🏀 KuBuckets Archive

@HighEliteMajor And yet, your post implies that KU will remain static and not improve while everyone else does. KU is for sure adding 1 new player into the rotation to help with depth in the front court in Cunliffe, likely 2 since DeSousa seems likely to join up around conference, and possibly 3 if the Preston situation gets sorted out in KU's favor.

KU had issues with Kentucky, but who in the Big 12 even comes close to matching UK's combination of talent and length?

This is the weakest the Big 12 has been in a long time and KU is the only team that appears good enough to even make it past the 1st weekend of the NCAA tournament this year.

@HighEliteMajor. The I wouldn't be surprised statement I made was about how many games KU would win the Big 12 by, not whether or not they would win it.

Tell me who's good enough to beat Kansas over 18 games in the Big 12 this year because I haven't seen anyone good enough of the teams I've watched so far which as I said earlier, is most teams in the league already.

@HighEliteMajor This team has a killer instinct that we haven't seen in years from a Kansas team. These last 2 games have been against teams projected to win their leagues and KU has put a foot on their throat from tip off and never gave them a chance to believe they could win

West Virginia is supposed to be the 2nd best team, yet they get blown away by an undermanned Texas A&M, TCU struggles against New Mexico. Baylor looks like the 2nd best team right now so what you're saying @HighEliteMajor is that you think Scott Drew or Shaka Smart are good enough coaches to win more games than Kansas this year.

There's not a definite bad team in the Big 12 which is why computers always love the Big 12, but there's nobody in KU's class this year and I've watched of the teams play already expect for OSU and KSU this year.

KU might drop a couple of games here and there, but there's not a lot of talented bigs in the Big 12 this year so I'm not overly concerned if KU has to go with Lightfoot a few games because of foul trouble. Our backcourt is more than good enough to make up for that. KU wins at least 14 league games this year and I don't see them losing before conference play starts either.

@BShark I didn't say 2nd best, I said 2nd most talented. Quite frankly, I wouldn't be shocked if KU won the league by 4 or 5 games this year. After KU, there is a huge drop off to the 2nd tier of teams and I would put UT in that 2nd tier along with WVU, TCU, and Baylor. 2nd place in the Big 12 could very easily could easily be a 2 or 3 way tie at 11-7 and I wouldn't be shocked if UT is in that group.

Are we really going to assume sweeping Texas after they're taking Duke to OT and leading most of the game?

UT is the 2nd most talented team in the Big 12 and Mo Bamba is the real deal on defense. Those won't be easy games for Kansas.

@kjayhawks No way Mangino wins 5 in 2010. KU had no QB because Mangino never developed a back up/successor for Reesing. That's why Kerry Meier was officially the back up QB for 3 years despite also being a top receiving target for 2.5 of those years.

The other issue is KU's defense was still going to be crap that year because Bowen would've still been the DC and we would've seen the defense continue to regress under him like it did the 2 years prior.

@kjayhawks I really wouldn't at this point because I don't think he would do much to improve KU with the current scheduling set he'd have to deal with now. He might get KU to 2-3 wins per year which is basically what Gill and Weis were doing.

@wissox The most telling thing to me about the perception of Mangino nationally was that there were no major programs interested in him in 2007 or 2008 when his value was at its peak.

@wissox I'm sorry, but absolutely not. Mangino was overrated as a coach. He came to KU as a supposed offensive genius, but it took him 6 years to finally have a good offense.

His Big 12 W-L was also horrible when he faces a very weak Big 12 schedule on a near annual basis. The Big 12 North was hot garbage in the mid 2000's and he had plenty of years where he never dealt with OU or Texas and had the weak half of the South and still finished 18 games under .500 in Big 12 play. The Big 12 is much more difficult now than it was back then, and Mangino also wouldn't have the luxury of 4 cupcakes in nonconference like he did then.

I'll say right now that I think Glen Mason was the better coach of the two.

Frankamp is already pretty close to a horseshoe. He's got an impressive combover for a 23 year old.

ESPN reairs most of the games they show on Saturday's early in the morning or late at night because they have air time to fill. This is nothing new for them.

This discussion is the epitome of white privilege. Because I work with quite a few African Americans, male and female, this was a topic that I was always curious about so I have had some conversations here and there on the topic to try and gain a better understanding of what the phrase really means and entails.

This is a prime example of white privilege. Why is there even a need to bring this topic up? How many times have we heard Bill Self use improper grammar in a halftime interview or a post game press conference? Why has his bad grammar never been mentioned before when it happens?

Why is it that when an African American coach uses poor grammar in a press conference, it's something worth pointing out?

