🏀 KuBuckets Archive

Hey all KU fans!

I might be in the minority here but my loathing for Shaka just decreased by about 17.3%

Hear me out ok?

Since Shaka has been at Texas he is 0 - 5 against KU. No Wins. NONE! :laughing:

Just makes me laugh to tears! Its so funny watching the post game hand shake... Ive rewatched the game twice already. Shaka just basically runs right by Coach Self after the handshake. ROFL!

So here is my rationale for not hating on Shaka as much.

KU has beaten them 5 straight times since Shaka took over. Do you think there might be a possibility that Coach Self, by winning so many consecutive games, is saying directly to Shaka. "Look son, you got lucky one time. Once!" It'll never happen again. Not while I am at KU and you're in MY conference."

So we just beat Texas again, in their house! It was a really good game, I thought. That Bamba kid is a freekin beast. Dok did a good job against him though. He just isnt on the same level athletically yet though. The only thing Dok has on Bamba is sheer size and strength. Once Dok got it into his mind that he was gonna do his work early to get good position in the paint, Bamba couldnt stop him. All he could do was try and block his shot. Which he did alot. But, Dok had some good moves on his own.

Im proud of our guys last night for grinding out that win. That was a big one, even though it was the first one of the conference season.

Rock Chalk Jayhawks!

The way I recall it (and I do admit that my recall has begun to fade) when Shaka took the Longhorn job, moving up from VCU, he was asked how he thought he might be able to compete against the likes of perennial league champion Kansas and Coach Bill Self. I think he might have committed the grievous cheeky error of referring to his previous win over Self in an NCAA Tournament. If that did indeed occur (and I am rather certain it did), Mr. Smart might live to regret his bold slip of tongue. It appears that humility might have been a better avenue to establishing himself and his program as respectable contenders.

I have always considered our Jayhawk hoop coach's skin to be more than ordinarily thick...but for the occasional surfacing of some vocal slight from a professional cohort. It does appear that his level of reaction undergoes an intensity which ebbs over time, giving way to attention toward newer and more current slights. Our mentor is capable of easing the force of a toe from a rival's throat. For instance, I give you Mr. Weber, then I give you Mr. Smart. And off in the distance do I detect a fart escaping from the training pants of a Mr. Marshall?

shaka still has the biggest win. the one that prevented a national title in ‘11.

the league needs shaka to be good. the worse the teams are in this league the more it waters down the b12 title.

@REHawk

Oh yes, it happened, here is a link... ↗

@Blown

Patience is wearing thin in Austin; another poor finish and his seat gets very hot.

Blown said:

shaka still has the biggest win. the one that prevented a national title in ‘11.

the league needs shaka to be good. the worse the teams are in this league the more it waters down the b12 title.

No amount of beatdowns over Shalaka will ever replace that elite eight loss. His team was simply more focused, hungrier and looser than ours was and it showed. Dont get me wrong, beating him is great and further proves that he is Bill's inferior as far as coaching skill, but it never makes me feel better.

@JayHawkFanToo I have always thought that comment was too snarky and a little unprofessional. It still irks me and I'm glad we have beaten his UT teams like a drum.

TX coaching job would be a tremendous job for any coach.

With availability of so much talent /resources/funds/endorsements/facilities/own network etc. etc. imagine how much damage can a good coach do while coaching at UT.

@JayHawkFanToo Thanks for the link. I knew that Shaka had shoved his foot in mouth; just could not recall precisely what he crowed. Maybe someday he will move on to the Wichita job where he can whine to the Kansas legislature to make Bill Self shut him down at a new site.

REHawk said:

I have always considered our Jayhawk hoop coach's skin to be more than ordinarily thick...but for the occasional surfacing of some vocal slight from a professional cohort. It does appear that his level of reaction undergoes an intensity which ebbs over time, giving way to attention toward newer and more current slights. Our mentor is capable of easing the force of a toe from a rival's throat. For instance, I give you Mr. Weber, then I give you Mr. Smart. And off in the distance do I detect a fart escaping from the training pants of a Mr. Marshall?

