🏀 KuBuckets Archive

It only took 3 years but Marcus finally has a functional jump shot. I can only imagine seeing 4 go in that it raised his confidence. Hopefully we see this all season as it really changes how defenses would guard him and sag the post.

How impressive was Christian Braun last night?? Exhibition or not he looks like he's going to be a fan favorite. He can play and help this team immediately.

I have to say the future looks bright having Braun, Wilson, Enaruna on the roster. Big, long athletes that can do a little of everything. We might not have signed the Top 10 kids but these guys will be around to develop together and that's a really positive sign to see. Enaruna has crazy length, no wonder he's already on future mock drafts. A Jumper is all he's missing.

Doke & Silvio were really rusty. Silvio is the perfect guy you need to get you boards and buckets around the rim. Doke seemed frustrated by the triple teams. He will be fine. He still can't shoot.

Agbaji had a few exceptional athletic plays last night. More then anything I love how hard he plays. If he hits perimeter shots at a good rate he's going to raise his profile over the course of this year big time.

Good to talk Basketball again. What did everyone think??

Well it certainly would be nice to think that Garretts shot is improved and better. For years, Marcus Garrett has been discussed ad infinitum on this site as to his shooting, which is kind of crazy because in the big scheme of things Garrett’s shot is not that important and really has never been that important. It’s kind of like discussing Tom Brady‘s inability to rush effectively out of the pocket. The Garrett shooting question has been driven by a few posters on this site to the point of it being almost ridiculous. He will get playing time regardless of whether he’s having a good night shooting or not because of everything else he does. He is a Self favorite and It is baldly obvious to see why – he does everything the coach wants a player to do. He contributes in a great variety of ways and he makes the team better. Garrett said that he was most proud of the fact last night that he had zero turnovers. And yes, things would improve if Garrett could more effectively hit open shots, Self has told him to take them, and yes defenses will have to adjust if he starts hitting, but trust me he will not get benched for missing shots. Now if Ochai and Moss start missing a lot of shots and they are not getting back on D, they are not boxing out they are not switching well defensively, then they will get benched. That’s the difference.

and - If you want to worry about a KU player’s shooting skills, and how it could affect the outcome of games the entire season, a FAR FAR MORE important worry is Aziubuke at the foul line. If he is healthy he will be a foul magnet virtually every time down the floor game in and game out. His ability to at least hit half of his foul shots Will be a big deal for this team.

We all heard the talk last year that they were still reworking his jumper. It can just be...hard to believe at times. It looked different and better against Hays. Now to see if it holds up. If he can just take the Releford approach of shooting it when he is at the very least pretty open and make it at a respectable low to mid 30% clip it changes the trajectory of this team.

@Bosthawk I disagree with your initial assessment. I think having a guard that can't shoot at all greatly damages the offense and the team overall. Garrett is a very good player in most aspects but at the end of the day you have to be able to make a shot. It's something that matters a lot more when you play better competition. For example last year Garrett was the main reason the Kentucky game was lost. Calipari isn't a genius but he figured that one out. I'm not saying he needs to turn into Steph Curry but he needs to get out of the 20% range to at least force teams to kind of sort of have to cover him on the perimeter. That opens up the possibility to drive and helps prevent total clogging of the lane. When you are 24% from three bad I would argue that outweighs a lot of other things. But if he gets to where I was talking about earlier, he's our second best and most important player behind Dotson.

Edit: I'm not worried about Ochai's defense and effort. Remains to be seen with Moss... I LOVE what I saw from Enaruna on that end.