White privilege is not the blatantly obvious things, it's subtle things like this that you don't think about until other people mention it.

Mike Davis grew up in a small Alabama town. He currently coaches at an HBCU in Houston which is very much southern. I stuck out a lot at KU because I have a much different accent than most at KU because there aren't a lot of kids who grew up in Houston at KU.

Bill Self absolutely has a big small town Oklahoma/Midwest accent that would stick out like a sore thumb if he coached on either coast.

@JayHawkFanToo You don't add Sosinski with the expectation that he's going to be a major contributor, you add him because of the need for game day depth. He's a guy that could steal a few minutes for Azubuike so he doesn't have to play 35+ mpg in close games. Once KU gets to conference, we know the blowouts are going to end because Big 12 teams are much more familiar with KU unlike the teams we're playing now.

There will also be games where Azubuike picks up a couple of early fouls, is anybody here comfortable with the idea of Lightfoot or Cunliffe playing meaningful minutes at the 5? Sosinski may not have the height, but at 260 lbs., he can physically hold his own on defense in the paint which is what KU will need more help with if Preston never plays.

@kjayhawks Mayfield was arrested for public intoxication, disorderly conduct, resisting arrest and fleeing in Arkansas back in February. Sounds like Manziel territory to me.

I've dropped his name a couple of times in different threads about an easy way to add depth. Self should call Beaty up on Saturday night or Sunday morning after the team gets back from Stillwater to work out an arrangement.

@justanotherfan There was nothing that happened in the pregame to warrant not shaking hands. It wasn't a situation where two rivals were getting after each other in the pregame and you avoid a handshake to avoid inciting a potential incident. This was just a low class move by KU's captains and has brought negative attention to a football program that doesn't need any additional negative attention.

@BucknellJayhawk3 Honestly, I think KU will be at its best this year with Graham as the third leading scorer behind Newman and Azubuike. Graham is a natural pass first guy, he's not someone whose first instinct is to drive into traffic and draw a foul like many of the previous PG's we've had are. We haven't had a PG of this style since RusRob.

Malik Newman is the guy who is the natural scorer and Azubuike is bigger than everyone else and will play big minutes this year. Either of them should lead the team in scoring and the other should be second with Graham being the guy distributing to them. Most of his points will come from him getting kick out passes for 3.

@kjayhawks You're complaining about Lightfoot like Self is playing him over someone more deserving. Lightfoot is trying his best, but he's being forced into a situation he isn't ready for because Preston did something stupid.

To say he's not a D1 player is absolutely crap on your end and ragging on the kid for something beyond his control is classless on your part. Based on your post, one would have thought Lightfoot was expected to average a double double this year instead of being projected as the last guy in the rotation, which shocked, he is.

@kjayhawks A guy who came to KU as a long term project player looks like a long term project player relatively early on in his career and you're shocked by that?

@kjayhawks He's a lower rated guy forced into a bigger role than he's ready for because of the depth situation. Kevin Young didn't come to KU as a true freshman, he came as a junior who had also spent a tear as an assistant coach at a small school.

Clay Young is a senior so why wouldn't he have a better understanding of Self's system than Lightfoot at this point?

@kjayhawks Mitch Lightfoot was a low end 4 star recruit. He's absolutely a D1 player, but his trajectory has never been someone expected to contribute early on. Landen Lucas was an unranked recruit who didn't start contributing in any meaningful way until his 4th year at KU.

Lightfoot will never be a star player and he probably needs to red shirt, which could happen if there are 4 other front court guys next year. He's someone that can be a contributor by the end of his career in a similar way to Landen or Kevin Young. Not star guys, but we're solid, rope players for Kansas.

@jaybate-1.0 Garrett will get there because he is KU's vest perimeter defender. His shooting is still not good, but he does so much of everything else well that he'll start getting more minutes. It also helps that he can sub for 1-4 which makes him valuable as a bench guy.

@wissox Baker's incident was the final one of the 3 moments in the game. The handshake was first, nothing about Mayfield provoking Kansas players ahead of time to warrant the any. Defense's cheap shot was the next incident, and then Baker grabbing his junk and cursing at KU came last.

@nuleafjhawk Just like Famous Jameis was a few years back.

@wissox Baker Mayfield is someone who hasn't learned how to control his emotions yet and has made an add if himself on multiple occasions both on and off the field.

@mayjay Hell no to Jim Mora. Mora is someone who has progressively gotten worse at UCLA. That's another Charlie Weis situation waiting to happen at KU.

