🏀 KuBuckets Archive

Is the OSU game a "trap game?"

OSU has already dropped a game, and they've lost Cobbins, their major post presence.

Do we take the Cowboys for granted now? We've had 3 impressive B12 victories... time for cruise control?

Or will our guys get a taste of OSU before this game in the video room and get fired up after watching Smart's back flip in AFH?

Are we ready to play consistent, game after game?

After the last few games I kind of forgot we are mostly freshmen.... but the facts remain the same... we are mostly freshmen!

@drgnslayr Our previous home loss was pretty darn recent, and there is that back flip.

I say the team will be flippin' ready to play OSU!

Any team that has a great player in a mismatch at your weakest crucial position
( point guard or post man) is a dangerous opponent, unless your stars and glue guys at the other positions come to play and come to help.

Teams beat individuals, but only if the teams recognize the need to do it. Freshman often have a recognition problem. The tough early schedule may have taught our freshman to recognize this situation.

The OSU player we are going to have the most trouble with his Markel Brown. Our help defense will be geared to channel smart into switches where Selden, or Wiggins, pick up Smart. If Smart were skillful, we should expect him to pass back to Brown being guarded by Tharpe or Mason, for the mismatch. It is at this point, that KU's youth should be most vulnerable. Can Tharpe overplay Brown again and force him into more help, or not?

This could be Greene's, or AW3's game to shine in. In order to contain the pass backs to Brown, KU will likely have to stay long on both wings, so long as the game is close, and especially whenever Embiid is out.

If Self were to decide to continue to go small on substitutions on the perimeter, as he has done in recent games, OSU could be a very interesting test. If the pony guards can control the pass backs, then sSelf can shorten his bench for the rest of the year. But I don't think that they can.

Self is probably telling Branan Greene (or white) something similar to what he told Connor Frankamp A few games ago – about matchups favoring him and him needing to be ready.

@drgnslayr It's theoretically possible. But if we can't get jacked up for "Back-Flip Marcus", at home, we've got bigger problems than any of us have thought of. I hope we see the same (or better!) effort we've seen the past few games. Diving for loose balls, some emotion after good plays. We sure need to commit fewer turnovers and focus at the FT line.

@jaybate -

"This could be Greene's, or AW3's game to shine in."

Or will AW3 even get a minute of play? I can't believe he's been shut out of minutes now for so long. It gives me the feeling he may be a mid-season transfer. I hope I'm wrong.... but it seems odd that a guy like him has been MIA for so long.

@nuleafjhawk - I'm hoping Self has smacked the troops around after that SDSU home loss.

"Boys... we simply don't lose at home! That's not Kansas basketball! Go in AFH this afternoon, when it is quiet, and listen for some old reverb cheers from our history in that building. Those cheers aren't for losses."

@drgnslayr: The White situation is evolving for sure, but it may still be fluid. White is not playing in situations where it seems that he might play. Further, reading between the lines of some comments by Jesse Newell at the very least suggests that something is up. Add in whites recent quote and things seem peculiar indeed. But just when I was thinking that white might become a transfer, Lyle decided not to attend a KU game. These anomalies could add up to many different outcomes. We will have to wait and see.

@jaybate 1.0 Surely there are major minutes next year for White, Greene, & Oubre, Tharpe & Conner should they all still be here. Lyle may be the odd man as a freshman & can obviously see that unless your are the cream of the elite, he'll take some lumps before he cracks the lineup nut. The only unknown is AWIII at this juncture. He's not been on the floor enough for us to get an accurate assessment of the total package. Also Cliff may not be quite ready for primetime in the entire scheme with Jamari & PE ahead of him, at least in the BS system, also in consideration that Joel may return. On that, I say if you're the top pick-it won't get any better so vamoose. Really interesting scenario for the 14-15 year.

I'm thinking... put yourself in White's shoes. The guy worked his tail off last summer... hustled through early practices... and is now taking pine every game for 40 minutes. It is hard to believe a guy in that situation could stay motivated....

On the other hand... maybe Self is tooling him for a late season surprise element!

Imagine all that energy going on inside White. All the time he has now to visualize game situations to come. A chip the size of Mount Rushmore must be building on those manly shoulders he developed last summer....

