Posts made by MoonwalkMafia

@BigBad I don’t know, man. To say that outlook is overly pessimistic is probably putting it mildly.

I honestly think this is maybe the most excited I’ve ever been about KU sports. Have you seen what KU’s volleyball team, women’s basketball, and KU baseball is doing? Not to mention the football program. How can you not absolutely love a guy like Devin Neal? Or Jason Bean? Guys that absolutely love KU. Devin Neal could easily make millions of dollars next year, but I will flat out bet you that he chooses to come back to KU because of how important he is to their success next season–when he will almost certainly become KU’s all time leading rusher.

I think a lot of that comes back to our athletic director, who may already be the best AD we’ve had in my lifetime. Travis Goff is from Kansas, a diehard KU fan, and is working on righting some of the wrongs of the past. Again, you are describing the passing of a bygone era that in a lot of ways is literally happening right in front of you.

If you want to be mad about these issues to the point where you walk away, that’s your prerogative. But you’ll be missing out. RCJH.

I think this is kind of a wild take. We are a year and a half removed from a bunch of kids (that were 3 and 4 star recruits) from the KC area winning a national championship at KU! Two of them are starters on this years team! I’m also pretty sure that Ochai, McCormack, and Jalen Wilson all graduated. Dajuan Harris and KJ Adams will graduate, and if Christian Braun hasn’t already, he will. I hear ya on the transfer stuff…but Hunter Dickinson is the real deal, and seems to have absolutely embraced KU. Did you hear his interview after the Kentucky game? He was rattling off KU history like he grew up in Lawrence. Did you hear Kevin McCullar say he wishes he would’ve played his entire career at KU? I’m thankful that this new era allowed for guys like that to come to KU.

I think you gotta evolve with the times. I understand the frustration with NIL and the transfer portal. But all things considered, the transfer portal especially made it possible for someone like McCullar to even come to KU. They also made it possible for someone like Dickinson to come to KU rather than going to the NBA, where his game doesn’t have a home. It might even allow him to come back to KU for another year.

As others have said, you might be describing a utopia that just never existed. But I’ll also say, this year’s starting lineup features two seniors, a super senior, a junior, and a freshman. Four of the 5 will for sure get degrees from KU. I’ve heard people make this argument before and they’re missing that the scenario they’re describing is literally happening right in front of them. 2022 was that utopian vision of college basketball. A veteran team from the area goes on to win it all. That’s great! That’s why we watch sports. Obviously this year isn’t exactly the same, but there are most definitely similarities.

If you want to be mad at someone, be made at guys like Udeh and Ejiofor who left KU prematurely to step into the exact same situations at inferior schools. Let them be a cautionary tale of this new era.

Later edit: I’d also like to add that NIL and the transfer portal allowed KU football to turn around faster than anyone would have ever expected. Lance Leipold and his staff are performing a miracle in the KU football program right now, but they are helped significantly by the flexibility that the transfer portal allows, and the security that NIL offers.

Am I the only one that finds it a bit suspicious that this all happened? Jalon is a 21 year old D1 athlete in peak physical condition…and he tweaked his back going through walk-throughs at the hotel? And Lance Leipold didn’t know about it until 20 minutes before kick? And then Jalon didn’t even go to the sideline to cheer his team on?

Told you guys, nothing to worry about. Next weekend on the other hand…I’m not so confident

@wissox My point is Arkansas should have beaten BYU handily. I don’t foresee KU committing 14 penalties.

@FarmerJayhawk Right. Arkansas had 21 first downs, but was 2/13 on third downs. BYU’s longest throw from scrimmage was a trick play on a throw from a WR. 45 of BYU’s 77 rushing yards came on one carry (they ran the ball 31 times; if you take out that one long run they ran the ball for 1.06 yards per carry…yikes), Arkansas committed 14 (?!?) penalties for 125 yards…both teams had a return for a TD… I mean, the game was as weird as it gets, and if Arkansas hadn’t repeatedly shot themselves in the foot with penalties (and their one INT was REAL bad) they would’ve won by 2 scores. I wouldn’t let the Arkansas outcome scare you. If anything, I think it says more about Arkansas than BYU.

I think this game is similar to the one against Duke last year. BYU will hang around, but the better team will be clear.

I felt the same way about the Illinois game: If KU wins, it won’t be by one score. I see KU winning 31-17.

@mayjay Judging by the direction Fairchild was running…I think it’s safe to assume

@Texas-Hawk-10 Are you talking about the catch where Fairchild had to turn the other way to catch the ball?

