@wissoxfan83 On 6. I think Coach Brown was shaking a whistle he had around his neck and the whistle hit the ref. He was so close to getting thrown out of the game!
Imagine if we had that year's Scott Skiles on this year's team. A five-star floor general with magic hands and an almost Bird-like attitude.
@justanotherfan Thank you for saying how grateful you are to have a sense of gratitude!
One of the teachers for which I am most grateful quoted an atheist in class: " the worst thing about being an atheist is having no one to thank."
@wissoxfan83 "whoever wrote the article I quoted sure didn't seem to clarify when that was from."
Exactly. The problem was in the article, not the way you read it. I felt like clarifying for Andrew's sake. Anyway, nothing wrong with us rating him now that the season is over.
@wissoxfan83 Just to set the record straight, the article you quoted referred to an earlier article from March 21st:
Wiggins ‘loved’ year at KU ↗
"On a scale of 1 to 10, Andrew Wiggins rates his one-and-done season at Kansas University a “10.”
“I loved it,” Wiggins said Thursday.
What has been the best part?
“The whole experience. Never a dull moment,” said Wiggins, who enters the 2014 NCAA Tournament as KU’s leading scorer (17.4) and third-leading rebounder (6.0).
“I had fun the whole year. Every time I was in Kansas, it was fun.
“It did,” he added of his year in Lawrence exceeding his expectations. “(There’s) nothing like college, sharing moments with your brothers you’ll never experience again.”"
Between the title of the article and his quotes, I was sure he was talking about KU, not his performance. The shortened quote from the more recent article is subject to misinterpretation, in my view.
Also, those quotes date to before the NCAA Tournament.
If we want to rate Wiggins from 1 to 10, fine, but he did not rate himself a 10. Do you really think Bedore asked him to rate himself before the NCAAs? He certainly gave himself a very poor grade in the locker room after the Stanford loss.
@wissoxfan83 on an iPhone so can't be long winded. That article refers to an earlier article where the context was made clearer. Can't look it up right now. I really think he was giving a 10 to KU not himself and the article you quote is taking him out of context.
@wissoxfan83 STOP. Wiggins rated his experience a 10 not his own performance. He gave KU a 10 not himself.
@jaybate 1.0 I love your list, except if we recruit to your specs there won't be any mismatches.
High foundations: so Jabari Parker > Andrew Wiggins?
Now apply your specs to next year: how does our roster compare to your specs? If we can get one player, who should it be? What lineup do you want next year?
@icthawkfan316 just the question I want to see. Off the top of my head, either more offense geared toward good 3 point looks with rebounders in good position, or getting a top flight point guard. Preferably the pg.
I'd be interested in a poll on this site to see how many agree with you. I disagree and I would like to know whether I am in the minority or simply alone.
A 34 game preseason is too long for me. If the NCAA tourney is all that matters, see you on selection Sunday.
@MoonwalkMafia Unlike HEM and you (and maybe most others), I consider the whole season important and not just the last tournament. In fact, I would gladly sacrifice our place in the tournament if we had the guts to quit the stupid NCAA.
Our 2008 win and 2012 final are the high points of the Self years, no doubt, but our 10 straight conference titles are more talked about and more respected even than Florida's 2 straight national titles.
Every player recruited by Self who hasn't left early has been to the NCAA Final. Every single one. There's another nice streak.
Yes, our NCAA landscape has deep valleys as well as peaks, but our early exit (with our most valuable player out) should lead to disappointment, not disenchantment.
That being said, lessons can surely be learned, which is why I am still here reading - and not trading places with anyone!
@JayHawkFanToo Interesting point about Duke. I'll bet KU would have gotten a lot more bad press if Duke and WSU were in the Sweet 16. Of the top seeds who got bounced, we were the ones not at full strength.
@wissoxfan83 "one and only one".
That's what you told me to choose as the answer, right?
Seriously, I would guess "valid point guard", since that is a factor in every other possible answer except for Embiid's injury.
@drgnslayr I would add that Stanford got some foul calls / baskets on head, shoulder and ball fakes, whereas we got blocked because we always, always went right up.
I thought you were supposed to teach them that stuff!
Folks, if there were a fan blog tourney we would be big favorites for the final. As it is, I will probably read much more than post. Thanks for some humour, lots of insight and resilience.
Only a few months until the World Cup...
@REHawk Haha, I thought for a second you wrote accouplement which means "coupling" in French.
Let's keep it propre, people ;)
@wissoxfan83 Thanks! I'll quote Dixie Dywer in The Cotton Club after Dutch Shultz said: "You know if I didn't like ya you'd be dead by now?" -- "It's nice to be liked."
@icthawkfan316 Self was worried about turnovers so he planned to play the guy who doesn't make any. That was Conner, not Mason. Mason is more a complement to Tharpe than a replacement.
Compliment and complement are two good English words: not one, but two. Please use each one properly. If you don't, they will merge into one word with two spellings and our language will be the poorer for it.
