Posts made by MoonwalkMafia

@dylans said in Ute came to the right place:

The pieces are there, the spark isn’t. That is on the players to find. You either want it or you don’t and some (most) don’t know the effort it takes - I sure didn’t put forth the effort in sports that I thought I did in hindsight. I quit when I got wore out or hurt instead of pushing thru like, not my, but my loved ones life depended upon it. I didn’t have the heart of a sports champion, I hope the team finds theirs.

I don’t want to start a fight on here, frankly I think this is just a really inefficient medium to have a conversation about this. But man…if you think Self doesn’t deserve a whole lot of the blame for this one, I just don’t know what to tell you. (IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER: I AM NOT SAYING FIRE SELF)

The pieces very much are not there. Hunter Dickinson is slow and easy to exploit. He has a terrible attitude, is a bad defender, and a sloppy player. He relies entirely on his size (and I think HD is the least of our concerns).

AJ Storr was notoriously an inefficient player. He takes a million shots, which is the only reason he averaged the numbers he did. When you’re a coach with a notoriously quick hook for poor decisions, that’s an odd choice. He’s also switched schools every year since he was 15, so you know he’s probably a poor fit for a school that prides itself on playing for the name on the front instead of the back.

Dajuan is small, can’t shoot, can’t score, and frankly I think is an overrated defender. Did everyone forget what it was like to have a PG that could score? We went from having Miles, Chalmers, Robinson, Collins, Taylor, Mason, Graham, and Dotson. And now we have a guy that’s lucky to average 8 points.

I’m not gonna pick on KJ. It’s not his fault he’s in this situation, and I’m not gonna repeat what everyone has already said. But suffice it to say, he’s a problem. He’s undersized, he’s relied on way too much to play a position that he doesn’t fit. Think about the SF and PF guys we’ve had over the years, Wright, Arthur, T-Rob, Perry, Jackson, Ochai…we’re asking a guy for a lot who’s probably at best a defensive specialist (he’s not that great of a defender, largely because he can’t be at his size, at that position). That’s a steep drop off.

You could just as easily point to the rest of the team and say the same thing. Coit is Charley Moore essentially, undersized, bad fit. Griffen looks like his confidence is shot, and he hasn’t been what was advertised. Shak Moore is fine, but he can’t score. Mayo is fine, but he’s the second scoring option when he should probably be the fourth.

When you say the pieces are there, I couldn’t disagree more. They very much are not. You have 2 scoring options. That’s why we pass the ball so much and it looks like nobody wants to shoot. The roster doesn’t fit. Self was always great at breaking guys down over the course of multiple years, and building them up based on his philosophy. That’s not the situation anymore, you don’t have the time with these guys anymore, and I question whether Self can adapt. I hope he can. He’s the best coach in KU history. But he’s also human. He has an ego like anyone would in his situation. His assistants are largely his friends, I honestly don’t know what they provide. This very odd, very mismatched roster is on Self. It just is. The buck stops with him, and those other factors just exacerbate the problem.

Guys I can tell you, KU will lose every road game from here on out. They will lose at BYU on Tuesday, they will lose at Colorado, and we will get destroyed at Houston. Seriously, place a bet on it. I have! Betting on KU to lose on the road at this point is free money. We’ll probably lose at home to Arizona too.

Guys, things are bad. Bad, bad. You can try to equivocate and compare us to other programs, but we’re not other programs. You can’t have it both ways. Expectations come with the territory.

We are at a crossroads. I do think that a big part of this is the FBI investigation that killed our recruiting. KJ and Dajuan are part of that. They were consolation prizes at a time when we couldn’t get big names. Let’s be honest with ourselves, they would not be playing here otherwise. They are the types of players you throw onto a roster to round it out. Not guys who are multiyear starters, playing a ton of minutes.

The FBI stuff is over, maybe we’ll turn the corner in recruiting now. Peterson is the REAL DEAL. Him and Flory together could be special. You find a few Zeke Mayos to throw around them and we could have a special team. You lose either of those guys and…uh…we might need to have a serious conversation about Self. I genuinely don’t know. We will see.

Is this a serious question? UConn has as many national titles in 25 years as KU has in its entire history. Five of them were in the Bill Self era alone!

@dylans said in If Bill’s roster falls apart…:

Methinks some don’t remember what it was like under former coaches. The level of consistency Bill has had is unmatched.

