Best posts made by Wishawk

KU Roster by year in screen print form

2013-2014

2012-2013

2011-2012

2010-2011

2009-2010

2008-2009

2007-2008

2006-2007

2005-2006

2004-2005

2003-2004

2002-2003

What a pleasant surprise! Loved how Frank Mason played the game. Plenty of poise and driving attack. Perfect compliment to Tharpe and they played really well together on the court especially in the second half. If this game is any indication, we have our point guard position set for the next 4 years. This game feels like a Final Four game. Great win!

I’m a big fan of @Jesse_Newell 's technical analysis of the nuts and bolts of KU basketball. He makes a fine mechanic I’m sure. Was he made by the German engineering? Love it!

Courtesy of @Approxinfinity

In markdown syntax the pound key (#) has a different purpose – you can use the pound key before and after a section you want to make big and blue. One pound before and after is the biggest, and each additional pound before and after makes it progressively smaller. I believe five pounds before and after is back to normal size (but still blue). This is how bskeet makes the pretty headers when he posts the stories.

To make a word bold, place 2 asterisks (**) before and after the words.

To make italicised text, place 1 asterisk (*) before and after the text.

#And to make one big, bold and italic.#

I think one of the simplest and also free photo tool, Picasa will do nicely to reduce the pictures to manageable sizes. It can be downloaded here, Picasa.google.com. Once you have the large picture open in Picasa, click “Export”

Then you will get a prompt to reduce the size to anything you want.

Drag and Drop is supported at least by Firefox and Chrome.

I think it will be good for team in the long run. Get the freshmen in the fire and let them show what they are made of. We might be surprised by how good Mason, Frankamp and Selden are as PGs. Otherwise Greene may not be a PG, but appeared to have pretty good handle on a couple of occasions.

@JRyman Best of luck!

@ParisHawk Jason King’s story is indeed a great read.

Love Langford. He is a great guy, and so is his mom. We have had so many quality guys through the program over the years. Reading the article gave me both warmth and chills at the same time. The article should be archived somewhere on this site permanently, but don’t know if it will be an issues with copyrights. Maybe ask Jason about it?

If Turner wants to win anything at OSU, he should have committed last year because Smart is gone after this season. The way Embiid developing, he should seriously look at KU’s situation. At 6’11", he will be a nice replacement if Embiid decides to take cash.

To Embiid, Look at all the past OADs and see how much you might gain by going early. It isn’t worth it unless cash is all that matters.

@konkeyDong Sounds like the games will be impacted by the referees much more than in the past. It will depend on the style and mood of the referees, and sometimes the fouls get called while not other times. I’m a soccer referee. By the soccer laws, the games are called according the spirit of the game. Some fouls are called while others are not based on the referee’s interpretation of advantage to the team. So most of the fouls are ignored and the teams are generally allowed to play with minimal interference from the referee unless someone commits a blatant foul or endangers others.

Sorry for all the non-basketball related comments, but I saw similarities. And I agree the new changes are not good for basketball.

@jhawk7782 Jojo was compared to Hakeem “The Dream” Olajuwon frequently, but here is what Olajuwon achieved,

Graduated as a senior in 1984. Went to 3 Final Fours. Drafted by NBA as the number 1 pick in 1984. Played in the NBA for 18 years. Was 2× NBA champion (1994–1995) 2× NBA Finals MVP (1994–1995) 1x NBA Most Valuable Player (1994) 12× NBA All-Star (1985–1990, 1992–1997) Made over 100 million dollars in salary over his NBA career.

What did Olajuwon miss by staying for 4 years at University of Houston? I’d say nothing. But I believe he gained a lot by being ready on every level when he was drafted. Too bad today’s kids don’t get it. Too many of them go for the instant gratification.

Will Embiid be an exception in the modern era? I wish…

Last night Embiid played way more minutes than Black. Is that a trend going forward? He still looked raw, but he got beautiful hands and foot, an of course a big athletic body. He made a couple of beautiful assists last night. And he even dribbled out of double teams. At this point, I still don’t see him going OAD, but there is no telling how much he will improve this season. I think he will need to learn how to post up closer to the basket. Last night he caught the balls far from the paint, so he couldn’t do much with the ball. And right now he has no post move and can’t shoot free throws. But he was a lot more mobile than Black. I’m very excited to see his development over the whole season, and will be very disappointed if he leaves after just one season here. I’m selfish.

Merry Christmas!

It’s frigid, but beautiful.