After the wild finishes and upsets, the favorite (seed 1 through 4) plays this weekend in all but one pod. By tomorrow night we could be practically chalk.
Not a good first round for the Big 12: 3 losses and a key injury (Niang) to Iowa State. I hate that.
As for KU, the good thing is we won without a single 3 point make. The bad thing is we won without a single 3 point make.
Other than that, we continue to be consistently inconsistent. Even Tharpe can't manage to be horrible all the time.
Still, I loved the fire, the will to win and the stretches of good defense. The Bob Knight quote nailed it: we were more persistent than consistent!
Jamari > Jabari
@nuleafjhawk you mean because it's not football season?
Seriously, do we really want these kids to mess up their health and lose their athleticism just so we can agonize a week longer? The word is "play", people. Coach Self needs to stop channeling his internal football coach, sit guys who are hurt and figure out how to stop hurting them. Don't tell me it's just games causing those quilts.
@JayHawkFanToo If Wiggins were a volume shooter, no one would expect many assists, but he is a volume driver. When you drive, shouldn't assists be an option? Other posters have said this, not just jaybate.
Anyway, assists are just the tip of the iceberg. Wiggins can turn it on and be a man among boys, but he can't become a leader at the drop of a hat. Unlike Danny as a senior, we can't expect Andrew to turn his teammates into Miracles.
@drgnslayr The Sports Medicine Department at the University of Kansas ↗
Why not contact the guy?
@drgnslayr "All these sports medicine guys around the team don't understand nutrition." Even Hudy? I thought the weightlifting folks paid great attention to diet. Granted, with them it's weird stuff like dozens of eggs and no body fat at all, but still I can't believe Hudy wouldn't at least look into nutrition. She basically cooked all day for Sherron.
@icthawkfan316 love your post but did mcD drive or shoot from outside? How many TOs? Makes sense that a guy who drives should work on turning TOs into assists.
@wissoxfan83 "We just found the easiest job in America!" I think someone was exaggerating in that story. He was Senior Associate AD before Zenger came and may be winding down near the end of his career. Here's what the KUAD Web Site says:
"Larry Keating joined the staff as Senior Associate Athletics Director at the University of Kansas in August, 2003. In July, 2011, he was named Special Assistant to Athletics Director Sheahon Zenger.
He came to KU from the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC), where he served as Assistant Commissioner for Basketball/Football Operations since July 2001.
...
At KU, Keating is responsible for scheduling football and men's and women's basketball games, and works with the coaches and administrators for all sports at KU."
http://www.kuathletics.com/staff.aspx?staff=179 ↗ ↗
FYI, his wife, an admirable person I know somewhat, does a lot of tutoring for the football players.
@jaybate 1.0 "the real question is whether HEM is right in arguing that you don't really need any at all."
I don't think HEM went that far. He said he prefers the best multi-year players, but is OK with recruiting OADs to fill a need. He just doesn't want to recruit an OAD to a position where you already have a non-freshman.
Looking at this year, HEM said Embiid and Selden were not clear-cut OADs, plus they filled a need. In short, his only problem is with Wiggins.
Why do you say "going with OADs instead of grooming players like Greene"? Hasn't Greene been groomed this year?
In this thread, there is confusion between strategy and tactics, or between philosophy and necessity. Self had a bad stretch in recruiting, then made up for it with a huge haul. It's been famine, then feast. What is needed is to smooth recruiting out so we don't get this Baby Boom cycle where we lose all our starters every 4 years. The best way is not to jump off the Merry Go Round but to slow it down bit by bit, dropping from 4 OADs to 3 to 2 to 1 as time goes by. (I'm counting Black as an OAD here.)
Finally, as many of you have said the real damage of OADs will come from good multi-year talent transferring out. If Andrew White stays, we will have dodged that bullet.
@JayHawkFanToo Right, I forgot freshmen weren't eligible then. Another reason why you can't compare the teams.
@wissoxfan83 I would take that bet too. Noah and friends came back to Florida for another year, and that's all it took to win back to back titles. How many times did Alcindor and Walton come back?
Plus so many bad habits from the AAU circuit...
Jordan was on a top ranked team 30 years ago. A decade later, he was saying of the new guys: "They don't know how to play. They don't even know how to practice!"
@jaybate 1.0 Lest we forget, the seeds were sown in years past. So many experienced players left last year that we needed lots of new folks to fill the void. Coach Self had no choice but to bring in new players, either freshmen, JUCO transfers or graduate transfers such as Tarik Black.
Would we have been better this year with three other freshmen not good enough to be OADs? If they started, no way. If they didn't, then do Jamari, White and Lucas make us better than Wiggins, Embiid and Selden? No way.
The open question is next year, especially if promising players transfer.
All Self can do is try to unwind slowly, say going from 3 to 2 to 1 and recruiting more 2-4 year players. That's hard to do, especially if one of the 2-year players becomes the number 1 pick in the draft during his first year!
