@truehawk93 KU doesn’t have to be the best team in the tournament, just the better team on floor 6 times.

@loyolstud88 Blue blood killer is cute, come back when you beat one.

@Kcmatt7 Self knows exactly how to coach young guards. They just don’t become finished products right away. Mason and Graham each took until their third years to become elite guards.

KU and Beaty need to do everything in their power to keep Tony Hull because as long as he’s at KU, that pipeline KU now has into New Orleans is going to stay open until for KU until Hull is no longer here. Louisiana is just an entirely different culture from the rest of the country and these guys aren’t joking about the family atmosphere having a huge influence on their decisions. I know @wissox and anyone else including myself who have spent a significant portion of time in Louisiana will 100% back up this claim about the loyalty of Louisiana people being accurate and Hull has the loyalty of HS coaches and players all over the New Orleans area specifically.

Landing Tyriek Starks was the beginning. The connection with Hull was made during this recruitment because Starks played at Warren Easton under Hull. Reggie Mitchell then leaves for Arkansas and KU has a need for a new RB coach. Beaty takes a calculated risk by bringing in Hull in an attempt to get some players out of Louisiana. Almost immediately, Hull gets commitments from Mike Lee and Malik Clark (Clark is also from Warren Easton) and then gets Lee to enroll a year early at KU. In his 1st year, Hull also lands Travis Jordan and Takulve Williams both from the New Orleans area as well. In a little over a year on the job, Hull brings in 4 Louisiana players, one of whom gets a chance to play early. Getting players from Louisiana to visit KU is a big enough deal which hiring Hull allowed KU to at least talk to players in Louisiana. Seeing Mike Lee emerge on the scene however is a game changer for KU in Louisiana. Without the success Mike Lee had last year, KU does not land any of the Louisiana recruits that committed yesterday, at least not early like they did. They probably go home and tell their younger teammates about how nice KU is and that keeps the line of communication open with Louisiana prospects for Tony Hull. Lee’s success is a game changer because it shows these kids that they can come in and be successful very early on at KU instead of having to sit and wait behind other 4 and 5 star guys at LSU.

If Daylon Charlot comes in and has early success and if Tyriek Starks wins the QB job, the floodgates will be fully open for KU to talk to any recruit in Louisiana they want to and to have a legitimate chance to sign those players as well.

What KU did yesterday in getting commitments from Jason and Harris (3rd and 4th best players in Louisiana with offers from LSU, Alabama, and basically everybody in the SEC) is something that has definitely caught a lot of people off guard including everyone who follows KU football. We knew Hull would allow KU to talk to some players out of Louisiana, but to actually land commitments from players the caliber of Jason and Harris is something I don’t even think Tony Hull thought was possible at this stage in the game.

Don’t be surprised to see KU land possibly 3, maybe even more recruits out of Louisiana this year. Warren Easton has a couple of 3 star prospects who we know Hull has a relationship with and there’s a DE out of Baton Rouge that KU is the favorite to land.

Man who run behind car get exhausted

Man who walk through airport turnstile sideways going to Bangkok

Man who eat many prunes get good run for money

Wife who put husband in doghouse soon find him in cathouse

These are just for you @jaybate-1.0

TCU is significantly better than any 16 seed KU will face. Whatever league KU’s 16 seed comes out of, TCU is good enough to go undefeated in that league.

Lightfoot is also playing way out of position as well. He’s being forced into being a low post player on both ends of the floor when he’s never had that role before. The guy is a stretch 4 and is being exploited in major mismatches because he’s never guarded the position before.

Clay Young has been better on the defensive end because he was a post at his JuCo even at his size. He understands the role and what’s required of the role much better than Lightfoot does.

I’m not going to rip in Lightfoot for this because none of it is his fault. He didn’t make Coleby transfer, he didn’t make Whitman transfer, he didn’t make Preston sit out because of a car. We all know Lightfoot isn’t ready for this role, but he’s the only option at this point.

This situation is why Self is trying to get DeSousa enrolled early and it’s why Sosinski was added to the team. KU needs to work on developing Sosinski over the next 3 weeks which KU only has 3 games during that stretch. Work him into the rotation this week, let him make his debut against Nebraska, give him some big minutes against Omaha as a trial run, and if that goes well, let him sub for Azubuike against Stanford and see how that goes before Texas on the 29th.

If the Preston situation gets resolved in a positive manner by that time, then swap Sosinski out for Preston. Either way, KU needs to find a way to get Lightfoot back to the stretch 4 spot because him as a low post player doesn’t work.

Graham absolutely willed this team to victory in the second half today. Really didn’t think this would happen about a month ago.

@Gorilla72 West Virginia is 8-9 this season. They are really bad team this year and they’re going to be without Konate again I believe so they won’t have any rim protection. This is Huggy’s worst team in a long time.

It’ll end up being Dotson eventually. His issue though is that he doesn’t have anyone to teach him how to be a leader at this level. That was also why Mason and Graham struggled early on as well.