You can tell who Self does and doesn't like, at least I think, based on post game hand shakes and comments. I'm fairly sure Self doesn't like Weber, Drew and Smart.

Self does seem to have a lot of respect for coaches like Kruger, Dixon and Huggins otoh.

Jmo, could obviously be wrong.

@BShark Weber taking his team to the Finals and then claiming he deserves 100% of the credit for it pissed Self off for sure. I know it would piss me off.

Or maybe its because Weber held a funeral for Bill Self because he was tired of the media asking him about Self all of the time! Lol funny but not very classy...

The fact is Shaka Smart outcoaching Bill Self cost us a national championship. Nothing we say, or do, changes that. We had a national title before us, on a silver platter. And we lost. Smart ran his mouth coming into the league and he's in over his head against Bill Self. Still, he's won the biggest game of that match-up.

The comment came in response to a question about how his style would translate to the Big 12. "It translated pretty well a few years ago in San Antonio."

Never bothered me in the least. He had one game as a frame of reference. People had been questioning whether his "havoc" style had legs. He can be allowed 4 seconds of pride.

Now he has more games of reference, and the havoc style does not seem to have had legs.

His best chance of success is with a freakishly long big guy who is not part of any havoc style. It will be interesting to see if he adapts.

@mayjay I think it was clearly a swipe at KU. The type of comment a 20 year old might make without thinking. It told me a lot about Smart. Comments like that don't project confidence to me, they project insecurity. Like you, though, I wasn't offended. I was just hopeful Self would jam it back down his throat, which he has.

@mayjay

You have to read all the contemporaneous articles to get the proper context. He confidently indicated that his goal was to win the Conference, one that boasted current and future Hall of Famers such as Self, Huggins, Smith, Hoiberg and Kruger...and even squeaky...who have accomplished a hell of a lot more at bigger stages than he did at smaller conferences; you don’t think the other coaches took notice? His comment in question was clearly a jab at Self and KU and came out as arrogant, disrespectful and infantile for someone whose claim to fame is basically one win against KU. Smart never won a Conference title before at either the Colonial or the A-10 and so far has finished 11-7 and 4th in his first year in the Big 12 with players he inherited from a Rick Barnes and 4-14 and in last place with his own team; this season he will not finish in the top half.

Looks like his words came back to bite him in the a$$.

I still have not gotten it straight, just what was Shaka clamoring about to earn that technical? Man, I thought Higgins was at verge of sending him to the locker room.

@REHawk after being warned about being out of the box or over the line, I heard he went over it again. Read it.

I enjoy beating anyone on any night but winning against Texas is always a good win, in anything. We all know the Shorthorn Network is why there is no B12 Network and they are the ones everyone claims runs the league even tho they have sucked up the place in everything but volleyball for the past like 8 years. Then there’s the Texas fans along with the KSU and WSU fans that claimed since Smart luckily beat Self once in the NCAAs that he would put a stop to the streak and kick our butts. Let’s all take a minute to laugh at that, I’m actually surprised how good he hasn’t done in Texas with big recruits he as gotten like Bamba and Allen last year. @HighEliteMajor I strongly disagree that he “outcoached” Self is that elite 8. VCU couldn’t miss for 5 straight games and shot well above their average. When they stopped hitting everything they threw up the next game they got smoked. We also had nothing from our guards, shot 2-21 from 3. I don’t care who you’re playing it’s hard to win shooting like that and I also remember Keef had 8 turnovers, most of them unforced errors (I believe 3 he just step outta bounds). I’ve been involved with basketball wether in coaching, playing or officiating for over 20 years, sometimes the ball just don’t go in the hole and coach can’t go out there to shoot for them. That’s why march madness is the hardest tournament to win IMO.

@kjayhawks Right, the “they made shots” thing.VCU shot below 40% from the field. But under your theory, Self deserves no credit when we win. Self got smoked. VCU was a step ahead all game. It’s intersting that you don’t give any credit to VCU for their three point defense. But that is actually a major focus in many game plans.

