🏀 KuBuckets Archive

@stoptheflop Better than in Ft. Worth when TCU put up 44 in the 1st half.

Bragg is playing like a man tonight and using his 240 lb. frame like he should be.

@BShark Not past few weeks.

That's the start of his turnaround.

4 point play coming up!

Ankle is feelin just fine right now!

Thank god JJ's back in!

KU isn't trying to win rebounding battles right now. Self has them more focused on defense than rebound so KU doesn't puck up cheap fouls fighting for rebounds and so they can get back on defense.

I've been to games in Austin, Waco, and College Station enough to say that if KU is on the road for a midweek game, it's probably not selling out. I would say that probably 90% of the Saturday games in those venues were sellouts.

Probably reality in all venues except for AFH for KU.

The women's team is the bigger draw for basketball in Waco.

@JayHawkFanToo Playing in a game and being fully recovered are not the same things, but keep telling yourself that.

@JayHawkFanToo Have you ever dealt with these kinds of injuries? Do you understand what the ACL holds together? It's the ligament in the middle of your knee that connects your kneecap to the fibula. Lateral mobility is always the last thing to fully recover. Go look at the history of NFL running backs coming back from ACL tears. They very rarely look like their old selves until their second full season back and it's because that's how long it takes the lateral mobility to return.

Basketball players use lateral mobility as a whole more than any other sport. Even NBA guys who've gone through ACL tears rarely return to old form until their second full year back because of how long it takes to restrengthen the ACL to handle the lateral movements necessary to perform at a high level.

All the article you linked to did was state when a player returned to the court which means medically cleared, not when they returned to playing like they did prior to their injury. A player can get medically cleared to return in 9-12 months, sometimes sooner, but again that does not mean they are back to where they were prior to the injury immediately. That takes time no matter who you are (unless you're Adrian Peterson), and Coleby is still working his knee into game condition.

@JayHawkFanToo Being recovered to where someone is medically cleared and recovered to where they are as close as possible to pre injury condition and ability are two different things.

Lunardi is the only person I've seen that has WSU seeded that high. Most have them as a double digit seed and definitely not in Tulsa.

@Bosthawk Knee is not fully healed yet. Basketball players use lateral mobility more than any other sport so ACL tears for basketball players take much longer to fully heal because of the need for lateral mobility compared to football or baseball players. Coleby should be 100% next year.

@KUSTEVE Sounds easy enough, but WVU dominated KU for 78 of 85 minutes this year and UL does everything better than WVU does. Considering the success WVU has had against KU in recent years, UL is probably the worst match up KU could draw in the NCAA tournament as a potential 2 seed.

@HawkChamp It's not Louisville's length that's the issue. It's their style of play. Louisville is basically a better version of West Virginia and we all know WVU kicked our asses in Morgantown and KU was lucky to not get swept by them this year. Of the current 2 seeds, Louisville is by far the worst match up for KU. If the refs call it tight, KU won't have the depth to absorb the fouls that would be called in that one.

Here's my list of contenders and pretenders

Contenders:

Kansas: You don't win all the close games they do without being mentally tough and this is a team that has on multiple occasions this year swept weeks against top 10 teams.

Villanova: Defending national champs and now have the confidence to know they can do it.

Gonzaga: They are crushing teams in a weak conference this year. You who else does that, the UConn women. Gonzaga is doing exactly what they should to the WCC.

Oregon: Made the Elite 8 last and return most of those pieces.

Arizona: Sean Miller has made 3 Elite 8's in Tuscon and has a lot of the same questions about his ability on the big stage that Self did pre 2008.

Louisville: Pitino's team plays ugly and every projection currently has them as KU's 2 seed, but they win games. A KU-UL game might end up being a race to 50 and set college basketball back decades as far as aesthetics go, but that would be a battle.

Pretenders

UCLA: Their defense will be their downfall. Offense wins games, defense wins championships.

UK: 1-4 against other possible Final Four contenders.

Florida: Florida is a good team, but not good enough

UNC: Injuries are their downfall this year. With a healthy team, this is a title favorite along with Villanova.

Baylor: Scott Drew has finally gone back to more man defense, but his X's and O's have always been Baylor's downfall and will be again this year.

Duke: Same story as UNC, injuries have kept them from their ceiling this year.

