@HighEliteMajor. Traditionally, the way to beat the zone is to kill it with outside shooting, something I though we would be good at. However, another way is to speed up the game and fast break to the other end before the defense has had chance to setup the zone, and if the lanes close, then kick it outside for the three or back inside via backdoor. Offensive rebounding is critical. Coach Self has the horses to play a fast game but our young grasshoppers have much to learn.
JayHawkFanToo
13427 posts
When I started reading the article about Frankie Seurer, my first thought was...didn't we have another QB by the same name? only to find out he is Frank's son.
I am sure the younger posters don't know much about him, but is one of a group of California players that made it to KU including the Bell brothers, Kerwin and Dino and had a fair amount of success at KU. If I remember correctly, Frank Seurer made it to the NFL and eventually ended up with Chiefs and may have started even a couple of games for them.
@drgnslayr. It is a catch 22 situation. Ellis plays a position where he depend on other players to get him the ball in the right position to make his move to the basket; if the ball is not precisely deliver to the right position the option is to step out and take the longer jumper, something that he does not favor. With Mason playing more time, Coach Self is trying to get more penetration, but on the other hand, Tharpe, the better passer is not there as much to deliver the ball to Ellis. Perry's line was 5-6 from the field for 10 points, 8 rebounds and 3 assists; why in the world would you trade these numbers for more playing time for Lucas?
Are the new rules killing Coach Self's play style?
His system starts, flows and ends with hard nosed defense; offense is a result of the defensive effort. The new rules have sissified the game so much that if player get the ball within 10 feet of the basket it is almost easier to either score of get fouled than to miss altogether. Same thing with penetration; the NCA wanted more scoring and now an average guard can penetrate with impunity and look like the second coming of Iverson since he will either be given an open path to the basket or a foul. This negates the tough defense that worked so successfully before.
Also, the referring has been wildly inconsistent between conferences. I watch a lot of college basketball and I can see that some games are called a lot closer than others. I also understand that KU plays a more pressing defense, but the disparity in fouls against Colorado is not an indicator of how the game went down. KU was called for 10 more fouls and CU shot 17 more free throws.
The 3-point shooting is becoming an issue. One of the 3 in limbo, Frankamp, White and Green will have to start playing more time. Frankamp is playing good defense but his shooting is way too tentative; he is passing open shots and taking the one s he should not; if I were Coach Self, I would borrow a few players from the football team and have him practice shooting with these physical athletes surrounding him until he is comfortable taking shots while being guarded. Green has a sweet stroke but also a quick trigger and his defense is lagging; I imagine this are the reason he is in the dog house. This leaves White who has been inconsistent, sometimes playing well and some others not so much. Shooter have what they call "being in the zone" where they feel they can make every shot they take; also, they need to get into the "rhythm" of the game before they can "in the zone." Unfortunately, playing a few minutes at the time is not conductive to achieve either. Hopefully in the near future, one will start separating himself from the others and the 3-point shooting woes will be greatly abated.
Once again, the teams shows great potential but it also shows its immaturity. Hopefully by conference time Coach Self will iron out the issues and KU will be back to normal.
Nice game by Mason but not even close to the 396 yards "Tuxedo" Tony Sands ran against MU...dang, that was ssswwweeettt!!!
I guess Askia Booker read Jesse's scouting report...
Does anyone have the list of freshman point guards starting at KU? Mario Chalmers, Adonis Jordan? Did Jacque Vaughn start? I don't think as good as they were, Collins or Hinrich started as freshmen.
Mario did not really play PG at KU and when he tried he was turnover machine. The bulk of his playing time was as SG with Russ Rob at the PG.
My take on why Black is starting over JoJo. When Black became available every big program was after him (I personally did not and still do not understand why) so I am sure that as a result he had some leverage and was able to get some assurance about playing time, given that this is his last chance to impress the NBA scouts. We all have seen that, pretty much like he was at Memphis, Tarik is a fouling machine, something that has been amplified with the new contact rules; by the same talk, JoJo is also prone to foul, a result of his lack of experience and his limited knowledge of the game. Now, the refs tend to call a tighter game a the beginning to set the tone and relax some as the game wears on. Maybe Coach Self starts Tarik knowing the he will get a couple of quick fouls and then he brings in JoJo once play has settled. Also, some players are better coming off the bench than starting, a good example is Nick Collison whose stats are consistently better than Perkins, but Perkins starts anyway.
