The News board in Times Square, New York City. Great sight to see. Congratulations, Frank.

The site is now loading on AT&T . Thanks. Now I can visit when I am off my wi-fi.

The referees are under intense scrutiny by their supervisor. Each conference has a supervisor of referees, whose job is to determine the way games are called, as well as make the assignments. He also disciplines referees on his staff. the whole process has become very competitive. The staff of referees for each conference has gotten smaller, and there are hundreds of officials trying hard each year to earn a position on each staff.

The point is we will see standardization amongst officials within each conference staff. There is a strong push away from the extreme individuality that used to exist in the past. The conference supervisor breaks down tape from ever game. Officials can lose assignments by straying from the conference guidelines.

Unfortunately, there are still differences between conferences, based on the supervisor. The power conferences also have this process influenced by money, as you add the need to support a TV audience, and the personalities of multimillion dollar coaches ( yes, CS should have gotten a “T” in the second half of the ULM game).

So what can we conclude: we will soon see what to expect in the Big12 for the rest of the year. There will be differences between conferences, as there has always been. The way the games are called is less about the individual officials, and more about the conference supervisors (so don’t blame the officials).

To me the greatest proof that the vaccine saves lives is looking at the USA June 2021 numbers. There were 10,000 deaths last month from COVID. 500 deaths were in vaccinated people. 9,500 deaths were in unvaccinated people.

This is good news for those vaccinated, since COVID cases are climbing in the unvaccinated population due the the highly contagious delta variant (1,000 times more virus particles are found in the blood of infected delta variant persons versus the original strain). The way this is spreading, it is expected that near 100% of the un-vaccinated will catch COVID.

The sad news is that MOST of the deaths from COVID in June could have been avoided if people vaccinated!

I was born in New Jersey, and grew up there for 19 years, initially attending St. Joe’s for 2 years. Parents moved to KC (job). Went to visit them, and drove out to KU for an afternoon. Fell in love, and felt it was the right place for me.Finished last 2 yrs undergrad at KU, then attended medical school and residency in KC. Moved to PA in 1987, where I remain an avid fan. My son is a diehard KU fan, even though he graduated from Penn St. Also, my younger sister played ball for 1 year under Coach Washington. She was on the team with Lynette Woodward. She was the “11th player” for PT, and ultimately left to be a 3 yr starter for Liberty. She still loves KU.

AT&T. It has definitely been over a year. Again, this is the only website that doesn’t work for me when I am not on Wi-fi.

We have just seen a glimpse of what is to come. The beautiful game of basketball, which needed just a few tweaks due to excessive contact, has been perverted into a disjointed, ugly game that I can hardly recognize.

Players being allowed to drive out of control INTO the defense and get a call. Great drives to the rim taken away because someone brushes his shorts. Ugh!

Six fouls per player next?

Granted, we played little defense tonight, but basketball will be painful to watch.

I am so disappointed.

@Lulufulu

Hope you are adjusting well. Vermont is such a beautiful state. I live in Pa, so only get to see the team occasionally. Have tickets for the Temple game in Dec.

Anyway, ESPN 3 is showing the game on Friday. At least we on the East Coast won’t get blacked out.

RCJH

Fun game once we got into a rhythm. Kept looking at the score in the later minutes of the first half, not believing we were only up by 5. It is great to see the freshman developing with each game.

Defense still struggling, but I have I still think the new rules are having an effect. Bottom line-we must learn to stop the dribble drive outside of the lane, because once penetration gets deeper, nearly all contact will be a foul on the defense, however slight. We seemed to do better in the second half.

Ellis is our offensive rock. Our freshman will have up and down nights. We need Perry to be the offensive staple to put us in the position to win any game. Looking like he is ready. What a stud.

Love Mason’s aggressiveness. Now is the time to let him drive and drive and perfect his ability to finish or make the right pass. Will need this in conference play. His dunk from Tharpe had me fall off my seat.

Tharpe is the man. Real PG. Started off slow tonight, and seemed to need Mason to get him going (shouldn’t need that)

Embiid: OMG. What a performance. You can see him develop with each game. I know we will see off-nights from him, but you can see the potential. Unfortunately, I now agree he looks to be OAD.

Wiggins quietly puts up 13. Doesn’t seem to have the killer instinct against every opponent, but after watching him in the Duke game, we will be fine. I have no fear he will finish plays when we need him. Seems like a great teammate (almost to a fault).

Selden was solid. Seems more mature than than the other freshman.

Black is critical for our success. I think his game, as well as Traylor, has been impacted the most by the new rules. We still need him to provide leadership due to his age. We still need a big body for certain games. CS needs to get him in the flow.