If so, Daniels threw that bad ball. Not Bean.

@Kcmatt7 I genuinely don’t think anyone is putting unfair expectations on this team. I certainly don’t think the staff is. And the best thing about this team is, and I think they would tell you, “YES. We go into every game expecting to be in a position to win.”

Some KU fans act like by being hopeful we’re dragging the team down. I would argue the exact opposite is true. Subdued expectations lead to apathy. I can tell you from everything I’ve read and heard (and I consume A LOT of KU football content), this team does not feel that way and neither should we.

Hey, maybe we do go 3-6 in conference. Maybe we go 6-3. Let’s stop trying to put a number on it and enjoy the ride. KU IS GOOD.

@nuleafjhawk Ya, if I was betting on the OSU or Texas game, I wouldn’t bet on KU to win. I’m just saying…hey, it could happen. Nobody expected us to beat TX on the road last year, and we played our best game of the season. Who knows…maybe?

@mayjay I understand where you’re coming from. And if our RB room was as thin as it was last year, I’d share your concern. But Devin Neal is the real deal, as is Daniel Hishaw. JD is our leading rusher because he ran for 158 yards last week. Devin Neal could easily run for 200 yards against Duke. JD being able to run the ball is a nice element. But our offense isn’t dependent on him rushing for 150 yards a game. And man, our offensive line is opening holes that you could drive a semi-truck through.

Some of the points I’m reading on this page are exactly what I’m talking about. Don’t get greedy? We’re not talking about betting our life savings on winning the conference. I’m just trying to get people to realize that KU is a good team and that there are probably more winnable games on the schedule than people realize. The Big 12 is not exactly lighting the world on fire, and I just don’t see KU starting the season 4-0, then going 1-7 or 2-6 the rest of the way. Stop thinking the wheels will come off based on the past.

But that’s why they play the games, right? We’ll see what happens. This should be a fun season.

@DanR I will be in attendance! Hope some of you guys are able to make it as well

Hey everyone! Long time no talk.

I think the media that covers this team have their brains pickled by the last 13 years. Either that or they’re just flat out terrible at their jobs.

Going into the first game of the season, it was understandable to be a little cautious about what to expect. I personally found all of those predictions of 2-3 wins to be quite low, but I could at least understand the perspective.

Going into WVU, I could understand expecting a loss. After watching KU take control of that game to win by double digits, albeit due to a pick 6 in OT that was pretty unlikely, those cautious expectations became less understandable.

Going into the game against Houston, I understood thinking it would be difficult to win that game. But here’s where I started to think that there was some abject cognitive dissonance going on in the KU media. To those that expected a 48-31 KU loss I ask this…did you watch Houston at all prior to the game on 9/17? I did. I was at least curious to know what our upcoming competition looked like. Houston mustered about 350 yards of total offense, in a game that went into double overtime mind you, against a Texas Tech team that gained around 500 yards in total offense. TTU’s backup QB threw for over 350 yards alone against Houston. Their backfield also had a respectable day against Houston.

Now, I don’t write for the LJW, or host a radio show on WKLN, but wasn’t TTU one of the games most people circled as a possible win for KU? Houston probably should’ve won that game, to be fair. But I don’t understand how we think that TTU was a possible win but Houston was a certain loss. Is it because it was on the road? Houston averages 25k fans a game. That would be good enough for dead last among P5 schools (that’s lower than KU!). KU players said after the game that it felt like they were playing at home. Chalk me up as genuinely confused why that game was considered an automatic loss.

The same sort of brain dead lazy takes appear to be rearing their ugly heads again for the game against Duke this upcoming Saturday. I can’t tell you how many 31-28, 37-31, 34-31 predictions I’ve heard coming into this game. Just like with Houston, I ask, WHY? Duke is easily the second worst team on KU’s schedule. They have played the third easiest schedule in college football against some truly, truly terrible competition. Temple may be the worst team in all of FBS football, Northwestern might be right there with them, and NC A&T, for as terrible as they are, ran for 217 yards against Duke! That’s over 5 yards a carry! KU on the other hand is averaging 7 yards per carry against much tougher defenses (at least I thought, right?). This is where I think the “JD is due for some regression” talk to be absurd. KU is successful because they don’t need JD to throw the ball 60 times to win. They have a mobile QB (who’s leading the team in rushing, I might add), along with 2 solid RB’s in Hishaw and Devin Neal. When JD has had to throw he’s been incredibly efficient. But I’ll just offer those rushing statistics as a freebee. That should be an obvious one for you guys and I’m not sure you even bothered to look. Oh, also, NC A&T converted 8/14 on third downs. That’s really bad for a Duke defense that I’ve been told is good against a winless opponent…KU is converting on 69 (nice) percent of their third downs.