Once Coach Self deems that JoJo is ready to start, he will start.
Given the last couple of minutes of the UTEP game, I am surprised Mason is starting; he must have had one heck of a practice week.
I am going to guess that most of us were not even born when the last episode of our gang was filmed 70 years ago. Time flies by.
Most of the younger crowd knows about the little rascals either from Eddy Murphy's controversial skit in SNL or the movie that came out about 20 years ago. The original episodes are priceless.
For a change of pace, how about this twit from JoJo...
The dude is funny...
Lucas reply is even funnier.
@Kip_McSmithers has it exactly right. One the final poll of the Orange Bowl win season, KU finished ranked #7. That magical season, KU was the darling of college football, and it was still remembered when Gill took over. Weis took over after two of the worse year in KU football history, not only on the field but off the field as well.
More importantly, I still remember the one side, hopeless blowouts of Gill teams. If this year's team plays Gill's second year team, who do you think would win? My money says that this year's team beats Gill's second year team 9 out of 10 times. I am sure there is simulation software that could run this scenario; I would be curious to know if someone can actually run the simulation.
I still have a soft spot for Coach Williams. I really appreciate what he did at and for KU and I have no problem with him leaving, we all knew it would happen sooner or later, I have a problem with the way he did it, and for that I blame Dean Smith, a former Jayhawk no less.
UNC completely outplayed MSU. It was an entertaining game, and while not a big fan of UNC, I still appreciate what Coach Williams did at KU and I wanted UNC to win.
UNC has good talent but it is still wildly inconsistent, but I am sure Coach Williams will have them ready by tournament time.
@KGPhoto. Why are you looking at Powlus? The QBs might not have been the stars of the team, but they were not the main problem either. Both Heaps and Cozart played to their strengths reasonably well, Heaps as the pro-style pocket passer and Cozzart as the scrambler; if QB would have been the main problem, switching to Cozart would have abated the problem, it did not.
Heaps in particular, consistently put the ball in the receiver's hand or threw very catchable balls that the WRs were unable to hold on to. Look at quality receivers in other teams and you will see that most passes thrown in their vicinity usually get caught; not with ours. How many games could have had different results if our receivers would have caught balls that had TD written all over? No question that having Harwell available would have made a difference and could have been a game changer, I guess we will see how he plays next year.
The most under performing unit was unquestionably the Offensive Line. You could argue that we did not have the personnel or that coaching was sub-par but the end result is the same. Grunhard is now gone and a new offensive coordinator is coming so there is reason to believe that Coach Weis knew that this was the weak link in the chain.
Returning players and having key players become eligible is encouraging; next year will the true test on whether the program is making progress or regressing. As I said before, any thing less than 4 conference wins next season would make Coach Weis seat very hot.
UNC played much better than MSU. UNC has a lot of talent but they are still wildly inconsistent. Entertaining game particularly when the team you want to win does...not that I am a UNC fan, but given the choice I will take them over MSU any day.
The chance of any team going unbeaten from and entire season is highly unlikely.
Granted, players come to college playing at much higher level than they did 40 years ago; a result of better facilities, better coaching, better competition and advances in physical preparation. However, the majority of the top players will not play more than one or two years in college and their best play will happen, not in college but in the NBA.
40 years ago, there were at most a dozen schools that dominated the scene every year and had a realistic chance to contend, and many would not play more than a couple of other top teams on a given year. Today, there are 30-40 teams that on a given day can beat any other team and with luck, they can make deep runs in March. The Big 12 alone has 4 teams ranked in the top 20 and every one of these teams will play the other teams in 6 games (3 home, 3 away), so the chances to go unbeaten in conference play or the season, even for a top team like KU, are very small; even smaller for other teams.
