🏀 KuBuckets Archive

@drgnslayr

They are good enough to win a few games. The #'s on Kenpom say they are efficient at both ends of the floor.

How much are those ratings based on playing nobody though is the question? Does it matter? Given that they played better teams in the non-conference and had underwhelming results makes it hard to endorse them. Having watched them recently I'd say they are much better then they were earlier this year.

This is a balanced team but doesn't have a star or 2 like they had before. With how down the MVC was this year they look good because they have such an overwhelming talent advantage to the rest of the league. I think in a tough tournament game they will be exposed for not having a go-to guy or someone that will be able to "put them on their back". This is a young team that has really overachieved given what they lost last year.

At this point the only team really playing for something is Kansas St. If they win at least 1 game they might go dancing.

Otherwise the 5 teams that will be in are all just ensuring or trying to enhance their seed line. Not exactly a lot of drama going into this one.

KU is the #1 seed regardless of this week so we have nothing to play for in that regard. While it would be nice to get some rest, this team wants to win every game it puts on the jersey. I'm all for this team winning 3 more games in 3 days. It's 3 more games we get to see Frank Mason doing his thing. I don't want the ride to end with him running the show. I want every opportunity possible

@BShark

Looked at some Juco stats. Juiston is 38th in the nation in FG %, 2nd in defensive rebounds, 9th overall in rebounds per game, 25th in blocks. 116th in assists as a big averaging 3.9 a game. Unselish player..

@BShark

Agreed. Haven't seen Lake much this year but Juiston is a being regarded as a much better prospect. If Juiston was 6'9-6'10 he might be the most sought after JUCO out there.

Offering is huge in terms of our interest and maybe his intentions on where he would like to play

@BShark

I think Lake ends up at ISU. He was there for their Senior Night and sat with the 2 kids sitting out this year that are posts.

Mason is also #10 on the all-time scoring list, 1 point behind Paul Pierce.

He needs 32 points to pass Perry Ellis for #8.

The farther the Hawks go the farther up the list he will go

Sad sad sad

@BShark said:

@BeddieKU23

Might have been one of the best offensive games this team has played.

Definitely. Beating this team on the road is no easy thing to do

@approxinfinity said:

@BeddieKU23 we did take care of business!

Baller status

@BShark

I think it is. Mason was killer

Best win of the season!!!

really poor end to that half. But we played well to be even up

Still got the lead against the 8 on 5 group

@BShark @mayjay

That guy named Jeff on ESPN reporting something on Zion...

Jeff Goodman said "sources" tell him Duke, KU, South Carolina in the lead for Zion. With UK in there also.

@Kcmatt7

Definitely, Brangers making 10 3's in a game, that's exactly the type of player Tech was missing this season to compliment Evans..

@BShark

I wonder if KU would have been interested had his grades been in order or whatever it is that has kept teams away. All the film I've seen of him looked pretty good, hes got great size for a stretch 4 and can really shoot the 3. I don't think he was an immediate contributor but we could have gone after much worse IMO. I have a feeling a few years from now he'll be playing KU and have a game against us where we ask ourselves why we never returned the interest..

Cool article! Sounds like those kids going to Tech will be interesting to deal with next season.

@Blown

42.5% (170-400) currently for his career.

If you only include the 3 years he's started- 44% (152-345)

In conference play- 42.9% for his career.

@BShark

Stretch 4 with some size.. 4 of the 5 recruits Dixon has coming in are PF/C's

@wissox

Same here. Can't believe the struggles they are going through right now

@wissox

The Texas problem...They only half care about basketball

@wrwlumpy

The problem isn't the conference.

I don't have the solution either, we'd probably have more titles already if the solution was so easy.

But if I'm being realistic I think the issue is two fold. We need our Coach to step up as he does in the regular season. And we need the players to step up and seize the moment.

I don't know why Self is a master of the regular season but in the tournament things go differently. Last year is a prime example of that in the Elite 8. Why did Perry Ellis only get 4 points against Villanova? Why did Wayne Selden's 3 point shot look like he had never practiced before. Why didn't Self make adjustments to figure out how to effectively beat Villanova's defense. Realistically our coach was out-coached, our players were simply out-played. It happens, it's happened a lot.

I think this fan-base has an itch it needs to scratch.

08 was amazing, 12 was great even in defeat but we want more.

But we've had some really good teams that haven't done their job, or suffered some injuries that left the team less then whole. And finally Self as the coach is ultimately responsible for how the season ends so he must continue to try and find ways to step up.

Hopefully this is the year where the coaching and the players seize the moment and deliver!

@wrwlumpy

I think it comes down to the fact that Mason has overshadowed Graham all season long. Devonte has certainly played better lately but wasn't consistent enough early to end up 1st team.

Morris has a ridiculous Assist/TO ratio as you mentioned and they quietly could finish 2nd in the conference. I think Morris was pre-season POY as well wasn't he?

I can see Lucas being 3rd team btw.

Here is how I think the voting will go:

1st team

FMason-CPOY

M Morris

J Evans

J Jackson-NPOY

J Motley

2nd Team

D Graham

J Allen

D Burton

J Carter-DPOY

K Evans

Morris will replace Graham. Devonte will be 2nd teamer.

that hoopmath website is great. Some useful statistics about offense/defense..

So far the 2017-18 Non Conference looks like this:

Kentucky - Champions Classic

Syracuse- Neutral in Miami

Stanford- Sacremento

@ Nebraska

Arizona St- Home

Sprint Center Game- ?

Big-12/SEC Challenge- ? (speculate Florida @ home as can't imagine we play Kentucky twice)

There's a lot of reasons the conference has been so tough.