This is a low-key hilarious take. Former coaches you say? Which one? Roy Williams? The HOF coach who left over 20 years ago? Ya, most people probably don’t remember that. Or did you mean Larry Brown? The other HOF coach who won a national championship at KU…who left almost 40 years ago. Or did you mean Ted Ownes…whose last season at KU was in 1983…over 40 years ago. Ya, most people probably don’t remember that…because it was a lifetime ago.

I don’t disagree with the take…but this is a pretty hilarious thing to say about a program that’s had, what, 8 coaches in its entire history.

@wissox said in Bounceback night What a sight:

get this thing rolling again.

Win on Saturday and I’ll say we’ve go this thing rolling again

Crazy to think how different this season would be if we could’ve avoided an epic collapse or two

@approxinfinity Ah. Seems like a good spot to post about KU’s women’s basketball coach…

I’ve flown out of that airport a million times. I lived in DC for several years, and it was not uncommon to see military aircraft flying up and down the Potomac. But I never saw or heard anything like that at night. Seems like a very bad idea to do military exercises at night in DCA’s flight pattern. Very tragic.

Not sure where else to post this, but had to get this out…I think we can go ahead and fire the women’s basketball coach. That guy is terrible, keeps getting good recruits, and failing miserably.

@Jhawk69 I don’t really know a lot about it, but from I could find it’s interesting that they imparted a bunch of agricultural techniques since Japan is one of the most inefficient agricultural producers in the world.

@Jhawk69 Yes I did! He was my advisor!

@Jhawk69 I studied Japanese and US history at KU. I basically got a degree in the history of World War 2. But I find pretty much anything from about 1840 on pretty interesting. The older I’ve gotten, the more I’ve been interested in political history. I was always into the military history side of WW2, but more recently I’ve started to enjoy more of what led up to it.

• I put in a new coat rack next to the front door that looks really nice.
• I have a report coming out at work that I’m really excited about.
• There’s been some really good shows I’ve been watching lately. I’m a big history dork, so I thought American Primeval was really good.

@Zabudda From what I’ve heard, he’s going to play.

I didn’t watch the game. Been dealing with people trying to purge the federal workforce. Looks like it was a real defensive slugfest…

@approxinfinity I’m glad you bring this up because it’s something I was thinking about this morning.

On this page we were having a debate about Cliff and Jamari in the 2014-15 season. People said Cliff was a defensive liability and that’s why Jamari played over him. When you look at the stats that’s not true, and the offensive stats tell you that Cliff was a much more effective offensive player, even if Jamari was marginally better on defense.

Looking at this year’s team, we’re watching this happen all over again (i.e., we need KJ because he’s so good on defense). Flory has the best defensive rating on the team (86.0), KJ is middle of the pack (97.7). On offense it’s even more stark, though KJ isn’t as bad as you’d think. Flory’s offensive rating is 135.2, KJ’s is 121.1. AJ Storr’s is 95.3 for reference (yikes).

There really is no justification to play KJ over Flory other than the explanation you suggested, which I think is right, to reward KJ’s toughness. But that’s abstract BS. KJ cares a lot, sure. But he’s having to play the 3-4 and he’s undersized. Watching him guard guys in the post is like watching a little brother try to guard their big brother. It just doesn’t work.

Since we’re kind of wishcasting potential lineups when KJ returns, I would start Juan, Zeke, Griffen, Flory, and HD. Shak is my first guard off the bench, Coit plays in emergencies. KJ only plays situationally. If he’s doing his thing, stick with him. If he is who he’s always been, 10 mpg.

@dylans That throw that he made at the end…I thought he was just throwing it up. He put it on the money, the guy just dropped it.

I feel like we’re all more or less saying the same thing regarding the rotation when KJ comes back. One of the most frustrating things about the way we lost yesterday is that we got some big answers with Griffen and Bidunga, and honestly Storr too…but in a bad way. If you could guarantee me that KJ will not average more than 15 minutes from here on out, I would take it in a heart beat. If Storr is averaging 17 minutes, give 10 of those to Griffen. Obviously adjust situationally–no problem with riding the hot hand. But we saw where our offensive bread is buttered yesterday. Of course, the question is whether or not Self has seen what the rest of us had.

