Why We Lost to Iowa State
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I think Tharpe has potential to be a really good 3-pt shooter… especially if he doesn’t have to think about running the team. He should get quality minutes at the 2 and backup minutes at the 1.
What if we sign Lyle? He’s a big kid, so everyone gives him the thumbs up at KU. But is he an alpha-dog? Huntington Prep lists him as a guard. They don’t specify who runs point. Was it Lyle or Perkins running their team this year? Does he know what is expected at PG?
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@drgnslayr He’s been pretty good this year from three, but I think his dislocated finger has been bothering him.
I still don’t think their loss is going to be due to a lack of a good point guard. I believe Tharpe has some leadership skills. But leadership skills do not, I repeat do not lead to good team play. Tharpe CAN NOT make the rest of the team play well.
Everyone has to put forth their own best individual effort.
I liked the way they played against OSU. Now, Tharpe just needs to get his trey gun going to really open the lane up for the bigs and Wiggins/Selden.
Again, I think that the current roster is good enough to get to the final four. I have no reason to think that if they bring their best effort that they don’t have a chance of making a deep run.
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Another frustrating aspect of the Iowa State loss is that now there is an article on ESPN about how vulnerable KU is without Embiid.
What they don’t mention is the circumstances and that they are likely to have him back by the second weekend.
Iowa State is not a good matchup especially without Embiid.
They weren’t saying that after they beat OSU the day before.
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What we have to think about now is that one loss ends our season. We can’t flutter now from game to game.
Hey… I finally found an article I like on Wiggins:
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@drgnslayr makes me sad! Great kid, don’t want him to go. Watched Ben Mac play a little, he was doing good on a lousy team. I guess it’s all about money, cause they didn’t seem to play team ball. So hard to watch! Are you watching ISU-Baylor? Watching creighton getting beat. ISU used all their shots up last pm!
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@drgnslayr Lyle isn’t considering KU anymore.
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@drgnslayr So basically this thing about Tharpe has ate & ate at me. “What more proof does this guy want that he is a point guard?” I kept thinking to myself. Coupled with the vague “I remember reading…” argument I was confronted with, I set out to gather as much proof as I could that this guy is a point guard.
Then I found something that lends credence to your claim. Apparently, before attending Brewster, Tharpe attended St. Peter-Marian in Worcester beginning in 8th grade, and played 2 seasons there before transferring to the Brewster Academy. While at St. Peter-Marian he was more of a 2, out of necessity the article states (apparently they weren’t very good and he had to score. The losing was what caused him to transfer). However, the article does state that as a 3 year starter he was the point guard for Brewster, including being a 2-time captain.
So while I still don’t buy that his natural position is the 2, I will concede that he played the 2 for at least a time in his youth career. To me, Self did right in recruiting the PG position when he recruited Naadir. A 3 year starter in high school for one of the top prep schools in the country, being a team captain for 2 of those years, and leading your team to a national championship while playing the point guard…not sure how much more due diligence Self was supposed to do there. Obviously no, he hasn’t been the second coming of Aaron Miles since becoming a Jayhawk. But my point is that doesn’t mean he’s playing out of position.
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@icthawkfan316 great work, you proved your point. Don’t think jr high counts???
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Lyle
@MoonwalkMafia Didn’t think about the Ok State game being important in the Lyle recruitment.
http://memphis.247sports.com/Article/JaQuan-Lyle-has-cut-his-list-to-three-schools-182961
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@approxinfinity I posted on headlines, KU wasn’t interested in him anymore.
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@Crimsonorblue22 Ah, see it now http://rockchalkblog.com/2014/03/15/recruit-talk-kansas-no-longer-interested-in-jaquan-lyle/ - thanks for this.
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@approxinfinity I just read twitter and copy and paste, that’s my limit though!!!