P.S. I don't think Self was banking on a 30+ season this year. He said he figured 2-3 non-conference losses and 4-5 conference losses, so worst case 8 losses at the end of the regular season. We're there.
I am so happy to see that Tarik had a huge game on Senior Night. May the future smile on him big time!
I fear the first weekend.
I fear KU getting late starting times the first weekend, so by the time I wake up ready to watch the game, the tournament is already over.
I fear HEM taking over the NCAA and renaming the season:
-- just funnin')
@bskeet I'm sure you're right, but that's not what I meant. I didn't say "who cares", I said "who cares what order".
@drgnslayr "It just doesn't work that we bag WSU for not playing anyone then refuse to play them. This is our own doing." Simple, beautiful logic.
Anyway, if they and we are the top two seeds in the same region, who cares what order? Win 3 games each, then play each other.
@jaybate 1.0 You say you want the rules amended for Rush: that's open to discussion, sure. Yet your opening premise was that Self was playing favorites for Chalmers and withholding recognition from Rush. That is an indefensible position. Chalmers' recognition was automatic given the rules in place, Rush's wasn't.
Dare I say "Next"?
Hyperbole alert! Yes, Rush was always a great on-ball defender, especially at the end of games when he was less tired than everyone else. He was also a great shooter and a good rebounder. Outside of one Kentucky game his freshman year, he did not "carry" his team offensively - it's hard to do that with a short left arm you can't dribble with.
Simien was automatic for 20 and 10. Self slowed down the racehorses, not just from dogma but so Simien could play max minutes.
Chalmers' jersey is in the rafters because he was MVP of the Final Four.
@dylans It seems you're right about the tracking cookie. I hit the limit, removed all my cookies and got back in.
@drgnslayr Extremely convincing post! I was about halfway through and was thinking "yeah, but we need more transition offense to get Wiggins untracked" and right then you added several paragraphs about open court offense. I really liked the part about transition offense being a good way to defend against 3-point shots; that would be a great subject for some heavy Newell analysis.
Definitely on my short list of best posts ever, despite the competition from all your other posts ;)
@HighEliteMajor I appreciate Wiggins too! And your agreement by the way.
My comment was meant as an observation, not a critique, and Lebron was just an illustration, not a comparison. I do think that, as in football, you're better off hitting than being hit - but you have to get the defender moving before you can initiate contact.
Selden has had a few nice baseline drives that were almost Releford-like. What a finisher that Travis was! Automatic for the 2.
@Crimsonorblue22 Lebron weighs a lot, right. I'm just saying it hurts less to initiate contact than to get initiated.
@jaybate 1.0 Hard to rest Joel with Black out. Two injuries at the same position is not ideal.
@drgnslayr I feel the same way. Joel is really something, even there.
Compare Wiggins to Xavier Henry - not that I'm into Xavier-bashing. Wiggins is going into harm's way. The problem is, he's taking it but not dishing it out.
Lebron goes to the hoop and you think the game will be stopped to pick up the defender limb by limb.
Wiggins seems to drive right at guys to stop just in time and finger-roll over them. If only he could get them moving so he could initiate real contact.
And why don't they post up Selden a little? Let that muscle tire out the defender.
@Lulufulu85 Don't forget that kenpom updates the numbers after games, including the championship game. The KU '08 Champions did not have the #1 defense and #2 offense when the tournament started, only when it ended.
Frankly, if the Tournament started today we would be in the conversation for Final Four and that's it. Fortunately for us, the Tournament starts in a month and KU is improving faster than everybody else.
@Crimsonorblue22 Guy!
@Crimsonorblue22 Here it is.
@Crimsonorblue22 Thanks for telling us to check out the pics. Great stuff! That's one thing where the LJW is as good as ever, thanks to Nick Krug.
I'm just glad Self decided to rest Embiid: only 30 minutes.
And thank heavens for our depth!
Seriously, these guys are on a roll and they love it. They (and we) just need to take the next loss in stride.
Question: what are our most difficult remaining games? At Texas?
P.S. I actually took a few minutes to speed-scroll through Jesse Newell's live blog. The camaraderie between the Bucketeers and the CeeJays is terrific. I can't believe how well this has all developed since FaceGate. You folks are getting better faster than the team!
@justanotherfan Your post made me think of the classic bell curve: the best are extremely good, the worst are extremely bad and both are very few. It's normal that the "talent gap" should be greater at both ends.
Ken Pomeroy could have a field day with this stuff: before the NCAAs he calculates the odds of each team advancing to every round. He could just swap the one and 2 seeds, redo the calculations and show the difference just the seeding makes.
@wissoxfan83 On the all-time victory list: the NCAA says at the end of last season we were 10 victories behind UK:
http://fs.ncaa.org/Docs/stats/m_basketball_RB/2014/D1.pdf ↗ ↗
As of right now (before our game with ISU), both teams have 15 victories this season.
So we are still 10 games behind, with a chance to move to 9.
@drgnslayr They would have just gone outside to play and you would be playing hockey while waiting for spring training.