🏀 KuBuckets Archive

Here is a blurb from an article on CBS:
https://www.cbssports.com/college-basketball/news/college-basketball-podcast-kansas-vs-the-field-to-win-the-stacked-big-12/ ↗ ↗

Because Big 12 play starts Friday. And the Big 12 is, for the fifth consecutive season, according to KenPom, the best league in college basketball. There are four teams in the top 15 and nine in the top 50. The lowest-rated school is Iowa State at No. 76. Which is why something like a 12-6 league record might be good enough to win the Big 12 regular-season title outright.

5th consecutive year as the "best". 2 Final Four appearances in 5 years. Does that sound like the best? Even with the tournament stacked against us every year, that is simply pitiful. So, being the "best" becomes meaningless except on Kenpom's dream world.

Jayballer, I'm not being negative. I just know how obnoxious many conference fans can be. You get some rummy from Arkansas, and his football team sucks. So, he adopts Bammer and Georgia as a form of "SEC pride" so he can continue to brag, and act like he's all that and a bag of chips. Every year, I run across ACC conference flunkies- their team gets beat, so they switch allegiance to UNCheat, or Dook. The B10 conference fans are insufferable, as one of them constantly brings up how many hockey titles Minnysota has won. Ok, dude.... we're talking basketball- I could care less about hockey. If OU somehow ends up as a 1 seed, and loses in the 1st round, it's no skin off my nose. The last time the B12 was "dominant" in the NCAA tournament, we weren't even the B12 yet- we were the Big 8. And it was 1988. OMG, I just wrote a paragraph like you do..lol. You're rubbing off on me..lol.

The B12 is not down- it's about the same. One good team, and a slew of teams that will lose in the first two games of the tournament. They all rate the B12 best every year pre-conference, and then the conference falls on it's face in the tournament. So, the B12 lovers all beat their chest now, and then get sand kicked in their face come tournament time. I'm different- I only root for KU. I could care less what the other b12 teams do.

@justanotherfan His last 2 games, he's made me $$$$$.

@JayHawkFanToo I'd put Embiid ahead of all those you have listed. If Boogie and Unibrow were on different teams, you might have a case for either one of those guys. They tend to cancel each other out being on the same team. Embiid is much better defensively than either one of those guys, imo. Now, my disclaimer is Embiid is the best...WHEN HE PLAYS. So, overall, you could rank all those guys you listed but Gobert and Jokic ahead of him, but on a game by game basis, there is no one in the NBA better than Embiid.

@justanotherfan Put Kanter in there the last two games.

@BShark Real nice kid. If he is still getting 15 minutes per game in March, we're in real trouble.

http://kuhoops.com/ku-basketball-news/191422249/ ↗ ↗

@jaybate-1.0 Artificial intelligence could be the next big break through in athletics. MLB uses all kinds of advanced metrics to set defenses, to working pitch counts to pitch usage, to changing hitter's swings to generate different results. Hell, the movie Moneyball was all about sabermetrics ( Yes, I did have Scott Hattieburg at catcher the year he exploded. That was about my only good pick in Fantasy Baseball that year. ) Our RPI, BPI, and other artificial sources are attempts of valuing and comparing college bb teams, wins and schedules, etc. One day it will be Coach Self logging into his computer, and he'll have a complete dossier on his next opponent. The algorithm will show him where to attack, what happens if he goes a certain route, and what is the best possible lineup with thousands of simulations pre-game.

@Bwag That's why i used the word "Punky" to describe him. He'll cut that out as he matures. Devonte had several instances when he was younger where he bounced the ball of his defender as well, and he turned out pretty good.

@DoubleDD My hope is that Mitch ends up playing the last minute of the game in blow outs because we got Silvio dialed in, and Sleasy Preston playing ahead of him. Mitch is a long way away from being a valuable rotation guy. He's not ready for prime time yet, but he is making progress from last year's results. I'm not mad at him. I don't dislike him. I just hope he doesn't have to play as much the 2nd half of the year as he did the first half.

@KUSTEVE [

Check this out : Punky Brewster on a bb court.

[[

Merry Christmas, everyone. A special Xmas greeting goes out to our friend Rooster, and his family. Merry Xmas, guy! Thank you for being part of our Buckets community.

@jaybate-1.0 I alluded to that on another post. In fact, he could do a 4 out next year with 4 guys on the perimeter who either played point guard at high school, or in college. The ball handling next year could be absolutely insane.

@JayHawkFanToo That's the floor. He'll make a run at B12 POY, imo.

@justanotherfan Ok, so let's say we start Dotson at point, then Grimes as a 2, and let's say we'd have Garrett at the 3. Can you imagine how good our ball handling could be with 3 point guards on the floor? All 3 of those guys played point guard in high school. Then we'd have Cunliffe and Moore that have played point in the mix as well. We have the potential of having a potentially great ball handling team. The Lawson brothers are known for defense. Garrett is known for defense. Cunliffe is on the way to being very good defensively - next year's team could be the best defensive team we've had in a long time. It will have more depth than I can remember. It will be a very young team, but they should be absolute studs defensively.

@BShark Mitch is having to play out of position, and is simply not ready for meaningful minutes. He made mistake after mistake in the Stanford game. I would like to see the team get to the point where Mitch is playing a few minutes at the end of games. He's going to definitely get better, but he's simply overmatched backing up Doke.

@wissox I missed the game, so I'm watching it this morning. Stanford has players with man buns. I'm pulling man cards for that.

@chriz Oh, hell yes!

Welcome to another episode of " As The Front Line Turns". On today's episode, De Silvo's grades are expected to be released today, so we have a live feed for the announcement below:

Oh wait. I take that back. We don't have a live feed. In fact we don't know a damn thing, including a clue about de Silvo.

