This post isn’t about analysis. This post is about enjoying a basketball game for being great. This will be long, so feel free to skip it if you don’t have that kind of time.

My perception of several guys was altered last night watching that game. Credit has to go to every single guy for playing their butts off last night, on both teams. The action wasn’t always perfect, but guys played extremely hard on both ends.

Both Kruger and Self squeezed every ounce of effort out of their guys. Both drew up some brilliant plays and made some questionable decisions, but they got everything out of their players.

Pack up the Big XII POY trophy and send it to Norman. Deliver it to a Mr. Hield. I went from thinking Hield was a fringe NBA prospect to being sold on him as a first rounder. Dropping 46 in AFH and playing 54 of 55 minutes, basically not letting your team die until exhaustion compromised his talents in the 54th minute of action (after playing all 40 in a wild game against ISU on Saturday). Hield was the best player on the floor. I wanted to shake his hand last night. As Vitale said last night, it wasn’t just that Hield made plays and dropped 46, it was that every single play he made was during a crucial moment. Every play was a must play. And he wasn’t just scoring. He had crucial assists, grabbed some big rebounds and played some tough D. Just incredible in every aspect.

Perry Ellis played his best game as a Jayhawk. Not best because he has never played better. He has. Best because that was the type of game that you need to play if you’re going to be a top player on a top team. He battled in a way that I had never seen him battle. He had his problems against Lattin (I will get to him in a second), but Perry just kept plugging away and made some HUGE plays down the stretch.

Isaiah Cousins has some stones. He was awful Saturday against Iowa State, until he wasn’t and keyed the win down the stretch. He struggled again last night, but then still hit a couple big buckets. He’s slumping right now, but once he gets going again, this OU team will be even more dangerous.

Frank Mason changed how I feel about him as a defensive player. I have no idea how many points he scored, or how many assists, or anything like that. I watched him get into Buddy Hield’s space last night and take on the challenge of defending a top notch player that was red hot (and stayed hot). But Frank stayed right in Hield’s space, and ended up making the two biggest plays of the night to seal the win. I said Frank was an average defender at the beginning of the season. I stand corrected. Frank is above average, maybe well above average. I can’t even describe how impressed I was with his performance on that end.

Kadeem Lattin was big time last night. He kept that game alive with his presence in the middle. He and Spangler are basically OU’s only useful bigs, and I think they both had double doubles last night. Spangler showed me more shooting than I knew he had. I was afraid he was going to be our undoing. The single biggest moment last night may have been when he left the game briefly due to injury. He wasn’t the same when he came back in. Those two are irreplaceable for the Sooners.

Devonte Graham has some Mario Chalmers in him. He wants to be the guy that has to make plays. I hadn’t really gotten to see that attitude until last night, but he wants to be in the BIG moments. It’s clear that Self realized that before I did and that Graham will be on the floor at the end of every close game from now until he graduates. He was relentless last night.

I didn’t even really think Jordan Woodard was that good until last night. He was, to me, the third of the three guards. I was so completely wrong. Woodard was in on everything. He handled the ball. He hit six threes, and I think four of them were on enormous, game altering possessions. Like Hield, he made several must plays. So very impressed.

And finally, Wayne Selden, who has morphed from a running disappointment into a legitimate NBA level performer. Wayne Selden is different. Last year, in the type of game he was having, Selden would have finished with five points on 2-6 shooting with 3 fouls in 26 minutes of a KU loss. The foul trouble would have robbed him of his aggressiveness and he would have just disappeared. Last night, Selden saw Hield going absolutely bonkers and rose to that level. No, he didn’t drop 46, too, but there were moments where Selden saw Hield making plays and went and made a play, too. That’s what the greats do. Hield and Selden raised each other’s level of play last night, and it was a joy to watch.

That was some great basketball. We will do this again in Norman in a little over 5 weeks.

I’ve been gone for awhile. I’ve been okay, though. Part of it was being fairly busy with work and family things.

The other part was frustration with some of the topics/commentary that was going on that had shifted from enriching debate to something else.

I saw a particular topic that bothered me. I was about to respond, but I happened to be at home at the time and caught a glimpse of a picture of me and my wife. I looked around the room and saw pictures of family and other reminders of how much I have been blessed and it reminded me of all of the good things going on in my life despite that topic being on an internet message board. I decided not to respond and logged off.

I hadn’t logged on since then for a lot of reasons, not really related to this board or the people on it. Moreso related to being busy, a couple of health scares in the family (all good now, but a bit concerning at the time) and the normal things in life.

I will admit that stepping away from the board helped me gain a bit more perspective.