I honestly think Self got too much blame for how things transpired yesterday. He had a game plan yesterday, and it worked! KU led for 90 percent of the game. We were the better the team. Regarding free throws, it’s not like they don’t practice them. Your veteran leaders have to make those. They know that. Same thing with inbounding the ball. These are guys who have been playing at this level for 5-6 years. That stuff cannot happen.

HOWEVER, in the press conference after the debacle when Self said we were hurt by KJ not being out there I almost threw my computer. I’m worried that is a sign of what he plans on doing: bring KJ back and pretend his absence has been the problem.

@kuballin10 I’m not defending juan. I can’t wait till he’s gone.

@kuballin10 For what it’s worth, here’s what he said about Dajuan missing those FTs…

“Yeah, Juan did a good job on LJ. Juan had 12 assist, one turnover and guarded LJ Cryer that well. Okay, it is pretty impressive, but he goes the line and misses two and I think to your point, I think that could be somewhat fatigue as well.”

I’m kind of amazed I’m the one that doesn’t think the sky is failing. It’s a collapse, sure. But the worst thing about it is, we found some answers tonight. Griffen played great. So did Flory. They missed some FTs down the stretch. That hurts. But it happens in basketball. My biggest concern is that the way we lost wipes out the growth we saw tonight.

@kjayhawks I really don’t think self was outcoached. Self coached a good game. I know failing to inbound the ball twice falls on the coach…but I just can’t help but think 4 guys with that much experience gotta know how to inbound a pass.

@BeddieKU23 Again, major bill self skeptic here. This is on the players. The mistakes they made are things you learn in middle school

This game has been such a kick in the nuts

We deserve to lose

@kjayhawks Oh ya. We won that game twice and are about to lose

Fire everybody

Lol self said ‘I’m not letting that shit happen again. Time out’

Griffen has really showed up. Whatever happens, that’s a great sign

@DanR I’m the biggest bill skeptic there is but i don’t understand all the blame he’s getting for some of this. Zeke is a 5th year senior who’s been playing basketball all his life. He has to do better.

Well that was a fast 5 seconds

@BeddieKU23 I was wondering the same thing. Forget the basket interference

Would be nice if the foul disparity could start evening out

I love flory

@wissox Is that an app or do you just go to the site?

Everybody’s criticizing the offense. They’re hardly even getting shots off. They turned it over on 4 straight possessions

@kjayhawks Settling for 3s?? They’re hardly getting a shot off each possession

Welp this is over

Ya get storr out of the game. That’s a brutal stretch

I honestly think people are looking too much into this. I think 1) Self is challenging the students; 2) if there is a drop off in student enthusiasm…it’s probably because of the average team on the court, and 3) the seats that were removed were in the top corners of the field house that were usually empty except for the most packed games.

These are some downright weird to delusional examples you’ve got here. It seems a bit like a strange confirmation bias where you’re trying to meet a conclusion by Frankensteining some odd examples together. Let’s start from the beginning.

Darnell Jackson vs. Cole Aldrich - Jackson averaged 11.2 points and 6.7 rebounds a game in 2008. He was downright good. He was the fourth leading scorer on the team, led the team in rebounds, and had the second highest win share on the team. I don’t remember anyone saying Aldrich should be playing over him. You might as well have said Darrell Arthur lol.

Christian Braun vs. Isiah Moss and Marcus Garrett - That team was flat out dominant on defense, but kind of struggled to score. What was nice about that team, however, was that Udoka and Devon could give us 40 a night. What was nice about Marcus Garrett was that he was a bit like KJ Adams this year. He was one of the best defenders we’ve probably ever had at KU, but could hit an occasional three, and score here and there. Something KJ can’t do. Self could say to Marcus Garrett, ‘hey, go out there and guard your butt off and give me a few points and rebounds here and there.’ And it worked great! He averaged 9.2 and 4.5. As a guard! That’s what we were looking for. Christian Braun was a nice little piece of that team, but I don’t remember anyone saying he should be playing over Garrett or Moss. He was a freshman. He was shaky. If he could hit a 3 once in a while, icing on the cake. If you remember right, it was Self oddly sticking with a starting lineup that included David McCormack playing alongside Udoka that was the odd choice. After Dave got suspended for the K State fight, Self couldn’t play them alongside each other. He started Moss instead and the rest is history. He stuck with Moss in the starting lineup for the rest of the year. KU took off.

