🏀 KuBuckets Archive

Sooner or later each season Bill Self calls attention to the teams way of playing with a phrase like “that’s not who we are.”

Shortly after the team starts playing much closer to “who we are.”

Who will this year’s team be?

Inside out?

Outside in?

Half court grind?

Transition?

Lock down and rebound?

Play to win the disruption stat?

Pressure outside?

Pressure inside?

Or will Bill innovate something we haven’t seen?

Expectations seem to have been evolving over the off season.

Just taking the current pulse of board 🐀s now that it appears unlikely a regulatory catstrophe will manifest before Self rolls out the balls.

Seriously now. 😉

We are going to have one of the deepest frontcourts ever. There is no way Bill doesn't play to this strength. Bill will also want to play length on the perimeter and give PT to the diaper dandies. That means by years end its a core identity of Dotson, Grimes, Vick + endless Bigs, only one of whom shoots from distance with accuracy (Dedrick). That means that "who we are" is:

Lock down and rebound on D.
Feed the hot hand on O, and terrorize the boards.

That means that Udoka is peripheral to the core identity unless he can rebound well. And so is Moore, unless he can D well. Though, I think Self will leave them out there, regardless of whether they are "who we are" or not.

@approxinfinity

Mitch is a better outside shooter than Dedric and also the best shot blocker among the bigs.

@JayHawkFanToo Mitch is a better shot blocker than Dedric or Silvio? I disagree.

I love Mitch! Huge fan and respect the crap out of him living his best life. Mitch isn't going to play this year much if at all though.

Reference points: He played 14 minutes a game last year, with a super thin KU front court. The thinnest one even in recent memory in fact as even the year before had Coleby, Bragg, Lucas and an injured Doke. Which isn't even factoring in Josh at the 4.

Mitch played 2 minutes against Clemson, none against Duke and 2 against Villanova.

Self now has...

Elite college bigs: Doke, Dedric, Silvio

Very good college big that is better than Mitch: David McCormack

Combo forward who I'd play at the 4 before playing Mitch: KJ

Self isn't dumb, he knew last year that playing Mitch was less than ideal and he has way more options now.

See this is what I love about this year's team. We have so many combinations we can run/pit out on the floor- -how you gonna stop it? I think you will see so many different types. We can play big we can play small - -were going to be able to run - - be able to block/defend. Our guys are going to be match up nightmares. - -We can paly Doke at the 5 - - Dedric at the 4 Vick at the 3 - or hell we can even play KJ at the 3 sometimes - - - back up Doke at the 5 with either Silvio OR McCormick - - or you can have Silvio backing up Dedric at the 4 sometimes- - -- or we can even have Mitch backing up Dedric in certain spots.

The backcourt? - - Grimes at the 2 -- -- Dotson at pg or Moore can flip one way or another - -then you have Garrett. - -or we can slide Vick at times to the 2 and slide KJ down to the 3 KJ better rebounder then Vick - -so many possibilities.

The guys will be much more aggressive on defense because of depth- -guards can be way more aggressive knowing they have back line help if they get beat - -we have the rim protectors. - The bigs can be more aggressive for rebounds and blocks again because of the depth - -it can be insane what we throw out on the floor. - Should be very interesting. - - -ROCK CHALK ALL DAY LONG BABY

KUSTEVE said:

@JayHawkFanToo Mitch is a better shot blocker than Dedric or Silvio? I disagree.

Look at the stats from last season.
- Doke - 858 minutes, 60 blocks or 1 block per 14.3 minutes
- Mitch - 531 minutes, 54 blocks or 1 block per 9.8 minutes
- Silvio - 175 minutes! 3 blocks or 1 block per 58 minutes

The reason Mitch was ineffective a lot of the time is because he was forced to play Center, and was most of the time mismatched inside by much bigger players. He would have been a lot more efficient playing the more natural stretch 4 or small forward which I suspect is where he will contribute this season.

Mitch has been shooting lights out from outside in the off season and has bulked up quite a bit. I see him playing the stretch 4 from here on.

The reason Mitch was ineffective is because he isn't an elite or excellent player and was forced into action.

Jeremy Case shot lights out in the offseason too. Last I heard he was still getting his ass kicked in practice but it's been awhile. I'll be surprised if he plays more than scrub minutes.

