing the air on this.
Without Embiid, or at the very least, Black playing a bunch of minutes, the Defensive Emperor is buck naked against teams 65 and up in the KENPOM.
But it won’t always be as bad as it was against WVU.
Self coached that game exactly like someone would to create a point padding performance in a meaningless game for a legendary coach with a $10K beat Self clause.
The defense will be significantly better next game, not because the players are trying harder, but because Self is trying harder.
My honest to god take is that once Black got the two fouls, Self was trying to accomplish two things only:
1.) get Wigs back up the draft lottery standings;
2.) get Wigs ready in case the medical news on Embiid was done for the season;
3.) giving Huggs professional curtesy by letting him cash in the $10K clause.
The last is my favorite part. You have to know that Self’s professionalism makes him hate the idea of a school giving a coach a clause to beat him. It violates the code. Self had to have been thinking, oh screw it, if we haven’t got a chance to win, let’s take care of Wigs and let’s let the AD at WVU feel what it is like to cut a check for meaningless game. I just love how it worked out.
-
@jaybate 1.0 And Huggy Bear got $25,000.00 for beating Self and KU not $10,000.00 as you posted.
http://mellinger.kansascity.com/entries/maybe-bob-huggins-beat-ku-contract-isnt-all-weird/
-
This is a fabulous three frame grab to demonstrate the essence of what’s wrong with KU’s young defenders.
Greene was supposed to turn the guy into the center of the court, but then promptly gave baseline. It is the cardinal sin in Self Defense. Never, never, never, NEVER let the guy go baseline. And the guy did it on a 180 reverse dribble that should have been utterly easy to cut off had Greene positioned himself and kept him self properly weighted.
Now in Greene’s defense (but only a little), notice the black lingerie on his legs. His knees have to be a mess.
Further, did anyone notice just how little pop Selden had left in his legs and he’s sporting as much or more black lingerie. I am recalling that wonderful drive he made backside to iron only to go up and barely clear the ball over the rim on the flush. I mean, come on, this is Wayne Flipping Selden, an absolute athletic animal early in the season.
These guys knees are shot!!!
Even if they knew how to guard, which Selden appears to, and Greene perhaps not, they haven’t got enough pop left to keep up.
Add Embiid to the bad knee parade and Hudy has to go back to the drawing board on knees after this season, and recent seasons.
Something has to get better.
-
@JRyman Ooh, thanks for the assist. That’s even better!!! That made my day!
-
“I agree with @Crimsonorblue22, to concentrate in Wiggins 2 assists and nothing else is absolutely and unadulterated BS.”–JayhawkFanToo
No! Wait! Its unadulterated JayhawkFanToo!!!
Yeeeeee Hawwwwww!
-
@jaybate 1.0
"I am confident Wigs could have had this kind of game several times from the beginning had he been allowed to, if he had similar circumstances. "
He could have… and we probably would have lost those games, too. Basketball is a team sport. Our team offensive FG% is around 50%. Doubtful Wiggins could do that every game (his own stats) especially if we started counting on him for 40 ppg. Teams would be after him and he would be lucky to shoot 45% on the year. How many losses would we have this year if we dropped our team FG% to 45%?
-
-
@drgnslayr You are right it is a team game. But you have to have teammates that can make a play when they are given the chance. Against WV they weren’t making plays, missed dunks,three point bricks, turnovers, bad passes. So Andrew being a good teammate shouldered the load and tried to get KU the win.
Showcased or not, he played a very good game. As stated by others he plays the 3 and his job is not to rack up assist. Doug McDermott who scored his 3000th career point Saturday night while going for 45 only had two assist. The difference was Creighton was playing at home and won.
Woould it be good if AW went for 40 every game? probably not, but why pople are bagging on him and Self for it is ridiculous at best. But if he was able to go for 41 earlier in the year and did it say 4 times and KU went 2 for 4 in those games, wouldn’t that open up the availability for others on the team to score when the D’s were trying to trap him? It’s what teams were doing to JoJo this year early when he was a raw scorer and they didn’t know how to stop him, the doubled him and then they taught him to dribble out of them and find the open man. I am pretty secure in my thinking they would have taught AW the same thing and he would have been able to do the same thing.
