🏀 KuBuckets Archive

@Bosthawk Newman is capable of doing most of the things Mason is as far as scoring goes.

@BShark I don't think a KU player wins it next year, I think somebody else does because I think the scoring load will be more balanced next season.

I could see any of Graham, Newman, or Azubuike from KU being a B12 POY contender.

@REHawk Dakari Johnson never went to IMG. Embiid came over, was stuck behind Chris Walker and transferred to The Rock School in Gainesville on the advice of Norm Roverts because Norm was recruiting him to Florida first before Norm got hired back to KU.

@approxinfinity Embiid is another case if KU getting lucky in recruiting. Norm Roberts was the guy who identified Embiid when he was playing behind Chris Walker and was recruiting Embiid to Florida when Danny Manning accepted the Tulsa job and Self brought Norm back to Lawrence and Norm then sold Self on Embiid to Kansas.

Bill Self really has gotten extremely lucky over the past few years in recruiting with players falling into his lap because of coaching changes or other weird situations.

KU does not land the Morris twins unless Calipari takes the Kentucky job, KU doesn't get Jeff Withey without Lute Olsen's sudden retirement, KU doesn't land Josh Selby without Bruce Pearl running afoul of the NCAA rules, KU easily could've lost Ben McLemore and Jamari Traylor had they chosen to leave after being ruled partial qualifiers, Mason doesn't end up at KU without his academic issues, and Graham doesn't end up at KU without App. St. refusing to grant his release from his LOI after they fired their coach at the time.

Obviously some of these guys worked out better than others, but that's still 9 recruits who have ended up at KU in the past 10 years (not including any potential recruits in this class) that KU realistically could and in a lot of cases, should have missed out on, but the basketball recruiting gods have frequently smiled on Self and gifted him with players he shouldn't have ended up with.

@REHawk It wasn't Dakari Johnson, it was Chris Walker who ended up at Florida.

Regardless of Svi's decision, I just don't see any way he declares if Graham didn't, this makes KU a top 5 preseason team next year.

@truehawk93 Players do have bad games. Ellis no showed in the Villanova game last year and it didn't change anybody's overall perception of him as a Jayhawk.

@Eric-san Yes, I always get their backgrounds switched up since neither one should have ended up at KU.

@Eric-san I believe App. St. had a coaching change and Frank asked for his release from his LOI and App. St. refused so Mason went to prep school to get out of his LOI and started picking up interest from major conference schools that summer.

@Blown Graham's a leader. When Self had to bring in the drill sargent Graham's freshman year, he identified Graham as tge best leader on that team. One of the most overlooked parts of being a good leader is knowing when to defer and with Mason and Lucas evolving into leaders, Graham didn't need to.

I really disagree with Graham being more EJ than BIFM. Graham might not be as good as Mason, but he's a better shooter, passer, ball handler, and decison maker than EJ ever was.

@HighEliteMajor Why do you think Svi is gone? Given his parents background as educators and his play this year, I have a hard time getting to a scenario where Svi leaves, even to Europe.

@Hawk8086 Chemistry issues were probably Roy's guys clashing with Self's recruits, CJ Giles and Alex Galindo specifically. Not uncommon for situations. Had Roy hung around, that chemistry issue is non existent beacuse Roy likely wouldn't have signed Giles or Galindo along withthe rest of the class which included RussRob, Kaun, and D-Jax

@dylans I do also wonder occasionally how different KU history might be had Roy stayed for 2 more seasons because that team and Self's Illinois team he left were the two most talented rosters along with UNC's during that time period. Roy would've had a legitimate chance at 4 straight Final Fours with that core of Miles, Langford, and Simien for 2004 and 2005 and would've been the runaway favorite to with the 2004 title.

This is another a big reason why I have high hopes of the OLine taking steps forward this year. I believe 3 of the starting linemen were freshmen and sophomores and they returned 4/5 starters from last year. They did improve as the year went on and I expect them to continue developing. RT is the only position being replaced and that's with the Alabam transfer so that's an upgrade in talent as well.

This team is legitimately poised to have a breakout season this year.

@kjayhawks I just read the quote amd you took it out of context. The full quote was, “Overall, KU is a great place to be and I know they are going to be very successful in the future,” Sternberger told the Journal-World. “Those guys work way too hard. In the end the overall scheme wasn't the best fit for me.”

Sternberger was referring to KU works way too hard to not be successful and he's leaving because TE's are barely featured in this system which I think is a mistake and should be used as the 4th receiver to exploit match ups against slower LB's and smaller safeties.

@BeddieKU23 There's been a lot of players who have announced their decisions at the team banquet so I wouldn't be surprised if there's some announcements there.