@justanotherfan

• Perry Ellis has strangely become the first option for this team, and he’s handling that responsibility brilliantly. His improvement from last season to this is incredible.

Perry is super smart. I thought it was a brilliant play when he was trapped by the baseline. Rather than trying to make a difficult pass to a teammate, he shielded the ball with his body and waved the ball just over the baseline. With a slight touch from a defender, he let the ball go out of bound. KU throw in.

Hey @Jesse_Newell I just updated your post to make the links clickable. Thanks.

I’m surprised nobody picked up Jesse’s excellent scouting report on Townson. Very informative as usual.

http://cjonline.com/blog-post/jesse-newell/2013-11-22/five-minute-scout-towsons-hope-against-ku-hinges-free-throws

Some random thoughts.

KU might benefit from getting some practice time with the Nike basketballs. It appears to make some difference in the game performance. I don’t remember who of our players commented that they were not used to playing with the Nike basketball after the Wake game. And I found it ironic that Duke uses Nike, and they struggled at the free throw line (57%) in Chicago with the Wilson basketball. And all of KU’s games were using Wilson balls except the most recent 3 games.

I really don’t like the look of the ballroom at Atlantis. The darkened seating area made it look like driving at night with dome light on. It must be terrible for the depth perception. Our guys had the worst field goal shooting at the ballroom of this young season.

I don’t understand why Coach wouldn’t play Greene. And I wonder if Greene will be tough enough to stick through the toughening box, and stay at KU for 4 years. Is it the maturity thing? Off court issues? I keep thinking what that hit&run with the parked car means. But the demeanor on the sideline or on the court doesn’t suggest a Rio Adam or JR Giddens type. He seems to be a nice kid.

What’s wrong with Frankamp’s shot? He was a shooter, but now he can’t make either 3 or 2 pt. Is the Wichita city league that bad? But seriously why doesn’t Greene play ahead of Frankamp? They both have the reputation of being sharp shooters, but Greene is clearly superior physically.

Quote of Coach Self, “To me, when you look as a coach, you should be judged on basically three things: Do they play together and are they unselfish? Do they play extremely hard? And are they tough?” Self said. “And I’d say we went 0-for-3. So that’s frustrating to me when you go 0-for-3.” So where/what is the role of the coach? I get that the teaching happens during practice and the players are supposed to do what they practiced, but I don’t think Coach did much to help the young kids during the games in those three games. Or maybe he proved his point, all the star power won’t win you games or may lose if they don’t play like a team. They were missing some fighting spirit during these three games.

Here is a good site for stats, statsheet.com. And if you want some bragging right material, here is dailyjayhawk.com.

I believe Coach Self is messing with the shooters. He is not concerned about the 3pt shooting percentage because he knew who were the shooters, and he trust them to be good shooters with natural abilities. But he is forcing the issues with Wiggins and Selden. At this point, neither Wiggins nor Selden displayed the alpha dog mentality to take over game. They have the green light to drive as much as they want, and shoot as often as they want as long as the shots are within the flow the game. But neither was willing to do so consistently. Both played really well at spots such as the Duke game, but they don’t bring it every game. Both of them are superior athletes, so boot camp didn’t really pushing them to their limit. So Coach has to find different approaches to address the mental toughness side of the issue. Coach wants them to get out of their comfort zone and really achieve what they are capable, but didn’t believe they could. So Coach at this point doesn’t want anyone to help them. He wants them to solve the problem on their own. He wants them to take over games like they are supposed to. I think Coach gathered enough evidence through the few games so far, and the next week will be his teaching sessions. I expect huge improvement on all fronts at the Colorado game next Saturday. And I won’t be surprised if the shooters suddenly rediscovered their touches then too. Or I may be dreaming.

@approxinfinity I think our 3pt shooting is fine, in the first 4 games, we had 38.9%, 37.5%, 28.6%, 43.8% respectively. I think the venue and the basketball definitely affected our shooting (around 20%) in the ballroom. So we should be fine over the long haul.

Both Selden and Wiggins displayed very nice shooting form, so I think they have the tools to be really good shooters. They just need to trust themselves and keep shooting.

Selden was 1-4, 1-2, 0-1, and 1-2 in the first 4 games. So he can do it, but he needs to develop the consistency.

@ralster You are one of the experts on this site, but I feel your assessment of Frankamp or Mason is a little off.

