🏀 KuBuckets Archive

@BigBad And 48 hours ago apparently half of our fanbase thought Bill Self was a saint.

@cragarhawk Nobody in this business has overachieved to the level of success of a Wooden or a Self or a Knight without some "help."

@cragarhawk I absolutely think a program could be successful playing it clean. Once in a blue moon. When a genetic freakshow grows up a local fan. Like Harrison Barnes growing up in Ames.

@cragarhawk You a Royals fan?

@cragarhawk You watch KU Football games?

What level of success is ok, as long as we are "clean"?

Really, what is the worst you are willing to be as long as it means staying "clean"?

@cragarhawk But you do care that it is successful, correct?

Imagine if Bill Self turned KU into Indiana or UCLA instead of winning at the unprecedented rate he has. But he did it "clean" (whatever people think that means). They'd want his f*ing head for tarnishing KU's good name in basketball.

1. Long knows.
2. I was just thinking this. This entire process makes me think he has to be contemplating retiring more now than ever. And I can't blame him. Either you play the game and get screwed. Or you don't play the game and get screwed. Pretty much a lose-lose situation.

@justanotherfan I don't think so. It would take the NBA stealing away the Top 100 kids to change CBB that much. And they have shown no interest in developing kids ranked 30-100.

Yea it just doesn't make sense to me. Only shot at this working is the FBI verdict coming back guilty and the FBI continuing it's crackdown on behalf of the NCAA. To the point players are scared to take cash under the table.

If the verdict is not guilty, holy shit. $125k won't even be close to enough.

"Shoe companies run the show for these top guys. You think they'd rather have them playing for a blueblood on national tv 20 times a year, or for the Maine Red Claws? My guess is very few top players do this. If any."

This was in that twitter thread. I thought it was a good point as well.

@BigBad Oh I do think that you may be right about the academy system. Poverty is the only thing that might stop that from being a reality. Well that and cheap ass owners.

But I think they will force the NCAA's hand into the Olympic model.

@BigBad Luca Doncic is the exception to the rule not the norm. And he has fans worldwide. Not necessarily the best example, wouldn't you agree?

@HighEliteMajor I want to reply, but I think it would take this entire discussion in a direction that would be a disservice to the board and others following the thread. Because of that, I will refrain from replying to you any further on the subject.

Nothing has changed except the salary increases $100k. That is the only difference in what is being offered and what will be offered. NBA teams won't put up their family in a house. Won't give them jobs. Won't slip them $100k in cash. None of that. Doesn't even include the difference in a social media presence before and after college.

James Wiseman currently has 41k instagram followers. Cam Reddish has 200k.

Matthew Hurt has 7k followers. Nas Little has 133k.

Mitchell Robinson only has 33k instagram followers after being a 2nd round pick and not playing college ball. Gary Trent Jr. went the pick after him and has 103k.

I think maybe a couple of guys a year would benefit financially from going straight to the G-League. But not as many as you think.

@BigBad Lol but they could do that now and nobody budged. If Zion, who could legit be a millionaire right now if he went into the G-League for a year (or didn't even play for a year) didn't go why would a $100k increase in salary make a difference?

Nothing to see here.

I'd think that $500k would be the minimum to make this work, imo. $250k signing bonus and $250K salary.

I still think you see most kids in school. $125k is still probably not enough to make up for brand exposure, facilities, social life, and under the table benefits being offered.

The FBI investigation is certainly not helping the brand image.

@cragarhawk Have you ever jaywalked?

Ever gone over the speed limit?

Have you ever drank underage?

Have you ever let your kids run an illegal lemonade stand without a license?

Have you ever put $20 on a game with your friend and won, not paid the income tax on that?

Have you ever cut someone's grass for cash and not claimed it on income tax?

Have you ever played a poker game with your buddies for cash?

Those are all laws that people choose not to follow daily. Cops don't even write tickets for pot anymore in Lawrence. You could smoke a J right in front of a LPD officer and they'd just laugh and tell you to go do it somewhere else.

People break laws all the time that they don't believe in. And I'd guess, including you. This high horse thing you are doing is absolute crap and hypocritical unless you are Jesus himself.

@Gorilla72 I'd think not.

