I don’t see anything in that article that should have you this down on next year. If you are talking about on paper, Barttorvik preseason rankings has Arizona slightly higher than KU and TT significantly lower. I do agree Houston is likely to be better, but they still have to replace some major contributors in Cryer and Roberts. These are also all preseason rankings and don’t mean that much at the end of the day. It is wild to already be punting on the season before even seeing this team play a game together. IDK if you are just down on the NIL era in general or trying to neg the season so you don’t get hurt again, but you can let yourself hope a little man.

@dylans Ok lets slow down a bit with that rhetoric. Feel free to be disappointed with how he handled the situation, but that doesn’t make him a piece of shit. Would you stay at a job even if you love it if another company was coming in and offering to more than double your salary? Cause that is what we are talking about here. Flory isn’t guaranteed to have a NBA career and also has to worry about getting injured and missing the opportunity to even get there. This could be his only chance to make a decent bit of money that could have to last him the rest of his life. Ideally yes, you want players to love KU and only want to play here, but KU also can’t be lowballing their returning players that much and expect to get that kind of loyalty even with players that grow up KU fans.

I do agree he doesn’t need to be coddled, he got paid and now he needs to shows up this season. If come next month, he isn’t showing any improvement, then he deserves all the criticism you want to give him.

@benshawks08 100% agree and see what you are saying but doesn’t mean that them leaving can still be a positive for KU. Those are 2 programs that we would have a hard time beating out for B12 champions, so we now have a much better change of winning the B12 and making college playoffs which would have been otherwise unlikely.

I think people are getting a little too caught up in valuing how much money your program is making vs how much you are winning. I know more money means better player but I firmly believe the fan experience is better with a slightly worse quality team that competes for B12 titles than a better overall team playing to be middle of the pack/bottom feeders in the SEC.

Now if in 5-10 years down the line and KU is king of the B12 and then getting walloped in the playoffs every time we make it there (gonzaga type situation in basketball) I may change my mind, but this team has a long way to go before getting there and I doubt anyone is seriously complaining if that is were the program is at.

@kjayhawks said in Not paying for ESPN this year:

@approxinfinity my issue isn’t necessarily that he said it. It’s the fact that it is completely false and I think that is dangerous when you have people assassinating people on false pretenses that everyone that sees the world differently is a Nazi or evil. The funny thing is about Kimmel is he was plenty racist and sexist when he got his start on TV with the man show, even did black face.

“The MAGA Gang (is) desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it,” Kimmel said. “In between the finger-pointing, there was grieving.”

You keep saying Kimmel said something false, but what about this is untrue? He doesn’t claim the killer is MAGA just that trump is desperate to believe he is not. You could say he is inferring that the kid is MAGA, but that is a far cry from him making a completely false statement. We also don’t know enough about the killer to say for sure what his reasonings for the murder was. You say you are pretty sure he wasn’t MAGA, but you aren’t certain because you are inferring from circumstantial evidence. Your post here has more false information than the Kimmel segment.

To go one further, KU was also the better team in the OSU game. This team was a few plays away from being 11-1 and sitting one game away from playoff football. That hurts a bit but also goes to show this is one of the greatest program turnarounds in football history.

You raise a good point with UT/OU leaving there is going to be a power vacuum in football. If Lance hangs around long enough, we have as good of a chance as any to fill that void.

I will never really fault coach for not giving a player a guarantee they will start. Sell in a role for them, yes. Say we have a spot that is theirs for the taking, sure. But if a someone thinks that they don’t need to perform day in and out to get minutes, than they are going to cause problems for the program eventually.

@rockchalkjayhawk Griffen was already a better defender last year than Furph under an offensive minded coach, so would be a surprise if he ends up worse.

McCullar is a big loss on defense no doubt and that probably makes us worse, but I feel like the defense we all remember from last year was when he was injured. Slotting timbies in for the SG comparison and I find it hard to believe Storr will be a downgrade. Add that to hopefully the rest of the bench giving better defensive contributions and I think a top 10 defensive even isn’t a pipe dream.

