🏀 KuBuckets Archive

One of Bill Self's biggest achilles heels as a coach is that he doesn't take enough advantage of the superior athletic abilities his teams have had since his time at Illinois. His ORU and Tulsa teams were typically athletically inferior and so playing slow was the way to give them a chance.

In reality, 2008-09 and 2011-12 have been the only years KU has had the lack of depth to necessitate playing a slower tempo. Every other season, Self has had the horses to run and play fast, but rarely takes advantage of that athleticism. KU is a team that should be averaging 80 ppg, but I don't think they have averaged that many in a year under Self.

I agree with @jaybate-1.0, athletically inferior teams and teams with depth issues on paper are typically better served playing a slower tempo, and teams with superior athleticism and depth are typically better served playing a faster tempo.

@elpoyo Why pass on a walk on and who the hell cares what his skin color is? He gives KU another body for practice and a full 3rd team for garbage time minutes.

This is a kid who's likely passing up an opportunity to be on scholarship at a much smaller school and actually get meaningful minutes to pay his own way and maybe play 50 minutes over 3 years at KU.

@Crimsonorblue22 Is Udoka Azubuike related to Kalenna Azubuike who played at Kentucky?

@Statmachine UK is overrated this year, they won't be top 5 because they have absolutely no quality depth this year and may not even have real 4 this year either if Skal Labissiere doesn't get cleared. That said, I'd take their tournament results the past 5 years in a heartbeat with 4 Final Four appearances in the past 5 years.

@drgnslayr I don't think it's a big advantage either way. I honestly don't think the shorter shot clock is going have near the impact most think outside of a few programs like Wisconsin and Virginia that like to play as slow as possible. If it has a bigger impact one, it'll obviously be the M2M defense because it's 5 less seconds of chasing, but there's so few possessions in a game where you're chasing for that long that I really don't think it's going to be a significant impact.

@BeddieKU23 I have never once said KU needs 4 bigs and I have said that multiple times here. I think at the end of the day, KU ends up needing to replace 5 players. The 4 bigs plus either Selden or Svi so bascially 4 bigs and wing. The breakdown of the class to me should be 3 bigs (2 ready to start/play immediately and 1 project), a wing that's a year away from contributing, and a PG/combo guard that's a year away from contributing.

I'm basically picturing KU's returning roster next year looking like:

Back court: Mason, Graham, Vick

Wing: Svi/Selden, Greene

Front court: Bragg, Lucas, Coleby

The priority needs to be bigs, wing, PG/combo in that order because that's the likelihood of losing players.

@drgnslayr Here's the unofficial list of qualifications to get a jersey hung in the south rafters of AFH...http://kuinfo.ku.edu/cgi-bin/info.shtml?p=q&id=4473 ↗

I believe Self has also been quoted as saying he wants make players wait at least 5 years after they leave KU before retiring a jersey so that means Sherron and Cole are just now reaching that mark to be considered. Sherron is eligible because he was a consensus 1st team All-American his senior year. Cole Aldrich will be eligible because he was the academic All-American of the Year as a junior. Thomas Robinson will also be eligible in a couple of years because he was a consensus 1st team All-American his junior season. Those are the only 3 players right now that meet the current achievement requirements that aren't already hanging from the rafters. Perry Ellis is going to have a chance this year if he puts together the kind of season he's capable of having.

KU is probably going to lose 4 bigs this year, so KU is absolutely going to have to sign multiple bigs. KU needs 3 bigs for sure if they lose 4 players so KU has been targeting a lot of big this year.

@VailHawk How do you know he's not one of those unfortunate Jayhawks stuck in Jackson Co. or St. Louis?

@Crimsonorblue22 Fran was pretty unbiased before his kid went to Oklahoma. He's still good at talking about international prospects as well. I'd still rather listen to Fraschilla today than Bobby Knight any day at this point. Musberger needs to stay with Big 10 football because his announce style sucks for basketball. Jay Bias and Dan Schulman is their best combo.