@HighEliteMajor they shot 49% from 3 while hitting 12 of them Burgess hit 2 after not hitting any all season. We shot less than 36% from the floor. Some credit of coarse goes to their defense but rewatch that game and tell me we didn’t miss several wide open looks from distance.

@kjayhawks I think at the time we all agreed or discussed there were 5 or 6 wide open, uncontested misses. I may be wrong but I recall that I believe. I really just don’t think we were prepared. Short turn around. Marcus running his mouth. We looked incredibly tight, which seemed to be a reflection of our coach. VCU played much more confidently. Bad day all around.

Almost 7 years ago. I have truly moved on. All that matters is tomorrow and we have the best coach for tomorrow.

@HighEliteMajor opinions very buddy and I agree let’s keep going forward.

My first rant of 2018! When a coach comes into a program and says his goal is to beat Kansas what is wrong with that? Good grief. According to some of you Shaka should have come in and said this: "Well, I got lucky once against KU and now that I'm coach at Texas I hope to get lucky again and beat them because I know I'm not going to beat them."

I loved it when the Bears hired Lovie Smith and he came in and said "I'm here to beat the Packers". He was praised for that comment. Bears fans loved it and he actually followed through. They were 8-9 against the Pack until they signed Cutler and well, that doomed the team against Green Bay because GB was in Cutlers head.

There's nothing wrong with confidence and having goals but some people get offended because Shaka said he wanted to beat Kansas. I'd be mad if I was a Texas fan and he didn't say something like that! But until we ascend to the top again I think we're going to be a pretty fragile group (relatively speaking of course). We're going to continue to think Kentucky, Duke and UNC get all the favors from the NCAA and the media.

But don't forget this stat, Shaka has been to the final four as many times this decade as Bill Self.

On a related note, we all know football is king at Texas. We also know that in the last half decade or so Texas football has sunk to such depths that they just fired a coach a year ago that had a losing record over 3 years. Before Charlie Strong came along Texas basketball was actually quite good. We liked to rip on Rick Barnes, but he recruited extremely well and won a lot. Both programs took a nose dive around the same time. I'm not smart enough to figure out how they're related, but methinks they are.

I guess I no longer want to be considered a Jayhawk fan by @wissox? Apparently we are all whinny! With fragile egos, hahaha.

I have yet to meet a true fan of any team that is 100% content after a loss. 2012 was great, but that season ending loss still hurt. We were all proud of our guys, but content in a loss? Hell no!

You really should visit rural Kansas were the real down to earth Kansans are. I have no idea what the out of state Jayhawks are like, but apparently they have left a bad taste in your mouth. Come spend some time around better people and maybe you’ll see better fans! If you’re judge fans based on online rants, you and I both know most people don’t act as horrible in person as they do on the internet. Sad, but true.

All fan bases have crappy fans - OU fans are boorish, A NU fan broke my nose because I was standing by him after NU barely beat KU in football (best fans in the US I’ve been told), Co fans give KU fans their tickets (I loved seeing Allen Fieldhouse far west fully filled up!) KSU fans are extremely insecure, MU fans are are overly aggressive and mean towards KU, Texas fans are bandwagon fans, ISU fans think every call goes KUs way even if they aren’t playing KU, Baylor- wow what a mess I have no idea what the fans are like, but the players are pretty tough on each other (murder) and the program chooses to have Drew around. I guess outside of almighty Texas the other Texas teams and fans don’t even rate , my Big8 love is showing through.

The unlikeable KU fans for me- the ones who think they are clever saying things like, “All you care about are conference championships” and the vast over use and poor analysis of the “fools gold” comment. Both are leading comments that cause a larger divide every time they are brought up. To the point of nearly splitting this board in half - and we get along fairly well for a group of random strangers with only KU in common.

Both programs took a nose dive around the same time.

Both programs got new “better” coaches...