Just keep in mind that aside from Graham and Svi, Josh Jackson hasn't declared yet either even though we all know that's going to happen at some point.

Why are we acknowledging this attention whore? He doesn't deserve it. This is one of those times where hopefully if we ignore him, he'll crawl back into his hole.

There's no reasin this jackass should be famous so let's ignore him so he doesn't get the one thing he wants most which is attention.

The American is a pretty good basketball league that already has more national titles in its short existence than the Big 12 does (Louisville and UConn). This could also put WSU at a level where restarting the series with them is no longer a lose-lose situation for KU. Not saying it does happen, but being in the AAC does open the door to making it more feasible.

Cole did win Academic All-American of the Year his junior year which is why his jersey will be retired one day, so he definitely is one smart cookie.

Texas passed a pretty similar bill to North Carolina's HB2 that is not getting near the attention from anyone that HB2 did. The NFL did mention the possibility of not awarding future Super Bowl's to Houston or Dallas, but I don't recall ever hearing the NCAA mention anything about pulling games from Texas. Probably has something to do with the fact that Texas has 3 of the 7 or 8 Final Four eligible venues and the NCAA would lose a ton of money if they kept the Final Four out of those 3 cities.

@dylans If a coach leaves voluntarily, they usually have to pay a buyout which can get pretty pricey if a coach leaves early in the contract.

@kjayhawks The secondary isn't the issue it could be because of KU's DLine. Beaty threw out a huge compliment to Dorrance Armstrong this spring and compared him to Myles Garrett who is going to be a top 3 pick and possible #1 overall pick in the draft next month.

Armstrong is also getting some national attention as well and KU does return the vast majority of the guys in the DLine rotation from last year which means they will be rushing the passer and forcing the ball out quickly which means the secondary doesn't have to cover as long and should have more opportunities at INT's in the fall as well.

I really believe KU can have a top 3 defense in the Big 12 next season and that KU might only have to average around 30 ppg to have a shot at bowl eligibility next season which I think this team will have a shot at.

I haven't read any posts so I don't know if anyone has said this or not so this is just my $0.02.

It sucks for Bragg because of his potential, but this to me feels like another Greene, Frankamp, and Tharpe situation where the off court issues forced Self to make a move. I really don't believe this is a voluntary transfer, I believe this was Self telling Bragg to find another place to play as a transfer or be booted from the program. We know Self likes to allow players to save face in these situations and transfer out, but I really do believe this is not a voluntary transfer.

Off court issues (drug suspension, crazy gf) + decreased PT including a DNP against the one program his skill set was needed agaisnt = voluntary transfer.

I wish Bragg the best and hope he can get his act together, but I do believe a fresh start at another school is the way to go about this to help Bragg out.

Starks is running a distant 3rd and not a serious candidate this year, but maybe in the next year or two with more experience. Based on what I've seen, it sounds like Stanley entered as the leader because of his experience and chemistry with the receivers. Bender has the higher ceiling and the arm to stretch the field in a way Stanley just can't do, but needs to learn the terminology and develop some chemistry with the WR's.

Out of the 2, I'd much rather see Bender win tge job because we have 3 legitimate deep threats at WR with Sims, Quiv, and Charlot and Bender winning the job opens up the vertical passing game for KU that we haven't legitimately had since Reesing. Stanley's skill set makes him an ideal back up because he isn't going to make a lot of mistakes, but just doesn't have the arm strength to open up the vertical game which is what will make the difference in tge offense taking a huge step forward this year.

Gonzaga exploring a possible Big East move is an intriguing possibility as well. Other non East Coast schools like St. Louis would likely have to be involved to make the Big East a 14 or 16 team league with 2 divisions to make it work, but I could see that happening in the next few years.

@JayHawkFanToo I don't mean help in running a program, I mean help with Nike recruits from the NC area, especially since Georgetown is one of the programs who specifically wears Jordan brand Nike uniforms.

@JayHawkFanToo Ewing has been a long time NBA assistant coach so he can give prospects a lot better insight into what it takes to get to the NBA and to make it in the NBA than most college coaches. He also won a national title at Georgetown in 1984 so he can show off that ring to recruits. He's also spent the past 4 seasons as an assistant coach for the Charlotte Bobcats so he should have some built in ties to North Carolina and also could have some help from MJ since MJ was his boss for 4 years.

Ewing's lack of HC experience is not going to be his biggest challenge, his biggest challenge is that Ewing has never worked in the college game so that transition will be a much bigger challenge than being a first time HC will.

@dylans Those are some good odds for Florida. I would consider them at 20-1. They're consistently making very deep runs, have multiple Final Four's in their recent history, they don't lose a lot of talent, and they have a pretty good young coach.