I'd like to see KU make a run at Craig Bohl at Wyoming. He's the architect of the North Dakota St. dynasty. He's also not likely to get the Nebraska job that should be coming open this year because that is Scott Frost's job if he wants it. Bohl is going to be their back up plan.

I was busy all weekend and didn't get to watch the game until this morning. Baker Mayfield is an assclown, but what KU did at the coin toss and Defense's cheap isn't defendable. It was low class and completely lacking in sportsmanship and Beaty not holding them accountable has pushed me to the other side of the fire him/keep him issue.

I could deal with the losing for another year as part of the big picture plan to set the next coach up for success early on with a full cupboard of scholarship players, but that crap on Saturday is indefensible.

JayHawkFanToo said:

@DCHawker

As far as I know/remember, to get a perking pass all you had to do is show your DL, provide the car brand, model, color and tag number and prove you were a student; proof of ownership of the car was not needed or required. I imagine with athletes it might be somewhat different.

You just have to pay the fee for the sticker, at least when I was there. Different colors depending on where you needed to park. One color for the resident hall parking lots, one for West Campus, and one for on campus parking lots. I never had to show a DL or anything else other than saying which sticker I needed and a method of payment.

TSU started out as the black law school for the University of Houston before becoming a full fledged university. This is why their campus is located next to UH.

TSU is a good team and 1st round caliber team because they make the dance on a consistent basis under Davis. A couple of years ago, they knocked off Michigan St. and KSU when both were tournament teams over Christmas break so this could be an interesting game. This isn't going to be a lively crowd because a lot of students will be away for Thanksgiving so it could ve the type of atmosphere where upsets happen.

Their schedule has been brutal so far, but they have been reasonably competitive against that schedule so far. I don't know if KU hammers them like they have Tenn. St. and SDSU, but I'll say it'll be a 20-25 point win.

@HighEliteMajor I will tell you that a triple option also relies on an extremely high IQ player because you have to make multiple reads every play. This is why academies can run it with a moderate amount of success because you have to be a high IQ player to go to an academy school. GT can be up or down based solely on their QB situation.

In a talent deficit spot like KU would be in, fewer possessions is not a good thing because it means fewer opportunities to score which puts an even greater burden on the defense to get stops because you might only get 7-8 chances against 12-13 chances in more of a pass first system and KU needs as many opportunities to score as possible.

Even if KU changed over, they would still face a talent deficit and would likely be trailing more times than not. It's not a system designed to play from behind which KU will still likely be doing on a regular basis.

Baylor built their program recruiting the same pool of players Kansas was. RG3 was never assumed to have a football future, he was a track guy playing football on the side and originally committed to UH before Briles took the Baylor job.

I'll end my discussion with this. QB is the single most important position in any sport and it doesn't matter what system is being used. Without a competent QB, every system will fail.

@HighEliteMajor That was the philosophy Charlie Weis attempted to implement. A pro style, control the clock, run first system. Aside from from the personnel issue, it's also much more difficult to come from behind in a run based offense because of the clock. Take the second half against Texas for example, KU trailed by 15 for most of the second half. That's a 2 or 3 possession game depending on converting the 2 point conversion. In a pro style or option offense, that's a big task to do so and when Weis was coaching, it rarely felt like KU had a chance to overcome those issues. Against Texas last Saturday, none of their fans were comfortable with a 15 point lead against Kansas because of the capability of the Spread to come from behind.

KU is going to be playing from behind regularly simply because of the talent deficit regardless of the coach. The spread offense is much more capable of those comebacks than a run based offense is.

KU's epic comeback against Colorado under Gill doesn't happen with a run based offense because of the clock.

I've been involved in football as a player and coach for about 20 years, the Spread offense is the best offense for teams with a talent deficit because it's all about creating space for 1 guy to make a play which is all it takes.

Do I think the Air Raid is the best version of the Spread for KU, not necessarily, but it's not hard to change to another version of the Spread because the concepts are still the same, it's just the emphasis in how to gain those yards that's different.

I'll put this way, I believe we are much closer to being a competitive team running the spread, any version of it, than we would have been if we had tried to keep buiilding on Weis's pro style, run first philosophy.

@DoubleDD You have to have top flight talent to run the Spread offense, that's why it started at non traditional powers and worked its way up to the big boys.

OLine's take time to build regardless of system and when you start 4 sophomores and a freshman, it's not going to end well regardless of system. The biggest thing KU is missing that's preventing the offense from taking that step forward is a QB. Get a QB that can read a defense and find the 1 on 1 match up against man defense or the receiver in the hole of a zone defense, and KU's offense would be leaps and bounds better. I really do believe that KU is one player away from being a bowl team right now. Because that one player KU is missing is the most important player in sports, we see what KU looks like today.