I probably won’t engage in the political stuff much on here, but I should be back on about basketball more consistently.

@wrwlumpy

There’s a concept in basketball called gravity. It is basically an offensive player’s pull to keep defenders close to them. Brannen Greene has gravity because he’s an incredible shooter. He spaces the floor because if he is outside the three point line and there are no defenders around, you might as well just put the points on the board and run to the other end.

Landen Lucas has no gravity. We saw on Monday against OU that they did not guard him. Lon Kruger actively strategized to leave Lucas open, even near the basket, recovering to him only when he had the ball. That meant that Lucas’ man (Lattin for most of that time) was standing in the middle of the lane, clogging it for any drives. After Spangler picked up his fourth foul and Lattin (OU’s top shot blocker) had to switch to Perry, a player with some gravity, KU’s possessions went as follows:

1. 1-2 FT from Devonte Graham on penetration
2. 2-2 FT from Perry Ellis inside
3. 2-2 FT from Graham on penetration
4. Missed jumper from Mason
5. Layup from Selden
6. Missed jumper from Mason

After that was the turnovers and FTs that ultimately ended the game. After Lattin had to move from the middle of the lane, KU got 7 points in 6 possessions, and the only time they didn’t score was when they didn’t get into the lane.

Lucas, and to a similar extent, Traylor, simply do not have gravity. They may set good screens and get rebounds, etc., but they do not pose enough offensive threat to merit being guarded. I could not believe that OU didn’t guard Lucas even when he was underneath the basket!

Diallo and Bragg and Mickelson can do those same little things, but they can also do big things like make jump shots that force defensive guys to do something other than camp in the lane and block shots.

@BeddieKU23

Oregon is us (or we are Oregon) to a large degree. They run almost everything through Brooks. He and Jackson going back and forth should be some of the best basketball we will see all year. That matchup alone is worth the price of admission.

Their key guy will be Dorsey. He and Graham should matchup, although it will be interesting to see what happens when Vick is in the game. Had Dorsey not gone to Oregon, it’s likely he would be at KU and Vick would be somewhere else. Vick has to know that, and probably would like to demonstrate that KU ended up in the superior position.

I expect a huge game from Lucas, oddly enough. He struggled last night, but he remembers that Villanova game and I don’t think he wants his career to end like that. Lucas double double to the tune of 14 points, 15 boards.

I think the Big 12 suffers from one major issue - the schools in this conference other than KU often suffer from a good coaching not having elite players, or elite players not having a good coach.

Huggins is a good coach. WVU has good players, but not any elite ones. That hurts come tourney time. Last year Lon Kruger had a lottery pick. He rode that team to the Final Four. This year he has nothing. We all see what happened.

Jamie Dixon is a good coach. He’s at TCU. No NBA talent there.

Hoiberg was a good coach at ISU. Can anyone think of any lottery picks that he had?

Part of that is that the Big 12 conference footprint doesn’t have a ton of basketball talent aside from Texas. There’s just not a lot to draw from as far as local NBA caliber talent.

That makes it really difficult come March. The Big 12 has lots of really good college teams, but you have to raise the talent level to match that on the coaching side of things (the Big 12 has, top to bottom, probably the most coaching talent of any league). Who has the most talent in the Big 12 consistently? KU of course. Is there any surprise we dominate the league? We have the most talent and generally speaking, that is a huge difference.

Let’s look at the three major games (McDs, Jordan Brand and Nike Hoops Summit) and check the rosters to see how many are committed to Big 12 schools:

McDs - 2, Billy Preston (Kansas) and Trae Young (Oklahoma).

Jordan - 2, Preston and Matt Coleman (Texas).

Nike - 1, Lindell Wigginton (Iowa State).

Think about that for a second. Out of the players considered elite, the Big 12 has four (4!!!) that are committed to play in the conference.

Flip over to the ESPN 100 recruiting. Let’s look at the top 50 players.

Zero top 10 recruits heading to the Big 12 so far, although 4 top 10 players are still uncommitted.

2 top 20 recruits coming to Kansas (Preston) and Oklahoma (Young).

Coleman (ranked 27) heading to Texas.

Wigginton (ranked 42) going to ISU.

That’s it for the top 50.

Here’s the rest of the hundred - 58 (Terrance Lewis to ISU), 61 (Marcus Garrett to Kansas), 66 (Jericho Sims to Texas), 68 (Zach Dawson to Oklahoma State), 74 (Royce Hamm to Texas), 89 (Derek Culver to West Virginia).

10 players in the top 100 are heading to the Big 12, with two each to KU and Iowa State, three to Texas and one each to Oklahoma, Oklahoma State and West Virginia.

