Thon Maker (#1 in class is 2016) is considering classifying to the class of 2015. Last I checked the crystal ball on 247sports says Ku is the odds on favorite to land him.

@Statmachine don’t forget Mykhailiuk

Do they?

In my opinion beating Oklahoma is going to be very important if we want a chance to win the conference because:

-Norman is a game that any team in the Big 12 could lose, getting a win their would give us a slight edge for now against ISU, OSU, UT, and Baylor.

-It would help our confidence. after OU we have to play KSU(#25 in the AP poll), @Iowa St (#9), Oklahoma St (#11), and then Baylor (#7). I would like to come out of that 4 game stretch with one loss and I would love to come out undefeated. But to get momentum going we gave to defeat Oklahoma.

How good is Oklahoma? I do not know. They did beat Texas and hung around with Michigan State, but they lost to Louisiana Tech and let teams like TexasA&M play close with them. I do know that they are good enough to give any team a run for their money in Norman.

In the previous two posts I meant “ball handling” where is says “panhandling”. Autocorrect is not being nice to me.

My personal opinion on this: We have a nine man rotation. I know Self would prefer to have eight but there are just too many good players on this team.

PG: Frank

SG: Devonté

3G: Wayne

PF: Perry

PF: Diallo

Key reserves: Greene Svee Traylor Lucas

I am going to boldly predict that Bragg doesn’t Crack the rotation but has a breakout year as a soph. It happened with Aldrich who was as highly recruited as carlton.

Please allow me to elaborate as to why I believe that Frankamp is better than Graham.

Devontés biggest strength is probably his ability to handle and pass the ball well. In the ncaa tourney 2 years ago CF showed that he had the ability to do that just as well as devonte. I believe he had something like 7 assists and 0 turnovers in the 2 ncaa games we played.

Then there is defense. DG is not a bad defender, but I think that Conner is just as good. While being less athletic he is a very crafty defender who always finds a way to stay in front of his man and annoy the cap out of the offense.

Finally there is the matter of scoring. This will be used as the tiebreaker in my analysis. While Graham is a more versatile scorer I believe that Frankamp has the advantage overall for one reason. Both Frankamp and Graham will be forced to play an off-the-ball combo guard position. This favors CF. Graham is more of a point while Frankamp seems to play the 1 and the 2 equally well. He has superior ability to try to run through screens and try to get an open look from three. If both players were going to run the point for their respective teams I would say that Graham is better, but that is not the case. Most of the time they will both be playing the 2.

I was sitting around thinking about the future of KU football, and what each position looked like, and I realized that the 2014 team could be pretty good if no one ends up being a huge bust (and I do realize that this is a pretty big if). Here are my projected starters: Offense: QB: Montell Cozart (So) WR: Nick Harwekk (Sr) WR: Rod Coleman (Sr) WR: Tony Pierson (Sr) RB: Darrian Miller (Jr) TE: Jimmay Mundaine (Sr) LT: Pat Lewandowski (Sr) LG: Ngalu Fusimalohi (Sr) OC: Jacob Bragg (Fr) RG: Mike Smithburg (Sr) RT: Dylan Admire (Jr)

Defense: LC: Jacorey Shepherd (Sr) RC: Kevin Short (Jr) NB: Dexter McDonald (Sr) FS: Cassius Sendish (Sr) SS: Isiah Johnson (Jr) LB: Ben Heeney (Sr) LB: Jake Love (Jr) LE: Andrew Bolton (Jr) NT: Keon Stowers (Sr) RT: Tedarian Johnson (Sr) Buck: Ben Goodman (Jr)

Special Teams KO: Trevor Pardula (Sr) P: Trevor Pardula (Sr) PK: Matthew Myman (Jr) or Michael Mesh (Jr) LS: Reily Jeffers (Jr) Hold: Blake Jablonski (Sr) Returns: Miller, Embree, Short, Shepherd

I was thinking that MSU’s starting lineup would be as following: Appling, Harris, Valentine, Dawson, and Payne. They would match up against UK like this:

Appling (6-1 Sr) vs Andrew Harrison (6-5 Fr) Harris (6-4 So) vs Aaron Harrison (6-5 Fr) Denzel Valentine (6-5 So) vs Alex Poythress (6-8 So) Branden Dawson (6-6 Jr) vs Julius Randle (6-9 Fr) Adreian Payne (6-10 Sr) vs Willie Cauley-Stein (7-0 So)

It looks pretty close. It will be fun to see who wins.

@KirkIsMyHinrich I don’t see Lyle beating out Oubre or Greene for the starting wing spots. Heck, I think it is more likely that our starting guards are Mason, Tharpe, and Oubre.

Please allow me to elaborate as to why I believe that Frankamp is better than Graham.

Devontés biggest strength is probably his ability to handle and pass the ball well. In the ncaa tourney 2 years ago CF showed that he had the ability to do that just as well as devonte. I believe he had something like 7 assists and 0 turnovers in the 2 ncaa games we played.