I also think the worst thing that could happen is this going through the appeals process and dragging all of this out longer

@BShark I know UT pays. I just think Barnes may be about as clean as you can be. While still getting players who were paid on your team lol

@BShark YUCK

@BShark I could totally see a scenario where Rick Barnes is like actually a boy scout. But like so naive (or maybe its ignorance) that things are going on behind his back he thinks he's clean lol.

I mean imagine what Texas boosters were doing behind his back for him. And Nike. But he probably thinks he didn't have recruits put in his pocket lol.

HighEliteMajor said:

I guess I do feel that I generally understand the business model and the entire dynamic with the NCAA, and what it's about. Lots of discussion on that. But I guess I felt that it was not necessary to pay players (if it is/was, then that indicates a lack of understanding on my part, to be sure). I thought, of course, that certain programs did it. But that we didn't, that we didn't have to, and that it wasn't widespread.

This. Continue down this train of thought.

It IS widespread.

So far in the FBI investigation we have now had mentions of players getting some sort of improper benefit or noted as offering one:
- Duke
- KU
- UK
- UNC
- NC State
- Texas
- Oregon
- Arizona
- Creighton
- DePaul
- Iowa State
- Alabma
- Clemson
- Seton Hall
- Utah
- Villanova
- Virginia
- Washington
- Wichita State
- Xavier
- Louisville
- LSU
- Maryland
- Notre Dame
- Michigan State
- Oregon
- Miami
- Oklahoma State

Thats almost 25% of major conference teams right there. I could name other players that ended up strange places.

• Caleb Swanigan to Purdue
• Jaylen Brown to Cal
• Derrick Rose/Austen Nichols to Memphis
• Mustafa Heron to Auburn
• Jaylen Fisher to TCU
• Thomas Bryant to Indiana
• Kevin Looney to UCLA
• Deangelo Russel to Ohio State
• Rashaud Vaughn to UNLV
• Jujaun Johnson to Marquette
• Isaiah Austin to Baylor
• Steven Adams to Pitt
• Winston Shepard to SDSU
• Bradley Beal to Florida
• Shittu to Vanderbilt
• Nickeal Alexander-Walker to Virginia Tech
• Chaundee Brown to Wake Forest
• Blake Harris to Missouri
• Like every player to UConn under Ollie
• Michael Beasley to KSU

And I'm not saying all of those guys got paid. But a lot of their recruitments were... lets just say suspect. That doesn't include players staying home who were suspect. Imagine how easy it would be to land a top 100 in-state kid by calling up a booster and that booster hiring their parent to a cushy job. So much of it goes under the radar that there isn't even a paper trail.

I am not gleeful that KU is caught up in this at all.

I sort of am gleeful that this might change amateur basketball to a system that actually works for the players.

@HighEliteMajor I have absolutely said that I though Bill Self knew he was getting paid players. I expected more degrees of separation, but I absolutely thought he knew about every single player that got paid.

It's really only "morally bankrupt" if you think breaking arbitrary rules, set by a multi-billion dollar non-profit, that exploits athletes, are moral in the first place.

Kcmatt7 Sep 28, 2017, 9:01 AM
@BShark I did find that Townsend was lead on Selby. And Wiggins. And Jackson. And Ayton. If we have a coach who is a problem, it is him.

/topic/6304

I don't want to rub it in anyone's face. This sucks. Just don't get mad at those who weren't wearing ear plugs and crimson and blue glasses when we were talking about this, rationally, over a year ago. And now what we speculated is being confirmed.

If you want to continue living in a fantasy world, nobody is stopping you. Mute the TV and don't read about the FBI investigation. But being disappointed in anyone on the staff is something you did to yourself.

@Woodrow Link?

What did we actually expect from Self? Put yourself in his shoes. Look at the expectations on the program. He absolutely has to land top prospects or else people will question his recruiting ability. He better be winning the league at least every other year, and getting to a final four every three or four years. You can't do that without top tier players. Problem is, you can't get top tier players to come to Lawrence, Kansas for free when they are getting paid to go somewhere else. So, you have to play the game if you want to keep your multi-million dollar job.

Of course I wish Self and Townsend built in a few more layers of separation. Of course I wish it wasn't us in the investigation. But to expect that we didn't have players on the take and that our coaches didn't know we had players on the take is naive. Coaches know everything that goes on in their program.