@BeddieKU23 Great post. The biggest takeaways for me -

1. McCormack still has trouble hanging onto the ball.
2. Braun (Brown) has bad hair but is going to really be a contributor as a four year player. Seems an adequate ball handler in a pinch, and Self mentioned him first in the pregame as the next ball handler. His mom needs to wear a shirt, though, that is closer to her neck line.
3. Garrett has bad hair too. And the shot is different. Let's give it 10 games. I do disagree with @Bosthawk. Garrett's shot is incredibly important. Defenses can ignore Garrett at the line if he's shooting like last season. That hurts our entire offense. If he's at, say, 33%, it's much different. Garrett looked great overall but his ball handling will be interesting to see vs. high pressure.
4. Doke still has no touch at the line. And I agree with @Bosthawk on his assessment there. "Foul magnet" is an understatement. And boy, he was off his game.
5. Wilson has good hair. Looked pretty good to me. Like with everyone else, hard to gauge positive stuff vs. inferior opponents. But again, the hair was good. That travels.
6. Agbaji still has the making of being "the man" in crunch time. But his three point shooting bears watching. The perpetual world of low 30% is nowhere for a shooter to live. I think he's a stud.
7. DeSousa seemed off. It's why we have exhibitions. He seems like the streaky kind. Get the ball to him when he's got it going.

I'm going to do some player grades but as HEM said this is a glorified practice so grain of salt...

Marcus Garrett: A. Absolutely no complaints, great all around game on both ends.

Ochai Agbaji: A-. He will be a star eventually. Might not be this year yet but that's okay, he can be our 4th-ish best player overall and this team will be excellent.

Jalen Wilson: B-. A mixed bag. Hit a couple shots (missed a bunch too) but looked lost at times. The good news is that figuring out Bill's sets will come in time. He didn't look bad to me, though dribbling might be an adventure. If he keeps developing he will be a real problem at the 4 down the line.

Silvio: B. Not a bad game from him. Got after it on the glass, passed it fairly well actually and got garbage buckets. Very clear to me though that he is a 5. I think there will be many games when you can't afford to play two out of SDS, Dave and Doke at the same time.

Doke: C-. It's a scrimmage but yeah that was really bad. For Doke to thrive we need to go back to the 4 out.

Braun: B. A+ for his role though. He just gets it and will be a factor this year. Can shoot it, gets after it on D and feeds the post well.

Enaruna: B. Can't shoot worth a lick but my goodness everything else is there. Long and got after it on D. Very solid feel for the game.

Dave: C. He uh...rebounded the ball.

Mitch: B. Solid effort and game out of Mitch. He just knows what to do.

HighEliteMajor said:

1. Garrett has bad hair too. And the shot is different. Let's give it 10 games. I do disagree with @Bosthawk. Garrett's shot is incredibly important. Defenses can ignore Garrett at the line if he's shooting like last season. That hurts our entire offense. If he's at, say, 33%, it's much different. Garrett looked great overall but his ball handling will be interesting to see vs. high pressure.

Yes.

HighEliteMajor said:

1. Agbaji still has the making of being "the man" in crunch time. But his three point shooting bears watching. The perpetual world of low 30% is nowhere for a shooter to live. I think he's a stud.

Yes.

HighEliteMajor said:

1. DeSousa seemed off. It's why we have exhibitions. He seems like the streaky kind. Get the ball to him when he's got it going.

I'm not too worried yet. He's a junkyard dog.

There is a reason that DeSousa didn't just leave for the NBA. He is raw and was good in the tourney as a no-pressure hustle guy. Expectations are higher now.

BigBad said:

There is a reason that DeSousa didn't just leave for the NBA. He is raw and was good in the tourney as a no-pressure hustle guy. Expectations are higher now.

Also he has pressure on himself to play after sitting so long. Its going to take some time for him to get comfortable again.

@HighEliteMajor

I'm surprised you didn't mention Prison Mitch's prison haircut with how your post was going. That was atrocious to see. I laughed when I saw it.

Dave is still sped up. He plays hard but you see why he'll be here 4 years (not a bad thing). I think he'll settle down. All the bigs looked out of place besides Mitch who knows his role. This was never going to be a good game to gauge the bigs and we ran vanilla offense like always so Duke doesn't have much film to prepare on.

Braun was a surprise but I never saw anything other then highlights so seeing him in Game Action was nice. He's quicker then I thought. He's longer then I thought. We have tremendous size this season.

Silvio was rusty but I loved his effort on the boards. He's another that will get comfortable the more he plays.

