🏀 KuBuckets Archive

We are past our 2 year re-build from the team that lost in the national championship game. We break in one (1) newbie into the starting lineup, whose job is to block everything in sight, and dunk, dunk, dunk, We return our starting backcourt, and a very impressive soph ( Devonte), along with Svi, Greene, and a somewhat unheralded (imo) freshman in Vick. We return our top scorer in Perry, along with Jamari, Landen, and two highly touted freshmen in Bragg, and our new center, Diallo.

All of these guys get a whole bunch more practice due to the WUG, and we are catching college bb in a somewhat down year. I think we win 30+ easily. I think our team defense will be better with a shot blocker in the middle, and our offense will have lots of options, and will be hard to stop.

Maybe it's my crimson/blue glasses I wear, but i could see us going into the NCAA tournament as the #1 seed, with the experience on the roster, and the depth to back it up. This is our year!!!!

@KUSTEVE It must have taken considerable SWAY to lure the likes of Jaylen Brown away from the potential Jayhawk success which you just outlined. But maybe we escaped the scrabbled mindset of a Rio Adams or J R Giddens.

@KUSTEVE I'm w/u!😍💙🏀❤️

@KUSTEVE Perfect topic for a rainy Sunday (at least in the KC area).

It is the crimson and blue colored glasses .. but that's ok. We all do it every year. But we do it for a reason. We always have a team good enough to win the NCAA title. That's pretty cool.

That's coach Self's job. And in that phase, he has consistently succeeded. As in nearly every season. It's a rare season where we don't have the roster talent to win the NCAA title. Unquestionably, we have a serious national title contender this coming season.

Like many top teams, it's a matter of getting all the pieces working together at maximum efficiency. That is a big task. And that is the area in which Self has not been as successful (compared to the roster composition). It's his job to choose scheme, and to game plan, and to prepare the players. He owns the large number of wins, he owns the small number of losses.

This is the challenge this season. As I see it, the only way Kansas can be successful offensively is if the players can execute in Self's high/low. That's not because the group of players couldn't play a different way, or win a different way. It's solely because Self sees effective offensive basketball from his perspective only. Self's answer last season to his best perimeter shooting team (his words) was to adjust away from that admitted strength. His adjustment was to dumb down the offense to the four out/one in perpetual weave (as someone else here coined). Not much to it. And it became easy to defend.

We should not count on wholesale changes from Self. Based on 2014-15, we should fear them. It is what it is.

Strangely, that makes me feel better. Self noted recently that he felt he changed too much offensively. We saw what happened last season when Self deviated from normal offensive approach. It was a mess. He recoiled against his team's progression to a perimeter based offense. He shut it down. His comment supports my negative view of the offensive change we saw last season. And in retrospect, I think Self sees it crystal clear. His team needs to play his way.

Like it or not, that is reality.

But here's why I feel better -- Self knows the high/low. He knows his offense. And he knows it well. Outside of that box, I think it's a much different story. Thus, we should want Self to make us play within that high/low box. The high/low is thus our only chance to have offensive success.

I have become convinced by the arguments I've seen made that Self will accept the three point shot as a significant weapon IF it is executed within his high/low, inside/out scheme. If we want three pointers, this is how we're going to get them. Inside/out.

What we should want with every bone in our bodies is for Self to make adjustments within his high/low scheme. Some strategic tweaks to take advantage of our personnel. This is where I am the most optimistic. A season offensively like last season has to be shocking to Self. He will never want that to occur again. The most logical response in Self's world, I believe, would be to take his system and tweak it. It's our best hope for the National Title that @KUSTEVE projects.

High/Low or Die -- that's our battle cry for 2015-16.

@KUSTEVE Great post and I agree. We will be really solid but to me it is most important that it appears to be a down year in college ball. At least from a dominance standpoint.

KU returns a ton of key players. So does North Carolina and so does Maryland. Who else does? I suppose Gonzaga is bringing back quite a bit as well but that is all I can think of as far as National Title contender teams and who has much coming in.

This coming season Kentucky was not able to do what they have done the last few years and put together a #1 team with recruiting. They simply struck out down the stretch on the big recruits and they are left with a very very solid team but not the UK we saw last year or the years of John Wall or Anthony Davis. This is a UK team that should lose 5-10 games.

Duke lost almost everyone who scored. I know they have guys who can play who were waiting their turn and they have good recruits coming in but again this is a team that should lose far more often than last year when they had 3 first round draft picks and a senior guard who could shoot.

Wisconsin made a great run the last two years. I think that is over for a bit. Seems like a solid squad yet again but not a Final 4 team.

MSU is always good but again they lost a number of major pieces and where they really that good last year? Not really. Got hot at the right time. Upsets went their way and Izzo is Izzo in March.

Arizona lost a lot to the draft and graduation. Looking at their record from last year and that is going to be a hell of a tough thing to duplicate especially with Cal and UCLA being better teams next year.

Obviously I am missing some teams who are going to be really good but I just don't see a repeat of last year where 5 or 6 teams (Duke, UK, Zona, Nova, Gonzaga, Wisconsin) just dominate from start to finish with only a few losses a piece. I see a 6-8 loss team this year having a good shot at a 1 seed and I think KU is going to be as good as anyone in the country similar to our 2008 and 2011 teams.

@HighEliteMajor Didn't Coach Self write a book on the hi-lo? I know there are some videos out there of him teaching the hi-lo, so I certainly agree he won't be changing the offense anytime soon. It would be like Colonel Sanders making a hamburger- not likely to happen.

Joeloveshawks - I really think this will be our time this year. I don't fear UNC, as Coach Self seems to have Roy's number. As for Maryland, I like what Turg has done, but they don't scare me a bit, even with Stone and Sulaimon added.

The two biggest concerns I have for Kansas this year are the leadership issues that have plagued KU the past couple of seasons and can Diallo stay out of foul trouble enough to be the rim protector KU lacked last season. This is by far the most talented KU team since the 2010-11 team that lost to VCU and there is not a dominant team in college basketball.