Self makes White the "monster under wraps" and White is improving even at a higher rate now than in the off-season.

Could it be? How could teams scout us properly?

We unleash the beast in the last few B12 games... where we put the exclamation mark on #10!

@drgnslayr do you think White could take a medical red shirt? I don't know the number of games allowed, but just wondered.

@Crimsonorblue22 - I don't know.... I thought he has recovered? We haven't been receiving medical updates on him. I'm not sure of the details involved in medical RS.

Maybe others in here have more knowledge on that subject and could respond here?

@drgnslayr I think he played since we heard about the injury, maybe just once. Just wondered if they had a chance to do that, maybe they would???

http://m.espn.go.com/general/video?vid=10298785&src=desktop ↗ ↗

@wrwlumpy great video! Thanks for sharing!

Nice topic .. first, I'd say without a doubt that this is not a trap game. If we were on the road at say West Virginia, maybe. But OSU is a top team this season, they won here last year, and I can't imagine a let down. I think it is highly beneficial to be play OSU, actually.

On the White, Greene, Frankamp deal, I have literally written them off. Self talks a lot about wanting to play guys, like he did about White last season. I'm sure we'll see glimmers of guys here and there, but I think it's nearly over there. But for foul trouble, discipline, or an injury, Self has developed the guys he thinks will make us into title contenders and it seems that he's going to run with those guys. It's been about 45 days since Self said that he needed to pick one and play them as the 5th perimeter guy. He's played 4 perimeter guys the last few years. I don't see it changing except here and there.

@globaljaybird - You said "Surely there are major minutes next year for White, Greene, & Oubre, Tharpe & Conner should they all still be here." You didn't mention Mason. I just don't see any reason to believe that more than 4 guys get major minutes. Tharpe, Mason, and two more. Oubre is that top 10 guy, so one more spot? At most, a 5th guy that gets 8 -10 ... at most. And the X factor not mentioned, Wayne Selden. Likely right now that he returns. So in a realistic scenario, Oubre could "plug in" for Wiggins as Oubre said that Self told him he would do; and we have our same four man perimeter rotation with that plug in -- Tharpe, Mason, Selden, and Oubre. That leaves White, Greene, and Frankamp in the exact same position they are in this season.

A transfer there is a near certainty, and I think that there is a distinct risk that White and Greene both jump ship.

@HighEliteMajor After I posted I realized not mentioning Mason. But I do believe one or more of that mix will surpass Mason. I'm not sure he can be as good defensively as AWII or Greene, & offensively Conner will far surpass him. Would not be surprised to see Frank slide down the pecking order at all. Selden-I think he'll go, unless he again vanishes like he did in the non con. But if he does stay, we may have the same sour pickle as you say. Oh well, damn the luck...but there's strength in numbers. I'd much rather have too many than too few, And I sure hope you're wrong about Greene flying the jbird coop.

@globaljaybird Great discussion. You mention if Selden stays, it could be a sour pickle...maybe from the bench warmer's standpoint alone. To echo HEM's past idea: give me a top30 guy who is ALSO experienced in Self ball with 1 or 2 seasons, compared to a top20 frosh with NO Div.1 or Selfball experience. My point: Far more desireable for Self's system and on-court consistency/toughness by keeping an experienced MickeyD named Wayne Selden for another year, compared to trying to replace him with some green frosh. Experience is the best teacher. And Im not comparing Black to Embiid here. Selden is no slouch, and it looks like he is finding his groove. He will be devastating next season, if he stays. As the scout in a recent story said about Selden: he needs to stay 1 more year...as "its the difference between going 24-28th this year's draft vs going in the lotto next year's draft". The only unknown with Selden is if he absolutely explodes in Feb/March/Apr and has several beast-games. If he is lotto, he should go. (Hate to even say that).

@drgnslayr I don't see it as a trap game. With all the noise from last year, along with Smart's comments concerning Wigs, I think we'll see a tremendous effort from our guys.

@KUSTEVE - I'm not really seeing this as a trap game either.... I think the guys have been learning so much basketball in recent weeks that they are anxious to get out there and erase the lingering smell of that SDSU loss.

