@justanotherfan Teams are going to pack the paint against KU because like last season, KU doesn't have a lot of proven outside shooting. Moss is not a dead eye shooter so there will be nights where KU struggles from the outside and go through significant scoring droughts.
This team will be very similar offensively to last season before Doke's injury and that team didn't blow bad teams out of the water. They had a lot of scoring droughts and this team will as well.
@DanR The potential is there, but there's a lot of legitimate question marks about this team as well. How healthy will Doke, Agbaji, and Garrett be this year? Doke has missed most of two years and played injured his sophomore year.
Silvio DeSousa played less than 200 minutes his freshman year. How much has his offense progressed? Does he enough range to spread the floor any?
@DanR Beer sales are extra money. It'll probably be the watered down 3.2% stuff and the wine is likely the little Sutter Homes bottles.
The people that'll go overboard and drink too much are the same people who would do that in the parking lots tailgating anyway, now KU is just getting their piece of the pie.
@KUSTEVE I think you're going to be disappointed that this team doesn't hit the ground running. There is going to be an adjustment period and I don't think everyone is going to make the gains you think they will.
This team will still face a lot of the same issues they faced last year on offense. There may very well be a couple of positions KU takes a step back this year, the 4 spot being the main one. Silvio DeSousa is not going to be a better player than Dedric Lawson was. Silvio is more athletic, but that's about it. If he doesn't have the range to keep Doke from being doubled, there's going to be times where the offense goes stagnant.
Speaking of Doke, he has to hope his FT shooting is north of 50%, otherwise he's a liability on offense in close games.
Same thing with Isaiah Moss at the 3. The upgrade there is off the court far more than on the court. He's going to be the 4th or 5th scoring option when he's on the floor. Because he's a streaky shooter, there's going to be games when he's hurting the offense because he's in a cold spell.
This team also has no depth at PG behind Dotson. If push came to shove, Marcus Garrett would probably be the back up PG. McBride and Harris are total question marks about what they can do as lower ranked guys running point for a national title contender. There's a very good possibility that neither player is ready for meaningful minutes which means KU is one play away from being in rely rough shape.
The ceiling of this team is very high, but there's also some very real flaws with this team that can easily keep them from coming close to that ceiling.
@KUSTEVE It's not the experience jump you think it is this year.
As far as replacing Grimes, that comes down to the health of Garrett and Agbaji. Garrett still hasn't fully recovered from his high ankle sprain. Agbaji's legs are also a big question because if his issues are chronic and he loses his athleticism, he's only a marginally better player than Grimes.
I agree that Dotson needs to be a better playmaker, but I think we'll see that happen as a natural part of his development. I personally want to see him not pass up his open 3's. Even with Moss, I think Dotson is the best shooter among the rotation players next season and I want to see him let it fly more frequently.
I agree and disagree on post depth. I agree that we likely won't see Self switch between a lone post and two post line up, but I do have reservations about the scoring ability from the post beyond Doke. We don't know where Silvio's game is and what his range is. Can he stretch the floor if needed and hit 3's or mid range shots with any consistency, or is his range limited and he's a garbage man on offense?
Pretty much same deal with McCormack, how much has his game progressed? For his size, McCormack was a terrible rebounder last year. Has he gotten any better or is he going to get exposed with more minutes?
If Mitch redshirts, can anyone provide quality back up minutes at the 4?
This group no doubt has the potential to win a title, but there's also a lot of questions that need to be answered before KU is a legit threat.
@Gorilla72 Without Doke, KU doesn't have a proven low post scorer. Silvio and McCormack are both much better rebounders than scorers at this point.
Doke and Dotson are the two players that make KU a Final Four caliber team this year. Take either player off this KU team, and KU is a Sweet 16 team at best.
Doke's health is the single most important factor in how good this KU team will be.
With Doke last year, KU beat Michigan St., Marquette, and Tennessee. I don't know if KU wins a title if Doke stays healthy, but they probably win the B12 last season and have a very good shit at another Final Four. KU did reach the Final Four with Doke playing the entire season the year before.
Doke is a unique talent that I believe is the most valuable player on any major conference team in the country. We've seen what this team is with and without Doke for 3 years.
Should be an interesting series.
Also just read the KU will sell beer and wine on game days at Memorial Stadium now.
Charlie Weis was only good as an OC in the NFL. His approach to recruiting is what truly crippled the program. Nothing before Weis did the long term damage that Weis did trying to use KU as a spring board to a better job.
Mangino got complacent after the Orange Bowl and didn't recruit as hard because he expected to get a better job, but obviously that didn't happen. I never had an issue with Mangino getting fired because that 2009 team quit on Mangino after the investigation was announced. Mangino lost the locker room so he had to go. What I was never a fan of was Perkins publicly announcing the investigation midseason because it was bad publicity and meant he could hire a task master style coach that cycle. I would've much rather seen Perkins fire Mangino after the season and paid the buyout.
