🏀 KuBuckets Archive

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OUR DAILY THREADS:

• @REHawk: Amping vs. Playing Flat

• @drgnslayr: FLOOR BURN AWARD: KU vs OSU - Jan 18

• @drgnslayr: Best Win All Season!

Newell: Self - Too early for KU to feel comfortable in Big 12 race ↗

LAWRENCE — Bill Self says he isn’t going to talk to his team about having a lead in the Big 12 standings. Or about what a home victory on Monday night against Baylor could do for Kansas’ chances at a 10th straight Big 12 title.

Haskin: Kevin Haskin: Tough early stretch ending for Jayhawks ↗

LAWRENCE — That brutal five-game stretch to open Big 12 play ends Monday for Kansas.

You know, the schedule Bill Self wished the conference office could have released earlier to convince the KU basketball coach to arrange a slightly easier nonconference schedule.

Dodd: Three thoughts from Kansas’ victory over Oklahoma State ↗

LAWRENCE — Another day, another victory over a ranked opponent for Kansas. The 15th-ranked Jayhawks stayed perfect in the Big 12 on Saturday, holding on for a 80-78 victory over No. 9 Oklahoma State at Allen Fieldhouse. As a matchup with Baylor looms on Big Monday, here are three more thoughts and takeaways from the Jayhawks’ fourth straight victory...

Fox Sports: Embiid for three years? ↗

ESPN: Kansas comes from nowhere to become perhaps nation's best freshman####" target="blank" rel="noopener">http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/story//id/10320046/kansas-joel-embiid-come-nowhere-become-perhaps-nation-best-freshman)**#### ↗

Can't help but feel that was just a big relief win for us at Ok St. I think we all had this game circled on our calendar this year. I'm just trying to forget the second half, move on with the win, and hope we can get another few wins in us before we hit any type of mini-slump. While running the board all the way to the tournament would be nice, I think think that can also put pressure on a team. Is it ideal to lose a game just before the conference tournament, but after the team clinches the league? I would think so, but winning them all is always good, too! Didn't the '08 team attribute their renewed focus to a late loss in conference play?

!Embiid_Indeed.jpg ↗

Embiid is currently on the espn nba front page http://espn.go.com/nba/ ↗ ↗. It's linking to this article:

http://insider.espn.go.com/nba/draft2014/story/_/id/10303519/2014-nba-draft-why-joel-embiid-no-1-nba-prospect-country ↗ ↗

It seems they're ready to acknowledge he might go #1.

@drgnslayr asked if the OSU game could be a let down game. I ask the same thing about tonight's game. I think this game could fit the bill, particularly since Baylor is now 1-3 in league. It would seem that it would be very easy for a young team to "assume" that we will win this game; and I think it would be very easy for a young team to have an emotional letdown after Saturday, particularly on a 48 hour turnaround. It would surprise me if we lost, but it would not surprise me if Baylor is up by 5 at half.

Does anybody have a link to the game tonight? I live in Ohio now and don't have ESPN. Little help?

I agree that tonight's game could be an emotional letdown. I think the only thing that may keep us from doing that is playing in Allen will help us tremendously and Baylor as a collective has played horribly here.

I think that we may see a letdown more because of Baylor playing a zone all night then the young guys not having the same emotional high as saturday. Yes Oklahoma State played zone and pressed and all that but Baylor is a much bigger team especially in the front court.

Having watched some of Baylor's games if we limit PG Cherry from going off then we pretty much shutdown their team. He's in the Pierre Jackson mold and we all know what Jackson did against us during his career. I don't think Defensively Tharpe or Mason will stay in front of him so hopefully he misses shots and our bigs block and alter his shots at the rim. Their front-court is big but that's also a strength of KU so really Baylor's only chance is to shoot lights out and hope that KU struggles against the zone.

Keys to the game.
1. 3 point shooting.
2. Don't let the ball stick on offense.
3. Limit Cherry.
4. Keep a man on Heslip at all times.

@MoonwalkMafia do you have cox internet? They support watchespn so you could watch on line. Otherwise, on the blog for the game somebody usually posts the justin.tv/jayhawk link

@approxinfinity, may I suggest amending "our daily threads" to "give us this day, our daily threads." :-)

@jaybate 1.0 not sure what your take is on the daily threads, but I feel like we are 'separating' the conversation a little bit too much now. I drilled into the daily threads and found some great posts and insight, but they died probably because they were not front and center. I liked it better before; but then again, that's usually the case with change !!

Is Jamari Traylor the next Darnell Jackson. He has a little over 2 years to add that 18 foot jumper to his arsenal. He is a little quicker than DJ. We saw Saturday his ability to put the blow by his man if drawn out to the perimeter. Consistently hitting an 18 footer a la Darnell and easing up on the loss of body control to prevent charges and Jamari is going to be a helluva finisher by his senior year.

I did not see this link posted anywhere here: Very nice work by Dana O'Neil

Joel Embiid out of nowhere ↗

Edit: Apparently I didn't pay attention when being told how to imbed a 'link' here. Sorry folks.

@Blown Jamari is the first of his kind. Not like anyone we ever had before. I love his desire.

@HighEliteMajor Letdown games are an excuse at home. I don't like the term especially for a team that's used to 16,000+ nearly every time they suit up. It is Big Monday and the Nation is watching. Sometimes we just get beat.

@KansasComet Don't you think the off-court troubles and setbacks experienced by Darnell somewhat parallel the off-court struggles Jamari is handling right now? I also see correlation in their year-to-year, steady progression. But I respect your opinion, as well. Always do!