I’ll back up my optimistic thinking by sharing that barttorvik 2025 prediction has us as the #4 defense (not that I put too much stock into that).

https://barttorvik.com/trankpre.php?sort=AdjDE&conlimit=

An update to @Texas-Hawk-10 old post on the history of the matchup:

Kansas and Duke have played 14 times all time. Duke leads the all time series with Kansas 8-6 with 12 of the 14 games being played on a neutral and each time only visiting the other once apiece. Kansas and Duke are tied 3-3 against each other in the NCAA Tournament and Kansas leads Duke 3-1 in the Champions Classic. Self is 4-2 vs Duke while at Kansas.

Dec. 1, 1985- Preseason NIT in New York: (3)Duke 92, (5)Kansas 86 (1-0 Duke)

Mar. 29, 1986- Final Four in Dallas: (1) Duke 71, (2) Kansas 67 (2-0 Duke)

Feb. 20, 1988- Allen Fieldhouse: (6) Duke 74, Kansas 70 OT (3-0 Duke)

Apr. 2, 1988- Final Four in Kansas City: Kansas 66, (5) Duke 59 (3-1 Duke)

Feb. 18, 1989- Cameron Indoor: (11) Duke 102, Kansas 77 (4-1 Duke)

Apr. 1, 1991- National Championship in Indianapolis: (6) Duke 72, (12) Kansas 65 (5-1 Duke)

Mar. 19, 2000- NCAA Tournament 2nd Round in Winston-Salem: (1) Duke 69, Kansas 64 (6-1 Duke)

Mar. 27, 2003- NCAA Tournament Sweet 16 in Anaheim: (6) Kansas 69, (7)Duke 65 (6-2 Duke)

Nov. 23, 2011- Maui Invitational Finals: (6)Duke 68, (14) Kansas 61 (7-2 Duke)

Nov. 12, 2013- Champions Classic in Chicago: (5)Kansas 94, (4)Duke 83 (7-3 Duke)

Nov. 15, 2016- Champions Classic in New York: (7)Kansas 77, (1) Duke 75 (7-4 Duke)

Mar. 25, 2018- NCAA Tournament Elite 8 in Omaha: (4)Kansas 85, (9)Duke 81 OT (7-5 Duke)

Nov. 6, 2019- Champions Classic in New York: (4)Duke 68, (3) Kansas 66 (8-5 Duke)

Nov. 15, 2022- Champions Classic in Indianapolis: (6) Kansas 69, (7) Duke 64 (8-6 Duke)

Based on predictive sites, the line for the game should be around Duke -2/-3. Will be KU’s first game of the season where they aren’t favored, so excited to see how the team reacts.

@BShark too many regular season NBA games to be a good product is the main problem. Players take off games since playoff seeding can be a crap shoot, so really just playing for home court advantage which isn’t as important as players being healthy.

I generally agree with your sentiment but we have to check our biases with this. A neutral observer could watch a random NBA game vs a random college basketball game and I bet most would say the NBA game is more entertaining. College ball just has better intangibles and better tourney format which puts it over the top for me, but we are also usually watching a top 10 team play. I don’t know that I would say the same thing if I grew up in Boston a Celtics fan who went to a non basketball power college.

Kind of a leap to get that from what I said, we already dropped a home game and Houston doesn’t have to play at ISU, so winning the regular season B12 is not likely no. But I also don’t think it would be a massive upset if they did (~10% chance based on betting odds does seem about right).

I didn’t even say they will for sure be good enough to compete for a F4, just that is won’t take miracle for this team to improve to that level. They have shown they can hit that level of play in spurts, but do need some improvements in execution/consistency.

Honestly the main thing I worry about with this team is facing a team that can exploit Hunter on defense, because that is always going to be there.

@kjayhawks said in Other games 2025-2026:

I liked Diggy last year he was a spark plug several times. Honestly would rather he stayed over Elmarko or Mari at this point he’s a much better player than both. It’s the same reason Ngala should play more IMO

I feel like KU would have gladly had him back coming off the bench, but he wanted a larger role than what he would get at KU.

