🏀 KuBuckets Archive

Some have made comments, but let's make predictions.
Given Self's history and comments that he ideally likes to have 4 big guys and 5 guards / wings, you have to limit your rotation to 8 or 9 guys.
(Of course, I 'm sure tomorrow's headline will be "Self says rotation could include 10 guys this fall")

Here's mine:

Mason
Selden
Oubre
Ellis
Alexander

Off the bench:
Graham
Greene
Traylor
Mickelson

Going with Oubre over Greene flies in the face of history giving the advantage to the more experienced guy, but I'm going with Oubre's aggressiveness. Either way, I think they both are in the rotation. I'm giving Mason the edge over Graham based on experience. Likewise Mickelson (based on PT at Arkansas) over Lucas.

This leaves CF with the meager 10th man minutes and Lucas with mop up minutes (or foul trouble minutes) up front. I think both of these guys will be significant contributors...just not yet.

@Hawk8086 Looks to be a likely outcome, your 9 players. If Mason does not become a craftier distributor when he races to the bucket, I could see him losing out to steadier Frankamp, esp. if CF settles in to a dependable 3 pt. shooter. Of course, CF is not likely to settle in unless he wins much more playing time, so.... I foresee Greene sharing equal time with Oubre. We don't yet know how Mickelson will fit in with Self-ball, so Lucas can't be counted out yet. White still a mystery man. Your lineup should offer Bill Self a quite decent chance to win another league title, regardless of a few seasonlong adjustments regarding Frankamp, Lucas, White. Backups galore, hopefully agreeable talented backups sitting way down at end of bench another season. That has to be psychologically stressful for those reserves who will probably see less than 6 minutes per game. Players #10, 11, and 12 would probably start, perhaps shine, in the vast majority of Div. 1 programs.

At the end of the season (final 2 games) Frankamp showed promise by averaging 11ppg with 2apg and 0 turnovers in the NCAA tournament. Self said before the Stanford game Frankamp was his guy so I think there was more to it than most of you might think. Yall know Perry Ellis, Wayne Selden, Cliff Alexander and Kelly Oubre are going to play. I think those guys will start. I know no ones going to agree with me here but that's my starting 5.
I am sure that behind closed doors AW3 has asked HCBS for PT or a transfer. I believe he would have transferred by now if that were the case. That is going to play into the 8/9 man rotation. Traylor and Greene have both provided quality minutes off the bench. 9th man goes to Mason. So if 9 is all I can use then I guess I'm done. The others can just stay home or not even suit up I suppose lol.

Start: Conner Frankamp, Wayne Selden, Kelly Oubre, Perry Eliis, Cliff Alexander.
Subs: Devonte Graham, Brannen Greene, Jamari Traylor, Hunter Mickelson.

Not getting meaningful minutes: Frank Mason, Andrew White, Landen Lucas.

The starting 5 are Rivals 36, 12, 6, 24, 4, and 4 subs: 36, 29, 141, 100. The unfortunate: 76, 51, not ranked.

Graham, Selden, Oubre, Perry, Cliffie. Then Jamari, CF, Frank, and Greene.

There almost has to be a red shirt on the horizon for one of these returnees: White, Frankamp, Mason. Lucas and Mickelson already have burned the shirt, as has Jamari. Greene will be essential for significant minutes. I can't see Self starting 3 freshmen (Alexander, Oubre, Graham), at least not until February, or unless the injury situation dictates.

The Big Shuffle could find daylight if, indeed, Perry should see time at the 3 and/or Selden at the point. Then Mickelson or Lucas is inserted, sliding Cliff to the 4. Under that scenario, a wide variety of options at the 2: Greene, Oubre, Frankamp, Mason, Graham, White. Oops! That includes 11 players! Another Oops! I have forgotten Traylor. 12 players. O My!

I'm excited about the new guys, but there's no way Self starts three freshmen again.

Start: Mason, Selden, Greene, Ellis, Mickelson/Alexander

Subs: Graham, Frankcamp, Oubre, Traylor, Alexander/Mickelson

Injury insurance: Lucas and White

Every rotation has to have at least two guys that can be primary ball handlers, preferably three. You also have to have at least two guys that can carry the offense for several minutes at a time. You need a perimeter stopper and an interior stopper. You have to have at least one shooter. You cannot be without an energy guy to give you a shot in the heart every now and then. You have to play your best three two way players (offense and defense considered). And of course, you need three legitimate rebounders, including one perimeter guy.

I would go Graham, Selden, Oubre, Ellis, Alexander as starters with Frankamp, Mason, Traylor and Mickelson off the bench.