@JayHawkFanToo I partially disagree with the WUG having the better competition. Canada and Brazil both had professional players and American based college players on their Pan-American rosters unlike their WUG rosters. Outside of the Canada, Brazil, and maybe the US, the WUG competition looked better than the Pan-American competition.

@Lulufulu I don't think it has any impact, but even if it does, KU could end up playing up to 15 ranked games before the NCAA tournament. Michigan St., Kentucky, Iowa St., and Oklahoma are projected preseason top 15 teams, SDSU, Baylor and Texas are all possible preseason top 25 teams and could all be ranked by the time KU plays them. In Maui, Indiana is a consensus top 25 team and UCLA is on quite a few preseason top 25 lists and I've seen St. John's on a couple as well. It's possible KU could play 15 games against ranked opponents prior to the NCAA tournament and will probably play north of 10 for sure this year so even if Chaminade counts against the RPI, KU's schedule is strong enough that it shouldn't be an issue.

@KUSTEVE UNLV still has to beat UCLA first and I don't think they'll do that. UNLV has underachieved quite a bit the past couple of years and that's probably not going to change much even with the class they brought in because Zimmerman doesn't have much interest in using his size to his advantage and would rather play away from the basket. Should they meet, Diallo is going to own Zimmerman just like he owned everyone else at the all star games in the spring. This Maui field really isn't very top heavy, but does have a lot of decent teams in it. There really isn't a reason why KU shouldn't win this tournament and possibly by double digits all 3 games. KU really is that much better than everyone else in the field on paper and they finally showed a killer instinct in Korea to shut down lesser teams late.

Diallo's ability as a back to basket player will depend on how long it takes him to learn how to seal a guy under the basket on the low block. Post players knowing angles and how to position themselves under the basket is something NBA GM's have long been complimentary of about KU bigs.

Most of Diallo's points in the half court are going to come from the weak side. Back cuts, screens, and offensive rebounds will be how Diallo scores the majority of his points this year along with fast breaks. Learning how and being able to seal a defender in the high-low will make Diallo a very dangerous weapon for KU so hopefully that is something he can pick up by the time conference play starts and make himself a 30 mpg type of player.

@clevelandjayhawk KU's admissions and NCAA Clearinghouse are two separate standards. Diallo already took second session summer school classes so he will be taking classes when fall semester stars next month. His problem is his HS is basically a diploma mill so NCAA is going over all of his classes with a fine tooth comb, but there is no indication that Diallo will be ruled ineligible.

@drgnslayr The list is about careers at Kansas and Danny absolutely had the better Kansas career than Wilt did. Like the list said, if Wilt had played in an era with a shot clock, he probably plays all 3 years he could have played and probably wins 3 championships because he was so much better than the competition, but the rules were what they were and Wilt only played 2 years and didn't win a title.

http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/story/_/id/13328112/kansas-jayhawks-indiana-hoosiers-anchor-maui-invitational-bracket ↗

Andy Katz at ESPN is reporting that the Maui brackets will be...

Kansas v. Chaminade

UCLA v. UNLV

St. John's v. Vanderbilt

Indiana v. Wake Forest

A Kansas-Indiana championship game seems the likely outcome of this tournament. It's not the deepest Maui field ever, but it should at least produce a nice challenge for KU, especially if they do play Indiana in the championship game.

@KUSTEVE KU cannot tie themselves to KSU and expect anything good to come out of conference realignment. KSU just doesn't bring any money to the table so there's not a real benefit for KU to show loyalty to KSU this time around. Hopefully the Kansas Board of Regents realize they will kill college athletics within the state if they tie the two schools together unlike last time when KU was going to be left out in the cold because they were being anchored to KSU.

@Lulufulu I don't like to hear it because it means KU would be done playing in Austin, Waco, and Ft. Worth which for me personally means I won't be able to see KU play in person on a regular basis anymore. As for the names of the leagues, the Big 12 actually owns the trademarks on the Big 14 and Big 16 so that's why they can't/haven't changed their name. If the Big 12 disappears, it's possible those names are once again up for grabs or the Big 10 could just outright buy the trademark and then change their name.