Frankamp doesnt play, because Mason brings better ball handling, better size, and better attackability, and likely better defense. As Self said: Frankamp got beat out in practice already, and when he has come in, while he has done good things, he has not found his 3-range (yet). Circular argument if he-cant-get-mpg, his-shot-wont-improve --> trumped by fact he isnt getting enough of the whole pkg done in practice to be able to get more mpg in live games.

I don’t believe Mason is taller than Frankamp, but I agree he is stronger and faster and probably better ball handling. And I’m not sure if he plays better defense than Frankamp. I feel (not an expert) Frankamp has displayed decent defense while there are way too many reach-in fouls from Mason. Maybe Frankamp played more within himself, but Mason played on the edge of his abilities? Also I haven’t seen where Coach Self commented Frankamp got beat in practice. I’d imagine him like Jeremy Case who would light up in practice, but couldn’t hit the ocean from a boat in a game.

Also I like Andrew White III a lot. I love his dedication and hustle. Tyshawn Taylor played himself into the NBA being a top 70 ranked HS player. And I think White might too. If he doesn’t get a chance to play in the NBA, I’m sure he will have a successful career in Europe like Russell Robinson.

@drgnslayr Agreed that we need rivalry. And we have 3 more reasons to play Wichita, Ellis, Frankamp and Wiggins. We are family.

####CJOnline – Jesse Newell: Year in Review####

Bill Self’s back was turned.

In a normal setting — Allen Fieldhouse, for example — the Kansas coach wouldn’t have needed to turn backwards to discuss something with one of his assistant coaches.

This was no normal setting, though. This was Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas, a dome-turned-basketball-arena with an elevated court that separated Self from his bench and, more importantly in this moment, his assistant coaches.

####KU Sports – Gary Bedore:Bob Davis in 30th year as voice of the Jayhawks####

Bob Davis, a 2006 inductee in the Kansas Association of Broadcasters Hall of Fame who has been named the state’s Sportscaster of the Year 13 times, isn’t the type of person to boast about his own accomplishments.

Not quite related to KU. But it is a story about Coach Williams by Jason King of Bleacher Report. I still love Coach Williams for his 15 great years of KU basketball. Hope he finds peace of mind in retirement soon.

Inside Roy Williams’ Most Trying Season By Jason King

@drgnslayr But I’ve been waiting for Selden to get aggressive and start playing, but so far it hasn’t happened. I think Coach Self tried really hard to get Selden ready to become an OAD, but Selden might have made up his mind to spend at least two years at KU. No complaints here, as I love Selden as a player. But given our outside shooting woes, it might be time to look at White again. Or maybe even try handing Greene the starting spot and see how he performs. Wiggins and Selden both were famous slashers in high school. They both have good shooting mechanics, but their outside shooting are not consistent enough to be considered outside threats at this point.

We all knew that White was dedicated to KU and the system, and made huge improvement over the summer, but from today Jesse’s article on White’s return, I sensed Coach Self deliberately pushed Selden ahead of White knowing Selden wasn’t ready. I wonder if it was because McLemore jumped from a 23rd ranked high school player to lottery in NBA draft, and Selden appeared to have a NBA ready body. So he projected Selden should have been good enough to step in from day one, and hopefully be ready by conference starts. Selden was a big upgrade over White on paper, 12th ranked player over 51st ranked player. But the one year in the KU system narrowed that gap quite a bit. So there might not be too much difference between Selden and White at least at this point. The only draw back of White might be he doesn’t have good enough handle to play the 2. I don’t remember seeing much of him with Wiggins on the floor together. Maybe he hasn’t been given a chance to play the 2 with Wiggins as the 3. I wish someone can report what’s happening at the practices. We may never know since Coach doesn’t let the non-star players (White or Greene) play through their mistakes.

Coach Self was willing to bench Tharpe to get his message across. And I hope he’d be willing to give White or Greene a try.

@HighEliteMajor Yes, I agree with you for his sake. But I just hate seeing a good kid, especially one who works hard and fits every bit in the Jayhawks family ends up going somewhere else to get playing time. White is exactly the type of players we love to see. It is unfortunate that it just happened his position got so crowded. I wish him the best whether staying or going somewhere else.

And on your question re. Wiggins, I’m never a big fan of proclaimed OADs. Never was a fan of Selby, nor Henry, but loved Rush. So far Wiggins has been a model citizen, but he never seemed to have the same attitude of Brandon. Now Ellis got 32. When are we going to see 40 out of Wiggins? He certainly has all the tools to do so. For me, I’d take White over Wiggins regardless what happens at the end of season. I’m more sentimental that way.

