🏀 KuBuckets Archive

Welcome Lagerald Vick. X factor on this team. Simply was awesome on both sides of the floor last night. And that shot looks awful good the last 2. Averaging 19 over his last 2 games.

Advice for Self, don't take Vick out of the starting lineup, ever.

Doke & Jackson FT stats- 33% & 54%. Get in the gym, you have one in your own dorm!!

Off-Night-POY-stat-padding-line: Mason 8pts, 8 assists, 6 rebounds.

Fools Gold- makes it's return? 14 of 26 from 3 land. Great passes set up easy shots. Encouraging to see the 3 ball falling.

The 5 guard assassins: We need a good tag-line for these 5 guards. They are the best collection of perimeter players maybe ever at KU. I know Self is preaching post play- what is post play? We don't need no stinking post play when you got these 5 guys. We just need the tall guys to do their job, rebound, make life difficult for opposing bigs, screen, make the occasional lob. Every game I see these guys becoming like the Nova team that won it last year and past years of guard dominance.

Embrace your strength Self!! Have fun with it.

Slight nit-picking of the night: We should have won by 50. Guys got lazy 2nd half, did we feel bad?

Two easy games out of the way. Now Haase comes to town. Should be fun. Travis is a load inside, Pickens is a good 3 land shooter. Two man team, terrible shooting team so far 43% from the field, outside of Pickens 26% 3 land shooter.

@BeddieKU23 In honor of the 12 days of Christmas: the Five Golden Fools.

@BeddieKU23 My preseason prediction about Vick is coming true, albeit not the way I thought it would. I figured it would take JJ longer to adapt to the college game, and folks would be clamoring for Vick to start ahead of JJ. Didn't see the Bragg collapse coming, and never would imagine Vick would start in lieu of Bragg. The end result is Vick is the starter from now on. He is an amazing player- there are times when he slashes to the basket, I think its JJ at first glance. DD had a good observation in the game chat last night- could Vick jump to the NBA this year???? Hope he sticks around for one more year.

Doke is getting the minutes to get better. Surrounded by 5 guys at times, he looked more confident, and played better. If we could teach him how to make a free throw, he could almost double his scoring output. I was glad LL took the game off- get rested, get 100%, Lando. We're going to need you.

This is a prolific team, a team for the ages. The passing at times last night was simply brilliant...the shooting was amazing. If we get LL, Doke, and CB playing good, then we have a real good shot at a national championship. I can't wait until we play Kentucky, and we shock the crap out of the pundits by eating their much vaunted freshmen guards alive.

@KUSTEVE

Games like last night, I'm sure scouts will be impressed with Vick. His shot looked great. Not just his scoring but he was the most active player on defense in the first half and one play on offense extended a play by coming out of no where for a tap rebound.

Just like Landen who took the starting spot and ran with it. Vick is doing that so far. Of course the competition hasn't been great so we'll have to wait to see what he does in Big-12 play but he's exciting to watch. He's what the 4th option on offense, crazy!

Vick and Jackson play with tremendous effort all game long. Really refreshing to see two guys that play the way they do

KU Live Tweets/News ‏@kutweetsandnews

Vick 23 pts 2 reb 1 ast

Svi 14 pts 2 reb 1 ast

Jackson 13 pts 5 reb 4 ast

Graham 12 pts 2 reb 4 ast

Mason 8 pts 6 reb 8 ast

Doke 8 pts 7 reb

Matt Tait ‏@mctait · 11h11 hours ago

Self to Lightfoot, who just checked in and was whistled for a foul: "Mitch! What are you doing? Get your hands off him!" #KUbball

Jesse Newell Retweeted Amir

Feel like Wiggins at KU was watching a future star in single-A baseball. Jackson is like a triple-A guy about to be called up next week.

!35.jpg ↗

Concerning Vick..

You know you got a player when he makes the game look so easy while smashing his opponents.

That's Vick.

The stat sheet is something...

Vick put up the most PT. Nice! Frank and Devonte in the 20's!

Vick went 9-9 fg, 4-4 ft....

Reminds me of a coach who once scolded one of his players for going 10-10.... "Why didn't you shoot more?!" Sometimes you just can't win as a player.

Congrats, Lagerald... on your coming out party. Prepare yourself for the first time now as future opponents are going to scout you.

It was easy to see the teammate synergy of Frank and Devonte.

Now that is competing with the teammate synergy connection of Lagerald and Josh!

Other teams talk about having a "guard duo" whereas Kansas talks about a "guard quartet." Where is the french horn?

@drgnslayr The french horn is standing right next to that 5 ft. long trumpet with the ribbons fluttering from the spit valve!

The real fools gold with this team is free throws...

Even Vick missed one last night!

Vick - not too bad at all for starting the season with 15-for-37 shooting and 1-for-13 from 3s. Better to get that slump out of the way early in the year I guess.

