Vermont Post Mortem
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@BeddieKU23 you mention the team is a work in progress, which it looks like they are. But it seems like they shouldn’t be. From a team standpoint obviously, it’ll take a little time to get them to gel. But from an individual standpoint, I’m surprised they’re not better. Plus we missed out on a lot of 50/50 balls that I think we’d normally get. Hopefully this was just a sleeper game, similar to the Chiefs vs. Cardinals.
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I wasn’t thrilled with the offensive gameplan early on. Doke was hacked a lot but even they call them, the gameplan is still sending Doke to the line? The offense flowed much better when it was predicated on driving it, and when Self played one big.
Self has quite a pickle on his hands here. He has a 7 foot beast that is a liability on defense, and two more lumbering bigs that would expect some kind of tick. Dedric being an AA candidate (though he sure doesn’t look like it) and big Dave a McDAA (in a very weak class outside of the top 5 but still).
I’ve been pissing and moaning about the defense in the modern basketball thread, lol.
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It was a letdown game of sorts. Self has his work cut out for him getting these guys to bring intensity to every game. We didn’t see team balance on the box score. We fed the hot hand (Vick) and fed Doke because he had a significant mismatch against Vermont. I don’t think we executed offense at a high level, not nearly as well as we did against Michigan St. We gave up easy shots in the first half and when Vermont got down a dozen or so they started to press and make mistakes which masked how poorly KU was playing overall. Vermont also slowed the tempo of the game which seemed to mess with KU’s rhythm.
Some individuals have been disappointing so far. Dedric is certainly #1 on this list as we’ve seen him struggle to shoot in both games so far. I’m going to give him a break until we see a few more games. I’ve seen enough of him before to know he is as good as we think he is, he’s just not there yet. Malik Newman struggled early at KU last year so the transition for transfers here doesn’t seem to be as flawless as we’d hope. Maybe he’s feeling the pressure of all the pre-season accolades he got. It was the home opener and he might have had some jitters. I don’t know I’m just thinking out loud but I have no doubt he’ll bounce back.
Marcus Garrett has been the guy I’m struggling to figure out. He’s not a freshman ‘deer in headlights’ anymore, he has confidence and knows what he’s doing out there. But he’s certainly not executing on the offensive end so far and is pressing to make plays. I’m not going to get too down on him just yet as its too early for that.
Overall I think we played our ‘C’ game. I’m predicting Friday looks better
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Film is the staff’s best friend for this. They will figure it all out, especially how to make these guys co-exist
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@BeddieKU23 I actually predicted that before the game. I messaged my buddy @KirkIsMyHinrich before tip with “I think this could be a low energy game we will see. Should still win by a lot.”
I was…kinda right kinda wrong on the second part.
Agree with you on the tempo. Vermont wanted a slow game. Reminded me of UNI tourney game a bit…
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Grimes 10 assists…so that gives him impact on 30 points minimum. That’s not shabby.
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@stoptheflop I thought we looked pretty good - it’s hard to win playing 2 on 5.
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nuleafjhawk said:
@stoptheflop I thought we looked pretty good - it’s hard to win playing 2 on 5.
I felt Dotson and Grimes were alright. Just had FR moments, didn’t take a ton of shots.
Need more from Dedric and the 4/5 guard spots though.
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Grimes was fine. IMO he is not aggressive enough on the offensive side of the ball. However, to have 10 assists with zero turnovers is great. He also made some timely jumpers as well. I am not worried about him at all. I think Self will say on him to assert himself more and more into the flow of the offense.
Dotson plays great defense and I don’t think he is going to score like he did against Sparty on a regular basis which is fine. This team shouldn’t need it. If he can take care of the ball, play his good D, and run the team he will be just fine.
Not sure what to make of Dedric in this game. I haven’t seen any post game quotes, but it looked to me like he was out of sorts from the jump. Not sure if he was sick or if it was just one of those games. I am not worried about him though.
As I said in the game thread and so did many others the slow start to the game to me was on Self. He clearly made it a point to feed Doke in the post on offense and Doke more times than not is going to try and score. In doing so nobody else can get into any sort of rhythm. I understand that Doke against teams like Vermont is going to have a huge advantage, but they still need to run some other sets and try to get other guys going early…
Also Vermont is going to win 23+ games this year and win their conference I would guess.
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@Woodrow Self said he never expects Dedric to have another game like this. So I wonder that as well.
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@Woodrow He goes into Doke in order to spread the floor.
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@BeddieKU23 I fully believe you very well might be spot on with Dedric. I think all the pre season hype for him might be causing him to force somethings , trying to live up to the hype. - - I know he is a far better shooter then he is showing , again he is pressing - -forcing some things
I couldn’t believe Vick last night. Thank God he had the kind of night he did, - -the thing with him is consistency - -some nights he just doesn’t seem engaged , like he would rather be somewhere else - -anywhere else then on the floor. - -If we can get him to be engaged this year , I think we seen that he could be huge for us this year.
As far as Quentin & Devon - I’m not concerned with them at all , they are Freshman and it takes time I don’t care how talented they are - -they are going to have consistency - -this team is going to be fine. - We have a lot of new parts/pieces to get to know one another , I do agree for sure with Marcus. – Good defender but his shot is just right out ugly/horrible. - -He is a liability on offense when he is in the defender can help double down because they don’t respect Marcus shot.
