🏀 KuBuckets Archive

@jaybate-1.0 "Take what you give me." Did you click the link? He wore the arm band all the way back in high school. On his left arm... That ain't chronic. It's just a fashionable thing. Guys that wear headbands don't wear them because they have concussions. Carlton doesn't wear his pants all the way up because he has a hip injury and the extra padding from him rolling his pants up prevents his hips from hurting. Give the elbow up. Maybe a leg. But still, doubtful. Especially given his conference stats are 14.6 ppg and 5.6 apg.

Is it not more realistic that teams have moved him up the priority list? And that we have also increased his usage? Resulting in performances that look less than stellar yet still creating career highs. Last season he was the 3rd or 4th scoring option depending on who was on the floor. This season he is the 2nd or 3rd with instances of him being #1 for a few minutes a game. So instead of drawing the 3rd, 4th and 5th best perimeter defenders on a team he is being guarded by the 1st, 2nd and 3rd best perimeter defenders.

Higher usage+better defense= Off nights. Happens to all players.

@Crimsonorblue22 I had a heck of a time finding him. He is a wing from Ft. Worth, TX I believe.

Seems to be off the grid and not on AAU circuit like some of these other guys. Chris Smith is also one of the probably top 10 most common names on Earth so he was hard to find just in general...

• http://www.espn.com/college-sports/basketball/recruiting/player/_/id/216622/chris-smith ↗
• http://247sports.com/Player/Chris-Smith-88440 ↗

Bet he ends up at UK. Been there twice. Most recently January 3rd.

Wouldn't make sense to me to get another wing commit right after the Cunfliffe news. Not one that is reclassifying.

@BShark Athletic and has a good looking stroke. Wouldn't be upset

@JayHawkFanToo If Noel was worth anything he'd be gone already.

@mayjay This is not the season for that. They need a top 3 pick to get their future PG. There is a projection that the first 3 picks this year could all be PGs. And the 76ers need to land one in the worst possible way. If they land a PG and a shooter or another uber wing they can start that process next season. I think the 76ers with a 2nd year Embiid, Simmons, and a rookie playmaker at the PG could push for an 8 seed next season.

The only way I see them doing what you are saying is if they plan to trade for a veteran PG this offseason and make the leap to be a contender sooner rather than later.

@JayHawkFanToo and with management knowing how deep of a class this is, they will do everything in their power to tank. Simmon's might have a "setback." Or they might REALLY limit Embiid's minutes after they are mathematically eliminated.

If that team can land Lonzo Ball, Fultz or JJ they get that much scarier. They are also projected to have the 7th pick and could land Monk.

A potential starting 5 could be:

Ball
Monk
Simmons
Okafor
Embiid

Now that lineup right there has some potential.

I just don't see a team that is 100% committed to tanking giving up a chance at an allstar PG. Not when next years class is supposed to be pretty weak.

@drgnslayr I'm just saying that this is the type of game Baylor needs to steal if they want to consider themselves really in the running for a Big XII title. Because this is a game on our schedule that I can't ever count as a win. And Baylor won't win the Big XII without doing 1 of 2 things. They have to be perfect at home or they have to steal a really tough road game. KU typically does both every season.

This is the game where we find out just how legit Baylor is. If they can turn the ball over fewer than 18 times, I'll take Baylor for the win.

@jayballer54 confident that their minutes will go down as JJ learns how to stay out of foul trouble. Him getting techs where he goes from 1 to 3 fouls and he has to sit for 10-12 minutes a game is what is causing the B12 minutes to go up for Frank and DG.

@jaybate-1.0 He wore that same thing last year. Guys at the freaking rec wear them. It looks "cool" and it feel comfortable to wear the "lingerie." He even wore the damn arm band all the way back at Brewster on his left arm. TRob wore them on both arms. Doubt he did it because he hyper extended both elbows.

http://www.collegehoophits.com/blog/devonte-graham-is-a-jayhawk ↗

Let's be real. He is scoring more PPG. Has more SPG. Has more ASP. Is shooting a better percentage from the floor even though he is taking more shots and shooting worse from 3. A better percentage from free throw line. And he is still shooting a very respectable 38% from the arc. DG is healthy.

@Crimsonorblue22 It had to be done... Trading a bench player for a possible starting pitcher is definitely the right move. Especially a 30+ year old speedster who is one blown tire away from being worthless.

Jarrod Dyson traded to Mariners for RHP Nathan Karns.

Don't know what to say about the trade. Needed to happen after we got Soler. Was either going to be him or Cain.

Karns Put up pretty bad numbers last year and ended his season on the DL I believe. He will be under control until 2021, so I like the trade from that perspective. Karns has an upside still being only 25 as well. If he could find any consistency, he might be a solid rotation piece. Worst-case, he will be a solid bullpen arm.

