@RockChalkinTexas Pasadena Post–funny. Legitimate twitter post–funny.

Mark Twain–A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on his shoes.

Izzo sees Greene go 6/6 and says ‘Don’t let him get open.’ Rather than draw up plays to get him open, Self says Óh well, he’s not getting open this game’ and pulls him. Result? 0/0

After seeing Hunter against N. CO. I thought 'how do you keep this guy off the floor?'I guess Bill found a way.

And Bill insists on trying to beat Michigan St. inside, even thought he’s only got one reliable big man scorer. And even though M State is always well stocked with capable big bodies.

I wonder if Hunter wishes he’d chosen M State.

Congratulations to the team on their 11th. Probably the toughest the Big 12 has been in a long time.

On rewatching the game, it became quite apparent how Kansas won this game. It wasn’t by playing ‘bad ball,’ whatever that means.

They won by shutting down WV’s offensive rebounding in the second half. WV is the best offensive rebounding team in the country. They got 15 in the first half and led by 16. Multiple 2nd & 3rd shots. You have to try to shut down what the other team does best.

Without their best scorer (Staten) on the floor, offensive rebounding becomes even more important. In fact, it’s their only chance to win. I don’t know how we gave up so many in the first half (probably getting out-hustled) but credit Bill for getting into their behinds at halftime about it.

Second half, KU holds them to about 3 or 4 O rebounds. West Virginia scores 19 points. You shouldn’t expect to win a game scoring 19 in a half. They’re not a good shooting team. They rely on offensive rebounding. That should have been our emphasis from the opening tip. Without Staten, the game probably shouldn’t have even been close. Kind of reminded me of the Florida game, when a team comes in shorthanded and somehow has us down 18 points in our own house, Anyway, credit Bill for making the adjustments at halftime, or just tearing into their butts to get the boys on the boards, because that’s what won the game for us.

http://rushthecourt.net/2015/11/18/kansas-jayhawks-michigan-state-spartans-champions-classic-offense-bill-self/

Well, it looks like the word is out and it’s becoming a matter of common knowledge. How long til we start seeing more like this in other media outlets? Probably only online and in print, though. Television analysts don’t seem to be allowed to say anything negative. Unless we get Bob Knight calling one of our games. He doesn’t mince words. And he knew what to do with a good three point shooter, didn’t he?

Some of us don’t have as much time as others to devote to this site and team and prefer to vent here mainly when their hackles are raised. Fair enough? Or are you taking attendance, lol?

Well, out-coached again. The book seems to be ‘press Kansas.’ If we do get into the front court, we never manage to get into any kind of offensive flow. And this from a coach who says we don’t press because a good team will beat the press for easy baskets. (And advocates for a 30 second shot clock) Bill should probably just plead the Fifth if he’s ever asked about pressing again.

And I don’t think I saw a single play run for a 3pt shooter until the last minute, if you wanna call that a play. Granted, setting Brannen on the low block and running him across the lane between a couple other guys worked in the Oklahoma game, when his defender got caught up in the traffic in the lane, but if your team mates aren’t going to make the slightest move to set a screen, but just hope the defender gets bogged down in traffic, well, you don’t have to be Malcolm Butler to jump the play and keep your guy from getting open.

You can’t just have your shooters hang around outside the 3pt line and hope the defense is gonna lag off them.

Okay, so Miles Simon’s Dean Smith story kinda gave me chills. Such a gentleman and class act! The fact that he went out of his way to encourage a kid and build up his self esteem–even when it would not do him (Smith) any good, and might have actually hurt him down the line professionally-- that’s kinda what it’s all about.

I’m proud to be able to claim Dean Smith, even though it’s just because we were from the same state and went to the same college.

And Simon’s connection of Naismith through Jordan was pretty moving also. And to think that you could leave out Larry Brown and Roy Williams (and 3 more National Championships and 7 more Final Fours) and still have a great story, just shows how richly textured and deeply layered the story of Kansas Basketball is.

Rest in Peace, Dean Smith.

Well, outcoached again. Simple scouting tells you that Kansas looks their best when they’re getting open looks for 3’s. When they don’t get 3’s and concentrate their game down low, they don’t look as good. They still win most of the time, but they struggle more.

Simple logic tells you that your best chance of beating Kansas is to not give up open 3’s and live with whatever damage they do down low. Simple math tells you that also. We have one guy who can hurt you down low. We have 3 or 4 who can hurt you from beyond the arc. Bruce Webber guarded the 3 tightly and we didn’t get many open looks. He chose to live with Perry Ellis’s big night and came away with a win. Just like West Virginia did and just like TCU almost did.

They also went zone when we tried our desperation late game weave. The weave only works if they’re playing a tight man D and you have a quickness advantage. So the Wildcats said, ‘Go ahead, weave all you want 25 feet out. We’ll wait here for you at the 3pt line.’ Looks like Bruce knows Bill’s offensive sets pretty well. And don’t forget, Bruce did take the team he inherited from Bill to the Championship game. I think the guy can coach a little. Recruiting might be a different story, but he can coach.

And on another note, why is Selden still playing so many minutes? Between his playground junk drives and his lackadaisical ball-handling…

How hard is it to catch a pass? Unless you make it hard by trying to do it with one hand? I’d seriously like to see his minutes cut in half and Brannen and Devonte pick up those minutes.

@HighEliteMajor Agree totally. I often just shake my head at the “other-bashing” on this site. Especially ‘others’ so close to home–Marshall, Weber, Barnes, etc. The gloating over a rival’s losses–I won’t go so far as to say embarrassed, but I certainly find it distasteful, and I know how you feel. Just seems small-minded to me. I’d hate to be in a foxhole with some of these guys and find out we went to different high schools.

All this talk about “Wait til he gets in a big conference, then we’ll see the emperor has no clothes, blah blah blah.” Why not just give the guy his due–he’s done a great job with a lot less talent than KU.

@DinarHawk I don’t think the NBA is thinking about him. I haven’t heard his name mentioned about an NBA job in 4 or 5 years.

Another thing that reappeared last night was Bill’s “I got nuthin” face from the second half of the Wichita State game.

@ralster I honestly haven’t had much time to watch many games, but I have faith in Alford as a coach. It’s just a matter of getting the recruits. Once he starts getting the players, I believe he’ll turn them into perennial top 15 team. I think USC is going to start to be a team to watch also.

Loved seeing Brannen trying to get Svi on track

Svi with the Euro-move–hesitation crossover one on three

@HighEliteMajor said:

“since the beginning of the 2014-15 season?”

A lot longer than that.

Looks like Bill’s getting a handle on what his line up should be.

@JayHawkFanToo Greene’s driven the basket in a couple games this year–he’s definitely added that to his game. And his D is definitely better than last year also–not great, but better. He’s definitely improved his game. I even seen him dribble the ball more than 3 times without turning it over a couple times, lol

Like I said before, this team need to be shooting 25 threes a game.

@Texas-Hawk-10 & @jaybate-1.0 Well, as I said, I didn’t see too many of the games. From what I did see, I was unimpressed. But I’ll take your word for it if you watched a lot of the action.