I also feel and I’m just as guilty as others but I feel like ALOT of people here and others places are so spoiled -that anything less then perfection is unacceptable or so it seems , we are just spoiled. - -Dedric will be fine , but he is an old man’s game - his vertical I think is 3 inches lol, CAN HE dunk a ball? - for somebody his size he gets his shot blocked ALOT. – ROCK CHALK ALL DAY LONG BABY
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I actually was pleased with both Dotson and Grimes. Dotson got after it on defense (a couple of steals, and caused at least one other turnover with his ball pressure), and once Grimes noticed the flames sparking off Vick’s shooting hand, he correctly determined to get him and Doke the ball as often as he possibly could. I can’t ask a guy with that level of talent to make a better basketball IQ decision than that. He decided to keep giving Vick shots until he started missing, except that Vick never started missing.
Dedric and Doke are a nice combination when Dedric is feeding Doke, but when Dedric is looking to score, Doke is crowding the paint a bit, making it easier to double Dedric big to big. Since Doke can’t really space the floor, they either have to find a way to get interior lobs from Dedric to Doke to force Doke’s man to stay on him, or play through Doke when he’s on the floor, and play four out to get Dedric involved. It’s not a huge concern right now, but it’s something that KU has to be thinking about because it has been an issue for back to back games. Dedric simply doesn’t have space to operate when paired with Doke inside.
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Bwag said:
Grimes 10 assists…so that gives him impact on 30 points minimum. That’s not shabby.
Nice. - – I didn’t realize he has 10 assists , he will be fine , he did hit a couple of 3’s - - Charlie help out some with Devon. I think some of Charlie’s problem will for sure be on the defensive end - -mainly because of his height. - -So Quentin actually helped in other ways. - -ROCK CHALK ALL DAY LONG BABY
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@jayballer73 I was very glad that Dedric had such a lousy game. I would rather his bad game came in the 2nd game of the year, and not in the Elite 8 game. Now we have a whole season to work to ensure it doesn’t happen again. I think alot of his struggles had to do with our game plan.
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@stoptheflop i thought the game was perfect for us. A tough mid-major with years of experience throws us for a loop, which we had to overcome. They were a fundamentally sound pesky team that defended really well, imo. Games like this help us to get better because it exposes what needs to be improved. If we had won by 60, we might not’ve learned much.
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Game was a great test. I didn’t mind our defense. Our offense was stale but effective. I don’t mind deferring to Doke early on in the season, but I do think Grimes and Dotson will need to start attacking more for this offense to really blossom.
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I feel the offense will be fine. KU put up 80 with what many would consider a bad shooting night. However the problem if there is one. I think might be on the Defense side of the ball. It’s not so much effort or the desire of the KU players as it maybe more scheme. So many schools are going with small ball. Makes it really hard for a player like Doka.
Coach will have to figure this out as I’m afraid it will rear it’s ugly head again. Toi many schools are going with the 4 and 1 or in some cases all 5 players out.
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From the Vermont FreePress: Kansas “slogged” it’s way to a victory.
“The Jayhawks (2-0) were jumped by Duke for the top spot in the AP poll earlier in the day, even though they beat then-No. 10 Michigan State in the Champions Classic last week. And for most of their game against the Catamounts (1-1), they did little to prove the voters wrong.”
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Gorilla72 said:
From the Vermont FreePress: Kansas “slogged” it’s way to a victory.
“The Jayhawks (2-0) were jumped by Duke for the top spot in the AP poll earlier in the day, even though they beat then-No. 10 Michigan State in the Champions Classic last week. And for most of their game against the Catamounts (1-1), they did little to prove the voters wrong.”
lol
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@KUSTEVE agreed on all points. Folks need to remember that this looks like a typical Self team at the beginning of a season. Look at last year for example - so many on here and every KU blog site wrote them off. Remind me: how did that turn out in March? You HAVE to give things time and let Self figure things out. We have all the pieces we need and they just need time to get used to each other and how to play together.
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Gorilla72 said:
From the Vermont FreePress: Kansas “slogged” it’s way to a victory.
“The Jayhawks (2-0) were jumped by Duke for the top spot in the AP poll earlier in the day, even though they beat then-No. 10 Michigan State in the Champions Classic last week. And for most of their game against the Catamounts (1-1), they did little to prove the voters wrong.”
Yeah, and how did Duke look against Army on Sunday?? Kind of a stupid argument on their part.
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Teams like Vermont and Army are tough matchups for teams like Duke and KU because they are going to slow the game down as much as possible because they can’t run up and down with KU/Duke, etc.
Vermont was able to “exploit” the fact that Azuibuke struggles to come out from the paint to defend. They couldn’t exploit it to the level that Villanova did because they don’t have that level of talent, but they were able to get some open shots and make some plays in the half court.
That said, they ultimately couldn’t keep KU out of transition and even though it was a slog in which they shut out one of KU’s best players, they still lost by 16. Vermont did nearly everything right and still got beat by double digits. Same thing for Army, although Army got dragged into a track meet they never had any hope of winning even when the game was close in the first half. That’s why a team like Virginia that always plays slow is more vulnerable to upset than a team like KU or UNC that plays at a faster pace.
Besides, if you can slog out 84 points with zero from an anticipated all conference player, and just 10 from your future NBA lottery pick, you’re doing okay.
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Self said Dedric played unathletically and got blocked several times. I wonder what the toughening box for a preseason first team all American looks like.
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I absolutely love beating a good team by 16 points and feeling like we lost.
