🏀 KuBuckets Archive

Officially a 5 game suspension which is the rest of Michigan's regular season.

Handshake line for the Michigan-Wisconsin game turned into a brawl that included Juwan Howard punching a Wisconsin assistant coach. @wissox I assume you watched this game, what led to that post game brawl?

@drgnslayr Best and most important player are not always the same person. Ochai is definitely KU's best player, but I'd argue he's probably only the third most important player for KU behind Harris and McCormack. Harris is by far KU's most important player because he makes everything run on offense. McCormack is more important to me because when he's on, like he is now, it opens up the offense more.

@Crimsonorblue22 said in Kenpom rating vs NCAA tourney success:

@Texas-Hawk-10 no Gillespie ?

He's far below 100% with an ankle injury. He's not even practicing at this point and is only playing games. He might actually be in worse shape that Pettiford and Remy right now.

I'm assuming Auburn, Gonzaga, amd Arizona are basically locks for 1 seeds at this point. I'd honestly rather see KU end up as 2 seed because the 4th 1 seed is going to end up in the East regional and I'd rather see KU end up in San Antonio with Arizona because I think that'sa better match up for KU. The East region would probably be looking at either Kentucky or Duke as the 2 seed and those aren't good match ups for Kansas. In San Antonio as a 2 seed, KU would probably end up with Villanova/Providence as the 3 seed and I like those match ups for KU especially without Gillespie for Nova now.

The best thing about this year's tournament is every serious contender has a major flaw so it's not like last year where everyone basically knew it would be between Baylor and Gonzaga.

@Kcmatt7 said in Kenpom rating vs NCAA tourney success:

@BShark God I hope he comes back next season

There's no reason Braun shouldn't come back. Braun is a solid player, but he's not NBA material. Even though Braun's shooting has mostly been garbage since conference play started, he hasn't disappeared like he did last year so he's still been a net positive unlike last year where he was less than useless if he didn't are shots.

@drgnslayr said in When Remy makes it back...:

I think Joe continues to get valuable minutes. Remy is still a ways off or not returning. Self mentioned resting Dajuan and Och more. This definitely needs to happen before March.

We still need to iron out tempo. Some games we bring it... other games we don't, and when we don't control tempo, we struggle to put teams away.

Self also said without Remy, it's hard to rest Harris because Yesufu's not a point guard (Self's own words and said multiple times during Hawk Talk this week) and Pettiford can only play a short amount because of his abdominal injury so Self has been stuck having to play Harris 38+ minutes because there's not another healthy PG on the active roster right now. At least that was the gist of Self's comments on Hawk Talk this week.

We're one injury away from being in a really bad situation because we have no bench. If that injury ended up being Dejuan, KU doesn't have a back up point guard right now.

If anybody listened/read excerpts from Hawk Talk, Self flat out said Yesufu is not a point guard and Pettiford is only playing right now to give Harris a minute or two because that's all Pettiford can do. So if anybody thinks Self won't play Remy if Remy gets healthy, they are mistaken because Remy is the only other point guard right now.

As long as KU stays healthy, they should win the league, but it's not a guarantee because of how thin KU's depth is right now.

Duke just about blew a 19 point lead against Wake tonight. Wake tied the game with 18 seconds left and Duke got a dunk with a second left to win it. Coach K didn't coach the second half due to illness.

Remy can provide the bench scoring this team needs. Our bench scored 8 total points the last 2 games. Remy can be the scoring punch the bench needs.

@nwhawkfan said in Oklahoma State Game Thread:

Looking tired out there. Time for some bench guys.

Self did that a few minutes ago and OSU went on a 12-2 run and cut the lead to 15 or so.

Did Fran really just compare Travis Releford to Mason, Graham, and Agbaji? No offense to Releford, but he ain't in that league.

Might be first to 50 wins tonight.

@approxinfinity said in Superbowl Half time entertainment:

I thought the halftime show was better than any I can remember. They usually suck.

Prince is still number 1 all time for me. This is definitely a top 3 halftime show. Not sure if I liked this one or the Foo Fighters one better.

@tundrahok said in Self provides injury updates:

@AsadZ In the postgame, Self said Dave was fine at the beginning of the game, but not great. He was certainly not impressed with Dave's defense on Groves, and said Zach was the only big that could defend (hedge screen then get back). I got the idea Dave's defense was why he sat so much, not an aggravated injury (my hypothesis too, before hearing coach answer the press).

Dave's injury is his foot which has limited his mobility quite a bit this season. With a bad foot, Dave hasn't been able to guard the way he did last season when he became a competent defender.