I think it starts with the 10 team format of the round robin schedule.
Every other major conference besides the Big East see a lot of unbalanced scheduling. I think it creates a competitiveness edge when every team must go home/away.

No other team has a Bill Self. The other 9 teams are competitive enough with each other because they don't routinely get enough top talent to overcome how good of a coach Bill Self really is.

i voted as well this morning

Big win for Danny, it was a must have. As long as they don't bail out of the ACC tourney in the 1st round that win is going to be huge for their selection status

Self also watched De'Quon Lake last night. Lake visited Iowa St this week for their Senior Night.

@drgnslayr

you got it correct. If Graham's value is really around #40 that's tough to swallow but in this years draft that might actually be true.

Let's look around for a minute at the various sites that offer their opinion on the draft.

ESPN's latest board has 19 freshman in the top 30. Draft.net 18, DraftExpress 16.

8 different Sophomore's are listed , 5 different International players, 1 Junior & 1 Senior make appearances among the 3 different mock sites.

It's going to be incredibly difficult for Graham to secure a guaranteed contract without fully believing he could play himself into one between now and after the combine

@BShark

I hope we land him, high character kids don't grow on tree's. This team is losing a lot of leaders and experience. Who's going to lead the post guys night in and night out? I don't see any natural leaders on this team if Devonte leaves. Surprising KU was this late to the party, Shakur has been known for a while but maybe the timing will be just right to hopefully get him on the team.

@JayHawkFanToo

I'm sure Self will reach out to whomever he knows that can help gather information. Graham also has the benefit of the Combine with the rules they way they are (if invited) which will give him a lot more information about his stock level.

Given how insanely stacked this draft is going to be with freshman and the sheer number of point guards that will be drafted ahead of him (at least 5) in the lottery he's going to be in that next tier of potential PG's. Depending on who declares I can see that group including Donovan Mitchell (Louisville), Monte Morris (ISU), Juwan Evans (OSU), Kobi Simmons (Arizona), Isiah Briscoe (Kentucky). Maybe a few others I'm missing but any of those could be considered 2nd round/fringe 1st round to the right team types. Next years draft will come back down to earth and doesn't seem to be littered with game changing PG's so he's potentially got a much better chance of being a higher draft pick after next year..

@Crimsonorblue22

boy did they ever get screwed. TCU needs a big win against the top of the conference. Best win to date is Iowa St

@Kcmatt7

It's not looking good.

TCU plays K-St tonight so this is basically an elimination from the bubble. Both teams are part of the Next Four Out from Lunardi's bracket. Either team must win both remaining conference games and not bail out in the first round of the Big-12 tourney to keep their hopes alive.

@Crimsonorblue22

yes. Only thing we don't know will be the timing.

@Crimsonorblue22

Yup Friday Sunday!

The Sweet 16/Elite 8 would be Thursday/Saturday

@BShark

ISU fans already getting upset. Some do have a point though that KU might be trying to recruit him too late if he's a high character kid and values relationships. Others are just getting butt hurt over KU finally noticing his talent.

@BShark

Sounds like some people have seen Juiston play and are impressed with him. The constant things I see being posted about him, High-Level rebounder, not a jump shooter, high character kid, good vision and can lead the fast break. Video seems to support all that as well

@BShark

Agreed!

I will add I think we've seen enough of how KU recruits lately that we will chase some guys we probably have no point in chasing (Zion etc) because they are elites of their positions etc. It seems like we could be possibly all over the place recruiting bigs besides maybe the one known in Williams. Will be interesting to see if they shadow Gordon at all. I don't know a tremendous amount about the 18 class outside the top kids we've mentioned already.

@KUSTEVE

Solid post, good thing we only have 1 game over the next 9 days to rest the legs etc. The possible 3 in 3 days won't help that afterwords but this is College Basketball. I'd rather see this team win every game it has to suit up for then trying to predict whether rest would help anything at this point. We either survive as we have all season long and keep doing so or we don't..

@Crimsonorblue22

I believe it was the game 2 years ago he hurt himself doing it. He's done this for years and been rewarded even though they changed the rule to not reward him for it

@BShark

Would not get that excited but Norm is a great recruiter so we'll see

@ParisHawk

You have to think Forte is a bit smart-er falling forward. Draws the foul 99.9% of the time.

@jaybate-1.0

No worries amigo, we all hope our trey cannon isn't 29% come tourney time or we will be sweating it out!

@KUSTEVE

Seemed like some variations of man. I heard Underwood simplified their defense after the 0-6 start and that has helped the team overall. They gave up way too many 3's to ISU last night and one terrible call at the end certainly didn't help either

@drgnslayr

Another way of looking at the recruiting class is all his friends are leaving and he won't have the same relationships with the incoming guys. Newman he obviously knows, Cunliffe he's just getting used to.

I hope he comes back and runs the team, that's the best situation for everyone. We will certainly find out if Devonte himself feels that way

@BShark

Exactly, our KU insiders have been wrong way too much lately to take much from them in their claims. The Grimes stuff I can believe

@BShark

I'd take him if he looks at the KU offer seriously.

With Hamilton, I don't know how anyone can claim that will be the case this early. His coach is a die-hard KU fan and he'll run for a team that Frank Mason was on. I do think our chances with him are much better then being adverstised

Dissecting that Bracket as it stands some things to note.

Virginia/Cincinnati in the 2nd round would possibly be played in the 40's. Two defensive teams praying to score.

Oklahoma St/Kentucky 2nd round would be an exciting game!

Villanova would have the hardest path to Phoenix. That's a brutal looking bracket.