Well ... after some consideration, it may be ... (gulp ). me!!!
I HAVE changed meds recently ... and noticed my “blackouts” being longer with no memory of them.. I come to with an empty KFC bucket in my lap, the Buckets site on My iPad, and I’m wearing a mizzou t-shit
Oh god
Well, please, challenge away!
Ok confess.. which regular here is also “El Poyo”??
And what a smooth natural free throw motion...
if he can develop a pump fake, he can manufacture many points
I liked him immediately. Immediately.
Clear from the start he was going to be a team system guy, which means defense first, steal, set pics, rebound, box out, and yes be a glue guy. Does Self love these kind of guys? ? Just ask Jamari traylor.
My fav Kansas players in the last few decades have fit this mold, and we almost always get to see them develop for 4 years. Which is a big reason why I become attached to them lol ... to me, this is heart of college ball. They feel like true-blue Jayhawks. Plus these 4 year guys remember are mostly Getting a college education, a degree.. college, remember ?
And yes a program as elite as Kansas will inevitably have to have a mix of all types, The hardly knew-ye NBA potentials as well. Example- Malik Newman. he has made some big shots, helped us win, and hopefully will help us more than he hurts us (he hurts us too with his clueless selfishness at times, and may indeed be, as some very astute bucketeers have pointed out, a cancerous element)
But will he make anybody’s list of favs? At least he is playing the whole season so far ( hello billy P, cliff A, Chick D, etc)
Hello!
This is why we watch this sport- nites like this. Passion. Energy. Major conference battle. (The refs seemed to let the physicality get out of hand)
It was Udoke’s turn tonite to step up. Our center is a big bad beast.
We won and a win is a win in conf play. BIGTIME
What’s next for this team ??
who the hell knows .. I’ve given up trying to guess this year. It is what it is.
I do believe that your dreams are in fact a portal into the future
(Plus I need someone to blame if KU loses :)
Let’s hope he can turn himself around..
and yes he always did seem to have the wrong attitude and “headspace” when he was here
@BShark
Yep- love it !
In my 20 years of Jayhawk fandom, I discovered that these are the types of guys that make me a true passionate fan, come what may of our eventual outcomes. For example, Lightfoot and garret are growing on me like a weed becaus I know, barring unforeseen and unexpected developments, we get to watch them play many many games, absorb Self’s teaching, and (hopefully) grow significantly in skill and prowess before our very eyes.
And yes, if we get him, I will of course root for Romeo as much as I can muster. but I kind of know the script for OADs by now.
scene 1: bask in the preseason buzz and attention and press, and look awesome early in the season against lesser teams
Scene 2: play predictably inconsistent up into conference play and look at times great then look like a lost freshman
Scene 3: basically disappear in the harsh forge of brutal conference play despite Coach playing you your requisite mandated OSD minutes.
Scene 4: make a splash in the first weekend of the big tourney, then be more or less a non-factor in our sweet sixteen or elite 8 loss to a team we should on paper have beaten handily.
Scene 5: wait a week or two, then quietly announce your decision to go pro, and tweet out thanking everyone for the unforgettable experience of being a Jayhawk albeit briefly
I’m tired of this movie.
@BShark
Thanks... so Romeo is a presumed OAD then huh... 🙁 sigh
I’m trying, but my enthusiasm for on-paper OADs picking Kansas is at an all-time LOW.
Devonte, Frank mason, sherron, (put name of your favorite 3 or 4 year KU player here)...
guys who were mid to low ranked to no-ranked in high school who then turned out to be jayhawk-for-life STUDS is what gets me pumped these days. Let’s hope Self and staff keep on finding these “program” player types on a continual conveyor belt basis !!
Are RL and Ochai the same position players ?
And let the official Ochai nickname submissions begin 🙂
99.9. I likes them odds
@BShark
Now do you have any information other than an educated hunch that he will sign with KU? My quickie internet search came up with the usual non commital statements
...and, I’m making an assumption (gulp) that Ochai is of African descent. is the continent of Africa becoming the hottest place to look for raw potential basketball talent?
