“Fully agree that this is best. Best for KU and best for Bragg.”

I respectfully disagree. I think what would be best is for him to get his head on straight, embrace his job like never before and prove that he can handle the adversity instead of running from it. If we believe that KU is the best at developing ball players, then it goes that his best shot is at KU. Sometimes starting over at the same place you’re at (aka the best basketball program in the nation) is better for both personal and athletic growth.

Unfortunately, we don’t know what conversations transpired during the season and what exactly led him to this point. At what point did he do irreversible damage to his athletic tenure at KU?

Basketball players are allowed to make mistakes, and we all know Bill Self is interested in mentoring these youngins through them. The players have to uphold their end of the bargain by working hard and being a good teammate. Will Bragg have solved all of his problems just by transferring? Will he start working harder and being a better teammate (staying out of trouble) at the next stop? We’ll see. Either way, best of luck. Wish you had made different decisions that would have made it easier for you to stay at KU.

Possible that Billy and De Souza were cleared but Self is strategic about not announcing it until 5 minutes before the game? That’s what I would do! Any advantage counts.

Mo Bamba with 4 blocks per game! Yeeesh, what Bill Self would do to get a shot blocker like that on his team.

The uber elite shot blocker is one of my fav types of players to watch, it was so exciting when Withey was getting 5+ blocks during some games, rooting for him to get the KU record was a fun year.

This thread keeps coming to the top of the feed. I understand that the comments were meant to be said lightheartedly, and I believe they were, so this isn’t to point fingers. In fact, it’s only because I enjoy the KuBuckets community so much that I even bother sharing my opinion. With that being said, in general, if you have had to align yourselves at some point in your career or personal life against the “old boys club” mentality, you become sensitive to even lighthearted comments related to objectivism. Being in a field in academia where women are not empowered, and having a wife in medicine, I see how our perceptions of women shape how they are treated. I’m only super sensitive to these things because I don’t have the privilege not to be. My apologies for bringing us away from the delightful conversations about basketball by those who know much more than I do. What I want to add to the conversation, is that it’s OK to talk about these things, and the discourse (if constructive) is what makes us all better. Perhaps I can use a change of viewpoint to help me out of my sensitive views.

Woah, was hoping for a satisfying win to get me pumped. Game left a bad taste in my mouth. Our offense turns into lets just pass it around the perimeter for a while then someone gets the gumption to run into their bigs and throw up a prayer that gets blocked or rattles hard off the hoop. I know we play the high-low, but man we go through stretches where it doesn’t seem like it’s a strength of ours.

Was very pleased we got the dubya, of course, Hopefully these guys can get some rest over the next 10 days before the next game, I would imagine we’re pretty beat up. In a way, it’s probably not a bad thing that we had to win ugly with this big break, keep everybody on their toes at practice.

I’m not entirely fluent in basketball speak but I think when we had strong inside post players our style of play is the safest bet. Bill Self wants the team to take a high percentage of shots at the rim where the shots are supposedly easiest to make, and additionally, you generally have a better chance of getting to the foul line if you drive it inside. So hi/lo is just basically a safe bet offense? Combine this with stellar defense and you’ve got a recipe for consistent success. However, as per the Newell article, if our 2pt shooting % is abysmal, then something needs tweaking!

Agree! Really pleased with Hunter for his game today. His hands are better than Lucas’. I thought he would be in the rotation given he had all last year to sit out and learn the system and is now a junior. Hope he gets the chance to develop more. Oubre of course looked like a kid in a candy store getting his touches tonight. Fav play of his was the steal he took down for a dunk. Should have given Cliff more of Ellis’ minutes. Now if only we knew how to defend the perimeter.

I don’t quite frequent the boards enough to know the state of the K-Union regarding playing time philosophy, but a couple questions come to mind as we get through the meat and potato’s of conference season.

Is big Cliff not ready yet for playing time? He’s putting up pretty good per minute numbers right (stats a la JNewell), but still only getting 20 mpg. Is he not passing the eye test yet? Will we see him break into 30mpg anytime soon- perhaps lingering back problems?

Along a similar line, how much of Perry’s funk is just a funk? Self is very high on him and he still gets his 30mpg good or bad. Does Self limit his playing time ever until we see super aggressive Perry? Also, as an aside, I’m not as big of a fan of describing Perry’s play as lacking energy. Although I do recall a few games when he did look a little sluggish, that’s not quite my beef with his play when he’s slumping. Super aggressive Perry may be better at rebounding, but also seems to throw up a lot of spin move shots that don’t really… have a shot. Would love me some more intuitive/high IQ Perry for the rest of conference ball! Obviously, energy is still a big part of playing well, I’m just making the point that I don’t want it to translate to poor shot selection for the sake of being aggressive.