The most complete game from Wiggins. Great to see!

Love the enthusiasm from Selden too!

@jaybate 1.0 I like what you had for breakfast. We all need some Jo in the morning.

Go Jo, GO!!!

I loved Conner Frankamp when he committed. Somehow I believe his performance with the USA U-17 team was no fluke. Now I’ve seen his growth over his first season. He made steady progress even though his minutes on the court were sparse at best. I’m very excited for him and eagerly anticipate more major contribution from him like yesterday. But I won’t be disappointed if he stays on the bench most of the game tomorrow. He is after all a relative unknown quantity and people didn’t prepare for him. Now I’m sure all the opposing coaches scouted his game by now and it won’t be easy for him to have another stellar game. We will see what kind of fighter he is when the defense is keyed on him like they did on Tharpe. I still believe Tharpe will come through with huge games. And Frankamp and Mason give us two different styles in addition to Tharpe. It will be difficult for the other teams to focus on just Tharpe. I think it’s brilliant Coach Self recognized Tharpe’s deficiencies and introduced Conner at the right moment. According to one of the articles, Coach Self decided he was going to go to Frankamp before the game. He knew EKU’s 4 guard lineup would give Tharpe problems, and he made the necessary preparations to get Frankamp ready. Major kudos to Coach!

I don’t know much about Standford, but read they have good inside bigs. So we probably will face a more familiar lineup than EKU’s 4 guards small. So Tharpe can still be effective. And I’m look forward to KU taking down the trees with our 3 bombs tomorrow!

@Crimsonorblue22 Great story and thanks for sharing.

Traylor, “He definitely lets everybody know that he’s proud of me,” Traylor said. “And he let me know after the game. I love my coach, and I know he’s got love for me, too.”

Love Coach Self! He’s the father of the team!

@Lulufulu85

Go to KU Buckets home page, then click BBall News Stories link, the click the “New Topic” button on the top left. You will have a new thread in BBall News Stories.

I think Mason is too one dimensional, a driving bulldog. He hasn’t made enough progress at making assists, so he is expendable, or is not counted on other than when we need to change the pace. I think we see a little or a lot of him depending on his success at generating sparks.

I would not take Adam back. His attitude on the sideline was cancer. I’d keep who we have, Frankamp, Mason, Selden, and Tharpe. All of them were higher ranked, so what’s the upgrade? The pasture is always greener on the other side of the fens, maybe.

I can’t believe what I’m reading here. You guys are hypocrites. Joel Embiid might be leaving and now suddenly he is the bad guy. And some of you came out saying he didn’t bring anything to KU. What a group of fair weather fans. Make me sick!

I’d like Coach Self review the last loss of the season and learn from the mistakes and makes adjustments in the future. Coach mentioned in the past that he does not watch the last game of the season, and I 't think that is the right attitude.

@drgnslayr President Reagan, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”

That was the end of an era. And the following year, we won the Championship!

I like Frankamp’s game a lot. He may not have the speed of Mason, but he demonstrated much better decision making abilities than Tharpe. He was not speedy, and the dribble was kind of awkward, but he protected the ball well, rarely stuck or got trapped like Tharpe did. And I think it showed his understanding of the game, and he anticipated the plays before they happened. I agree with other posters and think Tharpe was very careless handling the ball and threw the ball away at some very opportune times. More than once, I noticed Coach Self sat him down for making a bad play, such as launching a ill timed three pointer, then as soon as he came back on the court, he launched a three pointer right away, as if telling Coach Self, “I can make the 3 and will shoot when I want to.” His recent twittergate further demonstrated his poor decision making. I think it’s time to switch horses, and run with Conner and Frank, or/and someone else.

By the way, I hope Conner won’t gain 15-20 pounds. It will kill any athletic ability he has. Yes, more muscles, but not weight. He will never be a post up guard and may do quite well being a feather weight. Speed and agility training probably will do him more good.

@Lulufulu85 You don’t mean to tie a couple sand bags on his ankles or a dumb bell on his waist, I hope. I hope he gains more muscle, but I just don’t see Conner will ever get to the body shape of Frank.