@jayballer54 I would be shocked if KU lands either Michael Porter or Trae Young out of the 2017 class. They both play for MoKan Elite which has never had a good relationship with KU. This is the same AAU program that produced Alec Burks, Semi Ojeley, and Willie Cauley-Stein and KU was not involved with any player in a meaningful manner. They are sponsored by Nike and this is a case where @jaybate-1.0 is right about the influence of the shoe companies. Burks ended up at Colorado, Ojeley ended up at Duke and WCS ended up at Kentucky, all Nike schools. Burks was unrated coming out of HS so that one isn't a failure on KU at the time, but the other two were pretty highly rated out of HS and yet KU didn't go after them and the Nike connection makes the most sense in this case.

http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/ncaaf-dr-saturday/report--five-big-12-teams-sought-move-to-big-ten-in-2010-152148798.html ↗

Take this article with a grain of salt as it is about conference realignment

Jist of this article is that 5 schools (Iowa St., Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Texas A&M) were seriously considered for Big 10 membership back in 2010 to bump membership up to 16 teams. The big sticking point was revenue distribution and we know only 1 of those 5 ended up going to the Big 10. The most interesting part of the article to me was that the Big 10 is still interested in going to 16 teams at a future time and that Oklahoma and Kansas are two of the primary candidates to get from 14 to 16 teams. We're probably still 3-4 years away from the next wave of expansion as the Big 12's TV and Grant of Rights deals come closer to expiring. We all know the Big 12 won't survive the next wave of realignment because Big 12 officials made a bunch of dumb mistakes that will kill the league in the next 10 years.

We know that when the Big 10 expands to get to 16 teams, they're going to look for schools in TV markets they don't already have a presence in. Here's the list of the top 100 TV markets in the US, (http://www.stationindex.com/tv/tv-markets), ↗ and the Big 10 has a presence in 16 of the top 50 markets and 11 of the top 30. Kansas City is 31 and OKC is 45 which are the two primary TV markets that KU and OU bring to the table. They also bring in secondary TV markets Tulsa (61) and Wichita (69). Other cities the Big 10 Network could look to expand into are Boston (7), Charlotte (24) and Raleigh-Durham (27), and Hartford (30). Boston College, North Carolina, and UConn, along with KU and OU all become potential targets to get to 16 teams. The ACC though has become stable enough that it'll be hard to pry teams out of that league and UConn will probably end up in the ACC at some point which should bolster the chances of KU and OU joining the Big 10 in the future if the source of this information from the Big 10 is accurate.

We also know that the Big 10 has handled expansion with the goal of entering new TV markets to charge TV carriers more money to carry the Big 10 Network. Maryland was a huge get for them as they have a presence in 2 top 30 markets. There are a very limited number of schools who make geographic sense for the Big 10 that are in new TV markets so while this isn't at the forefront of discussions now, Zenger would be very wise to start now positioning KU as the best option for the Big 10 when the Big 12's GoR gets closer to expiring (this will reduce the settlement cost for moving) and KU can finally make the move that has been rumored off and on since the early 90's when KU and Missouri were discussing moving to the Big 10 when the Big 8 and SWC were working on creating the Big 12.

@jaybate-1.0 Bo Ryan and Tony Bennett would have. Bo Ryan never finished worse than 4th in the Big 10 playing Bad Ball with less talent than Self. Tony Bennett freaking got Washington State to the NCAA tournament and has UVA rolling right now with Bad Ball. Those two have to be better at Bad Ball than anybody else because they rarely have the talent to outrun elite caliber teams.

This is a KU team that should not play Bad Ball though. KU can have multiple ball handlers on the court at all times that negates the need to use Bad Ball as the primary offense this year. Running it on occasion to mix up the looks between, Bad Ball, High-low, and the freestyle offense that Self allowed the team to run in Korea.