I don't thing dave will ever slow down or ever quit bringing the ball down or try dribbling in the paint between 50 players.🤣

I read somewhere that the staff had been working with Doke on shooting free throws - - Rick Barry style and was doing quite well - - what happened?

you could for sure tell Silvio hadn't played for some time pretty ragged for 3/4th of the Game. - - Doke looked dis-interested/mad - un-impressive, came across like he wanted to be somewhere else until the end - -he has work to do

Really like Braun - -solid - -he is gonna help , more then I thought possibly this year. - -Marcus shot just looks a lot better - don't have to worry about when he shoots it - -it's not like a lazer that's gonna bust the backboard hitting off it - -actually looks decent

The team as a whole looked rusty , they mentioned Coach said at practice they looked really bad - I wouldn't quite say that but got work to do - -hey it was 1st scrimmage. - -I look at it this way the spread was 32 points -- it was like 33 right at the last until very late -- and that was without Dotson OR Moss - -so ya we gonna be ok - -give a little time. - - ROCK CHALK ALL DAY LONG BABY

jayballer73 said:

I read somewhere that the staff had been working with Doke on shooting free throws - - Rick Barry style and was doing quite well - - what happened?

That was a joke post by @HighEliteMajor if memory serves.

BShark said:

jayballer73 said:

I read somewhere that the staff had been working with Doke on shooting free throws - - Rick Barry style and was doing quite well - - what happened?

That was a joke post by @HighEliteMajor if memory serves.

oh , ok - -- my bad lol

I had two pretty major takeaways from the game last night. First, Marcus is one of the more vastly underrated players at KU I can remember in some time. That kid got shit on all last year and offseason and he is just a all around good college basketball player. You could tell he loved having the ball in his hand. Obviously with DD in the lineup that will change, but I think it is safe to say he is and will be the backup PG. I hope Self tells him if he gets the ball to start the break and or bring the ball up and initiate the offense. He is not going to shoot like he did last night all year, but as Self said post game all they really need is for him to shoot 30% from three and that will drastically change the game for KU. Needless to say I was super impressed with last night.

Secondly, and this is probably most important. I do not see how they can play Doke and Silvio together. Silvio can not stretch the floor and as Self said last night when that happens the "floor gets pretty crowded". Jesse Newell wrote a good article on this and it will be interesting to see what Self does. Obviously they want to get Doke the ball , but if he is doubled every time the advantage of having him is negated. Other teams are not going to guard Silvio and Dave 15 plus feet from the basket. I am not sure what the answer is, but unless Silvio magically finds a 17 foot jumper and the ability to guard a guard Self is going to have to drastically change the way he thought he was going to play this year.

@Woodrow Some mix of Enaruna/Wilson/pick a guard that isn't Dot at the 4 for the majority of the game IMO.

Its way to early to be saying Silvio/Doke can't work. Pretty much the same thing was said about Lawson/Doke last year and see what happened after Doke was down? It was clear Fort Hays was playing pack and sag defense and doing all they could to disrupt the rhythm of the frontcourt. It worked in an exhibition where both guys missed the entire and 3/4 of the season but I think we need to see at least the non-conference games before we sell this down the creek.

Self has to make it work somehow, get creative in how he runs his sets with the bigs. Run them both up and down the lane to create some things. Silvio is a very good rebounder and gives the team a 2nd defensive presence with Doke on the floor. I think its imperative Self finds a way to get these guys comfortable with each other. Remember last night was the 1st time really they have played on the floor together. Chemistry doesn't grow overnight

My takeaway from the game was that I forgot about the game. Did we beat Purple Hayes St.?

Okay.... I missed the game! So my comments are blind.

First.... it is a joy to read this thread! It's great to read posts about more than conjecture from a distance. We had a game and the conversation has turned real again!

POST PLAY: We've got 3 locomotives in the post. And I look at all three of them the same; as locomotives. Trains take a while to get going. I'm expecting all 3 to start the season slow. Their play depends on so much more management of energy than the light guys. They need a lot more motivation to move up and down the court. Even Doke, with his new body. It's a weight thing. They are all train engines out there. Just wait. In another month or so, those big engines will get to motoring at real game speed.

All of our post guys will have to become excellent passers. That is the answer to keeping more than one on the floor at the same time. They either have to look to kick the ball to the trey line or pass well within the post, to another big. There are so many opportunities with this. If a player gets tripled team and can't take advantage of it, we have a problem.

