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.

This whole Charlottesville thing has been really tough on me personally. As an African American, it has been difficult to put into words what I have felt over the last several days.

The sight of hundreds of white nationalists walking down the street, proudly in broad daylight is jarring. It’s jarring because it used to be that most of these individuals wanted to hide their hateful ideals from the rest of the world. That’s no longer the case. They broadcast their hate for the world to see, arguing that they are just proud to be who they are.

Let me stop here and say that everyone should be proud of who they are, regardless of race, creed, color, orientation, ethnicity, religion, hometown or anything else. Diversity isn’t a declaration that any one group is better than another. It is a declaration that the differences within each of us make all of us better. Diversity includes everyone, including white people. The reason that diversity offers opportunities for non whites is that generally, white people already have a seat at the table for every discussion. Diversity and inclusion are trying to add a variety to the opinions available.

Let’s put this out there right now - the very ideology of white supremacy is that they want to spark a race riot or race war in which all minorities, immigrants, Jews and other “undesirables” (i.e. gays, non-English speakers, non-white supremacists) are either killed or driven from the country. That’s the endgame for white supremacists. To have the president act as an apologist to them is not just disappointing as a minority - it’s life threatening. That’s why you saw the white supremacists show up with guns and body armor. They weren’t looking for a peaceful march - they came for a fight.

These groups no longer fear public shame or identification. They are emboldened. As a black man, that puts my very life in jeopardy. That is not hyperbole. That is real life. We saw last week that one man drove his car into a crowd in an act of domestic terrorism. We have seen in the past where white supremacists have tortured and killed minorities who stopped to get gas or groceries at night. If the president is going to decry the MS-13 gang (rightly, because they are a criminal gang), he should speak just as strongly against what happened last weekend, rather than blaming both sides (white supremacy groups are often funded through criminal activity as well - drug sales, robbery, human trafficking, etc.).

This is no longer about politics. This is about human decency. One side wants equality. The other wants suppression. We fought a war 150 years ago and equality won out. Are we really interested in rolling things back, because only one side wants a do-over on that.

This one is easy to understand from the player perspective. Harder from the coaching perspective.

Looking at Burnett’s game log, his minutes were all over the place. Here’s his minutes in order by game on the season. 19, 20, 9, 19, 15, 30, 18, 21, 15, 18, 22, 6. That’s a player that has no idea what his role is supposed to be. That is an impossible way to develop as a freshman.

From the coaching side of things, maybe they saw something in practice. Hard to say. But either way, its a bad look. Either Beard misread his talent, or mismanaged him.

There have been a lot of doctors saying we are better off giving 1 dose to lots of people (about 80% effective) than giving two doses to half as many people. Having 80ish-M people 95% immunized isn’t as good as 150m+ 80% immune. 150M can effectively cut off spread in a lot of communities and might save 100k+ lives in the interim.

@drgnslayr said in This is a Second round team if they keep playing McCormick:

I think I’ve been perhaps one of the most critical people commenting on Big Mac. And I really love this guy! He totally brings the right attitude.

But his limitations are well known by everyone we play. His lateral dexterity is awful. He’s a guy that can be taken off the drive by another big guy from the top of the key. So that means… any big can drive or shoot on him facing the basket as well as nail him down low on back to the basket moves. He is part of what keeps us from being a fast team.

I think the spots at the 4 and 5 are still hard to decide and should be made based on upcoming opponent for now.

So if we do go without a real 5 we need to adjust offense and defense to best take advantage of it. We still need ball screens and other tactics used with a real big man. Most of that is an attempt to get the ball handler an advantage by being defended by a big anyways.

The real key to our offense is keeping the ball moving, proper spacing, and plenty of motion (off-ball and driving). This isn’t rocket science.

If we don’t bring energy to a game we will probably lose. Texas proved that.

Having said that… we still need to have a valid big man this season. How do you keep him able to contribute if he rides the bench most of the game. It’s a real dilemma… one that I know Self thinks about.

