🏀 KuBuckets Archive

Than Sparty coming up in pre-conference. Marquette will be quite a handful, and Tenn should be extremely tough, and of course, Nova coming up.That's some tall cotton.

@KUSTEVE Marquette is a good team, but not better than Sparty.

Marquette could be ranked in the Top 25 when they play Kansas. They play at Indiana next Wednesday so we'll find out more about them then.

Tennessee will probably be ranked in the top 5 if/when they play Kansas. That will be a monster game.

If Nova beats Michigan next Wednesday they have a good chance to be undefeated when they come to Lawrence and that could be another top 5 matchup.

Tall cotton indeed.

This could be one of the toughest schedules I’ve ever seen. We could end up playing 5 top 10 teams at least once before March. We will find out a lot about this team and early.

@KUSTEVE Well time to pick some Cotton then- -I think the Tennessee Game could be interesting for sure- - -ROCK CHALK ALL DAY LONG BABY

KirkIsMyHinrich said:

Marquette could be ranked in the Top 25 when they play Kansas. They play at Indiana next Wednesday so we'll find out more about them then.

Tennessee will probably be ranked in the top 5 if/when they play Kansas. That will be a monster game.

If Nova beats Michigan next Wednesday they have a good chance to be undefeated when they come to Lawrence and that could be another top 5 matchup.

Tall cotton indeed.

Tennessee is ranked 6th right now in both polls -gonna be a good game - --ROCK CHALK ALL DAY LONG BABY

Silly kids, did you forget who's coaching Tennessee?

As of right now KenPom has them ranked:

Sparty - 14
Marquette -28
Tennessee - 12
Villanova -6

Marquette has shooters, Markus Howard is one of the best in the country from 3, if not the best. They are small and the older Hauser (two brothers) is a stretch 4 so he's the mismatch in their lineup. We'll crush them in the paint, they have absolutely no chance of stopping Doke or Lawson.

@wissox A guy who built a deep, well-rounded squad that managed (along with Auburn) to beat loaded UK last year for the SEC regular season championship despite having much lower ranking players. The returnees include the top 5 scorers, one of whom is last year's SEC POY. Some analysts pick them as a F4 team.

He had trouble getting over the hump at the other UT with the several future NBA stars he had, but this Tennessee program he is building is not built around 5 stars. Barnes has always done well, and his squads beat KU sometimes. Tennessee also beat us before Barnes when KU went there as #1 (wife and I were there--sniff...), so they will no doubt play that up. And there is no doubt that Barnes will have something to prove "returning" to Big 12 play.

It is a tossup in my mind. Should be a great game.

@mayjay I have a lot of respect for Barnes. Agree with everything you said. Looking forward to the game.

Tennessee is a great matchup for us. We play to our talent though and we win. They have a ton of experience, they play as a team well and they balance inside/out scoring. This is a great victory to have on the resume (hopefully)

At this point Texas hasn't looked good for getting rid of Barnes. They were way more consistent when he was in town, Shaka has done less that Barnes with more talent than him baring the year he had KD.

@kjayhawks I think Barnes has more talent at times, but also feel he is the far superior coach to Shaka. Kinda feel bad about Bill’s domination getting him fired, but not for whooping Texas!

Just noticed Shaka is out recruiting Bill at the moment. Signed #7 Will Baker yesterday.

Mis-read. Will is the #26 prospect and 7th ranked center.

@dylans

Most of the Big-12 is "out-recruiting" Kansas right now. Likely to be that way until the spring

The Marquette and nova games will be wild, imo. I think we'll grind out a win over Tenn.

kjayhawks said:

At this point Texas hasn't looked good for getting rid of Barnes. They were way more consistent when he was in town, Shaka has done less that Barnes with more talent than him baring the year he had KD.

Barnes had plenty of talent in addition to Durant. TJ Ford, Aldridge, DJ Augustine, Miami, PJ Tucker, Royal Ivey, James Thomas, Damion James come to mind.

Shaka so far has been pretty close to a bust; another finish in the bottom half and his seat gets very hot...firable hot.

@JayHawkFanToo He defiantly under performed with the talent he had at times. But he also only missed one NCAA tournament and won 3 big 12 titles in I believe 17 years. He also had a FF and several sweet 16s. Shaka has already missed the tournament once in 3 years and hasn't made it pass the first round.

Barnes is pretty classy and Bill owns him. I have no qualms with the man.

@kjayhawks

Barnes and the basketball program always played second fiddle to the basketball program while he was there. Because of the huge contract with Nike, Smart was promised and given all kinds of support and facilities Barnes never got with the idea of making UT an elite program. So far the experiment has been a failure.

I feel like Shaka was a pretty decent coach.

When he beat us.

nuleafjhawk said:

I feel like Shaka was a pretty decent coach.

When he beat us.

--> Once.

Shaka has quite a bit of talent coming in next year. I suspect he has bought himself another year, IF he has a half-way decent showing this year.....

Here is a video on a day in the life of Mitch ↗. He seem to be a great teammate. Interesting that the KU site still lists him as an Engineering major but sounds like he switched to Economics/Business Administration and plans on getting a Master's degree as well.

JayHawkFanToo said:

Here is a video on a day in the life of Mitch ↗. He seem to be a great teammate. Interesting that the KU site still lists him as an Engineering major but sounds like he switched to Economics/Business Administration and plans on getting a Master's degree as well.

Great find!

I noticed Mitch said he hoped to graduate this year and then go for a Master's Degree. That means he could potentially be graduate transfer next year, although he seems to bleed Crimson and Blue. Hhmmm...

@Gorilla72

They all hurt.