@JayHawkFanToo I knew you were going to say that...lol. Stats do lie. Mitch never made a block on the man he was guarding...ever( unless he was in a mismatch with a smaller player). Practically every one of his blocks were weak side help, where he left his man wide open, and came from the side or from behind to block the shooter ( not his man). The numbers are deceiving because Mitch also fouled at a higher rate than he blocked the shot, and he also left his man wide open for easy layups when he didn't get there in time. So, he was either blocking, fouling, or letting his wide open man stroll into the basket for an uncontested layup. Which is one of the reasons our defense was so porous last year. Look, we all love Mitch, but he has a long way to go defensively, imo. If Dedric played defense the same way, he'd have double the number of blocks as Mitch. Of course, it would leave a huge hole in the middle of the defense to play that way, just like it did with Mitch last year.

Fouls per 40 minutes... Doke - 5.1, Mitch - 6.3, Silvio - 7.5. For being so mismatched at Center, Mitch fouling is not that bad.

Mitch is okay defensively, it's offense where he really struggles. It was 4 on 5 offensively when Mitch has been out there so far. Last year was an enormous improvement from his FR year so there is hope. I still think he should take a RS IF he wants to play more at some point down the line. If he just wants to have fun being on the team while getting his degree then I can see not taking the RS, it's not like he is going to play pro ball anywhere.

approxinfinity said:

We are going to have one of the deepest frontcourts ever. There is no way Bill doesn't play to this strength. Bill will also want to play length on the perimeter and give PT to the diaper dandies. That means by years end its a core identity of Dotson, Grimes, Vick + endless Bigs, only one of whom shoots from distance with accuracy (Dedrick). That means that "who we are" is:

Lock down and rebound on D.
Feed the hot hand on O, and terrorize the boards.

That means that Udoka is peripheral to the core identity unless he can rebound well. And so is Moore, unless he can D well. Though, I think Self will leave them out there, regardless of whether they are "who we are" or not.

I agree with what he said. I'll add to it and say I think Udoka will absolutely rebound better per 40 min. He has to. He has so much more competition right now from Silvio, Dedric and McCormack that if he wants to stay on the court he has to produce mega boards. And, if he wants to go higher in the draft next year he has to beastmode on the glass too. I expect him to continue what he did on offense last season percentage wise as well.

Frontcourt ala 07-08, Aldrich, Arthur, Kaun and Jackson- only this group has more flexibility, 2 more deep, with outside shooting from 3 of those.

My opinion, it is all about how the frontcourt develops, the best 2 players are likely one and dones, how good are they in Feb/March- How good is Vick and how much does he play? Is KJ the minutes leader at the 3? What is Garrett- did he develop a shot over the summer?

I'm excited to see how awesome we become.

@KUSTEVE look at it this way. - If our defense wasn't getting beat and porus as you say if other players weren't getting beat so badly Mitch wouldn't have to come over to try and pick up and defend and as you say get the weakside block. - when Mitch had to try and cover somebody else's man there are others that is suppose to slide down and help pick up Mitch's man. - - -I think your laying a little to much blame on Mitch when he was trying to save another player's ass when THEY got beat - Mitch is a very good shot blocker. Is he gonna start ? - Hell no - Will he get major minutes? - -Probably not. - This should be the perfect yr for him to redshirt - But selling him short ummmm no , he isn't as bad as some try and make him out to be. -- ROCK CHALK ALL DAY LONG BABY

@jayballer73 That certainly happened on more than one occasion where Mitch would come over and wipe out a run out with a huge block. He had some great moments. He also had moments where he lunged in the air, and knocked the shooter down. I'm not picking on him- I think he abandoned basic defensive principles at times to go for the block ...maybe it was because he was playing out of position ...maybe he fell in love with the block. I dunno. I know that our team got better the more Silvio played, and the less Mitch was in there. He's a kid ...he's going to get better. I still love him. This year will be a good year for him to work on his overall game, and get better and better. He's probably not going to get much playing time, but I could see him in the rotation next year doing things that he wasn't able to do last year.

Yeah. As much as we talk about the talent of others in our front court Mitch made many a clutch play for us last year. I can see him surprising everyone who doesn't think he'll get minutes.