That’s just one of Duke’s opponent’s too! They easily could’ve lost to Northwestern, or at a minimum gone to OT before Northwestern fumbled the ball at the goal line with an opportunity to tie the game! The same Northwestern team that just lost at home to Southern Illinois, I might add.

To your credit, most of you are picking KU to win against Duke. But even from there, I don’t really understand where the predictions for the rest of the season are coming from. I’ve heard Scott Chasen say, “I have this team finishing the season at 5-7 or 6-6 [after beating Duke 31-28].” Uh….what? You have KU going 1-7 down the stretch? Why? I know the Big 12 is good, it’s one of the reasons why KU has struggled to get the program back on its feet—because the Big 12 is such a bear; there is no Vanderbilt, Boston College, or Colorado to pick up free wins…but come on! Oklahoma is the best team in the Big 12, I think we’d all agree. But after that…? KU has probably looked the second best, and they’ve even played a tougher schedule than OU! I was told that Houston was a really good team that’s gonna win 8-9 games? I also think WVU is a better team than people realize.

The issue here, in my opinion, is this unwillingness to accept that KU is a good football team. I honestly think 8 wins is possible. I have no idea why in the world KU can’t beat Iowa State or TCU. I have no idea why KU can’t beat Texas, K-State, or Oklahoma St. And hey, who knows, maybe KU surprises us like they did last year against Oklahoma and Texas and picks one up on the road that nobody sees coming.

There was an account on Twitter that caught a ton of flack for saying that Matt Tait’s writing about KU football is overly pessimistic and lazy. I not only agree with him, I also think that it applies to the media around KU football broadly. Even some fans! Matt Tait famously said “1 win is more likely than 4, and 2 wins is more likely than 3.” Dear god what a bad take. Basing your entire analysis of this team and this season on the fact that KU has been bad since 2010 is just downright bad. Trust what you see.

I implore KU fans… “dare yourselves to be optimistic. Disenthrall yourselves from the notion that because KU has been bad over the last several years means they are bad now, and bound to return to their losing ways."

I look forward to hearing the talking heads ask next Monday, for the third week in a row, “is it time to take this KU team seriously now?”

KU beats Duke 45-17.

Jefferson’s is a great restaurant. Most of the restaurants/bars on Massachusetts street are great. Free State is very well known and always reliable. The campus itself is just beautiful. I always enjoy just walking around there.

From what I’ve seen Dave didn’t throw any punches. I thought he tried to stomp the K-State guy who rushed in, but I don’t think so. Silvio threw 2 or 3 punches from what I could tell. Marcus ran over to the K-State guy when he was one the ground and was shouting at him, but… Just a real bad look. I was cool with everything Silvio did up until he was standing over that guy. His stuff was a great response, but man, you’ve got to be smarter than that. I would think he’ll receive a pretty punitive response from Self.

@HighEliteMajor I’d just like to add to this. Has anyone listened to Sherron Collin’s interview on the Ain’t No Seats podcast? There’s a part where he talks about what it was like to play with Xavier Henry. Sherron struggled to make it “his” team even though he had clearly earned it: “I didn’t come back to win the Big 12; I came back to win a title. I wanted to be the first player to win 2 in their time at KU.”

Instead, they had to focus on getting Xavier his shots because he had to go the NBA. Because it wasn’t just about Xavier, it was about the direction recruiting was going and Self trying to send a message that, “you can be a OAD and play at Kansas.” There was also Xavier’s dad hanging around the team causing drama. Sherron said once when Xavier had a bad half, his dad chewed his ass in the tunnel. He came into the locker room with tears in his eyes. It all came home to roost against UNI.

That right there? That, my friends, is poison. An absolute cancer. Not saying all OADs bring that sort of drama, but that is the kind of thing you want to avoid altogether.

You think Devonte or Frank Mason’s parents pulled some shit like that? No, they were just happy to be there. THAT is what KU needs to go back to.

@HighEliteMajor I seriously got giddy reading that number of national championships in that timeframe. Yes, that hypothetical has to be a no brainer…right?