When Self got here, he already had Aaron Miles who learned how to lead from Hinrich. Russell Robinson came in and learned from Miles how to be the leader. Robinson in turned showed Sherron Collins the ropes who then mentored Tyshawn Taylor. This is where the breakdown in that line happened. In 2010, KU landed Josh Selby and Royce Woolridge. Selby obviously had his issues and should’ve stayed another season at least. Woolridge was always a project player and never panned out. Woolridge was likely supposed to take the reigns from Taylor after the 2011-2012 season as either a junior or RS sophomore.

The 2011 class was a disaster because Self for whatever reason never had a plan for the Morris twins leaving early even though it wasn’t much of a secret that was a possibility. Still Self landed Naadir Tharpe out of that class after it became apparent Woolridge was never going to develop and Tharpe was supposed to be next after Taylor at the point. The transition from Taylor to Tharpe is where the line of PG’s at KU was broken because of Tharpe’s issues.

In 2012, KU didn’t land a PG and 2013 is when KU landed Mason who spent one year under Thapre who wasn’t a leader in any capacity and KU lost 10 games that year despite having Wiggins, Embiid, and Selden as well.

When Mason took over as a sophomore with Graham as a freshman, that’s when KU had was really hurt because Mason and Graham were having to learn for themselves how to lead a high level college basketball because they didn’t have anyone to mentor them. Mason was under Tharpe for a season, but when the guy who’s supposed to show you how to be a leader gets kicked off the team, Mason didn’t have anyone to teach him.

The 2015 class ended up a disaster with Diallo and Bragg not making it past year 2 (or 1 in Diallo’s case) along with Vick who might go down as the biggest disappointment among 4 players under Self along with Elijah Johnson (I don’t share you opinion on EJ and never will).

As Mason and Graham keep learning and getting better, there should’ve been another PG in either the 2016 or 2017 class to develop and take the reigns after Graham left in 2018, but it didn’t happen so Self had to get what he could which led to bringing in Charlie Moore in 2017 as a transfer and hoping he could land PG 2018 to develop. Obviously, Self landed Dotson in 2018 who’s the highest rated PG Self has landed since Sherron Collins and looks like he’ll be a great PG one day and already is the best freshman PG KU has had since Collins.

The problem though is Dotson doesn’t have a mentor to show him how to take control of his team. Dotson is learning on the job how to lead his team and there will be bumps along the way. KU lost 9 games in Mason’s first year as a starter. This group has 3 wins over current top 15 teams all on neutral courts so the potential is definitely there whenever the light comes on.

Hopefully this core comes back in tact next season and gets 3 years together because I could see a lineup in 2020-2021 of Dotson, Grimes, Agbaji, Garrett, and McCormack being a serious title threat. It’s also not unreasonable or unrealistic to see that line up in a couple of seasons with 4 juniors and a senior in the starting line up.

This group has huge upside, they just have to go through the same growing pains Mason and Graham and that group had to go through because there isn’t anyone to show this group how to lead. Hopefully Self lands another top level PG in the 2020 class that can sit behind Dotson for a tear and learn under a junior Dotson before taking over in either 2021 or 2022.

@tis4tim said in Les Miles:

@jayballer67

I agree it’s discouraging. We have now, somehow, scraped below the bottom of the barrel with our football team. On the bright side, so what if there is a mass exodus? We won exactly ZERO games last year. ZERO! In the past decade we have won 18 games. IN TEN YEARS. That’s an average of less than 2 wins per year for the past 10. So, really, who gives rat’s behind about any of this? Scrap it all and start from the beginning. It honestly cannot get worse.

The fact that this program cannot recruit kids that look like they’ve even played the game before is simply unfathomable to me. Replace everybody and I would wager we can find kids who can win more than 1.8 games per year over the next 10.

A mass exodus of players means we’re back in a scholarship situation situation similar to what Weis created and Beauty inherited. Without a mass exodus, KU’s scholarship numbers will finally be in line with other FBS programs. A mass exodus screws up not only the total scholarship situation, but the class balance as well which is why it’s taken so long to recover from what Weis did to KU. At this point, I’m convinced Mangino sold KU’s soul in football to try and save his job in 2007.

Jeff Long has a good eye for coaching talent, but an absolute shitty eye for character or just no regard for character. This is basically a repeat of what happened to Long at Arkansas and something like this happening is why I’ve never been a big Jeff Long fan and thought it was a bad hire when it happened, and it’s turning out to be a bad hire now. The only silver lining might be if KU end up firing both with cause and saving a few million dollars.

@nwhawkfan said in KU tune up game thread:

Just got home to catch the last few minutes. How the hell were we down that much at the half? Glad we won, but jeez…

KU no-showed the first 30 minutes tonight.

Dajuan F-ing Harris!!!

Back to back bad decisions by Braun

That did not look like it was off Harris.

That was a ticky tac foul based on how the refs have called this one, lol!

We’re gonna have the same arguments about Harris for the next 3-4 years that we’ve had about Garrett the past 4 years. Harris is going to end up being an elite defender whose ability to keep opponents from scoring will make up for his own lack of offensive ability.

@jayballer67 said in KU tune up game thread:

fricken lightfoot

That was on Garrett

@BeddieKU23 said in KU tune up game thread:

Dave is absolutely terrible tonight

So is everyone else not named Agbaji.