Kentucky is the type of team that has bounced KU the past couple of seasons in the tournament. They are long and very athletic. This obviously doesn't guarantee anything, but it has to be a confidence builder for KU if they run into a similar type team later this season in the NCAA tournament.

@HawkChamp That's what Frank Mason looked like for the better part of 3 seasons at Kansas. He really didn't start figuring out how to drive and pass until pretty late into his ju lot season.

@kjayhawks There's a walk on TE that played JuCo ball and averaged 19 and 10 I think. The kid is 6-7, 260 so he could some game day depth in the paint for Self if needed.

@HighEliteMajor We actually do have a decent group of receivers for a spread offense. We do lack a QB which if we had one, we could see that our receivers are good.

The issue with switching to an option offense is that it would take time to develop an offensive line to run that system. We see the issues our OLine has with run blocking now, so why would the current group be able to run block when they run 80% of the time?

@BShark Grimes and Garrett would be interchangeable to me. Both big guards who can handle the ball, but probably better suited to being primarily off the ball and could play 1-3 at any point.

Here's what I will say about Beaty and this has been my position for awhile now. Regardless of W-L record, he needs 5 years for no other reason than to allow his successor a chance at success.

We have less than 10 seniors this year, keep Beaty and allow him this recruiting class which should bring the scholarship numbers back into line. If there's not significant W-L progress next year, then you fire Zenger in October, hire a new AD immediately and let him clean house on the staff and bring in his choice.

I also disagree with @HighEliteMajor about changing systems. I'm fine with abandoning the Air Raid itself, but some variation of the Spread offense is what KU needs to be successful.

The principle behind the spread offense is to create mismatches and 1 on 1 coverages in the secondary. When you spread the field with 4 receivers, that can open up the running game as well, especially if the QB is mobile which brings the zone read into play as well.

If you go from something like the spread to an option like the academies or GT runs, that will require completely rebuilding the roster again for players who function in that system which would take a full5 recruiting cycle to do so which means another 4-5 years of transitioning and frustration. By bringing in another spread coach, there would be tweaks to the system, but the overall concepts are the same and the learning curve is much less because of that.

Another question to ask is about the next coach is what is the goal. Is it someone like Matt Campbell who would likely leave in a heartbeat for a new as soon as it's offered, or on an unknown who is more likely to stay if he has success, but is a much higher risk of failure as well?

My personal plan would be give Beaty one more year to show something because that 1 year will keep KU from falling way behind on scholarships again which sets the next coach up for a better chance of success early on. At least that's my thought on the matter.

@Lulufulu Tuesday will also be UK's 3rd game in 5 days, conditioning may be an issue for them Tuesday night.

@kjayhawks I don't think KU wins any of those early game even with Stanley at QB. He's just not a good QB. He kills way too many drives with picks and underthrown It's.

His 3 picks gave UT 14 points and took 7 away from KU last night, that's been his MO as a starter the last 2 seasons. He shows just enough to give hope, but it's false hope because of his turnovers that put KU in deep holes. The UT upset last year was all on KU's defense and KU being +4 in turnovers.

@JayHawkFanToo Since when is the Bay Area UCLA territory? It's a very apt comparison.

@JayHawkFanToo Higher seeded UNC had to play KU in St. Louis in 2012. Pretty common when there's debate between 1 seeds to give one team the higher seed but give the lower seeded team home court.

@JayHawkFanToo Simple solution is don't stare down receivers to allow defenders to jump routes. That's all those first 2 picks Stanley threw were, him staring down a receiver and the DB jumping the route. His 3rd pick was just as bad, softly lobbing the pass into the end zone for anyone to grab instead only his guy.

Why the hell do you run Wildcat there on 4th down!?!?

That was the most pointless review ever. Spend 4 minutes on a play that KU was always going to decline and still have 4th a 5. If it was a completed pass or backed UT up for the punt, that'd be different. Thus was a waste of time.

Defense has kept KU in this game. The slower pace this half has definitely helped KU out and kept UT from getting any momentum this half.

That's a potential career ender for Tyler.

That looked ugly for Patrick. Guy missed Sims and went full speed up Patrick's leg from behind. Patrick getting taken off on a stretcher.

KU might actually be winning without Stanley tonight. Given 14 to Texas and cost KU at least 3 and possibly 7 on that 3rd pick.

Defense has played reasonably well for the positions Stanley and the special teams have put the in tonight.