@kansas-oats said:

They all mentioned that it has been very difficult to adjust to the time difference going over and back still.

I've been told by people who do a lot of international travel that it takes about 1 day per time zone for the body to get reacclimated to the current time zone. It sounds like that's the case with a lot of the players, especially without any major obligations to speed up the process.

@jaybate-1.0 You know as well as I do that the NCAA is very hypocritical when it comes to penalties dealt out to schools.

Take the Marcus Camby and Corey Maggette cases. Both situations basically the same. Players take money, both players caught by the NCAA. UMass gets a Final Four vacated, Duke got to keep theirs. Both coaches were deemed to not have knowledge of the transactions? So why did UMASS get hammered and Duke didn't?

At this point, I don't know how the NCAA would rule on Cliff if they had been able to get the loan documents. I personally lean towards Cliff not knowing about the loan when it initially happened, but finding out about later on.

@JayHawkFanToo LeBron, Kobe, MJ are/were elite defenders. This is why they were the best players of their era's. Those guys are/were on the all-defensive team just about every season.

As far as team defense goes, it has always been ramped up a few notches during the playoffs. The grind of the regular season has always meant teams don't always exert maximum effort every game. This is why playoff scoring tends to be quite a bit less than regular season scoring.

@jaybate-1.0 said:

Would you rather Self play Bad Ball and win a ring, or play Good Ball and exit early?

This is the only one of the questions that really matters and anyone who chooses anything other than the ring has seriously messed up priorities. KU is a program that is ultimately measured by what happens in March/April. I will take 6/7 of the ugliest wins imaginable in March/April if it means hanging another banner in the north end of Allen Fieldhouse over the most aesthetically beautiful basketball anybody has ever seen ever if it doesn't end with a national title.

Most people still have WSU as a top 10-15 team this year so there won't be much, if any, drop off from last season. KU on the other hand is projected as a top 5 team and serious national title contender by most people this year. Should a rematch happen this year, KU should legitimately be the favorite unlike last year when people who actually pay attention to CBB west of the Mississippi were the only ones not surprised by their win.

@JhawkAlum I never made a declaration of who the best is so that's up to you if you want to use championships as the sole measurement.

It's also very import to note that the way the NBA operated in the mid 1950's and 60's in almost no way resembled how the NBA operated in the mid 1980's and 90's. There was no free agency in Russell's era, the draft looked nothing like it does now, and the number of teams in the NBA was far less in Russell's era than MJ's. If the NBA operated like it did during Russell's time like it did during MJ's time (free agency being the biggest difference), the Celtics don't win 11 out of 13 titles so MJ winning in his last 6 full seasons is a feat that is more impressive because of the quality and turnover in his supporting cast. Think about how many hall of famers Russell played with compared to MJ. Now realize that those HoF players Russell played with didn't have the option of free agency when they played with Russell so Russell was always playing with multiple HoF players for his entire career. MJ played with 2 HoF players for during his run in Chicago and one of them (Rodman only play on 3 of the 6 teams).

So given the differences in the league, MJ's run is just as impressive to me as Russell's was mainly because MJ did not have near the supporting cast Russell had.

@ralster @DinarHawk Nic Moore is the reigning POY in a conference that has produced 2 of the past 3 national champs. Also, I don't believe anybody on KUSA shot the ball particularly well from the outside during the tournament on a consistent basis.

Another thing to consider is that Self didn't run many set plays and just let the players freestyle it out there. Since Nic Moore only had a handful of practices with the other players, the chemistry just wasn't there with Moore that's needed for an unscripted offense to work to its maximum efficiency. Nic Moore is a very good player, you don't have the stats he has and accolades he's achieved at SMU without being a very good player.

