Per Twitter, Sorry no link ( I am at work, so don’t have time to figure out the link process here), both are transferring from Memphis to KU.

Good news for the year after next.

I read posts on this site every day, but rarely post. I grew up a Jayhawk fan. My Dad was a Jayhawk fan. When I was young my dad got season tickets to KU football games. This was in the time of Fambrough (2nd stint), and they had a decent team. Went to a bowl in the early 80’s, before moving back down to the bottom of the league later in the decade.

My dad was also an usher at basketball games during the last of the Ted Owens era. He would take me with him, and at the time, I could sneak into the lower level and watch, because they just weren’t very good. But then Larry came, and as all of you know, there rest, as they say, is history.

After Mario and the boys won the championship in 2008, I felt pride, relief, exaltation, and many other emotions. But what I felt mostly, was lucky. Lucky that my dad became a KU fan when he was a child. I told a friend as much, and he completely agreed.

I asked may dad after the championship how he ended up being a KU fan (he wasn’t a graduate). He told me that he would listen to them on the radio while he laid in bed before going to sleep, and kind of just fell in love. He died three years later, and I think back to that conversation a lot. I think about what the Jayhawks meant to him, and how he passed the love down to his son.

So yes, we are lucky.

That game last night did show what Self coached teams are capable of. A friend of mine texted me with about 10 minutes left in regulation and said he thought that this was the worst team at KU in 20 years. While I disagree (1999,2000 were pretty lean times), at that point in the game I was having trouble thinking of something to shoot back at him.

Remember when Self brought this style to KU? Remember how there was such a backlash from fans and players that the Roy Williams way of playing basketball was gone? No longer did KU try to outscore the other team. It was no longer pretty. I remember watching games coached by Roy where I just knew they weren’t going to win 10 minutes into the game. One of those was the beat down that Self put on KU in the Sweet 16, in 2001 if I remember correctly. If Roy’s stuff wasn’t working, then they had no chance, because the toughness just wasn’t there.

Aside from a handful of games during the Self era, I just don’t feel that way anymore. Toughness, and playing hard can mask a lot of problems, not all the time, but most. Self is stubborn, and he has his failings, but the toughness he brings to his teams is unbelievable.

@Crimsonorblue22 I think that was bush league. I am fine with announcers being opinionated. That is Bilas’ appeal to me. But neither he, nor anyone else should do that. And Barnes shouldn’t report that to the press, if that is what happened.

Overall, I think the officiating is getting worse and worse as the kids get stronger and faster. There were a few fouls called on both sides where it seemed as though there was anticipation of a foul, rather than one actually happening.

I am new to the site and enjoy reading everyone’s posts about KU basketball. While reading this, I thought about many teams that have left me heartbroken, and some of the best that have been in Lawrence without bringing home the ultimate prize. Here is my list, probably made up more of the most disappointing rather than the most talented.

1. 1986-This one nearly killed me. I was 14 at the time, and after they lost to Duke in Dallas, I spent the next 4 hours in the driveway half-heartedly throwing shots at my hoop.

2. 1997-Great, great team. Was working the night of the game, so mercifully I didn’t have to watch it. A coworker kept coming in and giving me updates. It was then and there that I swore to never put so much into the NCAA tournament that I felt crushed if they didn’t win it. Up until then the rest of the season didn’t matter, onlt tournament time.

3. 1995-1996-Lost to Virginia and Syracuse I think. The Virginia loss stung because it was in KC. Syracuse nearly made me put a hole in the wall.

4. 2002-Such a great team, that got physically manhandled by Maryland. Wilcox made Gooden disappear.

Many of the others discussed didn’t hurt me as badly. 2003 was a great ride, but I didn’t expect them to make it there based on their body of work. Only hurt more because I thought they were truly better than SU (Jerry McNamara?) 2012 was such a surprise with the makeup of the team. Couldn’t be too disappointed about that one.

Having said all that, I really wouldn’t trade my place as a KU fan for anything. I have seen them win twice, with hopefully more to come. So lucky that my dad just happened to catch a game on the radio in the late 50’s. He was a fan from that day forward, and the reason I am one today.

@ralster @Crimsonorblue22 I don’t necessarily think it is as much the high school level’s fault as it is a trickle down from the world of AAU and travel basketball. I do believe that a HS coach with kids that are projected to be one and done sometimes just roll the ball out, because they simply have the best talent. But if you watch some coaches, you can tell that they are doing their best to teach the game.

However, these teams that have kids play 150 games a year are killing the sport. I coach middle school basketball, and many of my kids are basketball only in the off-season. They play a lot, but they have no idea what the basic principles of man to man defense are. They aren’t taught how to close out on a shooter, box out for rebounds, or how to run simple pass and cut offenses. A simple pick and roll drill becomes a complicated teaching moment because they have never been taught how to seal their man, or use the screen effectively. And forget it if their opponent plays zone. Then it’s bombs away.

