Best posts made by icthawkfan316

@DoubleDD All system’s take time to learn. You want to go to an open offense chucking up 20-25 threes/game? Great. Only problem is the other team has a say so in the matter. Sure we could throw up shots with a hand in our face every time, but then I suspect we would be shooting a significantly lower percentage and wouldn’t all be convinced that our strength was outside shooting. Instead you have to create an actual offense to get players open. To create space. To screen. Actions. Movement. Still getting players in rebounding position. Etc.

This is the crux of my defense of Self sticking with the hi-lo offense. You cannot simply scrap everything you’ve been doing in years past for something different. Personnel changes and it is true you should play to your strengths, but doing so within the same offense is the way it has to happen. I argued the same point last year when some fans were clamoring for a switch to a zone defense. If you aren’t teaching the same things year in, year out, then you have no consistency. The foundation of your team, the 3 and 4 year players (or the high basketball IQ 2 year players) would not be nearly as effective if one year you’re teaching one thing then the next year you’re teaching something else.

Last year we were more equipped to play inside-out. We had Embiid, and even Black was better than our bench options this year. Also, our outside shooting was not great. Greene couldn’t be trusted to see the court, so he doesn’t even factor in. Selden had very poor mechanics and wasn’t near the weapon he is this year from beyond the arc. Wiggins was mediocre at best, shooting 34%. Mason was below average. Etc. So we can agree that last year we were more geared to the inside-out, hi-lo game, right? So fast-forward to this year and the personnel has changed. No Embiid or Black, and Cliff is producing as most freshman have under Self. But Greene has improved enough on defense to see major minutes, Selden & Mason have improved their shots. Oubre is an upgrade over Wiggins in terms of three-point shooting. Clearly the strength of this team is in its outside shooting. Not many would debate that. However, who’s to say if we changed the offense the results would be the same? Suddenly you have second year players Greene, Selden, & Mason discarding much of what they learned as freshman in lieu of starting over with a new offensive scheme. Does this new learning curve afford Selden the time to focus on re-tooling his shot? For Greene to find a comfort zone within the offense enough that he can improve his defense to the level of serviceable? Would Mason be as successful running the team or would he in essence be a freshman PG, and therefore would he still have the confidence to shoot with such success? I doubt it.

And then what happens next year if we recruit the necessary pieces to once again effectively run a hi-lo offense? Do we switch again, therefore creating even more inconsistency with the players’ performance?

I’m not saying there aren’t some tweaks that could be made to maximize our outside shooting. We’re seeing Self do some things. Not as many as some would like, but give it time. Could be this young team is similar to the '05-'06 team: a young team full of freshmen and sophomores. A team that looked lost early in the Maui invitational and lost in the first round to Bradley. A team that would go on to win the national championship in 2 years. Sometimes patience, focusing on the big picture, and staying the course is the right play, even if the rewards yielded are not immediate.

So imagine my surprise to log on yesterday after the game and see that most of the conversation was not about the awesome performances of Perry & Devonte, and instead the conversation is more about the season’s demise.

Yeah we could have played better yesterday as a team. But how can you not be encouraged by the play of Ellis? And Graham busting out of his mini slump? To Perry, I think it’s easy for some to dismiss his successes by focusing on some of his struggles. Call it the Randy Quaid in Major League 2 syndrome. “Who cares? They’ll blow it in the ninth.” Afraid of being disappointed by being excited about something promising so instead they try to diminish the good as not really all that good at anyway.

We all remember the struggles early against Kentucky. Last year against Stanford. HEM has given us the 2-point FG% stats for the year on occasion. However, something they said during the telecast yesterday made me feel optimistic. They were talking about our 2-pt % being so low on the year, but said we ranked second in the Big 12 in conference games only. So perhaps we are trending upward? Perhaps our early struggles inside the arc have dragged down our overall percentage so much that it has blinded us to our improvements. I’m not suggesting that inside play it’s now one of our major strengths, but maybe it’s not the albatross around this team’s neck that we once thought?

As to Graham, he joined the group of Oubre, Selden, & Greene that are all capable of giving us great performances on the perimeter. All 4 won’t do so every night (Mason appears to be the only one to do so on a consistent basis), but we see that Self has plenty of options to find the hot hand and to guard against foul trouble & injury. To me that’s huge. How many times have we heard that good guard play is key to tourney success? Well yesterday we got two outstanding performances from Graham & Mason. How can you not be optimistic about that?

Still lots of room for improvement with this team, but yesterday watching the game i want thinking “Crap. We’re screwed.” I was thinking how sweet it was to see Perry throwing it down and smile, and how it was a relief to get Graham back on track. Those are two really good players, not just nuggets of fool’s gold.

Great game. A few of my own musings:

• Just a couple of games ago we were debating the merits of cutting Selden’s minutes, perhaps even removing him from the starting line-up. After back-to-back good performances against the kitties and the 'clones, maybe he’s OK where he’s at. I will say this - his offensive success is heavily reliant on him knocking down treys, so in that respect we can still entertain the idea of Greene cutting into his playing time. I think what I would like to see is for Self to stick with Selden, but then to quickly switch plans if he’s struggling, rather than letting Wayne labor and the team suffer. Go with the hot hand or whatever the situation calls for. This team has too many talented options. For the past couple of games though, it’s been nice to see Wayne lighting it up.

• Speaking of the redistribution of minutes, it might be time to start easing up on Mason’s. He’s had some pretty paltry shooting performances over our last 5 wins (the exception being an 8-12 night against TCU), hasn’t hit a 3 in the last 4 games, and he needed a flurry of points at the end of the last 2 games to extend his double-digit scoring streak. Given his shooting woes, I wonder if his legs might be tiring a bit. I just don’t see any reason to play him 37 minutes when we have a capable back-up, unless Self is concerned with Graham’s turf toe and has decided to prioritize managing Graham’s minutes instead.

• I know Lucas gets a lot of flak on these boards, but he’s a nice 4th big to have around. I think a lot of our angst regarding Lucas is that he has often been thrust into a position where more is expected or needed from him than should be. Either because of foul trouble or Cliff’s faulty motor or Jamari being ineffective…it has often fallen all the way down to 4th-big-Landon to play major minutes. He lacks on skill, but he’s always ready and always comes with effort. Good game from him tonight.

As HEM predicted, we swept the 3 games in 6 days. Now for the next mini-campaign: a 4 games in 10 days stretch that goes @Okie St., @Tech, home against Baylor, @WVU. The game in Morgantown on the 16th is the one I have highlighted, which is not to say we can’t lose any of the other 3, but the match against Huggins’ bunch will be tough. I have it penciled in for a loss right now. Even so…we’re definitely in the driver’s seat.

Here’s my amateur analysis of the game:

1. Kind of disappointed in Selden. With the exception of the Florida game, it seems that every time he gets a little momentum going and I expect a Florida-esque performance from him he just takes two steps back. Two games in a row he failed to finish a dunk, leading me to wonder if the knee injury has permanently zapped some of his hops from him. More than anything, I thought he was supposed to ascend to be our lock-down defender, yet he let Delon Wright almost single-handedly make it a close game. At least in other games that he’s struggled in one area (usually his scoring) he’s made up for it in other areas. Yet no rebounds and only 2 assists today (one was real pretty though on that bullet pass to the post).

2. A mixed bag with Ellis. I was impressed with his defense, and I thought he grabbed a couple of “man’s” rebounds today. His offense carried us early. Then…? Without re-watching, I can’t tell if we just stopped running offense for him or if he just quit looking for his shot or if Utah just did that good of a job containing him, but we can’t go that long without him scoring.

3. As was mentioned earlier, welcome back Jamari Traylor! And I don’t mean welcome back from the 1-game suspension, but welcome to the '14-'15 season! We don’t win today without that performance.

4. The evolution of the Oubre/Svi/Greene PT triangle. This will likely intrigue me all season. It keeps moving towards Oubre and away from Svi. Hard to argue with the progress Oubre has shown, and I know Svi played pretty poorly against Georgetown, but a part of me wonders if Svi isn’t going to be buried because Self has done the risk analysis of losing each player and Svi is the less likely to bolt. In short, Self knows that short of Svi returning to Europe, he has Svi for 2 years. If he buries Greene or Oubre, a transfer would be likely. And while Oubre is obviously talented, there’s always the OAD pandering factor that one has to wonder about.

