@Jhawk69 I really like this team on paper. The last 2 years, I warned multiple times that the season could be a disaster because the rosters weren’t well constructed and the transfers Self brought in didn’t compliment who was already here.
The biggest concern for me this season on paper is the offense. This isn’t necessarily a bad shooting team, but nobody that’s expected to play big minutes is elite either. Rosario is probably the best shooter on the team, but it remains to be seen how well his shooting will adapt to the college game. Outside of him, we have a bunch of wings and guards who all in the 32%-35% range which isn’t elite, but not bad enough to where you can ignore them either
I know some are concerned that Self didn’t hit on a high scoring wing in the portal and there is some validity to that, but I’m not too concerned about KU’s ability to score. Peterson is going to be big time and there’s very little evidence to suggest he won’t be as good as advertised at KU. If KU has 4 or 5 other players in 9-13 ppg range, they’ll be in good shape. Flory is still pretty raw offensively so I don’t see this season being a breakout year for him, but I still think he’ll average a double-double or be very near it. The man is a rebounding machine with good instincts so I think he’ll be fine.
Defense is where we’ll all see drastic improvements and I think this will be Self’s best defensive team post-Covid. Everyone expected to be in the is above average to elite defensively and everybody is good enough to switch. Rosario is the I don’t know much about his defensive abilities, but if the effort isn’t there, he’s gonna be sitting his butt on the bench. I think Flory and Council will be in the mix for B12 DPOY and potentially NDPOY.
We’ve got a good schedule and should know pretty quickly what this team is capable of. I like that most have KU in the 15-20 range because the weight of preseason expectations won’t be there. Obviously, Darryn Peterson is tge most important player and NPOY candidate, but as far as determining how deep KU can go this year, I think the two most important players are Elmarko Jackson and Bryson Tiller. We all know Elmarko was considered a OAD candidate out of high school, he hung around and stay through adversity both adversity both on and off the court which speaks volumes to his character (same with Jamari McDowell) and if Elmarko can play anywhere near that level, that’s going to make KU an incredibly dangerous team to have a backcourt of Peterson and Jackson tearing teams apart.
The other player that’s key to me is Bryson Tiller. He’s healthy and he’s another guy already on NBA radars so if he can be a serviceable back up to Flory and develop enough range to play the 4, then KU would move into legit national title contender territory.
As of right now, I’d say the Elite 8 is tge ceiling for this team, but if Elmarko and Tiller can play near their ability levels consistently, then I’ll call KU a title contender.