@Jethro said in 3 THINGS:

I've been trying to think how this team can be better this year, and have come up with 3 things that could potentially make us a better team. Feel free to put your 3 things in, and we'll solve the world's problems in one fell swoop:

1- Stop letting Och inbound the ball. It. doesn't. work. well. He just doesn't anticipate the pass very well, many times it's a weak throw...it's just not his thing. Braun was a point guard, and is taller than OCH, and frankly we could use Och's athleticism on the court alot more during pressure situations.

2- Play Joe more- play Harris less. Look, I'm not anti-Juan. I think he has a significant role, and he is beneficial to our success in many ways. But that's way too many minutes (39). On the other hand, Joe got a whole 4 minutes for the whole game. Juan was completely gassed at the end of the game, and Joe never got a chance.

3- Get Zach into the game for at least 20 minutes every game from now on. No more Mitch. Dave is hurt- he is a shell of himself from last year. Give every second of time that Dave isn't out there to Zach. Zach is an Alpha. Maybe he's just too young to know any better, but he didn't flinch on that 3 attempt. The game was on the line, and he shot that ball like he didn't have a care in the world. I think there's something special about him. We need dudes that want to step up on this team badly. Plus, it was really nice having one of our Bigs hit a 3 for once.

It's so easy to coach from the peanut gallery...lol. What's your 3 things list?

1. I agree wholeheartedly with this one. Ochai has never been good at in bounding the ball in clutch situations.

2. Yesufu was awful in his minutes yesterday. He got beat badly on defense multiple times, committed an terrible reach in foul 30 feet from the basket. This is why I'm against playing Yesufu high volume minutes, especially in place of Harris, because he is too inconsistent to trust with big minutes at this point. If Yesufu plays, it needs to be next to Harris, not instead of Harris because Yesufu is not a lead guard, he is an undersized 2 guard.

3. It's one game and the first time in any appearance Clemence has played any defense. He also wasn't that heavily involved in the offense during his minutes which when you play 9 minutes and don't touch the ball much as a 5 in a Bill Self system, you're not ready for 20 minutes a game yet. I will agree with getting him more minutes though amd seeing if his defense yesterday was an anomaly or genuine improvement and if it was genuine improvement then get him more consistent minutes because unlike KJ, Clemence can actually get a reboud (Adams has 0 defensive rebounds in his last 5 games).

KU ends the regular season with 4 games in 8 days starting with the Baylor game in Waco. KU gets 2 days if and then has 3 games in 5 days and all of those games are against teams likely to be in the NCAA tournament and potentially all against top half of the Big 12 teams as well.

I feel like 5-2 to close out the season is doable and really 6-1 is a strong possibility as well which would guarantee a split at worst and probably outright because I don't think Baylor finishes 6-0.

KU women by 12 over KSU. Now 17-5 overall and 8-4 in league play still sitting in 4th place.

@Crimsonorblue22 said in Big 12 Regular Season Title (if that still matters to you):

I heard on the radio, somebody from Baylor, the guy I can't spell, hurt his knee today. Tchatchoua

It looked really bad. I couldn't tell from the video if it was non contact or he caught the heel of a UT player going up the floor, but he hyperextended his knee big time. Baylor officials are saying it's a "significant" injury and he's out indefinitely so I'm guessing they're waiting for swelling to go down enough to do an MRI and see what all he tore in his knee.

@rockchalkjayhawk said in Boomer 2 Game Thread:

Well that didn't look promising in the first half, now did it? yikes.
Bottled up. Defended well.
It seems defenses have caught on to our offense, just like what happened to the Chiefs. Teams started playing that "cover 2 deep" against them, forcing them to dink and dunk. When they had patience, they did well against that D. When not, maybe not so much.

So defenses are doing a similar thing against KU in a way. their "cover 2 deep" is defending the 3 pt line like crazy, and limiting Och from hurting them from afar. And that forces us to dink and dunk inside, and we don't have great dink and dunkers inside. Ahem, Dave.

Not an exact replica, but close.

So, the question is, will HOF Head Coach Bill Self figure out a way to play a better O against those brain stormed Ds we've been facing???

KU's biggest issue on offense was sharing the ball. It stuck with too many people not being active when they didn't have the ball. I didn't think OU's defense was all that good today, it just felt more like KU being lazy on offense. This is a comfortable win if Ochai shoots his normal numbers and KU makes 5 more FT's.

Looking like Memphis is gonna take down Houston in Houston. Big win for Memphis today.

North Carolina was outscored by 18 in the 2nd half and still beat Florida State by 20 today. UNC led 62-24 at halftime pf that game and scored the first 18 points of the game.

When did Clemence learn how to play defense? First time he's ever look competent, let alone good on that end of the floor.

