Topics created by Shanghai_RCJH

Talking about media black out… I wonder if we can point fingers at our local press for a lack of national attention? Publications like the Journal World and KC Star… Surely these publications have an AP wire tap and can post news on the wire. This is where 99.9% of the media goes to get their news. If it wasn’t posted, they don’t publish it on their sites and papers. I checked directly with the AP wire right after our gold medal victory and didn’t find our story on the wire.

Congrats to Perry, I cannot think of a more deserving individual. Nothing represents the spirit of “Student-Athlete” better than Perry does. KU has been fortunate that most players have been pretty decent students and individuals as well.

@JayHawkFanToo I see what you are saying and agree that the African American community needs to purge this word from the vocabulary. However, the analogy you used, of a white person saying the exact same thing about a black player is not entirely accurate. If Harrison would have used a derogatory word for white people in his comment, then it would be. I think in that scenario it would be a bigger deal, but still not as big as it would have been the other way around. Just the way it works in the minority vs majority dynamic I guess.

@REHawk said: Shockers so hungry for this match-up, their front row fans will be peeing their pants. If they really did that, that would be funny!

@JayhawkRock78 I’m with you. I like to see other B12 teams go to the Elite 8 and no further…I like the final four reserved for only one B12 team…us. I know that is selfish. Other Big 12 teams going to the final four is good for the conference. But that’s the way I feel.

@Shanghai_RCJH hope Perry is strong!

From the paper’s Sports Writer: Golden’s Nuggets: Haven’t we seen this before, Texas basketball? Posted: 5:22 p.m. Monday, Feb. 23, 2015 By Cedric Golden - American-Statesman Staff Rick Barnes’ team has mastered the art of playing to the competition, and not in a good way. The Longhorns have been involved in entertaining contests, but one quick glance at the schedule reveals that Texas has beaten only one good team all season, and that’s the West Virginia Mountaineers. Since taking that 77-50 home win on Jan. 17, Texas has lost six of its last nine games, three by three points or fewer. Saturday’s loss to Iowa State stung because this team is wasting some all-world ball from sophomore guard Kendal Yancy, who has become a real force while more experienced players like Jon Holmes and Cam Ridley aren’t giving the Horns the offense they need to be a legitimate postseason contender, or even a postseason participant at this rate. If Barnes were summoned to the offices of the NCAA tournament selection committee and asked to plead his case for Texas’ inclusion — aside from being a member of the deepest league in the country — he would be hard-pressed to point to more than one signature win. There’s opportunity Tuesday at West Virginia and Saturday at league-leading Kansas. This is where going 0-4 against Oklahoma and Oklahoma State kills the Horns. Last week’s late collapse in Norman is the one that will keep Barnes awake this offseason if Texas finds itself back in the NIT or worse. With the Longhorns having four games left and at 6-8 in conference play, I can’t see them going any worse than 8-10 and still getting in without winning the Big 12 tournament. It’s an all too familiar scenario for Texas hoops fans: A great start followed by a late-season swoon. With their 3-8 record in their last 11 games, it’s difficult to envision the Horns putting it together over the next couple of weeks.

Baylor tomorrow. Remember the last Baylor game? Baylor’s zone defense was pretty darn good. In the past, I had really been critical of Scott Drew’s zones. Seemed, well, kind of like Rick Barnes’ zone was when we played Texas – amateurish. Non-Boeheim like. Our offense was pretty stumped. Ellis got some easy hoops inside, then he got into foul trouble. When he returned, Baylor didn’t permit the same path to the hoop. We should expect that from the start. In the Baylor game, the color guy said that KU needed to do “more than pass it around the perimeter.” Given how we attacked Texas, I expect that we will. I grumped a bit the last time because we simply didn’t set any screens against Baylor’s zone. Seemed as though we got stymied much of the time, and did have the ability to hit the creases. I’m hoping that if we feed the ball in, we get some nice kick-outs for shots. But what would you do if you were Baylor? I’d play our bigs straight up, which means there will be two defenders near, and protect against any kick-out. Will be interesting to see of we can go from ball side block to far wing with any passing if that happens, or if we can play some big to big – DJack/Arthur style (best play of OT vs. Memphis, if anyone recalls). Another item to watch – against the TT zone, I noticed that we had one man out top, and two wings. TT had an odd mad front. So that was a bit unconventional. Baylor also has an odd man front. I don’t recall that we used an odd man front against Baylor’s odd man front – don’t think that we did, but can’t remember. Anyway, this is significant because the perimeter defenders in the 1-1-3 that Baylor runs will match face up to our perimeter players (just like a 1-3-1 would), which is different than if we ran a two man, or even man front vs. the zone. Playing against Baylor, after what I saw last time, will present a big challenge. Hope the Fool’s Gold mine is producing.

@jaybate-1.0 I agree with you. One of these day we should have another thread on Coach Smith and his legacy vis-a-vis KU.

@Shanghai_RCJH Selden? He helped w/forte last time. Newberrys not to shabby either, they have improved. I dislike these guys!!!

@benshawks08 Mason’s fatigue is a very valid point, At 33.2 MPG, he is playing more that what I think Self would like, which I assume is 28-30 MPG and it is twice as many MPG than he played last year. It is amazing how much difference even a couple of minutes per game can make. In the NBA, they carefully monitor and limit playing time for injured/recovering/older players and they will not go over those limits. The Lakers tried it with Kobe and he still ended up in trouble. Some teams, will also periodically rest their key players for games at the time to prevent fatigue; granted the NBA season is considerably longer but the players are also pros and much better conditioned than college players. I had hoped that may be Mason would have been able to play 20-25 minutes against TCU and KSU but ended up playing 35 and 33 minutes in those games. Look like as much as Davonte has progressed, Coach Self is just not quite ready to hand him the keys to the team for extend periods and relies on Frank heavily. I am not sure when Mason can have some time off since the conference continues to be tough.

@Shanghai_RCJH The way I see it the foul trouble we experienced provided rest for our bigs. We didn’t need Traylor, Ellis, and Alexander expending all of their energy on TCU. Keep 'em fresh for the next two of the “3 in 6” -by Jaybate

@Shanghai_RCJH Looking at the roster of TCU, I think the players to have good offensive stats will be Ellis and Mason. RCJH!

@KU62 Agreed. U r now our free throw coach!!!

@drgnslayr Exactly! And Where does most of the fight from a dog come from? The head! Our head is ferocious, mean, bulldog of a point guard. Compare Frank this year to Tharpe last year. There is no comparison. Mason will NOT let Taylor torch us like he did last year.

We have played exceptionally well since that loss. The next three games will tell us a lot. Road games vs the Clones/UT with a home game against OU on the short hop - we win all three, we’re in tall cotton. I think we can win them all.

@ParisHawk On that you are correct. I had taken for granted that some teams had played more games than we had.

@Blown If we look at their line up, i think they play mainly 6 guys and the 7th is not really rotation minutes. Therefore, I like our Options we can have at 1/2, 3, and 4/5. We have 2 viable options for 1/2 (Mason/Seldon and Mason/Graham), we have a solid 3 in KO and BG and Svi as good back ups, we have Traylor/Ellis, Traylor/Cliff and Cliff/Ellis at the 4/5. We can throw many things at them but they can’t. RCJH!