Specific to this game, if Greene isn’t hitting his 3s, he’s really only valuable as a late game free throw shooter. Which is nice; he was definitely clutch (along with Jamari!). Svi didn’t do much to impress, but didn’t look as lost as he did against Georgetown either. Oubre played well I thought, but not enough to garner a ton of separation from the other two.

Stay tuned…

1. Mason. He has his Tyshawn moments. At times he leaves his feet without knowing what he’s going to do with the ball. But I can’t tell you how nice it is to watch the games and NOT see Tharpe at the point! I know that might seem mean-spirited, but it’s night and day. It’s the opposite of being spoiled with Frank - after wanting solid PG play for so long, I never take his competence or effort for granted. I did, however, miss Graham today. Hope he gets healed soon. Love his game too!

2. Rough game for Cliff, although his rebounds per minute continue to be a big plus. He’ll be fine.

3. Overall, I thought we should have shot more 3s. As I expect to be the case throughout the year, we struggle against taller front lines. At least today we only struggled to score, whereas they didn’t really punish us on the other end by scoring a bunch with their bigs.

A week off before a game against Lafayette, with a quick turnaround at Temple. Hopefully a good week of practice will sharpen the fellas up! Rock Chalk!

So partly because I just love reading these boards so much and am trying to jump start a little pre-game conversation, I thought it would be fun to get a thread going about what we were expecting for the upcoming game and maybe picking a “Hawk to Rock” Any other suggestions are welcome; I think it’s espn that has on one of their segments or stories “bold predictions”. Maybe going forward we could incorporate it into @wrwlumpy 's fantastic posts about our next opponents. But for the sake of today I just started a new thread.

Prediction: KU wins 74-60. The TCU game gave Self plenty to preach about and should grab the guys’ attention. It is almost the equivalent of coming off a loss.

Hawk to Rock: Brannen Greene. After failing to launch a 3 in the last game, he’s got to have itchy trigger fingers. Playing before a rowdy home crowd, I expect to see the 3 to the temple sign from him multiple times running back down the court.

@joeloveshawks I think you’re spot on in your assessment of Cliff. He’s not going to learn a bunch of back-to-the basket moves that transform him into Wayne Simien this season. He’s not going to develop a face-up jumper he can hit consistently. Those things will only come with many reps during the off-season.

That being said, he can still improve this season. The game could still slow down for him and situations become familiar enough to him to where he is simply reacting rather than thinking. This is what is preventing him from playing more minutes. This is what is causing him to foul with such frequency. Remember TRob his freshman year? Kind of the same thing.

Now TRob didn’t really start figuring it out until his sophomore season, but he was also playing less than half as much as Cliff is. TRob was the 4th big, behind Cole and both Morris twins. He averaged 7.2 mpg. Cliff is averaging 18.5 mpg, which puts him at 3rd among the bigs. So Cliff is getting substantially more on the job training, and my hope is that it does finally “click” for him. His scoring might not go up all that much, but that’s not all that big of a deal to me.

I’ve said all along that Cliff is the only player that can be paired with Perry to make Perry better. Perry needs a true low post presence alongside him in the post to optimize his game. Perry can’t be placed on the low blocks all game long. Traylor is not a low-block player. Lucas lacks the skill to draw enough attention down low. Cliff is the only one who can take up space in the post and allow Perry the freedom to play the type of game that maximizes his abilities. Cliff can do the dirty work down low - defend and rebound - so that it doesn’t fall on Perry and take its toll on him. And Cliff must be accounted for down low by the defense, because while he may not have a lot of scoring moves or shooting range, he can get the ball and power to the hoop. No one else on this team can do that regularly. This is the main reason why I feel that Cliff “figuring it out” and being able to be depended on to play more minutes is the key to this season. Not because of the direct benefits Cliff offers, but because of the ancillary benefit of getting the most out of Perry. Like Self says, when he’s on Perry is our best player. A consistent, productive Cliff would help him be “on” more often, imo.

This is to say nothing of the fact that I think it is pretty unlikely that any team can win 6 games in March without at least one legit low-post guy. Cliff is that guy. No one else can be. Consider how he played against Texas, then try to imagine winning that game without him. Against Texas’ big front line. Now flash forward to the tournament and say we run into someone with that size. Like Stanford last year. Or Kentucky.

The perimeter play is solid. I don’t worry about that, even when figuring in a poor shooting night. So I disagree that our perimeter play is what a Final 4 run will hinge on. I would say that our perimeter play is the foundation from which such a run can be built on. But hinge on? I think it much more hinges on us needing a solid performance in the post and whether anyone can deliver one. We know Cliff is capable - again, the Texas game. Now, can he do it in March? Will he be able to play well enough to give him 25-30 minutes?

It’s questions like these that make me wish there were bigger teams in the Big 12 for Cliff to cut his teeth against.

@Crimsonorblue22 The one thing I’d say about Cliff and being highly ranked is that we have NEVER seen a post player come in and play at a really high level as a freshman under Self. Granted, Cliff was higher ranked coming out of high school than any other post player Self has recruited, but that only means he was higher ranked in comparison to other players in his class. He might have been ranked lower in a different class. So it’s all relative. I think prior to Cliff, Darrell Arthur was the highest ranked post player Self had brought in. #16 by Rivals in 2006, and if memory serves he was #9 by ESPN (they only go back so many years, and 2007 is the cut-off right now). Cole was #30 by Rivals in 2007 and #13 by ESPN.

Anyway, enough about the rankings and back to freshman post players under Self. A great deal of the time, freshman have had to sit and wait their turn. Cole was buried on the bench as the 4th big. TRob was in the same boat, behind Cole & the Morris Twins. Perry’s play was so uninspiring that he couldn’t overtake Kevin Young. Jeff Withey, despite transferring and having a year in the system before he was eligible to see the court, still was invisible for a year and half before he developed enough and playing time opened up.

So with a great many post players from years past, we don’t have a baseline for how they perform as freshman because they didn’t see significant minutes. It is likely they were no better than Cliff.

Perry’s situation is an interesting parallel to Cliff’s. In the '12-'13 season, most fans were debating how we had to have Perry emerge as a scoring presence at the 4 to maximize that team’s potential. Perry was clearly more talented than Young. Sound familiar? We’re having the same discussion this year about Cliff needing to emerge and overtake Jamari & Landon. But Young was doing more things right as a senior than Perry was as a freshman, so Perry averaged only 13.6 mpg, 5.8 ppg, and 3.9 rpg.

Another comparison in terms of playing time as a freshman would be Marcus Morris. Following the exodus of players from the '08 title team there was an opening for a post player to garner significant minutes. Again if memory serves, Self flipped back-and-forth between both Morris twins starting, but Marcus ended up playing a bit more that year. His stats for a contributing freshman were 18.5 mpg, 7.4 ppg, and 4.7 rpg.

Arthur is another who saw similar playing time his freshman year. I think he was at one time a starter, then deferred himself to a role off the bench. He averaged 19.0 mpg, 9.8 ppg, and 4.7 rpg.

Compare Perry, Marcus, & Shady to Cliff who is averaging 18.6 mpg, 7.9 ppg, 5.6 rpg.

So to answer to your questions: no I don’t think this is the best Cliff’s got nor do I think we’d be better off with another freshman taking his minutes next year. Cliff is playing about at the level I’d expect for a freshman post player under Self. We’ve seen how other players have had similar struggles as freshman and turned out pretty good. Replacing him with another freshman (Bragg or someone else) would most likely not yield better results than Alexander as a sophomore.

That being said, I think it’s 50-50 right now that we lose him to the NBA after this year, so the discussion might be purely academic.

@HighEliteMajor I understand fully where you’re coming from. As I’ve said previously, I get that you’re a big picture guy. I am too, to an extent. I just don’t believe in sacrificing all the joy out off the season at the expense of focusing on the big picture.

I’ve ran it down like this before, but we have 3 NCAA championships in our history. If that truly is all that matters, why be a fan of a sport and a team that most years are going to leave you disappointed? I’m not saying that shouldn’t be our goal every year, but the reality is it’s not going to happen very often. Acknowledging this, for me the only options are to be miserable most years, quit watching, or to…dare I say…enjoy the ride?

And for me, enjoying the ride doesn’t mean turning a blind eye to the team’s issues. Others, yourself included, usually do a better job of covering the issues. My post was merely a way of giving everyone a look at the other side of the coin. Because like I said, i watched the game yesterday and I was more impressed with Perry & Devonte then I was disappointed in Cliff and the lack of 3s attempted.

To anyone pining for Ol’ Roy, what’s his record against Self? What’s UNC’s record this year? Maybe it’s that people want '97/'03 Roy back. Good luck with that.