More about the latest high power weapon in our arsenal here... http://cjonline.com/sports/2016-11-29/lagerald-vick-nears-ku-basketball-history-91-61-rout-lbsu ↗

If we go back to 2 bigs, who gets left out? I can't choose!🤔

@BeddieKU23

The "Fools Gold" thing isn't really in play from last night. Look at the shots that were taken from three last night. Of the 26 that went up, probably 18 or 19 were either open or wide open. It's not like KU was hitting tough, guarded threes off the dribble. These were quality looks that should be made more often than not.

Think about this: If you showed people just a freeze frame of the different three point attempts from last night and asked them to guess based on the quality of the shot whether the attempt was made or missed, I bet most people would have guessed that KU would have made at least 10 threes last night.

The good shooting was not an accident. Long Beach chose to give up threes rather than get dunked to death like UNC-Asheville did. KU obliged them by sniping from long range instead of bludgeoning them inside. There are a million ways to die in AFH for the opposition. LBSU chose death by sniper.

@justanotherfan have you seen the mannequin challenge by the Jayhawks? Be fun to do one on the ct shooting the 3!

@justanotherfan said:

There are a million ways to die in AFH for the opposition. LBSU chose death by sniper.

Actually, now that I think about it, LBSU chose to be a VICK-tim. Cheesy, I know, but hey it works.

@justanotherfan

I brought up the Fool's Gold for fun. I did mention most of the 3's came off good passing and we know that most nights we are not going to shoot 14-26 especially away from home. LBSU definitely game-planned to clog the lane which they did pretty well for a small team. LBSU picked a poison and lost another way.

I thought it was encouraging to see a shooting night like that especially from Vick. Even Jackson made two of them.

We were playing the minor league team last night. The big league teams are coming. It's all fun and good to watch us dismantle a LBSU because even there it shows how good we are. But, let's get back to playing teams with solid interior D and watch our guards carry us past our interior deficiencies.

Some people called me out for my wait and see comments about JJ before the season started. Well, I'm starting to see and believe. The young man is fabulous.

@wissox hopefully Vick at least has gained confidence!

Well first off Vick can flat out play, he looked like a NBA guy the last two outings. We should stick with this 4 guard line up because our guards are rebounding better than our bigs, some have mentioned a issue with guarding a good big with this line up. I look at the Georgia game and see how we were killed bye a decent big while playing ours. We have may have 4 of the best guards in country IMO. This team has the ability to shoot the heck outta the ball, I think we did fall in love with the 3 a little too much especially with Svi who started 4/6 but finished 4/10, which is still a good percentage but he wasn't set on most of his shots later in the game. JJ and Doka have to work on their FTs sooner rather than later, JJ is too good of a player to shoot sub 60% from the line. Our bigs still look lost most of the time, I thought Doka had a good stretch in the second but will have trouble scoring against most B12 caliber teams. Whats with Bragg? He did have a decent stretch as well, but doesn't seem to have his normal quickness or bounce and it shows. All of our bigs are out of position on defense most of the time, and rebounding position too which has lead to silly fouls and offensive rebounds for opposing teams. Our defense as a team was great in the first half, we didn't really have the same intensity in the second which happens when your up 30 points. One other thing that I like is how hard JJ plays when he is on the floor, 3 minutes left in a 30 point game and is getting on the floor for a loose ball. Mason finally showed he was human lol, I actually think we are a better team when he doesn't have to take over and score 20 plus points. DG was solid on both ends quietly had 12 points, I'm just waiting for the game he explodes for 30 but I'll take his 13 point average with 5 assists. To me we really need atleast on big to step up and earn their keep for us to come close to this teams ceiling.

@kjayhawks

Bragg's foul trouble in the first half disrupted his flow. Self did say he had practiced really good leading up to the game. The fouls again are a concern. Although two of his calls were of the phantom kind. He played better in the 2nd half besides some misses, a lot of his issus are effort. He's playing aggressive in spurts and not all the time. He rebounds well for a few minutes span then disappears. Still young, and learning how to fit in this team.

This team is just fun to watch. Will be even better when Bragg and Lucas get into the swing of things!

I love the confidence of the Jackson 5!

@dylans

After watching numerous FT misses I am capable of throwing objects in the house... including hammers.

That drives me nuts... but on the other hand, I hope that is the only issue we are dealing with all year!

@BeddieKU23

It appears the refs are going to call the game close this year, especially on post players.

When it gets on such a tick-tack whistle spree players need to consider their cosmetic appearance. I'm not talking about eyeliner. But their posture, gestures (both facial and body), and anything impacting their appearance. I know that sounds silly... but it is written right there in the famous college basketball coaching book by the rat face himself, "How To Manipulate The Refs."

@drgnslayr He defiantly is the best at that

@drgnslayr

Flopping would work for our guys. Duke does it 15 times a game, once you become known for flopping you influence the ref's. But I agree the game in the post is being called unlike any year before.

@BeddieKU23

Yes... the flop remains a big part of college basketball. I'm thinking of a new thread on it now.

@drgnslayr Flip or Flop? Not a fan of unctious Tarek or his whiny Valley-voiced wife....