PERIMETER: Trey shooting will have a huge impact. I love Marcus and his play. But if he can shoot respectable from trey our chances of winning games goes a lot higher. I expect we will have guys come out every night and be hot and cold. So we need to be able to shift some PT over to who has the hot hand. Pretty much all of these guys who are considered a threat need to get their shots in. That's the only way to know if they are hot or cold.

I read that we had several perimeter steals. I'm expecting our guard defense to develop into perhaps the best perimeter defense in D1. It should! We have the athletes, lots of chip, and defensive potential. Long arms. Except for Devon, we have a lot of arm length outside the post. That's big.

Listen to Bill. We will, for the most part, keep a rotation of around 8. However... during the year, guys will be going in and out of that rotation (possibly). I'm curious how Self will play close games this year. Will he want to keep the PT tight? Or... maybe our guards are shooting bad and he goes searching for some shot heat off the bench?

It sounds like we got some perimeter steals that turned into breakaways. I'm expecting us to have quite a few breakaways this year, which translates into a higher shooting %, more points, and, most important, more victories!

Doke and foul shots... I think it helps us to have more depth in the post. It adds more pressure on our opponents to keep their bigs out of foul trouble. And... if Doke can shoot even a few % points up on last year, it will make a difference, especially with "Poke and Doke."

Let's keep in mind we didn't have our general last night. I expected us to have a disastrous night and it doesn't sound like it was that bad. A very very good sign!

D dot could've hit doke on some breaks. He was open, wasn't getting fed.

Regarding Mitch’s hair, radio guys seemed to think he lost a bet... 🤣

Is called a mohawk

JAYHAWKFAN214 said:

Is called a mohawk

THAT'S not a MOHawk

Last night is why KU needs a big with range. If Silvio and McCormack can't develop a top of the key jump shot, then then they become a player that can be left alone at the top of the key for the high-low and double team Doke or whoever the low man is.

This was an issue I talked about a lot during the off-season as a potential issue with the offense. The high-low only works if the high post player can knock down that top of the key shot. That's why we saw a little bit of it last year with Dedric and Doke because Dedric was enough of an outside threat that teams had to have someone on him.

In regards to Garrett's shot, let's see if he can do that more than one game because he's had games before where he shot well and it was an anomaly. Let's wait and see with him if this was an anomaly or if he's really a better shooter now.

Although Doke went 1 for 5 from the line it appeared like his mechanics have changed for the better. 2 of the shots were short, 1 long but those were seemingly online, hard to tell from the side on the short ones. That is a heck of a lot better than the shotgun pattern he threw up in past years. Perhaps seeing that last one go in clean will give him a bit of confidence going on.

When Marcus hit his first 3 I dreaded his next attempt, when he hit that one, and looked good doing it, I was eager to see him keep shooting. Ten games in it will be interesting to see how's it has gone but Duke will likely tell the tale I believe.

Damn Mitch did you slip shaving your sideburns???

@Texas-Hawk-10 That's what I was thinking on Garrett..let's see him make some reasonable percentage of threes on a regular basis. Fingers crossed.
@Woodrow - That was a good article by Jesse. Self will have to figure it out.
Maybe it's Moss/ Garret/ Dotson/Agbaj plus one big or substitute one of Wilson / Enaruna for one of the wings. Hopefully we can get used to playing many different ways....we sure have the flexibility...potentially.
Braun looked like he belonged. And I had NO idea that his last name was pronounced "Brown"

How did teams survive all those years without a big with range? In 2012 we were a few buckets away from a national title. The game is the same. We just have to impose our will. Versus a 4/1 team, offensively, it's easy. Defensively, you have to play some zone. You have to. Playing man you have to sacrifice what you want to sacrifice. Protect the line and the hoop. What's in between is fair game.

And all Garrett has to do, really, is shoot well enough so his man will guard him on the line. That's it. When a player is under 33%, 1 out of 3, you then think about ignoring him.

@BeddieKU23 I totally dropped the ball not mentioning Mitch’s hair. It was the main reason I mentioned others’ hair — and then I got rushed/distracted by of all things, work, and forgot. But that is the worst hair. Easy.