🏀 KuBuckets Archive

Agreed, and don't get why fans/journalists are getting mad about the rules now. Maybe casual fans hear that a team was crowned the players era champ and that carries some marketing weight, but that is going to be a small set of people. Difference between the teams that go 3-0 really doesn't mean anything in the long run. I was also under the impression that the current players are the ones that miss out on the prize money, so not like this goes into NIL budget for you to recruit for next year.

I would understand if the players missing out on money are a little upset about though.

Yeah he has blown away all the expectations I had for him

@kjayhawks said in Other games 2025-2026:

I liked Diggy last year he was a spark plug several times. Honestly would rather he stayed over Elmarko or Mari at this point he’s a much better player than both. It’s the same reason Ngala should play more IMO

I feel like KU would have gladly had him back coming off the bench, but he wanted a larger role than what he would get at KU.

Lol not even without DP @ the K-State worries. They barley beat Cal and Tulsa at home.

Small sample but his FT % is up too and that will be a few PPG added if he can keep it up when we aren't playing duke and he gets calls

@BeddieKU23 I'm not optimistic about the team if DP doesn't come back, but I have a hard time believing he shuts it down for the full season. This draft class is pretty stacked so he needs to play to be the top pick and dropping from 1st to 3rd alone gives him $12 million reasons to play. It will also help his draft stock to show that the hamstring isn't going to be a recurring issue for the team that drafts him.

Also don't know about his handlers, but scouting on DP leading up to this year make it seem like he is pretty competitive, so leads me to believe he isn't sitting without actually being injured. A hamstring isn't keeping him out the full year unless it keeps flaring up, so taking the recovery slow isn't a bad thing. The one area of concern I do have with this though is that it isn't a great sign for if him playing through a minor injury should one flare up near the tournament.

@kjayhawks I think if we can stagger the Tiller and Flory mins and get Tre playing the 4 ~10 mins a game, we are fine. Booser was a terrible matchup for Tre though as he excels at bulling smaller players and had no issues passing out of the double, so we needed both Tiller and Flory on the court the full game to have a chance. Not many teams have a 4 man of that level, so I don't think this is a flaw that will sink the team.

Dawson is injured right? Definitely like the lineups where Dawson/Rosario are playing well enough to start as Council/White/Jackson/Flory lineups will be a bit rough in the shooting department. Maybe not as bad as the last few years but that isn't something we really want to be comparing to.

Also just because someone doesn't share your principles, doesn't make them an asshole.

@dylans said in 2026 Recruiting ( Crazy but ):

Flory averaged less points and more fouls per minute than AJ Storr, let that sink in.

Not giving yourself a lot of credibility in this argument by cherry picking stats to compare him to Storr lol.

I can and will criticize him whenever I damn well please. His actions are that of an impetuous money grubbing unprincipled piece of crap.

Never said you couldn't just that I think you are wrong to do so.

I have done just this. 🤔 a man of principle- principles are expensive, I am all too aware. Also it paid off in the long run, just like being a Jayhawk would.

Maybe you have, and good for you if it worked out. Can you say for sure that your situation was the exact same as Flory's? Maybe you had a boss/company you trusted, do you know Flory has the same relationship with the staff? Were you also a 19 yr old from a different country likely being pushed by your guardian to make certain decisions? Have some empathy before villainizing people, especially someone on a team you support.

@dylans Ok lets slow down a bit with that rhetoric. Feel free to be disappointed with how he handled the situation, but that doesn't make him a piece of shit. Would you stay at a job even if you love it if another company was coming in and offering to more than double your salary? Cause that is what we are talking about here. Flory isn't guaranteed to have a NBA career and also has to worry about getting injured and missing the opportunity to even get there. This could be his only chance to make a decent bit of money that could have to last him the rest of his life. Ideally yes, you want players to love KU and only want to play here, but KU also can't be lowballing their returning players that much and expect to get that kind of loyalty even with players that grow up KU fans.

I do agree he doesn't need to be coddled, he got paid and now he needs to shows up this season. If come next month, he isn't showing any improvement, then he deserves all the criticism you want to give him.

