🏀 KuBuckets Archive

Bwag said:

@Texas-Hawk-10
Understand, but it was only 2 until the last 2 minutes..in this type of game...makes a difference

Except it was 3-2 in the second half, and now 4-3. It's not a significant difference.

Bwag said:

10-4 PF disparity

This deep into a game, it's not that significant.

Kcmatt7 said:

Zone may limit Osetkowski too

No it wouldn't. He's the 4 and therefore who their offense would run through from the FT line. Zone would help Osetkowski.

nwhawkfan said:

Some might call this type of game "scrappy." Me, I'd drop the S and leave it at that.

Scrappy implies good defense. This is bad offense more than good defense.

@BShark A good shooting night has KU up 15 right now.

This feels like it should be a B10 game or an old Big East game. First one to 50 wins.

BShark said:

TRIANGLE AND TWO???!

They don't need to change up the defense, they need to do something on offense. I'll take giving up 44 points through 30 minutes every single time.

Woodrow said:

What is Dotson doing?

Playing like a freshman.

Does KU score 50 tonight?

truehawk93 said:

@kjayhawks last game took the fight out of him...he got wore out with those bigs

Fatigue is becoming an issue for Lawson now with all the minutes he's playing.

KUSTEVE said:

@Texas-Hawk-10 Os seems like he's a foot taller than Garrett...

Osetkowski is 250 lbs. and Garrett is 195 lbs. That's the issue.

approxinfinity said:

So you want Grimes out, Mitch in?

Yes, Mitch on Osetkowski and Garrett on Roach. Osetkowski is too physical for Garrett.

Osetkowski is a bad match up for Garrett on defense. Need to get Lightfoot in for Grimes and put Garrett on Roach.

kjayhawks said:

Surely we cant play that damn bad for two halfs in a row. I feel like we should be down 15.

The first ISU game says they can.

Dotson needs to get more aggressive with his shooting. Self needs to give Dotson the Brandon Rush treatment and punish him when he passes on a good shot.

Dotson is our best shooter, but he's too passive still on offense. Every time he drives, he's looking to pass instead of shoot.

3 assists on 10 made FG's for KU.

This is what Mitch is good for. The effort will always be there and he's a very smart player that almost always makes the right play.

approxinfinity said:

I'm not going to leave chic fil a until we are up 10

You'll get kicked out before that happens.

kjayhawks said:

Wow could we play with less energy?

I don't have audio going, but I assume the arena is pretty dead. Early mid week start will equal low energy in that building.

What the hell was that Vick?

That might be worst possible line up among the scholarship players.

Arena looks pretty empty. I know UT usually struggles and KU usually brings a big crowd, but a midweek game isn't going to draw the typical big KU crowd a Saturday game does.

Agbaji starting over Vick.

@wissox Unless Silvio gets cleared, I don't really see this team going past the Sweet 16 this year anyway regardless of who the 1 or 2 seeds are. The combination of bad shooting and bad rebounding is going to be too much to overcome against better teams.

I do think Dedric comes back. People here want to talk how he has nothing to gain by returning, but I don't think much to lose either and probably actually could boost his stock into a late 2nd round pick if he gets his 3 point shot to around 35%.

Right now, I don't see him as anything other than a Summer League invite before headed overseas. If he stays, and improves his outside shot, he could be a late 2nd rounder.

The 2 bigs I don't see playing in a KU uniform next year are Doke and Silvio. Doke has injury issues and needs to leave while he can salvage a pro career. I also just don't think Silvio ever gets cleared. That $60,000 payment should be what keeps him from playing. KU shouldn't receive any punishment from that because it didn't involve KU. The NCAA is not a court of law and doesn't need the same level of evidence to rule someone ineligible. Gassnola's testimony is enough for the NCAA.

I would love Silvio to play this year, I just don't see it happening.

@KUSTEVE You don't even need to do that much screening, passing quickly to the second, third, or even fourth side, that can get open looks and easy drives as well. Problem is this team just isn't great at passing and sharing the ball.

Sparty got the lead down to 4, but ran out of steam late. Purdue is going to hang on and give MSU their first B10 of the season.

Sparty comeback is on, down to 6 point lead with 6:25 left.

Purdue is spanking Sparty right now. 20 point lead for Purdue with 14 minutes left.

Vick is what he is. A guy who disappears in big games. KU needs Dotson to step up as the number 2 scorer with Garrett being the 3rd scorer. Anything from Vick and Grimes at this point should be considered a bonus. Agbaji is coming along, but KU shouldn't count on him for consistent scoring yet.

@BShark Mitch had a role in a 2 big line up backing up Dedric. Now that KU is running a lone post player, Mitch isn't a great fit in that line up as we saw last season. When KU does go with 2 bigs now, it's not for a long enough period of time to need Mitch to play.

If Silvio ever gets cleared, we might see more 2 big line ups and Mitch might get some minutes again. I do think we need to see more of Dave and Mitch though because KU won't survive with Lawson playing 38 and 39 minutes like he has the past two games.

I am happy to see Self use Garrett at the point to replace Dotson. That takes Moore out of the rotation as well which helps since Moore didn't contribute much on either end of the floor.

Another issue I'm seeing with this team is fatigue. Self is essentially at a 6 man rotation at this point. I think this extremely short rotation has contributed to tired legs at the end of games which leads to the inability to stay in front of players on defense and missing shots they were making earlier in the game.

KU had 9 assists on 23 made baskets. This backs up the KU isn't a good passing team concept.