Do I want a Carmello like player at KU? No. Do I wan’t a ball hog at KU? No. Do I want guys that get the fundamental part of basketball? Yes. Do I want guys that understand the team concept at KU? Yes. Do I want a guy who has the ability to go off for 41 in hopes that it might be enough to carry his team to a victory? Yes. Just like EJ did vs ISU last year, he took the game over and willed them to win.
If KU would have come back from 27 and won the game and AW would have had 41 would we even be having this conversation?
-
If Wigs operating outside the offense can outshoot the FG% and FT% of a Top 5 team all season long, plus 6 games in the Madness, while his teammates don’t drag his shooting percentage down to beneath the FG% of a Top 5 team, then I want Wigs shooting EVERY SHOT EVERY GAME! Screw the rest of the players. Don’t even suit them of if we don’t have to. Forget team defense, too. Just outscore them with Wigs.
But in the universe where I get mail, there is over a hundred years of historical record regarding the game of basketball indicating that it tends to make sense to involve the team in the offense.
I dunno, maybe I’m just completely off base here asking you to consider that slayr’s claim that it is a team game has some merit.
The whole face saving point here is this: the WVU game was meaningless once Black got fouled up and Embiid could not play. All of this disputing will mean nothing once the real games start up again. Self won’t coach the same way in real games. He won’t do the same kind of stuff with Tharpe. He won’t junk the offense and turn it over entirely to Wigs. It was an anomalous game that really was just an exhibition for Wigs.
Let’s think next.
-
I got a chance to re watch the game late last night, and if you pay close attention to the offense as a whole in the second half, Wiggins seldom played out of the system. He drove the lane when it was there, he took open threes of pull up jumpers. He made some passes that were not capitalized by his teammates. One of his assist was in the high low game and it was a great pass, he looked for a few other times it just wasn’t there so he didn’t force a bad pass.
I am all about the team concept in any sport. Especially basketball, my true love of sports. I have played it and i have studied it, coached youth league and reffed it too.
When a team is operating in full affect on offense they can be unstoppable like KU was vs Texas game 2. When one player is playing out of the offense and not trying to get his teammates involved that team doesn’t lose by 6 points, they usually lose by more. When a team plays great team D they can stop anyone, but if one player relaxes or lets up or isn’t pulling their weight then the team D concept will not work, because their guy will be able to reek havoc and cause other defenders to help out then leaving their man open for an easy shot.
I do not believe coach Self called his last timeout around the 17 minute mark in the second half to tell AW to just do whatever it took and let the rest of the team just get out of the way.
Maybe Tharpes thumb was a bigger issue than the team let onto? And are letting onto?? Green Lucas Frankamp and Mason didn’t do much for the team either. Frankamps D was better than I had seen all year though. Traylor didn’t have a great game, but he showed heart and hustle. Ellis played OK typical Ellis game nothing fancy nothing lost. Black got into early foul trouble and struggled to make a dunk.
So to be a team player was AW to play as bad as the rest of his teammates? You know so he wouldn’t show them up? Or was he to take over, be a leader be a deliminator and go for it?
Look the Big12 turny is up this week and then the big dance. If this team is losing a game by 20 again, and Wiggins takes over like he did against WV and KU advances please don’t say that you have been waiting for that all year, or it’s about time or you knew he could do it. And if he does and they lose I won’t say man he played by himself and was selfish or anything along that trail.
Deal?
-
In looking at that series of screen grabs, look how high Greene’s hips are as Staten dribbles away from him. Look how close together his feet are in that first frame (one foot just barely outside Staten’s frame, the other completely hidden behind his body).
In that second cap, look at his feet again. He’s not sliding in the proper defensive position. He’s planting to run. Hips are too high again. Feet are still too close together.