Yeah see him as a likely return to college. He is athletic but has a weak offensive game outside of cleanup duty so probably needs to be an elite defender if he is going to have a role/high draft pick in the NBA. IDK I see him quite being at that level yet in a year but could happen or he could just want to bet on himself and get his NBA contract clock started.

As for the transfer portal, reports were that he entered because KU lowballed him not because he was unhappy here. As long as that doesn't happen again and the year goes well, I don't see any reason to expect him to transfer next year.

@FarmerJayhawk with a 5 year deal too so that is a choice. Would be concerned as an auburn fan unless the buyout is pretty low.

@kjayhawks said in Not paying for ESPN this year:

You guys find an honest politician let me know, sounds more like a unicorn… not real.

I can emphasis with this feeling age get why you say it, but these kind of statements aren't helpful. There are definitely some politicians out there who want to help people, but to do so they have to make deals that go against their campaign promises in order to make actual progress. Then there are people who lie constantly and are just looking to line their own pocketbook. Both have lied, but there is an ocean of difference between them.

@kjayhawks said in Not paying for ESPN this year:

@approxinfinity my issue isn’t necessarily that he said it. It’s the fact that it is completely false and I think that is dangerous when you have people assassinating people on false pretenses that everyone that sees the world differently is a Nazi or evil. The funny thing is about Kimmel is he was plenty racist and sexist when he got his start on TV with the man show, even did black face.

“The MAGA Gang (is) desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it,” Kimmel said. “In between the finger-pointing, there was grieving.”

You keep saying Kimmel said something false, but what about this is untrue? He doesn't claim the killer is MAGA just that trump is desperate to believe he is not. You could say he is inferring that the kid is MAGA, but that is a far cry from him making a completely false statement. We also don't know enough about the killer to say for sure what his reasonings for the murder was. You say you are pretty sure he wasn't MAGA, but you aren't certain because you are inferring from circumstantial evidence. Your post here has more false information than the Kimmel segment.

@dylans said in Not paying for ESPN this year:

😢 😂 kimmels rating sucked. It was just an excuse. No one likes the overly political late night “comedians”. This way woke Disney can blame it on the right. 😂 psy-ops and it appears to be working.

FCC chair is on podcasts and national TV threatening to revoke ABC's license cause of Kimmel.

@kjayhawks No I didn't care about random people being fired for spreading hate online and getting fired. I'm also not upset if that happens to people promoting violence today lose their job. Seems pretty consistent to me, why do you think I am being hypocritical? Do you have any examples where Biden's administration was directly threatening a company to fire someone over something they said? I sincerely would like to know if you have this as I would also be against that.

In your own postings, you lament the right wing getting censored and are OK with the left media getting censored. How is that not the exact hypocrisy you claim to hate?

@Kcmatt7 Agreed, but it is important to highlight that the FCC censoring people is a significantly bigger deal than private citizens being shitty people online.

"The issue is with Kimmel was it was completely false." I'll take the bait and get a little off topic if you want, Kimmel never claims to know who the killer is or what his party affiliations are. He is making fun of the fact that Trump is taking whatever crumb of information he can to turn this in to immediately start attacking people. He is not showing any actual remorse for what happened. This doesn't matter though because even if what he says is false, how is it not a 1st amendment violation for the government to push him to be fired?

"The guy had a trans girl friend I’m quite positive he wasn’t right wing." Again who the killer was should have no bearing on the government's ability to violate the 1st amendment.

You are getting quite off topic here. Why are you bringing up reporting? Kimmel is a comedian/late night host not a reporter.

I am saying the government influencing someone getting fired is against the 1st amendment and is a clear violation.

Where did Kimmel celebrate his death? He was making fun of Trumps response to the whole thing.

You are making this about the MSNBC guy when I don't think that is out of line and maybe I'm not online enough but I haven't see anyone rational saying that either.

There are always going to be some people that can't understand that, but I don't see anyone confused here. Disney/ABC are allowed to fire Kimmel on their own. The issue here is that the FCC pressured them to pull Kimmel. Are you ok with that?