The SEC has 20 top 100 guys going to 9 different conference schools.

Pac-12 has landed 18 going to 9 of their schools.

The ACC has 16 going to 9 schools.

Even the Big 10 has 12 going to 8 schools.

6 schools in the Big 12 split 10 top 100 guys. That means nearly half of the conference is missing any top 100 talent. Three quarters of the Pac 12 has top 100 talent. The SEC, ACC and Big 10 are all bigger, but they have 8 or 9 schools getting top 100 talent, which means the top of their conferences boast more talent (although the Big 10 is pretty thin talentwise, but we saw what happened to that conference in the regular season).

Simply put, the Big 12 isn’t getting enough talent into the conference, particularly at Oklahoma, Iowa State and Baylor, 3 schools that have done well enough recently enough to compete for recruits. You can’t expect to compete at an elite level if you lack elite talent. Just ask the Big 10, the conference most comparable to the Big 12 in terms of incoming talent, about how that’s working out.

I think Davis was trying to make a very simple point. Here’s a coach that knew going into the game that his team was going to be overmatched by KU. He was asked a classic coachspeak question about picking your poison, and he replied in a simple way that conveyed both his respect for KU’s talent, and his frustration at not having an answer - “they all poison”.

Could he have used proper grammar and said “All of the players at the University of Kansas are talented enough offensively to be considered poisonous to the opponent.”

Sure, but that seems silly.

Remember Jim Mora’s “Playoffs? Don’t talk about—playoffs?! You kidding me? Playoffs?!” rant. That’s not perfect English, but it conveys the point perfectly.

Let’s remember, language is about conveying ideas. Sometimes, those ideas are best conveyed through the use of the grammatical rules because the discussion is in a formal setting. At other times, the formality can be discarded to convey an idea through colloquialism, knowing that the audience will understand the point. This is often done to be humorous or sarcastic. That’s all Davis was doing here.

Postgame picture of Lagerald Vick

The big difference between this KU team and so many others is Josh Jackson. Stay with me here because this may get crazy.

Josh Jackson is the most complete player to come to KU under Self. He can affect the game in a million different ways. Already this year I can think of him making big plays with perimeter shooting, rebounding, drives, passing, defense, shot blocking, steals, big time dunks, etc. He can literally do it all.

That should be the difference come March. Jackson can just decide that KU isn’t going home that night when things aren’t going well and whether its defense, offense, transition or whatever, Josh Jackson will make plays because he can make a million different plays to help us win.

Frank and Devonte are carrying us now, but don’t be shocked when its Josh dropping a 20 point, 11 rebound, 6 assist, 4 steal, 2 block gem of a performance at the most critical time you could imagine. He has that talent and that will.

That will matter come March.

@drgnslayr

This team can really put a college team into a meat grinder on both ends.

On defense, because Josh Jackson is so versatile, he can anchor the defense the way a traditional shot blocking center usually would, but still also destroy ball handlers off switches in the PnR. He can trap, and with his size he is disruptive on traps (forced the travel in the corner and created the Vick 360 off double teams).

The rest of the guards can turn up the pressure on the perimeter. Graham, Mason, and Vick can really get after guys, and because Mason is such a good rebounder even at his size, KU gives up nothing on the glass even playing four guards.

On offense the weapons are overwhelming. A million ways for a season to die - choose one:

1. Mason iso
2. Graham iso
3. Jackson iso
4. Mason drive and kick
5. Graham drive and kick
6. Jackson drive and kick
7. Svi for three
8. Vick lob
9. Lucas lob
10. Jackson lob
11. Jackson post up
12. Lucas post up
13. Svi drive
14. Graham corner three
15. Vick transition
16. Jackson transition
17. Mason transition
18. Graham transition
19. Mason PnR
20. Graham PnR
21. Jackson PnR
22. Weave
23. I think you get the point

That’s a lot of ways for a season to die. Purdue experienced them all. Their season is now dead. That is not a coincidence.

12 more months to wrap up an investigation into things that happened going on four years ago now? At this point, even if they do find wrongdoing, what are the appropriate penalties?

Preston is gone from KU. The coach that primarily recruited him is also gone.

The big names from other schools like Duke and Arizona are playing out the last years of their rookie contract by next spring, or working on extensions. What’s the point in pursuing those schools. Zona has a new coach, also. The investigations are taking so long that, if they decide to penalize anyone, they are penalizing kids that were freshmen and sophomores in high school when the events that led to any penalties actually happened.

This is beyond ridiculous. At this point its just silly.