Self was very high on Wayne before the year started, touting him as one of the best in practice, and Wayne is playing very well. Is the ceiling a lot higher for him? We haven’t seen too many break out games from him this year and we are 16 games into the season. Does he have potential to go off for 30+ points? I think he does! Just haven’t seen it yet though.

This will be a tough game at ISU, at the start of a tough 3 game stretch. Hoping we can go 2 for 3 and end up 5-1 or better. RC.

Someone pointed this out, well probably put up a better fight playing away than we did on home court. Maybe they just need a little venom thrown their way to get that extra edge.

I’ve been a Kansas fan since childhood but have lived in Charlottesville for the past 5 years. If I ever have posted about Virginia basketball I usually get the same old “But its so boring to watch!” As basketball fans I think we can all appreciate excellence where we see it, and now that UVA has won the 'ship it’s good to see their style of play on the pedestal for at least a brief moment. Some say that the game doesn’t have as much flow, but I always thought that Virginia’s games go by quicker, there are less fouls and turnovers to make the game feel so staccato or interrupted. Virginia was ranked #1 in fewest turnovers this year (Kansas at #225), and #6 in personal fouls committed (Kansas at #110). I’m sure these scale with possessions, and there are probably other stats to look up, but I don’t think there’s a need to write an essay here. It’s incredibly pleasing to watch clean basketball. It’s pretty cool when UVA will get 3-4 stops in a row; the crowd at JPJ goes nuts. When I watch Kansas I often think (at times!) about how sloppy our passes are or how ineffective our defense is; not every game, but there are stretches. If boring basketball can win championships without one and dones, it can’t be that bad I’m hoping we get some of those long term 4 star players. RCJH.

@HighEliteMajor yes, you’re right about the mechanism of their susceptibility. It’s a good thing for the law of averages: if you’re are a top seed enough times you’re bound to have an early exit but also a deep run. Self knows that taking high percentage shots and great defense can help prevent early tournament exits, so it’s odd when you see a Self team thats not quite playing to the defensive standard. My favorite KU years were when we had a big ol’ shot blocker down low making every game a block party and matched with a potent offense makes for great basketball.

@wissox I don’t hear much about Bennett’s Wisco background so it’s always fun to hear the parallels. Virginia is gaining a lot of traction in the recruiting world, I have a feeling many McDonalds AA still won’t come to UVA, but maybe that’s a good thing. Shaka hasn’t done too hot with arguably better recruiting power at Texas, but maybe that’s not the best corollary. I think the best player Virginia recruited since 2015 has been ranked #30. Fun fact, last year Kehei clark, ranked #390, started and played 27 minutes a game his freshman year, and we thought Ogbaji was a diamond in the rough!

Yes, I know, I’ve heard it before, especially since last year… they can’t win in March

I’ve been a Kansas fan since childhood but have lived in Charlottesville for the past 5 years. If I ever have posted about Virginia basketball I usually get the same old “But its so boring to watch!” As basketball fans I think we can all appreciate excellence where we see it, and now that UVA has won the 'ship it’s good to see their style of play on the pedestal for at least a brief moment. Some say that the game doesn’t have as much flow, but I always thought that Virginia’s games go by quicker, there are less fouls and turnovers to make the game feel so staccato or interrupted. Virginia was ranked #1 in fewest turnovers this year (Kansas at #225), and #6 in personal fouls committed (Kansas at #110). I’m sure these scale with possessions, and there are probably other stats to look up, but I don’t think there’s a need to write an essay here. It’s incredibly pleasing to watch clean basketball. It’s pretty cool when UVA will get 3-4 stops in a row; the crowd at JPJ goes nuts. When I watch Kansas I often think (at times!) about how sloppy our passes are or how ineffective our defense is; not every game, but there are stretches. If boring basketball can win championships without one and dones, it can’t be that bad I’m hoping we get some of those long term 4 star players. RCJH.

1. I think Billy Preston has the best shot to stay in the NBA.

@JayHawkFanToo thanks for the insight! Interesting to hear that you can find 3D printers regionally with that ease. Seems like a great time to have your own business.

@JayHawkFanToo what type of parts are you printing, and I’m assuming they are cheaper than machined parts otherwise the customer wouldn’t be interested?

Has the technology for 3D printing changed much since you’ve been in business?

@jaybate-1-0 well, I’ve never heard the philosophy of 3D printing sung to that tune before; good stuff!!