@BShark
Thanks for the heads up on this signee- we can only assume Self and his staff can see the potential in him.. and we should by odds have him for 3-4 years
@drgnslayr
“How many McDs AAs are on this team? How high were our players ranked out of HS? How did we get to the point where we have all these highly-rated players only playing even with teams that have ZERO highly-rated players, or maybe one?”
This year in particular, I have really been noticing how Many solid players we have played against.. all season. Guys, Who may not be McD AAs, but are basically good tough players.
I’m an eye test guy, don’t have the basketball acumen or knowledge or the time to do an in-depth stat Deep dive analysis, but there are apparently a lot of solid decently talented players in D1, who with the right team makeup and competent coaching, can be a force.
Which makes me think, what really are these high school basketball rankings anyway? They can only analyze and therefore predict only so much for high schoolers (teenagers!) So much can change in college and beyond. Granted there are guys who are obviously going to be pro studs barring injury based on their high school performance, but how many high rated guys Peter out or don’t live up to their top 50 high school label?
I think we naturally assume we should beat our competition because we have more top 50 or 100 “rated” guys than they do. It’s much more complicated and all kinds of factors have to happen..
our conference has a LOT of good players at all positions.
we often this season are just getting outplayed for large stretches of games... out hustled, out rebounded, out-defensed, out-shot etc. and when this happens, I admit I’m the first one to think “ why is this happening?? We are better than these guys!! ? Aren’t we???” Look at our ranking! Look at our coach!! Look at all out Mickey-Ds!!!
True- diving is always a sign of of commitment and passion.
And I have, for years here, Been an acolyte of the tourney-is-more-or-less-a-crapshoot theory and proselytized on the subject many a time. Which is why I’m surprised I’m even thinking of our tourney chances at this point- a waste of energy.
One step at a time - first the B12 !!
@BShark
Really?? Wow
(I’m assuming you are truth-telling)
DoubleDD said:
You know we have to as KU fans stop saying when KU wins, "If it was a better team". We really have to stop this thinking. Kstate isn't a push over. Are they great? I would say no. Yet their house was rocking, and they tried everything to make a game of it. They just ran into some devil dogs wearing KU uni's.
You are right indeed- they aren’t a pushover and they tried hard of course, but I’m doing the one thing I usually never do- framing my observations of this current KU team in comparison to my “eye-test” perceptions of the other top programs in the country right now. I guess I Just feel like we don’t have all the elements to get to the final four. Hopefully this outlook will pass and I will be back to my usual blithely optimistic self soon.
We didn’t score for like 6 minutes to start the 2nd half.. a good opponent would have made us pay and erased the lead on us, but thank god for completely mediocre K-State.
A division win is a win always, but I think our seniors may be wearing out. De Sousa looks as raw and green as I suppose he should be.. cunliffe looks to be either not 100% physically or mentally far from where he needs to be. The 64K question(s) is - can these guys hold on and win the B12 ? (That will be of course historic and a true DiMaggio-esque record) .... yes we sure can.
Can we go far in the big dance ? Not seeing that at all this year.. but I’ll root root root hard for them whatever the case.
And the zone really worked against inept k-state
And Doke made TWO free throws in a row!!
Are you following him on tweetster?
Amen to that.. I don’t understand why his free throw motion is astonishingly crap. He clearly just chucks it towards the basket and assumes it will miss badly.
He needs an intensive intervention since teams will intentionally foul him (as Baylor did )
Feel free, especially those who don’t post very much.. doubtlessly we will get some in depth posts soon, but this is just for quick hit thoughts..
Mine -
I say it ad nauseum, but a division win is a win. Period
We got lucky- let’s hope our bad game is out of our system
Baylor’s D strategy worked and will be copied.
TT going DOWN !!
done deal - down 12 with 1:20 to go
Now - what’s the general feeling on Udoke staying next year??? 😀
Or is he pretty much an raw nba prospect who will be drafted high enough to go (sigh)
Yes well we all remember the Landen years - Believe me I was a fan, but let’s face it - it really nice to have a big strong guy who can score, who can dunk STRONG.
Most teams knew LL couldn’t really do much offensively, and he really didn’t have the monster mentality that doke does. Doke was pissed last night.