You have to have Frankamp's shooting off the bench and I like Mason as a change of pace PG. Selden, Oubre and Alexander will probably be our best three two way players (if healthy). Perry is our most talented scorer, but his defense gives me pause, which could cause him to lose minutes in the second half against better interior scorers. Traylor's energy is an absolute must, and Mickelson is a better alternative than Lucas IMHO. The one exception is if Lucas is a significantly better rebounder than Mickelson, since we already know that Alexander is a monster on the glass and both Selden and Oubre rebound well from the perimeter.

Greene and White seem to fall on the outside looking in, as Selden and Oubre are probably better two way players. Lucas is a less talented replacement for Mickelson (rebounding still to be seen). If Frankamp struggles, you could plug in the better of Greene or White, but you need at least some defensive presence from whoever gets that shooter spot.

I'm thrilled we landed Graham but I can't jump on the bandwagon just yet that he is a day 1 starter. Think of how many guys have come into KU with the same or even higher expectations and struggled to get minutes. I think that Frankamp will get the nod at PG as he is going to be a year in the system, has a cool and calm demeanor, can play a bit of D and is the best shooter between him, Mason and Graham.

Selden will start. Ellis will start. Those are obvious. I think Oubre will start at the 3 and Alexander at the 5.

I see Jamari, Greene and Mason being first off the bench with Graham having to prove himself to get minutes away from Mason and CF and Mickelson getting minutes too. I see AW3 and Lucas being the two guys who get mop up time or are plugged in if we have injuries / suspensions.

I prefer Conner over Frank even though Conner appeared slower. Conner appeared to be in control most of the time, making good decision and have very low turn over rate. If Devonte has the speed of Frank, I think Frank may become a surplus especially he was mostly one dimensional. If Frank develops into a solid distributor over the summer and maintains his speed demon drive to the basket, Conner may have to sit.

I think we all need to come up with the parameters on what qualifies as a "rotation player."

Is it based on how many minutes a game, and if so, then how many?

In my book, it shouldn't be about actual minutes. It should be about how many guys keep the "rust knocked off" their games. That is a better indication.

The example I used constantly last year was AW3... and how we didn't keep the rust knocked off his game. A guy a bit closer was Conner, averaging 8:35 mpg. Conner sure came in handy down the stretch! But he wasn't a rotation player. Makes you wonder his game would have been like if he had been a rotation player.

Lets take a look at the mpg stats for last year:

!Screen Shot 2014-05-05 at 12.42.09 PM.png ↗

There appears to be 3 tiers of players, when considered by mpg.

First, the "rotational players". Then comes the "non-rotational players." Followed last by the "non-impact players" or walk-on players.

The group we should pay close attention to is the "non-rotational players." These guys can play ball, and would be playing more PT at a smaller school. But how vital are they for Kansas?

These players are: Conner Frankamp, AW3, Landen Lucas and Brannen Greene.

I think Conner showed just how vital these players can be. And though there is no set amount of PT minutes that will keep the rust knocked off players, Conner seemed to just barely make do with the minutes he received. Makes you wonder what he will do when he gets more minutes, like rotational player minutes.

Look at Conner's stats compared with Brannen's. Brannen held his own, but it was Conner who got the call in March. Obviously, we needed someone who could run point... but I wonder what else played into how these guys received their PT. Brannen had 5 times more TOs than Conner. Makes me think Self followed the stat sheet closely and looked for ways to reduce TOs.

Neither player set the world on fire, and it kind of looks like Self used them with the hopes that they could at least have a neutral impact on the game. With Conner winning minutes over Naadir in March it feels like Self really didn't feel confident in Naadir, going for a team leader PG with a neutral impact over his season-starting PG. Doesn't that speak volumes?

Really... there were times during the year that we received key contribution minutes from Landen, Conner and Brannen. AW3 didn't really make an impact, and I'm guessing he lost his complete mojo by being overlooked for key minutes early in the year. He seems to be the guy who still should transfer.

What if we structured a plan to develop these players better so they can play a more vital role every year? What if we knock it down to 3 players fitting in this bracket and we stole them just a few more minutes from the rotation players? I know they tend to play different positions, but we can get these guys more PT in impact situations by maybe only playing one at a time. So in that way, they compete with each other for minutes, not just the players at their position.

If AW3's minutes had been distributed over the other 3 players it would have added up to over 2 extra minutes per game for these other players. What if we could steal another 2 extra minutes from rotational players for these guys? That is 4 extra minutes per game. A player like Conner would have been bumped to 12:35 mpg. That should keep the rust off of a player's game.

The question is... where do we maximize the value for the PT minutes we have to allot?

Maybe Self has it about right with the strategy he uses. He doesn't run presses or push tempo. He could get by with 7 players if he had to... though he would give up specific talent for certain spots.