I can’t believe what I just watched…

@mayjay by all means, not trying to get into the program comparison–I wish KU had as much success in the same time. THAT BEING SAID, aesthetically speaking, that’s a real lame feature… Much more prefer all that AFH has to offer.

http://www.goduke.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=4200&ATCLID=211692333

Call me crazy, I think this is this really lame.

Now, just imagine if you took away those two dumb ass false starts and the pick 6 on that horrendous throw…

This is why KU football can’t be good.

@DoubleDD Absolutely he should do the same thing! That should’ve always been the case. It’s not as if Central Michigan and Ohio are world beaters, but they’re pretty steady programs by comparison. We should be playing Directional School of Technology State in all three non-con games that will get us halfway to bowl eligibility. This should be obvious to Beaty…

While I guess this whole “let’s put politics on a sports site” idea was done with good intentions, I have to say this idea is a cancer on an otherwise good forum. To say the least that site is laughably untrustworthy. Please seek new, and better, information.

The technical foul on Vick. That is my contribution to this discussion.

This is Kansas. Anything short of a NC is a disappointment.

I am having the same issue… I can’t wait for it to start!

Not a fan of this one. Possibly playing a perennial Final Four team in the second round, or a team that’s beat UNC, Duke, and Florida State. Then the possibility of playing ISU in KC…

@drgnslayr I’ll agree with you for the most part. Only difference is Josh Jackson was not the same player he was then. He only played 18 minutes in that game and scored 15 points. Imagine what he could do now that he isn’t regularly fouling out…

I can’t believe some of the hysteria about this loss. I get pissed when KU loses. Punching the couch; walking away from the TV so I don’t have to see the loss, etc. They lost that game yesterday and I didn’t even react.

Say it with me now: “The Big 12 Tournament means nothing.” This, I would argue is a good thing. You mean to tell me you’d rather have KU get in a shootout tonight with Iowa State who is red hot, then likely play West Virginia who KU had to pull a draining miracle OT comeback in AFH to win…rather than having 8 days of rest?

People keep saying things like “I think they they needed to get refocused and shown that they’re not invincible.” I don’t entirely disagree. But I think what is more true than that…KU doesn’t lose that game without Josh Jackson. So, it’s not as if that game exposed KU or something. Teams are different when their most talented player doesn’t play. Self was burning timeouts because guys like Frank and Landen were sucking wind yesterday. I’ve never seen that before. Then Devonte goes back to the locker room with a turned ankle? Please, KU fans, put your pride aside, focus on the prize (which, let’s be clear is the National Championship), take off your crimson and blue glasses and look at this rationally. If KU loses Landen Lucas, our season is over. If KU loses Frank Mason, our season is over. If KU loses Josh Jackson, our season is over. If KU loses Svi, Graham, or Vick, Our starting backcourt is playing all 40 minutes with each player staving off foul trouble, and our season is over. Risking our guys in these games that are about as valuable as a preseason game at this point is just too much.

I’m sorry. I know it’s counterintuitive, but I thought this was a good thing. I positively hate the Big 12 tournament. And throwing the consolation scraps to the little brother teams of the Big 12 is perfectly fine with me.

Rest up. Focus. And get ready for the most exciting ride of the year.

Did I miss something? This idea of being the number one “overall” seed is ridiculous. I have seen KU be the highest seed in the tournament and be handed murderers row. If KU is still in line to be the 1 seed in the midwest, it makes no difference.

Not worried about this loss in the least. It helps KU if anything. I’ve never seen Self call a timeout when we’re a stoppage-of-play away from the TV TO just to get guys rest.

Now, rest up. Throw away the garbage alternate uniforms, don’t drive anywhere and focus.

Wins like these are what makes me think that this team can win a national title.

I’ve been keeping up with what the bracket might look at too, and it’s gone from a nightmare to not being so dreadful. At this moment I don’t care about teams in the bottom half of our projected bracket. We’re going to have play good teams in the Sweet 16 and the Elite 8, so I’m not too concerned about the 2 or 3 seed on the other side of the bracket. The 4 seed on our side is Virginia. I will take that all day long. What I flat out don’t want is playing Wichita St. in the round of 32. That would just be a flat out injustice. Putting a 4 loss team as an 8-9 playing, 2 hours from home would be ridiculous.