KU was -13 on the glass. That's what KU absolutely has to improve to make any kind of run in March.

Hopefully the Seth Davis story of Silvio getting cleared for next Saturday ends up being accurate. His rebounding ability is desperately needed because this is a bad rebounding team.

That's going to be ball game. This team isn't good enough to overcome this deficit in this environment. Good fight, but the youth and inexperience of this team isn't there to make comebacks this late.

Gotta get stops and defensive rebounds because the refs aren't changing how they're calling this game.

Better half than I thought KU would have. The inability to have a good finish to a half is frustrating. I did enjoy seeing Garrett run point quite a bit this half, need to keep him running more to take some pressure off of Dotson.

@kjayhawks Also, hand checking was eliminated from the NBA because of Jordan which is probably the biggest reason why offensive players have dominated so much in the past 20 years. The rules for ISO offense were also changed because of Jordan. Tge Bulls would clear out to one side of the court and let Jordan take his man one on one on the other side. This was banned shortly after MJ's entry into the league and why ISO plays now go to the center of the floor instead of the side.

@kjayhawks Bulls only played one postseason without MJ and lost in the second round. Jordan elevated those teams from good to great. Wilt didn't have that effect on his teams. Championships matter and Wilt struggled to win championships.

@kjayhawks To me, team success has to part of the equation when determining greatness and Wilt, like Harden, rarely made his teammates better and step up. As great an individual player as Wilt was, he rarely made his teams better overall and why he only won 2 championships. Had he been less selfish and a better teammate, he probably splits about half the Celtics titles with Russell.

Wilt may be ti greatest individual talent ever, but Michael is still the GOAT to me because he made his teammates better and helped guys like Pippen, Kerr, Harper and Kukoc become better players than they ever would've on their own.

Fran Fraschilla just called Dedric Lawson the best player in the B12 during the middle of the OU/OSU game. Said POY likely comes down to whoever win B12 between KU, ISU, and Tech.

@kjayhawks He runs a spread offense, although I don't know how well KU's current personnel at QB fit his preferred styles. His most successful offenses have typically had a very mobile QB running the show. At Texas A&M, he had Reggie McNeil and Stephen McGee, most, if not all of his QB's at MSU were mobile including Dak Prescott who was by far his most high profile QB. The QB during UAB's first season back featured a QB who ran for over 1,000 yards.

If MacVittie can be a mobile QB adapt at running the zone read, that's been a staple of a signature Les Koenning offense.

@kjayhawks Koenning is not a flashy hire, but he has a long track record of producing quality offenses, including in the B12 and SEC and he has very strong recruiting ties to Houston since his dad was a head coach in the city for about 25 years.

@HighEliteMajor KU doesn't have the back court depth to deal with Grimes having his confidence completely destroyed at this point. Without Grimes, Charlie Moore would be the only back court sub KU had and KU can't afford that.

Salvaging Grimes as best as possible this season needs to be a priority right now because KU won't do anything in March without him contributing.

I'm not saying Agbaji might energy off the bench. He does bring energy off the bench. Whether or not KU needs that energy in a given game is another issue.

It has always been and will always be much more important whose on the floor in crunch time than who starts a game.

@jayballer73 This is hire is really cool for me because his dad was my high school coach for 2 years before he retired after the 2001-02 school year. Les was last at So. Mss, his most prolific experience as OC was at Mississippi St. as he helped develop Dak Prescott.

@HighEliteMajor In no way did I suggest anything about coddling Grimes. Nowhere did I say Grimes should play 30-35 minutes regardless of how he's playing. His minutes should be based off of how he's playing. If he's playing reasonably well, then 30 or so minutes would be warranted for that game. If Grimes is playing with low energy or just really bad, he plays under 20 minutes that night and Agbaji gets the bulk of those minutes in that game.

I also did specifically mention Agabaji being a spark if KU gets off to a slow start. A one time spark at the beginning of the game should be all KU would need at that point to get going.

There's multiple examples under Self of guys who didn't start that would regularly be on the floor in important situations. Agbaji coming off the bench doesn't prevent him from being on the floor to end a half or in crunch time in late game situations. It just means that his energy is an asset that can be utilized off the bench to start the game if necessary and he can still be a 25-30 minute per game player.

@BShark Like I said in another post, benching Grimes now would destroy whatever confidence he has left. He can still have reduced minutes as a starter if Agbaji is playing well. Also, Agbaji off the bench gives KU an option for a high energy guard to bring in as a spark if KU gets off to a slow start.

The only issue with Agbaji starting is then KU will have nothing off the bench. Grimes is really bad right now and benching him might destroy whatever is left of his confidence. That doesn't mean that Grimes still has to play start level minutes.

Just remember that Christian Moody was a starter, but played very little outside of that. Grimes can start, and if he's good, leave him in for more minutes, and if not, bring in Agbaji at the under 16 whistle. Also doesn't mean Grimes has to be on the floor in closing minutes if Agbaji is still in.

Agbaji is a very high energy player and that's an asset that can definitely be very beneficial coming off the bench. It doesn't prevent Agbaji from playing 25-30 minutes if he gets his fouls under control. I'm sure Self enjoys having someone he has to feel in instead of having to try and bring put aggression like he does with Grimes.

I get the argument for starting Agbaji, it I think I would still bring him off the bench for now so KU has a high energy guard to bring off the bench if there is a slow start.

KU now has 2 wins Texas Tech doesn't. A home win over ISU and a win in Waco.