But what if we formed a different strategy for next year?

I'm going to post a new thread on this soon.

@Wishawk
First of all I need to see kids play for KU a few games before I form an opinion-because I am wrong about them so often. Case in point I expected Conner to always come off the bench with a hot hand. That didn't happen til late in the year.
Second -my guess is you are right on with your prediction.

@REHawk That's funny!

Thanks to all for your comments. Always interesting to see what people think.
A fair amount of debate between CF / Mason / Greene.
Gee...similar to last year at this time.

@JayhawkRock78 Yes, I agree with you about comparing the players after they've spend time in the program. I was looking at @drgnslayr 's graph, then did some manipulation on my own. And it surprised me that Frank Mason actually had the second highest assists at 5.1 per 40 minutes while Conner was 4th at only 2.67. It might be because Conner played primarily at 2 spot.
!assists per 40.JPG ↗

2013 Average assists where Wayne averaged twice the number of minutes as Frank, and Frank averaged twice the number of Conner.
!2013 KU high avg by assists2.JPG ↗

@Wishawk Ok but how do they compare to other ones over the last 10 years? Primarily ones that have been to the National Championship?

@Statmachine I will have to find all the stats, but I don't think we are comparing Conner and Frank against the high performers in the past. It's not fair especially Conner wasn't a rotational player. We might be able to connect the dots after next season.

My starting five:

Frank Mason

Wayne Selden

Kelly Oubre

Perry Ellis

Cliff Alexander

the key reserves: Devonte' Graham, Conner Frankamp, Jamari Traylor, (Landen and Hunter will battle for the last rotation spot)

I think that Brannen Greene and AW3 should both redshirt.

@Statmachine Here are some of the recent comparisons.

Elijah's senior numbers
!2012-2013 assists.JPG ↗

Tyshawn's senior numbers
!2011-2012 assists.JPG ↗

Josh Selby's OAD
!2010-2011 assists.JPG ↗

@Wishawk So whats your analysis on our new guys? How do these numbers compair to their HS days? Is there any way we can forecast what to expect from our newcomer Graham or sophomores Mason or Frankamp? You could make a new board with this analysis. Anyone could start a new board with the stats... Would be interesting to know?

@Statmachine I don't have any analysis, but was just curious, so I pulled up the stats. By the way, the past a few Rivals 30 or so rated players were Thomas Robinson (31), Ben McLemore (34), Jeff Withey (36), Sasha Kaun (34). Not bad company.

Here are Elijah's 4 year numbers. Johnson was a Rival 24th rated player out of high school, and is much taller than Conner. So it might not be the right comparison, but right off the bat, Conner already fell behind with 2.67 assists per 40 minutes as a Freshman.
!Johnson assists over 4 years.JPG ↗

Here is Tyshawn Taylor's number over 4 years. Taylor was 77 rated player while Mason was 76 rated. So they may be comparable.
!Taylor assists over 4 years.JPG ↗

@Statmachine By the way I got all my numbers off http://statsheet.com/mcb/teams/kansas/ ↗ ↗. I didn't look for the high school stats, and don't even know where to begin. Sorry.

@Wishawk Yeah Conner is not as good of a facilitator as some of the other examples but he is a scoring PG. He played and garnered more minutes than Tyus Jones on the 2012 U17 Olympic team. He also lead in scoring with an absolutely loaded U17 team. Tyus only lead on the assist line but Conner absolutely dominated! I mean moneyball pointed out the secret to winning games is getting on base and scoring. Basketball is the same way and I believe the NBA is where that point is driven home. Facilitating others is good but scoring wins games. Self Likes D and his big men but look at Fred Hoiberg and the success he is having with his offence. He made it further than us in the NCAA Tourney this season. Conner is a slower pace PG but a smart one that makes fewer mistakes and is deadly from 3 once he settles in! Any ways I could go on for hours but I wont lol.

@Wishawk I believe you can find some on 247 sports.

@Statmachine Yes, I watched a couple of the U17 games on TV. Conner had good exposure before going to college. And I was really expecting he'd have better season than Frank. It didn't surprise me that he had a good run in the post season because he had the same demeanor and did quite well during the U17 games. And the international game was not all offense like the Mc or Jordan all star games. Guess we will have to wait and see how Graham performs and who might get bumped since it's probably too crowded in the back court having Frank, Conner, Wayne and Devonte, plus Greene and White.

Speaking of Moneyball what would happen if College coaches started recruited based off of shot % and % of made free throws (I suppose you would have to guage compitition)? How could one go wrong if you recruit the best shot % at each position? Throw away the athletic or fast twitch muscles, how high one can jump, wingspan, height, the ESPN rankings, and go strictly with scoring by position. Considering how much college athletes improve over the coarse of 4 years as seniors could that be the Key to winning titles every year?