@Texas-Hawk-10 please explain.

Because the way I see it is that Baylor would want KC #1 and then Memphis #2.

We need to at least split with Baylor in the regular season and win the Big XII outright. Otherwise it could be both teams fighting to get KC in the Big XII tourney.

CFB isn't going anywhere. Did any team actually lose money from having a football program this season? I doubt it. Until teams lose money from having a football program it won't change.

TV money has gotten too good at this point for anyone to lose a football program. Not to mention that with Title IX rules, it would be tough to get rid of a football program and another 100 women's scholarships. Alumni at any school would freak out if that were to happen. The student loan bubble will hit and close down entire schools before football programs hit the fan. Football will be illegal before it is taken out as a program. Even NAIA schools can afford to keep a football program. And in fact, I bet they posted record revenues. I saw several NAIA football games broadcasted on ESPN3. Baker even played for the championship on ESPNU I believe.

TV will not let these "products" fail. Do they want small conferences? No. Do they want a 5th big conference? No. But will they let potential money-makers fail to get the Big XII to break up or get rid of small conferences? No chance.

The decline in attendance is directly correlated with TV. And there are 3 obvious resaons:
- Broadcasting is at a level that you would rather watch it on TV and see the replays and drink cheap beer and eat cheap food than go to a game. Especially when your team sucks. Why spend $100 to be disappointed when you can spend $20 and change the channel when the game gets completely out of hand?
- Nationalized television is growing more every year. You can watch any number of top 25 matchups every week. No point in watching your crappy team when you can watch a much more entertaining game.
- Overkill. There is football on Sunday, Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. There is too much football. So by the time Saturday hits, you have watched football Sunday, Monday and probably Thursday at the very least. And that is if you haven't watched even more sports during the week. People are tired of sports because they are so available. A Saturday football game isn't something you plan your weekend around anymore.

@jaybate-1.0 My theory is that we are switching too much on defense. Teams are getting matchups they want. And they are getting any help defense away from the post because all we do is switch. A 1v1 matchup in the post is almost unfair with how touchy today's rules are. We need to get back to hedging on defense. Like fully hedging on defense. The 4 needs to play a 4. Even if it is JJ or Svi. Disrupt the ball carriers and set yourself up to be able to double team the other post.

I don't like switching on defense. It makes it too easy to pick matchups that can be exploited and dictate where the defensive players will be. Stiff man to man defense is what all of these guys have been taught and what Bill Self does best. He is trying to adjust to this 4 out on both sides instead of doing what he knows best on the defensive end.

I think if we start hedging with Svi and JJ we will see the disruption we are used to seeing. If we keep switching, teams will continue to pick us apart.

Baylor is really talented. But super beatable.

Their offense is a completely unstructured mess where they just pass it around and then chuck up a shot and hope Acuil or Motley get an offensive rebound. They rarely fed the post against an undersized ISU team. At least they didn't feed the post like they should have.

Their defense is lazy. Again they just rely on Acuil and Motley to save them at the rim. They give up open 3's left and right. The let anyone and everyone who wants in the paint to get into the paint. Frank, DG or JJ very well might drop 30 points against Baylor if they play the same way they did against ISU.

And back to earth for VT.

@dylans absolutely true. Refs took us out of our game with foul calls.

First half - 10 point lead and only 14 fouls called.

Second half - outscored by 8 points and 24 fouls called.

It isn't even like the fouls were one sided. It was about even. But, because of all of the fouls, we never got to get out and run like we like to. And we couldn't play defense. They couldn't score at a pace out of the half court that was great enough to keep up with us running in transition. JJ's fault if we are being honest. That Tech sparked refs.

@globaljaybird just thought I'd share some things that are a little funny. Kstate fans know the same thing everyone is just having a little fun with it.

http://www.kansascity.com/sports/spt-columns-blogs/for-petes-sake/article124512879.html ↗

http://www.kansascity.com/sports/spt-columns-blogs/for-petes-sake/article124553379.html ↗

@Blown In their defense, Svi's travel looked a whole lot more like a travel than WVU's travel. And we had our chance to win that game. Perry missed that shot he would probably make another 95 out of 100 times.

This is probably a better comparison. You are still somewhat right about a double standard though...

http://www.espn.com/blog/collegebasketballnation/post/_/id/111328/dukes-grayson-allen-with-game-winning-birthday-gift-for-coach-k ↗

@Ralph Apparently word is no more visits. He had a great time. Supposed to decide in the next 3 days or something.

My manager friend told me that his dad basically said he was coming here.

