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!Ellis vs Toledo ↗

Dodd: Naadir Tharpe leads Jayhawks over Toledo 93-83 ↗

LAWRENCE — Back in October, in the weeks before the season began, Kansas coach Bill Self kept telling anyone who would listen that junior guard Naadir Tharpe had to be the Jayhawks’ most valuable player.

No, he wouldn’t be KU’s most talented player. On most nights, that would always be freshman wing Andrew Wiggins. And maybe he wouldn’t be the most dominant (freshman center Joel Embiid) or consistent (sophomore forward Perry Ellis). But Tharpe had to be something else: Steady, mature, a rock for KU’s young players to lean on.

Newell: Self frustrated with team's defense following 93-83 win over Toledo ↗

**KU gives up most to a non-conference foe at home since 2009; Three players score 20 or more **

This doesn’t happen to Kansas. Not at home, and not against nonconference opponents.

Yes, the Jayhawks survived with a 93-83 victory over Toledo on Monday night thanks to efficient offense and overwhelming inside play.

But Bill Self left perturbed knowing his team gave up way more points than he is accustomed to seeing.

KU Sports: Perry Ellis’ big night leads KU soaring past Toledo, 93-83 ↗

Perry Ellis’ name was on the tips of the tongues of 16,300 fans in Allen Fieldhouse on Monday night, who watched in amazement as he scored 21 points (three off a career high) and grabbed a career-best 11 rebounds in the (9-3) Jayhawks’ 93-83 victory over previously undefeated (12-1) Toledo.

Box Score ↗

CJ Online Live Blog ↗

KU Sports Live Blog ↗

Related postgame thread here on KU's defense: ATTENTION: KU just held Toledo 3 points below their average

Bill said he was as "frustrated" with Nadir as he's EVER been. In other words he was really & totally pi$$ed about TO's & overall poor team defense, to which he holds his floor leader accountable. We forced 8 TO's & 4 steals entire game & committed 18 TO's ourselves. We gave up too many easy shots & not nearly enough concentration on the flipside. He emphatically stated that 73 pts was inadequately waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too many to give up AT HOME to a team that hit only hit a measly 10 FT's. Typical BS spin & you can bet BIG Bertha's a$$ he'll make em' pay tomorrow in the gym with the maybe the exception of possibly Perry who nailed the Double/Double. 20 pts may not be quite enough for the rest to slip by-I think there were 3 others; Maybe wrong as we only caught the final 10 min & postgame on the radio, so won't bother asking "no brainer questions" again. How bout the BIG Update JFT? UDAMAN so let's just bring it on strong! Huge hard a$$ or the plain D or what? ........Been there done that! Go ahead Bill, continue to kick their butts daily. They'll need it 2 weeks from now when the whoopa$$ BIG 12 starts. Tell em to watch the Wayman Tisdale video on the NBA network & maybe they'll figure out how to play like a big boy! RCJH! Regardless, we still got the "V" tonight, albeit vs monstrous freshman growing pains,

Question: Is Toledo a pretty good team that just had it's first loss of the season.. or did we somehow make them look better than they really are?

I know Self says our defense was the problem, but if we have 18 turnovers, it's going to put more pressure on the defense.

But did we commit the turnovers because we're that sloppy or did they somehow have a hand in most of those?

I guess my feeling is that it's a bit of both.

@bskeet - Early on in the game, I believe the announcers said that of the eight turnovers we had at that point, only two of them were forced.

We're playing like a bunch of freshmen.

Positives

Balance in scoring for the first time all season for all 5 starters. 4 in double figures.

We out rebounded them (for Toledo 11/15=26) (for us 15/25=40). I'd say that speaks to the "questions on defense" being raised. Had we not been aggressive on the boards the game would have turned in their favor.

Wiggins played 38 minutes. The most he has played and wasn't yanked in and out. Perry and Joel each 31 minutes. Led to some offense consistency.

Negatives

Mason played 23 minutes with only 2 points, 1 turn, and no free throws.

