@approxinfinity I tend to agree about Flory. The only thing I can think is that these days what makes a guy easy or hard to work with goes beyond the guy and extends to his agent and ‘team’.
So some of the issues we see may be about the individual and some may be about others around the player. For us outsiders, there’s rarely visibility to know which is which for sure.
The canceled banquet is the strongest signal that there’s trouble in River City.
Expectations are fragile, but powerful. Expectations for the fans, the team and the staff were very hight at the beginning of the season. The preseason ranking, the portal recruiting and NIL money all fed this.
Speaking for myself, the expectations have been shattered and that has left me with a sense of loss.
But, high expectations are not necessarily the problem: Teams need high expectations to a degree. Players have to believe that they can win. But it can be a double-edged sword.
The high expectation carried the team through the preseason. But that first roadtrip to Creighton and Missouri shook the confidence and the doubts and criticism started to set in. As the B12 season started with a loss, the extremely high expectations became a detriment.
Home losses. Slipping out of the top 10, then 20 then 25. The disappointment snowballed. It was palpable with the fans and observable with the team.
I think a big part of recovery within the program relies on resetting expectations properly and then and managing those expectations carefully. (Fans’ expectations are impossible to manage… The program needs to put on ear muffs to most of the outside world and work through this.)
On this board, there’s been a lot of discussion about accountability (playing the best guys and not having favorites, etc.), which is sort of the other side of the coin to expectations. I personally believe (complete outsider view) that accountability is not as much of the problem given that there has been such a track record of success and success is predicated on accountability.
However, the glue that ties accountability and expectations together is communication. Here is where I think things may have gone sideways. Self has been pretty loyal to seniors and I think has pride in the program’s tradition and ability to bring guys along to the senior night, etc. If the incoming portal guys were not given accurate guidance on their role, or even if they were, and they feel their expectations were violated, they are going to get disenchanted.
That disenchantment from unrealized expectations is corrosive, and I think that’s where things stand.
Flory and DP are a very good core and foundation upon which to build. I’m sure I’m not the only one thinking that and trust that is a priority.
No one could have beat Alabama last night. That was an all time performance.
I’m surprisingly apathetic about the TT / Ark outcome. It was exciting at the end… but who cares.
@approxinfinity said in Bracketology:
Y’all are just hAIters
Is AI ready to stand alone? No. Its a companion tool. And yeah the uncertainty with certainty bit is true and silly.
And I totally get the feeling that for creative stuff it is soulless.
But so is Jon Scheyer.
Is Duke partnered with Microsoft? Maybe Jon Scheyer bot is running Copilot, or Autopilot Beta.
Good stuff.
I don’t hate AI. I hate when people force any technology into a product for the sake of anything other than legitimately improving the user experience.
My only point is that AI is not ready for primetime for most use cases and it’s resulting in many users misusing the AI features in products.
In some cases the misuse is because users are not saavy enough to understand the limitations and the tech interface is underdeveloped to help users know when the results are probably unreliable.
In other cases the misuse is because users are very savvy and know how to manipulate tech which is under-tested and underdeveloped to prevent deliberate misuse.
@kjayhawks said in What does “faith in Bill” mean?:
@BShark said in What does “faith in Bill” mean?:
I would agree that next year actually is important to see if Bill can have success in this era. Some reasons to believe he turned over a new leaf with regards to player handling in the middle of this season but old habits die hard.
Next season is the most important Basketball in the history of Kansas.
lol… sounds like political hyperbole!
Hard to imagine any season being more important than season 1 when Naismith established his game as a sport here.
I do like the idea of trying to rank the most important seasons in KU history. Would be a very interesting exercise. (maybe a future idea for a thread)
thx.
He really disappeared this year. There were like 7 minutes in the second half where he looked like his old self-- driving, hitting layups, making plays…
Really an enigma why he wasn’t like that more often this year. At times I wondered if there was something behind the scenes because he wasn’t himself.
Michigan State. Just because Izzo has been there a long time and seems to run a decent program.
That said, I could easily be talked into rooting for almost anyone else at this point because I’ve got almost zero enthusiasm to direct toward any team.