@BShark My manager buddy just texted me and said that it sounded like Cunliffe is coming

@jayballer54 Cunliffe 100%.

He was averaging 10 ppg as a freshmen. He can shoot the trey. And he would have basically 4 years left.

Copeland is a solid get as well. Just not the same upside. He would be a guy you could count on to be a very solid player off the bench or someone who can fill a spot if we were really lacking depth.

Quick updates:

• Washington heading into conference play 7-6. Just lost at home to WSU, a Pac-12 bottom feeder this season. Romar talk is heating up more and more. More likely than not, going to finish last in the conference. Not a bad job for a Mid-major guy to take over. I think he is gone.

• Sam Cunliffe visited yesterday and is still here today to see the KState game. I expect that decision to come before too long. He also visited Seattle and Georgetown.

@dylans Apparently it was more about his dad liking Roy than his dad liking KU... Pretty sure the only other place he seriously looked at going was UNC.

@dylans Beaty will need to tighten up a little bit here in the next couple of years. Be happy go lucky and get some good recruits in, and then get tighter. We need to be more disciplined as a team. WR blocking needs to get much better. So does our special teams return game. Just the little stuff like that.

Duke honestly doesn't scare me. They are mentally weak right now. The whole entire team except for Kennard, Jackson and Jefferson.

Nova, UK and UCLA are the scariest teams right now IMO. Really excited to see us play in Rupp and measure ourselves against another elite team again.

@dylans Still the best coach in the game right now. Proven he can win with just about anything going on with his coordinators.

@Crimsonorblue22 yea he will play. Think they wanted him to be 100% for the playoffs. After last year where we couldn't touch Brady, we had to make sure we got Houston healthy. We saw what he can do when he is feeling good. That first Broncos game he damn near won by himself. Andy Reid handled the end of the season perfectly. And I am really happy with how good the offense has looked the past two weeks. All of the media talk about us not getting the ball to Kelce and Tyreek must have opened his and Smith's eyes.

Also, Maclin starting to look like himself again here late. And Conley had a very solid game this last week. We have the weapons on offense to get it done. Just up to Reid to call the plays and Smith to trust his playmakers.

What worries me the most is our run defense. Linebacker depth is lacking. We may need to revisit bringing in another linebacker. Also, our stop-gap defensive ends are starting to show why they are supposed to be backups. We really miss Howard and Bailey.

Would love for a bad team to just let him play 30 minutes a game for a month and just see what type of numbers he can put up. His per 36 numbers are always insane. I'd love to see what he could do if someone would just let him get comfortable out there.

B12 spreads today:

• WVU -3 ML: -155
  vs OSU +3 ML: +135

• TTU +4.5 ML:+160 vs ISU -4.5 ML: -170

• BU -4.5 ML: -190
  vs OU +4.5 ML: +170

• UT +8.5 ML: +330
  vs KSU -8.5 ML: -400
• KU -7 ML: -290
  vs TCU +7 ML: +245

Games I would bet today:
- Texas vs KSU. I'd take Texas on that money line all day. Paying 3-1, yea well worth a $20 bet.
- #2 UCLA vs OSU. UCLA is 21 point favorites today. If you can find a place to give you a money line, put $5 down on OSU. Well worth it if UCLA has a bad shooting night and OSU can play at a snails pace. Bet the spread.
- #22 USC vs #21 Oregon. Oregon is a 9 point favorite even though both teams are ranked right at the same spot. I'd take USC and the money line paying 4-1 right now. I'd put $100 down on this game.
- URI vs SLU. Money line pays 8.5-1 for SLU right now. Line is set at 14.5 in favor of URI. I'd think that SLU can keep it within 15 points at home. Bet the spread.
- #18 Arizona vs Cal. Cal is a -2.5 favorite. Cal has not played very well on their home floor. Been taken to OT twice by lower level teams and just lost to UVA. They have played 5 games within 10 points already this year on their home court. I'll take Arizona and the money line.

Just looked, the game has been bet all the way up to 6.5 or 7 now depending on the website.

I would say history of KU going down to TCU in recent years pushes the line closer than it should be. An inflated 11-1 by TCU does too. Then you have Dixon who people respect.

Line should be closer to 8. I'd take KU with the 4.5 all day long.

Lol at Iowas State fans voting Morris. ISU has done nothing impressive yet this year. The 3 decent teams they've played they lost to. Even dropped a game at home. I think this team could be the leagues biggest disappointment this season. This is the year we find out if Prohm is really a coach meant to be in a P5 conference.

All of your stats also don't count assists. Perry was never much of an assist guy. JJ has incredible vision for a Freshmen. He is averaging 2 more assists per game than Perry did. Which is another 4 points each and every game.