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@drgnslayr Regarding your question ‘who is the leader?’…I’d have to say now its Wiggins on the court with his play, and now even on the microphone increasingly. We dont see Naadir on the mike very often, do we? You could call Ellis a quiet-type of leader, but people, players, fans, FEED off energy, and Ellis doesnt show any (just a fact, not bagging on Ellis at this moment). Tarik Black has tried to be a lockerroom leader, and Ive seen him quite animated on the sidelines during timeouts, trying to rally the guys, so he is trying… But several players seem to be deferring to Wiggins… He has the obvious green light from Self, along with a season long’s worth of earfuls about “being more aggressive”. You could say the 18y/o (now 19) has handled the pressure extremely well–but it begs the question: why, on a Bill Self team, does a freshman have to be the on-court leader, and the one on the mike…? (Way more than the PG?)
Another undercurrent thought is: how does it affect each player’s psyche to have some OAD come in, then show the world he is a legit OAD, able to produce dazzling numbers on the O-end, and be a lockdown defender on the D-end…? I recall a previous “OAD” that came, caused the starting PG (Tyshawn) significant mental angst, which even leaked out publicly about his “role confusion”. Tyshawn had just come off from the U19 win, where he was the leading scorer…but now he + Sherron were to “feed” the OAD his touches? The good thing for Tyshawn was that he was an aggressive mentality. He got his moment his final year, and he seized it!
Summary: How does a coach change/cajole/rebuild? a player’s personality or confidence level? Is part of that responsibility up to a player within himself? We just went through this last year with EJ’s persona. He wasnt aggressive by nature. How does Self change someone’s nature?? He succeeded (after 2yrs) with Withey. He’s succeeded right out of the box with Wayne Selden, or maybe bigWayne gets due credit also. Self finally succeeded in getting Wiggins to be (an) alpha. Ellis still a work in progress…We also need Black to be a bull-in-china shop monster, but then we have learned he is a big nice guy, consumate team player. It’d be nice to have either Black or Ellis (or both) show a little bit of Thomas Robinson in their mentality, IF that can be reached within each’s ‘personality envelope’.
Very interesting to contemplate a leader-less team. Bill Self strutting on the sidelines cannot replace the confident swagger that is supposed to be inside of each player that plays for Kansas. Thats supposed to be one of the “edges” our guys have.
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@ralster in an interview after osu game, Selden made the comment at the end of game, they wanted the ball in Tharpe’s hand, he’s their leader.
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@icthawkfan316 I agree. I don’t think I ever felt like Tharpe was playing out of position. Remember…he was not that highly rated coming out of high school. Originally committed to Providence. We got in late after missing on higher rated point guards. Don’t get me wrong, I love Tharpe and still have high hopes for him. But it did appear that he was our backup plan. That happens a lot.
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@Crimsonorblue22 Regarding Lyle, I assume his / our interest hinged on Selden coming back?
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@Hawk8086 don’t know, no scholarships left?
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@Crimsonorblue22 That was my assumption. Probably should have said hinged on Selden “leaving”.
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Thanks for putting in the effort to search out Tharpe’s background. My point was only based on something I read a long time ago… so I didn’t overstate my reference and it is open to scrutiny.
What really counts for me is what I think is important from the PG position.
First… from a personality perspective, a good PG will have a big time drive to lead. Good PGs are part coach, part player, part babysitter, part psychologist, part arbitrator… anything where they can get some level of control, because these guys want to control things, especially what happens on the court!
Good PGs hold themselves accountable for team results. Tharpe has done some of it this year and I commend him for doing it!
Good PGs have the highest basketball IQ on the team. They see what defenses are pulling and they know how to attack. They are free to call plays and sets themselves because coaches trust their PG and what he sees on the court. Good PGs direct their players. They tell them things to do in order to be more productive as individuals and for the team. Good PGs are paying attention while being out at the top of the key, making mental notes of what they are seeing and how to attack it better. When necessary, good PGs have plenty of their own weapons and when need be are willing to take over for short periods to try to get others going and keep the team in the game. Tharpe has done some of that this year, especially on the games where he ripped off a load of points!
Good PGs have a feel for what is the best pace to run their team. Good PGs impact that pace by pushing or slowing down tempo. At times, we’ve been stuck on both sides the wrong tempo. A good PG will feel the wrong pace and work towards changing it. The coach shouldn’t have to call a time-out every time the team has a minute or two of bad play. The leader on the court should be involved with settling the team down during the game, or pushing the team when everyone slows down too much.