Much as I asked that people not go overboard after the Lafayette win (I think some were stitching Hunter’s name & number on banners), we also shouldn’t overreact to one loss, no matter how ugly, that was on the road two days after the Lafayette game. I don’t disagree with some of the analysis, I just think some of the emotional reaction is over-the-top and unjustified.

@konkeyDong Looks to be some guy who comments on the kusports.com site. Some silly back-and-forth going on over there. Every time I check that site I tell myself not to scroll down to the comments. When I do I am always disappointed - in humanity and in myself.

Glad we got this one in the bag. Even though most of me didn’t believe it possible, a small part of me would wake me up out of a deep sleep in a panic thinking about @HighEliteMajor 's recruiting apocalypse.

I’m kind of torn on whether I’d want the rumored package deal including Brown and Ingram or not. For starters, why would two guys who play the same position (Brown & Ingram are both listed as small forwards) commit to the same school as part of some package deal? Seems odd. Also, I like our perimeter guys now, and next year we should be good there even if Oubre leaves. If he returns it could be a special group, similar to RussRob, Chalmers, Rush, & Collins (the gold standard for a perimeter rotation, IMO). And lastly, using 2 schollies on any combination of perimeter players seems unwise at this point.

However, I can envision a scenario (or combination of scenarios) wherein signing Brown & Ingram is a good move. Call it the “perimeter apocalypse”.

1. Oubre leaves. Wouldn’t shock anybody if this happens, maybe the most likely domino to fall.

2. Svi goes back overseas. I don’t think this is likely, but remember how smooth the guy looked early on? And now his PT has vanished. Probably just due to Self’s shrinking rotation, but just for the “apocalypse’s sake”, maybe Self has a notion that this is a real possibility, and therefore has decided against developing him further. Even if this doesn’t explain his vanishing minutes, it could still be in the cards.

3. Brannen’s defense never improves. I’d like to think that by year 3 the guy would be at least a servicable defender, but even if that’s the case…is that good enough? One thing that has defined some of Self’s better teams is that excellent wing defender. If Oubre and Svi both leave and Greene is the de facto starter next year, can we think of a weaker defender at the 3 that Greene during Self’s tenure?

4. Wayne never regains the explosiveness following his knee injury. So maybe Greene is a mediocre-at-best wing defender, we still have Wayne right? I like to think he has the height and skills to eventually become a lock-down defender. Well it’s possible he never recovers to the point that he can be the stopper we need against elite wings.

So given these conditions, our perimeter rotation would be Mason & Graham (very good there), Selden, & Greene. Not horrible, but given this I could see Self bringing in OAD Brown in hopes that he provides an upgrade over Greene, and stashing Ingram away for a more long-term solution.

I still think the more prudent use of schollies is to continue stockpiling bigs, with my personal preference being Zimmerman due to his height, with Diallo or Rabb being smaller but very nice consolation prizes. Now how Self convinces more bigs to come if Alexander stays and Ellis back and Bragg coming in, we’ll see.

Regarding Ellis, another musing from my own roster apocalypse scenarios: Ellis may be in line to graduate in 3 years. I don’t know if this is the case, I just know he’s very smart (high school valedictorian I believe). But if he is, he then has the option to go the Tarik Black route and transfer without having to sit out a year. Now what if Gregg Marshal tells him he’ll feature him in his offense, maybe even play him at the 3. Any coach could entice him, I just use Marshal as an example because he’d love nothing more than to stick his thumb in the eye of KU. And while it seems unlikely, I never thought I’d see Self show the door to a would-be senior until last year with Tharpe.

Anyway, yay Bragg!

So it’s 3 in the morning and I can’t sleep so I mosey over to the computer and check my Facebook page. On the right hand side of the page under the “trending” box and see Tarik Black’s name. I start reading about how he helped lead the Kobe-less Lakers to victory with 14 pts on 4-4 shooting from the field, 6-7 from the line, while grabbing 9 boards in 17 minutes of play, all stats coming in the second half.

To be honest with you, I didn’t even know Black had found a soft landing after being let go by the Rockets. Good for him. I did read that the Lakers have until Wednesday to decide whether to keep Black and lock in his contract, or place him on waivers. Ironic that it was the waiving of injured former 'hawk Xavier Henry that the Lakers used to create the roster space for Black in the first place. Here’s to hoping Black can continue to impress and stick in the league.

And while I won’t run down every Jayhawk in the league, I also saw that Wiggins had an impressive outing with 20 points, 7 rebounds, 5 assists, 2 steals, and 0 turnovers in a loss to the Bucks. Idk, the 5 assists in particular stood out so I thought it worth mentioning.

@KUinLA said:

First, Selden-- At this point, he’s just phoning it in. He’s to the point where he realizes Bill’s game will do nothing to showcase his talents so he’s just gonna bide his time (and not risk injury) and try his luck in the combines next spring. He’s already checked out.

Really? Self’s game does nothing to showcase Wayne’s talents? First of all, I guess I’m curious as to what talents Wayne has that are being stymied by HCBS and his system. Outside shooting? No, that can’t be it, as Selden has shot more 3s than anyone on the team. Attacking the rim/dribble drive? No, Oubre & Mason seem to have no problem doing that in Self’s system, and the only problem Selden has “showcasing” that talent is that he has routinely clanged dunk attempts off of his own drives. Ball handling/passing/running the offense? No, he was given every opportunity to assume more of a “lead guard” role when Graham went out, yet he has shown to be fairly mediocre. Defense? Thought maybe this was where he could shine, and maybe elevate his game at that end of the floor to that of a lock-down perimeter defender. Instead he’s been up and down, with last night being one of his valleys while showing a complete lack of hustle and focus. Leadership? We all thought this could be “Wayne’s team”. Unfortunately, you have to step up and perform like one. General opportunity? No, despite a crowded perimeter Wayne has played the second most minutes on the team, trailing only Mason.

Really, what skill are you wanting to see that Selden possesses but think he’s been denied the opportunity?

Secondly, Selden has had plenty of games where he has successfully showcased the type of player he’s capable of being. Against Florida he scored 21. He had a stat stuffer game against Rhode Island where he went for 10 pts, 7 rebs, 4 asts, 2 blks, & 1 stl. The problem has been consistently getting quality performances out of him.

I know your reality is that Self sucks and is the cause of every shortcoming you perceive. I don’t worship the guy, and will readily acknowledge his actual failures or voice my concerns with any philosophies/strategies/moves that I disagree with. But I just don’t know what logic there is in saying Selden’s lack of success is because he thinks he can’t succeed in Self’s system.

Off the topic of Selden, but I’m not sure how posting the names “Lucas and Traylor” is evidence that Bill is still forcing the inside game. They played 19 & 15 minutes, respectively. Likely would have been less had Perry been able to play more than 7 first half minutes. Lucas attempted no shots, and Traylor attempted 5. Yeah…that stubborn Self. Trying to butter his bread with 5 shots from those guys! Again, no logic behind that. If anything, omitting Perry & Cliff, the two productive post players, and only citing the two that struggled (again, with very limited attempts) only serves to highlight your bias and undermine whatever point you were trying to make by simply saying “Lucas and Traylor”.

Losses frustrate me too. But as HEM stated, this wasn’t another Temple. ISU is a good team. I had this pegged as a loss going in. No shame in losing on the road to them.

@jayballer54 Time to exit stage left. This is the kind of clownish behavior that drove so many posters from kusports.com. You ask “someone please help me understand…” then when someone offered you explanations you were a jerk. And as he said, an explanation with facts and numbers. But you can just keep telling everyone how quiet you thought it was and then begging people to help you understand. SMH…

@JayHawkFanToo Yeah I loved your whack-a-hawk picture you made. Good stuff.

As to Perry, I get that maybe he hasn’t lived up to everyone’s expectations. Part of it is that so many of us followed his pre-KU career for a long time, and just want him to succeed so much that when he stumbles we are overly critical. Kind of like coaching your own kid in little league - we feel we have more of an emotional investment in the guy. So like the parent/coach, we are harder on him than other players. Part of it is the guys who have came before him set the bar very high, particularly the guy who immediately preceded him - TRob. And Perry doesn’t fit the same mold as TRob or either of the Morris twins. He’s probably the most finesse 4 we’ve had under Self. Doesn’t make him a bad player, but because he doesn’t fit our stereotype of the Self 4 man, he routinely gets labeled as soft.