Turnovers, turnovers, turnovers.

Mixed Bag

AFH crowd seemed to be sitting on their hands most of the game.

WTF = officiating.

Glad Joel wasn't hurt or an arm broken on the Toledo guy when they got tied up.
Joel ended up on the floor multiple times.

AWIII did not get to play.

Brannen Greene did and only had one def. rebound and one foul. ZERO points.

Wayne Selden. Lukewarm and cold. 29 minutes with only 8 points / 4 turns.

Couldn't trust to sub out starters and put in scrubs with 3 minutes to play.

I am still puzzled on rotation and why Self is not playing more players when he has such quality of depth on the bench. In the past years one can understand Self's philosophy as he did not have quality depth. But this year is different in this regard and even Self had indicated that he can see 9-10 players getting solid minutes.

I'd imagine that players will have more energy and will be able to hustle more with some rest. This should help in creating the pressure. We should be running out the teams from the gym.

From last night's game if Mason's 23 minutes are taken out, our bench played a combined total of 21 minutes (Traylor 9, Black 7 and Greene 7). AW3 and Lucas did not play at all.

I have no idea why our talented, long and athletic players are not getting the minutes. This must be very frustrating for them.

Lots of thoughts from last night.

• Perry had a strong game last night. I was actually more impressed with his rebounding. My knock on Perry has always been that he didn't rebound enough for a player with his size. Last night he did.

• Our team defense has got to get better. We have a lot of good, great and even elite level individual defenders on this team. However, the team defense is poor. There was a play last night where Embiid made a great block, throwing a shot of the backboard. Unfortunately, no one accounted for Embiid's man, who drifted right to the front of the rim for the easy put back. That's great individual defense by Embiid, poor defense by whomever was responsible for the rotation. That's just an example. I don't have time to go through the game last night and highlight every play like that where individual's are making good defensive plays, but the team is not, but they are plentiful. I know Bill Self can correct that, and he definitely has the talent on hand to do it. This team should be giving up fewer than 60 points per game with the defensive talent they have on hand.

• You always hear coaches talk about wanting players to "get better every day." Joel Embiid is actually doing that. Every time I see him play, he is legitimately better. He's a top 5 draft pick at this point and an argument can be made that he could go number 1 simply because no one will want to have to explain why they passed him up.

• Wiggins is starting to really show why he was the #1 recruit. He made three plays last night that I'm not sure anybody else in the college game could make. There's only a handful of pros that make those plays. Just an elite, elite talent.

• Non-KU specific note. There are, right now, probably five franchise level players in next year's draft. The top 5 should be Wiggins, Embiid, Parker, Randle, Smart in some order. The next couple are also strong with Aaron Gordon and Dante Exum (basically the Austrailian version of Andrew Wiggins). So right now, spot number 8 is the scary draft position. You could end up with Willie Cauley-Stein and he becomes a poor man's Joel Embiid, or you could end up with Willie Cauley-Stein becoming Xavier McDaniel. The first half of the lottery is stacked. The real skill is figuring out which guys will be stars in the rest of the first round, because there are always bargains after the top 5.

• Wayne Selden is really frustrating to watch at times. Last night he hit that step back jumper off the drive. That's absolutely an NBA quality move. There are probably only 8-10 SG's in college basketball that can get and hit that shot against that defense. But then you look at his line and it's pretty miserable overall. Selden needs to just relax and play ball. He seems to be over thinking every play and that is limiting his natural abilities.

Posted this on another thread...

My thoughts

I'm really pulling for Brannen Greene to do something, anything so that he can make some progress and be beneficial to us later in the year. When he played last night, I don't know if I've ever seen a player more tentative. It seems clear that he's afraid of making a mistake because he'll get yanked as soon as he does. Clearly he's playing without confidence. To me, this is about as big of a mistake as Self can make. It reminds me of last year when the same thing happened with AWIII at the beginning of the season, and then when we needed him against Oklahoma St. down by 8, Self said, "alright kid, go in there and hit a couple threes." White did surprisingly well in that situation, but that's not the point. It helps that Selden and Tharpe shot fairly well, but Greene's strength--and White and CF for that matter--is shooting the ball. 3-4 consistent shooters is better than 1-1.5. Got to let shooters shoot.

