@jaybate-1-0

Frank is fast, but I think Fox has a little bit more juice. Frank will play eventually. The season is long, so I am not worried about Frank not getting any run.

KU should be playing a dual threat athlete at QB right now. The line isn’t ready to protect a pro style drop back guy. You have to have a guy that is ready and able to run and make plays with his legs.

KU doing the types of things bad teams do right now.

Get a stop. Muff a punt, give the ball right back.

Force a 3 and out. Immediately throw a pick, give the ball right back.

Instead of getting the ball at midfield, KU basically gave ISU 75 yards of field position to gift ISU 7 points.

A potentially revolutionary idea. 10 pitch max on each plate appearance - if pitch 10 is a ball, batter walks. If its a strike or foul, batter is out.

I’d also do a clock on pitching changes. Too often, the manager goes out and has a “meeting” to let the pitcher get a few more throws in from the pen, then the pitcher comes in and gets his 10 warm up pitches. In the playoffs where there are so many pitching changes, even shaving 30 seconds off each of these could really cut down on the total time for the game.

@wissox

I agree. That’s why I qualified the statement with at the D1 level. Compared to the population at large, those guys are a whole different species. But compared to D1 athletes, they were above average.

@dylans is right about the use of coded language. African American players are always portrayed as being physically skilled in part because it diminishes their smarts and work ethic, giving rise to a line of thinking that African Americans are unintelligent and lazy, despite the fact that LeBron James may be the smartest player ever, and both Kobe Bryant and Michael Jordan were among the hardest workers in the history of the game.

People say Bird and McHale weren’t athletic, but they kept up with Worthy and Johnson just fine. I’ve watched the old video. Bird and McHale were ridiculous. Same goes for Pistol Pete and Jerry West and many others. They were exceptional. Its just that, even in sports, sometimes its easy to fall back on stereotypes, even if that stereotype doesn’t fit.

Wisconsin was very athletic. Kaminsky, at 7-0, as mobile as most SF. Dekker, a pretty athletic wing guy. Now, none of these guys were blow the charts away athletic like a Wiggins or Jackson, but they weren’t slouches. Koenen was a pretty solid wing for them as well. Hayes wasn’t a high flyer, but he was a decent athlete, too.

Wisconsin lacked an eye popping athlete, but they had a team full of above average athletes at the D1 level. You weren’t going to blow them off the floor the way you could some of the low and mid majors because of a lack of athleticism. Wisconsin could hold their own at the highest level. They just didn’t have that one or two guys that would drop your jaw with pure athleticism.

@BShark

Looking at his numbers a little deeper, He shot much better from three last year - 17-43 last season vs. 4-22 the previous year. That’s a legitimate addition to his game (he was 5-19 as a freshman, so the three point shot was something new for him). He had 11 fewer rebounds total last season in 80 fewer minutes. If you even out the minutes, his rate stats remain basically identical there.

His FG% stayed pretty level (.507 as jr vs. .511 as a soph), even though he averaged 2 more shots per game.

All of that suggests to me that Zach Smith improved quite a bit because he had more responsibility last year but didn’t really lose anything in terms of efficiency (attempted 50 more shots last season than as a sophomore).

I would anticipate if he continues to have that level of responsibility and remains just as efficient, we will see a similar uptick in production, hence my guess that he would put up a 14 and 8 this year.

Zach Smith averaged 12 and 7 last year. If he can bump that up a shade (thinking 14 and that’s probably good enough for first team all conference. 14/8 is legitimate all conference territory, particularly since he also blocks a few shots and gets some assists. He’s been all conference honorable mention the last two years, so this is a pretty logical step.

Vladimir Brodziansky averaged 14 and 6 last year, with 2 blocks to go with that. An argument could be made that he could have been all conference last year. I could see him averaging 16 and 7 this year, with 2.5 blocks. That’s not a huge leap for him and if that’s the case, again, those are all conference level numbers.

I doubt Udoka averages 16/7/2 this year (if he does, this KU team will be unstoppable). Udoka may not even average 14/8/2 this year. More likely he averages 8/10/3. But that’s still not matching what either Smith or Brodziansky will likely do.

Skills are certainly a different category of thing than athleticism, but part of it is also being put in a position to achieve the maximum output.

I think @dylans brought up a good example in Kenny Gregory. Gregory was not a good perimeter shooter. He was a career 32% shooter from three in college. Because he was also only an average ball handler, there was no way for him to tap into his athleticism at the NBA level because he wasn’t a good enough shooter to keep a defense honest to allow his quickness and explosive leaping ability to come to the forefront. He had tons of athletic gifts, but jumping high and being fast wasn’t enough because he was too poor a shooter to have an impact.

Larry Bird was a tremendous athlete. He wasn’t the fastest player, but for a guy his size, he was pretty mobile (pre-back injury). His body control was second to none. Same for balance. Watch Bird coming off screens. His athletic ability to have the balance and body control to create shots in tight spaces is remarkable. Bird wasn’t Lebron as an athlete, but he was far more than an average athlete. Watch him going up against guys like Scottie Pippen and Dennis Rodman (elite NBA athletes by any measure). He more than holds his own against them, something that wouldn’t have happened if he were a poor athlete.

John Stockton was another guy that, while not fast in straight line speed, had great quickness, hand eye coordination and balance. He wasn’t as athletic as some of today’s PGs (you can see that when he went toe to toe with guys like Gary Payton in the 90s), but he was not a poor athlete by any means.

Let’s remember, almost anyone looks like a poor athlete compared to Lebron James (quite possibly the most athletic human being in history). It’s hard to look athletic next to Russell Westbrook or Blake Griffin or others because their athletic abilities are mind altering.

We got a taste of that up close last year watching Josh Jackson. Having seen Jackson and Andrew Wiggins up close, I can tell you two things - 1. Wiggins is the slightly superior athlete - he’s faster, jumps higher, quicker, etc. 2. Jackson is likely going to be the better player because, for all of Wiggins flashy athleticism, Jackson has the better overall strength and body control.

Some guys don’t have body contol. They can run fast and jump high, but they can’t change direction quickly, hold position when bumped off course, etc. Wiggins struggles with that. Jackson doesn’t. And that is the largest difference between the two of them. Two tremendous athletes, but one able to tap into more skills because he has better strength and body control (provided his shooting improves).

Athleticism is running, jumping, quickness, agility, strength.

However, there’s also a term in the scouting world referring to “usable athleticism” or “in-game athleticism.” Some guys are workout warriors that can lift and jump and run and everything in the gym, but get them on the court and they can only tap into 70% of that.

For instance, did you know that Reggie Jackson, PG for the Detroit Pistons, when he was with the OKC Thunder, had a higher vertical leap than Russell Westbrook? Most people are shocked to find that out. But Westbrook can tap into all of his speed, strength, agility, leaping ability, etc. on the floor and use that for basketball skills. Jackson cannot. So while Jackson may technically be more athletic, in game, he can’t touch Westbrook’s athleticism.

The same may be the case for Cunliffe (I need to watch him play). He has a lot of physical skills, but can he tap into all of that while playing basketball? That’s a question that still has to be answered. We know Vick can tap into his athleticism on the court.