I just watched the game again (thank you espn 3)
Kansas played the most committed D in the 2nd half i’ve Seen them play all year- lots of switching as noted in this thread, and lots of pure effort -
Svi played the best defense I’ve seen him play as a Jayhawk. Devonte also really worked his butt off defensively. Udoke boxed out like a beast. Everybody worked really hard to box out. Boxing out has been a real pet peeve of mine for years with KU. We usually give up so many rebounds for lack of concentration and effort in my untrained opinion.
Which begs the question -
WHY CANT WE DO THIS ALL THE %$#@=# TIME????
Is it too hard to maintain? Is this current makeup of guys not suited to max effort D? Does it take away from offensive execution?
Why?
And on the road, we only got outrebounded by 3!
And got to the line as well. They fouled us more that we fouled them... we played aggressive and didn’t solely rely on 3’s
All good signs mon freres
Is it me, or did we see a semblance of a real “team” tonite? They might have just gotten an identity ..
they looked to me like a band of brothers fighting hard and playing scrappy tough D and sticking together. Let’s hope it’s a big step forward!!
(Awaiting a pithy lengthy tome on this subject from Sir Jay of Bate...)
More jokes please
Dying here and need a distraction
Thanks for the telling statistical info... again, yikes 🙁
The B12 is a fight, and KU has to amp it up every game period. No other choice, since everyone can beat everyone else on any given night.
Now, are Preston and de Sousa rebounders? I really don’t know that much about them.
Before the NCAA tourney last year, HEM posted an interesting stat about defensive ranking (I forgot the exact parameters of the stat) and no team ever got to the final four ( or winning the tourney I forgot)lower than a certain number, and KU was below that number.
What’s going to be our rebounding disparity stats before the tourney? Yikes
Random musings:
A division win by 1 or 30 is a win, always will be. That’s the reality in our division and has been for years.
I’m rooting hard for them, love them, but having a reasonably hard time seeing the path to how this 3-hucking, sporadic D, reboundless, don’t-know-how-to-circle-the-wagons-yet-toughness lacking team is going to repeat as B12 champs. At least we can blame some stuff on no Preston or De Sousa.
And I never thought I’d see the day when Self would be basically nonchalant about the weaker shooters on the team hucking 3’s a few seconds into the shot clock - that used to be a guaranteed yank and yell. I know he is trying to adapt, and He is playing with what he has, but still don’t understand how Self is not at least going 🦍 -shite with lackadaisical effort on d. Maybe he is and I’m missing it
Newman, despite his breakout game, still doesn’t feel like a good KU fit to me.. can’t articulate why exactly I feel this way, certainly not well as some bucketeer heavies have recently.
When will teams start team-foul-distribution hacking Udoke the second he gets the ball? One of the biggest disparities between FGP and FTP in the league.
And this rumor just in - NCAA plans to clear Preston sometime in March - a day after KU gets eliminated from tourney. 😁
Best (or worst) cheap baiting headline post of 2018...
So far that is
😁
Damn - three losses for the cyclones means they will completely turn their season around if they play huge and beat us - crap
And thanks for the pics - my eldest daughter attends ISU - pretty campus, and great engineering school
She is a KU fan though
“Honestly though I’m not sure I’d feel confident about this KU team smoking any decent P5 team. Mainly because of the rebounding thing.”
Agree totally
And we should have Mitch all his eligible years too.
He’s the kind of guy who will grow on all of us, get better, get bigger under hudy, and get smarter. I’m guessing there will be ups and downs, but he’s the type of ku makes following this team so rewarding.
In my book, Garrett too. He already is the best blocker-outer on the team, (ok, not a word ) and great defensively, and clearly is working hard to implement
Team strategy. I totally get why he’s getting minutes. Offensive decision-making will of course improve- he’s a freshman.
And let me be at least the 70th person to remark that we REALLY need Preston or de Sousa soon ... I don’t see how we win the B12 without more big able bodies.
And can’t someone help Udoka with his free throw mechanics? He really really needs to carve out more time to work on that.
So - I believe the word is that Preston needs to pay back car money but doesn’t have it...
this apparently was told to a ku bucketeer who was at Texas game by Bedore
Thanks!!
GREAT stream of consciousness game eyewitness report- awesome
Can you go to all the games and report? (There must be some Buckets petty cash to help you with expenses ;)
Trae takes the vast majority of the teams shots...