@Kcmatt7 Fair and agree boycotting likely doesn't make a dent in anything. But the FCC pressuring disney to pull kimmel as a 1A violation seems like a much bigger deal than players just kneeling during the national anthem to me, so not going to fault someone from wanting to do what they can to oppose it.

Also, boycotting disney/espn doesn't mean you can't follow the team. You can watch at bars or watch replays/highlights and can always sail the high seas and find a stream if you don't mind a bit of lost quality/convenience.

Heavy Marcus slander here. T-Rob goes above him but they are both in a tier on their own above the rest of the group.

100% agree with the difficulty choosing between Rush/Och for #1 and I think I would have ended up at a tie. Ochai did have to take on the larger role but from what I remember of Rush, he might have been the better all around player just on a better team.

Svi and Releford at 3/4 seem wrong to me but if you are putting a lot of weight in to 4 years of contributions I can't fault it too much.

I might be alone in this but Ben/Gradey feel like they belong on the shooting guard list no? Maybe even swapping them out for McCullar on the SG list as he played the 4 at times even.

Feel like McCullar could have been #2 if he stays healthy and has a strong tournament. #7 is fair though with how it played out

@wissox I get what you are saying about tournament success and agree it matters, but Frank's senior year was good enough that the tournament results don't move the needle enough for me to personally rank anyone above him. He also made 2x elite 8s so it wasn't a complete dud there for him.

Frank was also around 5 assists per game his last year too which higher than all but probably Miles/Graham/DaJaun so he was at least average there, he was just so good at scoring that passing was a relative weakness in his game.

Ostertag as the block leader probably needs an asterisk since Wilt would be leading if blocks were a recorded stat back then

What kind of odds are you offering? I'm not big on betting but I wouldn't be able to pass up if you are giving out 100/1 championship odds if you really think KU has no chance for a title. I'm seeing most KU Vegas odds sitting at 20/1. Florida and Uconn from 2022-2023 season both won it going in to the season at 60/1 odds, 20/1 hardly seems hopeless.

Really, I'm just not seeing your reasons to completely give up on the season. Have you been at summer workouts and the team is a mess or something? Have you scouted the incoming transfers and see something that makes you think they are going to flop? I wouldn't even push back much if you were just saying you don't have high expectations for the team, that's reasonable. But seems like you are saying there is no hope for next year based on vibes and ppg numbers.

I don't see anything in that article that should have you this down on next year. If you are talking about on paper, Barttorvik preseason rankings has Arizona slightly higher than KU and TT significantly lower. I do agree Houston is likely to be better, but they still have to replace some major contributors in Cryer and Roberts. These are also all preseason rankings and don't mean that much at the end of the day. It is wild to already be punting on the season before even seeing this team play a game together. IDK if you are just down on the NIL era in general or trying to neg the season so you don't get hurt again, but you can let yourself hope a little man.

Next season is going to be as good as DP and Flory let it be. The supporting cast around them doesn't jump off the page but appears to fit around those two pretty well. We went for the big transfer names in the past few years and those haven't worked out for us, so it is encouraging to me that we went after fit over talent this year. Yes a bit more shooting around DP/Flory would be nice, but that should at least be improved from the last couple of years.

So far, I haven't seen anything on DP/Flory coming out to make me believe they aren't up to the task. Granted I have been a bit checked out of KU news lately so could always be some concerning rumbling I am just missing.

@rockchalkjayhawk I think those concerns are valid, but for 3 point shooting we know we are already getting an upgrade on 3 pt shooters at the 1 and 4 so at least can't be as bad as last season right?

With how this team is build, it seems like the key won't be to lead the nation in 3pt%. Just shoot enough at a respectable % so that defenders can't pack the paint and block driving/cutting lanes.

@dylans "If you’re going into a field so specialized there are only a few openings, you know where they are located, it’s no surprise." 100% agreed and this very statement is what I am getting at, the NBA is such a field.