@JayHawkFanToo You're on a roll today. keep 'em coming.

@jaybate-1.0 One of the very few times I just could not stay awake to watch the game. Sounds like we mauled them pretty good.

Butler can score. Karl-Anthony can score. Wigs can score when the team needs him to score. When Butler was out, and they needed Wigs to carry the offensive load, he scored way more than what he is now. It's a team game- not an individual sport. Wigs does what the coach asks him to do. Maybe the T-Wolves coach prefers Butler to carry the scoring load. That doesn't mean Wigs couldn't carry the load. Some people fail to grasp the "team" portion of basketball, and think it's all about launching 20+ shots every game.

@jaybate-1.0 We have 6 new players coming in next year. One was the AAC POY. 19 ppg + 10 boards a game. His older little brother averaged 12.9 + 9 boards a game. Charlie started for a Power 5 team. The 3 we signed were all top 40. Overflow from an overabundance of talent in the market? Does it matter when you have a brilliant coach who is now licking his chops over the prospect of having so much talent on board? I think not. We are LOADED FOR BEAR NEXT YEAR. Keep the faith. Final Fours are coming.

Woe is us because we don't know if or when they'll approved. Woe is us because the players coming in might take a while to get up to snuff. Let's end the pity party. So our team will be at their best once we start playing for the Big Cheese - I can live with that.

@approxinfinity Happy Birthday.

@nuleafjhawk I'll take Frank any day of the week.

@JayHawkFanToo tell me about it. I put Embiid in one of my DK lineups, and learned the hard way he wasn't playing. Ouch.

In other news, D'Aaron Fox hurt his ankle, so BIFM kicked butt last night. He had 16 points in 22 minutes. Nice...

Monster throw down. A Luke Skywalker at the rim. Pure 3 point shot. Has the ability to be really good on both ends, but has a ways to go. After making a sweet 3, he then fires off a contested 3 a few plays later, and hit the bench, so he has to earn his trust from coach. All in all, a much more athletic player than practically everybody on the team - if they can get this guy into the rotation, and get him playing team basketball, the sky is the limit. Might take a year or two.

My tweet to Dickitch:

It was nice to see Dan Dickitch come to AFH for our game tonight. It's not often we get a mid-major announcer to call our games...Walton is stoned...what's your excuse?

@jayballer54 Ahhh, don't tease me like that..lol...

There isn't one fan in the B10 that doesn't hate Dickitch's guts. He's a punk.

Thank God Dan Dickitch covers the B10. Every fan from the B10 hates his guts. Once again, an ESPN announcer making the game about themselves by idiotic gum flapping.

@drgnslayr Funny you say that about the announcers. I was so relieved we didn't have Dope head Walton or One eyed Dickie, I actually enjoyed their commentary. I didn't pick up a bias.

@dylans Enjoy!!!!

@truehawk93 Az St came back and smoked them.

@drgnslayr He showed moves last night that were so far ahead of what he had done earlier in the year, it didn't even seem like it was him. Also, his body is losing the baby fat. He looks a lot leaner, and healthier. He had a real nice put back, and is finally learning how to shoot that baby hook.

@wrwlumpy Remember 2012? We made winning by a nose an artform. He's teaching them to be tough, and last night they were.

@jaybate-1.0 I'm concerned anytime I hear the word "concussion". Like you alluded to on another post, the brain rattling around in the skull is definitely "no bueno". I'm certain the KU medical staff checked him out, and cleared him. That doesn't mean he is A-OK, though. I'd like to see him either play real limited minutes Monday, or not at all.

@jaybate-1.0 Bad ball is back. The hi-lo is back. Smoke 'em if you got 'em. Newman, rub some dirt on it. "Show me a good loser, and I'll show you somebody whose had a lot of practice at it. We want tough hombres that will go out and win". I'm not sure who said that, but when I was a much younger man, I worked in a trophy shop, and that was engraved on the wall.

@BShark Looks like we're back to the hi-lo grind out games.

@jaybate-1.0 He had to get his room and meal comped. He couldn't go to the Indiana yokels and say Kansas was best, so he had to give them some fluff.

It beats losing to the Cornshuckers. This was a great warmup for B12 play. Packed house - this was their game of the year. I don't think we look good, but I thought Doke and Graham played well. Svi looked pretty good for a half. Lightfoot did real well I thought. Newman did well for having a concussion, I guess. Although Garrett couldn't shoot, his defense was superb. All in all, we looked sluggish and ugly alot. The 1-3-1 zone baffled us, which helped them almost beat us. I think we have a long way to go, and a short time to get there.

@BShark It was ridiculous, imo. Newman was obviously not right. Garrett missed every shot,. Why not give the kid 10 minutes, like you said you would pre-game?

@truehawk93 Jerry Palms a.k.a. "Rosy Palms" is the inventor of the RPI system. He is a very mediocre bracketologist, and a pretty bad interview.

My winning percent is down a little bit so far this year. I am 7-2 in picking the winner of KU games so far. I'm going to predict we will win tonight, thus pushing my record to 8-2 ( 80% ). A little bit lower than normal, but I feel like I will make it up in conference.

Tyshawn. That was a great half year, wasn't it? It only took 3 1/2 years of the human turnover machine to get it right. The sex in the gym incident reminds me of the sharp mental focus he displayed for most of his career. Still like the kid, though.

@JayHawkFanToo Good point. A 1 game suspension for taking a bribe. And Billy is still dangling in the wind.

@chriz Not sure what’s least impressive, him picking Alabama or Self letting him pick Alabama.

Maybe Coach Self didn't want to pay him off like Alabama.