As of now, according to Lunardi, we would play either South Carolina or Michigan in the round of 32. Michigan is not very impressive, although I’m steel leery given our epic collapse to them in 2013. South Carolina seems to be the team to be concerned about. Couple of nice wins over Syracuse, Florida, and Georgia. It’s important to remember that Lunardi is not the end all be all to bracket projections. He usually gets the 1, 2 and sometimes 3 seeds right–I could do that.

So did everyone enjoy listening to how great the Pac 12 is last night?

Matt Scott changed his prediction to OU. It’s over.

As happens every year that we lose a recruit, let’s get back to focusing on how KU will likely lock up another conference title, likely get a 1 seed in the KC regional, and has a legitimate chance to win the national title. Meanwhile, in Norman, 9-16 Oklahoma is looking forward to the…CBI?

With things like this I just don’t care, I have all the faith in Self. Pick any top ranked PG over the last 4 years. Would you take him over Frank Mason? I wouldn’t give you anything over Frank. That was a guy on absolutely nobody’s radar except for KU. We’ll be ok.

It’s all a matter of opinion I suppose. All the comebacks that people mentioned were incredible, and took some miraculous plays to make them happen.

That was a hell of a comeback. That’s all I can say.

@truehawk93 Lol, when he said Liberal, Kansas was near Lawrence! I couldn’t believe that.

And I’ll agree with what everyone else has said. That was probably a moving screen set by Landen.

And @truehawk93, I’ll add to your list. The TT flop with 2:17 left was Marcus Smart levels of pathetic.

The guy’s been at KU for 5 years now. His name is LandEn.

@drgnslayr https://twitter.com/HighEliteMajor

Short answer, yes.

@DoubleDD I definitely wasn’t going in that direction. HEM is pretty much the reason I came to this discussion board. But if you take a look at what he’s doing now on Twitter (and elsewhere apparently) I don’t think his mind is on KU hoops right now…

Fighting battles elsewhere indeed…on twitter.

Does anyone know where to see some highlights from the game? I’m in Japan and didn’t get to see any of it.

@wissoxfan83 Yes, I would suggest we avoid turning into that (although I think we’re far from it still), because that place has turned into an absolute cesspool.

@justanotherfan Great post.

@DinarHawk Quite frankly, at this point, any NBA team that hired Bill Self would be making a bad hire. He has proven that he is a very unimaginative coach unwilling to go away from the tried and true. Basketball has gone in a new direction and it seems to be leaving guys like Self behind.

I want to make one thing clear here. I think Bill Self is a great coach. A phenomenal coach. But for everyone that wants to put him in the same sentence with Wooden because of his conference streak I say, Bill is just not there. He has to make that big adjustment where he goes away from his traditional way of thinking. Coach K did it last year. Wooden did it at UCLA. Can Self do it at KU?

@drgnslayr Oh, you mean like when we got blown out by WSU when Self did the same thing when we had the lead?

But yes, I am also very worried that we may be reverting to bad ball and this is last year all over again. Similar post problem too. We had a better alternative than Jamari Traylor in Cliff Alexander who just didn’t play. Yet, there we were. In Stillwater. With a chance to win the game and Jamari Traylor turns it over because he is just not very good and made a lazy handoff to sink the game. I remember it vividly. Lucas and Traylor can only set screens. That’s their entire purpose. That’s sad. And they do it poorly a lot of times. It’s getting hard to watch. I don’t want to bash these kids. They’re Jayhawks just like us. And I love them for that. But it’s getting difficult to watch teams flat out ignore Landen Lucas and Jamari Traylor on the offensive end because they just don’t pose a threat. It makes us play 4 on 5 and it makes us easy to defend.

I wrote about this already, but I still think there is a divide in the fan base between fans willing to question what’s going on and those that are not. Last night was a manifestation of all the things we’ve been discussing over the past 2 years and it’s looking more and more like these questions are proving to be the rightful indicators of we have failed: The unwillingness to develop younger and more talented players that give you the best chance to win over time; and then, if what you say is true, which it most definitely is possible, the dreaded Fool’s Gold Dilemma. If we revert back to what we did last year, expect similar results.

@Bwag Well, it seems these two big problems have manifested themselves in a very predictable way. Great. Has to make you wonder where we go from here. I’m sorry, but I’m not content to sit back and hope for a Big 12 title at best. This team is good enough to win a national championship. It seems that Self may be putting us right back in the same precarious position he did last year.

@Blown Maybe he shouldn’t have been playing 35+ in blowouts during the non-con?

@Blown He had a double-double against Texas Tech and was our best player.