I would place a lot of money on betting you can find more military people that are stationed where they don't want to be compared to NBA players in the world. The players also don't even have to live in that city for probably 30-50% of the year between road games and offseason, unlike most other jobs. They could also be deployed at any time and you are going to a much shittier place than Utah and can't take your family with you. Just saying being in this situation isn't as unique as it appears.

I can empathize that yes it would suck to be drafted to a team you don't want to be on or to get traded, but NBA players are paid a premium to give up that flexibility and have union representation to support them. Players could also individually negotiate a no trade clause in their contracts, but no one does that because they don't value it over leaving money on the table. Everyone in the NBA benefits from the draft system as league parity makes the whole league more profitable. I just don't think any of us need to feel sorry for NBA players and imagine most of the players would even agree that getting rid of the draft is bad for both the league and players.

@dylans TBH no different than anyone going in to the military and even specialized job fields. You often have only one option for the job you are trained on and sometimes have to move to a location that isn't ideal for it.

The NBA at least has a union and every team is in at least a decent sized city

@BShark Jackson or Council looking likely to start? Or both and its Dawson is the 1st off the bench.

Had noticed some buzz that Elmarko Jackson is looking good this summer, but nothing specific so was curious if anyone else was hearing the same.

Tre at 6-7 right? Couldn't tell you how big he plays though.

Give up some top end size but looks to be an extremely switchable lineup so not all bad.

Searching his name plus D2 pulls up his stats for the last two years (or this link if you trust me https://riderangersride.com/sports/mens-basketball/roster/camron--mcdowell/7039). ↗

Listed as 6-6" with 27.3 ppg with 39% from 3 on 7.5 attempts per game so the stats are good. Always a risk D2 players can't handle the jump in competition though.

I could be missing something, but I think that ESPN link is him but he dropped down to D2 for the last two years.

Yeah agreed and that is looking to be hard at this stage so then we would be stuck relying on Jackson/Council to really exceed expectations in order to have a truly top team. I don't love being in that position and it is a big if for Jackson coming off for injury, but there is a chance that a starting lineup of DP / Jackson / Dawson / White / Flory works well with council as the 6th man spark plug and Tiller backup big role. I don't feel terrible about the 8th man being McDowell as he should be improved from what we saw freshman year. Definitely not a perfect roster and there isn't much room for error as injuries could easily derail the season, but throwing bad fits on the team just to have depth and hoping for the best hasn't worked out in the past 2 seasons and seems to be at least a part of the reason we are falling short our previous wing targets as donors seem a little more hesitant to contribute to NIL.

With that many unknowns, I wouldn't have large expectations for the team, but I do still find myself looking forward to seeing how it plays out. Maybe I'm just in an optimistic mood knowing I don't have to watch Hunter lumber down the court any more haha. Feel free to think I am being delusional!

@DCHawker TBH besides Bryce Hopkins, these names don't jump off the page for me. I'm sure Rick will coach them up and get them playing together, but Jackson in particular has serious defensive issues and couldn't stay on the floor on a middling UNC team.

TBH if we get a starter level 3/4 wing and I would really like this team. The roster somewhat reminds me of the 19/20 squad that played around Dotson/Dok being the only players that averaged >10 ppg. With that as the model, we wouldn't even even need to add a 15 ppg scorer to be successful. I don't see Flory getting to be senior year Dok level, but it is reasonable that he could get close and DP could end up better than Dotson. Also know with hindsight, the back end of the 19/20 roster ended up looking pretty loaded, but Ochai/Braun/Wilson/McCormick weren't playing at the same level they were the national championship season, so we don't need the starters around DP/Flory to be either. We do need them to not be busts like the last couple of seasons though.

Lol was just about to reply with the same thing, maybe was a typo as I could see an argument for the 5 over the 4 being a generation upgrade assuming Flory makes a leap? (Or hopefully @BShark has recruiting I don't know about)

At the 4, we have either White/Tiller playing and I don't see either being a guaranteed upgrade to KJ. Better offense from Tre playing there but losing quite a bit on the defense and Tiller could be worse on both accounts I don't believe he stretches the floor. Only other player I could see playing the four is council and even there it seems like it is at best a wash comparing to KJ.

