@rockchalkjayhawk I think those concerns are valid, but for 3 point shooting we know we are already getting an upgrade on 3 pt shooters at the 1 and 4 so at least can’t be as bad as last season right?
With how this team is build, it seems like the key won’t be to lead the nation in 3pt%. Just shoot enough at a respectable % so that defenders can’t pack the paint and block driving/cutting lanes.
@dylans “If you’re going into a field so specialized there are only a few openings, you know where they are located, it’s no surprise.” 100% agreed and this very statement is what I am getting at, the NBA is such a field.
I would place a lot of money on betting you can find more military people that are stationed where they don’t want to be compared to NBA players in the world. The players also don’t even have to live in that city for probably 30-50% of the year between road games and offseason, unlike most other jobs. They could also be deployed at any time and you are going to a much shittier place than Utah and can’t take your family with you. Just saying being in this situation isn’t as unique as it appears.
I can empathize that yes it would suck to be drafted to a team you don’t want to be on or to get traded, but NBA players are paid a premium to give up that flexibility and have union representation to support them. Players could also individually negotiate a no trade clause in their contracts, but no one does that because they don’t value it over leaving money on the table. Everyone in the NBA benefits from the draft system as league parity makes the whole league more profitable. I just don’t think any of us need to feel sorry for NBA players and imagine most of the players would even agree that getting rid of the draft is bad for both the league and players.
@dylans TBH no different than anyone going in to the military and even specialized job fields. You often have only one option for the job you are trained on and sometimes have to move to a location that isn’t ideal for it.
The NBA at least has a union and every team is in at least a decent sized city
@BShark Jackson or Council looking likely to start? Or both and its Dawson is the 1st off the bench.
Had noticed some buzz that Elmarko Jackson is looking good this summer, but nothing specific so was curious if anyone else was hearing the same.
Tre at 6-7 right? Couldn’t tell you how big he plays though.
Give up some top end size but looks to be an extremely switchable lineup so not all bad.
Searching his name plus D2 pulls up his stats for the last two years (or this link if you trust me https://riderangersride.com/sports/mens-basketball/roster/camron--mcdowell/7039).
Listed as 6-6" with 27.3 ppg with 39% from 3 on 7.5 attempts per game so the stats are good. Always a risk D2 players can’t handle the jump in competition though.
I could be missing something, but I think that ESPN link is him but he dropped down to D2 for the last two years.
Yeah agreed and that is looking to be hard at this stage so then we would be stuck relying on Jackson/Council to really exceed expectations in order to have a truly top team. I don’t love being in that position and it is a big if for Jackson coming off for injury, but there is a chance that a starting lineup of DP / Jackson / Dawson / White / Flory works well with council as the 6th man spark plug and Tiller backup big role. I don’t feel terrible about the 8th man being McDowell as he should be improved from what we saw freshman year. Definitely not a perfect roster and there isn’t much room for error as injuries could easily derail the season, but throwing bad fits on the team just to have depth and hoping for the best hasn’t worked out in the past 2 seasons and seems to be at least a part of the reason we are falling short our previous wing targets as donors seem a little more hesitant to contribute to NIL.
With that many unknowns, I wouldn’t have large expectations for the team, but I do still find myself looking forward to seeing how it plays out. Maybe I’m just in an optimistic mood knowing I don’t have to watch Hunter lumber down the court any more haha. Feel free to think I am being delusional!
@DCHawker TBH besides Bryce Hopkins, these names don’t jump off the page for me. I’m sure Rick will coach them up and get them playing together, but Jackson in particular has serious defensive issues and couldn’t stay on the floor on a middling UNC team.
TBH if we get a starter level 3/4 wing and I would really like this team. The roster somewhat reminds me of the 19/20 squad that played around Dotson/Dok being the only players that averaged >10 ppg. With that as the model, we wouldn’t even even need to add a 15 ppg scorer to be successful. I don’t see Flory getting to be senior year Dok level, but it is reasonable that he could get close and DP could end up better than Dotson. Also know with hindsight, the back end of the 19/20 roster ended up looking pretty loaded, but Ochai/Braun/Wilson/McCormick weren’t playing at the same level they were the national championship season, so we don’t need the starters around DP/Flory to be either. We do need them to not be busts like the last couple of seasons though.