Honestly, if you have a problem with Self because of this, it's because you live in a fantasy world where you assumed for some reason that College Basketball players aren't worth more than their scholarship despite that not being the case for over 50 years. And maybe now you are finally waking up to that reality. Bill Self has plenty of integrity. You just are shocked that the recruiting "game" is played (and has been since Self was a player at Oklahoma State) outside of the rules of NCAA defined amateurism.

I hope that this ends with a "Not Guilty" verdict because that will be the downfall of the NCAA's stupid amateur rules. The Olympic model will finally have to be implemented, and we can quit pretending that NCAA Men's Basketball and Football are Amateur sports.

Fultz looked awful last night. Like really, really bad. He just has no idea what he's doing out there. Definitely shouldn't be starting.

Embiid had some really costly plays in the 3rd that stretched the game out for the Celtics. Sixers can't space the floor well enough with Simmons unable to shoot the ball.

Lol Coach K saying he wasn't worried about it... Jay Williams said on air he was paid while at Duke and everyone else he knew was paid. He said his former agency paid Kevin Love's AAU Coach $250k.

@Crimsonorblue22 Definitely paid by someone. Butler CC football players find envelopes of cash in their mailboxes.

@KUSTEVE Add in that offensively, it makes sense to put the ball in his hands since he isn't a threat off the ball at all. Force the D to guard all 5 spots instead of basically letting Garretts man play zone. (Which was typically a big slow 4 last year, playing right into our opponents hands).

This year, when he is running point, he should have a 3 or 4 inch height advantage. We could post him up or clear out and let him drive the ball on a smaller guy. He becomes a much bigger offensive threat at PG, imo.

Great article. Valid points. Essentially the game has turned into how well do you recruit, not how well do you coach. A Maryland assistant had contract incentives based on landing players. How coaches don't even evaluate anymore, they just get kids based on rankings or if Nike/Adidas handed them to you. And the article isn't wrong.

@BeddieKU23 Totally worth the sub imo.

I like it better. We actually recruit out of areas we would play. Chicago, New York, Philadelphia. Much better than playing Lexington every year.

Its simply optics anyone is worried about. That's all. Nobody is shocked. Most people probably realize it happens at all the schools. It doesn't appear Self broke any rules. But it also just doesn't look good.

@dylans Exactly. And we are looking at a pretty easy 4 game stretch all things considered. If we drop 1 or 2 of them, I fully expect to see Berry back for either the Rams game or after the Bye week.

The Coaches definitely seem more involved than I had hoped from that Star Article.

Yea this was probably the biggest blow I've heard so far.

@Woodrow I think Berry will be back or they would have put him on the IR already. I think if this team was 4-2 or 3-3 right now, we might see him. But at 5-1, we are still tops in the AFC and playing with house money at this point. No reason to see him play and get hurt right now.

@BShark Yea this one stung. Especially knowing that we need to play close to perfect football the rest of the season knowing the Pats have the tie-breaker now.

Add in that the Pats had extra days rest and prep for this game...

Tough loss, but have to feel pretty confident we damn near beat them in their own stadium without Tanoh, Berry or Houston on the field. I would not feel good about that win if I was a Pats fan.

Mitch is the player Bill Self uses to make examples out of guys this season. Guys not hustling, Mitch goes in. Don't rotate correctly, Mitch goes in. But that's really like 5 mpg. Maybe 10 if that group gets on a good run.

@JayHawkFanToo But he should have been pulling in more boards if he was the only big. If anything his per 40 should be inflated because he was the only big in the game. That is a REALLY bad rebounding number. I'm happy to see him all bulked up. I just think he is probably the worst rebounder out of the 6 people looking for PT at the two post spots.

I do think he brings a great energy and makes some statement plays from time to time. But he really needs to be a well rounded player on both ends of the floor to make up for his lack of size and athleticism.

@JayHawkFanToo Look at his rebound numbers though. And he was the only big in the game usually... With the way this offense is already going to struggle, I just think his rebounding is quite the liability. Again, unless he can shoot the ball well enough to help space the floor for everyone else.

@JayHawkFanToo I would love to see Mitch prove me wrong. But the more I think about it, unless he able to take 2-3 a game and is connecting on them near 40%, he should probably not be playing. It would make a lot of sense to me if he did redshirt this season. He might as well get a free masters degree.