WVU: Not enough offense this year

@BShark UK is a fraud this year. They've beaten one good team this year and that's it. They've lost us, UCLA, Louisville, and Florida and beat UNC. That's their resume on a national level, 1-4 against teams generally considered to have a chance at a Final Four run this year. UK will be out no later than the Sweet 16 this year.

@BShark Billy Preston has serious question marks about his eligibility because of how long he was at API/Prime Prep. This is the same school that has caused the vast majority of players coming out if HS to play overseas like Terrance Ferguson and Emmanuel Mudiay. There is absolutely no guarantee at this point Billy Preston ever plays a game for KU because of his academic history so if Bill Self is looking at grad transfers, it's because of that and not Dwight Coleby recovering from his torn ACL.

@BShark If they're looking, it's because of Preston, not Coleby.

@Crimsonorblue22 He could, but I don't see it happening. Coleby at 100% will likely be the first big off the bench if Self goes back to the traditional 3 out 2 in line up.

@BShark Coleby is still recovering from his ACL tear in summer of 2015. It usually takes basketball players longer than any other group to fully recover from that kind of injury.

Also, are you aware that KU is still going to be pretty thin in front court depth next year. We'll see if Doke has recovered 100% by then, Lightfoot is still a work in progress, who knows what we'll get out of Bragg next year and finally there's the issue of whether or not Billy Preston will even get through the NCAA Clearinghouse or not. Coleby will be an important player to have because he can be a steady presence like LL when he's 100% next year.

@Blown The voting is done between the conference tournaments and the NCAA tournament. It's not easy to go 31-0 regardless of conference affiliation and why it's only happened a handful of times since the Wooden era.

@brooksmd Has there any talk or rumors of how messed up his right thumb is?

Swanigan is going to be a 1st team All-American and is absolutely in the mix for NPOY with 3 weeks left (including the conference tournaments).

I agree that it should be Frank right now with Monk, Ball, Hart, and Swanigan in the conversation as well.

@RockChalkinTexas That was his best dunk of the year to me. So much authority in that one. He was trying to hurt someone when he threw that ball down.

It was some asshat with an 8 on 5 sign holding it up and crying for any whistle that went against Baylor.

My issue with the officiating today was that they appeared to be pretty inconsistent in their calls today. That's what frustrates the hell out of coaches and players the most because there's no adapting to the whistle when there's no consistency in what's a foul and what's not a foul.

There's not really a surprise team this year so I think Self will definitely be in the mix for NCOY. Right now though, I think Mark Few is probably the front runner for NCOY because of the undefeated season so far. I don't care if the WCC is weak as heck after St. Mary's and BYU, they also beat Arizona, Iowa St., and Florida this year as well so they've got quality wins this year.

Obviously, Self gets my vote with my bias, but I wouldn't feel like Self got cheated of Few won it either though.

I also noticed that there was a kid in the front row of Baylor's student section that was holding up a picture of a gorilla every time a KU player went to the FT line in the second half. Had to be either ignorance or racism on his part, but either way, not a great look for Baylor or that kid.

@Crimsonorblue22 said:

@Texas-Hawk-10 did you notice some fans giving our bench a hard time? Townsend was pretty mad at the end.

There was some guy behind KU's bench holding a sign up that said 8 on 5 every time Baylor was whistled for anything.

Other than that, I couldn't tell you anything because myself and most of the KU fans in the building were on the opposite side of the arena from the KU bench.

@BShark Svi played well at the start of the 2nd half, but his confidence is gone at this point

I apologize to the KU Buckets community in game chat during the game, but I was too busy enjoying the game from inside the Ferrell Center today. Time to start printing T-shirts and I can't wait to see KU wrap up the outright title next Saturday in Austin. Time to go celebrate this one!

@jayballer54 Romar has had a lot of OAD's over the past few year, probably 3rd most behind UK and Duke and UW has consistently been bottom half of the PAC 12. There's no reason to bring him back because there's enough evidence to Romar will fail again. UW is 9-17 this year with a guy who will be a top 3 pick this year and possible #1 overall pick in Fultz. Romar has veen washed up for awhile now.

The fact that Bill Self has gone to a 4 guard line up and has sought advice from coaches like Hoiberg who have run the system in the past is a sign of flexibility. So is mostly abandoning the high-low due to a lack of adequate personnel and has adopted more of a dribble drive, motion type offense to fit his personnel is a sign of good coaching.

No coach is infallible and Bill Self has made some mistakes this year. Not utilizing Lightfoot and Coleby more to give the guards and LL some rest has veen problematic for this year.