Lol not even without DP @ the K-State worries. They barley beat Cal and Tulsa at home.

Small sample but his FT % is up too and that will be a few PPG added if he can keep it up when we aren’t playing duke and he gets calls

@BeddieKU23 I’m not optimistic about the team if DP doesn’t come back, but I have a hard time believing he shuts it down for the full season. This draft class is pretty stacked so he needs to play to be the top pick and dropping from 1st to 3rd alone gives him $12 million reasons to play. It will also help his draft stock to show that the hamstring isn’t going to be a recurring issue for the team that drafts him.

Also don’t know about his handlers, but scouting on DP leading up to this year make it seem like he is pretty competitive, so leads me to believe he isn’t sitting without actually being injured. A hamstring isn’t keeping him out the full year unless it keeps flaring up, so taking the recovery slow isn’t a bad thing. The one area of concern I do have with this though is that it isn’t a great sign for if him playing through a minor injury should one flare up near the tournament.

@kjayhawks I think if we can stagger the Tiller and Flory mins and get Tre playing the 4 ~10 mins a game, we are fine. Booser was a terrible matchup for Tre though as he excels at bulling smaller players and had no issues passing out of the double, so we needed both Tiller and Flory on the court the full game to have a chance. Not many teams have a 4 man of that level, so I don’t think this is a flaw that will sink the team.

Dawson is injured right? Definitely like the lineups where Dawson/Rosario are playing well enough to start as Council/White/Jackson/Flory lineups will be a bit rough in the shooting department. Maybe not as bad as the last few years but that isn’t something we really want to be comparing to.

Also just because someone doesn’t share your principles, doesn’t make them an asshole.

@dylans said in 2026 Recruiting ( Crazy but ):

Flory averaged less points and more fouls per minute than AJ Storr, let that sink in.

Not giving yourself a lot of credibility in this argument by cherry picking stats to compare him to Storr lol.

I can and will criticize him whenever I damn well please. His actions are that of an impetuous money grubbing unprincipled piece of crap.

Never said you couldn’t just that I think you are wrong to do so.

I have done just this. a man of principle- principles are expensive, I am all too aware. Also it paid off in the long run, just like being a Jayhawk would.

Maybe you have, and good for you if it worked out. Can you say for sure that your situation was the exact same as Flory’s? Maybe you had a boss/company you trusted, do you know Flory has the same relationship with the staff? Were you also a 19 yr old from a different country likely being pushed by your guardian to make certain decisions? Have some empathy before villainizing people, especially someone on a team you support.

@dylans Ok lets slow down a bit with that rhetoric. Feel free to be disappointed with how he handled the situation, but that doesn’t make him a piece of shit. Would you stay at a job even if you love it if another company was coming in and offering to more than double your salary? Cause that is what we are talking about here. Flory isn’t guaranteed to have a NBA career and also has to worry about getting injured and missing the opportunity to even get there. This could be his only chance to make a decent bit of money that could have to last him the rest of his life. Ideally yes, you want players to love KU and only want to play here, but KU also can’t be lowballing their returning players that much and expect to get that kind of loyalty even with players that grow up KU fans.

I do agree he doesn’t need to be coddled, he got paid and now he needs to shows up this season. If come next month, he isn’t showing any improvement, then he deserves all the criticism you want to give him.

Yeah see him as a likely return to college. He is athletic but has a weak offensive game outside of cleanup duty so probably needs to be an elite defender if he is going to have a role/high draft pick in the NBA. IDK I see him quite being at that level yet in a year but could happen or he could just want to bet on himself and get his NBA contract clock started.

As for the transfer portal, reports were that he entered because KU lowballed him not because he was unhappy here. As long as that doesn’t happen again and the year goes well, I don’t see any reason to expect him to transfer next year.

@FarmerJayhawk with a 5 year deal too so that is a choice. Would be concerned as an auburn fan unless the buyout is pretty low.