🏀 KuBuckets Archive

KU lost to WVU by nearly 15 points on a night it shot 40%.

Good lord! How bad would it have been on a cold shooting night? 2o-25 points?

Are they that much better than KU?

Did Huggins just expose Self's smoke and Mirrors game?

Or did we just discover that not only are we a thin 7 man team with two guys--Svi and Vick--that can't cut it when the competition gets big and hard nosed, but that some of the five that can produce under real fire, may also be.....drum roll please....playing unreported?

We know Frank is wearing a brace on his ankle, because @Blown IDed one while attending the KU-UT game.

So who else?

We better hope some people are playing unreported, because we got our butts kicked.

If they were all healthy, then there is big trouble in river city!

@jaybate-1.0 LL is sick/ill. We know that. I read a stat that they scored on JJ 29 points on 18/19 possessions so Huggy saw something he could take advantage of in addition to being +13 at the stripe and winning your disruption stat. And Huggy shares his 200 minutes among 11 vs 7 for kU. In a high pressure game, in a raucous crowd and playing timid from whistles....perfect storm as they cliche

On another note: I wonder if the looming report of the rape case naming 5 hawks as witnesses was a major distraction. Surely they were aware it was hitting the press.

@jaybate-1.0

Obviously you did not watch the game. Would it surprise you that KU was only 3 points down with just over 6 minutes left and 8 points down with just over 2 minutes left? Unfortunately, every time KU got some momentum going throughout the game the refs managed to quash it down.

The trademark of the press defense is that it trades fouls for turnovers. When they do not get the turnover, it usually results in a foul due to the close contact with the offensive player. West Virginia scores one third of its points off turnovers. Last night, KU had only 13 turnovers which is way, way below the turnover that WVU opponents average, in comparison Baylor had 29 and lost OU 12 and KSU 16 and both won. Against KSU WVU had 30 fouls to 19 by KSU while it had only 18 to KU 22?...it just doesn't compute. Based on the low turnover number by KU, WVU should have had at least 30 fouls. No question that WVU got a very favorable whistle from the refs.

@JayHawkFanToo

Yup, I posted I missed it.

Those ARE very interesting TO and foul numbers!

Coincidence or not?

Lots of no calling on WVU, or lots of phantom calls on KU driving the numbers? Or both?

I gotta say that low number of KU TOS is remarkable. Hmmmm.

@jaybate-1.0

Both. I have seen badly refereed games and this is one of the worse I have seen. Several of the bad calls came when KU was getting some momentum and the calls killed it.

@JayHawkFanToo

What was the final Point spread at tip off ? Do you recall?

@JayHawkFanToo and the clock problems!😡

If the three hadn't been falling KU would've drove it more which would've resulted in more fouls and turnovers both. Depending whom the fouls were called on it could've been better for KU. But there were times when KU moved the ball very crisply and if created open three looks that I liked. It just seemed like the Hawks lost their legs in the second half.

There are positive teaching points. I fully expect a 10 point win in Allen Fieldhouse as long as they learn from this experience. Sometimes you have to out execute the refs too, if no one is within 5 ft it's harder to call a foul.

@dylans

R u saying Self should have driven more?

@jaybate-1.0 Spread was -3.5 in favor of WVU.

It was basically a football game. Easily the roughest game I've seen all year. I don't blame the refs for a loss. We didn't match their physicality and the refs call fouls based on your level of physicality. They played rough and we didn't. So they didn't get called on ticky tac fouls and we did. It wasn't that it was unfair. We didn't bring it. And we don't have the bodies to play that style. At least not in Morgantown.

@Kcmatt7

Ah, I see. Huggie decided to slap us around a little and tell us that we'd like it, eh? Well, looks like Self will have to give the man-up speech then.

