Pivotal Game
-
They will be nastier than usual, if that’s possible! They love all the bad things that have happened to us. Of course their administration lets them get away w/it. I bet anything, older Jayhawks will be talking to our young ones.
-
This is a pivotal game. I mentioned in another topic that this game could be the one we look back on as the turning point of the conference season (in our favor).
The back 9 isn’t easy, 5 road games, ugh. KU doesn’t have back to back home games the entire conference season. The Big-12 schedule is a JOKE this year. How did we ever agree to it this way. It’s never been scheduled in this manner.
Some teams in the ACC & SEC(North Carolina & Tennessee I’m looking at you) will have 3 home games upcoming in a row. Tennessee has - Mizzou, Florida & South Carolina in Knoxville for the next 8 days. UNC’s road is more daunting, NC St, Miami & Virginia but still they get em all at home over the next 2 weeks. Just food for thought.
The two teams at the top, K-St & Baylor have plenty of opportunities to fail. K-St’s next 5, 3 on the road, no gimmies. Baylor also has 3 road trips in their next 5. They also play K-St this weekend so someone will have at least 3 conference loses by the end of the weekend. Iowa St also has 3 of next 5 on the road. Whoever survives the next 5 with a winning record will be looking pretty good down the stretch.
Best case Scenario, KU wins on Tuesday and Saturday at home. Baylor and K-St lose at least once. KU is back to sharing the conference lead by Sunday.
-
@BeddieKU23 Speaking of NCState, did you hear of their awful result from Saturday? 24 points scored all game. Not to hijack this excellent thread or anything, so back to the topic at hand:
Beat Kstate is all.
-
Bosthawk said:
is Garrett still out ?
I read he is questionable for tomorrow but should be good to go Saturday. I doubt he plays tomorrow.
-
I think konate is coming back in a week too.
-
@kjayhawks Vegas has K-State by 1 with an over/under of 129. Frankly, I am surprised the line is that low. I expected K-State to be favored by somewhere around 6 - 8. Of course, the line may change between now and tip off. If we show up and play like we did on Saturday, we can win this! Remember, we have HOF Coach Bill Self and they have crazy Grandpa McCoy.
-
@bcjayhawk They have an excellent piano player played by Michael Douglas in an HBO movie.
-
Self just ruled Garrett out for tomorrow.
-
I think the entire dynamic with Garrett out is interesting. Garrett is a better basketball player than Charlie Moore. Moore, however, delivered 6 assists in limited time. I felt overall our team defense was pretty good. I paid a lot of attention to Grimes and thought he did better.
My concern is that the environment Tuesday will make us hesitant. And that can cause decisions to become less reactionary. Which can cause a much different offensive result.
If our offense demonstrates many of the qualities we saw Saturday, the narrative of Garrett’s overall negative impact on the offense will get more credibility.
I just think the dynamic is interesting. I love Garrett off the bench. But I think Self falls in love (as Self is prone to do) with things other than offense. Garrett is the poster boy for that love fest. And Self, for years, has undervalued the fine art of placing the ball in the hoop on a frequent basis (in favor of other aspects of the game).
-
Yeah it was the lowest scoring effort in the shot clock era. Wake Forest tried to match them getting 37 yesterday… some real good offenses in that ACC. Fyi 77 players matched 24 points Saturday alone…
-
@HighEliteMajor Offense is fools gold!
(I crack myself up)
-
@tundrahok I’m tellin’ ya, when the ball goes in basket, you just don’t get a good idea of how good of a team you are. Those darned teams that make shots make everything look good. The best teams are the ones that win when they don’t make shots. I mean, there are times when we’ve played good defense but that other team has just made shots. But we lose. Can’t do much about that. But we can’t rely on making shots.
Now, the quote to end all quotes, in a game we won 123 - 72:
"I told our guys during the game I’d rather win 50-40 than give up that many points. Because that’s not real.”
That was fun.
-
KSU is favored by 1.
-
@HighEliteMajor Charlie might have been more relaxed than normal; he wasn’t looking at the bench when he did something not quite right. Probably knew he could play through a mistake since we needed minutes.
-
@HighEliteMajor Here’s the dynamic with Moore in while Garrett was out, Moore mostly ran point with Dotson off the ball. Dotson will be a very good PG as he continues to develop, but I think the reason the offense look so much better against Tech was Dotson played off the ball a lot in that game.
I think this team needs to play with Dotson off the ball as much as possible this year. Dotson’s the best shooter on the team, but he can’t create his own shot yet. Getting Dotson off the ball allowed him to use his quickness and athleticism to get open looks and create open looks for others. This is why Garrett needs to run point a lot more as well. Garrett and Moore are both very good at protecting the ball and Garrett at point forces defenses to guard him and not sag off of him.
-
@Texas-Hawk-10 Tech s seamed to be playing off Dotson like they would have Garrett. He had WIDE open looks all day. I don’t think Kstate will back off of him as much, so we’ll see if that opens things up more for Grimes or Ochai to drive. (I hope so)
-
Woodrow said:
KSU is favored by 1.
Line is now KSU -3.5
-
Place your bets ladies and gentlemen.
-
I’d take KU +3.5 in pretty much any game.
-
What I’m looking at has Silo as 2.5 point home favorites. I think we’ll win by 5 points.
-
I a little worried about this game to be honest, without Garrett both Wade and Brown seem like match up nightmares at this point. Vick or Dotson prob is on Brown while Ochai will have to face Wade. Rebounding hasn’t been a strength for us in years it seem but I believe it will play a huge factor in who wins tonight. Hopefully we will come out in similar fashion as we did Saturday. It just seems like when we have a big like we just did we look terrible the next.