So while Perry is definitely more finesse than other 4s, I’ll offer this in his defense - has there ever been a post player paired with a more inadequate front court partner as Ellis has been, or front court teammates even? The only times that compare are Withey being paired with Kevin Young, and Simien his senior year with Christian Moody. TRob had Withey, the Morris twins had each other with TRob off the bench, and prior to that had Cole. Shady and Jackson had each other with Kaun & Cole backing them up. Etc. Perry has an even more so undersized Jamari Traylor, an under-skilled Landon Lucas, afterthought Hunter Mickelson, and another smaller 4 freshman in Cliff that has yet to truly click. He probably hasn’t been able to develop good chemistry with any of them.

My hope is that Cliff does finally “get it”, and soon. He’s the only guy that can help make Perry a better player. He’s the only one who can help shoulder some of the load down low that will allow Perry to play more within himself and not trying to carry the torch for our entire post scoring and rebounding.

@jaybate-1.0

• I have no idea about the benches of UK & Duke, but my guess is there will probably be at least one from each school’s bench to jump.

• I was looking at mock drafts earlier this morning while posting on the recruiting thread, and all the mock draft boards I saw still had Cliff as a 1st round pick. Not in the lottery mind you, but not so low that I think he would have to concern himself with falling out of the 1st round at this point. I’m torn about 50-50 as to whether I think he’ll make the jump or not. Obviously, I feel another year in college to work on his back-to-the-basket game and possibly develop a face-up jumper would be best, but like Jay Bilas says “some of these guys will turn pro before they’re found out.” Being drafted on potential is almost always better than being drafted as a known quantity, because almost no one lives up to the hype. The longer Cliff stays in college, the more he will be drafted as a known quantity and less on potential.

• I disagree about the job Coach K has done this season. If it were Self and he had the resume Coach K has this season, we’d be explaining away the losses on these boards as a young team being inconsistent, how this is to be expected with this much “green wood”, how obviously Rasheed Sulaimon was a distraction and now that he’s been dismissed from the team it will lead to better chemistry, etc. As I detailed in the thread about how our season will end, while discussing potential #1 seeds I posted how they’ve beaten Wisconsin, Louisville, and Virginia, all on the road. Consider also that UK has had some very close calls in the SEC with their 9 OAD/TADs, and the ACC is an infinitely tougher conference right now. Worst coaching job? Nah, I wouldn’t say that.

• Either Jam Tray gets a hair cut, or he gets the tape from the Texas game and makes sure every hair is in the identical place to where it was then.

• Brannen is a stud, and I sincerely hope he continues to get more minutes this year and next year has the opportunity to start if Kelly leaves.

@KUinLA Predictable.

Do you only show up after losses to blast Self? Has anyone EVER seen this guy (or girl, idk I guess) come in here and offer anything constructive, or contribute to a debate, or to celebrate a victory?

I haven’t, dating back to the kusports site…

Part of the enjoyment of being a KU fan is we win a heck of a lot more than we lose. Feel free to embrace the good once in awhile too.

Or not. See you after the next loss.

It is doubtful that it “clicks” for Alexander this year. That the game slows down for him and he can consistently be counted on. I’ve detailed before how every other post player under Self, with the exception of Embiid (not a comparison @wrwlumpy, just a contrast), has struggled their freshman seasons. So if we were banking on Cliff progressing enough to put us over the top, we were always likely to be disappointed.

Should we have expected more? Because he was ranked #3 coming out of high school? The more I watch him this year, the more I wonder why he was that highly ranked. And I’m not saying he can’t still be a very good player. But what did we see from him in high school that would leave us to believe he was going to be better than he has been out of the gate? A lot of dunks against smaller players. We saw that. Some impressive “man’s rebounds”. We saw that. Some crowd-hyping swats. We saw that. But again, we didn’t see an over abundance of skill. Post moves. Footwork. Jump shot. A high basketball IQ. None of that. All we saw was an ability to overpower high school players. In many ways, he is more of a project than Embiid ever was.

I’ll admit that I too was one of the fans that thought the season hinged on Cliff. However, my thinking was that we needed Cliff to get more out of Ellis. That Cliff was the only player we had that could be paired with Ellis that could make Ellis better. Cliff could do the “dirty work” - rebounding and defense - and that would allow Perry to focus solely on carrying the scoring load in the post. However, I no longer believe that. Of course it would still be nice if Cliff could pick up some of the slack, but Self has brilliantly toughened Perry up and got him operating at a high level without a proficient running mate in the post. It is no longer incumbent on Cliff elevating his game.

Failure to have a second reliable post option still might mean curtains for us in the big dance. But because of Perry’s recent play I no longer believe that to be a certainty, and for that reason I won’t be holding any Bruce Weber-esque funerals for the '14-'15 season. Not today.

Given the events in Ferguson & New York, now really isn’t the time to be “interfering with duties of an officer.” That’s the scariest part to me.

@HighEliteMajor I think you mean to say “YOU’RE still chicken.”

Regardless, if you believe that, you’ve been drinking a little bit too much of what Shocker & Misery fans have been ladling out. And it sounds ridiculous and immature.

@drgnslayr Man…Perry is one of the very few bright spots and you still can’t help getting in a few digs at the guy. It’s starting to feel like a mob mentality on this site with everyone’s criticisms of the guy. Not saying the guy is above criticism, but he’s the only player to be mentioned in your post by name, once in a negative light (body language), and the other a backhanded compliment (being ready, made mistakes/energy). And I don’t mean for this to come off as a personal attack on you. I’ve seen other posters bash him after last night too. Someone said something to the effect of “yeah he had a good game, but he’ll disappear in the next one…”. Sorry, that’s not verbatim and I’m not gonna track it down, but you get my point. Just think we should hope he keeps that momentum going rather than nitpicking a good performance.

And I don’t know that quoting Bilas from last night proves anything, as he repeated said we needed to get the ball inside even though that isn’t one of our strengths. Someone else mentioned ESPN referencing our dominant front court. It’s like they’re using the same old talking points, or just looking down and seeing Perry leading our team in scoring (or being second to Mason, as is now the case) and deciding it must be because we’ve been so good with our post play. Generally I like Bilas; he calls it like he sees it, especially with the refs when so many of his colleagues parse their words on the subject. But the last couple of years he’s become arrogant (or more arrogant) and I think sometimes he acts a bit too much like an ESPN celebrity and perhaps isn’t doing his homework as much as he did in the past. Still take him over Vitale!

To your question, I think we know how to win it. Last night didn’t shake that too much for me. Not sure why you think ISU is overhyped. It’s basically the same team as last year, minus Kane but plus a new crop of transfers. Ames is the second toughest venue in the league, after AFH. In my book Hoiberg is the second best coach in the league. It took 50% shooting at home to beat us by 5. Because it was so close it feels and qualifies as a missed opportunity, but hey…at least they weren’t blown out by 30 and don’t have to transfer far away

@drgnslayr It’s two separate arguments.

I guess what I’m saying is not that I have a problem with Tech bringing it’s best against ISU, but with ISU not bringing its best against Tech.

I care about our opponents, as in the opponents we’re playing at the time, bringing their best game against us because I think it better prepares us for the NCAA tournament. I don’t care if someone is preparing ISU for the tournament, because I don’t care about them as a team.

But what I do care about in regards to ISU is being a team at the top of the conference and losing to a bottom feeder. It serves to call into question how good the top of the league really is, and therefore how good KU is. Here’s an article from ESPN that might help illustrate my point a bit better:

How Good is the Big 12?

Now we can dismiss it as ESPN taking a dump all over the Big 12 because they’re not Kentucky or the ACC, but I think it raises fair questions. I’m concerned about how many teams the conference will get in come tournament time, and the seeding those teams will get.

What’s good for the conference is good for KU. Because we are not only competing for recruits against teams like Kentucky and Duke, but we’re also competing against conferences. Duke can say “come here and you’ll play against UNC, Syracuse, Louisville, etc.” Teams with national championships and Final Four appearances within most the lifetime of current recruits. I just think it would be nice if someone in our conference could have a small modicum of success that would make it more attractive as a basketball conference.

As for getting help, I’m fully aware we have gotten some help over the years. But what has felt better: winning the thing on our own merits or backing into it because Texas (or whoever) blew a game they should have won? And I won’t root for other top teams in the conference to lose just because it might make our road easier. I would prefer to do our own work.

I think it ends in a loss. I think we can win a national championship, but I think that is a low possibility.

I would think with an elite 8 I wouldn’t feel like we underachieved. I’d be disappointed, but it wouldn’t be one of the tournament failures that we point to like VCU, UNI, etc.