I think most people who follow college basketball, but not necessarily Big 12 or KU specifically realize Self is a great coach (some think dirty, but name a major program where non-fans don't say or think that), and KU having the potential to take a 3 game lead with 4 to play in a league woth 3 top 10 teams is pretty impressive no matter who you're a fan of.

I forget which analyst it was at ESPN, may have even been a coach, but they basically said that women's basketball is at a similar point in its evolution to where men's basketball was in the 60's and 70's when UCLA was the dominant program in college basketball. UConn will be dethroned at some point, but they are in the middle of a UCLA type dynasty right now.

@RockChalkinTexas Wish KU tickets in Austin were that cheap.

Graham appearing more amd more likely to return is likely the biggest reason why Young went with OU. Woodard will be gone and they'll have an opening on a likely tournament team. With Graham likely back, Young comes off the bench behind Graham and Newman.

As long as Graham does return, this isn't a huge blow for KU, but not having Young in 2018-19 is the bigger loss with Young

Graham will be back because his draft stock has quite a bit of room to rise. He's 2nd round to undrafted right now as the 3rd option on this team. Next year is when he'll get to run the show with Newman being the #2 option. A good year next year for Graham puts him in the mid 1st round most likely.

Graham will be back because of that.

It looks like maybe the set up the voting process to where you have to do it on a computer. I've tried a couple of links on my phone and no image ever came up. I don't know about links on iPads or other tablets , but if anyone finds a link that works on phones, post it so we can vote as much as possible for Frank.

Frank Mason is one of 10 finalists for the men's Lowe's Senior CLASS Award. Here's the link to go vote...http://www.seniorclassaward.com/vote/mens_basketball_2016-17/ ↗

Fan vote counts for 1/3 of the total vote and voting is open until March 21. We need to bump this page everyday to help Frank out as much as possible.

The other 9 finalists are Jaron Blossomgame (Clemson), Evan Bradds (Belmont), Josh Hart (Villanova), Josh Hawkinson (Washington St.), Nigel Hayes (Wisconsin), Amile Jefferson (Duke), Peter Jok (Iowa), Przemek Karnowski (Gonzaga), and Tim Kempton (Lehigh).

GO VOTE FOR FRANK EVERYDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

@wissox KCK does have Sporting KC in soccer which KC is a pretty loyal soccer town.

Danny inherited a complete mess at Wake. That's a job that takes a few years to rebuild at because they are 4th in North Carolina and tge only one not in the Raleigh/Durham region. That's a tough job and why not a lot of coaches have been successful there.

@wissox LSU has no true in state competition in college athletics. Tulane, La Tech, ULL, and ULM all compete in the bottom feeding D1 conferences, except for Tulane who's a bottom feeding American program.

As someone who was born in Louisiana, I have no problem admitting that KU basketball amd LSU football do have many similarities. KU basketball has been more consistently successful, but as far as loyalty and dedication go, they're both on equal footing. You don't sell out a 100,000+ capacity stadium on a regular basis without a loyal fan base.

I would say that LSU fans tend to be more fanatical because if you walk into Death Valley or around the stadium on gameday wearing enemy colors, there's a decent chance of getting something hurled at you. I've never seen that at KU even to Missouri fans inside Allen.

Our fans leave KU blowout wins early all the time, we just very rarely see KU on the wrong end of these situations at home. This really is a complete non-issue.

@drgnslayr No, KU will not win in March going down double digits, but that 2012 team came from behind in at least 3 of the games that tournament and damn near did it against a Kentucky team that wiped the floor with KU early in the year.

@Fightsongwriter Degree of difficulty may have been higher tonight, but the stakes were much higher in that Missouri game. Senior day, conference title on the line, and final game against Missouri in AFH. Thise are all relevant factors when discussing greatest comebacks. If KU loses tonight, they still have a 1 game lead on WVU and Baylor for the Big 12. KU and WVU don't have 170 years of animosity between their states.

@drgnslayr The 2012 team didn't blow anybody out either and still reached the title game.

@Fightsongwriter Then Missouri still tops tonight because it was Missouri. WVU will never mean what Missouri did to KU.

This is not the best comeback. That honor belongs to the 2008 Jayhawks who came back from 8 down with a little over 2 minutes left to force OT against Memphis in the national title game. That game will always be the GOAT for KU comebacks because it was in a national title game.