Of the 5 teams that started the season in the top 5, MSU. UK, Louisville, Duke and KU. all of them have already lost at least 1 game. Too much parity and zero chance of building a dominant team, with top players with more than a couple of years of experience.
A couple of thoughts:
The best set up 3 point shooter is Framkamp; whether he can translate his shooting to game situations is yet to be determined.
Greene has sweet stroke but at this point his defense has not been up to speed. Frankamp has played much better defense. White falls somewhere in between but he has a big advantage over Frankamp with his size, and so does Greene.
Coach Self has always indicated in the past that the goals is to have the rotation down to 7-8 players by conference playing time. However, this season he has indicated that he might end up playing up to ten players; a result of the talent available and the new rules that, as we have all seen, have players in foul trouble at an alarming rate. Maybe we need to listen to him and accept that the rotation will not be the traditional 7-8 but more like 9-10 players.
Calipari's team have traditionally featured one or two players despite all the highly ranked players he has signed. Last year it was Noel, the Unibrow before that, Cousins and Wall the previous year, and the same was true at Memphis and UMass.
Coach Self's teams on the other hand have always been team centered and the superstar was not the center of the team. This edition is not any different; while Wiggins, Embiid and Selden have been hyped up by the press, the true start of the team so far has been Perry Ellis. In any case, the KU offense does not run through any of these players individually but through all of them as a team. Wiggins will not ne the player through which all plays run through; at different times and against different opponents different players will get that call.
As Wiggins feels more at easy with the team, his stats will improve as the season progresses, and by the end of the year, he and Perry Ellis will be the team leaders.
I am not surprised, after all they have a lot in common. They are both pros at what they do, both are consider to be near the top of their respective fields and both are sleaze-balls.
Compared to Clinton and the squid, Barry is just an incompetent amateur wannabe.
I am at a loss to understand why we are second guessing Coach Self.
Coach Self knows better that any one of us what a players is capable of doing and how he will perform under different conditions. He knows how players think, any issues on and off court, how they are feeling at game time, what they ate and when they had their last BM. We do not.
Unfortunately he cannot get in the court and play and has to rely on players executing what they are told to do. Do you think that he told Mason to make those 3 boneheaded plays at the end of the UTEP game? I will guess he gets as or more frustrated than us because he sees players not do what they are taught and fail to follow directions
Like Coach Knight once said, he has forgotten more about basketball that we will collectively know. He has a track record that most very coach can only dream of and would give his right nut and first born for. He is the most successful coach at one of the most successful programs ever. If he retired today, he would go to the Hall of fame the first time he is eligible on an unanimous vote...and yet we continue to second guess him.
Have we forgotten what he has done on previous years with role players? The season is still very young and the baby Jayhawks are showing their inexperience. Also, don't forget that Wiggins was a 2014 class recruit that reclassified to 2013 so he is greener than he would have been had he stayed one extra year in HS .
In the end, the only ranking that counts is the one at the end of the season. The team will learn from this trip and will be playing at a higher level come March.
Why is everyone surprised that freshmen are playing like freshmen? This is what we get in the new age of one year players.
Coach Self will whip them into shape in practice and by the end of the season they will be playing, like teams before them, as a well oiled machine.
Ladies and gentlemen, parity in College basketball has entered the building.
With the influence of the one and done, the days of senior laden dominating teams are gone; on any given day, any team can beat any other team.
It is unfair to compare the progress in the first two year for Coaches Gill and Weis. Gill inherited a program a couple of years removed from a BCS Bowl win; Weis inherited a program in shambles and fully demoralized.
As Rumsfeld said, you go to war with the army you have. At this point, KU does not have enough Big Conference caliber players to compete with the Big Boys. How many of on-the-numbers passes were dropped just this last game? We cannot blame the QB for this. Also, several players that were supposed to contribute big were not available either by injury or off the court issues. The team is not at the level that I, along with most fans, had hoped for, but I can see progress where it is now competitive for portions of the game.
A new offensive coordinator, the core of the players coming back and a bunch of impact player becoming eligible should result in noticeable improvement next season. Any thing less that a 4-5 conference record next season would place Coach Weis job in serious jeopardy.