I think the primary roster question is which freshman will start?

I would think Alexander would start. Oubre...maybe! But Devonte? Less likely than Oubre, right?

I think most intriguing is whether or not Oubre will beat out BG/AW3 for the 3 spot. Is it a given or still up in the air? Can he play with all that talent and still make good decisions to keep him in the game?

@BucknellJayhawk3 I have to think it is up in the air. Greene and AW3 are both big guys and can shoot. We saw that Greene has a pretty good killer instinct and I think most of us feel that AW3 is a very solid player but has not broken through.

Personally, I feel it would be great for our team if Oubre came off the bench. It would mean that the guy who beats him for the spot is playing great basketball and Oubre seems like a good energy guy off the bench. If I was a betting man I would say Oubre starts but I would like to see Greene in the game often as he looks to be a man who can step up and hit big shots. My consistent thought is that AW3 is the odd man out and should potentially look to redshirt a year. Another season on the bench makes no sense for him if that is what happens.

@BucknellJayhawk3 Also, I agree with you that Devonte seems like the least likely freshman to start. Alexander to me is the most probable to start at the 5.

@Statmachine How can you go strictly by scoring % "at each position"? How can you ignore athleticism or fast twitch or wingspan, etc...? That scoring % may or may not transfer to the college ranks against college sized, athletic opponents. Its not high school.

I agree 100% with your statement: "Facilitating is good, but scoring wins games". Self wants that from all 5 positions. That's how he keeps opposing teams off balance. That's why he recruits combo guards who can run the offense, pass to facilitate others, but can most definitely score.

@Statmachine This is a fair line of thinking. In fact, I'm working with an app called GameChanger that is being used by my son's little league team to capture stats for every game. It's being used across the country at levels all the way up to college to capture the data. Now imagine being able to track 7 years of data on a kid from 10 -17 years-old... being able to find the proverbial needle in the haystack to recruit before others..

Now consider that GameChanger allows for baseball AND basketball. Yes, it is possible to look for kids with certain stats.. or for those that show a good growth curve...

I knew Self wasn't done recruiting for this coming year.

"Foreign player on radar: KU, which has one scholarship to give in recruiting, is reportedly recruiting Sviatoslav Mykhailiuk, a 6-foot-6, 190-pound wing from Cherkassy, Ukraine, who turns 17 in June. He has been compared to NBA player Manu Ginobli."

http://www2.kusports.com/news/2014/may/07/florida-visit-allen-fieldhouse-secbig-12-challenge/?mens_basketball ↗

There are several reasons why this guy sticks out. First of all... he is only 16. There is a pretty goo chance, even if he is a big time catch, he'll be at KU for at least 3 years. He'll have to be at KU for at least 2 to qualify for current age restrictions in the NBA. And the rules could go to 20 before he qualifies while at Kansas. Another thing... most Euro players need time to translate their style of game to the league.

@HighEliteMajor - you should be thrilled with this potential prospect. He seems to fit as a long term Jayhawk with plenty of upside.

I like eastern block players because they bring a tough perspective with them and that could be good for our entire team.

Anyways.... I think we better be prepared for the idea that Self will use that scholarship to bring in one more player.

@drgnslayr-Could mean a redshirt for someone with the logjam we have at the 3. If he's 6' 6" & flows like Manu, surely he's on someone else's radar too.

@drgnslayr Right ... I posted this under @konkeyDong's "Rounding out the class of 2014" post a bit back:

Another player on our radar?

Sviatoslav Mykhailiuk | Undecided | 6-foot-6 | Ukraine

Mykhailiuk is considered one of the best 16-year-old players in the world and, after the recent Nike Hoop Summit, has drawn the interest of a number of high-major basketball programs including Iowa State, Virginia, Kansas and Oregon. He exploded on the European scene last summer, averaging 25 points, eight rebounds and four assists at the FIBA Europe Under-16 tournament.

The young Ukrainian can play both guard spots, although he is best suited right now to play off the ball at the college level. He is an excellent shooter with NBA range and a strong, physical player for his age. As the son of educators, Mykhailiuk will be a high school graduate and enroll in college at the age of 17 -- if he’s not pressured to sign a pro contract. There’s a great chance we will see him in college next season.

http://insider.espn.go.com/blog/ncbexperts/post?id=2196 ↗

@HighEliteMajor Hope it's here if he's that special.

Starting 5: Graham, Selden, Oubre, Ellis, Alexander

Reserves: Frankamp, Mason, Traylor, Mickelson

And I think Greene and Lucas will see minutes because of certain matchups, players being in foul trouble, and HCBS being frustrated with a player.