Topics created by truehawk93

Pics of Nick Collison. It was great seeing him and speaking to him.

Been hearing good things.

@wissox That’s the goal and with scissors in hand. Obviously there’s nothing else to gain at this point except the ultimate goal of the season. This team is battled tested and has the scars to achieve their team dream.

With the way he kept Adabayo from getting a shot off with clean hard fouls, I give Dwight an A for his ground control game.

@KU-Flyer we do need a full roster especially since 3 spots are guaranteed to be open after next year. If we don’t sign anymore players we could have as many as 8 spots open (yikes). 3 left over Scholarships, 3 guaranteed spots open and pending Svi & Selden draft decisions.

@HighEliteMajor You sure like to stir it up…don’t you. Selden by far. I get the rationale behind the question, though. I think Selden is a victim of his perceived (maybe real) potential I know I was really excited the way he looked in the McDonald’s game. Great quickness, super passing, good shooter. But I also thought that Malik Newman was the fastest player I every saw last weekend when he was on TV. Things sometimes change when they get to the next level. Maybe he still has slight injuries. I know the lack of finishing at the rim is vexing. But, the biggest surprise to me is the ballhandling. I hold my breath when he handles the ball against any kind of pressure. I still think he is a very good player. Good perimeter defender, improving shooter. Just not as complete as all had hoped. Maybe there’s still time…

He reminds me of another KU big, Danny Knight. More talent but both were quiet and humble… Wish Danny the best. What a class act. Surprised even Larry when he came back his senior year to finish the job and win a national championship.

@JayHawkFanToo We can agree to disagree, sure. But I think we’re arguing two different tracks. My point, my initial point, was that Zimmerman does not need the exposure in order to achieve his goals. If we’re to believe that his primary goals are playing time and being a OAD and getting college out of the way and getting to the NBA as quickly as possible, going to UNLV doesn’t hurt him. Does Calipari disagree with me that a top 10 high school recruit isn’t already on pro scouts’ radars? I doubt it. I am in full agreement that elite schools like Kentucky, Duke, & KU can sell the exposure angle. They can also roll out the red carpet for incoming recruits that lesser schools (i.e. UNLV) can’t. They have better facilities. And they have better coaches. The exposure thing is a factor, but I believe it is not as high on the list, especially for a guy like Zimmerman who again, doesn’t need the exposure as much to ascend to the next level.

Let me start by saying the I like Norm Roberts and I believe he is a great coach; however, I just don’t think he is a great “HEAD” coach. He has been a head coach for 10 seasons, 4 years at Queens College and 6 years at St. John’s. While at Queens College, his record was 24-84 and 15-65 in conference play. At St John’s his record was 81-101 and 32-70 in conference. His only two season with winning records were 2006-07 with a record of 16-15 and 2009-10 with a record of 17-16, both winning season were by the smallest of margins. In 10 years as Head Coach he has never produced a winning conference record in any one year. As comparison, the previous two coaches at St. Johns that coached at least one full season are : Fran Fraschilla 1996-98 57-36 Mike Jarvis 1998-2003 66-60 The coach that followed Roberts, Steve Lavin has a 71-60 record so far, even when he was absent part of the time due to health issues. There is no question that Roberts inherited a program at St. John’s that was in disarray and in probation, but all the sanctions were essentially gone by 2006 and all coach Roberts could muster in his last two season were first round loses in the CBI and NIT. The only coach in St. John’s storied programs with a worse record is J.Chesnut 1907-08 who had a record of 4-8. We have 10 years of head coaching experience to look at and the information above would seem to indicate that as good as we believe coach Roberts is, he is the classic example of the Peter’s principle, i.e. once he gets to be a head coach he reaches his level of incompetence and he is no longer effective. In order to be considered for the head coaching position at KU he would have to show several years of running a mid to large Division I program at a high level, something that does not seem to be in the cards. Coach Dooley - who had a 57-52 record in 4 years as head coach at East Carolina before joining KU - was chosen over Roberts for the smaller Florida Gulf Coast program. Again, I just don’t see Coach Roberts as a candidate to replace Coach Self if he decides to retire any time in the foreseeable future; the most likely scenario is that he would go with Self if he moves to the NBA or hopefully stay at KU as an assistant, something less likely to happen since Nikko graduated.

Does everyone remember how Self recruited Tharpe? KU was between a rock and hard place with pgs. We totally missed on Josiah Turner and Self recruited him hard. He was all but signed to KU. Also, shortly after Turner, Self went after Smart, and then went after the twins. He struck out with pgs. He was really banking on Josiah Turner. In a nutshell, Taylor was on his way out, EJ wasn’t a pg, and Self really needed Josiah Turner. I’ll never forget that slippery slide. Self just couldn’t stop sliding downward. Now, ironically the pg recruited to fill pg needs is now leaving. Maybe this is a good sign that Self’s pg woes are over.

@JayhawkRock78 I think either way, they would want to party and celebrate! Espnu there too.

@icthawkfan316 Likely to be combo guards that’s being pursued. We really need a true pg, that’s all I’m saying. I can hope there’s a reasonable explanation. I’m just tired of being without a pg at this point watching the F4 teams with great pgs. Yes, thanks for the last name correction. Trier sounds even better at 6-4. Hope it works out for HCBS and Co.

Hopefully we will get revenge tonight. Certainly, if we can’t beat UT at home, then if we somehow blow the conference championship, we deserve what we get. It will be interesting to see. Taylor penetrated at will, while he has not had as much luck against some other teams. Our concerns in that area have been well discussed. Ridley and Holmes dominated…then not so much against other teams. I think mainly, they brought it in Austin and we didn’t. We shouldn’t have that that problem tonight.

@bigtexjayhawk Ok, bigtex, I’ll bite. What are you basing this on? Thanks.

Don’t fret @nuleafhawk. The 2005 team with Rush, Chalmers, Wright, Robinson, Kaun and others started the season 3-4 and finished 25-8 including 13-3 in conference play.

@tundrahok Potential is an important factor in readiness. I have long argued that the improvement of players in college is limited because the level of competition is not consistently high enough to push them to develop, the coaching is too limited (weekly limits in season and during the summer) and they are not forced to expand their game. I used Julian Wright before, so I will go back to him. At his size, he was going to be an NBA small forward. The average small forward in the NBA is 6-7. The average power forward is 6-9. However, in college, the average small forward is closer to 6-4 or 6-5. The average power forward is around 6-7. Therefore, Wright’s size and athleticism made him a mismatch sizewise for not only small forwards in college, but also power forwards. And that’s before we start talking about skill level. Look at this year’s schedule for KU. It’s a tough schedule. One of the toughest in the nation. Andrew Wiggins will be an NBA small forward, same as Wright would have been. He’s playing on the perimeter as he should be. And yet he has had exactly one game this year where he has faced a guy that was both his size AND close to his skill (vs. Duke with Hood and Parker). Every other game has been against guys that were either too small or not skilled enough from an NBA perspective. One season of that is fine because it transitions him from dunking over 6-4 centers in high school to playing against some more size in college, but the skill will really ramp up in the NBA. But two seasons of that could cause him to start developing bad habits like forcing jump shots over defenders that are 2-3 inches shorter, or gambling on defense and depending on athleticism rather than positioning to recover. For the most elite players, they need to move to higher levels of competition quickly to avoid developing bad habits by facing inferior competition.