@icthawkfan316 Regarding playing 8 players, I agree and disagree. Agree is because what you illustrated while disagree is because what happened to Selden, Embiid, etc. When a player is hurt, the coach should rest him until he is recovered. While the hurt player is rested, it is time for the next bench player to come on board and learn the ropes. So we still have 8 players in the rotation. I think it is beneficial to the team, the hurt player, and the bench player to rotate. If the recovered player comes back and proves better than the bench player, the bench player goes back to the bench. We gain a healthy player, and an experienced bench player. What’s there to lose? I think without a developed bench, it leaves holes in March. And we leave our fate to chances that all the rotational players are healthy at the end of the season. What if Embiid were rested a month earlier and were available for March? Or Selden in December? I think we’d have much better chance of having Greene, White and Lucas developed as reliable backups for March. And we might go a little further than we did.

@wissoxfan83 Enjoy the ride!

I wonder why UConn didn’t have a season like WSU if they were out to avenge anything from the start of the season. They were the reason why my bracket was busted, and I think they got lucky at the end.

@wissoxfan83 Ah, it’s the dilemma.

Actually I do watch the Bears, but only when they don’t play Green Bay. I love going down to Chicago, especially on the sunny weekends when they have soccer at Soldier Field.

Here are a few KU videos to bridge over the slow news days of the summer.

6.18.14 Pt. 1 KU ALumni Game Bill Self Camp

6.18.14 Pt. 2 KU ALumni Game Bill Self Camp

6.18.14 Pt. 3 KU ALumni Game Bill Self Camp

6.11.14 KU Alumni Game - 1st half - Bill Self Camp

6.11.14 KU Alumni Game - 2nd half - Bill Self Camp

Of all the people who played last year, I’d have to agree with @bskeet that Conner Frankamp may have the most improvement. Mason started a few game as a Freshman and played rotation minutes last season. This year he will probably be the starting PG. With a year of maturing, he should have a much productive second season. And we already saw some of the maturing by the end of last season. His assists and decision making were much improved toward the end last year. So it won’t be any surprise Mason will be a major factor in this year’s team. But on the other hand, Frankamp only had a couple of memorable games last season. He may bring the most surprises IF he can break into the rotation this year.

Hunter didn’t play last year. And from the camp game videos, he show some skills and shooting touch, but no defense or rebounding. Don’t know if the camp games were all for scoring. After all, we don’t want the little kids to see all the bloody noses, right? So I’m hoping Mickelson will step up and take the starting center position and Cliff starts as the PF. Elis may be the most skilled player, but might have to settle as just a rotation player for being a tweener, not quite strong and tall enough to beat out Alexander, yet not skilled enough to be an effective SF.

So what surprises do we have among, Oubre, Greene, Selden, and Svi? Does Selden have the tri-gun to play 2/1, or the handle to play 1/2? Does Svi really have all the hyped skills to out play the others from position 1 to 3? He is certainly tall enough at 6’8". It’s kind of odd, but I still haven’t seen any picture of him playing against guys who are 20 or older. Does anyone have any link to the “pro” team pictures or videos?

There is no doubt there will be a fight for playing time among the 2 groups, bigs and smalls. Can’t wait.

@HighEliteMajor I’ve been on the CF wagon since his Team USA experience. It got to translate somewhere and sometimes. I really hope he plays, but the competition is tough with the talented back court group, Mason, Selden, CF, and Graham.

@icthawkfan316 I think from a skill set point of view, Oubre is more suited for SF while Greene is more of SG. From the recent videos, Oubre appeared to have a pretty balance game of attacking the rim and also shooting from 3s while Greene is known to be a shooter. Will Greene be involved more in the driving force this year? I don’t know. We already have a driving PG in Mason and a driving SG in Selden. How do we have both Oubre and Greene attacking the paint? Someone got to stay (more) on the outside and stretch the defense. Will that be CF, Svi and Greene?

The entire video is from 2013 against U16 competition. Is there one that is against U18 competition from this year? Conner Frankamp won the U16 championship with the USA and also was the top scorer on Team USA, but Conner struggled to get on the floor at KU. I think Svi has higher ceiling than Conner, but it’s yet to be seen what he can bring when he gets on campus. It will be great if he can be as good as Oubre in his sophomore year.

@baris. Thanks and that’s awesome!

I think this will be useful when we want to share our own photos. If Approx doesn’t like our photos, he can always remove the posts or do whatever necessary. There are plenty of free photo hosting sites, such as www.flickr.com, photobucket.com, or http://picasaweb.google.com. And we don’t have to “borrow” others’ copy righted material.

I agree 100%!

Me too, but it doesn’t make sense to be out around nowhere. LOL