Best posts made by ajvan

Here’s something I’ve been puzzling over for awhile.

The OU thriller certainly wasn’t the first time “Pitbull” Frank Mason has been hurt by the refs. Against OU, Higgins was the main offender, but the phantom fouls and eye-popping non-calls came early and often. I’d argue Frank was the player most consistently screwed by the reffing in that game.

Furthermore…I don’t think this is a rare occurrence with Frank. In the season’s early-going, it’s been common for him to drive to the rim and take hits under the goal while the refs swallow their whistles and stare like they’re watching early-round love taps in a UFC bout.

What does Frank have to do to get a whistle? And why aren’t his drives into the trees more frequently rewarded?

My only answers are pure speculation. All the more so because Frank’s often the shortest player on the court, and you’d think that help him get to the line more often, but it’s clearly not the case.

Is it because he doesn’t have a big rep nationally and refs haven’t heard of him? Or because he’s built like a mini-tank even at his height? Or because he doesn’t chat up the refs like a more outgoing player might do?

Frank doesn’t get his share of calls and I don’t get it. Anyone have a hypothesis?

Sounds like you’re backing off your boy a little, @jayballer54. Can’t say I blame you. I’m getting tired of the back and forth as well.

His family’s been pretty transparent about the recruiting process…more so than any other recruit in my recent memory. Unfortunately, the transparency isn’t winning them any points.

1. Dotson (or his parents or both) want a situation without another serious point guard/2 guard to compete with, in other words, nonnegotiable, guaranteed minutes. Not the make-up of a championship caliber team.

2. Lately we’re hearing he’s reluctant to go to KU bc he doesn’t have any friends on the current roster.

Are you kidding? So now schools are expected to provide not just minutes but built-in relational security blankets. This whole recruitment is starting to spell INSECURITY.

In an article on The Other Site, Self has this to say about WUG & recruiting.

The Jayhawks have played their games on national TV on ESPNU, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re getting an edge in recruiting.

“I don’t know if it helps a lot because all the recruits are somewhere else playing,” Self said. “You’ve got all the kids in the under-19 games that we’re recruiting and you have different camps going on. But I do think this: If we’re fortunate enough to advance, I think it’ll start gathering some attention and a lot of eyes will be on what we’re doing.

“Winning a medal in these games would really, I think, help our recruiting quite a bit.” <<<

Notice how he’s already way more forthright than Coach K. I wonder if he’s thinking primarily about international recruits or whether he thinks it’ll translate into stateside hype.

Don’t care much about Precious but want the Wilson/Hampton combo bad.

Self was incensed after Garrett passed up an open three–yelling, slamming the scorer’s table. He may have reacted this way more than once and the camera didn’t catch it. Pretty sure Marcus passed up more than one.

Never thought I’d write these words, but…Garrett may have gotten the hook for not shooting enough low-percentage threes.

@Crimsonorblue22 RJ in Lawrence and Rod in Australia sounds good.

At the beginning of the season, Grimes was the player I was most excited to see in a jersey. Now he’s the probable departure I feel most ambivalent about. If he’s gone, meh. I’ll regret all the time I spent screaming at him to move his butt on D and go get a rebound.

Don’t you love it when we preemptively ID an ideal recruit & then Bill Self agrees with us and acts on it immediately?

Bill Self is hard to read. On the one hand, he plays everything off with casual panache. On the other, he’s a gritty competitor greedy for wins. I’m starting to realize his ultra laid back persona is just an ingenious ruse to make his driven ambition for Ws more palatable.

Same song and dance with the WUG.

Now that I’m onto him, I’m ok with that.

Gotta love back to back Blue Octobers. I thought they were done for yesterday…their miracle 8th inning was inspiring.

On the bright side, KU shot 23 treys (9-23). I know most of us were expecting mid-teens with 25 treys being the promised land. Too bad they didn’t make two more of them.

@HighEliteMajor Deep in his heart, Bill Self loves games with no rhythm that turn into wars of attrition. He’s ok when the playbook goes out the window and it’s balls to the walls, because…toughness.

Self should’ve written the book, not Jay Bilas. Maybe he still will.

http://m.kusports.com/news/2015/mar/20/jayhawks-dispose-nmsu-move-next-round/

Long story short, KU actually looked like a high-caliber offensive team again.

I’ll never, ever measure KU’s season success with a single W…but man, this one would feel good!

Vick is in the fold, it’s official. http://zagsblog.com/articles/lagerald-vick-to-kansas-could-reclass-to-2015/

Suck it, Calipari!

He’ll take Selden’s spot! jk Can’t really see that happening if Greene and Svi couldn’t displace him last year.