One would wonder if he was guarded by a tireless talented defender if anyone else could step up
They are beatable
And i will never EVER get tired of the sound of the rock chalk chant in away games
(I personally have attended 3 ku road games in the past 7 years and ku fans were the majority )
Jayhawk nation is everywhere
ka-bars indeed !!
Gotta love the analogy. Just watched the game on replay. Once again, as what happens to a blue blood program like us all the time, teams get up big against us especially when we are on the road.. beating us is a lifetime event for many programs remember?? Nebraska played a REALLY good game in all phases- defense, shooting rebounding. They would have given pretty much ANY good team a real fight this night. Right now, unless we can get open and bury threes in a hurry to build a big lead fast, this team of ours is going to be in dogfights going forward. Azibuke is CLEARLY improving and not fouling out - much was earlier talked about on this site about this subject. This is a GOOD THING!. Defensively I thought we played pretty well considering Nebraska played a more committed effort on d. Will this team get better on D ? We can only assume yes knowing who our coach is.
And until we can get more bodies to throw into the fight, a) do NOT panic and b) grab your Ka-bar
Did someone mention Jamari??
I’m liking this post more and more 😀
Wish we had him now...
I suppose the one of lessons learned with transfers is that the hope of perceived playing time is the biggest reason they went to the trouble of transferring balanced with going to a better program to get better coaching and better competition.
But the three guys mentioned surely knew they were off the bench- level guys at an elite program like Kansas? What the hell were they expecting? I doubt they were misled as to playing time. this is Kansas baby. You earn it on a guaranteed top 20 team.
Well, right now at least one of them would be on the court a lot right now for the number 2 team in the country because of the Preston situation
Honestly I love the fact that Self is actively exploiting the current wealth of transfers out there.. smart move since we don’t seem to be able to coax enough top 25 bigs to come here. Recruiting is tough unless you are Kensucky or Dook or NC
Hunter M is I suppose a classic example of a transfer taking a gamble (trying to earn playing time on a super competitive high profile team) ... sadly he rode the pine pretty much. And would his pro career been different had he gone somewhere else and played more?? (I believe he’s playing in Poland now)...
I doubt it. He learned a Lot here about how to become a better player, and for the rest of his life he can say he played with the Kansas men’s basketball team in Allen Fieldhouse.
again - does this happen to other elite teams?
why can't we just have all our big men be cleared to play all the games they are supposed to play, not get caught doing something stupid, not have their parents or relatives do something stupid, not have their high schools do something wrong...
why us???
A question - is Billy Preston a presumed OAD?
please don't tell me that yet again we have a big man who can't get on the court because of some stupid reason (cliff, Cheick, Carlton ) then who leaves or "transfers" after one year ...
Does this happen to other top programs ??
Why us ??
You all re-dikew-lus
My humble advice;
Try as hard as you can as a fan to not frame early games or mid season games or even late season games in terms of our chances in the big tourney.
If we lose key guys for the season, then yes, probably not looking good for final four odds.
But right now, enjoy. Enjoy. These are very young men, and Self will find a way as he always does to get them playing better as the season progresses.
Remember -arguably the greatest assemblage of D1 basketball talent on one team ever, the undefeated 2015 Kensucky wild kitties, LOST to Wisconsin in the final four... SO many examples of great teams going down in the tourney....
This is yet another stud KU squad, and take the good games (and the bad ones) game by game .
That is the beauty of being a fan of KUBB. We win a hell of a lot more than we lose, and the tourney does not define us or anybody else, plus it’s 4 MONTHS away!!! A lifetime from now..
@mayjay
Thanks... !
this year I’m trying to follow some of my fav guys who graduated the last few years so this site very helpful
Can’t seem to find out why JamTray hasn’t played the last 3 games with Kymis - no mention of him anywhere I can find and he’s not listed on the game stats even as DNP
Anybody follow him on twitter ?
4 years for mr Garrett is music to my ears... he fits the mold of many of my fav players ( K Young, T Releford, JamTray), he seems to want to play D and rebound and set picks and just be a disrupter. As a pure fan, These four years types really help balance out the oft disappointing hardly-knew-ye OADs.
I got my ticket, and boarded the Garrett Bus early 😻
(Cat emoji for keeping with the thread theme )