Tharpe has the ability to be a good PG. But his downside habits have to be addressed. He can’t be inconsistent in his play. He can’t step into a game mentally unprepared to be efficient. He can’t decide to disappear in games that aren’t going his way. He can’t decide that the mountain is too high to climb so he goes on cruise control… when the mountain is high he needs to take a deep breath and start tackling that mountain!
“When the going gets tough, the tough get going!” Yes… it is a sports cliche… but it is also the dead on truth!
I don’t know if Tharpe has everything it takes to become a great PG… but he clearly does have what it takes to be a good PG! And sometimes we see a good PG… it is the other times that totally deflate his value on this team. For example… if he doesn’t show up for a game now, we are done for the year and we will be very very unhappy!
I want to see Tharpe, from here on out, arrive to a game prepared and confident to play. I want to see Tharpe prepare his troops to play, too. No more dead starts. No more starts where he immediately creates a few unforced TOs at the beginning of the game. Then… I want to always know that Tharpe is on the court. I shouldn’t have to study the game closely just to realize if he is on the court or not. Then… I want him running offense. I want him talking to his guys. I want to see his leadership. I want to see him shut his man down and stop giving away the lane. I want to see him exploit open court opportunities when they are there… no more getting out on a 1-on-1 or 2-on-2 and then pulling back and running offense. When we have opportunities like that we force it to the hole on the drive. We’ll either get the foul or the bucket or both!
I want to see an aggressive Tharpe from here on out! That isn’t asking too much from our starting PG!
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@drgnslayr-I’d like to see him take a charge just once this season…or at least get in position to take one.
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“Summary: How does a coach change/cajole/rebuild? a player’s personality or confidence level?”
I don’t have a clue… I think the key is to be more cautious during recruiting and look for the right guys in the first place.
Most of the guys I played beside maybe had too much confidence! Seems it was more a problem to get guys to play more under control and stop gunning because their FG% stunk!
How do we find all these sheepish players? Or are they sheepish? Maybe they BECOME sheepish after arriving in Lawrence!
Maybe there are issues within our system that plays a part in knocking down their confidence. Self is a sharp guy, we know that… and maybe he is working against other factors. For one… does our historic significance in college basketball help us or hurt us? It seems like these guys are constantly compared to past players and teams.
I don’t know. I’m not a psychologist… I continue to ask others in here who may have a background in this area to speak up and post their thoughts.
It does seem like players arrive here and then are in awe of what they stepped in. Seems we have to do a better job of instilling their confidence versus just pitting them against imaginary players from the past. I said “imaginary” because that is what the are to most of these players we recruit from all over the country.
These comparisons of Wiggins to Manning and Chamberlain are a joke!
This is a good read on the weird pressures applied to Wiggins. Manning didn’t face any of this in his days as a Jayhawk:
Look back to our second game of the year… against Duke. With the big lights on and a bunch of freshmen who didn’t know which direction was up. The sure looked better than the same team months later (sometimes). They definitely played with more of a spark!
That game is our barometer on this season. That game set the standard base to build from. That game showed what these players brought with them from HS, including their personality traits. We’ve seen individual improvements… especially with Andrew, Wayne and JoJo… but as a team, is our energy better? I’m not sure about that. I thought the Texas home game was a match of the energy we had with Duke. Why don’t we have that energy on a regular basis?
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@globaljaybird you don’t see many points taking charges.
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@globaljaybird
True… even if he didn’t get the call, it would just show toughness. This team needs leadership showing toughness!
I have to hand it to ISU… even though several of those guys are floppers… they still show a bunch of individual toughness and it rubs off on the rest of the team! They definitely ate up Niang’s bloody face!
This team goes as Tharpe goes… when he plays sheepish and has no confidence, it sets an example for the team, especially this young freshman team being lead by a junior PG.
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@drgnslayr-Well, right now Bill is making his cameo on cbs as I speak-My point is not at all about anything BUT Tharpe having his friggin feet in POSTION just once to take the charge. In plain English, can he keep a guy in front of him & will he play DEFENSE !! Cause if he doesn’t, it may be a damn short dance. And I’m NOT READY for the off season yet.
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@Crimsonorblue22-Time for the selection show…later we can talk…enjoy & ride the wave.