I think the biggest structural issue with this team is keeping Marcus at point. After he recoups from this injury he needs to be rewarded by putting him back at the 2. Tell him to mentally flush most of the crap he has had to deal with all year at point. Bring back the old Marcus! And though he can play at bigger positions… his natural position is the 2, and he has already proven he can be National Defensive Player Of The Year at the 2.

Braun and Ochi have been good, but a bit inconsistent. See how it works to rotate them in, maybe also in the three-man rotation with Marcus, so he gets well-rested.

I honestly like Big Dave. I think he’s a good player. Unfortunately, he needs to play in a more traditional lineup to be most effective and this team cannot play a traditional lineup and still have their best 7 players playing consistently.

Big Dave was the guy that was hurt the most with Silvio being out this year. If Silvio is still on this roster, we can play him and Big Dave together with a more traditional look, with Mitch backing them up. That team looks a lot different and can play a completely different style than this one can.

Big Dave just isn’t the type of player that is a 4 out center. He’s not a big time shotblocker or power post presence. He’s an effective passer, but he’s more of a face and shoot big than a power on the block player. That’s what makes him effective with another big on the floor. But that’s not this roster.

Trying to force the rest of the roster around him is a bad fit when you have a roster full of guys (Garrett, Agbaji, Braun, Wilson, Thompson, Harris, TGF, Enaruna) that actually do fit together well as cohesive units. It’s not that Mitch and Big Dave are bad players. They just don’t fit with what this roster can potentially do best. The eight man rotation I noted above is effective together in any mix of units. Trying to replace any of those guys with Big Dave or Mitch just doesn’t work.

@KirkIsMyHinrich

And then this afternoon happened…

This KU team has to lean into small ball as its primary style of play. That means maybe only 10-12 minutes per game from Big Dave, and basically no time for Lightfoot and others. That’s just how it is going to be this year, unfortunately for those guys.

This team is just not a great fit for those guys. That’s not their fault, or anything against them as players. They just don’t fit into what KU can do best right now.

KU has to play 5 out to maximize the potential of this team.

@BShark said in Chasing the Steelers:

Holy shit

At first I couldn’t find the Chiefs on the chart and wondered where they were, then…

I think it’s pretty smooth.

I just don’t see a way to get every single game in. Hopefully everyone gets to 15 or so games, but even that might be a stretch if teams have to pause for longer than the bare minimum of days. The max number of games any team can play during a week would be three - Monday, Wednesday or Thursday, Saturday. The max for any two week period is probably five (a Mon/Thur/Sat followed by a Wed/Sat). That means if more than a couple of games get skipped, there’s not enough time to squeeze in make up games.

The champion will probably revert to the highest winning percentage, provided every team has played a minimum number of games (maybe 12?), but that is for people more important than me to figure out.

@Texas-Hawk-10 said in Coaching Carousel:

@COHawk said in Coaching Carousel:

@FarmerJayhawk True, but too often a player is overlooked simply because of size. Not overlooking legions of undersized guys; just saying that size doesn’t mean everything when it comes to recruiting. There are some small guys in pro sports doing quite well after doing well at the collegiate level.

Todd Reesing checked pretty much every box other than heighth when looking at a QB. If he was even 6-0 or 6-1, he probably would’ve been a 4* QB and competing with Colt McCoy at Texas instead of coming to KU. If he was 6-3 or taller, decent chance he could’ve been a 5* or very high end 4* player.

I liked Reesing, but his height wasn’t the only thing that held him back. He also did not have great arm strength. He was top notch on decision making and was very mobile, along with being accurate, but his size and arm strength is what had a lot of recruiting services down on him. Even if he were taller, he probably would not have been a 4* because of that, unless he was a better runner that could have made him a higher rated dual threat.

If KU is to turn this around, the key is to convince everyone that this is going to be a 3-5 year process. We aren’t going to attract the type of talent necessary to turn things around in a single year. A Cam Newton type isn’t walking in to just fix 80% of the flaws on one side of the ball just by showing up in town. So we have to solve those problems recruit by recruit. That takes time. That takes development. And that takes patience.