I always imagined Jaybate as a retired Cliff Clavin.
Keep in mind that Wiggins and other players had the flu and were not 100%at the tournament.
One of the announcers at the KU-UTEP game said...at this point Wiggins is just an athlete with no basketball skills, which is an extreme and incorrect exaggeration...you can take it with a grain of salt because he also said when KU was ahead by 5 and 1 free throw left...if he makes this free throw it will be a two possession game; really? Since when a 5 point lead is not a 2 possession game?
The young players showed their inexperience today. By and large the team looked like they were going through the motions but their heart was not there. I believe practice next week is going to be "educational."
If I were a conspiracy nut I would think that Mason was trying to affect the spread. Three huge boneheaded mistakes at the very end of the game nearly cost KU the game. He has played long enough to know better and the coaching staff kept telling them what to do and what not to do and he did exactly the opposite. On of those things that make you go ...hmmm...
@lighthawk. The athletic department is not hurting for money; it has the second or third largest budget in the conference, mostly thanks to Lew Perkins.
The new contract with Time Warner was poorly designed, and I will guess it was pushed by the Chancellor to give more exposure to the academic portion of the university. If I understand correctly, KU does not actually get money but it gets $2 million worth of programming and in return KU gives a de-facto endorsement to Time Warner and Metro Sports while minor sports get national exposure. This contract did not have the best interest of the bulk of KU fans, or resident of the state of Kansas for that matter, but it was designed to counteract the Longhorn network, which has proven to be a big failure as well. On this issue, Zenger seems to be way out of touch with the fans, particularly those in the KC metro area; which has the largest alumni concentration.
I have no problem with the refereeing calling a close game as long as they call it consistently.
In the first half Villanova was allowed to play the kind of in-your-face defense KU used to play (before the new rules) but KU was not. This resulted not only on KU players in foul trouble and Villanova in the double bonus very early in the half, but also KU playing a lot more tentative. The refs were wildly inconsistent and the highlight of their night was asking Villanova players to remove their two-color elbow braces.
A few things that stood out:
Have the players been taught how to box out? It seems that the shorter Villanova was getting an inordinate amount of offensive rebounds, including multiple rebounds per possession.
The refereeing. They were calling 2 fouls a minute at the beginning of the game, and most were going against KU. Villanova was in the double bonus situation with double digit minutes left in the first half. Villanova players were all over the KU players and no fouls were called, but as soon as a KU player touched a Villanova player a foul was immediately called, particularly in the first half. Wiggins was being mugged including several fouls while driving to the basket and most not called; even the announcers commented on a couple of them. It must be extremely frustrating for players see the other team playing physical defense and no fouls called and you team called for every ticky-tack foul.
All in all, a valuable lesson for the young players; it is not just about playing intense but more importantly, playing smart. Also, they have to learn to adapt to how the game is being called; with the new rules, this is going to become a bigger issue, particularly come March when they play against teams from other conferences with diferent refereeing styles.
Coach Self must have been extremely frustrated to let Greene out of the deep dog house he was in.
Best player for KU was probably Mason; however, I see a selfish streak in him. I am sure his last shot was not what Coach Self would have liked.
GIYF (Google is your friend). Google the terms and you will find lots of information including videos illustrating the different offenses. It would take a Jaybate sized post to describe them.
For Pick and roll look up videos of Karl Malone and John Stockton, they set the standard for this system. For the High Low offense, look at KU's videos, it is Coach Self's preferred offense. Lots of schools run the motion including variation such as the dribble drive run by Kentucky.
While you are at it, look up the Triangle offense, which the Bull ran it better than anyone and won them a number of NBA crowns, and the Princeton offense, a very effective and sophisticated offense requiring players with high basketball IQ; Coach Bzedelik used to run it at the Air Force Academy but no longer runs it at Wake Forest; too complicated in the age of the one and done, I believe a few Ivy Leaguer still run it.
The starts played reasonably well in the first half but seemed to lose focus in the second half.