We also saw with Nic Moore why it's important to have multi year PG's on the roster that know the system and know the responsibilities of other players. Nic Moore didn't have the time to learn those things with regards to Self's system and KU's players and when he ran the show instead of Mason, the offense was nowhere near as efficient. It's not Nic's fault, it's just a product of throwing someone to the wolves against very good competition and I would absolutely take Nic Moore in a heartbeat on this team because of what he has accomplished at SMU.

@justanotherfan When we get into best ever, championships are a part of that discussion. LeBron is now 2-4 in the finals. LeBron and MJ is a modern version of Russell and Wilt. LeBron is Wilt, if he wants to lead the league in a specific stat, he's good enough that he can lead the league in a specific stat. Michael is Russell in that once his team was good enough, he won a championship every year. The only great team MJ never went through for a championship was the Rockets.

So if you pick Russell over Wilt, you have to pick MJ over LeBron and if you pick Wilt over Russell, then you have to pick LeBron over MJ once LeBron's career is over.

@drgnslayr I know Selden and Svi are not PG's. I've said in multiple previous posts that I think a PG/combo signing only becomes a priorty for depth if KU ends up with a 5+ player class. Right we can pretty safely assume KU will have at least a 4 man class because of losing 4 bigs.

Hypothetical here, if KU only ends up losing 4 players, I think the class should be 3 bigs and a wing because a wing is the most likely position to lose outside of the 4 bigs. Should one or both of Selden and Svi go pro, then target a PG/combo if one goes and a second wing if both go.

@BeddieKU23 Would you rather have junior Devonte Graham who would most likely be back for his senior year or freshman De'Aaron Fox who most likely wouldn't be around for his sophomore year playing next to senior Frank Mason? I know my answer based on the roster make up of the past two Final Four teams.

@drgnslayr How Selden and Svi play during the year will determine whether that's a priority or not in the 2016 class. Right now, big are the top priority because KU is expected to lose 4 of them after this year. Wing is second priority because of Selden and Svi's potential to turn pro after this season. PG and combos are the lowest priority in 2016. And because 2016 is not a strong class for bigs, Self and staff need to put extra work in to land the ones who are available. Marques Bolden is the top priority for this coaching staff this year.

De'Aaron Fox is a great player and I do plan on trying to go watch him play this year as I live about 30 minutes away from Cy-Lakes. At the end of the day though he doesn't fill a pressing need for Kansas basketball in 2016-17 and what he's looking for and what KU needs just don't appear to line up.

@BeddieKU23 Fox is in the a presumed OAD range, he's not likely going somewhere he's coming off the bench which is what would happen here with Mason and Graham back. This is why I don't believe we'll see KU land a combo or PG in this class. Front court is a much greater need as KU is looking at likely only having 3 current front court players back and 2 of them aren't starter caliber players.

If you want a OAD PG, there has to be an upper classman next to him. Tyus Jones had Quinn Cook next to him to help him out running the show.

I don't see any scenario KU lands Fox because I just don't see a scenario in which Mason and Graham aren't on the roster in 2016-17.

The 4 flat look is only effective if there are 3 other perimeter players and an excellent weak side post player. This prevents the person running the iso from being double or triple teamed with no option. My biggest issue though with Frank running this play is that he doesn't have the greatest court vision and he does miss a lot open players with better scoring opportunities than he has.

There's a very realistic chance KU could return the entire backcourt next year. Mason is not going pro until he completes 4 years at KU. Devonte Graham, Brannen Greene, and Lagerald Vick will not be leaving after this year unless disciplinary action is involved. Wayne Selden and Svi Mykhailiuk are the two wildcards.

If Selden plays like he did in South Korea this season, then he definitely becomes a serious contender to turn pro. Svi has projected in the 2016 draft for some time now and if he plays up to those expectations, I personally think he will, then Svi also becomes a realistic candidate to leave early.

It's also possible that neither of them play to those expectations and both end up having to stay and KU ends up with the entire backcourt back in 2016-17. There's obviously positives and negatives to each situation, but I tend to favor experience more than talent (to an extent) so I think I would rather see the back court back in its entirety in 2016-17.