Losing Hill is not even a big deal for Florida because they have Chiozza to fill in who is pretty good himself at PG.

They're going to be a really good team next year and I hope that's who we get in the Big 12/SEC challenge since we know it won't be Kentucky.

@BigBad Shooting stats in stadiums over time don't back up that claim.

@DCHawker Probably UConn. They usually had an elite shot blocker on their title teams.

He's headlining this class along with Tracy McGrady which is cool for me KU who has lived in Houston for most of my life and have both play/coach in person countless times each.

@stoptheflop Spring game has historically been mid-April and since Easter moves around between April and March, it occasionally happens Easter weekend.

@drgnslayr said:

@dylans

Absolutely. Better... get a degree in something you are interested in, regardless of the associated professions around it.

I disagree with this one. If you're going to get a degree in something you're interested in, I would highly recommend either double majoring or getting a minor in a useful career field.

This next part addresses another question further up about the difference between a BGS and a BA degree at KU. A BA degree within CLAS mean you took 4 semesters of a foreign language while a BGS required a minor in place of the foreign language requirements. When I graduated in 2010, I got a BGS in History with a minor in Geography. History was what I was interested in, but a history degree by itself isn't the most praticla degree unless you're going to grad school which I had no intentions of at the time. I hedged that by getting a minor in Geography with an emphasis in GIS so I could use that to try and get into the oil and gas industry since I planned on moving back to Houston after I graduated and that is one of the biggest job fields here.

Speaking of TCU and the ACC, did anybody see TCU kick Georgia Tech's ass in the NIT title game? TCU beat GT by 32 points last night and they return their top 6 players for next year. TCU is going to to be a dark horse in the Big 12 race next season and could win 25+ games prior to the NCAA tournament.

UNCW doesn't have a big recruiting area and McGrath is definitely someone NC voaches will already have a relationship with based on how long McGrath has been at UNC. This feels like a good move both parties involved and adds another potential Self replacement into the pool one day.

@truehawk93 Preston has legitimate academic eligibility issues because of how long he was at API which has a long history of producing players who failed to academically qualify for NCAA competition.

You're also backwards on Ayton. KU was the only major program recruiting him while Ayton was dealing with his issues. Once it appeared like that would no longer be a stumbling block for him, the usual suspects got involved and he chose Arizona over Kansas and Kentucky.

@Crimsonorblue22 Not in my part of Houston thankfully because we were doing standardized testing the past two days and weren't allowed to have phones on us or turn computers on. I was completely oblivious to how bad it was other than being told to have a flashlight in case power went out which happens regularly at my school.

@Crimsonorblue22 I don't know if he did or not. I believe Tyler wore 5 his first year, 10 his second, then 11, and then 20. If Tyler gave up a number previously. I think he may have given up the #10 for Svi because that's the only other number a scholarship player at KU wore while Tyler was here.

@ParisHawk Self's been a lower seed in the E8 twice. KU lost as a 4 seed to 3 seed GT in 2004 and beat 1 seed UNC as a 2 seed in 2012. 2 games is not enough to draw any meaningful or trends out of.

@JayHawkFanToo Porter's dad will also be on the bench this year. I'll be curious to see if he sticks around after this year.

@Crimsonorblue22 Tyler also used a different number every season, so it's not like he was overly attached to a number.

@dylans No guarantees KU plays at home. In the Florida series, KU went to Gainesville then hosted and followed up by hosting UK and then going to Rupp. It probably will be Florida again, but SoCar could be a possibility as well, but it's not a guarantee the game is in Lawrence this upcoming season.

@mayjay Since 1985 when the field expanded to 64 teams (including this season), out of 128 total 1 seeds, 50 have reached the Final Four. That's 39%, but we can round that up to 40% to simplify the math which says that for every 5 one seeds out there, 2 of them should reach the Final Four. Bill Self has received a 1 seed 8 times (2001 with Illinois, 2007, 2008, 2010, 2011, 2013, 2016, and 2017. The numbers say Bill Self should have between 3 and 4 Final Four appearances from these 8 seasons alone, but he only has 1 so again, he has underachieved to historical performances of other 1 seeds.

@BShark JJ was the consensus top recruit in 2016 while Preston is rated in the teens in a range where he's not a presumed OAD. There should be lower expectations for Preston because he's not as good out of HS as JJ was. That's not intended as a knock on Preston or his skill set, it's just reality.

@BShark I really don't count Diallo because the NCAA screwed him over so bad that we never got a chance to see him get going. Missing those early games screwed up his development big time.