I would be happy with a Final 4.

As @wissoxfan83 said, relying heavily on 3s can lead to early exits (Duke knows all about this), and even if Cliff progresses enough to give us another legit 25+ mpg post presence, I still see us being outed by a bigger team should we go cold from the outside. Something that might play into that is that it seems teams struggle shooting from the outside due to the cavernous shooting backgrounds of the larger venues where games are held at as you go deeper into the tournament.

I don’t think we’ll get bounced out too early, simple because for the first time in a few seasons we have exceptional guard play, particularly at the PG spot. We’re also very deep on the perimeter, so we can afford a bad night from one or two of our starters (Selden and/or Oubre) and replace them with quality back-ups (Greene and/or Graham).

So I guess I’d say sweet 16 should be our basement, ground floor of an elite 8, top floor of a Final 4, with an outside shot to hit our ceiling and win a national championship.

@drgnslayr Good post, but just like the initial post on this thread one thing caught my eye that I want to delve deeper into. You said “The last thing we want to do is ask anything more from Wayne. He is just recovering from his slump. Let him be and let him continue to work on Wayne.”

You said he’s recovering. A day or two ago HEM said he was trending up. I disagree. No doubt he’s found his outside stroke. That’s a big deal; I don’t want to discount that at all. But is it enough to consider him as trending up, or to be recovering from a slump? Is he even in a slump, or is this who he is now? He doesn’t rebound the ball. He is deficient handling the ball. He can’t find offense inside the arc. And his defense is inconsistent. Is ANY part of his game what we thought it would be? A top 10, McD’s all-American out of high school, and when his outside shot is falling he’s maybe on the same level as Brannen Greene. Perhaps it is shocking to make that comparison, but when looking at it objectively - Brannen is a better ball handler, a better rebounder (averaging almost twice the rebounds per minute as Selden), he actually averages more points per minute than Wayne. Selden still probably has him on defense, but not by as much as we might initially think, and he is the better passer. It’s actually pretty remarkable considering how little PT Brannen has gotten in spurts, that he’s on par with this 2-year starter who has gotten 30 mpg from the get-go.

I’m not saying this to bag on Wayne. I feel bad for him. For whatever reason he’s not the player we thought he’d be. Could very well be injuries. His lack of springs is evident. Could also be in part a hangover from last year. Initially he was the crown jewel of the recruiting class. Then Embiid starts coming on, and Wiggins signs, and suddenly he’s the 4th option behind those two and Perry. I just wonder if psychologically he’s never gotten over the expectations to be “the man” of the freshman class to being almost the forgotten man of last year’s team.

Anyway, that’s kind of my “state of Wayne” address. I just don’t buy that his recent outside shooting signals an uptick in his overall game. Could be, as coach Self would say, fool’s gold. Masking the glaring deficiencies that have plagued him most of the year.

So the other part of that quote was the “ask anything more” part. You spend a great deal of the remainder of your post making the case for Frank to step up, asking more of him. I don’t disagree that Frank needs to be, and really already is, the team leader. But if anybody needs to have the pressure eased up on him, it’s Frank. The chinks in the armor are starting to show. How much more of the burden of this team’s success can possibly be piled on his shoulders before he breaks?

A team meeting would be a good thing at this point. But rather than saying “Frank, we’re counting on you to lead us” I would much rather the other key members of this team be held accountable for stepping back. It’s up to all of them to hold each other accountable for this and make sure it doesn’t continue to happen.

@HighEliteMajor I agree with a lot of your post - we can’t win big (deep NCAA tourney run) with Traylor as our #2 post player, that the season likely rides on Cliff, etc.

But this is on Cliff, not Self. The first time Traylor comes in watch the sequence that precedes it. At 18:10 there’s a rebound that comes off that Cliff has clear position, yet gets it taken away by the TCU player. This led to a wide open Kyan Anderson 3-point attempt, which (fortunately) he missed and the rebound also came Cliff’s way and he makes almost no effort on the play. Perry ends up with it. This leads to Mason trying to drive 3 on 1, and gets it blocked. Anderson pushes it down the floor, goes to the hole and dishes to Kenrich Williams for a lay-up. Cliff was right there, either to try and stop Anderson or to challenge Williams, but instead gets turned around on the pass and just kind of lazily spins to the baseline to inbound the ball. It was some of the worst effort I’ve seen. I was appalled. I wouldn’t have blamed Self is he would have kept Cliff out the entire remainder of the game. It was that inexcusable. I was livid in my living room, so I can only imagine how Self must have felt on the sideline watching his “prized recruit” turn in such a piss-poor effort.

This is just an example. Another time he weakly challenged Brandon Parrish on a fast break and Parrish got an “and 1” hoop and the free throw. A little while later he takes an ill-advised baseline jump shot. And so on, and so on…

We talked earlier this week on how raw Cliff is from a skill standpoint. Terrible footwork, no go-to move, no face up jump shot, etc. So basically he’s…a rich-man’s Jamari Traylor? He has to earn his minutes with defense and rebounding, two areas that don’t require great skill to be successful but do require energy, hustle, heart, etc. I didn’t see it from him today. Today I saw what Self referred to as not playing with a motor.

So really, I don’t disagree that this may be why seasons die. But I might disagree that it’s because Traylor is viewed as a better option. Maybe he IS a better option. Which is simultaneously a referendum on Traylor and Alexander.

I live in Wichita and while it is definitely not a college town, it is a decent place to live. Anyone who has problems finding good restaurants, hotels, or bars either got done bum advice on which establishments to frequent, is overly biased, or just lazy.

There’s a lot of cool things to do here. Independent league baseball, indoor stems football, and my favorite: minor league hockey.

A few years ago they opened the new Intrust Bank Arena and that attracts lots of cool events such as concerts and if I’m not mistaken they were finally able to attract the NCAA to use it as a future site for 2nd & 3rd round games.

As a parent, I can say Wichita offers a lot more than any other city in Kansas. Zoos, exploration place, parks, youth sporting leagues, YMCAs, etc.

Wichita also offers a lot more blue collar employment opportunities than any other city in the state. Hard working residents are able to earn a decent living here.

Again, Wichita is not a college town, so from a student perspective KU & Lawrence are better hands down. But as an adult in my mid 30s with a 6 year old son, you wouldn’t be able to get me to move up to Lawrence (unless you offered me season tickets to men’s bball )

So Jaybate mentions the steep learning curve ahead for this team, and it got me to thinking - with a relative let-up in the schedule difficulty, what does Self work on or “install” next? Press break has received a lot of attention, do we think maybe there will be extra focus on that? Or will it be a continued focus on defense (we know Self would love for nothing else than to always be improving his team’s defensive toughness). Let me know what you think we are, or should be working on.

Individually, these are the things I’d like to see some of the players working on within their own games:

1. Perry Ellis - finishing & rebounding with contact. In practice he is guarded 100% of the time by Tarik Black who has been told fouls are not a concern.

2. Wiggins - dribbling in crowds. Let the scout team/coach’s sons run some zone against him and tell him to get to the rim.

3. Embiid - continue to get comfortable with mid-range face-up jumpers. Keep watching Olajewon tapes. Also maybe have somebody assigned to randomly cheap shot him every day in practice to build resistance against retaliation.

4. Selden - tighten up jump shot mechanics. I believe coach Townsend is the guy to see in this respect. Also, I’d love for him to see spot duty in practice at the point. Just in case Self needs to go big. We saw Smart posting up Mason a couple of times against Okie St, and it would just be a nice safe-guard/tool to have in the bag.

5. Na’ - find some way, any way, to improve M2M defense. I forget which poster used to point out that physically he will always be at a disadvantage, not necessarily/strictly because of his height, but rather his shorter legs/strides (anybody…?). Surely someone has overcome this disadvantage though? Find them and study their tape. Also, him running the break could be a little better.

6. Mason - continue looking to dish off the drive. Saw it a couple times against Faylor, but also saw a couple out of control drives where he threw up a wild shot. I believe both times the shot fell, but that is “fool’s gold” to rely on those shots repeatedly.

7. Jamari - tighten up ball security & passes. Turnovers are a bit high for his MPG. Also, rebounding position. Do your work early young man! (did show improvement of this in the Faylor game).

8. Black - Continued chemistry with Jamari, as his best shot at seeing the court is the two of them playing well together. Seems to have gotten his fouls under control; maintain despite directive to hack-a-Perry.