@wissoxfan83 said

We have a few too many cupcake games to suit me, but that's just opinion.

KU has 3 guaranteed cupcakes and possibly a 4th if we play Chaminade in Maui. Based on KU's two previous trips to Maui under Self, KU won't have Chaminade in round one so really KU's schedule breaks down like this.

Self went back to being the Self we all know in the gold medal game against Germany. It was iso and feed Ellis down low and a only subbing the 5 based on situation and fouls. Mason, Selden, Moore, and Ellis did not leave the floor for about the last 15 or so minutes of the game.

If we're in a close game late against Michigan St. or in the third game in Maui, we'll see if Self reverts back to what he normally does or will he actually loosen the reigns and not force feed Ellis and tighten the rotation. Based on the Germany game, I'm not convinced Self is actually going to change in a meaningful way in late game situations.

@JayHawkFanToo Embiid and Austin are two completely different situations.

Joel Embiid has an injury that's caused from his size and doesn't guarantee an end to a career. Embiid can get medically cleared to play basketball at some point in the future and he has already signed an NBA contract that guarantees him enough money that he can be set for life if he's smart with his money.

Isaiah Austin had a preexisting medical condition (Marfan Syndrome) discovered during a predraft physical which is much more in depth than a HS or college physical is. The condition Austin has is a potentially life threatening one and he was lucky he didn't die on the court. Austin will never be medically cleared to play basketball again and therefore unable to ever sign a multimillion dollar fully guaranteed contract unlike Joel Embiid.

@JayHawkFanToo How does the NBA telling Isaiah Austin that they will hire him after he graduates have anything to do with the NCAA? The NBA set the terms of Austin's future employment which is common for many companies to set prerequisites before full time employment.

Embiid's health won't allow that. The injury he has is one that does two things.

1. A player becomes a shell of themselves athletically or...

2. A player is forced to retire.

This is an injury that ends careers and we will never get to see Joel Embiid reach his ceiling as a player unfortunately because of the nature of this injury.

If Joel Embiid comes back to KU it will be as a student and not as an athlete.

@Lulufulu The 2008-09 team only won 27 games, and they won the Big 12 because they got lucky that Blake Griffin missed that game with a concussion. That was a really young team that returned 1 guy that played big minutes the year before. That season along with the 2011-12 teams are 2 of the 3 best coaching jobs Self has ever done along with the Tulsa Elite 8 team.

@Statmachine said:

Ball handling is not so taxing on players that it causes them to disappear in games!

Depends on what you mean by taxing. If you're referring to it being physically taxing, I agree. Playing in the paint is much more physically taxing than playing PG.

If you're talking about mentally taxing, I strongly disagree. Having to read the defense, call out plays, and constantly make decisions all while trying to keep the ball from being stolen, that is mentally draining on a player and we saw that with Mason last year. It is much easier mentally to just react and follow orders.

@jaybate-1.0 Nic Moore was American Conference POY as a junior if you really want to set the bar for Graham's development in 2016-17.

@DoubleDD You still have not answered the two questions I've asked you multiple times now. You can think my opinion is uninformed and out of the blue all you, but Carlton Bragg is the 7th big man to sign at KU since 2007 that has been ranked between 20-40. Out of those previous 6, only the Morris twins played big minutes as freshmen and that's because of a lack depth. Cole, Withey, Robinson, and Ellis were all the 4th option at in the rotation as freshmen just like Bragg will be this year in all likelihood. Also, none of those 6 played fewer than 3 years at KU so that's a pretty good sample size to make reasonably educated predictions about Carlton Bragg and how his career at KU will go.

So again, where do Carlton Bragg's minutes come from this year and why is Carlton Bragg so much more special as a freshman than Cole, the Morris twins, Withey, Robinson, and Ellis that Bragg will be OAD when all of the other 6 were at KU for at least 3 years?

@DoubleDD Where do Bragg's minutes come from this year? Perry Ellis is playing 30+ mpg this year so where do Bragg's minutes come from?