Yeah DP has a similar type deal with Addias, likely at a lower number as Flagg was a higher profile recruit. That kind of money is only on the table for players the shoe co’s are betting on being NBA all stars and trying to get in early to get a deal.
Lol was just about to reply with the same thing, maybe was a typo as I could see an argument for the 5 over the 4 being a generation upgrade assuming Flory makes a leap? (Or hopefully @BShark has recruiting I don’t know about)
At the 4, we have either White/Tiller playing and I don’t see either being a guaranteed upgrade to KJ. Better offense from Tre playing there but losing quite a bit on the defense and Tiller could be worse on both accounts I don’t believe he stretches the floor. Only other player I could see playing the four is council and even there it seems like it is at best a wash comparing to KJ.
Yeah DP would scare off PG transfers but we aren’t really going for any and if you are an off ball player you should want to play with him as he will draw a lot of defensive attention.
Can definitely can see our NIL looking a lot healthier once we are a good deal past the football stadium funding drive. Honestly, football doing well indirectly hurts the basketball team too as they are pulling NIL funding from the same sources. I don’t think the impact is that notable though if we hadn’t had 3 seasons in a row of underperformance especially with regards to transfers.
@Texas-Hawk-10 Agreed, safe money is still on Houston as the more proven commodity to win the league, but add Williams and the potential is there for this KU team to be better.
Seems like a real shot but definitely going to be competition for him. Missing Sarr might end up a blessing if this frees up budget and lets us land Williams.
Agreed that interconference transfers aren’t my favorite but with conferences so large now, you are ignoring a large portion of the transfer pool by not looking at them.
@TYOHawk Any reason for thinking that? I’ve seen loose reporting that he wants to stay in the draft honestly nothing that would make me believe it is a sure thing.
He is being mocked as a late 2nd round pick so unless he splashes at the combine or a bunch of prospects ahead of him drop out, he is slated to be making more money next year coming back to college. Maybe he is just ready to be done with college and bet on himself, but he has entertained offers to transfers which makes me think that isn’t the case.
@Kcmatt7 End of season rotation, I would agree with you. Early in the season, I would put Sarr in the 2nd group for competing for the 2 open starting spots.
@drgnslayr said in Norm Roberts Retires:
Oops. No, not now! I meant a phase out. 1 or 2 years. We probably learn more about his timed exit with Roberts’ replacement. I keep hearing Chris Beard’s name as a replacement for Self. Is this real? I like his abilities as a coach, but this is KU! Are we going to be able to keep our reputation for long coaching runs? I wonder if that will be possible moving forward!
Agreed, we aren’t the SEC. Honestly is embarrassing to me that there is even speculation that KU would go with Beard and I’m hopeful it is just fan chatter.
Sarr sounds like another great options for a starting level wing piece. Have to think he will be the cheaper than Williams and could get a decision form him sooner, but he does seem like he need a bit more weight to be playing the 4 at 6-7, 180 lbs. Maybe the goal is White at the 4? But still need someone to round out 10-15 min there.
IMO Williams still seems like the better fit on top of being a proven player, but is a risk waiting on him and missing on both.
Feels very much like a Frank Mason signing. I don’t expect near that level of play from Council but the recruitment vibes feel similar, i.e. found him while scouting someone else, general public down on signing but staff leaks are all super positive
Get Darrion and KU might be preseason #1 again lol, but sounded like BYU money is on the table for him so I’m not holding my breath
Edit: reread your post and may have missed what you are saying. KU is involved or signs pointing to him heading back to Tech now over BYU?
Always a little hesitant about expecting much from a reclass prospect in 1 year, but just saw it work out for Flagg and Stokes is rated just a small tier below that as a recruit.
Definitely sounds like a ceiling raiser though and makes this a pretty complete team with top tier talent/athleticism at the each of the G/W/C positions. Not going to say no to riding with that.