Good progress, though. O-State looked good crushing Memphis. Good thing we have time. We are not yet ready for them. RCJH

Happy Thanksgiving to all. Appreciate the post @wissoxfan83

I want to add special thanks to Coach Larry Brown. I graduated undergrad at KU in 1980, and remained in KC area until 1987. Never missed a game. The decline in the program under Coach Ted Owens was obvious. Coach Brown brought KU back into national relevance. The media attention provided by Coach Brown, and ultimately Danny Manning, began to open doors for recruiting. Thanks for righting the ship.

I also thank technology. It is sad to think that those in close proximity to Lawrence are missing TV games that I get to see in Pennsylvania. I feel blessed that I have not missed a game on TV for the past 6 years. I will be feasting on turkey and KU hoops later today.

I am looking forward to the Wake Forest game. They have a sophomore, Devon Thomas, who went to school right down the road from me. He is a big, who averaging a double double this year. I have watched him, and his sister-who is an All American at Maryland and a certain 1st round draft pick in the WNBA, grow up and play. This will be a game where I am not routing for him. I feel confident we will win, but we need to be ready to play.

I also want to thank KUSports. It has been my staple for basketball news over the years. Unfortunately, it is time to move on. Many thanks to @approxinfinity to making this new site happen.

Thanks to all the great KU fans. Let’s have fun this holiday weekend and bring home the tourney championship (as a prelude to great things to come).

RCJH

@Crimsonorblue22 No. That has been the rule for the past 20 years or so. Most players and fans don’t know it. It often gets enforced differently in college (calls often made for TV audience) then in high school, even though the rule is the same at both levels.

@Crimsonorblue22 A “spot” throw-in, is actually a box 3 feet wide with unlimited depth. The player is allowed to move within the box, holding the ball. In fact, the “edge” of the box extends to the ceiling. So a player could go to the right side of the box, and have nearly his entire body outside the box, but as long as one toe was within the space, even if it was up in the air, he is legal. He could then run to the left side and do the same. So if he has long legs, he could cover quite a distance and still be legal.

To me the greatest proof that the vaccine saves lives is looking at the USA June 2021 numbers. There were 10,000 deaths last month from COVID. 500 deaths were in vaccinated people. 9,500 deaths were in unvaccinated people.

This is good news for those vaccinated, since COVID cases are climbing in the unvaccinated population due the the highly contagious delta variant (1,000 times more virus particles are found in the blood of infected delta variant persons versus the original strain). The way this is spreading, it is expected that near 100% of the un-vaccinated will catch COVID.

The sad news is that MOST of the deaths from COVID in June could have been avoided if people vaccinated!

The site is now loading on AT&T . Thanks. Now I can visit when I am off my wi-fi.

Agreed. The site will still not load on AT&T.

AT&T. It has definitely been over a year. Again, this is the only website that doesn’t work for me when I am not on Wi-fi.

This has been true for me in the last few months. It is the only website I cannot load on my phone when off of Wi-Fi, so I know it is not the browser. I hope it can be fixed.

The News board in Times Square, New York City. Great sight to see. Congratulations, Frank.

Jaybate, you are right on with the Composite 5. Bill Self is a master at choosing the right big for the moment (not perfect, but a Hall of Fame master). The worst we could do is settle on 1 or 2 bigs right now. The composite is an important strength.

Many people get down on Lucas, but Lucas did not slow the pace in the second half. The lack of efficiency from Selden, Svi, and Ellis in the last 10 minutes of the first half, and early in the 2nd half allowed Harvard in the game and crystallized a grind it out game. Frank and Devonte could not keep up the early energy alone and turnovers went away. A grind it out game with a strong opposing big meant Lucas was our ideal answer from the composite 5. Zena was held below his average (and below his 50% shooting percentage). He struggled more against Lucas.

Strength in numbers. The composite 5 will get much better as Diallo and Bragg improve, but I think we would have lost with them in there.

Also, if we had made free throws, this would have been a double digit win.

Great comments. Especially regarding Ellis, Selden, and Traylor. There is no excuse for their lack of intensity and focus at this point in their college careers. This puts even more pressure on Mason to do EVERYTHING, which has to be very wearing on ones physical and mental state.

I can give Svi a little bit of a pass, since he is still the youngest player on the entire team. I do have a concern that he believes all that is said about him being the next great European star, and might be moving into “protect the merchandise” mode, that sometimes plagued Wiggins (but Svi is not even near the same talent level).

Graham should still play uneven. Only a sophomore, who is not ready to shoulder the load of taking over the game. But against Harvard, at least I saw him try (which is more that Ellis and Selden). He will be uneven this season, but I love his confidence and desire to make thinks happen. His defense is stellar.