I've only watched the first half of Duke so far... I wish Self would train our guys to not leave their man open on the perimeter and stop sinking in trying to defend the drive so much. We've been leaving guys wide open and most of these guys can probably hit wide open treys blindfolded. Otherwise... I give a mixed report card on our D so far, with some players GOOD and other players BAD. We will never shut other teams down much if our bad guys keep leaking at this level because everyone will exploit them. Also rate our rebounding as UNDERPERFORMING. We have the people that should never lose the team rebounding battle.

Flory is a guy who has a game built for 20 years ago, when the focus was still feeding the post, which meant good post defense and rebounding was what you want your post guy to do. The NBA has become a perimeter game, so bigs need good ball handling and perimeter shooting. Flory doesn't have pro potential. None. His game is still relevant in college, but even that is changing. His teammate, Obinna, is the guy with the NBA potential.

Notes from the game: 1. It's too early to say where this team is going this year. 2. TKR will make a difference, but it looks like our big defender in the paint is Mbiya. 3. I wasn't impressed with Dawes on the glass. Maybe I was expecting too much but I thought his big skill was rebounding. He didn't box out Flory down the stretch on a key free throw rebound and it cost us. He just wasn't dominant. 4. So glad we have Mel and Tre back because they will be carrying most of the load this year. 5. Impressed with Stokes in some areas, less impressed in others. He definitely can play physical, and we need that. His scoring is very unpolished. He takes his body to the rim then doesn't use his body to shield the defender from the ball. That's a skill he needs ASAP. 6. This game gave me PTSD from last season. Once again, we don't seem to be able to run efficient offense in the half court. Once we get out and run we look great. So our games this year will largely be streaky. When we can shut the other team down on their offense, we have a better chance of pushing up court and getting a quick basket. When the other team scores, it pushes us into half court offense, where we suffer. Our spacing needs work... our timing needs work... our ball movement needs work. 6. Self will largely have to rely on mostly non-freshman players. There is a definite split in this team, freshmen vs upperclassmen, and I don't think we can expect to completely flip these freshmen around in one year. I say that, but I was pretty impressed with TKs defense. Mel, the experienced guy, botched several defensive shifts that cost us on the trey line. Mbiya didn't move his feet enough and cost us on the trey. At times, Cardinals were open for 5 seconds on the trey line. You just can't leave anyone open that long, even if they are 7'2". 7. I'm glad we lost. It can help us more than a win right now. These kids need to show up at the gym everyday now in serious mode. WE NEED A CHIP! 8. There is hope for this team. I remember in 2022 when Kentucky came to town and smoked us. We all know what happened after that! 9. As fans, we need to stay poised. Our players need poise, so do our fans. Chanting for Flory to fk off was tasteless and made us look like the majority of fanbases in America. Show some pride. We always have high expectations for our team but what about ourselves? All of this rubs off on our team. They will take on our character. If we become gutter dwellers, so will they!

We've got a young team... almost babies. I'm glad we have Tre and Mel back to help mentor along the boys. Stokes is awesome... but we can't count on him to mentor being this young while he's also adapting to D1. Reeves looked so good, but how much of that was most everyone else looking bad? Self and staff have a major job cut out for them this year. Tre will definitely do his best to mentor and he's already starting the role of being a team leader.

@Texas-Hawk-10 Self sure sounded definite when he said he was done after 15. But if he could, I'm certain he'd love to add Trey. What a roster if we added him.

Maybe he can be a second semester add on, meanwhile practicing with the team if he's living on his NIL.

@Texas-Hawk-10 said in KU ROSTER 2026-27:

Peterson was the best player on the team, but he was the one who wasn't a great fit. Peterson is much more of an iso player which is also partly why he chose Kansas so he could expand his game. The cramps and being in and out of the line up in the early season killed his chemistry with everyone else. KU was actually pretty good when Peterson was out because they had chemistry.

I will agree that White and Council shouldn't be KU's leading scorers this season, but White should be either the 2nd or 3rd leading scorer behind Stokes and potentially Dawes. Council at best should the 4th leading scorer.

I'm expecting Self to play a lot of small ball this year with Council, Blyden/Kinney, Stokes, White, and Dawes playing together a lot. Mbiya will provide size, but I don't see him being ready to contribute on offense much yet. Fortunately, we should be done with the 2 big line up so ce KU only has two true post players in Mbiya and Reeves and neither should be on the court together ever.

I concur. Last year isn't really a window into this year's team with Tre and Melvin. It was a disaster to have an iso player like Peterson, especially in and out of lineups and then expect the team to just bounce into operating as a team. If these guys stay healthy this year and can develop a good chemistry, we should reep the real potential they offer. Some of Melvin's stats from last year should improve when he's not counted on to be the guy who has to force many last second shots on the shot clock. I think our post players will mostly offer us a counter to other teams with capable bigs. Hopefully, they'll come along and find ways to earn their weight. I'm fine with going small ball. I always have been, especially with the potential of this team to rebound small. In some ways, this team reminds me of 2022. McCormick was always criticized, but in the end, he was just enough to help us to the promised land.