@dylans haha not that there should be risk in using it, but I’m pretty sure it does not qualify as legal
@BeddieKU23 said in The portal.:
If he was healthy there would be more to talk about with him. Unfortunately, he came to KU early from the HS ranks still recovering from a major ankle injury, never got cleared during the semester and now has had surgery recently which is going to put him out another few months. So, we are talking about a player that has missed now at least 1 full calendar year of playing basketball and will be out until early summer. I think it’s just wise to say until he can actually play that nobody has any idea, not even the coaches. You’d hope he could be a serviceable 3rd/4th big next season but even that seems like a stretch. I’m not sure he’ll be a focus for the upcoming year. TBD I guess.
Yeah fair assessment and very well could be the case. Even if Tiller is the 2nd big on the roster I can see wanting to have a good rotation option behind him as Flory can be foul prone and don’t want to be left with just relying on Tiller.
I am hoping a backup 5 role is a reasonable expectation for him though so it allows us to put energy/NIL on shoring up our wing position over using a big chunk of that on a 3rd big.
@SlimShaddy54 does Tiller not qualify as a 2nd quality big? Know he is a freshman but seems like he could be a serviceable backup 5. Granted I don’t know much about his game but his scouting reports all sound like a better fit for the 5 over a 4.
@drgnslayr I have a suspicion that Self always makes the we don’t practice zone comment to the media so opps don’t prep for it and he can pull it out in must win games to switch things up. Not that I think they practice it a lot, but I bet he runs zone scenarios before games he thinks he can use it.
@BShark IDK if this is included in that 3 million but honestly assumed most of his NIL money was coming directly from Adidas with them nudging him to KU.
Feel like Flory needs to be watching tape of the Houston bigs cause he can be a monster on the offensive glass too
@drgnslayr A stretch big at the 5 is a little overrated IMO. Can be nice to have but I’d rather play a center that can set a good screen and get downhill off a P&R to pressure the rim.
@BeddieKU23 said in The portal.:
We’ve been recruiting Nigel Pack, Kyan Evans and Rodney Rice so far. Any of the trio would help. There are a few other prospects I like in the portal but best to stick with what KU has been linked with. Seems we are clearly hunting a ball handler with playmaking ability.
Does anyone know how Elmarko has been looking lately since he was supposed to be close to fully recovered by end of March? Not that I think we should stop at 2 options for ball handling, but it would make me less nervous about getting a starter level player at this position if he is back with a full offseason for improvement.
It is a 15 player roster limit so I believe he would have to take one of those spots if he wants to play. Had forgotten about him though and that is a good question on what their plan is.
@SlimShaddy54 Yaxel getting a first round grade a lot of places so there would be a risk he stays in the draft. Would take him though otherwise.
Interesting to see Jayden Quaintance from Arizona St in the portal. ACL recovery but would be one of the few upgrades to Flory out there if he comes back fully healthy.
I’m generally against running players that want to be here, have the potential to make an impact, and are putting in the work. Idk if the later is true but am here for him staying if he has bought in and accepts a lower role/NIL
He shouldn’t scare anyone off from coming to KU so don’t know that it hurts us too much even if he doesn’t improve on last year.
Anyone heard an update on what is going on with Storr? For somebody that everyone was certain that he was going to enter it is just weird that he is the last one to announce.
Even if you want Bill to retire, it is crazy that you want it bad enough to hope it happens in the middle of the transfer portal season.
Kentucky got lucky they were able to scramble together a decent roster last year in a similar situation and the transfer portal is even shorter this year.
@Crimsonorblue22 Any word on what went on at the meeting?
@dylans I agree that its not great and maybe I’m being pedantic but I would likely stop going to/watching KU games with Beard as the head coach. I don’t think the same would be true for me if they hired Oats.
@Texas-Hawk-10 You say that like Oats was accused of being an accessory. Maybe I am not remembering it correctly but he wasn’t trying to cover up anything and had not involvement leading up to the shooting. He was just selfish in not wanting to sit his star player and hold him accountable. IDK how that is anywhere close to being comparable to direct involvement of a crime and doing so kind of minimizes the severity of Beard’s domestic assault.
