Posts made by icthawkfan316

@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).

@HighEliteMajor Very sorry about your friend. That is horrible. Unfortunately cities of any substantial size develop ghettos/hoods.

Which if you’re going to annex Kansas city/Johnson county to your pros column for Lawrence I think it only fair to include the levels of crime in that area, which without looking is surely substantial.

@Crimsonorblue22 Well my computer has been on the fritz so I have to post from my phone, which I don’t really like. I’ve still been reading and liking posts occasionally.

Also, some of the rhetoric has gotten a little tired, particularly the blaming of Self for the team going into a 3pt shooting slump because he said fools gold seems ridiculous to me, but since I can’t argue my point as effectively as I’d like (again, because of the computer/phone issue) I’ve kinda limited my exposure to this site.

@JayhawkRock78 campus-wise it’s still no contest - KU all day every day. No disagreement there.

@Crimsonorblue22 I wouldn’t live in Lawrence because there isn’t as much to do for my son. Not that I don’t imagine Lawrence is a fine placed to raise children, but straight up I’d choose Wichita.

I live on the west side. Definitely prefer it to the east side, although it has its advantages too.

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 )

@drgnslayr True that having Kobe & MJ definitely was a huge factor, but neither of those players won a championship with other coaches running other offenses. And he won in his second year as coach of the Lakers, so it didn’t take him all that long to get Kobe on board with his system.

I’m just saying Phil is more like how you describe college coaches - had a rigid system identity, “recruited” (in his case signed players and assembled a team) to fit that system, etc.

@drgnslayr i think Phil Jackson and his what…9 championships?..would disagree with your characterization that NBA coaches mimic different styles to win at all costs. Seems he had a pretty specific identity (triangle offense).

Anyway, not just being argumentative. I liked much of your post. Good read.

@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.

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.

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.

@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.

@wrwlumpy I agree. I LOVE our PG situation. I only hope going forward that Bill can find minutes for both to keep both satisfied. Because Graham is only a year behind Mason, it’s not like he’s going to be content to just “wait his turn”.

Also, hard to have the quick hook when the guy doesn’t miss a shot!

I just looked at Graham’s game log, and in the first match-up with TCU he played 26 minutes (which was tied with his brief career high until today’s 27) and was 3-3 from the field. So this appears to be a good match-up for him, and he’s now 10-10 against the Horned Frogs in two games!

@Crimsonorblue22 Haha…great minds think alike

@wrwlumpy Just Bill riding the hot hand I think. Not anything we’ve seen in games leading up to today. And for that, I give Self credit. Sometimes it’s felt like Selden gets his minutes by default.

They are completely irrelevant without KU around to claim as rivals (a term I often felt only loosely applied to them, as they were never close to competitive equals). This is the biggest reason I’ve always been in favor of NOT scheduling them. Even if we scheduled 10 games with them and won all 10, it would still be a bigger victory for them than not having us on the schedule at all.

@HighEliteMajor I think he is a bit. I don’t think it’s as bad as some people think it is, but he’s definitely resistant to change, although not all together unwilling. I understand; he’s been wildly successful (by a lot of measures) doing things the same way - his way - for all these years.

It kind of makes me wonder if he would be more flexible had we not won 10 league titles in a row. If somewhere another team had kicked dirt in his face and made him say to himself “ya know what? Eff this! Let’s try something new.” Sometimes the best lessons are ones of humility where we are forced to self-evaluate and say to ourselves we were wrong. But we have heard his philosophy on the tournament - that if we’re the best team in our league we’re going to be in a position to play for the highest stakes. And since we’re always the best team in our league…

@DoubleDD Well, I’ll respond to a few of your questions. To your first question, yes I think having one consistent system is beneficial. For consistency with returning players. The majority of our roster will most likely never be OADs. Even if players are TADs, I think teaching them the same system for two years is better than teaching them one their freshman year and another their sophomore year.

Not sure what the next question is. Pick a team of my choosing playing the hi-lo and…? What’s the question?