Let's be thankful we have such deep team that the second team full of freshmen played better than the starters. I noticed that Brannen Green is still MIA when his outside shooting could have been put to use; that is a deep doghouse.
I know this is asked nearly every game, but does anyone know of a site to watch the Wake Forest game online? JustinTV? I've been watching on ESPN3 from San Diego (except for the Duke game) & it's been surprisingly clear & smooth (knock on wood).
Thank You, Happy Thanksgiving, & Rock Chalk.
Essentially all the Internet live feeds broadcast the EPN3 feed. ESPN3 does not have the KU game scheduled so the internet feed, if available, will have to broadcast the AXS feed.
I have had good luck with this site:
Hopefully they can stream the AXS feed.
No disrespect for Mario, but I much rather see the list of sexiest women by state...
The antlers are by far the vilest fan group in college basketball. The school's effort seem hypocritical after having tolerated this behavior for a long, long time.
They are the finest example of fans of the flagship university of the state whose claim to fame is being the meth capital of the world...and having the largest number of strip joints billboards per capita.
AXS is available on channel 655 on Surewest; however, it is part of the HD Digital Tier premium package only. I pay a boatload of money to Surewest for 3 phone lines, Internet and cable including 2 HD/recorder and 3 standard boxes, and now they want more money for AXS and a few other channels that are already available on standard resolution and that I never watch anyway; it's not going to happen. I get screwed either by the Athletic Department or now by my cable provider.
@justanotherfan. Close but not exactly. Sagarin has 3 ratings including one that is a predictor and you can use whichever one you want depending on what you want to interpret or predict. The Sagarin rankings get better as the season progresses and the teams are linked.
If KenPom is a predictor, then why is it has Duke ranked #28 (it was 70 something before yesterday games).? Maybe they are not top 3 but they are definitely top 10 and maybe even top 5.
All these rankings are highly speculative and heavily dependent on sample size and, at this point in the season, a more subjective human ranking is probably better. As the season progresses, they all become better with the bigger sample.
I though that maybe ESPN3 would have the game and it would not be blacked out...well, the game is not blacked out but it is not available either.
Hopefully there will be a Internet live feed that I can watch.
Amazing but in previous years with no "contract" I was able to watch every KU BBall game, and now with the "new and improved" contract, I cannot. One little step forward 10 gigantic steps backward for Jayhawk-kind
KenPom's rankings are all over the place. I like Jeff Sagarin's better, 3 conference teams in the top ten and KU #1...
I might be in the minority and then maybe not. I for one do not miss Jaybate posts. While some were informative and mildly amusing, most were long on non-sense and veered off from the topic at hand with the all too obvious intent of showing how smart/educated he thought he was.
I know a number of friends/colleagues that read the sports threads at the LJW Forum and just about every single one bypassed his posts much like I did.
Now, let's get back to actual sports :)
Barnes seat must be getting hotter than Mack Brown's.
I don't necessarily think it is compensating for bad officiating as much as it compensating by inconsistent refereeing between conferences. Refs are directly told by the conference and not the NCAA how to call games. You will notice that refereeing seems to be fairly consistent WITHIN conferences but wildly inconsistent BETWEEN conferences.
The NCAA needs to adopt and police a standard that is followed consistently by all conferences, rather than allow the conferences to police themselves.
I watched part of the UNC Louisville game and I was surprised how easily UNC won. All this time I was thinking that Louisville, the defending champion with the bulk of players returning should be number one; this weekend they looked very average and beatable.
Also, Oklahoma gave MSU all it could handle and finally ran out of gas a the end of the game and the score is no indication of how close the game was.
Teams should always take advantage of how the game is called. The big 12 and a greater degree the old Big 8 called games very tightly compared to other conferences, particularly the Big 10 and the other East Coast conferences. The Big 10 particularly has always been known for its bruising style of play.
Come tournament time, the refs allowed a lot more contact and the Big 12/8 conferences had problems adjusting to the more physical game allowed and as a result were pushed around by teams from other conferences. This is an issue that directly affected post-season games year after year but the conference never really addressed.
