Our favorite click bait commentator has went from openly wondering if we'll be undefeated to setting up a national championship as the only acceptable outcome. His myopia makes us look like pikers:
https://kckingdom.com/2018/07/28/kansas-basketball-2018-season-is-championship-or-bust-for-jayhawks/ ↗ ↗
KU should be good. We all know that.
But the way this writer goes about analyzing why the Hawks will be good is flawed. He isn't accounting for minutes distribution, shot distribution or anything like that. Vick and Azuibuke likely will see their averages stay the same or even fall because the Lawson brothers, Moore, Grimes and Dotson all have to get minutes and shots. Chances are the shots and minutes leaving from Newman, Graham and Svi will more than be absorbed by the newcomers and redshirts. It's likely that Doke and Vick do not have expanded roles this year.
Has this writer ever been to Morgantown?
I don't disagree with the championship or bust mentality this season. This is the most loaded KU team since the 2008 team. KU legitimately goes 11 deep this season which is just crazy. We know Self likes to whittle the rotation down to 7-8 players, but this depth may allow KU to have 9 players average 10+ mpg even in conference play.
I do think with KU's lack of outside shooting, there's not someone you have to guard at all times like with Graham or Svi, so defenses can pack the paint in KU all night and force outside shots. There will be games this year where the KU offense struggles to score because of that.
I don't see an undefeated season, but I do agree with the anything less than a championship being a disappointment this season sentiment because that's my feelings on the team this year.
KU's had an insane amount of talent pass through in the last 30 seasons and only 1 championship banner is a disappointment. 1997, 2003, 2010, 2011, and 2017 were all teams that had national title talk going into those seasons and only 2003 even made the Final Four. It'd be nice to go on a run of 3 titles in 8 years or some kind of stretch like that that Duke or UConn have done in the modern era of the NCAA tournament.
Nothing matters this season. Nothing. Unless we win the NCAA title. We've had it all. It's all that matters now.
The writer wanted to make a specific point and used the numbers available in the most favorable way but he purposefully ignores that the minutes required to reach the numbers he cites will just not be there, at least not to the extent he assumes.
I think we can all agree that anything short of a Final Four would be a big disappointment when the Championship is a reachable goal but not one that can be taken for granted. Kentucky has plenty of talent and also returning experience and Duke has perhaps the most talent of the 3 but experience is short. UK will have to deal with Tennessee and Duke will have to compete with UVA and UNC in the same way KU will have to deal with WVU and neither might win its own conference but, by tournament time, all 3 teams will be ready and eager and one of the 3 will likely take the cake...I like KU’s chances.
Russell Moore
Sherron Dotson
Mario Grimes
Brandon Vick
Darrell Lawson
Darnell Garrett
Sasha Azubuike
Matt McCormack
Cole DeSouza
Rodrick Lawson
Tyrell Agbaji
Brady Luinstra
Conner Lightfoot
Jeremy Elliot
There's no 2008 comp for Lightfoot.
2008 seems like a long time ago. It's time to win another national championship.
Among blue bloods, KU has the fewest titles, and also has the fewest titles. Obviously, those two things are related.
Kentucky has never gone more than 20 years between titles (1958 to 1978). North Carolina has never gone more than 25 years (1957 to 1982). KU went 36 years (1952 to 1988) and then went another 20 before getting the third title.
From a national perspective, the lack of national titles really cuts into KU's standing among the national powers. I think that's why lots of people at the national level put Duke into the blueblood conversation with KU, UNC and UK. Duke has more titles than KU does, and won 3 titles between KU's titles in 1988 and 2008, along with three more title game appearances, and three other Final Fours. Comparatively, KU had zero titles from 1989 to 2007, two title game appearances and two other Final Fours.
KU needs to string together some Final Fours, Title game appearances and titles.
Do you think that the emergence of ESPN with its East Coas bias has something to do with it? Since it was created in 1979 only 4 school west of the Mississippi, UCLA 1, Arkansas 1, UNLV 1 and KU 2 times have won championships. Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?
you know what just continues to amaze me? - Now this isn't directly about the National titles but what just continues to amaze me is and I'll give the perfect example and that is when a recruit/kid commits verbally to a school and then has a change of heart whatever - - at that time a lot of the times the fan base of the school he committed/decommitted to all of a sudden he goes from being that stud all world top notch player to AHH we don't need him , he wasn't that good , let him go to that medicore school play in the NIT , to over rated -now true I'm sure we/KU fans do this probably to an extent to - honestly I dunno - -myself I haven't seen us do this myself a lot , maybe I'm blind to it but I just don't get it. Now the example I'm talking about is D J Jeffries - -the Kentucky fan base is out there. - -- I don't get it-- -talking junk on Penny just because he de-committed from them
I don't. There are just more schools East of the Mississippi than there are west, so that would be expected.