9. Greene - making the simple play. Playing within himself. This will help limit the mistakes and thus the quick hook by Self. And it’s never a bad idea to develop a killer defensive game. That will keep you on Self’s PT radar as well.

10. Frankamp - See Greene. We know you are both great shooters. Enhance your game to give Self a reason to play you, not a reason to take you out.

In other news, Wooden/Naismith favorite Doug McDermott, senior forward for the Creighton Jays, scored 45 points while also dealing out a measly 2 assists. Jeez, what a selfish, solo game performing, not making his teammates better performance. Probably just his daddy trying to improve his draft stock and earn him all kinds of awards. He’s probably garbage.

@jaybate 1.0 Well, Wiggins & Selden are only freshman. Take a player like Kane, who in 3 seasons at Marshall shot 31.8%, 25%, & 24.8% (that’s progressing from freshman to junior seasons). Naz Long shot 27.8% last year as a freshman. Markel Brown shot 26.2%, 31.9%, 36.4% his first three years at OSU. I’m not even going to bother with Smart, who we know isn’t a good jump shooter, or Stevie Clark, who had limited attempts before being kicked off the team. Even the best sharpshooter on your list - Phil Forte - shot 33.8% last year as a freshman.

So Wiggins & Selden are actually shooting better as freshman than everyone on your list.

The following excerpt is from a Grantland article where they graded NBA teams in the offseason (btw, if you don’t already you should really spend some time on Grantland. The writing is better, more in-depth, and often times very humorous):

"One of the funny parts about spending way too much time on the Internet is that sometimes you initially agree with a criticism, but then everybody starts talking about it and tweeting about it, one-upping each other with hotter takes, and eventually the opinions get taken so far that you can’t help but double back and start defending what you were initially criticizing.That’s what happened with Daryl Morey this week.

It went like this:

• “Wow, the Rockets really looked like idiots in the end this summer.” (Yep.) • “Morey isn’t as invincible as everyone says he is.” (100 percent.) • “What happened this summer was a colossal mistake.” (Umm …) • “Morey’s just a product of incestuous media putting him on a pedestal. He’s never been that great” (OK.) • “Seven years in Houston, and Morey’s made the second round once. Why doesn’t anyone write an article about THAT?” [Backing away slowly] • “FINALLY, the myth of Morey is being exposed.” (Wait, what?) • “Will the Rockets even make the playoffs this year?” (WHAT?)"

I feel this is what has happened to me with the Wiggins trade. Here I am defending the legitimacy of it to DoubleDD, when the fact is I don’t want it to happen, and I’m not even sure it should happen.

All due respect to @HighEliteMajor, but to me it’s not a “no-brainer”, and there is plenty of room for debate. The first thing that I’d say to ANYONE quoting stats is - did you watch him play? If you didn’t, spare me the fantasy basketball line. After that I’d ask anyone that thinks it is a no-brainer if they know how this team looks. Do they know how LeBron & Irving are going to co-exist, how they’re going to space the floor. Do they know the team’s strengths & weaknesses. No? And because we don’t know how this team will look, do we know how Kevin Love will fit in with it? Is he a sure thing with this team? Do we see a stat drop like we saw with Bosh when he left the Raptors for the Heat? Can three guys such as LBJ, Irving, & Love, who all demand the ball and are volume type scorers, play together effectively?

I get that it’s the known commodity vs potential debate (I’ve been essentially extolling the virtues of trading for the known commodity with my most recent post to DoubleDD), so it may seem like I’m flip-flopping, or arguing to argue, or playing devil’s advocate to everyone on the site. But my position has been wait and see. Maybe out of my fear of Wiggins landing in Minnesota. I know sentimentally, I want Wiggins to stay in Cleveland because I think it will be best for his development. Objectively, I think at the end of the day you probably make this trade, but still there’s no harm in waiting other than maybe Wiggins gets hurt and you can’t do the deal. I just think it’s too quick to assume what’s best for a group of players we’ve never seen play together.

@HighEliteMajor said:

Willie Cauley-Stein: Cauley-Stein’s mom said she didn’t understand why Self didn’t recruit him harder. Self said, well, if we got Cauly-Stein we would not have gotten Embiid. Interesting. Because we have neither one right now.

Well a couple things. First of all, no one saw Embiid’s meteoric rise making him a OAD. When we signed him we were thinking project, not OAD lottery pick.

The other thing I’d ask Cauly-Stein’s mom was “did you see your son play in high school?” I did a few times, and he was garbage. Passive. Inactive. Lazy. That could have had something to do with it.

@HighEliteMajor said:

I’m sure someone can make the case not to play WSU. But you’d have to work at it.

How about we’re not going to let some chump commuter school dictate terms to us and try and pressure us in the media into playing them? If nothing else, I’m for not playing them on principle.

Let’s get this straight - WSU needs this game. We (KU) do not. When one party needs something from another party, the way to go about that is not to act like a bunch of entitled obnoxious ingrates. In short, you’ll catch more flies with honey.

Think of it like this - it sets a bad precedent that we can basically be bullied by these non-entities into playing them. IF the game ever happens, it needs to be because we wish it so.

(I also am 100% in agreement with us never playing Misery again)

@HighEliteMajor I agree with the vast majority of your post. However, I think you are misinterpreting yesterday’s game to make your point.

Without re-watching the game (which I might have time for tomorrow), did we really “pound the ball inside” yesterday in the second half? Ellis finished with 7 shots, 4 of which were shot in the first half. Lucas with 2 shots, 1 in each half. Alexander with 2 shots, 1 in each half. Traylor with 8, 4 of which were in the first half. (all info gathered from the play-by-play on espn.com). That’s our post players, and that’s what I think of when someone says “pound it inside”. It’s true there were some drives by perimeter players - Selden, Mason, Oubre - that resulted in some misses at the rim, but I want that from our perimeter players (the drives anyway, wish they’d finish a few more. Ahem…Selden…ahem). I think most of us have lamented the lack of dribble penetration in Self’s teams; that we feel our perimeter guys have been too outside shot heavy (Xavier springs to mind with this criticism). I’m actually excited that we have some guys that can get to the tin and create offense off the bounce.

I do want more 3 attempts and an offense designed to create those attempts, but I don’t think it was clear instructions to pound it inside that nearly cost us the game yesterday. Poor defense on Wright, not scheming more for Perry, and turnovers were all culprits I’d rank above trying to play inside-out as reasons for the near collapse. The defense part in particular was the single biggest reason, leading me to question your assessment of this team as “dominant” defensively. They’ve shown flashes, it’s true. But they had one guy in double figures. When one guy can almost single-handedly erase a 20 point lead, well it’s not dominance. Maybe just a bad half defensively by Wayne, but I’d also hope we could come up with something to stop that.

@HighEliteMajor I’d throw Graham in with the good. I think our best perimeter line-up is hands down Mason, Graham, & Oubre.

@HighEliteMajor @drgnslayr @JayHawkFanToo and others regarding Wayne. I’m on record as saying I’d replace quite a few of Selden’s minutes with Graham. While not the giant leap forward offensively that Greene potentially gives (emphasis on potentially. If his 3s aren’t falling, it’s really not a step forward at all), it is an upgrade. And it’s a more diverse offensive option than Greene. Paired with Mason & Oubre, you’d now have all 3 perimeter players capable of putting the ball on the floor to get their own shot to go along with plus outside shooting from all 3 players.

And to those of you concerned about losing Selden’s defense and replacing it with Greene’s, Graham is an upgrade from both. He’s a freshman so there are the occasional lapses, but by and large he’s been the superior on-ball defender to both. And him and Oubre are the best two players on the team at creating turnovers.

And lastly, the kind of no-brainer advantage here is that you get your two best ball handlers in the game.

The only drawback is you lose a bit of height by not going with Wayne or Greene, but where is that really an issue? How many college coaches actually post up their guards? Rarely happens. And having two smaller guards in the backcourt worked out well for the '08 team…

I’ve said before that the backcourt of Graham & Mason can lead us to a title before they leave Lawrence. We talk a lot about Self needing to play Cliff more because he is clearly the best option. With Graham-Selden-Greene, the choice is not as clear. But once you look past the window dressing of Selden’s lofty high school ranking and his NBA body, and once we’re done overreacting to one of Brannen’s better performances, clarity can be achieved.

@HighEliteMajor Greene was awesome, again. And I watched him a lot on defense today. He didn’t look too shabby. Definitely not the defensive black hole/liability that he has the reputation for. The only time I got a teensy bit frustrated with him was when he passed up an open 3 (this immediately after having one of his attempts blocked by Ibeh).