Perkins then further screwed up the situation by not being patient enough to wait for Stanford to finish their season and allowing Jim Harbaugh to finish his season there. Perkins further screwed up that search by not modifying the contract he gave to Turner Gill. He straight up gave Gill the contract meant for Harbaugh and put unrealistic expectations on Gill with that contract. That was a win now contract for Gill when he should've had a contract half that size with incentives because KU was in rebuild mode at that point. It was also a bad contract because Perkins never viewed Gill specifically as anything more than a transitional coach after "missing out" on Harbaugh. Obviously we know that situation bombed spectacularly and Perkins ended up fired for the ticket scandal and not Gill because Perkins wasn't going to fire Gill after 2 years.
Zenger comes aboard and decided Gill isn't a fit and fired him with $6 left on the contract. There were two names that most people wanted at the time. Mike Leach was the best case scenario and Larry Fedora seemed the most realistic option at the time.
Zenger goes out on his search and brought back Weis for $2.5 million per season. I don't remember any knowledgeable person praising the hire. Even Weis himself pretty much said he was looking for a quick fix. That was a strong sign that he it viewed KU as a spring board job. His recruiting obviously reflected that mentality and he crippled the program for multiple recruiting cycles. He booted a bunch of Gill players killing the number of upper classmen his first year. He replaced them with JuCo players further crippling the depth of the program at the freshmen level.
After Weis was fired, KU was still paying Gill as well so Zenger crippled his budget for the next hire. As much as we all wanted a big name coach, such as Brent Venables, it was never going to happen because of budgetary issues. We all know Zenger settled on Beaty who was a name brought up from the beginning because of his ties to Texas recruiting, KU, and his price tag.
Beaty inherited an absolute mess of a roster. KU did not have much P5 talent, ridiculous amount of class imbalance from Weis, but he had a contract that could afford him time to rebuild. Even after his extension, it was still a very KU friendly contract that allowed him more rebuild time despite most people's thoughts. Rumors that began swirling after his third year (Jeff Long's hiring is why) killed recruiting for the 2019 cycle and was a setback that Miles will have to deal with. Prior to that, there was real progress being made both on the field and with class balance. KU was a handful of plays away from going to a bowl game last season, that's progress.
As much as people crap on Beaty for the W-L, he did genuinely have KU moving in the right direction just not at the speed people wanted, including Jeff Long.
I don't think David Beaty will ever get the full credit he deserves for the job he did here because he inherited arguably the worst roster situation in a major conference program in the modern era. If Les Miles gets KU to bowl game within the first 2-3 years, hopefully Beaty will get some of the credit for the foundation he left Miles.
@BeddieKU23 Did KU ever get MoKan players before the past few years?
Vick had little to do with that start last year. He put up numbers against the cupcakes and no showed to good teams like he always did.
Doke was the difference maker. KU made a Final Four the one season he was "healthy" all season. Keeping Doke healthy is the key for the season since he's so big that nobody else has an answer for him.
@drgnslayr Josh had off court issues at KU as well. The incident at the Yacht Club I think with the women's bball player centered around Josh damaging a vehicle and resulted in Josh getting suspended. You can't blame Duke for Allen and absolve KU of Josh when they each had incidents in college as well. Either both schools are absolved because each were damaged good entering each school or each school is guilty because each player had incidents at their school.
@kjayhawks OKC is talking to teams about Paul. The two most likely deals if one happens would be Miami that would include Dragic or to Minnesota in a deal that would include Wiggins.
@approxinfinity Pat Beverly was also included in the CP3 deal and he was the one I was more frustrated about giving up at the time. Losing Harrell doesn't bother me too much because there wasn't room for him and Capela and they had to make a choice. Morey has never been big about keeping draft picks, I think the next one they haven't traded yet is 2026.
@kjayhawks Westbrook will be fine without the ball in his hands. His scoring was down a little bit last year because of PG13 and that's a good thing because Westbrook is probably the worst shooting perimeter player in the NBA. Having Westbrook off the ball will allow him to do other things he does well and he'll still get his assists and rebounds.
I think the Rockets either stay where they're at or a small step forward. I still don't see them winning a title because of D'Antoni and his system though and they never will.
Personally, I'm not crazy about the deal because Harden only has this upcoming season left on his deal and if Houston couldn't beat GS with home court or without KD, they aren't winning a title with this group. I would've traded for as many draft picks as possible since the Rockets have very few for the next several years and gone through a rebuild.