And I don’t understand this statement at all: “However the reality of that typical high/low HCBS team got beat by a for more talented team whose coach that tailored his game plan to fit his team.” So, you’re saying we got beat by a far more talented team? What’s your point? That the hi-lo can’t win it all? Well we won it in '08, and made it to the championship game in '12 with no bench and narrowly lost to a more talented team…

Again, maybe I’m not getting where you were going with that. Next question…

I have not said that winning the Big 12 “means nothing.” But you are right that I don’t believe it is as great as some other fans do, and I don’t believe the Big 12 is typically a strong basketball conference (this year it’s pretty decent, but historically not a lot of powerhouses). I do believe that most of what I would like the program to focus on is working to win the NCAA tournament. To view the season as a campaign to the tournament and to take measures to increase success in March, even if that means sacrificing regular season games.

Not sure that I have ever said “we could’ve had better talent at this position or that position” and what that has to do with whatever “theory” is your referencing. I will point out a flaw in your logic here: you say we spent a whole year teaching the high/low to kids that will be gone, never tapping into their true talent. However, two of the four kids you are using in your example were post players (two best players from last year Wiggins and Embiid, Embiid obviously being a post player, and Kelly and Cliff, with Cliff obviously being a post player). How is a system designed to focus on post players not tapping into their true talent?

Lastly, you’ve been nice? Again, it’s not hard to ignore each other. Hope you got the answers you were looking for.

@DoubleDD Your tone is completely non-constructive to having a debate. It started with the very glib “just saying” (I know you’re “just saying” it…I just got through reading it in your post!) And I didn’t know anybody had to be “the dumb one”; why can’t two fans have differing view points? Obviously you think one of us is…

I originally posted a very respectful response to your post, outlining why I disagreed and a bit of my philosophy. I’ve re-read it multiple times to ensure there were no personal attacks or condescending remarks. It seemed fine. To that I was told I was living in a dream.

The following posts have been dripping with snide remarks about “missing the memo”, how I “preach”, how I just like to argue, that you “guess not” that I don’t understand your point. And on and on and on.

I don’t care if we agree. There are a few on this site who I always read because I find their posts interesting and engaging, but I don’t always agree with their points of view. I believe I have demonstrated the ability to have a healthy debate with multiple posters while maintaining a level of civility. Maybe you and I are just not able to do so.

So I guess if you’re interested in having a respectful conversation between fans then feel free to respond again. Otherwise it’s not hard to ignore each other.

@HighEliteMajor From the excerpt you quoted, I would agree with the negatives. But really, how bad have the negatives been, when compared with the positives? We win the Big 12 every year. No I don’t think it’s the resume sparkler some hang their hat on, but it’s also not anything to sneeze at. We’re regularly a top 1 or 2 seed in the NCAA tournament. We’ve had some successes in the dance, some disappointments.

I guess where I come out on this is that I try to take a realistic approach to things. We’re not going to win a NCAA championship every year. We have three in our history. Three. Even when we’ve had the best team we haven’t always won it. With Self, with Roy. Whoever. Winning it all is hard. And because it is hard, a big picture approach must be taken. Some years are not going to be our year, or at the very least we must acknowledge the chances are against it.

With this in mind I’ll ask this: what’s the better play? To continue to develop the players who are going to be in the system more than one year. To, as the article states, maintain consistency with the system to maximize the talents of the returning players. To develop the multi-year players and potentially pick up a OAD (or hopefully a TAD) that might be skilled enough to put you over the top. OR…to cater to the whims of the one or two OADs on your roster?

Obviously I believe in the former. Not rigidly without any adjustments, but a consistent approach year-in, year-out. Another poster is a fan of saying how frequent roster turnover dictates you should potentially change things on a yearly basis. To me, that’s the exact reason why you don’t change. You don’t know what you’re going to have year to year, so why un-track the positive of developing the players you do have (which is the majority of the roster, btw) by going back-and-forth?

@HighEliteMajor Hmm…who could those coaches be? Good thing it’s a “blind” resume

@HighEliteMajor I agree. In fact, in my original post to DoubleDD I had said “'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.”