Then there is defense. DG is not a bad defender, but I think that Conner is just as good. While being less athletic he is a very crafty defender who always finds a way to stay in front of his man and annoy the cap out of the offense.

Finally there is the matter of scoring. This will be used as the tiebreaker in my analysis. While Graham is a more versatile scorer I believe that Frankamp has the advantage overall for one reason. Both Frankamp and Graham will be forced to play an off-the-ball combo guard position. This favors CF. Graham is more of a point while Frankamp seems to play the 1 and the 2 equally well. He has superior ability to try to run through screens and try to get an open look from three. If both players were going to run the point for their respective teams I would say that Graham is better, but that is not the case. Most of the time they will both be playing the 2.

I think it’s possible that WSU can be better. They routed KU last year and have 3 starters including their 2 best players returning. Plus they have a pair of quality transfers coming in in Frankamp and Anton Grady. Then again in the WUGs ku played with a toughness and a defensive ability that they did not show last year. Here is how I think the starting lineups will compare.

Frank Mason > Fred VanVleet

Devonte Graham < Conner Frankamp

Wayne Selden < Ron Baker

Perry Ellis > Evan Wessel

Cheick Diallo = Anton Grady

The Selden vs Baker matchup is subject to change if Seldens play from Korea carries over to the season, but Baker has proven himself in the college game more than Selden at this point.

Bottom line these teams are fairly evenly matched and arguing for either side cannot be considered rediculous.

@Statmachine don’t forget Mykhailiuk

My personal opinion on this: We have a nine man rotation. I know Self would prefer to have eight but there are just too many good players on this team.

PG: Frank

SG: Devonté

3G: Wayne

PF: Perry

PF: Diallo

Key reserves: Greene Svee Traylor Lucas

I am going to boldly predict that Bragg doesn’t Crack the rotation but has a breakout year as a soph. It happened with Aldrich who was as highly recruited as carlton.

Zing! Zong!

In the previous two posts I meant “ball handling” where is says “panhandling”. Autocorrect is not being nice to me.

Where I said “panhandling” I meant “ball handling”.

I have been thinking about Carlton Braggs role on next year’s KU team. He will have Perry, Jamari, and Landen to compete wuth for playing time. We are also on the trail of blue chip PF/C recruits Thon Maker, Cheick Diallo, and Stephen Zimmerman. I believe that we will get one of those three players. I do not have any inside info on the recruiting of any of them, so I am just going to confide in 247s crystal ball and assume that we get Cheick Diallo for the sake of argument.

I have also been thinking about Brannen Greene’s role on next year’s KU team. Withholding a miracle, Brannen won’t start, but he will be one of the first players off the bench. Some of you see where I am going with this. Brannen has had some bright spots, and I believe he has a bright future. He has a beautiful stroke, good size for a guard, and is not without athletic ability. I do not believe that Brannen is a good player. He could sure use a red shirt year. He could work tirelessly in becoming a lockdown defender. He could also work on his handles, and on being able to drive past players to create penetration and make opposing defenders pay for getting up in his grill. After his journey of self improvement, he could unleash an epic Brannen 2.0 in the 2016-17 season. But he cannot redshirt because we will need him as a backup 3 guard next season. We cannot have Svi be our only guard off the bench, even if he does get a lot better. But there is a way to fix this problem: we give Brannens minutes to Carlton.

It is not impossible. If we start Frank, Graham, Selden, Ellis, and Diallo, then we could have Svi back up the 2 spot, Carlton back up the three, and have Traylor and Lucas back up the 4 and five, while always keeping in either Mason or Graham to play the point.

This may never work, as I have never seen Carlton play, but from my understanding he is a good shooter who is projected to play a stretch four in the college game. I also hear that he is rather quick and very athletic. If he has the shooting touch then he can score from the 3 spot. If he has the athleticism then he is just small enough that he can defend it at 6-9. He probably leaves a little to be desired from a ball handling, driving and passing standpoint at the three, but I cannot imagine him being much worse than Brannen at any of those three categories.

For comparisons sake, I believe that this would be similar to UKs use of Trey Lyles or Texas’s use of Johnathan Holmes at the three due to stacked frontcourt.

1st team: Frank Mason

Juwan Staten

Buddy Hield (poy)

Lebryan Nash

Rico Gathers

2nd team: Monte Morris

Phil Forte

Isaiah Taylor

Georges Niang

Perry Ellis

All freshman team: Jevon Carter

Devaughtah Williams

Kelly Oubre (FOY)

Johnathan Motley

Mules Turner

All Newcomer Team Anthony Hickey

Lester Medford

Bryce Dejean-Jones

Tashawn Thomas (NcOY)

Jameel McKay

COY: Bob Huggins and Bill Self

Thon Maker (#1 in class is 2016) is considering classifying to the class of 2015. Last I checked the crystal ball on 247sports says Ku is the odds on favorite to land him.