KU doesn't even make it to that Oregon game without Landen. Landen's rebounding is why KU made it that deep in the tournament because without it, KU isn't a 1 seed, may not have been in KC, and probably doesn't reach the E8 because someone else would've out rebounded and bounced KU.
@kjayhawks Harden and Westbrook get along pretty well. I don't see the chemistry being a big issue with those two.
@Kcmatt7 OKC is going to have a very hard time moving CP3. I seriously doubt they want to spend the money to buy Paul out who still has 3 years and $124 million left on his deal. The only two teams that can realistically trade for CP3 would be Miami or Minnesota.
Personally, I think Minnesota is the more likely option because they can get rid of Wiggins who is busting big time on his max deal. OKC would also acquire more picks from Minnesota because Wiggins still has 4 years left while Paul has 3 years left.
OKC has the draft picks to rebuild fairly quickly if they do it right.
@KUSTEVE I would bet 2-1. Sparty is better on paper than KU and Self has always struggled against Izzo.
@FarmerJayhawk A scout team can run whatever style is necessary and KU's scout team this year happens to have 4 guards (Braun, Elliott, Teahan and Jankovich) and 1 post player who can shoot from deep as well (Lightfoot). I stand by my statement that KU's scout team would be better prep for a 4 guard offense than Chaminade.
@FarmerJayhawk Sorry, but Chaminade is not a good warm up/practice or whatever term you want to use for a 4 out offense. KU would get way more out of their own scout team running those sets at an up tempo pace because KU's scout team is that much better than Chaminade.
This game doesn't benefit KU in any way other than getting the end of bench guys some extended minutes. This game is a giant waste for KU and they would be much better served if it was a low major team running those sets than a slightly above average D2 program.
@FarmerJayhawk Honestly it's not because KU's scout team may very well include 3 legit D1 players (Lightfoot, Braun, Elliott) and possibly a 4th if Harris reclassifies. There will 2 legit D1 players for sure if Mitch doesn't redshirt. That's in addition to Teahan and Jankovich. Teahan and Jankovich are the only 2 that could reasonably be argued are comparable to Chaminade talent.
I'll flat out say KU's scout team would beat Chaminade by 15-20 points.
@FarmerJayhawk Chaminade is bad enough that it isn't really helpful though in the long run.
Rockets and Thunder are trading point guards. Westbrook to Houston and Paul and two future 1st round picks to OKC.
I still think Westbrook is the most overrated player in the league, but this should make both Westbrook and Harden happy. Still don't see my Rockets winning a title though.
The west just got even more stacked. Clippers, Lakers, Rockets, Jazz, Blazers, Nuggets, and Warriors. You may have to win 60 games in the west to get home court in the first round. You may see a team win 50 games in the west and still miss the playoffs.
@FarmerJayhawk KU beat Chaminade by 51 last time they played. KU will probably get better games against Ft. Hays and Pitt St. than they will from Chaminade.
Like I said, I have no issue with KU being picked last. I was surprised by how much they were picked last by considering the other 3 teams in the bottom 4 also changed coaches so I figured the voting would be closer with KU getting 125ish points and KSU getting closer to 160ish points.
Not really that surprising, but I was surprised by how much KU was picked last by. KU only received 89 points. There were 77 media members who voted so that means at most 12 out of 77 picked KU not last. KSU was picked 9th and received 191 votes.
Outside of KU and MSU, the field is relatively weak. None of the other teams are really top 25 caliber IMO. Anthony Edwards is a really good player, but UGA doesn't have much of a supporting cast around him. BYU and Dayton are solid mid majors, but both are probably going to be bubble teams. UCLA and VT are each transitioning to new coaches so there will be adjustment issues with each team. It's a good name recognition tournament, but the actual quality is down from most years.
This should definitely be a KU/MSU championship game.
UNC's fraudulent classes crossed from an NCAA issue to a Department of Education issue once they opened those classes to regular students as well.
With KU, it's probably just a matter of whether or not there's any additional punishment in regards to Silvio. Vacating games and the Final Four, probation, scholarship reductions.
@justanotherfan Teams aren't winning a championship without going into the luxury tax. Detroit and one of the Spurs titles are the only two I'm aware of in which a title team was under the luxury tax threshold. Part of the reason some teams stay consistently bad like Charlotte is because their owners refuse to spend the money necessary to build a title contender.
@kjayhawks Pooka punching her in the arm is from text messages Pooka admitted to sending that he acknowledged back when he first got in trouble.
@wissox Zion is a freak athlete. A 6-7, 285 lb. person is not supposed to be able to do the things on a basketball court that Zion is capable of.
The potential is there for Zion to be a generational player. Obviously that doesn't mean he will get there. He still needs to become a much better rebounder and improve his shooting along with staying healthy. Players with his ceiling don't come around very often.