In all of KUs losses this year, there have been at least two of the following three categories in which they have done poorly in: team defense, rebounding, and turnovers. For KU to make it to Dallas, they must do better than the opposition in these categories. The good thing about it, they have shown this year, although inconsistently, that they can dominate on a given in these categories. The challenge is to dominate all of them on a consistent basis. As for the OSU game, they do not have a post presence whatsoever. This is an advantage that they have to take care of. Last year, Smart routinely schooled them on the offensive glass. We have to have four guys box out their man and get the rebound. That is only one of two reasons why we lost to San Diego State.

This is a game that we NEED Wiggins to show up for. The best strategy to get involved in a game when you are not shooting well and the driving lanes are blocked off is to go rebound. He needs to get 10+ rebounds against OSU, as they are going to be crashing the offensive rebounds hard just like last year.

I typically don't like to make predictions, but I say that KU wins this one, but not by a huge margin unless they play to their full potential in the aforementioned three categories. If they happen to do that, they would probably win by 20, no matter the night OSU was having.

@DinarHawk -

"As for the OSU game, they do not have a post presence whatsoever."

We've fallen into this trap I don't know how many times. In recent Jayhawk history, our bigs do better against some form of big presence by our opponents... we typically don't do that well against super bigs that are athletic.. but we have often had problems with little teams.

It's all in the scouting and preparation for the game. Our bigs have to bait the defenders into not giving up the lob ball over them for easy scores. It's sort of like in football... establish the run and then go to the air. Little teams usually have quicker feet and lower centers of gravity. That gives them capabilities to hedge passing into the post. We can largely take that away by reducing their hedges after lobbing over them a few times.

That means we practice this ahead of game time and take 6'6" or so guys and have them defend the post against our bigs while our bigs learn how to position for the lob, and our perimeter players learn how to make the right kind of lob over the defense. It's a lot tougher than it looks when the defenders are athletic and leapers. We never seem to master this aspect. We just work on the backdoor lobs... a totally different play.

I've always been bothered by the games where we play small teams and we don't dominate them in the post.

This is a game where we really need to assess our strengths and go after match-ups where we have a lopsided advantage!

The baby J's continue to learn, teams can try, but they can't double team our bigs successfully! If we rebound like we did at ISU, minimize the dang TO's, especially strips off our rebounds, that had previously been called fouls, I think we continue our conference wins. We play our game and OSU needs to adjust to our game. Smart has given us plenty of reasons to fire us up. Can't wait!

@drgnslayr No way Okie state is a trap game. They have probly the best chance of stealing the league title from us and Coach knows it, the players know it. If there is any game that's a trap game, its WVU in our last conference game when theoretically we have it already wrapped up.

Let's face it. None of us knows what goes on behind closed doors at practice. Sometimes Coach Self will point out specific players having good practices, but I know they all give 100% effort in practice, they have to otherwise they would not be playing at KU. There is a lot of speculation about Greene, White and other players but the truth s none of us has clue about what is happening. Coach Self will play the players best suited to produce a win and he has been extremely successful at doing this and he will continue to do so; there are only so many minutes available and he knows better than any of us how to fill them.

Much like ISU, OSU has no bench. The have only 8 players averaging double digit minutes and one of those players is Cobins that is done for the year. The key in this game is to neutralize Smart and Brown, two players capable of inflicting serious damage. K-State did the smart think to contain Smart; they kept him on the bench with foul trouble, not a bad strategy. I will guess that Coach Self will attack Smart and Brown with Selden and Wigging with the idea of getting them in foul trouble. The wild cards are Nash and Forte. Nash can be effiective, when he plays with effort, something he is not known for doing much of. Forte is quick and can be deadly from 3-point land; I imagine a combination of Mason and Frankamp could be effective.

In the end it will come down to what Smart and Brown can do, particularly Smart. Keep them on the bench for long periods of time and you take away their effectiveness.

@JayHawkFanToo don't like to give kstate to much credit on slowing down smart! He slapped the board all by himself to sit on the bench w/a lot of time left. I think smart gets his pts, but they don't have enough to keep up w/us. I hope! Didn't forte make the key basket for them last year? Off an offensive board?