@mayjay

That could help some in football, but again, if you’re recruiting in football, you will find more players year after year in Florida, Texas, Georgia, Louisiana, Ohio, etc. than you will for Pacific Islanders. It’s a numbers game. BYU may help KU get 1 player a year. A school like Memphis or Tulane could help KU get 3 players a year.

@drgnslayr

I can’t see how adding BYU helps recruiting in either. UCF could help by getting us on TV in Florida. Houston is a wash. Cincinnati opens up a new market as well, and Ohio has some good talent in both football and basketball.

@drgnslayr

The problem for the old Big 8 was population. There simply weren’t enough viewers to make the Big 8 a viable national conference once realignment started.

Missouri was the largest “Big 8” state with about 6m in population. Colorado was next with 5.9m. Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska and Iowa all have less than 4m in population. There was always going to be a need to add larger states to the conference.

Texas has more population than Missouri, Colorado, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska and Iowa combined. So when a TV tuned into the Big 12, even at its inception, there was roughly a 50/50 chance that TV was in Texas.

West Virginia has less than 2m in population. Again, not a lot of TV sets. That has always been a problem for the Big 8/Big 12. That’s why I am not sure adding BYU helps. Sure, it has a large following amongst the Mormon church, but this isn’t Notre Dame, and Utah is still a small population state.

We are kind of stuck at this point. Maybe expansion works out, but I doubt it saves us from being back at this point in another few years.

The question is whether this is out of character for Few, or just something that had been happening off the radar given his fame coupled with how small Spokane is. I have no idea, so I will give him the benefit of the doubt here that this isn’t a regular thing, but drinking and driving is nothing to play around about, even once.

@tis4tim said in In other news...:

@Crimsonorblue22 said in In other news...:

@tis4tim gasp! I’m a night

Believe me, I would much rather be a night owl than an early bird. Having kids changed all that. Lucky if I don’t fall asleep on the couch before 9:30. Wasn’t all that long ago I didn’t even leave the house to go out until 11pm.

I remember those days. And most of the time it didn’t get fun until midnight.

The size of that conference footprint probably means that arrangement doesn’t last long term, but it would be a stopgap solution.

Spreading the conference out that far would be a nightmare for scheduling. Not really a problem for football, but every other sport would be a headache. I doubt BYU would want to be in long term, so a better solution might be Memphis or Tulane. I just think looking east is a better bet than expanding to the west, where the conference gets more spread out without adding a lot more viewers.

KU is going to be okay. Whether Pac-12 or B1G. I would suspect B1G will be where we end up when everything settles, but that is going to take some time.

Now, if I were KSU, I would be concerned if the Pac-12 doesn’t come through.

@Kcmatt7 said in 2022 Recruiting Thread:

Time will tell, but when top programs like KU get their NIL programs running to the fullest I can’t imagine that players aren’t making close to that.

The key will be that they can offer solid money plus an education. The mistake before was trying to argue that the education alone was worth passing up millions of dollars (hint: it wasn’t). But if you can offer a guy $200,000 or so per year plus education and training, that’s not bad.

The key is to make the college route competitive. That will be a challenge because obviously these pro opportunities can offer something similar (partnering with a University of Phoenix or similar for online courses) but that is probably still a ways out, though it could come together quickly.

Mental health is a huge issue right now.

Life in general is a real grind right now, so I definitely understand the struggle. My wife is contemplating a job change herself right now, so I understand where @Kcmatt7 is coming from as she navigates that. Lots of stressors out there.

Take care of yourselves, everyone. And if you need to, take a day or a week or a weekend off to do nothing. It’s a grind and I think more of us are closer to the end of our rope than we realize. It’s okay to take a step back for a second to catch your breath.

Watching MJ Rice, I see a lot of Wayne Selden in his game right now. Very athletic, can shoot a bit, but needs improvement there, handle is adequate, but not as tight as it needs to be. He has a good nose for the ball and could be a high level defender if he commits to that end because of his athleticism. He’s strong and he’s a worker, but some of the plays he makes now with his strength are not going to work in college when he faces that next level of strength and development. He’s a good rebounder for his size, to the point I almost just want to say he’s a good rebounder.

His shot is going to need some work. He’s a bit of a slow load on the shot, which won’t work at the college level. I can’t tell if that’s just him not being 100% comfortable with his mechanics, or if it’s something else. I need to watch him some more on that.

His handle is the other issue. He can’t really create on his own right now because his handle is behind his athleticism. He can’t be as quick as he would like to be because he isn’t as good a ball handler as he needs to be. He’s not a bad ball handler, but he’s probably not a secondary ball handler at this point. He’s strictly a wing right now.

I’d put him as a Wayne Selden with pre-injury athleticism, and a bit of Mario Little added in from a strength standpoint.