-
@kjayhawks so does KSU! Look at their loss to A & M
-
@Crimsonorblue22 KSU has looked great the last 6 games outside of the A&M debacle you mention. I see me having a better shot at the lottery than KSU coming out flat tonight, this is one of the biggest regular season games they’ve had in arguably my lifetime.
-
I’ve never once in my life thought KSU would beat KU until tonight. I hope KU keeps it close.
-
I will actually be surprised if KU wins tonight. They are awful on the road and this team doesn’t seem to be mentally tough enough for what they will face environment wise. There is no Mason or Graham out there to calm them down.
-
I think it’s a game we can win but if I was putting money on it, no way I’d put it on Kansas. As @Woodrow said our road woes have been well documented and with us being young, them pretty much all upperclassmen. I just can’t bring myself to predict a KU win, really hope to be wrong tho.
-
It’s looking to me like Baylor and K-State both have 4 more losses coming based on their road schedule. I can really see us losing to KSU and then dropping one more to have 5 losses in conference. Looking at ISU’s schedule leaves me thinking we split with them for the title at 13-5.
-
KU 87
KSU 73
-
@nuleafjhawk No chance the game is that high scoring. The over / under is 131. This game might be played in the 50’s.
-
In predicting the score I think you pointed out the recipe for how KU goes on the road and wins this game. Vegas has the line close (a few points) and the O/U low considering K-St is Kenpom’s 5th ranked defense while KU’s is 13th. Opposite K-St’s offense is horrifically rated 177th in the country while KU has been sputtering around the 20’s for a while now.
Given all that its no surprise this could be a low scoring game if both defenses are better then their offenses. Buta high scoring game is one way KU can walk out of here with an important win. Speed the game up in similar fashion to what KU did to Texas Tech. KU took a season high 30 3’s with its new look 4 guard lineup. Making them goes a long way to speeding up an opponent to keep up. I’m not sure this team is capable of winning a grind it out in the 50’s/low 60’s type of game. The more possessions in this game the bigger chance KU has to prove to be the better team.
That is assuming most things are equal like fair officiating and being able to quiet the crowd from what should be a rowdy bunch of lunatics. I can’t remember the last time KU got anywhere close to a fair officiated game on the road.
Look at the foul difference from KU’s road games. KU has been called for 20 more fouls on the road then their opponents. The disparity would be even greater if it didn’t account for Baylor fouling KU every possession to extend the game. The +10 from Arizona St, + 8 in Rupp and + 7 at Texas are all laughably a JOKE. Maybe this KU team is just a bunch of foul happy muggers but the eye test says otherwise. The only time the ref’s were not a significant factor in a KU road game this year was the dud KU put up at Iowa St.
Keys to winning are pretty much the same every game. Make shots, 50% from the field is always a good baseline no matter where the game is played. It’s also assumed that shooting 50% FG’s will reflect in the teams 3pt shooting % as well. Rebound/limit 2nd chance points to under 10. Lawson/Dotson stay out of foul trouble which limits the minutes of our backups at those positions which are net negatives. If we can do all those I think we win. If we can do most of them still a good shot.
-
@Woodrow #1 and #3 are the basis of my prediction. Throw in the “frosting” of Bruce Weber as their coach, I’m sticking with my score.
-
Kansas leads 196-93
-
Kansas leads in Lawrence 89-35
-
Kansas leads in Manhattan 78-47
Kansas leads in Kansas City, Mo 27-11
Kansas leads on neutral courts 29-11
Largest K-State win: 27 points (96-69, on 1/20/1979)
Largest Kansas win: 45 points (90–45, on 3/10/1995)
Longest K-State streak: 5 (72–74, 82–83)
Longest Kansas streak: 31 games (1994–2005)
-
-
@Woodrow We have scored 87 points or more 6 times (so far) this season. Once against (then ranked) #9 Michigan St, once against #5 (now #1) Tennessee. I think we can score.
-
-
@kjayhawks Geez, thanks. Now HEM is going to go on a rant about how Jamari failed even against a little guy to hold position under the basket.
-
@mayjay Ya it was a risk I was willing to take, Heck a WV player decked a fan that pushed him a few years ago.
-
@Woodrow I will be pleasantly surprised if we win. 3 freshmen in the rotation and, as you say, no senior leadership to calm us down and take over down the stretch. I fear our younger guys will get sped up and rattled. I hope I am wrong.
-
KU 71 Silo 67.
-
Hawks 75 Hicks 71.
-
i wish the game was at 6’ I’m amped up already
-
-
KSU going strong. Heard they were going to yell fbi instead of f you know what. Saw some pics of fbi jackets.
-
Motivation
-
This game is a big prove it. And by that, is Garrett actually a negative due to how poor he is at shooting? Does the offense show up again with the added spacing? This is a big question that needs answered going forward
-
kjayhawks said:
It’s really one of the biggest games that they’ve had in the Octagon. They have a chance to put KU back a full 2 games in the second half of conference play, that place will be crazy with how bad we have been on the road. They will smell blood in the water even more so than usual in a game that is always their super bowl. It’s a huge week for them with us on Tuesday and Baylor on Saturday, they have a chance to get a grasp on the lead with no company. Haven’t seen a Vegas line on the game yet but BPI (joke at best) gives KU a 56% chance to win.
I want to correct one thing you said, “They will smell blood in the water” should read:
"They will smell blood in the sewer…: there, all better.
-
@KUSTEVE thats only 4! You said 5
-
@Bwag or feedlot, pig sty stie?
-
@Crimsonorblue22 works…
-
@Woodrow My apologies. I’m an idiot.
-
@nuleafjhawk how bad is work today? Maybe everyone is iced in at home, better yet, in a ditch. No harm!
-
@Crimsonorblue22 Actually, the only one who’s said anything so far is an OU fan…the Pussycats are uncharacteristically quiet.