So I’m in full agreement there are things we can be doing. My point was that if one argues (as DoubleDD has) that the hi-lo offense is too complex that there isn’t time to learn it then you are in essence advocating a completely different offensive scheme. I disagree. Keep the hi-lo (despite it’s apparent complexity) but have some of the things you suggest and others incorporated to maximize outside shooting, when your personnel dictates it’s prudent.

@DoubleDD OK, let me address some of your points/questions:

• You say “whose comparing us to Kentucky?” I am characterizing your panic about needing to change the offense because we won’t have players in the system long enough to learn it as assuming we’re like Kentucky with such drastic turnover. No, you never say “we’re just like Kentucky with all these players leaving”, and yes good players are being drafted on potential all over, not just at UK. But UK is the only school I know of that has such a problem with it that they lose such a large core of their players every year they’d need to simplify their offense. We don’t need to do that, because we typically have a foundation of players with one or two potential OAD pieces that we don’t need “offense for dummies”.

• “I never called for the end of the high/low offense”. No, you just say there’s no time to learn it, and that if he doesn’t change the game will pass coach Self by. I guess I just assumed that meant you were calling for a new offensive scheme that is easier to learn for all these OADs. Perhaps you should clarify for me what you are meaning. If you are not calling for the end of the high/low offense, what are you suggesting? That we keep doing it despite your assertion it takes too long to learn?

• “Will it really matter?”, regarding whether this team’s core will be back. Of course it matters. This goes back to what I was saying about not overhauling the offense every year. Again, maybe an overhaul wasn’t what you were suggesting when you stated that the hi-lo is too hard to learn and the game is passing Self by. But if you were suggesting at least a moderate change in our offensive approach, then I would argue against that and I would argue that yes having the core of this team back for the next year or two is very important. You can re-read a lot of my previous post for the main points, but something I’d like to point out is that you are only mentioning post players - Cliff, Bragg, Ellis. In addition to what I’ve already stated about the virtue of staying the course with a consistent offensive approach, I would add that the offense is not simply ran by the post players. The perimeter players have roles as well, and that is more key to my point about not having players constantly re-learning a new offense. “Are you saying you see a team that can cut down the nets in March?” Absolutely. This year? Probably not, but that has more to do with UK being so loaded and us not having a rim protector. But as I alluded to in my reference to the '05-'06 team, it is set up with enough pieces that I can definitely see it in a year or two.

• “Are you assuming Cliff will be back?” I’ve addressed that already (for the guy who accuses me of not reading what he wrote). I speculate that it’s 50-50.

• “However you can’t tell me that this KU can’t shoot the three ball and there is no reason why we shouldn’t take a few more shoots for three land. That’s just common sense.” Absolutely. I have said as much in my posts (“clearly the strength of this team is in its outside shooting” and “I’m not saying there aren’t some tweaks that could be made to maximize our outside shooting” are direct quotes from my original post to you on this thread). So we’re in agreement there, right? Where we’re apart is in your characterization of the offense as too hard to learn. Again, you’ll have to clarify that statement, because one can logically infer that you do not think that is the offense we should be running, based on current personnel. And my original point to you is that you have to maintain a consistent base offense year-in, year-out and only make small modifications to fit your personnel, not wholesale changes.

(and to clarify, I’m not saying the offense isn’t “hard” to learn. I’m simply saying that other systems at elite D-1 programs are difficult to learn as well, and that we shouldn’t be going from one scheme to another every year because that would yield worse results and even more inconsistent performances).

@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.

@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.

@ZIG Ah yes…Embiid. He did play at a high level last season. All I could say to that is he is the exception to the rule. He was a prodigy. A once in a generation talent. Self said JoJo was like Danny.

And I checked, he finished at #6.

@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.

Regarding playing the Mountaineers, they are a conundrum. At one point I thought they might be the second best team in the league. But damn…they can really stink up the place. They’ve lost their five league games by 2, 27, 19, 18, & 20. That’s an average margin of defeat of 17.2 points. Imagine how bad it would be without that 2-point loss to ISU. Of their seven conference wins, four are against TCU & Texas Tech. Two of their other wins are of the narrow variety against KSU. That’s six of seven against the bottom three teams in the league. Their other win, and to this point their marquee win, is over OU by 21.