@wissox Shaka is our sworn enemy. Texas is our sworn enemy. They must be defeated. It seems like you have some doubts about the mission, Soldier.

@dylans

I was very careful to use the pronoun we because I too am a fragile Jayhawk fan. I whine about east coast bias, officiating favoring favored teams, Duke is in my head too I admit.

But I do think holding a grudge against Shaka because he stated he wanted to beat Kansas is not the way I'd like to present myself as a Jayhawk fan.

Now, if you think I don't think you're a real Jayhawk fan, nothing could be further from the truth. I'll private message you the names of the fakers!

@dylans Wissox is more objective than most of us. He gigs us for our fanatical natures. He still bleeds crimson and blue at the end of the day. I just wanted to compliment you on a really good post. As for the broken nose, I just wanted to mention that I had a good friend in college who went to a game at Silo Tech, and knocked a Grape Ape fan out in the parking lot after the game. So, I'm sure the guy that got knocked out thinks KU fans are brutes as well.

@KUSTEVE I want you to channel some of that knocking people out for Duke and Kentucky fans!

@wissox I don’t have a problem with what Smart said, I was just pointing out what some of the other schools fans in our state were saying. I don’t really care what Smart does especially if we beat him.

@wissox I don't hold the fact that he said he wanted to beat us against him......I thought the way he said it was cheap and unprofessional.........and as HEM pointed out....showed a little insecurity. It obviously didn't bother everyone....but I didn't like it. Makes me extra glad that we are 5-0 against him since.

@dylans "ISU fans think every call goes KUs way even if they aren’t playing KU"

PHOF!

Literally true for Squeaky, too--remember when he complained about calls in a KU game when we played someone else in the last conf game, and they tied us that one year he accomplished something in the B12?

Oops--we lost the final game that year, 2013. This memory is from what Weber said before that:

"The Wichita Eagle’s account of Monday’s KSU pep rally reports that “coach Bruce Weber joked that he had hoped to celebrate a Big 12 championship a week earlier on Senior Day, but poor officiating — referring to KU’s overtime victory at Iowa State — got in the way.”

Reached by the Journal-World for a reaction to that news item, Self said: “No comment.” "

When Shaka beat us he was known as a young, high-energy coach that demanded high-energy out of his team.

Where is that Shaka Smart? Bamba is a beast... without him, we would have smoked Texas by 30. Their guard defense is possibly the worst perimeter defense in the Big 12. Pathetic!

Obviously, I want #14 this year... but I also want and expect higher levels of play from some of the teams in our league, starting with Texas.

Blessings to our friends from the south, OU! I hope they win us all a National Championship in football! And I hope their Trae and company make a serious run, but come up just short of a conference title. They might do some serious damage in March.

Huggy Bear always has my respect. Just wish he would clean up his language from the bench. We don't need that language representing the Big 12. Otherwise... he is top notch and completely loved and respected by his players. One of the most-popular coaches from the players in all of college basketball.

@wissox I really didn't mean to direct that at you. Your post was just the catalyst not the source of my frustration. I appreciate your fandom and sometimes I/we absolutely do need called out. The vast majority of KU fans that I've met have been stand up individuals, but like any fanbase there are exceptions.

@HighEliteMajor was he out coached ? i’d don’t remember the details of the scheming that day. i remember the team once again shot an insanely low % from 3 and Kief had 8 huge turnovers. The morris twins also ran their mouths before the game like they did the UNI game the year before. but that’s just what they did.

don’t believe shaka ever won the AAU. good luck in this conference.

Blown said:

don’t believe shaka ever won the AAU. good luck in this conference.

He doesn't have a single conference title period.

@wissox

Smarts comments reeked of arrogance, disrespect and insecurity and the shot was directed specifically to Coach Self and KU.

We have had big name coaches before that actually accomplished something on a consistent basis come to the conference and not boast like Smart did. So far he has shown that, as they say in Texas, he is all hat and no cattle.