I make them scrimmage with no ball screens, and they have no idea how to get open. They just kind of stand around waiting for something to happen, rather than cutting or screening away. Posting up has gone the way of the dinosaur.

My middle school son and I were watching the WVU game the other night, and at one point Oubre got in the paint either off the drive or on a break (can’t remember which) and he had an open lane to the hole on the right side as everyone was playing him to go left. He tried to shoot with his left hand and missed because it was contested, when he easily could have made a right handed layup. My son asked me, " Why didn’t he just use his right hand?" To which I said, “He doesn’t have one, because he’s never been forced to use it before”.

Another problem is that they don’t know how to play as a team. Everyone is a one and done. All of them will have Self or K or Williams knocking down their door, just because they can hit a three in an empty gym, and these AAU coaches don’t tell them any different.

I’m sure. I have watched some pretty bad high school basketball.

Cliff was never going to produce this year the way we all expected or wanted him to. The problem with rankings, especially for post men, is that it is so easy for them in high school. Very rarely do they ever go up against someone of their caliber, especially if they are playing in a public school league.

A couple of posters hit it right on the head. Cliff is not close to the athlete that T-Rob was his freshman year, and his motor does not even compare. That would be like buying a moped and a motorcycle and expecting them to give the same performance. Just not going to happen. I believe he is more on par with a Jeff Withey (as a freshman) than Embiid or Okafor. Those guys are very, very few and far between.

The rankings absolutely killed Cliff as he has just not been able to translate his game from HS to D1 at this point.

I want to preface this with an acknowledgement. I have coached at a much lower level than major college basketball for the past 14 years. It is a school team, and it is competitive, but just not on the same level as what is discussed here.

That being said, competitiveness, in its true form can’t be taught. It is something that is born into an athlete, much like the color of their eyes or hair. They either have it or they don’t.

The team I am coaching this year is probably the least talented that I have had in the time I have been coaching. I have maybe two true basketball players and the rest are kids that won’t play much, if at all, after this year.

One of the things that I always try to get my kids to do is compete to the best of their ability. I always tell them that regardless of officiating, shooting, and other things that they can’t control, they can always control their effort. They can play through slumps. They can play through a bad call.

Their effort is the only thing they can control.

That is where I am struggling with this team. I have tried everything I can think of to get them to compete, because at our level, that can make up for a lot of deficiencies.

I have given them a number such as 10. Every true hustle play they make takes one off the number. If they get to zero, they go home after practice. Anything less than that and they run.

It’s not working. The ball is on the floor and they reach instead of diving. Ball is on the glass and they watch and hope, rather than making sure they get possession.

I told them last week after a better effort that they are getting there, but it still looks as if they are doing it because they don’t want to get yelled at, not because they feel a need deep down inside of them to go get the basketball. It is almost an afterthought, as if they are thinking, “If i don’t get on the floor, coach is going to go crazy.”

I am going to keep trying, as I am sure Coach Self does every day, however, my kids may never get it. They don’t have it in their genes to compete. And it seems that it is something that can’t be forced.

Hopefully that’s not the case with the Jayhawks.

I think this thread shows that we all live in a now world. There is nothing wrong with that, however, I will take the 10 conference championships now, and hope that I am lucky enough to witness KU winning a championship in March at some point in the next 5 years or so.

Some have said that they would trade places with Florida because they have been in 4 straight elite 8s. Does that mean that they would also take the two years not long ago in which they didn’t make the tournament? I know that was immediately after winning back to back, but come on. Wouldn’t there be some sort of Armageddon if we as fans had to watch not one, but two straight tournaments without the Jayhawks even being in the field?

The tournament is what it is. A brilliant concept that leaves millions of people heart broken every spring. Long ago I decided that for me personally, I needed to take a step back and understand that winning it all, while extremely satisfying as a fan, is one of those things that I can’t let define either my fandom, or my perception of the coach of team that I love.

Having said that, the one thing that I would change about Self, is that he seems so tight in the tournament. I wasn’t able to see the Stanford game as I was driving home from Pennsylvania, but man I could almost here him squeaking through the TV during that EKU game. He looked miserable.

@Kubie Thanks for linking.

Per Twitter, Sorry no link ( I am at work, so don’t have time to figure out the link process here), both are transferring from Memphis to KU.

Good news for the year after next.

That game last night did show what Self coached teams are capable of. A friend of mine texted me with about 10 minutes left in regulation and said he thought that this was the worst team at KU in 20 years. While I disagree (1999,2000 were pretty lean times), at that point in the game I was having trouble thinking of something to shoot back at him.