God forbid that Wayne has another season-long slump…if something that awful happened, Vick could get big minutes. But after last season. doesn’t look like anyone will take Selden’s place as a starter, would violate the prenup he signed with Self.

Would be pretty sweet to see The Truth on the KU bench!

Like @Crimsonorblue22 , partly just rooting against Lebron, but I do get a kick out of the Splash Bros…all the more since I model my playground game after Steph Curry.

This is great news! I live right downtown, can walk to the Sprint Center in ten minutes, and I keep saying, “One of these years…”

Now I have more years to work with.

@drgnslayr Sounds like the voice of experience.

Fascinating that after one significant game this season, writers are already picking up on KU’s struggles on offense. Maybe they hang out on this forum. Or maybe Self’s hang ups with creativity on offense and the three ball are just that painfully obvious?

Man…I’d love to see the old dog learn a new trick, but like most of you have said, not holding my breath. (But shaking my head.)

Another workaround is to use a free VPN (virtual private network) app that will move your IP address somewhere like CA or Canada. Then you can watch ESPN3 online, blackout be damned.

@kansas-oats was gonna say the same thing. Every UK loss puts us one game closer to that all time W record. Not to mention that after every UK loss, an angel gets its wings.

Can’t help feeling that Coach Self has painted himself into a corner with this one. Can you visualize a scenario where the way he utilizes Diallo becomes a positive this season for KU’s national reputation?

Maybe if Diallo comes on like gangbusters and KU makes the final four…seems like anything less is going to bite us in the recruiting butt hard.

I think the second half game plan was solid. Better defense, OR struggled for good looks, and time and again KU had the opportunity to hit a shot and make it close. They took 3s early in the shot clock, some of them rushed, but a number of them were good looks, the kind of shots they’ve been making all season.

Several times I thought KU had OR right where they wanted them. They’ve been comeback kids all season. But Mason got no help, except from Svi, who cut the deficit to 6. Blaming Self for Graham’s total no show and Jackson’s mental flameout after his early fouls…maybe that makes sense to some but I can’t get there.

YES! Biggest 2019 recruit?

Guess Penny is realizing about now that he’s not Coach K.

@Marco said in Self Has Covid:

I mean, I just do not understand why roughly 43% of America has chosen to not get vaccined? “Well, it wasn’t fully studied, was rushed!” Man, what is ever “fully” studied? And the craziest part? Of that 43%, many - and putting it out there, I am not a so-called liberal - are among those that complained the loudest about our economy being shutdown.

A few reasons off the top of my head:

1. They’ve already had covid.
2. They realize they could get the vaccine and still get covid.
3. They realize they could get the vaccine and still transmit covid.
4. They realize they could get the vaccine and still be told to mask up.
5. Therefore, 1-4), they don’t see the point.
6. They have unanswered questions about the vaccine that aren’t publicly discussed.
7. They see people who raise questions about the vaccine being censored.
8. 6-7) They don’t like being told what to think or what to do.
9. They’re young and/or healthy and statistically not at risk.
10. They don’t have at-risk folks in their lives they worry about.
11. The older folks they care about aren’t worried about covid.
12. They don’t like being shamed into decisions.
13. They don’t trust big Pharm.
14. They view the vaccine as a real-time experiment without a proven track record.
15. They’re anti-vaxxers across the board.

…and so on. People usually don’t do things for no reason—often many reasons. You may not like their reasons but that doesn’t mean reasons don’t exist.

@Texas-Hawk-10 “So when you combine that kid’s statement with the fact that he’s president of an organization whose stated values are “Strong borders, traditional families, the American worker, and Christian values,” it becomes very difficult not view his statement as implicitly racist.”

Alternative: maybe not everyone in favor of these things is a racist.

@mayjay “He purposely, not accidentally, directly sarcastic language toward the victim of what most of the country saw as a modern lynching. As a symbol of a race-equality movement”

Many, many people have a problem with the way Floyd’s character has been polished up (after his death) to fit the narrative. Many of them are not racist. Many of them aren’t white. What was done to Floyd was evil, but he’s far from a unifying figure…which is why people are pushing back, often in stupid and caustic ways. But free speech means everyone gets to have an opinion.

Or a pretty epic payout by Duke.

I worry that he’ll have a hard time playing pro ball in the post at his size…totally agree on the skills camp. He needs to attend Moving Away from the Post Camp with breakout sessions on Getting a Jumpshot & Building a Midrange Game.

