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CJ Onlne -- Jesse Newell: KU's Black gets boost from Self ↗

Senior forward says he'd 'run through a wall' for coach who stayed confident in him

LAWRENCE — Kansas coach Bill Self has singled out Tarik Black a few times in practice to talk about his free-throw shooting.

Kansas City Star -- Rustin Dodd: Embiid just tapping into offensive potential ↗

LAWRENCE — Andrew Wiggins is the sort of 18-year-old kid who relishes a defensive challenge. He is 6 feet 8 with a 40-inch vertical and freakishly long arms. So in most cases, there’s not a player that Wiggins couldn’t guard.

This is the player, after all, who begged Kansas coach Bill Self to let him guard Duke star Jabari Parker during the Jayhawks’ victory over the Blue Devils earlier this season. And when Self said no? No problem. Wiggins just switched onto Parker on his own.

KU Sports -- Matt Tait: Black on track: ‘Hard work paid off’ for Kansas’ big-man transfer ↗

Before coming to Lawrence, Kansas University senior Tarik Black, a transfer from Memphis, carved out a niche as Conference USA’s top shooter.

Most of Black’s shots with the Tigers came from point-blank range, as he led his former conference in field-goal percentage in back-to-back seasons — 58.9 percent a season ago and a single-season record 68.9 percent during 2011-12 – but, close range or not, the numbers were impressive.

KU Sports -- Gary Bedore: Bill Self: Zone defenses not without merits ↗

Bill Self, who preaches in-your-face, man-to-man defense, isn’t against implementing the triangle-and-two, box-and-one or even a 3-2 zone if it helps win basketball games.

“Sometimes you do (want to show teams a different look),” said Self, Kansas University’s 11th-year coach, who most of the time prefers a stingy man alignment.

Black was the Big 12 Newcomer of the week and only needs 6 points to reach 1,000. He will get that and more hopefully next Monday vs Toledo.

"Black on Track"

Not that I'm skeptical or anything, but perhaps we should wait to see a nice stretch of games from Tarik before we make such a proclamation. We're all crossing our fingers for that.

@HighEliteMajor

Great minds think alike :)

I just posted something along the same lines yesterday. The Georgetown was a physical game with a lot of contact allowed that favored his style; most of the other games have been called a lot closer. Let's hope he adapts his style of play to the way games are called and continues to contribute; it would certainly make the team that much better.

Fouls are the biggest factor in games this year.. especially with teams that are stacked in the front court.

Black and Embiid dominated Georgetown because we won the "battle of fouls"... an aspect of the game which has come to such great importance since the rule mods. The rule mods go strongest against post players, because little or no contact is allowed on ball handlers or shooters.

The key to our success is winning the battle of fouls. We dominated that aspect against Georgetown, and once you get another team in foul trouble, it is hard for that team to fight the foul war back. The key to our success this year is to go right after our opponents to draw fouls early. It's a kind of foul leverage that is hard to overcome.

We didn't seem to understand that a few games ago. Players like Black and Embiid need to play a bit timid on defense early on, making sure not to foul, while pushing on the offensive end to draw fouls. Most of our games can be won this year in the first 10 minutes if we get out in front on the battle of fouls.

We were helped against Georgetown because the game wasn't called closely... probably, in part, by how bad Georgetown was hacking. Had it been called any tighter, they may not have had 5 guys available down the stretch.

It seems that CS and our team is starting to figure out how important it is to win the battle of fouls now. It is a part of our strategy that we must implement from here on out... and if we do, this will not be the only game Black wins for us this year. He has some moves with his back to the basket, and his size helps create spacing for scoring.

While none of us expect Black to have many games like this, hopefully, it signals the beginning of him at least contributing the way most of us had hoped.Something like 10 and 7 with good defense works for me.

@approxinfinity Hey! That sounds like an AC/DC song. lol

@drgnslayr: this is the essence of it.

@HighEliteMajor I do agree that we need to be somewhat skeptical about whether or not this is a permanent trend for Black, or if this was a one game anomaly similar to the Towson. For the rest of the year, Black's effectiveness will be determined by how much he fouls. We need Black to be consistently solid. In order for us to have the best frontcourt in the nation, he must bring solid defense and rebounding every game and be out there longer than two minutes. With his size, he can be an extremely good rebounder, which is something that is a tremendous asset for the team. Without question, his two best games were against Towson and Georgetown, and in both he was able to either moderately stay out of foul trouble or completely stay out of it.

It will be vital to the team's success for him to stay out of foul trouble going forward, with tough conference games coming up, as well as the tournament. If Black is able to not pick up fouls at an alarming rate like what he was before the Georgetown game, then this team will have(if it doesn't already) the best frontcourt in the nation hands down. I was able to watch much of Michigan State and Texas on Saturday and analyze how they match up with KU, specifically in regards to the frontcourt. While Adrian Payne is a very solid post player and Dawson is also good, KU's frontcourt in addition to Black (when he stays out of foul trouble) has far more weapons and depth. KU may even have more depth and talent than Kentucky.

If Black can learn to do this and focus on keeping his hands away from his man, then I think he has the chance to be a very solid player off the bench and produce 8 and 7 or 10 and 7 per game. If KU is going to go to the Final Four this year and have a chance to win the championship, Black has to give them solid minutes. Lets hope that he is able to find more confidence after his performance on Saturday.

@HighEliteMajor Copy and paste.