Joel is getting quite the hype this week. Blocking 13 shots in 2 games is real man stuff. He really altered the game on defense against Ok St. Our team is a lot better with a big man shot blocker. As a fantasy question of sorts, who would you rather have suiting up for the next game, Joel embiid right now or Jeff Withey as a senior (last year)? I think I would go with Jeff for consistency but I think Joel may be a better offensive player. Def. has better moves!

@BucknellJayhawk3

Withey had the uncanny ability of redirecting the blocked shot to a KU player almost every time, something that Joel has not yet mastered although he does get the ball himself on occasions. Whitey also had the perfect block form where he would seldom foul; Joel will in time get there. Joel is the better offensive player.

@Blown I agree .. maybe an idea is to carry forward the threads from the prior day at least. So there would be the new threads, plus the threads from the prior day?

Not sure if this has been mentioned yet but 60% of the Big 12 is ranked in top 25. Big 12 accounts for 24% of the Top 25 teams.

Although with Baylor playing @ Kansas and home vs Texas, i don't see them staying in the Top 25 by next week.

@eleehehe better yet, 75% of KU losses are in the top 10.

@Blown you are correct. To go even further, 3 of the 4 losses are in the Top 7. Colorado still looks good without Spencer for the year.

@KansasComet I don't like the term or idea period. It just seems to be a psychological reality. It would be more of a trap if they were on the road at say Texas Tech. And I agree with you on Traylor. He's just a sophomore, too. The work on his offensive game is obvious.

"Board Rats don't sleep after losses...If anybody wants to talk at 4 a.m., meet me at KUBUCKETS"

Dylans, thanks for the assist.

Off topic but did anybody watch Kelly Oubre today. That dude is real real good so athletic

@approxinfinity, may I suggest amending "our daily threads" to "give us this day, our daily threads." :-)

@jaybate twas that way and then I agnosticized it deliberately. Could go back but since were devoted to a pagan feathered god it seemed out of place.

@Blown agreed on discourse separation. But, approx has a pretty good track record so far, so I'm doing the wait and see. Regarding change, it is a female dog, but even when we decide to cast it off, we grow a little bit in the process.

As Sheryl Crow sang, "Change, change, it will do you good..." :-)

@KansasComet yea, Big Monday and 16k bottoms on the benches, does seem like it ought to geek someone. But if some girl is giving you the blues and making you run party to party in the night looking for her, or what have you, 19 year olds don't always see it quite as clearly as we do. :-)

@Blown

"Board Rats don't sleep after losses...If anybody wants to talk at 4 a.m., meet me at KUBUCKETS"

LOL

@approxinfinity okay, good call IMHO. So: then how about this non sequitur:

"Agnostics do it without knowing." :-)

Just a quick line of gratitude to let all of the folks that help maintain this site how grateful I am.

I am incredibly appreciative of the all of the work and maintenance that goes into this. Any and all of you could choose to do something else with your time, but you continue dedicating it to the cause of this Jayhawk Community.

I know bskeet and approx are always working, but I'm pretty sure there are some silent players as well.

Way to go everybody!!

@Blown Thanks lots for that Dana O'Neil article. That probably goes down as the very best piece yet written about JoJo.

Tonight better not be a let down because we let down in the second half of OSU on Saturday! Self better have verbally drilled them for easing up on OSU!

Ellis and Wiggins better bring some game tonight or they will both be watching most of it from the pine!

@drgnslayr I'm really excited to see Austin and Embiid match up. Two very nimble footers, both having some decent shooting range. Self is not letting us see Embiids range yet, we might tonight. Naadir & Perry's play will decide the game, imho.

@drgnslayr Ooooooooh, slayr feelin' the steel. Ellis and Wiggins are now in the toughening box. YEeeeeeeee Haawwwwwww, watch them harden!!!! May take a couple of games, but the village smithey, William of Self, has got his black apron on and he's pumping the bellows and he's holding Wiggins' and Ellis' spines to the fire to get some temper!!!!! Yeeeeeee hawwwwwww!

@Blown Thanks. On the court, it's just my opinion, but I don't see any correlation between Darnell and Jamari. Once again Coach Self is playing Chess, while the rest of us are playing Checkers. Imagine the Chicago Bookends next year with Traylor and Alexander? If Jamari keeps improving at his current rate, the sky is the limit. I do understand the point that you are making and I appreciate it. Just not in full agreement with it. Always a pleasure to read your comments!

@HighEliteMajor Thanks. After 4 losses this early in the season, there should not be a letdown on a National Stage. Traylor has put in work in the program and it shows.

@jaybate 1.0 Great point. It is College!

@jaybate 1.0 @blown @HighEliteMajor valid points about the threads being hidden. The prob is that the updating of the front page is a manual effort for someone will full admin so I was hoping to make the threads accessible faster by having it linkable by anyone with thread rights. Note the thread counts of the daily posts have gone way up so the traffic is funneling as we would expect. We could intersperse or invert the order of the main links Put the user threads on top of the news stories as they come in....

@approx I trust you are always choosing the best of two ideas :) Keep up the great work!

@Blown -

"Self is not letting us see Embiids range yet, we might tonight."

Funny you should mention that... Austin and Embiid are both capable 3-pt shooters. Wouldn't it be something if both went out there and nailed several 3s tonight? I'd like to see the buzz over on Sportscenter!

Just so we nail one more 3....

@Blown It's a work in progress, but we'll iterate til we get it where it makes best sense.

Guys, I moved the homegrown threads up and made them more prominent in this post, and the post from the 20th, I put these at the bottom as yesterday's threads. Think something like this works better? When we get something we like, I'll write up a post about standards, so we can make sure anyone with thread rights can jump in and know how to stay consistent in the format.