Potential upside is why Philly took a risk on keeping Embiid and that he wouldn't turn into another Greg Oden. Embiid is the most skilled and gifted big man since Olajuwon and his ability is making Philly a legit title contender right now.
@justanotherfan Most owners have no issue going into the luxury tax in an attempt to win a championship. Only New Orleans and Charlotte have never paid the luxury tax since its inception. Owners don't want to stay in the luxury tax because the penalty for being the in luxury tax escalates each consecutive year a team is in it.
@approxinfinity Kupchak has also only been GM of the Hornets for a little over a year, not exactly enough time to build them into anything yet.
@approxinfinity Charlotte's issue is that MJ doesn't want to go into the luxury tax, that's not on Kupchak. Dolan is the worst executive in all of professional sports.
@FarmerJayhawk Pooka is suspended for Indiana St. and will return against Coastal Carolina.
@Marco No because Ben Simmons can't shoot beyond 5' and didn't attempt a single 3 pointer last year because of how bad his shooting is. Zion isn't an elite shooter by any means, but he can knock down an outside shot if he's open.
Zion was actually a terrible rebounder for his size. His rebounding percentage was only 15 which is not good for a post player.
His PER was over 40 for the year though which I've never seen a PER that high at the D1 level before. His assist rate was at a level that indicates that his skill set has a lot of similarities to LeBron's and Zion may end as more of a point forward in the LeBron/Magic mold than a Charles Barkley type.
The most overrated player in the NBA is Westbrook. His triple double seasons are impressive statistically, but he never made OKC a better team so his numbers are pretty hollow. Even NBA players voted Westbrook the most overrated player along with Draymond in an anonymous poll done in April.
@dylans Paul George is the only reason the Pacers made back to back ECF. Pacers fans are bitter that he left to go to OKC.
George is definitely not overrated, he's a legit top 10 NBA player. He's the second best 3 in the NBA behind Kawhi.
Every contender in the east lost key pieces except for Indiana. Toronto lost Kawhi and Green, Boston lost Kyrie and Al Horford and only really replace Kyrie (I think Kemba is a better fit for Boston than Kyrie). Philly lost Butler. Brooklyn won't be a contender this year without KD. Milwaukee lost Brogdon as you mentioned.
The east is going to be pretty weak this year I think. I think there's 4 possibly 5 teams, once Klay returns, in the west better than anyone in the east right now. Clippers, Lakers, Blazers, Rockets, and Warriors with a healthy Klay are better than the east's best which I would say is either Milwaukee or Philly right now.
@kjayhawks Pelicans had their best seasons with Boogie and AD together. Boogie should be a good addition for the Lakers. A healthy Boogie is a top 5 big man in the NBA. He's good enough from 3 that you have to respect him on the perimeter, he's a top 3 defensive player in the post. He's an elite passer for a big man, and he's a monster on the defensive glass.
The Lakers are actually shaping into a pretty gritty defensive roster. Probably not better than the Clippers, but definitely a top 10 defensive squad, likely a top 5 team.
I actually really like the Lakers roster right now.
Lakers signed Quin Cook. If Frank plays in the NBA this season, it's likely a two way contract and he spends most of the year in the G-League.
dylans said:
@kjayhawks The Warriors with Klay maybe, but he’s out too (acl I believe).
It is an ACL, but Klay isn't missing the entire season unless he has some kind of set back in rehab.
@kjayhawks Clippers, Blazers, and Rockets should be the favorites in the west. Warriors are gonna miss Klay and he won't be the same when he comes back next season (probably around the All-Star break, maybe even around New Year's if his recovery is quicker than expected) and GS will probably be a playoff team, but not a contender.
In the east, Philly is definitely a contender to win the conference, but Ben Simmons has to develop an offensive game outside of 5 feet. Milwaukee is probably the favorite right now though. I also wouldn't sleep on Boston or Indiana though.
@approxinfinity Kawhi to Clippers along with Paul George. The PG13 deal is why there was a delay in Kawhi's decision so the Clippers or Raptors could work out a deal with OKC.
@KUSTEVE No way he's lying by 5 or 6 years. The stories from when he was in HS would put Doke at being 1-2 years older, 3 at the most. He's probably 21 or 22 currently.
@FarmerJayhawk The advanced numbers show the potential Silvio has to be an effective NBA 4. 71% from the FT line suggests he already has a good enough shooting form to develop 3 point range which is the key to Silvio's NBA future. He's a well above average offensive rebounder and above average rebounder overall.
Silvio also has above average athleticism for his position which will negate some concerns about his wing span. As long as Silvio develops 3 point range which his shooting says he's capable of, he'll play in the NBA.