From 1939 to 1979, the following "West" schools won titles:
Oregon, Stanford, Wyoming, Utah, Oklahoma State (A&M), Kansas, San Francisco, Cal, UCLA, UTEP (Texas Western). That's 10 schools.
Also remember that those western schools were helped in the 50's and 60's particularly because a lot of eastern schools would not recruit and play black players because the SEC and ACC would not schedule integrated teams. As a result, Bill Russell, who was from Louisiana, went to San Francisco and led them to a pair of titles. Elgin Baylor, who was from Washington D.C., went to Seattle. Texas Western had an all black starting five. KU got Wilt. UCLA got tons of black players from all over the country.
I think that the cultural shift (ACC and SEC allowing black players) allowed them to recruit more players from those areas - would Russell, Chamberlain and Alcindor really have gone all the way across the country had they been able to play closer to home?
I'm sorry, are we grouping people together by race to reach a conclusion? Suggesting that one race is better at something than another race?
Assuming that to be valid, which I do on both counts, that's a very valid point as it extended through the 80s. It makes great sense.
But now, over the last nearly 30 years? The promulgation of ESPN, and its regional bias, creates more media coverage for schools that are within the eastern time zone. Western schools are in the dark. They get very little coverage in an age where coverage is ever increasing. You see Duke, and stories on coach K, or on UK and stories on Cal's recruiting, that is influence. Kids see that.
The eastern schools are glamorized and featured much more prominently.
Back in the day, there weren't many games on TV. Now there are. And the games more people see are on while more people are awake (Eastern and Central time zones). There are more urban centers East of the Mississippi -- more black players -- the better players -- thus what we see today. It's a large part of it.
Now, with that, I don't think it impacts KU as much. We're only a time zone away. I think it has hammered the west coast much more. But we are still affected.
That said, we have top 5 rosters annually. Tough to blame anyone but ourselves for our tourney underachievement.
I'm pretty sure we will remain undefeated... for at least the next 3 months!
@JayHawkFanToo You forgot Arizona in 1997.
Thanks for the assist, I did have it on my list but failed to write it down. More importantly, all the wins were in the past century or 20 years ago except for KU in 2008.
I'd like to forget AZ in '97, that's for sure ...
KU was not nearly as good as its Blueblood reputation from the late 50's through the early 80's. And KU has been phenomenal in terms of overall performance since then (the lack of titles is the only aberraion). So, the rise of ESPN is paralleled by the resurrection of KU.
Interestingly, the influence of ESPN has also occurred in conjunction with the meteoric rise in the use of email, the vast increase in plastics-based pollution of the ocean, and the appearance of independent multi-national terrorism networks like Al-queda and ISIS.
Correlations do not necessarily imply causations.
I should clarify: my point is that I think ESPN has not created eastern championships due to any bias. The simple fact is that national television programming tends to not only reflect the heavy population densities in the east, but also the fact that western games scheduled in the evenings are on too late for the easterners to watch. So they are scheduled later, watched later, and watched less. ESPN wants to get ratings, so focussing on the east and central reflects population and time zones, not a choice of desired winners which is what "bias" implies.
@mayjay Your clarification on "bias" is well placed. I'd use "bias" more broadly. In fact, I think the bias is based in large part on sound business decisions.
Companies pay for advertising. Why? Because in the final analysis, when their product is before the consumer it makes it more likely that the consumer will buy the product.
The irrelevant examples you gave, though, have nothing to do with basketball. ESPN providing free advertising to the east coast schools both purposefully (based on population centers and money) and because of availability and locale, certainly makes those schools more attractive to recruits. Recruits want to be on TV, want to be on Sportscenter, and want to be seen.
It is certainly a significant influence on the current power bases in CBB. East coast teams get valuable, free advertising.
We have never had a bad season under Bill. The floor is incredibly high. 10 Sweet Sixteens in 15 years. 8 Elite 8s. 3 Final Fours. 1 championship. If we make it back to the Final Four, it will be another astonishing achievement. If we win, then Bill becomes the best coach at KU ...ever.
There are 5 "Power conferences. In those 5 power conferences, there are 65 total schools. I think we would all agree that the chances a non-P5 team will win a title is incredibly low. The last to do it was UNLV back in 1990. The last to make the title game was Butler in 2011. So it is an incredible uphill battle for a non-P5 school to make the title game, let alone win it.