Tyrel Reed vs. Josh Selby - Again, another one I flat out don’t remember anyone clamoring for. Tyrel Reed was good. He averaged nearly 10 points a game, shot 38 percent from 3. He was a fine defender. I don’t remember anyone saying that Selby should’ve been playing over him. Like you said, Selby never really got going. Idk that there was a solution on that bench. I could understand if the debate was about Brady Morningstar, but again, I don’t think Selby was a solution to that.

Travis Releford vs. Andrew White - This one’s downright delusional. Travis Releford was a 5th year senior. He was one of the best defenders on the team (not named Jeff Withey), who often drew the toughest assignment. He averaged 12 points and 4 rebounds per game. White was a freshman who was never going to seriously crack the rotation. And again, I don’t remember anyone saying he should.

I mean it goes on and on. Josh Jackson averaged over 16 points a game. He was hands down the best OAD we’ve ever had, and he played hard. He wasn’t a knucklehead (at least not on the court). I don’t think Self ever really liked Vick anyways, but it was pretty evident Josh was the better option, he was the fourth overall pick for a reason. Not to mention he was a lot bigger than Vick and I don’t think it’s a good 1:1 comparison.

Udoka over Lucas. Ya, Self will play a guy over an inferior player when it’s abundantly clear. It’s when it’s a bit more abstract or when the goal is a bit more long-term that Self doesn’t do a great job. Udoka will have his jersey retired one day, was drafted in the first round, and played in the NBA while Landen Lucas…is also a professional! A professional poker player.

There’s definitely more to pick apart. You say Dajuan didn’t start his freshman season. That’s true…but he also averaged 30 mpg because he had to play. Garrett wasn’t ever going to work at the PG and self started playing Dajuan more and more as the season went on. That’s not really all that relevant to the argument here, but like talking to my parents…if we can’t even agree on the basic facts, how are we going to have a conversation on the merits of a given issue.

Just a weird, weird argument. God I miss @HighEliteMajor

God i miss when KU was good and we’d beat a team like this by 30

Seems like self told griffen to just shoot. Too bad it took till the end of january for that to be said

@benshawks08 Can he score?

This team is baaaaaaaad

Lazy, sloppy pass from dajuan

@Jhawk69 said in My crisis of faith in Bill:

The take that Brady Morningstar, who shot 57% from the field, 41% from three, averaged over three assists, was a great defender, and started on a team that went 35-3, was a bad player certainly is interesting. Here is a counter-argument: Brady Morningstar was a good role player who choked in the tournament.

Boom. Well said. I will completely wear that one.

Edit: I take this back. He took less than 3 threes a game and had the 5th worst defensive rating on the team. I stand by my original point, though, I will agree that most of the team played bad against VCU.

@Jhawk69 I don’t disagree with you. I told you at the beginning, I think Self saw the writing on the wall. Which is why he started Cliff his last 5 or 6 games. Whatever it was. But I just can’t abide this idea that Jamari was the better option. Really, I was just trying to highlight the stubbornness that has held KU back at times.

I noticed nobody took issue with me bringing up how ridiculous Self’s “fools gold” comments. Do people remember that? It was crazy!

@Jhawk69 This is another instance of “just because you say it doesn’t make it true.”

Baylor: 12 points, 5 rebounds, 2 blocks. Oklahoma: 13 points, 13 rebounds, 1 block @Texas: 15 points, 9 rebounds, 1 block @Texas Tech: 10 points, 5 rebounds, 4 blocks

This is to say nothing of the game in the article I referenced when Cliff was basically held out of the second half, or other games where similar things happened. There are more examples.

@Texas-Hawk-10 This can be kinda ‘fun with numbers’ so to speak, but I’ll bite.

Am I missing something? Jamari’s defensive rating was 96.9, Cliff’s was 95.0. I see what you’re saying with defensive +/-. Jamari is 4.6 vs. Cliff at 3.3. Which one’s right? I’d say defensive rating is more important since it focuses specifically on points allowed when the player is on the court versus +/- which looks at the score differential when a player is playing, which can change for a variety of reasons. Either way, it’s a pretty marginal difference.

Cliff’s offensive rating was 118.2, while Jamari’s was 94.7. Now that’s a gap. Also win shares. Cliff’s was 2.3, Jamari’s was 1.5. When just considering defense, itJamari 1.3 to Cliff 1.0. Again, this is marginal and whatever deficiencies Cliff had he made up for on the offensive end, Jamari couldn’t. When breaking WS out over the course of 40 minutes, Cliff’s was the highest on the team. Jamari was 10th.