@Crimsonorblue22

@drgnslayr If the Hawks can channel the grit from that WVU win and shoot 15+ threes a game (without going, ahem, 0-15) in the Big Dance, I like them for the Elite 8. If they can play with grit and shoot 20+ threes a game, I could see them getting on a roll and gutting their way to the Final Four.

Never thought I’d say that this year. That tough, ugly WV win was eye-opening, but we all know they need some easy offense to advance in March. Getting clobbered in the post over and over again isn’t it.

@Crimsonorblue22 Guessing his middle name’s not Adams?

Not a fan of the weird waistbands. They look like low-slung cummerbunds or gun belts with no guns.

@Bwag Agreed, their flailing offense is the overall problem. But teams packing the middle and KU driving and failing to connect is symptomatic of that problem and shooting more threes is ONE way to alleviate those symptoms. (Watch me veer into doctor-speak.)

I’m not sure WSU gets past Indiana. But if they do, it would be hilarious to discover Marshall’s been blowing hot air all this time, saying he wants to play KU bc he thought it would never happen.

nice to see another B12 team get a W!

Real curious to see how the recruiting dominoes fall now.

Crazy to think Cliff was mentioned in the same breath as Okafor to begin the year. With another season, he could’ve actually been something special.

@Crimsonorblue22 @Statmachine Ha, and I was thinking it was probably someplace local to Lawrence. facepalm At least it wasn’t a BMW dealership!

I despise UK with the best of you, but if Bolden is also a true 5, maybe Self could take a page…ok, maybe more of a paragraph…or a sentence?..out of the Squid’s notebook. Tell Bolden he and Chukwu are gonna tag-team the opposition and beat them into submission with an onslaught of tall talent that will make them both lottery picks.

Also a nat’l title (but none of the “perfection” crap) since Self is twice the big man coach Cal is.

@truehawk93 Yeah, totally agree. I was saying, tongue in cheek, that Self should stockpile some post talent the way Calipari did last season. It might be tough to get both Bolden and Chukwu on the floor at the same time, so…maybe a little two man “platoon?” (I had to grab a barf bag after I typed that word.)

No doubt, Kansas is BIG MAN U. Any rep UK has in that dept is smoke and mirrors.

@drgnslayr @KUSTEVE The Chu-Chu Train.

We have a winner.

@DCHawker Sadly, there’s no question that UK bigs outperform KU bigs in the NBA. Towns Jr looks like a guy who will continue the trend.

Like we all know, UK is a destination school for OADs who want to hit the league with a splash.

However, I’d still argue KU is BIG MAN U in its own right, thanks to the marginal post players Self & co develop into studs. If he can reel in a few more bigs with upside like Embiid & Diallo, our guys may start making NBA all-star squads instead of “just” becoming journeyman role players.

You dig?

I’m not knowledgable enough about the Clippers to know if Pierce would put them over the top, but man, what an asset to have in the play-offs. He won 3-4 games for the Wizards with clutch shots and they might still be playing if John Wall had passed him the ball .01 seconds sooner (literally) in their season-ending loss. He hit a crazy, closely-guarded three a fraction of a sec too late.

If The Truth goes to LA, I’ll be a Clippers fan next season.

Sounds like Travis may have regained his pre-injury form. He averaged 17.9 points and 4.9 rebounds a game this season and (from the other site)…

Former Kansas University guard Travis Releford exploded for 26 points with six assists and four rebounds in leading Maccabi Kiryat Gat to a 93-74 victory over Ironi Kiryat-Ata on Friday in the deciding Game Five of Israel’s National League basketball finals.

The victory assured Releford’s team of being promoted to Israel’s Super League top flight for next season.

The 6-foot-6, 210-pound Kansas City, Missouri, native hit eight of 10 shots, including one of two threes. He also hit nine of 11 free throws. Former Mississippi player Terrence Watson contributed 19 points for the winners.

@FarSideHawk @JayHawkFanToo It finally came to me. He’s actually a cut below both those guys. Man, I remember waiting 4 years for Kenny Gregory to take off…

The guy is Bryant Nash. Remember him? “Most athletic player on the team” who should probably have been in track & field, not hoops.

That said, I’m not comparing Vick to those guys, just reminiscing. Vick will be a contributor.

@jaybate-1.0 “Vick the Brick,” ouch. Now there’s a train wreck waiting to happen.

Here’s hoping Vick knocks in a solid 50% of his shots in limited action this year and never has to deal with the escalating pressure of a monicker like that.

With Paul Pierce and the Wizards out, I’ve been rooting for the upstart Golden State Warriors in the playoffs…as fun as that’s been, I’m ready to get behind a player I really care about.

C’mon, Jojo, get better. I’m ready to be a Sixers fan.