In my lab I’m mostly working with high end metals that have aerospace applications. With our CAD files we can run all sorts of finite element model testing to predict how our material will work. The modeling (it doesn’t have to be just FEM) is usually right on the money; mechanics has been around for a long time and material behavior in compression and tension are well described by the literature, even for porous/lattice structures. We have mass optimization parameters that we can use to keep the relative density of our parts low but the strength/fracture toughness high. It gets even more interesting if you can involve machine learning, but I’m only just learning how machine learning can be helpful. Your term technological baroque (“By this I mean proliferating product variation yielding little to no increase in function, but simply contributing to new versions with almost the same utility being endlessly rolled out to give sophisticated marketing new things to hype as frequently as possible”) seems to capture the textile and even plastics industry accurately. What are we creating that’s new? Anyone with a website can now sell customized gear from an inventory they bought for pennies from Chinese manufacturers off Alibaba.com (even I did this as a quick way to make some cash when I was feeling more entrepreneurial!). It’s clear neither of us think all of AM is technological baroque, but plastics (clothing are plastics too) can be made quick and inexpensively, so it’s not surprising that the market has gone in this direction.

The cost of an at home desktop 3D printer that will print metal is going down. However, not sure I would want to print out a replacement part for my bike and trust that it holds up while I’m riding down the mountain at 30+ MPH. I still prefer to have my metals produced by industry unless I have done a full micro structural characterization of my home made metal (which would require some serious equipment).

Where does AM have a competitive advantage on the bball court? Still working on that one!

RCJH

@jaybate-1-0 but unfortunately I hijacked the thread away from the real topic, the relevance of 3D print to basketball (and potentially weening off of the major shoecos?).

I just did a preliminary google search on 3D print shoes (didn’t make it past the first page) and there’s not a lot out there yet. Perhaps the greatest advantage of 3D print shoes is customizability. You can print a shoe to fit an exact foot shape. In any system, whether it be polymer or complex metal parts, a simple CAD design is used as an input to the printer. This would be enough of a competitive advantage to introduce 3D print shoes into the market, assuming their quality doesn’t suffer during the manufacturing process.

https://www.3ders.org/articles/20170831-peak-unveils-first-ever-pair-of-3d-printed-basketball-shoes-in-collab-with-nba-star-dwight-howard.html

I love it Jaybate!

Complex metal shapes can certainly be additively manufactured cheaply, but many processes are not under an ASTM standard, and material properties change from batch to batch and user to user. Most metals require post-processing techniques (heat treatment at high temperatures in an inert environment) to remove porosity caused during the sintering of metal powders. Then you still have the problem of variable surface roughness, which can serve as stress concentration sites. The most studied systems are steel, titanium (Ti6Al4V specifically) and Inconel (nickel chromium based superalloy). Boeing recently announced that they hope to make almost all of their parts from 3D printed titanium, which happens to be one of the strongest, lightest (and most expensive) metals. The materials of the aerospace industry are changing rapidly.

Polymers are much easier to 3D print, and much more developed. However, I’m not convinced that 3D printing of shoes is the best way to go. In injection molding there isn’t much waste, and even if you did 3D print the shoe from bottom to top you’d still have to apply a bond coat between layers. Unlike metals, polymers are much easier to make into very complex parts, so the cost savings aren’t as great. Additionally, the top part of the shoe is often times a plastic fiber blend, which is not traditionally 3D printed (it would have to melt down to a non fiber to be extruded again). Perhaps there could be a time savings? Not sure, but I imagine the assembly line is automated to be quite efficient.

Hit me with more 3D printing of shoes facts, I’d love to learn!

Having a female chancellor (I’m assuming that’s what you are referring to, but correct me if I’m wrong) does not mean that the old boys club mentality is dispelled, right? Cultural shifts can take a while, especially at institutions which offer tenured positions; think generationally. Hopefully there was progress made, I think we can both agree on that.

Totally agree- life ain’t fair and oversensitivity is a problem affecting our society. We need people like you who are passionate about their freedom of speech! You implied I am one of those trying to “eliminate” your freedom speech but I’ve already mentioned I encourage the discourse. We should also all have awareness of what we share to our communities and what privileges we have. By privilege I am not just talking about sex or race. Even if we have the privilege not to concern ourselves with certain issues facing society, it doesn’t mean those issues in society don’t exist, right? Community leaders (even of small online message boards) can only lead when they understand the society they act in, otherwise they are just members without any meaningful influence.

Not too sure about the picture of the PhD costume, but perhaps it provided some people the joy you intended it to?