And you’re right about Self finding the right mix. Oubre didn’t really have it today. Selden hit a couple of big 3s and had some nice hustle plays, but Self went with Greene & Graham down the stretch. That’s the best late game line-up in my opinion, at least while protecting a lead. Great ball handling & free throw shooting. Graham only cashed in a pair of free throws today for 2 pts, but I still loved having him on the court. I think he runs the team every bit as good as Mason, he provides excellent penetration off the dribble, and his quick hands lead to creating turnovers. And speaking of turnovers, 3? Total? And none from our primary ball handlers? Amazing. How would either of the last two KU squads have finished the year with this kind of PG play?

The other observation I had today was I think Perry was only blocked once, and it was right at the end of the game. I saw someone predicting he’d get it thrown back at least 6 times. Loved seeing that he can still be effective against a much taller front line.

@HighEliteMajor @Crimsonorblue22 Have to weigh in here. I wouldn’t say that Wiggins was selfish. But I do agree with some of what HEM says. He did hunt his shot, but you can’t be considered selfish for hunting your shot if coach is asking you to be the alpha and take more shots, can you? Or if you have 2 stiffs on the perimeter and maybe another guy or two in the post standing around watching you.

I don’t know that selfish guys play lock down defense as freshman. Yeah he didn’t get any Jamari Traylor floor burn awards, but the guy did a lot more to carry last year’s team than anyone else. I know HEM doesn’t care much about them, and I don’t hold them in as high regard as a lot of fans, but we don’t win the Big 12 last year without Wiggins.

I will always wonder what Wiggins could have been like on a team like this year’s squad. With competent point guard play, or playing with a full compliment of back court talent. Which isn’t to say I’m pining for Wiggins on this year’s squad. I just wonder if we might judge him differently if things were different last year.

And to the original point in which he was brought up, Wiggins wasn’t “calling the shots” last year. It is in no way comparable to Turner this year.

@drgnslayr I guess I take the opposite approach to not only the TCU game, but the ISU-Tech game and the league in general. Regarding a WVU loss helping us and making Wednesday’s TCU game being easier had they won - I don’t want anyone’s help and I want everyone to play their “A” game against us. If TCU will have a chip on their shoulder Wednesday…good. Bring it!

As for Tech beating ISU, I prefer the top teams in the league to perform as such. Tech is not an NCAA team, so that game only served to hurt the Big 12’s overall profile.

@HighEliteMajor @wrwlumpy @JayHawkFanToo The answer to the debate is…both viewpoints are correct.

Look, Coach Self is ALWAYS going to have his offense attempt to get looks inside. It’s the system that has won 10 straight conference titles, 1 national championship, and a ridiculous overall winning percentage in his time in Lawrence. He’s not going to abandon it. I’ve said before when some posters were pining for a zone defense last year, but you can’t overhaul your system year-to-year. If you do, you’re not teaching your core principles to the players that are going to be there 2, 3, and 4 years. You can’t establish a foundation. It would lead to inconsistency and I believe would be an overall detriment. So yeah, coach preaches to pound it inside…even when he doesn’t have the adequate personnel. That isn’t going to go away.

However, I doubt Coach Self said “no 3s”, or gave a red or yellow light to his shooters. TCU has an excellent defense, and Trent Johnson is, imo, a pretty decent coach. Just like an offense can run sets to give it’s shooters open looks, a defense can scheme to take away a team’s strengths. So if anyone has even remotely scouted KU, they know we lack the personnel to bang inside, but that we have a stable of excellent shooters. So…what do you think teams are going to game plan to stop? Right. Couple that with Ellis playing limited minutes, and an already locked in defense can focus even more on guarding the perimeter.

I think there is room for frustration, because while we won’t see a system overhaul we could see some tweaks. A play here or there to free shooters. Maybe they did and the plays just got blown up, or weren’t executed properly. I don’t know without re-watching the game (and honestly, does anyone really want to re-watch that game?). Selfs said they played without energy, so perhaps some of the actions they were trying to run were just that ineffective without the same energy. But HEM is right - eight 3-point attempts is too low for this team. However, TCU had something to do with it.

@cragarhawk I see your point, and I agree it will be a travesty. Part of the problem is we don’t have the marquee wins, or at least the perceived marquee wins, like a lot of other programs in contention for #1 seeds have. Consider the following teams resumes:

• Kentucky. Obviously the crushing victory over us (as you say, the #1 RPI team). Undefeated. No-brainer.

• Duke. Wins over Wisconsin, Louisville, and previously unbeaten Virginia. Oh, and all those wins were on the road! Resume building games remaining include Notre Dame and 2 games against UNC.

Unless Duke finishes with I’d say…3 or more losses than we do (currently both teams have 3), I’d say they’re a lock along with Kentucky. So that leaves 2 left. Other teams vying for consideration

• Arizona. Wins against Gonzaga and Utah. Only real resume builder left on schedule is return trip to Utah.

• Virginia. Wins against VCU, UNC, Maryland. Can still improve resume with 2 games against Louisville.

• Gonzaga. Weakest of the teams in consideration. No wins against the top 20 RPI. No remaining games against ranked teams. Thank goodness for the loss to Arizona or we might have another Wichita St on our hands - an undefeated team waltzing into the tourney without having played anybody and gifted a #1 seed.

• Villanova. Win over VCU. Nothing great left on their schedule (away games at Georgetown and Butler).

• Wisconsin. Another weak resume. Biggest RPI wins are neutral site wins over Georgetown and Oklahoma back in November. Bad loss against Rutgers.

And here’s our resume:

• Top 20 RPI wins over Utah, Georgetown, ISU, and Baylor. Two games against WVU on schedule, along with OU and and Baylor. No wins against the RPI top 10.

I think the committee will give a #1 seed to either Gonzaga or Arizona and stick them out west. That leaves one remaining #1 seed. Right now I think it’s Virginia’s to lose, with one loss and games against Louisville plus the ACC tourney where they could draw top 20 RPI opponents Duke, Louisville, UNC, and Maryland.

What hurt us is both Michigan St. and Florida having down years. Obviously it didn’t hurt us too much; we are still the #1 team in the RPI. But those wins don’t carry the same luster as they do a lot of other years.

I think if geography was not a factor, we’d be in consideration for the fourth #1 seed. But since it probably is I think we can take the west’s #1 seed out of consideration. Which is fine with me. The last thing I’d want is a repeat of '07, where we were the #1 seed out west and UCLA was the #2 seed, and we essentially played a road game in the elite 8 against the Bruins.

@globaljaybird I’m not sure who this Rodney is that gets referenced here occasionally. Not sure if he was posting towards the end of my days over there or not, but I don’t remember him from before. I went over to KUsports and found one of his posts, and no, I don’t believe it’s the same guy. KUinLA, or KULA (as he was on kusports) has been posting for years. Different avatar, different language, just don’t think it’s this Rodney character.

And look, I’m not someone who worships Self and thinks he can do no wrong. He has flaws, limitations, makes mistakes, etc. But to focus on those to the exclusion of everything that is great about him as a coach is just a witch hunt. To this guy, it’s like KU has won 83% of its games these last 11+ years in spite of Self, and not because of him.

@BeddieKU23 I notice a lot of fans, in all sports, say something similar to “it wasn’t that we lost as much as how we lost” when voicing their disappointment. I’m sure I’ve done the same thing. I’m genuinely curious though, what KU losses have been easy to accept? How many times have we thought “well, we gave it our best shot” and were not extremely bitter. Go back years and try to think of how many losses haven’t gnawed away at you.

For me, there’s only one and that’s the 2012 championship game against UK. It did still gnaw at me, because it was UK & Calipari and because winning would have meant another NC, but I didn’t come away from that game second guessing Self or the players. I wasn’t questioning the effort or decisions. I didn’t feel like we got jobbed by the refs. Despite the obvious disappointment of losing, I could do nothing but applaud the team.

That’s the only time in recent memory.

Just something that immediately got me thinking while reading your post.

@Crimsonorblue22 I think Lucas was the one who got the stiff-arm, but not 100% sure.

@JayHawkFanToo I know you have.

I’m not saying that the people who have been advocating for the shooting of more 3s are wrong. Today the 3-pt shooting went south, but we’ve had far many more games where it’s been the other way around. The point is, you have to have both. You have to work on both. I think the frustration a lot of fans have is that they don’t think we work on, game plan, or scheme for 3-point looks. And I understand that frustration. But we do have to keep trying to get Perry on track, and get Cliff engaged, and Selden driving, etc.