Of the P5, the two conferences based primarily west of the Mississippi are the two smallest conferences. There are only 27 P5 schools west of the Mississippi. The other 38 are all East of the Mississippi. The numbers dictate that basketball power will consistently reside east of the Mississippi.
Taking it a little deeper, the list of schools with the most victories goes like this:
1. Kentucky (East)
2. Kansas (West)
3. North Carolina (East)
4. Duke (East)
5. Temple (East)
6. Syracuse (East)
7. UCLA (West)
8. Notre Dame (East)
9. St. John's (East)
10. Louisville (East)
11. Indiana (East)
12. BYU (West)
13. Utah (West)
14. Arizona (West)
15. Cincinnati (East)
16. Illinois (East)
17. Texas (West)
18. Purdue (East)
19. Western Kentucky (East)
20. Penn (East)
21. Washington (West)
22. West Virginia (East)
23. Villanova (East)
24. Oregon State (West)
25. Princeton (East)
That's 17 of the top 25, 8 of the top 10 and 4 of the top 5.
If more population was further west, particularly in the Plains and Rockies, I think the distribution would be more even, but that's just not the case.
@justanotherfan Arebt most of the eastern schools older? Might that skew the all time win totals? Or is it close enough?
dylans said:
@justanotherfan Arebt most of the eastern schools older? Might that skew the all time win totals? Or is it close enough?
It's actually fairly close overall. The list is here ↗ for perusal.
The top 20 in terms of seasons goes like this:
Those early seasons don't carry nearly as much weight as you might imagine. In the first 9 seasons of KU's history, coached by James Naismith, KU played 115 games total. For perspective, Devonte Graham had 122 wins in his KU career.
HighEliteMajor said:
In fact, I think the bias is based in large part on sound business decisions.
That's exactly it. Not a second of national tv happens without a complete assessment by media wonks. Every second has a value, and the goal of tv is to get the highest price they can. You know it isn't paramount to show Big 12 basketball in the east when they can show teams from their area and it will bring perhaps a larger crowd and may involve substantial savings in production costs.
FAKE NEWS ALERT>>>>
I did not want to open a new thread so I figure this would be the next best place. This is on the Twitter feed for the NBA Draft Wire...
!0_1533573434882_upload-b5882f63-2f2f-43d8-a990-efc0d1412328 ↗
Of course we know that on the lone year Durant was at Texas (2006-2007), KU won the regular season title outright and then beat Texas in OT in the Big 12 Tournament title game. Durant did not lead his team to "the" Championship, he led them to "the Championship game."
Lead him TO the game, not won it
@JayHawkFanToo Ironically, Texas tied KU for the reg season title both the year before and the year after Durant, and was seeded #1 in the Big 12 tourney both years, too, because they beat us in the single games played those years. Geez, Durant was a relative failure compared to his contemporary Longhorns.
@JayHawkFanToo It says nothing about Durant winning a title. Nothing in that statement is factually inaccurate, just written in a misleading way. KD didead UT to a B12 championship, they just didn't won that championship. Again, misleading, but technically inaccurate.
I respectfully disagree. He led the to the “championship game” not to the “Championship.” FWIW, I just ran it by a family friend who was an English college professor for a number of years and she agreed that as written it clearly implies they won. Durant never beat KU and was 0-3 against the Jayhawks; funny how they missed that part.
@JayHawkFanToo It is technically accurate like I said. It's just a very misleading way to to state it that does imply he won a B12 title which is why it's misleading. Also, Durant was only 0-2 against Kansas.
@JayHawkFanToo implies isn't the same as they won-fact
@JayHawkFanToo You, I believe, have the better case here. Absolute fact: since he failed to lead UT to the Big 12 championship, he cannot also have led them to the Big 12 championship.
Crimsonorblue22 said:
@JayHawkFanToo implies isn't the same as they won-fact
Actually it does more than implying, it says he led them to the “championship” which he did not. He led them to the championship game which they lost.
It doesn’t say he led them to A big 12 championship it says he led them to THE big 12 championship
A friend of mine from Australia who is a professor from the university of Australia told me that.🤣
I challenge anyone to find another example of using "the championship" without "game" in the context of a player or coach leading a team to it when it means only a second place finish. So, Watson led Clemson to two NCAA football championships in 2016 and 2017 while Saban simultaneously led Alabama to the very same two championships?
Back to KU basketball. Interesting article ↗ on the NCAA site comparing KU and UK and the aurhor gives a slight node to UK; however, he does not even mention either De Sousa or Big Dave.