Cap three is just the end of a sad, sad song. He’s already beaten.
That’s just poor defensive technique in every appreciable way. Feet too close. Standing too tall. Not sliding at all. Just bad plays all around.
I agree completely. Wiggins put the team on his back, but most of his teammates refused to go along for the ride. It was clear that offensively, Wiggins was going to do enough to get them back into the game. As a teammate, your job then is to rebound, take care of the basketball and defend as if your life depends on it. His teammates didn’t do that. They got out-efforted and that’s what bothers me most.
I do want one more thing from Wiggins though. In the heat of battle, somewhere around the time he crossed the 30 point threshold and it became clear that he was about to carry the team offensively, he never got after any of his teammates, never challenged anybody, never demanded that anybody else step up. Part of making your teammates better is asking, no demanding that they step up in moments of crisis. Instead I just saw a bunch of guys watching and hoping Wiggins would bail them all out in the end. I didn’t see anyone else say, “whoa, Andrew is playing his [butt] off, let me help him out.” That was the most disappointing thing to come from Saturday. Nobody else stepped forward. If anyone had, KU probably wins that game.
-
Okay, I will keep playing along here.
In a meaningful game, Self would never have called his last time out with 17 to go.
In a meaningful game, he…
Oh, never mind. Been over all that already. It wasn’t a meaningful game and it doesn’t amount to diddledy squat in the big picture of what has happened this season, or what will happen.
Still, to participate…
First, there was no offense to play within, so he had to do what he did for the good of the team.
Then Wigs played within the offense on a second viewing.
First they played team defense.
Then there was no team defense to play.
First the team concept has to be junked, when it doesn’t work.
Then one is all about the team concept.
Check.
In retrospect, the meaningless game got Huggie Bear $25K.
The meaningless game got Wigs back on the hype radar for the draft and greased for scoring more, if Joel’s back goes out quick, or doesn’t come back at all.
Here is my prediction for the next meaningful game, if Joel plays.
Tharpe plays a lot of minutes.
Joel goes 13/10 but not more than two blocks, because jumping for blocks is a great way to throw his back out.
Self doesn’t call his last time out till late in the game.
Team defense is played a bit more the way it was played against UT-Austin and TTech.
Wigs plugs into the offense.
KU plays more like a Self team.
Wigs scores less than 41.
Huggie doesn’t make another $25K off Self.
But If Joel is out for the Big 12 tourney, well, I just don’t know.
Have to wait and see what Self has up his sleeve.
Maybe a new defensive scheme?
Or maybe 60 by Wigs and an early vacation in the Aegean?
-
I don’t know. After about 30 there, Andrew might have tried a few assists just to give WVU another look, before carrying the team some more. Nothing puffs up a struggling teammate like an easy basket off an assist. As poorly as Wig’s teammates were playing, there was never a time when it appeared to me that our guys could not have made an open lay up off a dish.
Another thing you can do, if you really don’t think your mates can get it done a lick without you that day is, well, I know its old fashioned, but…
You can get your mates involved with a give and go every 10th, or 20th point.
I’ve seen guys even do it in the NBA.
A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down/ The medicine go down…
-
I’m not bagging on Andrew and I applaud his 40+ point game. It was everyone else stinking that created the loss. Andrew put out lots of energy to score that much. He worked hard for his points.
It is a good thing that he can have a game like this. Imagine if he did this and had some help from teammates?
I’m sure Andrew would rather have 5 points and a win. His teammates should have lifted up to his level of play. They should have been encouraged by what he was doing. Typically, teams just have one big scorer… so other guys just play a role and they watch their star score. We have plenty of big scorers and they should have taken part in the scoring frenzy.
Everything I blame is on our PG play. Someone has to orchestrate. We didn’t run a real offense and this is what we get. We are lucky it was this close. Very lucky.
-
No one’s bagging on Andrew. Period. This is a case of collective hysteria.