So…are they the good team that handled OU, the middling team that can beat the league bottom feeders, or a below average team that has been drastically out-classed numerous times they’ve stepped foot on the court?

@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.

@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.

So I know we got the anti-Gottlieb thread going (deservedly so), and the Baylor chat, but I thought I’d start a thread to post our thoughts on the game now. The chat is good for the game, but after the fact scrolling through trying to find where the in-game reaction ends and the post-game analysis starts is tedious. So, without further adieu…

How ironic that after weeks and months of talking about the strength of this team being outside shooting and how we needed to be playing more outside-in that today we saw a return of the inside game. Perry was outstanding, and Lucas played exceptionally well down the stretch. Very happy for Landon. As I’ve said repeatedly, he isn’t the most skilled and definitely not someone you want to rely upon game in, game out, but for a 4th big he is pretty solid. In fact, as Traylor continues to regress/slump, he might very well be our 3rd best option down low.

Regarding the outside shooting, I would say this game is a perfect illustration as to why you keep working on the basic fundamentals of Self’s offense. When the 3-pointers dry up, you have to be able to score in other ways. They did that today, while shooting 6-18 from beyond the arc. That’s not horrible for an off-game, but you aren’t going to win many shooting 33% unless you have other options.

One of the biggest of our other options was getting to the free throw line and converting. After being down on Wayne for awhile (even despite his recent uptick in outside shooting), it was nice to see him finish inside the arc and draw a couple “and 1s”. Him and Mason being able to drive to the hoop, and have opponents respect those drives, is a huge part of our non-3point attack.

Mason’s streak of double-digit scoring games comes to an end. While I love the 8 assists to 2 turnovers, as well as another hustle play highlight where he saved the ball on the baseline, I thought he continued to show signs of wear. Really wish we would be seeing Devonte more. 12 minutes? I really loved the 5-second call he drew on Cherry at the end of the first half. Conversely, they replayed and commented on this play during the game, but when Mason shot a 3-pointer that immediately led to a Baylor scoring in transition I just shook my head. Even before the run-out I thought it was a bad shot and decision.

Anyway, good win. Anxious to see how we fair in Morgantown. One last thing, was I the only one that thought it was an offensive foul when Medford came skying down the lane attempting a posterizing dunk and basically stiff-armed the defender? Of course it was not even mentioned in that light by the announcers, but it was one of, if not the worst calls of the game, IMO.

It does bring up an interesting question, and not one I saw discussed yesterday. Who are some candidates we’d want to fill a vacated asst. coaching position?

I think Lucas would be an awesome hire.

There was a lot of discussion about Jacque Vaughn when it was learned of his imminent dismissal from the Magic.

Would it be another “Self guy” or would he stray from his own coaching tree? The KU tree?

BTW, the 2-week suspension for Snacks is pretty weak, IMO. As was discussed at length yesterday, I don’t know how you maintain credibility with current players’ families or the families of potential recruits if you condone such actions. 2 weeks is pretty close to condoning it

@HighEliteMajor Wasn’t his senior year. It was his freshman year, '02-'03. My bad

@HighEliteMajor So are you saying that because Reddick shot 238, 258, 300, and 330 three pointers in his four years at Duke and shot at a better than 40% clip that means no team was ever successful at scheming to stop him (or at least slow him down)? Because that is what you’re saying by throwing out those stats and thinking they disprove that teams were capable of stopping and/or slowing down three point shooting.

During his senior season, in which he put up the most 3-point attempts during his career, Wake Forest appears to have had particular success in defending Redick. In the first meeting, Redick was 1-3 from behind the arc while playing 30 minutes (a Duke win). In the second meeting, he was 0-4 while playing 25 minutes (a Duke loss). There are other examples of him either having low attempts in a game that season (3 in 36 minutes against Colorado St.) or him shooting poorly (1-11 in a loss to KU in that year’s NCAA tournament), so it is possible for even the greatest shooters to be defended well, either into low attempts or low success.