@Jayblaze All the proof you need to know that AI technology is not ready for prime-time. It inherits human biases and spits it out uncertainty with certainty.
Not so many stunning upsets so far today.
Maybe more tomorrow or maybe in the next rounds when the medium seeds are playing the high seeds… I really thought there was a bit more parity this year so I was ready to see some surprises.
I also wouldn’t cry if more SECs bit the dust.
Wore my Southeast Regional champions tshirt from 1991. Hoped it would be good luck.
Pretty sure KJ tore his Achilles.
Hey, that’s a scary story and I’m really glad you are here today to tell it.
Take care of that heart! We’d like you to be here for many more KU tournament runs!
In Coach Self’s defense, he might know that’s his most important job as head coach and it just didn’t work out.
I say that because: 1) before the team had entered post-season play last year, he was talking about his thoughts on what he wanted for the team (more athletic, shooters, etc.), and 2) Scheyer may look uniquely good because Cooper Flagg is the kind of player that can mask weaknesses in your team roster.
There are former Jayhawks who have coached in the D League and elsewhere… Aaron Miles… Right? Just curious if that kind of candidate would be considered.
@BeddieKU23 True, but not to this extent… 14 teams in the tournament?
That is 87.5% of the conference! Unprecedented and a bit besotted methinks. Not a fan of schadenfreude, but if the SEC flames out in the first couple rounds, I may smirk a bit.
I would think if you totaled the number of NCAA Tournament games played by players on every team, KU would have to be near the top if not the top.
@nuleafjhawk LOL
Besotted: strongly infatuated. “he became besotted with his best friend’s sister”
Limerence: the state of being infatuated or obsessed with another person, typically experienced involuntarily and characterized by a strong desire for reciprocation of one’s feelings but not primarily for a sexual relationship
I’ve got 2 fabulous vocabulary words to describe the committee’s view of the SEC: besotted and limerence.
Our identity is mostly throw the ball inside to Hunter. That’s not altogether bad, but, with that strategy we cannot give up lots of 3s to a team because the math isn’t in our favor.
The 2 identities that I’d most like to see change starting immediately are 1) the ability to withstand a push by a team and come back from a deficit in the game, take the lead and hold it to the end, and 2) finish the halves – that is, execute flawlessly in the final 1-2 minutes and come out even or ahead of where we were at the under 4 timeout.
@kjayhawks So, this is a lot of stuff that has nothing to do with what I said.
I didn’t say the government was efficient. I’m not saying that politicians are not corrupt. I didn’t say anything about foreign aid or the cost of universities or taxes.
So… I’m not really going to battle on this stuff… because politicians ARE corrupt.
But corruption is not a partisan thing. A lot of your points seem to be partisan examples.
I would say we may have a difference of opinion regarding whom to trust to fix corruption. I don’t trust a guy who operates consistently on the edges of the law and, in my estimation, has a history of crossing the line. I don’t trust the guy who has a track record of bankrupt businesses.
I’m watching the market tank as I type. Seems like its more like “Make America 1928 Again”.
As for the US being one of the worst corporations in the world – I’m no economist or political scientist, but based on my limited knowledge, the US is NOT a for-profit business. The analogy of the US being a for-profit business is a false premise.
The US is a government. It’s closer to a non-profit if the analogy must be pushed, but it’s better to not try to fit it into either of those models. The practices of running a for-profit or non-profit business are different from running a government and mapping business practices wholesale onto a government is dubious.
That said, it SHOULD have fiscal responsibility and accountability. (I think that’s what Congress is supposed to do, but I’m no political scientist…) I think it is obvious that it should not operate in an ever-deepening deficit.
That said, I’ve heard others explain that the rules are different for governments and particularly for the government that owns the standard global currency. Again, I’m no economist, so I’ll leave it there.
That study sounds suspect to me too… I imagine if I lived in the 1920s and someone said “Go review the government research and get rid of the stuff that seems stupid,” I would look at the research on molds as expendable. Of course, that would have been tragic since that research lead to penicillin. (It was actually discovered in London, but hopefully you get my point.) Studying mold turns out to have been a good thing to study even though it might have looked like a pretty dubious thing to study.
