🏀 KuBuckets Archive

Wayne left a year ago. Wayne had a solid junior year. Don't know how to interpret advanced stats like player efficiency, etc, so I won't go there. Maybe that sheds some more light on this topic that would be interesting to hear.

I'm going to operate on the assumption Wayne left because we were going after JJ vigorously and he saw his role diminishing. So if Wayne stays because JJ signed somewhere else then we'd have him starting instead of JJ. Wayne, and this is another assumption, improves his statistics as he did each of his previous two seasons improves to near JJ levels of scoring. For what it's worth Wayne had these stats:

    Wayne                                                  Josh
   13.8 pts,                                                    16.3

  3.4 RB's,                                                    7.4

  2.6 Assts,                                                  3.0

 Shot ,392 on 3's,                                       37.8

 61% on FT's (yikes!),                                56.6 (yikes!)

 Averaged 2 fouls                                    3 fouls

  .7 steals and .3 blocks per games     1.7 steals, 1.3 blocks

  0 legal issues                                         Several legal issues

Hope that chart formats well.

So the question is, if JJ doesn't come and Wayne stays, where are we? Are we still playing? We probably were the best team a year ago with Wayne. Would his numbers have improved to match JJ's? If so is that enough to put us over the top? I guess in hindsight, it'd be nice to have found out.

The legal issues is hard to quantify the impact on the team. It was a distraction. It painted our team in a negative light. Wayne, as I recall played Scott free for three years, was a model citizen I believe.

I know this is an unanswerable question, but goodness, it's the offseason already, we need to talk about something!

If Wayne stayed would we have landed Jackson?

If we had both I would think Wayne starts over Svi so i don't see it as 1 vs the other.

Post accidentally posted before I finished. Now it's complete!

I think Wayne left because he was able to showcase his athleticism pretty well during the end of the season. I'm not sure Josh Jackson had any effect on that.

@wissox I have to know....so, are you still operating on the original DOS, or what :+1:

@Blown I'm sorry, 'original DOS'? I assume that's a computer term? I'm on about a 10 year computer here at work.

@wissox is Oregon Trail familiar to you?

@wissox But in response to your post, the team was better with JJ than Selden.

Selden had too many disappearing acts. JJ Played incredibly consistently after he got his teeth into it.

@BigBad I thought about that a lot this season. We could have had a better defender and offensive player than Svi starting. And we could have given DG and Frank a little more rest during the season.

@wissox Interesting topic. It is hard to quantify chemistry, and it's hard to project Wayne to this season .

But in the advanced stats, Josh wins in a knockout -- Jackson a 24.1 PER vs. Selden 17.9.

And I would say that would square with the eye test as well.

Now, would we still be playing? Who knows? Brackets might have been different. If we were the #1 in the West, wouldn't it be fair to assume we'd be in the final four now? Gonzaga had an easy path based on how the tourney played out.

But all that said, I'd much rather gamble on Jackson than Selden.

@BigBad and @Kcmatt7 I was operating under the assumption if Josh comes then Selden leaves. I can't see a scenario where we'd have had both, but that scenario is tantalizing! I think we're playing til the final buzzer in Phoenix if we had both. We'd be undefeated champions if we had both. Uh, nix, that, we still don't win in Morgantown!

Better with Josh, if choice were one or the other. Josh was a force every game, even off games. Josh is what Wayne would have been had Wayne been able to focus consistently and not lost his legs to injury. Josh has near Wiggins athleticism, when Wiggins was playing 2/3s speed in college. Since Wiggins is all pro good, that means Josh is darned good even if not in Wiggins hyper category.

Better with Wayne if choice were he and Wayne. Wayne was a very good player, when focused and healthy, but still a doughnut team with a hole in the middle.

Biggest improvement would have been a good center to rotate with Landen most games and pair with him some games.

Josh's rebounding shot blocking passing slashing (to t he hoop not tires😁) and chemistry were better. Wayne was better from 3. A push on the stripe. I take josh over wayne any day.

Josh any day of the week and twice on Sunday. Josh was as good as anyone in the entire country this year as a two way player. He impacted the game in so so many ways. It is hard to say that KU wins the Oregon game if he plays 37-38 minutes but I can imagine it would have been a hell of a lot closer.

@wissox And then imagine adding a healthy Doke... Man o man what could have been.

@Kcmatt7 With a healthy Doke are we still playing?

@wissox NO doubt in my mind. If Udoka was healthy we would still be dancing.

@wissox I don't know if we are or not. But it does give me butterflies when I think about it...

It's going to really suck losing Jackson.

People say we're loaded next year, but our success depends on our defense.

Jackson. The absence of program history/weight is a huge (mental) advantage for all OADs

@betterfireE I've got a wait and see attitude on the loaded next year idea.

LMAO with the legal issues stat, thats pretty good.

Self recruiting in the spring has been an amazing thing. Looking for rabbits and hats.

@kjayhawks Hard to quantify the impact of his, Braggs and Vicks issues on the team. I never heard anything like it created dissent or disunity, but I'm sure Bill Self would have rather not had to deal with these things.