That being said, the most dumbfounding thing was how KU ran an offense beautifully against lowly TTech, but not against WVU.
Really, I don’t see a practical, logical reason for not being able to run the offense that KU tries to run against WVU. WVU is a good young team that is coming on late in the season. You would not expect offensive efficiency to stay as high against WVU as TTech, but there is no reason why you couldn’t run the offense against WVU…unless you were told not to. Very puzzling.
-
I wish Wiggins would have dished to Black who was unguarded and running along side on his right while he was driving toward the basket and got fouled. And I also wish he’d have dished forward to the wide open Selden instead of having his highlight dunk.
-
@jaybate 1.0
Ah Jaybate, you can’t stand it when other members calls your BS…well…BS.
Go read your original post a the top of the thread and you will see (although I doubt it) that the entire section on Wiggins is predicated on having had only two assists. Never mind that Wiggins job is to score, rebound and get to the line and NOT produce assists…but then what do we know, if Jaybate says so then It must be so.
I could write more, but I am not willing to waste my time or that of the other posters, and you still would not get it.
“An intellectual is a man who takes more words than necessary to tell more than he knows.”
Dwight D. Eisenhower
You fit that definition to a tee. I see a three part, 5,000 word response coming up, but thanks to the good folks at Logitech, I have a mouse with a turbo scrolling wheel that allows me to bypass the long winded post with ease, much like many Forum member do. No doubt that with you on the board we get plenty of practice.
-
@JayHawkFanToo If Wiggins were a volume shooter, no one would expect many assists, but he is a volume driver. When you drive, shouldn’t assists be an option? Other posters have said this, not just jaybate.
Anyway, assists are just the tip of the iceberg. Wiggins can turn it on and be a man among boys, but he can’t become a leader at the drop of a hat. Unlike Danny as a senior, we can’t expect Andrew to turn his teammates into Miracles.
-
When you drive, shouldn’t assists be an option?
@ParisHawk If not assists, then turnovers…
-
So, what I’m hearing in this thread is that everyone’s happy with the way things are going for us right now ?
-
@nuleafjhawk you mean because it’s not football season? Seriously, do we really want these kids to mess up their health and lose their athleticism just so we can agonize a week longer? The word is “play”, people. Coach Self needs to stop channeling his internal football coach, sit guys who are hurt and figure out how to stop hurting them. Don’t tell me it’s just games causing those quilts.
-
I agree with you 100% but the WVU game was no the way he normally plays. This was a special situation when no one else was doing much scoring and he had the hot hand. Under similar conditions who would prefer takes the shot; the guy with hot hand shooting 66% or the rest of teams shooting 36%? I am not saying that the he should do this all the time, and he doe not, but in this particular game it was the right strategy and almost brought KU back from a 26 point deficit. He obviously had instructions from Coach Self to do just that, and just because he only had 2 assist weighed against 41 points does not mean he did not make the other players or the team better, wouldn’t you agree?
In any case, I think this topic has been beaten to death and there are obvious diverging opinions. I guess we just respectfully agree to disagree.
-
More pure unadulterated JayhawkFanToo.
I actually enjoy watching you calling something BS and then having to resort to straw arguments, because reason and facts are contradicting your inner world.
Do carry on.
-
@jaybate 1.0
Keep it up Jaybate.
You forget that most if not all of us are adult, college graduates, many of us with graduate and post graduate degrees to booth and can see right through you condescending, patronizing BS and just ignore it.
Sometimes you can be amusing with your war stories but more often than not you talk down to others and seem to have an urge to show how smart you are (or aren’t) and how much (or little) you know. The rest of us just want to unwind some and talk sports.
Obviously other posters are smarter and heed the old adage:
“Don’t argue with someone that buys ink by the barrel”
Which in the digital era translates to:
“Don’t argue with someone with a keyboard, the anonymity of a forum and all the time in the world to produce page after page of non-sense.”