@MN-Hawk Definitely a tough one to sort out. I believed, all along, this day would come and Both Tre and Mel would obtain at least temporary approval. Both will be challenged, and I wouldn't be surprised if we go 1 for 2. I know Melvin's outside shooting is subpar, but when looking at this team, maybe what we need most from him is his junkyard attitude and energy. I'm thinking we should have solid trey shooting this year. Actually... I wouldn't mind seeing Melvin be our 6th man. Imagine that energy he will bring off the bench! Looking at Melvin's stats... he's solid, except for outside shooting. Melvin is a team cheerleader. I can think of so many Self teams that needed someone who could spark the team! Just my opinion.

The hell with it... time to bring science into D1. For next year... each team is allowed two robots (height restricted to 7'). Each team is allowed two legacy players, including DNA-built guys who already died but now reanimated. Finally, I get to see Wilt play for Kansas!

We do really need a ball handler. This will show up big time by March without depth in that area. Maybe we will be pleasantly surprised by someone developing into that role where we weren't counting on it. As of now, I see Stokes having to handle the ball too much. Typically, I'd panic because I know that means we are asking him to do so much... especially for a freshman. He is likely to get worn down as the season progresses. He's a gifted, tough athlete with tough alpha mentality, but he hasn't played a year in the B12. It's a rough conference.

I'm still hopeful we will clear and bring on at least one guy that can make a difference. D1 is such a mess. Time is of the essence now and you have to watch to see who is enrolled in classes and who isn't.

We are approaching the deadline for adding classes this semester. Athletes need to be enrolled to qualify. If not enrolled, they will not qualify to play until possibly the spring semester. There has been talk that if Council gets status to play another year he might go to another school. I find that unlikely if he's already enrolled here and not somewhere else. This is just my opinion... do any of you have more info or can challenge what I'm saying here?

Painful game to watch. Alumni on both sides seem to have forgotten their teachings from college days. Curious what Self thought of that game. If you want to call it that. It reminded me of all the old boxers that fight long after their prime... except these guys aren't that old, except a few, like Mario. Just glad we didn't have to face Beasley again. The dude can still ball but his psychobabble was wearing me out.

For God's sake... let them out!

I grimaced reading how they think they are keeping college sports alive. They have been perhaps the single worst culprit for tearing college sports down!

https://www.foxsports.com/articles/cfb/could-the-sec-really-break-away-commish-says-conversations-are-real-but-thats-not-what-they-want

@approxinfinity said in Darryn Peterson:

I have a feeling passing on Peterson for Dybantsa, who will be an All Star, will not age well.

You could be right. I always heard that DPs game was a perfect fit for the NBA, more than Dybantsa or Boozer. I think this will really show through in summer league, where no one plays defense or even knows what defense is. Watch DPs highlights. Looks like high school defense against him. It's like he went back to high school. Let's pass judgment after he makes it through a real season. Defense starts happening in late spring. Also... can he play through injuries? That same question is valid for all 3 comparison guys. It should be fun watching these guys translate their game to the league!

@bskeet Yes... would have loved his defense. But we might improve at the 5 on offense!

@stoptheflop said in Darryn Peterson:

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stoptheflop
about 3 hours ago

I saw an article pointing out Darryn's low 2.2 assists per game as a big negative for NBA purposes. But, we know that's not all on him because all the KU players just stood around when DP had the ball and I don't think I saw any type of offensive sets run while DP had the ball.

True... but DP could have hit them a few times while they were opened and encouraged them to try to get open. Everyone was at fault.

It points to poor communication. Even though DP was out for many games, it's hard to believe we had this many games and the guys couldn't communicate and click better.

I point the finger at Self. He overhyped DP. It made the other guys feel inferior. And DP is a cool kid that wasn't about ego. There should have been better connection!

What position where DP goes in the draft is usually more about what teams get to pick first and what are their needs. Or a team that wants DP badly might not be at the top of the draft choosing so will trade for him. Those details have already started with teams. DP could go first and then be traded immediately.

@FarmerJayhawk

I don't know how much I even believe that number. We just landed another recruit today and it didn't seem like we still had NIL available if it was only $14 mil.

@FarmerJayhawk

Sounds logical. But why is everyone throwing around this number of $14 mil NIL budget we have this year?

I was just reading about Louisville's high reliance of private NIL for their basketball program. It looks like their institutional direct-revenue sharing NIL for this campaign is $20.5 mil. I wonder what their total spending on NIL will be? Didn't we recently receive a huge donation directly to our AD from the Booth family? I'm reading that our rev share to basketball players is a little over $14 mil. I know we have the cost of the football stadium dampening our balance sheet but this could be Self's last year and it seems weird we don't show more appreciation.

I don't know... seems like we gave up on playing defense anyways after our last nattie. The exception being Flory. Even Flory didn't go after every ball. Granted, he was also trying to stay out of foul trouble.