Remember when Self brought this style to KU? Remember how there was such a backlash from fans and players that the Roy Williams way of playing basketball was gone? No longer did KU try to outscore the other team. It was no longer pretty. I remember watching games coached by Roy where I just knew they weren’t going to win 10 minutes into the game. One of those was the beat down that Self put on KU in the Sweet 16, in 2001 if I remember correctly. If Roy’s stuff wasn’t working, then they had no chance, because the toughness just wasn’t there.

Aside from a handful of games during the Self era, I just don’t feel that way anymore. Toughness, and playing hard can mask a lot of problems, not all the time, but most. Self is stubborn, and he has his failings, but the toughness he brings to his teams is unbelievable.

Cliff was never going to produce this year the way we all expected or wanted him to. The problem with rankings, especially for post men, is that it is so easy for them in high school. Very rarely do they ever go up against someone of their caliber, especially if they are playing in a public school league.

A couple of posters hit it right on the head. Cliff is not close to the athlete that T-Rob was his freshman year, and his motor does not even compare. That would be like buying a moped and a motorcycle and expecting them to give the same performance. Just not going to happen. I believe he is more on par with a Jeff Withey (as a freshman) than Embiid or Okafor. Those guys are very, very few and far between.

The rankings absolutely killed Cliff as he has just not been able to translate his game from HS to D1 at this point.

@Crimsonorblue22 I think that was bush league. I am fine with announcers being opinionated. That is Bilas’ appeal to me. But neither he, nor anyone else should do that. And Barnes shouldn’t report that to the press, if that is what happened.

Overall, I think the officiating is getting worse and worse as the kids get stronger and faster. There were a few fouls called on both sides where it seemed as though there was anticipation of a foul, rather than one actually happening.

I like Bilas. To me he seems to call it like he thinks he sees it. There were also multiple times that he said Selden or Mason got fouled on drives to the rim. The play at the end of the game was magnified because it was at the end of the game.

On the other hand, I have never heard Fraschilla not agree with a ref’s call. My wife even noticed it in the K-State game. She asked if announcers could get suspended if they disagreed with a call on the floor. I told her that they would not, but very few have the cajones to say anything about a referee’s call. At least you can’t say that about Bilas.

I’m sure. I have watched some pretty bad high school basketball.

Cedric Hunter was a pretty good point, for what might possibly be the best KU team of all time.

@ralster @Crimsonorblue22 I don’t necessarily think it is as much the high school level’s fault as it is a trickle down from the world of AAU and travel basketball. I do believe that a HS coach with kids that are projected to be one and done sometimes just roll the ball out, because they simply have the best talent. But if you watch some coaches, you can tell that they are doing their best to teach the game.

However, these teams that have kids play 150 games a year are killing the sport. I coach middle school basketball, and many of my kids are basketball only in the off-season. They play a lot, but they have no idea what the basic principles of man to man defense are. They aren’t taught how to close out on a shooter, box out for rebounds, or how to run simple pass and cut offenses. A simple pick and roll drill becomes a complicated teaching moment because they have never been taught how to seal their man, or use the screen effectively. And forget it if their opponent plays zone. Then it’s bombs away.

I make them scrimmage with no ball screens, and they have no idea how to get open. They just kind of stand around waiting for something to happen, rather than cutting or screening away. Posting up has gone the way of the dinosaur.

My middle school son and I were watching the WVU game the other night, and at one point Oubre got in the paint either off the drive or on a break (can’t remember which) and he had an open lane to the hole on the right side as everyone was playing him to go left. He tried to shoot with his left hand and missed because it was contested, when he easily could have made a right handed layup. My son asked me, " Why didn’t he just use his right hand?" To which I said, “He doesn’t have one, because he’s never been forced to use it before”.

Another problem is that they don’t know how to play as a team. Everyone is a one and done. All of them will have Self or K or Williams knocking down their door, just because they can hit a three in an empty gym, and these AAU coaches don’t tell them any different.

I read posts on this site every day, but rarely post. I grew up a Jayhawk fan. My Dad was a Jayhawk fan. When I was young my dad got season tickets to KU football games. This was in the time of Fambrough (2nd stint), and they had a decent team. Went to a bowl in the early 80’s, before moving back down to the bottom of the league later in the decade.

My dad was also an usher at basketball games during the last of the Ted Owens era. He would take me with him, and at the time, I could sneak into the lower level and watch, because they just weren’t very good. But then Larry came, and as all of you know, there rest, as they say, is history.

After Mario and the boys won the championship in 2008, I felt pride, relief, exaltation, and many other emotions. But what I felt mostly, was lucky. Lucky that my dad became a KU fan when he was a child. I told a friend as much, and he completely agreed.

I asked may dad after the championship how he ended up being a KU fan (he wasn’t a graduate). He told me that he would listen to them on the radio while he laid in bed before going to sleep, and kind of just fell in love. He died three years later, and I think back to that conversation a lot. I think about what the Jayhawks meant to him, and how he passed the love down to his son.

So yes, we are lucky.