When the KC Start Sports Forum (much like the LJW,) changed format and imploded, and at the suggestion of colleagues I joined the LJW Forum and was promptly warned by several posters to not argue with Jaybate. One of the more colorful description said…after you publicly smack him down, he will be like chihuahua in heat and continue humping your leg, until you get tired and ignore him and then he will claim victory. Dang if he was not correct. In retrospect, I should have heeded his advice as my leg feels clammy from all your digital humping.
I participate in 3 other technical forums that are pretty focused and another business owner’s forum that I help moderate and can get pretty contentious, luckily in that one we can quickly shut down any discussion that gets too adversarial, plus we have a feature that allows a member to place another one in an “ignore list” and post from the “ignored” member are no longer displayed. I only wish this Forum would have that feature.
I regularly interact with many other forums members and when we don’t see eye to eye on issue,w we simply agree to respectfully disagree. With you, its your way or the highway and you always have to have the last word. I though you had indicated after the Adidas thread, that you would not address any post to me any more; I guess you just can’s stay away.
By the way, at a recent Chamber of Commerce event in the Kansas City area, the Adidas subject came up in conversation, actually an acquaintance of mine that had read the thread brought it up while we were taking about international trade. After several guests including the CEO of one the larger companies in town read the threads on their cell phones, everybody had a laugh at your expense…thanks Jaybate, you made me look like even smarter.
If you want to continue debating let’s not do it from behind the curtain of anonymity, we can both provide our credentials, including names and jobs, and let the other forum members see for themselves who we are; I am willing to post a link to my company’s web site where you can see my professional bio.
Until then you can have all the last words you want. I am done with you.
-
@jaybate 1.0 Why are our opinions “straw arguments” while yours seem to be factual?
What proof do you have that anything you say is correct> YOIu have no facts to base your opinions off of, or at least you have shown no proof of facts.
That’s what message boards are for, for people to express their opinions and yes we can disagree, but to call out someones opinions without facts to back it up that theirs are false and yours are right are ridiculous.
What proof do you have that Self didn’t care about the WV game?
What proof do you have that Wiggins played outside of the offense?
What proof do you have that Self pulled Tharpe so Wiggins could be showcased for the NBA?
What proof do you have that anything yoiu said is factual and my statements are all false?
Sure you can throw up numbers, most accountants will tell you that you can make numbers say whatever you want them to. So do better than just throwing numbers up there. Also try not to quote 36 different famous people in history, try using your own words, but don’t let that go to your head and use your over verbaged rhetoric to try and hide the fact you are stalling. Use actual facts that can be backed up, unlike saying that Huggins got 10K for beating KU and Self when it is widely been known and publicized it was 25K. You tell others not to use wikipedia as a source, and I agree, but what source are you using?
Don’t act like a sports talk radio guy and when you start losing an argument hang up on them so they can’t keep winning and then you have the air all to yourself so you can call it a win. That’s what Jim Rome and Collin Cowheard do, and why? Do they not have a good argument or are they so full of themselves they can never admit when they are wrong or have lost?
I used my opinions to state my feelings, never claiming anything but that they were opinions. I took my side you had yours. But you couldn’t let it happen that I stepped on your toes, so you had to call out my arguments as straw, like they were completely false and that you are the only one with any knowledge of the game. Unless you are in the locker room, at practice or in the huddles at timeouts or are related to someone that is, then you do not know, you do not have the facts to your arguments either. They are just your opinions and that’s ok, just don’t try to pass them off as facts why everyone else’s are not legit opinions.
Thanks
-
I still feel like Andrew should have dished a few more assists.
Nice back fill.
Next.
-
@jaybate 1.0 As it was stated above and then I re-stated it assist are a two man game. He can make the pass but if others are throwing up bricks, or missing dunks or turning it over then he can’t get any.
Nice back fill uh? I ask for facts and you go with that line with no other argument? Why is that? No proof?
Next? Is that your back up line to “straw arguments”?
Just take your keyboard and go home then you if you don’t want to play.