Another way to look at this is team scoring. We as a team are outscoring last seasons high scoring offense. By 5 points per game. That is without both Selden, Ellis and Greene. That is 22 ppg we are missing and we have added 5 more points on top of that. And, our defense is averaging roughly the same amount of points given up as last year. So we are scoring more and defending equally as well.

If you look at the defensive presence that JJ has, he far out-paces both Wayne and Perry. Our defense is scary for opposing guards. JJ is averaging 1.6 steals per game. Perry and Wayne averaged 1.2 together. Josh has 1.5 blocks per game. Wayne and Perry again were 1.2 added together.

But again, not only has JJ been good enough to stuff his own stat sheet, he has made everyone else better. Across the board we are stealing the ball at a much higher pace than last season. This year we have 4 guys averaging over a steal per game. Last year we had nobody averaging a steal per game. He has allowed Devonte, Frank and Svi to be able to play more aggressively because his athleticism makes up for things. Buke being a solid rim protector was a big part of that as well, but JJ with 1.5 blocks a game is a better rim protector than we had all last season. He changes the entire game simply by being a freak athlete.

@JayHawkFanToo I mean that we haven't recruited one.

Henry isn't a foreign player. We all know that.

And so we went from 2004 to 2014 without recruiting a foreign player.

If you want to debunk me, you should build that same list with foreign players we recruited and didn't land from 2006-2013.

You also Missed Buke, We have had 3 African bigs land at KU in a 4 year period. That doesn't seem strange to you? We have only had one (Niang, who was recruited by Roy), that I can remember in my time, and then we land 3 in 4 years. That's not just something that is random. Either we are recruiting foreign players harder or we have something that really lands with foreign recruits. Either way, this isn't something that strikes me as ordinary. You don't have to agree or see it that way, but I definitely am feeling that Self has made a conscious decision to start going after foreign players.

@JayHawkFanToo I didn't miss your point. They are all over. Got it.

But why did we have a decade without one? They weren't the top players? Or we just didn't go after them?

@JayHawkFanToo I guess you're proving my point. When did this happen? And has Self leaned into this? Clearly Davidson, Gonzaga St. Marys, etc have all leaned into it because they are trying to compete with the big boys. Has Bill learned that this recruiting these foreign players is what keeps us at that Blue Blood level? It is clearly a strategy by other teams. Is it a strategy by us right now? Or is it just that we have had several foreign players at this time just out of coincidence?

From Sasha until Embiid, Wiggs and Svi, we hadn't had any international players that I can remember. That is a decade. Then we have 3 and have added two more. Seems to me like Bill is leaning into this foreign player influx.

A story on Bill Self's move to foreign/non U.S. players. Svi, Udoka, Embiid, Diallo, Wiggins are just recent ones. We had a big break from Sasha to all of those guys. I realize that Udoka, Embiid, Diallo, Wiggins and Sasha all played HS ball in the U.S. but do we have a particular reason we have been able to up our game with foreign recruits lately? Is it our Adidas sponsorship? Is it just happenstance? Is it Bill is a good closer on guys that come on the radar out of nowhere and outrecruits other coaches? It sure seems odd, at least to me. We had such a large gap between Sasha and all of those guys and now Bill has either embraced it or it is a completely random set of events that seem to be related and aren't.

@BShark To me, he looks a little more athletic than Micah, but that isn't a bad comparison. I'd take 3 1/2 years of a Micah Downs.

@BShark He's a big get. It sures up the wing spot next season. He shot 40% from trey in the 10 games he played for ASU. Good add at semester to come in and practice and push guys this season. Then he would get to be a fresh body at semester next year. Just in time for conference play.

Our practice squad is seriously phenomenal. I'd love to see a practice this year. Newman, Maxwell, Lightfoot and Coleby pushing guys. If we add Cunliffe this year, man, our practice squad could end up pushing our starters to that next level.

@BShark Like the sound of that.

@BShark Bird in the hand though...

@BeddieKU23 He would be a decent rim protector and rebounder if Self got ahold of him. Teach him to finish a layup and lookout. I mean it isn't like Coach K is known for his player development. At least not into NBA level talent. The Plumlees might be the best bigs he has been able to hang his hat on since Sheldon Williams. And the Plumlees were going to be Pros regardless.

@JayHawkFanToo I'm not saying Porter will be head coach. But he could still be a "video coordinator" or something dumb.

I just don't see how you can wait too late. Someone will have an open scholarship.

@BeddieKU23 I wouldn't snub a 6'11 big with NBA potential that we get to have practice and toughen up for a year.

@BeddieKU23 I hope they play well. Not because I like them, because I don't want them to end up a 4 or 5 seed on our side of the bracket...