It is somewhat alarming that we were only able to force 8 turnovers last night, but Toledo takes care of the ball. I think they're averaging 5 or so a game. And quite frankly, Toledo made some shots that you'd be fine with them taking for the most part. I'm well aware that they were given some wide open shots from inside the arc, but they made some shots from 35 feet out that were ridiculous and well-defended.

On the officiating. I think that this game was called just like it was last year. Which is nice, but what happens next game when the next officiating crew calls a foul for the slightest contact? Personally, I can't stand these rules. Players have to ignore what they've been taught all their lives, come to college and forget all that, then go to the NBA (if they can) and go back to what they've been taught all along. It's asinine. Anyways, what these rules SERIOUSLY lack is consistency. And wow is it bad. When Embiid and that Toledo player got tangled up, it looked like a wrestling match. Um, you've got to call something there. The lack of consistency hurts players getting used to the new rules. There was one time when you could tell that Perry didn't know what to do in the offensive post because he couldn't tell what was going to be called. He expected a call and he played it that way, then we didn't get the call (which typically would've been with the way the new rules have been enforced) and it turned into a turnover.

Would like to see KU continue to develop, and tighten up the defense because if they thought the Non-conf. schedule was bad, they're getting ready to go at an entirely different animal in the Big 12.

RCJH

@MoonwalkMafia - I totally agree on your comments about the rule tightening and inconsistent officiating. I knew this would happen. By tightening down on the calls all they did was open up a bigger window of variance on how games can be called. You can expect this to get worse as the year progresses when the real stakes come into play. Expect March Madness to be a big mess. All the NCAA should have done was tighten down on a few areas of the game that would not only help the flow of the game, but sometimes protect players better. One thing... they should have gone after the floppers with a vengeance. That would have helped open up the driving lanes and would create more points and exciting basketball again.

I liked how Dave Armstrong commented about the G'town game and how ludicrous it was that the foul on Perry was not considered flagrant. If we know the refs won't call that foul, KU should bring me on as a walk-on and I will enter the game and consequently remove our opponent's starting 5 from each game... one by one. I'm sure I can make it look like I'm going for the ball when I crush all those skulls.

Back to the Toledo game... Self is frustrated. I caught the press conference and he was pissed off, and should be. Most of the players on this team aren't getting it yet. They aren't being personally responsible to shut down their man, and they also aren't participating in team defense. They just seem to think they can outscore every team by pushing hard on offense. Ain't gonna happen. This team may end up frustrating Self more than any other team because they just won't buckle down on d.

Last night was frustrating for fans, too. At times, we watched KU pulling away, and then letting off on the throttle on d, giving up totally uncontested 3s, and then in the second half plenty of second-chance points.

We should have plowed Toledo, and any other Bill Self team would have done it... except this one.

I hope they get it figured out more in the coming weeks, because we don't want to drop several games in the B12 in January...

It is a gigantic mistake to give Perry a bunch of hero credit for this game. His defense was downright horrid... if he doesn't start stepping up on defense he will be considered the worst starting post defender Self has ever had at KU. Perry better start thinking about the next level. The NBA may not always play great defense, but no team is looking for a post player with no defense. I hate to be hard on Perry like this because he's been one of my favs since junior high... but the kid isn't playing sound defense.

@AsadZ

Coach Self has always said that his goal is to have a 7-8 player rotation by conference time. At the beginning of the season he mentioned that with all the talent available and the new contact rules, he might play more players; however, he is quickly reverting to the format that has served him well in the past. No big surprise there.

One other observation. Coach Howard was the one doing the yelling/talking during one of the early time outs and both he and Coach Roberts were yelling out instructions to the guys in the second half. The most active of the supporting cast that I recall all year.