HEADLINE :
DURANT LEADS GOLDEN STATE TO NBA CHAMPIONSHIP:
STILL COULDN'T LEAD A TEAM TO THE BIG12 CHAMPIONSHIP BECAUSE KU OWNED HIM
FILM AT 11...
Here's a fun one...this guy watches video and reacts to players. This segment is him reacting to Quentin Grimes:
[
The thing I like most about Quentin Grimes is his ability to control and manipulate the pace and spacing on the floor to his liking. There are several times in the clip you posted where he changes the floor just by taking another dribble, or pulling the ball back out.
You rarely see a guy able to control the other 9 guys on the floor, but Grimes did that in high school. It's one of the reasons I am so high on his ability. He can control every aspect on the floor.
It's also one of the reasons I see him more as a PG than a SG. He knows how to change the floor to create space for himself and his teammates. He was a "2" in HS because his team was dependent on him for so much scoring, but he has natural PG skills.
By the end of the season I envision KU closing games with Dotson, Grimes, the Lawson brothers and Vick. That gives KU defense, shooting, ball handling and rebounding, and might give KU a MUA at every spot since most college 4's and 5's won't be able to combat the Lawson's, and most collegiate teams won't have enough talent at the wing to deal with both Vick and Grimes. It will spread the floor for everyone and give everyone space to operate - Vick's shooting drags another defender out of the lane to cover the corners.
HighEliteMajor said:
Nothing matters this season. Nothing. Unless we win the NCAA title. We've had it all. It's all that matters now.
———————
You are right, but the paradox of our sport is Self must build a new team, as if the team were most important.
Self’s great accomplishments are based on building teams to reach the full potential of their talent; that is the only way to win a ring IMHO.
It is in some of his choices about who can and should play where and when that most controversy arises and quite logically so. He makes hundreds or thousands of choices in a season about who to play where and when. He makes good enough decisions to win 82% or so and 14 straight conference titles and one ring. But that still involves significant amounts of error and room for reasoned second guessing.
This season I am uneasy about the youth, the lack of proven trey ballers, and the over abundance of big men.
Champion teams need basic pieces. They need all the pieces, not more or less. And they need MUA in 3 of 5 starters and in 2-3 subs come the Carney.
Lacking the above, a Coach must invent a better mouse trap (scheme), and hope no one figures it out during March.
If Self can find 3 40% trey ballers, then the surplus of bigs becomes an advantage, and I suspect he can fit the pieces together.
If he finds only two, it’s a crap shoot.
If he finds none, I foresee no chance for a ring even with a better mouse trap.
And, of course, he and his team will have to overcome seeding path bias and asymmetric whistles, and exceedingly long reviews of calls apparently to give Nike-EST opponents a chance to win at the end of close games.
It is a tall mountain to climb without credible trey shooters, even with two. But three is like having Sherpas help you up Everest.
drgnslayr said:
I'm pretty sure we will remain undefeated... for at least the next 3 months!
PHOF
Huggy thinks his front line is pretty good...wishful thinking?
!0_1534259487337_upload-733fab1a-6e76-4715-8d2d-559435242bfa ↗
Best might be stretching a bit, but they have a very good collegiate frontcourt.
Konate is a tremendous shot blocker at the collegiate level.
Esa Ahmad is healthy, and probably their best overall player.
Andrew Gordon was a top juco player, and is a very good defender (and shot blocker specifically).
They have six guys that can likely play up front, which is perfect given their style of play.
So although I don't think WVU has the most talent up front of anyone in the country (particularly top line talent), they are going to be a pain to deal with because they are deep and athletic up front, and they have multiple shot blockers they can deploy at the back of that press to shut the door on any run outs.
Having shot blockers at the back of a press makes the press that much better. Usually, if you break a press quickly, you get an easy layup. Having a guy back there to stop the layups means you can break the press, but won't necessarily get the reward at the end. And we know how tough WVU's press can be already.
Last season KU had no depth so it had to play conservatively inside. This team has plenty of depth...and bulk and will overwhelm WVU. THe WVU press was very effective but with new personnel and teams more aware of it, its effectiveness is not nearly as much as it used to be. KU beta WVU 3 times last season including a comfortable win in the Big 12 Championship game, so it looks like Coach Self has gotten a handle on how to control and beat WVU.
BTW, as good as Konate is, he still is a punk; I wonder what is the line on technical fouls he will earn next season.
@JayHawkFanToo Wvu is going to be in for a heck of a surprise when they face us.