When I looked at the WVU roster a few days before the game, they appeared brawnier and bigger than us in pretty much every way--not just deeper. This was a good game for Josh, Vick and Svi to find out what its like to hang with the prison bodies and get mind-intercourses by Huggie. I hope Josh understands that Huggie probably gave him a pass on the real rough stuff and beat up his teammates to see what kind of character Josh had? Would he physically come to the defense of his mates, or not? I didn't see the game, so I don't know. The 22 points were probably just Huggie sucking up to the OAD system in hopes of getting one himself next year or the year after. I hope Josh doesn't think he scored 22 playing against the kind of treatment our other guys were probably getting.

Huggie's back was against the wall at home. He pretty much had to break out the tire irons.

@jaybate-1.0

"Did Huggins just expose Self’s smoke and Mirrors game?"

The game of basketball is a game of smoke and mirrors. It is a combination of illusion with delusion, hustle with laziness.

It is impossible to just point at one thing and contemplate a linear change based on one factor changing.

@dylans gave a spot on answer... or at least a possible result had our shooting from trey been off.

Here is a possibility.... we get down by 25 at half and Bill actually reaches these guys and they come out and go on a blitz. The only way we are going to really blitz a team for that kind of come back would require DEFENSE.

Until we start playing some defense our future does look bleak.

I'm hoping this game was an aberration because our guys clearly had that "deer in the headlights" look. Even our veteran players looked off. I'm not sure how much of that was screaming fans, hustling Mountaineers, or refs. Probably the combination of all of it.

@drgnslayr

Smoke and mirrors to me means a laundry list of things a team cannot do that a good teams can do that Self is hiding with deception.

All teams good, or not, make use of deception. But fake good teams use deception to hide that they are not real good teams, whereas real good teams use deception to fool you about how they are going to attack you with all the necessary tools of a good team.

This is what I would call Self's first true Swiss Cheese team.

The 2012 team had only six guys, but all five starters were serious D1 players, and Conner was a former Mr. Basketball of Missouri, who had matured into enough of a lug that he could bank with a team like WVU, even if he could not hang with them at the rim. The 2012 teams only hole was its depth. The rest of the team was exceptional and played exceptionally well together. They could sand bag with the best of them. They could squirt when they needed to. And no one has ever been remotely as fast on the drive imposing himself on the iron before or since as Tyshawn that last season (after having been a sensitive for several seasons before).

We are looking at a 2017 team that really doesn't match up very well with very many teams. It can't stay big and strong even at the post without Doke. Its guards are simply not up to the challenge of muscle ball. Its 3-man can't guard his own shadow against solid D1 athletes. Svi and Vick are having trouble with consistency. The team can't shoot Free Throws a lick. Yet again we have no scorer on the blocks. Those are all the wholes in the cheese. Outside Landen, they can't rebound, unless Frank does not release and goes hunting for boards.

The cheese is three point shooting and above average athleticism.

Regarding their defense, they play good defense in stretches. But they are too thin to do it all the time, or they would foul up and out.

Hence the smoke and mirrors moniker I hung on them.

They may be the BEST Swiss Cheese team in KU history.

But Swiss Cheese is still Swiss Cheese.

@jaybate-1.0

Enjoyed the reference to Swiss cheese.

Also nice to hear your perception of "smoke and mirrors." Valid

I often see the smoke and mirrors between coaches and players. I have NO doubt that our current team can run the table all the way through April.

Does the team think that? Are they willing to bleed for it? Lay their guts out there and maybe puke blood if that is what it takes?

Where is their line in the sand?

How bad do they want it?

"Good teams win games. Great teams find a way to win every game."

One of my early coaches gave me that one back around 1972... when he took over our crap team that won half our games until he turned us into champions.

Hot from trey creates an excuse for slacking off on defense. At least, it CAN do that. The teams that figure out how to win every game come to realize they have to do more than win one side of the game.

How do we convince our guys on what it takes to win all games and then go out and do it?

That is always Bill's dilemma... as with every coach. Coaches that figure it out most of the time end up making big bucks and go up to the top of their field.

Look at 'Nova last year. There was nothing going to stop them.