Also, Reddick was starter for most (if not all) of his tenure at Duke. He averaged 30.7, 31.1, 37.3, and 37.1 mpg. Greene is averaging 14.7 mpg this season. Scheme or not, Greene is not going to average as many looks per night as Redick did simply because of reduced time on the court. So pointing out that he only shot three 3-pointers in a game is misleading. You have to adjust for playing time. Redick averaged 7.0 3-point attempts his sophomore year while playing 31.1 mpg. Greene shot only three, three pointers the other night, while playing 14 minutes. Adjust that to 31.1 minutes, and the total would be 6.7 attempts. Pretty close to the 7 Redick averaged.

So you can argue for more minutes, and I’d entertain that argument. But three 3-pointers in 14 minutes isn’t a stymied pace.

Dang…lose at OSU and coach gets crucified. Win at Tech (granted, a league bottom feeder. But also a team that beat ISU) by 23 and get crucified.

Such is life for the king I guess.

I love the quality of the comments here. Truly some of the best and well-informed basketball conversation. Challenging and thought-provoking. But lately it seems to be overrun by a blanket of discontent. It’s like we acknowledge that we’re spoiled, and then in the same breath go “but…” and proceed to voice our perceived sleights. As if we’re owed something and have been deprived.

Very few posts about the actual game last night. Little breakdown of individual performances. Very little optimism. If someone was reading this oblivious to the results, they might perceive from the tone that we lost last night.

Guess I’m just a little bit surprised that there wasn’t more of a positive vibe following last night’s game. That we’re taking so very little from the actual game and so very much from post-game comments.

Oh well. On to Baylor.

(side note: please take nothing from my “crucified” and “king” references. They are metaphors. No, Self is not my god nor my king.)

@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.

@nuleafjhawk @BeddieKU23 I agree about the OSU game. It’s always tough to stomach a loss when we know we should have won.

But Temple, UK, ISU…were any of those easy to digest? We can explain away some of the UK game - they had more time to practice, we were so young, they have 9 McD all-Americans, etc. But no matter what excuses, a 32-point beat down will never sit well with fans.

The Temple game was worse. A 25-point drubbing to such an inferior opponent. No one can argue that Temple has more talent. Even granting that they are a decent team and it was a home game for them, I can’t get from there to being OK with the blowout.

ISU? Definitely the easiest to live with, especially as more time elapses. Probably the second best team in the conference, playing at home in what is easily the second toughest home court advantage in the conference. Ranked #11 at the time, and we lose by 5. Doesn’t sound so bad. But remember the run-outs? How we gave them so many easy buckets in transition? Perry with the 2 early fouls sitting so much of the first half? And even with Perry’s minutes limited Cliff only seeing 14 minutes of game action? Greene only playing 5 minutes? Self not pressuring them earlier? There were multiple threads devoted to the disgust of that loss. Tell me that doesn’t stick in your craw!

Like you say Beddie, we are spoiled, and the losses definitely sting.

@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.

@KUinLA Look, if you’re that clueless, it’s not worth responding to you. This will be it. You’ll be crushed I’m sure, but I’m confident you’ll get over it. Whether you ever get over yourself…

One more time, holding out hope that maybe you are a real fan and not the troll everyone thinks you: as I have said, criticism is justified. It’s OK to be down on the team, the coach, etc. But have you EVER came on this site and had one good thing to say? Or even one challenging thing to say that wasn’t rooted in your hatred of Self? You never answered before, so I’m asking again.

We get it. You hate Self. But are you that little of a KU fan that you can only come on here after a loss to bash Self?

Honestly, what is the point of doing what you do? You’re not rallying anyone to your way of thinking. No one is embracing you in the Jayhawk community (which is what I love about this place - the free flow of ideas between people sharing a common passion). You just keep coming out after every loss with the same tired drivel, and most tune you out.

It would be a lot easier to take you seriously if you weren’t the same broken record all these years. But if you only have one, unchanging, rigid, dogmatic opinion…why would anyone respect what you have to say, even if they might agree with you?

You ask “hmm, where have I heard that before?” I get the sense that perhaps you are implying that you said that. I wouldn’t know, because I read the first line or two of your posts and then dismiss you. You’ve never had anything new to say, why would you start now? I get the feeling that most of the site feels the same way.