@jayballer54 These All-Star games and AAU games all pointless to judge a kid's potential on. AAU plays so many games so close together that kids don't play much defense because of the energy it takes so those frequently turn into All-Star style of play type games as well. HS ball is where you really see these kids get after it.

The McDonald's game along with the other All-Star games are pure entertainment at this point so if that's the view you take into watching them instead of expecting to see quality play outside of the last few minutes of the game, then you won't be disappointed and will enjoy the product.

@mayjay said:

The bigger problem with all of this is the failure to consider where his results fall on graphs that also incorporate, among other things, his seeds, the average success rate of those seed levels in the history of the modern tournament,

So here's Bill Self's seed history in his E8 games and the seed he was coaching against

2000^:Tulsa (7) lost to North Carolina (8)

2001: Illinois (1) lost Arizona (2)

2004: Kansas (4) lost to Georgia Tech (3)

2007^: Kansas (1) lost to UCLA (2)

2008^: Kansas (1) beat Davidson (10)

2011^: Kansas (1) lost to VCU (11)

2012: Kansas (2) beat North Carolina (1)

2016^: Kansas (1) lost to Villanova (2)

2017^: Kansas (1) lost to Oregon (3)

^ Year Self's team had worst offensive game of season in E8

Out of the 6 times Bill Self's team has had their worst offensive game of the year in the E8, Self has been a 1 seed including all 5 times at KU. KU is 1-5 in those 6 games. Overall, Bill Self has had the higher seed in 7 of his 9 E8 games and is 1-6 in those games. Bill Self has been a 1 seed in 6 of his 9 E8 games and is just 1-5 in those games and his team has had their worst offensive game of the year in 5 of those 6 games. 2008 is the 1 win in all of those records.

1 seeds are historically 38-34 against 2 seeds in the NCAA tournament since the field expanded to 64 teams in 1985. So 1 seeds historically win about 53% of the time against 2 seeds. Self is 0-3 as a 1 seed in 1 vs. 2 match ups and 1-0 as a 2 seed in 1 vs. 2 match ups so 1-3 overall. 25% is much lower than 53%. 1 seeds are historically 20-13 against 3 seeds for a 60% win rate. 1 seeds are 6-1 against 10 seeds , and 1 seeds are 3-3 against 11 seeds. 4 seeds 3-5 against 3 seeds all time and 7 seeds are 1-1 against 8 seeds all time. Here is the source for you (http://mcubed.net/ncaab/seeds.shtml). ↗ Bill Self is 1-6 in the E8 as the higher seeded team. I don't care where you look, you will not find anywhere that a higher seed has 14% winning percentage against a lower seeded team. Just looking through that site, the anomalies are 2 seeds against 4 and 5 seeds (4-5 against 4 seeds and 1-4 against 5 seeds), 4 seeds against 6, 7, and 8 seeds (2-4 against 6 seeds, 2-3 against 7 seeds, and 3-7 against 8 seeds), 5 seeds against 8 and 9 seeds (1-3 against 8 seeds and 1-2 against 9 seeds), 6 seeds against 8 seeds (1-3), and 10 seeds against 11 seeds (1-2).

Self's record is below average based on what other same seeds have historically done against the same seeds Self has face in the E8. I believe the only other 7 vs. 8 game in NCAA tournament history besides the Tulsa/UNC game in 2000 was the UConn/Kentucky title game in 2014.

@JayHawkFanToo Bragg leaving KU would not be his choice. It would be a Brannen Greene/Connor Frankamp/Naadir Tharpe type deal where he's publicly allowed to leave on his own, but he's really getting kicked off the team. Bragg not playing at all against Oregon when his skill set was exactly what KU needed should be sending out huge warning signs that Bragg may not be around KU next year.

Newman was practicing against a pair of very good guards, that doesn't change that there's still no game film on him to show he's fixed the deficiencies in his game and there's no way he gets a combine invite. Graham is the only on the fence player who will likely get an invite. The NBA invited only 61 players last year and will probably be close to the same number and Newman won't be among those players because he didn't play this past season.

@mayjay Coin flips are not 50/50. They are biased towards whatever side is face up before the flip.

Let's say that a coin flip truly was 50/50, there's no variable. In Self's E8 games, there are many variables. The school Self is coaching at, the school Self is coaching against, the coach Self is coaching against, the players Self coaches, the players Self coaches against, injured players, the style officiating by the refs. These are all variables that make basketball games very rarely a 50/50 proposition. The only constant in these 9 games has been Bill Self.

So when you have a replicated performance (6 of 9 times) woth only one constant, that constant has some kind of impact that causes these repeated outcomes.

Go.look at Self's record in the November tournaments KU has had to play 3 games in 3 days in, there's a lot of losses with poor offensive games in there as well.