When watching the '08 championship season DVD one of the things Self says is that we’re much tougher to guard when you have to defend all 5 positions. Have to have balance, or you become easy to defend regardless of whatever screens and actions fans want Self to start running.

@HighEliteMajor No one has suggested we be one-dimensional, no. What is frustrating is that today we have a good game inside, and no not one where we post up back to the basket and score via a traditional post move, but a game that was won via drives, putbacks, and attempts in the paint that drew fouls and netted free throws, and instead of celebrating a win, the good game by Lucas, Selden scoring inside the arc, etc. it’s STILL all about playing outside-in. Instead of just saying “good for Lucas”, it’s about diminishing his performance with the can’t hang our hat on that in March comment. I don’t think anyone here was suggesting we’d found a dominant post presence inside because Lucas had a good game today and that all of our inside troubles were now solved. But today he got the job done. Today that is good enough for me.

You are one of the small handful of posters whose opinions and analysis I follow religiously. I respect your basketball intellect as much as anyone on this site. But really, “that’s what we’re talking about.”??? Feel free to change the narrative a bit.

I’m not saying to convert to the “enjoy the ride” crowd. I know that’s not you, and one of the things I enjoy about your posts is that you have big picture vision. I just think maybe you’ve gotten a little too drawn into this feud.

@DoubleDD Selden done? Now who’s dreaming?

Of course Oubre is most likely gone. I’d say Cliff is 50-50. We’ll have both Mason & Graham for all 4 years of their eligibility. Greene isn’t going anywhere. Selden is sticking around at least another year. Perry is back next year. Lucas back. Svi back. Bragg (not a projected OAD) coming in.

You try and paint a picture like we’re Kentucky, but we’re not. The core of this team will return next year.

Also, you keep trying to characterize the hi-lo offense as “complex”, yet assume that an offense designed to maximize three-point looks can just be thrown together on the fly and easily picked up. Do you have any evidence of this vast discrepancy between the the learning curves of the two systems? Has anyone heard it said that one is “complex” whereas the other would be easy enough to learn? You’re just assuming those things to fit your narrative. Just saying.

@jayhawk-007 I’ve discussed this at length before. First thing I’d ask anybody who is wondering about this is: did you ever watch him play in high school? I did a couple of times, and what I saw was someone incredibly lazy. During a 3 game tournament his senior year. He was the tallest player on the court at all times by at least 4-6 inches. Easily the most athletic guy on the court. I don’t think he cracked 20 pts combined in the 3 games. Wasn’t even what is consider good on the boards. He was able to defend, but again this was against much smaller players so you had to wonder if it was just his height. Basically, he as thoroughly unimpressive.

However, that is not the main reason. After all, Calipari doesn’t recruit untalented players. The biggest reason was a lack of interest on his part in coming to KU. WCS played his high school ball that year (and maybe AAU ball if I remember correctly) with Shavon Shields, son of HOF former Kansas City Chief Will Shields. A lot of WCS’s “inner circle” came from Will, and for whatever reason they steered him clear of Lawrence. Recruiting is too time intensive to spend a great deal of it on a long shot that showed no interest, so Self moved on. Hard to blame him for that.

Anyway, just a refresher course on the recruitment of Willie Cauley (he added the Stein after his high school career was over).

“Imagine it is late March, and all D1 coaches are polled across America to pick their starting 5 from every player currently in college basketball.”

Very interesting idea. While not D1 coaches, and while also to surely exhibit a heavy KU bias, why not have the posters pick their starting 5? Here’s mine, in the order I think I’d pick them:

Embiid Russ Smith (Lou) Keith Appling (Mich St.) Wiggins McDermott (Cre)

So a quick disclaimer, I don’t watch a ton of college basketball outside of KU games. Some, and I follow it quite a bit, but this year in particular I typically get a chance to watch 1 full non-KU game per week, and bits and pieces of maybe 3 or 4 other games. Also, I did this just under the guise of making a run through March. Not on any other criteria, like if I was starting a program who would I take (in which case freshman would probably be more favored). Now to explaining my picks:

Maybe a touch of homerism in taking Embiid #1 overall, but it’s January. Imagine him in March. I envision a Jeff Withey like performance in the tournament on the defensive end, and a match-up nightmare for almost any team on the offensive end. He’s already proving to be a headache, as double teams aren’t nearly as effective as opposing coaches were probably hoping.

So, following my freshman center I took a senior backcourt at picks 2 & 3. Russ Smith - already an NCAA champion. Scorer, decent outside shooter, plays good defense. Keith Appling at the point - Izzo toughness (some may turn their nose at that statement), explosive, attacks the paint, plus trey gun.

Took Wiggins here at #4, primarily because of his defense, height, & length. With my backcourt standing at 6’ & 6’1", I had to have someone with all the tools to at least prevent one mis-match on the perimeter.

Thought a lot about my last pick. Needed a power forward. Thought about Randle, specifically for his rebounding. In the end I decided against it, mainly because watching him this season has really turned me off to him. Body language is awful. Facial expressions after every foul on him. In the end I chose McDermott. Great collegiate player. Yeah he might not be as great on a team not designed to get him scoring opportunities, but still is so fundamentally sound. Would be nice having him in the front court with Embiid; Joel might lead the team in assists if other teams wanted to double him!

Anyway, that’s my “draft”.

Something to consider is that this is not a big change in philosophy for coach Self. He has ALWAYS heavily recruited the top players. It is just in the last two recruiting classes that he has started to land them in bunches. I think @ParisHawk made some very good points as well regarding roster spots. Consider the fact that for the third time in his tenure here at KU, Self was forced with replacing the entire starting line-up. If you, as a program, want to shy away from OAD type players, you need talented upperclassmen returning almost every year. You need a stacked bench of guys waiting their turn for playing time. And while we certainly have had our share of those types of teams before, expecting Self to forecast & predict the roster outlook even two years down the road is impossible. This situation was bound to happen. So yeah, we may have to have a few seasons like this one (and in all probability, next season) where we have a high OAD turnover rate. And while we all enjoy getting to “know” the players over longer stretches and watching them develop, we appreciate them more perhaps, I certainly couldn’t have been more pleased with the freshman seasons of Wiggins, Selden, & Embiid.

And to @jaybate 1.0 's point about our record, your comparison of the 30+ win seasons without OADs to this year’s 23-7 record with them is more than a little off-base. I mean, if you’re insinuating/inferring that we have a worse record than in years past because we were playing a bunch of guys who eventually turn out to be OAD players, what do you think this team’s record would be without the OADs this year? Let’s say we sign a few non-OAD guys for the scholarships of Wiggins, Selden, & Embiid. Because of the lateness of the Wiggins signing, Self could not have hoped to get anyone better than in the 70-90 recruiting rating range, so that player would most certainly not have had much of an impact this year. You’re likely looking at a starting line-up of Tharpe, Greene, AW3, Ellis, & Black, assuming Black still chooses KU over Duke without the OAD players, which isn’t a given but for the purposes of this exercise we’ll allow the assumption. Other posters probably have a better recollection of guys that we were in on that may have came had Selden & Embiid not signed, but I can’t remember them. I can’t fathom any of them being good enough to crack the starting line-up listed above. So that’s the starting line-up, with only Connor Frankamp & Frank Mason as viable perimeter subs. Maybe Self adds someone with more height & length to sub some minutes on the wings. The post player brought in to replace Embiid would most likely struggle to garner minutes over Traylor & Lucas, so maybe a red-shirt candidate. But are you telling me that the team listed above, with some nameless non-OAD players, would have a better record and be closer to 30+ wins that the current squad? No way. The OAD players didn’t create the void in wins. Losing the entire starting line-up combined with not having much experience on the bench to plug in combined with a brutal non-conference schedule is what is responsible. If anything, we should thank the OADs for getting us to 23 at this point, not blame them for not having us closer to 30.

@bskeet I loved how Fraschilla pointed out that having talked to officials, they’re really onto Smart’s game (flopping), and how that may be hurting him more than helping as he is now “the boy who cried wolf”, wherein when he is actually fouled he isn’t getting the benefit of the doubt anymore. Say what you will about officials, but they don’t like getting made to look foolish, and Smart has spent the better part of this year selling his bullshit. And now, during the most important time of year, it has finally backfired and blown up in his face.

@DinarHawk Amen to that. Aside from Oakville (Tony Bandle I think is his name), all the intelligent talent migrated here.