I'm always a show me type with our newcomers. And in the case of quite a few I've been right. So Lawson Bro's show me. Mccormack, show me. Dotson and Grimes, show me what you've got.

wissox said:

I'm always a show me type with our newcomers. And in the case of quite a few I've been right. So Lawson Bro's show me. Mccormack, show me. Dotson and Grimes, show me what you've got.

Ahhh, you must be from THAT show me state - - Mizzery lol. I'm just playin with you bud no problems, - -ROCK CHALK ALL DAY LONG BABY

I don't think I've ever heard Coach Self make as strong of statement about a player who hasn't played a single minute in a game that counts as he did about Dedric. If Dedric has so impressed Coach Self, I tend to think our offense will go through him. Dedric first, then the rest of the strong supporting players on offense. I was really impressed with the way Grimes fed the bigs during the FIBA tournament. I look for this year's team to feed the post and then look to the guards to drive and shoot 3s as the secondary part of our offense. I could see Dedric, Dok and Silvio averaging 16 a game.

The American is not that far off from the Big 12 in terms of athleticism plus he has had a year to get stronger and such so I think Dedric will be just fine.

We won't see 3 bigs at 16ppg though. There is too much depth and talent on this team. I think Dedric leads the way and then there is a substantial drop-off in ppg for individual players.

https://theathletic.com/523214/2018/09/17/kansas-film-room-is-dedric-lawson-the-new-marcus-morris/ ↗

@BShark I see a lot of similarities.

@stoptheflop That's my thinking- the offense will run through Dedric a ton.

@KUSTEVE Dedric and Grimes, imo.

@BShark I think it's going to be very hard for teams to focus on one player. One of the big differences between Marcus and Dedric is that Dedric will be all over the court, where as, as my memory serves, Marcus was stationed within 5 foot of the basket in our half court sets. I think both the mobility of Dedric and Grimes will allow the ball to move all over the court. And of course, we will always have the automatic 2 points from Doke pretty much anytime we want it.

@KUSTEVE Agree. Self has really evolved as a coach since Marcus was here. Love it!

@BShark He would've pulled Marcus out on the perimeter now, instead of having our mediocre guards try to feed him down low. Our guards lost us that game, imo.

Yea! It's the start of basketball season! (or at least camp.)

@stoptheflop

Will be interesting to see if the offense runs through Dedric. We haven't ran our focus through the post in years. It might look weird for a while seeing how we get our offense after years of perimeter dominance . Dedric might even be used in a point forward role- reminding us of the George Niang years at ISU because his passing is an underrated asset of his.

@BeddieKU23 Yeah it's going to be very different. Agree on the point forward thing. He is a great passer.

@BShark

I don't know how that works in Self's offense but I'd imagine early to take some pressure off his freshman guards he might ask his vets to help out

KU can put so many different combinations on the floor that we will likely see 2 or 3 different ones per game, depending on the opponent's strengths and weaknesses.

I was wondering if doke made it thru camp?

in the past 15 years of Coach Self's tenure at KU, has he ever diverted from playing more than 7-8 guys per game once the core gets tightened up. especially in Big 12 play and post season? I honestly cant think of any time he did that, even when he was able to with depth. This will absolutely affect offense and defense with who plays and doesn't.

Can he keep anyone on this team from seeing meaningful minutes who deserves them? We are so deep you guys.

I wonder how much he learned, got comfortable with during his USA bball time this summer in relation to using a full roster on the court.

Lulufulu said:

in the past 15 years of Coach Self's tenure at KU, has he ever diverted from playing more than 7-8 guys per game once the core gets tightened up. especially in Big 12 play and post season? I honestly cant think of any time he did that, even when he was able to with depth. This will absolutely affect offense and defense with who plays and doesn't.

Can he keep anyone on this team from seeing meaningful minutes who deserves them? We are so deep you guys.

I wonder how much he learned, got comfortable with during his USA bball time this summer in relation to using a full roster on the court.

It depends on what your cut-off point is.

The highest minutes for the 9th guy

2014-15 15 this was a crazy year, the 10th (Svi) guy got 11 minutes a game but only played in 26 games.

2010-11 13 mpg and played every game. Releford was the 10th guy and played 10 minutes a game and 29 games.

2015-16 8.9

When Self has the quality depth to do iot he will play 9 guys.