Yeah DP would scare off PG transfers but we aren't really going for any and if you are an off ball player you should want to play with him as he will draw a lot of defensive attention.

Can definitely can see our NIL looking a lot healthier once we are a good deal past the football stadium funding drive. Honestly, football doing well indirectly hurts the basketball team too as they are pulling NIL funding from the same sources. I don't think the impact is that notable though if we hadn't had 3 seasons in a row of underperformance especially with regards to transfers.

@Texas-Hawk-10 Agreed, safe money is still on Houston as the more proven commodity to win the league, but add Williams and the potential is there for this KU team to be better.

Seems like a real shot but definitely going to be competition for him. Missing Sarr might end up a blessing if this frees up budget and lets us land Williams.

Agreed that interconference transfers aren't my favorite but with conferences so large now, you are ignoring a large portion of the transfer pool by not looking at them.

@TYOHawk Any reason for thinking that? I've seen loose reporting that he wants to stay in the draft honestly nothing that would make me believe it is a sure thing.

He is being mocked as a late 2nd round pick so unless he splashes at the combine or a bunch of prospects ahead of him drop out, he is slated to be making more money next year coming back to college. Maybe he is just ready to be done with college and bet on himself, but he has entertained offers to transfers which makes me think that isn't the case.

@Kcmatt7 End of season rotation, I would agree with you. Early in the season, I would put Sarr in the 2nd group for competing for the 2 open starting spots.

@drgnslayr said in Norm Roberts Retires:

Oops. No, not now! I meant a phase out. 1 or 2 years. We probably learn more about his timed exit with Roberts’ replacement. I keep hearing Chris Beard’s name as a replacement for Self. Is this real? I like his abilities as a coach, but this is KU! Are we going to be able to keep our reputation for long coaching runs? I wonder if that will be possible moving forward!

Agreed, we aren't the SEC. Honestly is embarrassing to me that there is even speculation that KU would go with Beard and I'm hopeful it is just fan chatter.

Feels very much like a Frank Mason signing. I don't expect near that level of play from Council but the recruitment vibes feel similar, i.e. found him while scouting someone else, general public down on signing but staff leaks are all super positive

Get Darrion and KU might be preseason #1 again lol, but sounded like BYU money is on the table for him so I'm not holding my breath

Edit: reread your post and may have missed what you are saying. KU is involved or signs pointing to him heading back to Tech now over BYU?

Always a little hesitant about expecting much from a reclass prospect in 1 year, but just saw it work out for Flagg and Stokes is rated just a small tier below that as a recruit.

Definitely sounds like a ceiling raiser though and makes this a pretty complete team with top tier talent/athleticism at the each of the G/W/C positions. Not going to say no to riding with that.

@dylans haha not that there should be risk in using it, but I'm pretty sure it does not qualify as legal

@BeddieKU23 said in The portal.:

If he was healthy there would be more to talk about with him. Unfortunately, he came to KU early from the HS ranks still recovering from a major ankle injury, never got cleared during the semester and now has had surgery recently which is going to put him out another few months. So, we are talking about a player that has missed now at least 1 full calendar year of playing basketball and will be out until early summer. I think it’s just wise to say until he can actually play that nobody has any idea, not even the coaches. You’d hope he could be a serviceable 3rd/4th big next season but even that seems like a stretch. I’m not sure he’ll be a focus for the upcoming year. TBD I guess.

Yeah fair assessment and very well could be the case. Even if Tiller is the 2nd big on the roster I can see wanting to have a good rotation option behind him as Flory can be foul prone and don't want to be left with just relying on Tiller.

I am hoping a backup 5 role is a reasonable expectation for him though so it allows us to put energy/NIL on shoring up our wing position over using a big chunk of that on a 3rd big.

@SlimShaddy54 does Tiller not qualify as a 2nd quality big? Know he is a freshman but seems like he could be a serviceable backup 5. Granted I don't know much about his game but his scouting reports all sound like a better fit for the 5 over a 4.