Again, I don't fault teams for trying to get away with as much as the referees will allow. IMHO, the solution was not to sissify the game; the solution is to make refereeing more consistent across conferences. Having watched a lot of basket ball over the weekend, I can see that this is still an issue and some referees are not calling nearly as many fouls as they were at the very beginning of the season.
Hem,
Nice write up but I disagree with you on number 2. I believe that Traylor has a better motor than Black and a much higher upside as well. We have seen pretty much what Black can do, and I for one am not impressed; we have seen glimpses of Traylor and with more playing time I see him as a solid contributor. Traylor allows the team to play at faster pace, Black slows down the tempo.
Frankamp's defense was a nice surprise, I see him as Tyrel Reed type of contributor with a solid 4 year career ahead.
Coach Self has always said that by the end of the season he likes to play 7 to 8 players on a regular basis; however, this year he has indicated that he might play up to 10 players, partly because of the available talent and partly because the new rule will result in more players in foul trouble. When we go to war against OSU and ISU, I see many players from both teams fouling out and a strong, experienced bench may be the difference.
Weber is a text book example of the Peter's Principle. He reached his level of incompetence when he went to Illinois and has been incompetent ever since.
Maybe in a lower division he was successful ,but at Division 1 level, he is a well below average coach and an even worse recruiter. At Illinois he had the City of Chicago, one of basketball hotbeds, in his back yard and he could not get the local top players.
BTW, KSU just got crushed by an average Georgetown team.
KU has way too many good player to need Wigging to be the "go to" guy every game. He is becoming more comfortable with the system and by conference play he will be more assertive and dominant.
His play has been solid in all aspect of the game and occasionally he shows flashes of brilliance. He is like McLemore was last season when any time he touched the ball there was chance the next play would end in the ESPN play of the day video. Wiggins ceiling is much higher.
Selden and Mason are playing at a level not expected from freshmen; Ellis is a star and White, Greene and Frankamp are outstanding shooters. Embiid is progressing faster than any one expected and Traylor and to a lesser extent Lucas have both beeb solid contributors. The only player that has not played to expectations is Black; it seems like when he is on the court the tempo slows down quite a bit. With all these players contributing, there has not been a need for Wiggins to compensate and try to do everything.
I really like this team and the progress it has made since the pre-season. The games against OSU and ISU will be epic.
On a separate note. KSU has been a big disappointment. It did not have much coming in this year and next year looks equally bleak; KSU fans are stating to appreciate Frank Martin now that he is gone. The octagon of doom is now the octagon of gloom.
Jesse, a couple of questions:
I know that Mr. Zenger has tried to rationalize the existing contract with TW; however, I would like someone with access to him ask the following questions;
Shouldn't a contract for KU sports ensure that every Kansan in the Sate of Kansas has access to every broadcast of sports programming of the State's flagship university?
What is the rationale for blacking out ESPN3 only for the state of Kansas and the KC Metro area? Does he understand that TW is not available in many if not most areas of the state? Does he understand how upset the fan base in the KC metro is is with him and what most of us consider to be a contract that has seriously alienated the fan base? Does he realize that we can watch EVERY KSU and MU basketball and football game but we cannot do the same with KU games? Are we starting to see his true (KSU) roots/colors?
I will guess that the late signing is designed to see who is staying and who is going. I would say that right now Embiid is 50-50.
The more important question for KU fans is do you want Turner as a OAD in his first year or do you want Joel as a sophomore trying to be the #1 pick in the draft?
About 5 years ago, Kevin Pritchard did a long interview on 610 AM and one of the topics was the NBA one year wait rule. He explained a lot more eloquently than I could, and the gist of the rule was that the NBA was getting burned signing player that excelled in High School but did not pan out in the big league. The NBA needed a "laboratory" where to observe players in an environment closer to that of the NBA and College basketball was the ideal instrument.
The NBA can now 'observe" potential talent for a year and make better decisions on who will likely excel at the next level by watching players play against McDonalds All-Americans rather that watching high school players play against kids that work at McDonalds. It is a purely self serving business decision that has nothing to do with the welfare of the potential players.