And, what is so much different about Carlton Bragg than Cole Aldrich, the Morris twins, Jeff Withey, Thomas Robinson, and Perry Ellis (all ranked between 20-40 coming out of HS) that Carlton Bragg will be OAD compared to these other 6 players who were all at KU at least 3 years?

@JayHawkFanToo You do realize that if Mason and Graham are on the floor together and Svi subs in for Mason, that moves Graham over to PG. So yes, Svi can sub for Mason without Svi being PG.

@Statmachine Manning is completely irrelevant to any discussion about future rosters because he's a walk on. If Selden is only projected a mid 2nd round pick, he'll stay for his senior year. KU will lose 4 front court players (Diallo, Ellis, Mickelson, and Traylor) and Self knows this and is planning on this in recruiting which is why he was targeting a transfer big with that final scholarship this year. Self needs a ready to play big that's capable of challenging Lucas for the other starting spot along side Bragg. He needs a ready to contribute big that can play back up minutes if Coleby doesn't pan out and a guy that's a year away from being a contributor/starter. The 4th scholarship needs to be a wing player even if KU returns everyone in the back court because if that happens, it's possible Graham and Vick would be the only guards in 2017. After the 2016-17 season, it's very likely KU only has 2 maybe up to 4 players currently on the roster at that point (Vick, Coleby, and maybe Svi and Bragg).

These next 2 classes for Self are going to be huge because they are each likely to have at least 5 players in them as the roster turns over almost completely.

@Lulufulu Marshall has turned down better jobs than Memphis. I could see Damon Stoudamire taking that job since Arizona doesn't appear as though it'll open up anytime in the near future. Stoudamire is actually back with Memphis this year so he could be back to take over the program in the near future.

@HighEliteMajor I don't think Svi spends much time at the 3 this year. Even subbing exclusively for Mason and Graham, that's probably going to be 20-25 mpg for Svi this year (about 5 mpg subbing for Mason, probably about 15 mpg subbing for Graham, and whatever time all 3 are on the court together). Greene's probably going to sub exclusively for Selden. I think we'll also see Svi and Greene together when Self needs more size on the perimeter.

There's 120 minutes available on the perimeter and 5 guys will get the vast majority of them. Vick will be good, but he currently doesn't bring anything to the table that KU doesn't have a better version of with the 5 rotation guys. Mason will probably be around 30 mpg, Selden at 30 mpg, Graham at 25 mpg, Svi at 20, and Greene at 15 mpg. Those minutes are all approximate and could be off by 2-3 mpg on some guys.

@JhawkAlum He won't score more than about 10 ppg at KU because he'll be the 4th option at best behind Ellis, Mason, and Selden.

Diallo's value on offense will come when playing with Ellis and Ellis faces double teams. Diallo may not have the tools to create his own shots yet, but he will score a lot of easy baskets when Ellis is double teamed, back cuts, lobs, and offensive rebounds.

@JayHawkFanToo Mike Anderson is a very good coach who's won everywhere he's been. He didn't leave because the writing was on the wall there, he left Arkansas because of Nolan Richardson the same way Roy left here because of Dean Smith. Anderson made Missouri a very good program that was competitive with KU and had some of the best Border Wars of the past 15-20 years.

Frank Haith was a bad hire. The guy couldn't win while cheating and he left because he knew he was going to be fired. Missouri may have been back sliding under Haith, but he's not the one who cratered the program.

Kim Anderson absolutely cratered that program and he probably won't get a 3rd season and may not even survive this season. He just isn't cut out to coach D1 basketball.

@drgnslayr It doesn't matter if Self has any interest in Nichols because KU doesn't have a scholarship and Self isn't going to force someone out at this point to get a second player who can't contribute on the floor this year.

There's also another school pretty close to KU that's having major problems keeping their players and is fun watching their coach destroy his program. Kim Anderson has to be on a very hot seat right now as bad as Missouri was last year and with all the transfers they've had this year including another one those week.