@ParisHawk That seems to be the prevailing opinion. Like HEM has stated, Self has set plays that we may see out of a timeout or at end of game situations, but the overall offense doesn’t seem to include a whole lot of actions to free up shooters.

I have never coached basketball in my life, so I’m far from being an expert (or even a novice). I like to think I have a decent understanding of the game, but I won’t pretend to know how difficult it would be to install such motions into our hi-lo offense, how the players would pick such things up, etc. HEM seems to think it wouldn’t be difficult. He may be right. I don’t know if we’ll see it or not though…

@HighEliteMajor I didn’t see that quote, but it is telling. I’d agree, at least a yellow light.

I’d be interested to see him expand on that a bit, because Self has to know an 11 point lead on the road is not safe with a whole half left to play. In that respect, I still can’t see them being instructed at halftime “no threes” (or again, whatever equivalent you want to insert). Could be Brannen just meant don’t jack it up if he finds himself alone on a 1-on-3 break. Or with a 5 point lead and a minute left in the game to not hoist one up with 25 still left on the shot clock. Or just don’t abandon the offense, try and beat your man off the dribble and end up shooting while double-teamed. I’m in favor of those type of restrictions.

So I’d be interested in what the red/yellow light might specifically entail.

The more interesting part to me is the “in the flow of the offense” comment. Brannen was out there a great deal in the second half. If not for his trey gun, then for what? Devonte would have been a better option against their pressure. I think Self still wanted Brannen to take open 3s. But as we’ve discussed, it’s still the hi-lo Self offense, and we’re not seeing the actions ran designed specifically to free up the shooters. And without adjustments and wrinkles to the offense it is easier for the defense to defend us, which I believe we did see yesterday from OSU. I thought they made guarding Greene and the shooters a priority and that it was difficult for us to get the same looks we got in the first half.

So I’m agreeing with you on that - that Self is not working to maximize the team’s strength as much as he should. I just still have my doubts that he is actively trying to stymie that strength by telling the team to quit shooting.

@jaybate-1.0 PHOF for the Darby O’Gill and the Little People mention! Haven’t seen that movie in ages and I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone else (aside from my brothers) who has.

“But to put the game into perspective, playing exactly the wrong strategy for fully one half the game the team only lost by 5.”

Something to put in perspective is that playing that way for one half we lost that particular half by 16 points, 37-21. So while the game as a whole might backhandedly show how much better we are than OSU, hopefully that half shows how awful we are playing that way.

@KUinLA Interesting that you didn’t answer my question but ask a bunch of your own. Guess your failure to answer pretty much answers it for me. The difference between you and REHawk is he is here often and isn’t a one-trick pony just saying “Self sucks”. If you were here for any other purposes than to do that yourself you’d know that.

@globaljaybird Yeah this site is great.

And again, there are definitely times when it is OK to be down on this team, certain players, coach Self, etc. I don’t ever want to come off like I expect this site to be a collection of cheerleaders just varying ways to say “good job!” I just kind of roll my eyes at people who are just haters and never have anything good to say.

@Crimsonorblue22 I don’t know. He’ll be eligible second semester next season, as a junior, right? So he’ll have one year/semester playing behind VanVleet & Baker, then maybe his second and final season there he’ll be able to start at one of the guard positions. He could very well flourish, especially against the lousy competition he’ll face in the Valley.

Not sure what will come of his DUI charge. Probably nothing as it relates to the team. He’ll have a year to get it behind him before he’s eligible. Not like Marshall would suspend him for any games next year I wouldn’t think.

@Crimsonorblue22 I’d forgotten about that I guess, or thought it was TCU maybe. Point taken.

So consider how mad we are after the OSU loss today, then consider how Iowa St. fans must be kicking themselves knowing their team is potentially this much better than Tech yet gave that one away on the road.

Such is life in the Big 12 I guess.

@Crimsonorblue22 said:

@truehawk93 TT is not bad, we will have to play hard and hustle!

I agree we’ll have to play hard and hustle, but TT did lose 75-38 today against ISU. That’s pretty bad!

@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.

@REHawk I agree. At least he only “slaughtered” the squad with one shot inside the arc. But it is sad to see him reduced to a one-dimensional player.