Research… Science works this way… Some studies go no where. Others lead to something consequential. Not every study is going to lead to a revolutionary product like penicillin. Science requires following a lot of ideas. It’s expensive and time consuming. Fortunately, the US has been blessed with the resources to invest in lots of research over the last 100 years and it has led to a steadily better standard of living for its citizens and, in many cases, the global population.
Anyway, the bigger point: I’m all for scrubbing out excessive spending on widgets and over-priced projects – but I’d like there to be some due diligence by people with knowledge of the domain. I’m pretty sure that is NOT happening. There is no telling how many babies are being thrown out with the bathwater right now. It’s preventable.
@kjayhawks said in Lets take the lead into the first TV timeout!:
Odd note here…We were having our worst year in 42 season ms but we still beat the regular season B10 and ACC champions
100% on this observation. I been thinking of this and don’t know how to interpret this. Did we get worse? Did they just get better and we didn’t improve at the same rate? Are the top 5 teams in the B12 that much better than the best of the B10 and ACC?
@FarmerJayhawk Oh, it’s totally amusing and good theater…until I stop and reflect on the real lives that are being affected and how it’s no joke to them. A lot of these folks are innocent citizens who are simply collateral damage that Tornado Trump has zero regard for.
@kjayhawks Yep. Interesting… 1939 was an interesting time too.
Ugh. It’s a bad year when we are dreaming of next season in the first week of March.
It used to be that the only thing that caused me to yell at the TV was the stupid calls by the refs in the B12. But it turns out, watching Trump’s speech filled with gloating, scapegoating, self-adulation and flat out lies actually got me yelling at the TV more. That’s saying something.
I have a lot of passion for KU Basketball and I guess I react whenever I see poor decisions and unfairness… Whether it’s the refs or the president.
Whoever is responsible for coaching defensive rebounding may want to look for another job
Actually we are very consistent.
Just not in the way we want.
Self sent out a note that was posted on Instagram last night. I think this was unprecedented.
All of it following a disappointing loss after a disappointing season where people are losing their sh*t because they don’t know how to lose. It’s all felt unprecedented.
I don’t like to lose. But it is part of the game. You win some; you lose some.
what’s up with Shak Moore? Injured again?
@SlimShaddy54 said in Lets go 3-0 on the new season:
@bskeet how many turnovers did Mayo have --& how many points did Mayo have ?
He didn’t play well today. And given that he didn’t seem his best most of the game, probably not a great idea to ride him for as many minutes as we did and to have him in at crunch time. That’s on the coaches.
Zeke cares, though. He’s a Lawrence kid who grew up wanting to be a Jayhawk… Lord knows he cares. I think his issue is he cares so much he’s putting too much pressure on himself. Many of his mistakes are fumbles or getting out over the skis and losing control. That’s cognitive load issues.
He certainly does not deserve the barrage of hateful and racist comments, although I’m sure that’s not coming from true KU fans.
@kjayhawks said in Lets go 3-0 on the new season:
We don’t have the most athletic team
This is quite an indictment on Self and the staff after last year’s pledge to go and get some athletes and depth…
@kjayhawks I like the way you’re thinking here. I hope lightning strikes twice.
And why is it that teams and players seem to have record games against us on the regular?
Ok, not quite as bad as I thought… but not great given he’s the veteran…
DeJuan lost the Houston game by missing 2 free throws with 17 seconds left and a SIX point lead.
Today he had nearly as many turnovers as points.
@kjayhawks On the surface it’s not terrible. But it’s the third loss this season in AFH… A place we had a 90% wining record and allegedly the highest home court advantage of any sport. And it was a historic day for the field house… And it was March.
So, yeah. I think it was terrible.
@wissox Do not count on anything reasonable coming from the officials this season.
I guess this is the poorest executing team I’ve seen Self put on the floor.
Well, we are ranked appropriately.
KJ’s best game. DaJuans worst. Same game