Think about it, the whole myth of Smart is made out of smoke and mirrors. He did not win a single conference title in the Colonial conference...we are not talking about the West Coast or Conference USA or even the Missouri Valley, but the Colonial Conference that averages less than 2,500 attendance per game and he could not win one when VCU moved to the A-10 either. the entire mystique of Smart is based in one lucky NCAA run that included a win over KU, that is it.

I will guess that if went to the Big 10 instead and made the same comment about Wisconsin, you would probably be all up in arms..or maybe not. :smiley:

@JayHawkFanToo why would I be up in arms?

Did the lovie smith comment I alluded to reek of arrogance?

You can call it what you want but calling a run to the final four lucky just diminishes their amazing accomplishment that year. They had to win five games if I remember correctly because they were a play in team. Luck had nothing to do with it.

When we beat OU in 88 Billy Tubbs said 'we know we're the better team. That's arrogance. It's not arrogance to proclaim to your new team and fans you're there to beat KU.

@JayHawkFanToo "The entire mystique of Smart is based in one lucky NCAA run that included a win over KU, that is it."

And yet our fanbase continues to be obsessed by his comments in a single news conference nearly 3 years ago. His "lucky run" was a career-marking accomplishment, as demonstrated by KU fans' constant whining about our fewer-than-we-should-have Final 4s. That he thought his style would do well in the Big12? Oooh, he must be a bad bad man to think that!

Yeah, I am seconding @wissox with this: our obsession with beating Shaka due to his comments when hired reeks of pettiness solely attributable to not being able to let go of the loss in 2011.

@wissox

The better coaches don’t brag, they just deliver. The wannabes brag and don’t deliver. We know where Smart stands and we just agree to disagree.

Shaka was supposed to be a young coach who brought in frenetic energy that his players would pick up from him.

I just don't see that these days. I see a mediocre coach who has one of the premiere athletic departments in the country and at the largest school in a huge state oozing with talent... and he can barely create a marginal Top 20 to Top 30 team.

Put Self down there in Austin and he will have a Top 10 team in a year. No wait.... DON'T put Self down there! lol

@mayjay

Let’s see, with the players and system he inherited he finished 7th, with his own system and players he finished dead last...yep, his style translated really well.

@JayHawkFanToo Unlike everyone else who ever exuded confidence and didn't come through? The issue isn't whether he has succeeded. Has he said or done anything since that press conference resembling disrespect, or will we continue to condemn and hate him for a 6 second quote?

@mayjay

Sports and life are full of 6 second quotes that people are famous for!

I am not a crook

Playoffs? You're talking playoffs?

Et tu Brutus?

I did not have sex with that woman.

PHOF

Ask not what your @approxinfinity can do for you, ask you can do for your approxinfinity.

I have a dream of the day when a person is judged not by the color of their skin but by their ability to score the basketball.

Read my lips, no more threes.

It is finished.

@wissox
“I’m supposed to be the franchise player and we in here talking about practice! I mean listen, we talking about practice? Not a game! Not a game! Not a game! We talking about practice! Not a game, not a game, not the game I go out there and die for, we’re talking about practice?!? Not a game! We talking about practice!”

Ok a little longer than 6 seconds.

How about...

“Down goes Frazier!”

@mayjay Yeah, probably. Some/most players/fans need false motivation in sports to up the ante’. Fake hate without the real hatred is quiet common. Just don’t cross over into antler territory and make it real.

@mayjay To clarify sports are just entertainment to me. The actions and games are real, but just that games. They have no bearing on my day to day life. In entertainment I enjoy having villains and good guys with clear defined rolls (not like real life).

I’m not going to go egg a guys house for being a KSU fan, because the games are just that games. It’s not war, it’s not politics, it’s not religion. It’s why I come here. Entertainment. Hardcore entertainment. That I take too seriously, but don’t confuse with real life.

@mayjay

I am sure you have heard the expression...you never get a second chance to make a first impression? BINGO!!!

@dylans You really don't want to egg a KSU fan's house anyway, because they will just go lick it off instead of slithering all the way to a dumpster....