I don’t really care about the Brady Morningstar debate. He was bad. Elijah was young, and Selby never really got going after the game against USC (shrug). All i know is that against VCU, Brady looked like me out there.

@Jhawk69 said in My crisis of faith in Bill:

Cliff was a liability on defense. Much worse than Jamari. There is a reason no NBA team wanted to draft him.

Man…you can keep saying this, it doesn’t make it true. They fouled at about the same rater per minute, but Cliff was a much better defensive rebounder and Jamari turned the ball over twice as much as Cliff.

It’s hard to find defensive rating or defensive efficiency rating statistics from a pretty forgettable season 10 years ago, but I did come across an article from the Daily Kansan that sums up the situation pretty well. This was from a game at Stillwater in mid-February. Here are some excerpts:

Heading to the half against the Cowboys, the Kansas Jayhawks held a 41-30 lead, and it looked as if the team was well on its way to winning a sixth-consecutive game. Frank Mason, Brannen Greene and Cliff Alexander had flat-out dominated the first half, with a combined 27 points on 10-of-11 shooting from the field. Alexander in particular was having a strong game, as he posted eight points and four rebounds in 12 first half minutes.

However, Bill Self opted to put his first half starters back on the court to begin the second half. With that group on the floor, the Jayhawks allowed the Cowboys to go on a 8-1 run, before Self decided to reinsert Alexander and Greene.

Things settled down a bit…but for whatever reason, Self decided it was time to take Alexander out, despite the fact that the freshman big man hadn’t really done anything wrong in the two minutes on the court… Nonetheless, Self made the change, putting Landen Lucas into the game for Alexander. Lucas didn’t do much for the team overall, racking up just one offensive rebound in his seven minutes of playing time in the second half. Lucas did not record any other statistics during that stretch, but Self continued to stick with him.

When Alexander returned to the game about seven minutes later, he appeared to overcompensate for what he likely felt was his one mistake earlier, hedging too high on a pick and roll, as Oklahoma State capitalized for a two-point basket. Again, one mistake was enough for Self, who took Alexander out of the game after just two minutes. Without Alexander being allowed to settle down and get into a rhythm, he never had a chance to get going like he did in the first half. The Jayhawks faltered down the stretch, and that was that; Oklahoma State won by five.

Jamari Traylor, who played 27 minutes in the game (to Alexander’s 16), had another shaky outing, committing six turnovers, which added to a streak that has sort of gone under the radar. In six of his last seven games, Traylor has record more points than missed field goals and turnovers just one time, while Alexander, on the other hand, has done exactly the opposite. In the freshman’s last seven games, he’s had more points than misses and turnovers six times, and in the one game he didn’t, he recorded zero turnovers.

Going back to Saturday’s loss against Oklahoma State, Self called his team’s effort on the glass “soft,” which was somewhat comical, given the fact that Self handcuffed one of his best rebounders to the bench for most of the night. When Alexander played 12 minutes in the first half, the Jayhawks outrebounded the Cowboys 20-9, which included a 7-3 advantage on the offensive glass. Kansas outscored Oklahoma State by 11 in that period. However, in the second half, Alexander played just four minutes, and the Cowboys dominated the boards, outrebounding the Jayhawks 26-15 (9-6 on the offensive glass). The Cowboys outscored the Jayhawks by 16 points over that period, and Traylor really didn’t help the cause at all, recording just one rebound and three turnovers in ten minutes.

It’s the same story 10 years later. It’s incredible that Self allowed Jamari to make mistake after mistake only to pull Cliff at the smallest one. It’s the type of thing that leads to a player’s confidence just cratering. It happened with Cliff, it’s happened to innumerable young KU players–it’s happening again this year! It’s getting to the point where I wouldn’t blame a young player for choosing not to play at KU, even if it makes the most sense.

Even if we were to accept the premise that Jamari was better on defense, which I don’t, it was marginal at best. What little you would gain from him on defense do not offset his deficiencies elsewhere, which were numerous.

As this issue is not new, so too is this debate within the fanbase about Self as a coach not new. I heard someone say recently, if you’re still trying to justify these head-scratching decisions that Bill Self makes after all these years, you’re not a KU fan. You’re a Bill Self fan.