I still think Beard’s is worse but can see how you could reason Golden’s is comparable so won’t argue with you there.
Yeah I am aware of their shortcomings, but Oats being light on punishment is the same in your mind as what Beard did? Know Golden being cleared doesn’t mean there wasn’t something going on, but even assuming everything he was accused of is true, it still falls short of being on the same level of chocking your spouse.
IMO Oats is a few tiers above Golden who is a tier above Beard.
@BShark not sure what this grouping is coming from, but pretty sure Oats/Golden don’t deserve to be lumped in with Beard
@Kcmatt7 agreed, but I honestly like the potential tournament path as a 6 seed better. I think the difference between the average 2 seed and the average 1 seed outweighs the benefits of potentially getting a 4 vs 3 seed matchup in the 2nd round. Gives one more round for the region’s 1 seed to potentially get upset before we would potentially see them too.
Will be a different march for us either way as any of a 5-7 seed would be underseeded per advanced metrics and I can’t remember the last time that has happened for KU.
I think losing vs Arizona and early in the B12 tourney pushes us to a 8-9 seed. Win this weekend and at least 1 big 12 game and we are a 6-7 seed. Currently sit at a 6.8 seed rating on bracket matrix and that is always pretty close to accurate.
Generally agree, even though we lost the last two games, we were in it to the end and weren’t embarrassed. It is the games that came earlier in the season that has everyone so down on them, so if they can keep this up and even improve a little they can make some noise.
Counterpoint is that when things aren’t going your way so often, it might be more than that they are unlucky. They also haven’t given us a real reason to think they won’t just as easily go back to giving the same level of effort seen in the BYU.
I am optimistic that maybe the team can make the 2nd weekend if we get matched up teams without bigs that can shoot, but I would be shocked by anything more than that at this point.
Hey now, we are nothing like KState. They only had a 2 week stretch of good play where we are a coinflip every night.
Agreed that not all of it falls on Hunter. Honestly my bigger complaint with him is how much his energy level can vary from game to game. When you know the level a player can get to, it becomes more glaring when they fall short of that.
And yeah idk why we aren’t running some of the post plays we used to. While limited overall as an offensive player, Landen was at least above average at getting post positions and clearing lanes for Frank to get to the basket. Maybe we don’t run these plays because we don’t have any natural drivers on this team that can take advantage of that? Part of it could also be that the team doesn’t seem to excel at passing into the post or it is too crowded with KJ playing. I haven’t been watching games as closely as I usually do to be able to say.
K-state won their national championship beating us at home and have packed the season in
Hunter has been rightfully criticized for his play this season. He has been good on offense this season and he needs to be great to make up for his defense. Like you mentioned he often has played too far away from the basket and settled for jumpers instead of fighting in the post. It shows in our offensive rebounding numbers (unless Flory is out there with him) and in our FT rate.
Last few games he has been much better so hoping he can keep that up.
28 FTs on the road is a great sign. That has to be at or close the most trips to the line that we have had this season. Need to keep that up for games where the outside shot isn’t falling.
Also impressed with Rylan making an impact on the game even when his shot wasn’t falling. We weren’t seeing that earlier in the season and he was probably the best of our guards last night. Not there yet but some signs to be optimistic moving forward so hopefully the team stays locked in.
TBH I remember a lot people being at least close to neutral about it once the Udeh and Zuby transfers played out. I would have counted myself as in that camp.
Maybe Bill is trying to hide Bidunga cause he is already punting on this season and doesn’t want him to get NBA buzz and be tempted to leave??
I can understand why Pitino rubs people the wrong way but college basketball is definitely more entertaining with him in it.
Self is at a min staying through next year, so realistically we are talking about Pitino at 74 being hired. Boeheim made it to 78 which I could see Rick passing but probably best case getting 5-6 years out of him. Could honestly only see KU considering him as a fallback option.
Oats and Wade are both options I would be OK with, but I’m not pushing Self out the door for them.
Yeah unless there are major rumblings about a player being unhappy, I’m not going to put too much stock in speculation of who is gone and who is back. Every comment here over the offseason was that Jamari was going to be gone and he is still with the team.