@stoptheflop said in Boomer 2 Game Thread:

@jayballer67 You would also think this team could get the damn ball in bounds despite the press. Jeez

Agbaji has always been suspect at inbounding the ball which is who Self seems to use in clutch situations.

I'd rather move on personally. I've defended Dave more than just about anyone here, but he's also not an elite enough player and could hurt Udeh's development who is someone with a much higher ceiling than Dave to me.

Depending in who's back next season, KU could very well have a team that struggles to score quite a bit, especially in the paint if Wilson leaves since Clemence and Zuby aren't known as low post presences and Adams and Udeh don't have much of an offensive game at all at this point.

If that happens, I'm sure there will be plenty of times people will wish Self had brought Dave back and criticize Self for that decision. Those people are also probably going to be the same ones complaining about Self not playing the freshmen more this season as well.

@jayballer67 said in Jayhawks in the pros:

Huge lift - -Big time help for JO Jo finally - -76er's got Hardin - guy can get buckets will help JO Jo alot - - in exchange for Simmons those the main two , not sure if there is anyone else or not

This is going to end poorly for Philly. Harden and Embiid's games don't mesh well and teams are now figuring out that Harden is a cancer that doesn't make teams better. Look at the players Harden ran off in Houston to to the point of ruining the Rockets. And now that Harden isn't the central piece teams are building around, they won't deal with his crap for long and he'll end up bouncing around the league the rest of his career. Harden is a ball hog and the change in the rules has taken away what made him a dominant player as evidenced by his drop in FT rate. Without the refs whistle, he's not an elite player as evidenced by his playoff career.

@kuballin10 said in Tejas Game Thread:

@Texas-Hawk-10 what’d he shoot last night and what about Joe?

I already outlined we turned it over 3 times in Joe’s minutes and had the best control of the game with him in.

I’m advocating for him on that night to play more. If that’s for Harris fine, for Braun fine.

Harris out of the main 6 players had the worst +/- but I’m not surprised.

Win as a team lose as a team but the ceiling is no better than sweet 16 with the minute distribution right now.

My previous comment before the stats last night, you responded with wanting to know about the comparison numbers between Dejuan and Yesufu, since those numbers didn't support argument, now you're moving the goalposts.

Also, your rant about turnovers doesn't mean much in regards to trying to blame Harris for that since Harris only committed 2 turnovers. While Braun, Wilson, and Agbaji combined for over half of KU's turnovers. Those three also happen to lead KU in turnovers per game while Harris is 6th on the team despite his minutes. But since that doesn't fit your narrative, you're just going to go ahead and ignore that anyway. Another thing that won't help your case is that Yesufu is averaging more TO's per 40 minutes than Harris is.

We're also not going to talk about the analytics showing that Yesufu does very little on either end to actually make KU a better team just like he didn't make Drake better last year when they only went 4-3 in games he started last season. Those analytic numbers might actually be onto something there about judging if a player actually makes their team better or not.

@kuballin10 Have you pulled a muscle yet stretching to blame Harris for last night when you yourself have brought up, Ochai getting shut down, Braun not getting a single rebound and playing bad defense, Jalen Wilson playing bad defense, David McCormack playing hurt down the stertch, but none of those could've been the reason if only Self had relied on the guy that's shot 42% from the field the past 3 games instead of tge guy that's shot 50% from the field in the last 3 games.

@kuballin10 said in Tejas Game Thread:

@Texas-Hawk-10 nah 29 at best

He’d been 7-10 with 4 threes.....6-7 assists....4 steals and 18 points had he started all year

Nah I’ve been wrong ask @benshawks08 i admitted it on our big 12 finish I had us 3-5th based on early review of play and other teams

Just this you’re right I’m not wrong on and would pay a decent amount to have an honest conversation with William on what he sees, how and why. I’d walk away convinced Harris is the guy because Bill’s smart but still want to see how he doesn’t give the same opportunity

I'll give you the answer right now. Go look at some advanced metrics because Yesufu has not been good on offense this year at all. Harris has been quite a bit better in advanced numbers than Yesufu. A PER that's sub 5 is flat out terrible and that's where Yesufu is at in conference play.

@kuballin10 Keep blaming Harris for KU being -2 in rebounds, -9 in in offensive rebounds, -5 in FT's made, and -8 in turnovers.

And no, I'm not convinced Yesufu was the difference in the game, but since you're clearly the smartest guy here, of course you couldn't possibly be wrong about anything because you've clearly never been wrong about anything in your life so of course KU would've won by 30 had Yesufu played the whole game instead of Harris.

@kuballin10 Also, Harris is not who let Texas get 15 offensive rebounds tonight or take 19 more FG attempts than KU.

@kuballin10 said in Tejas Game Thread:

@Texas-Hawk-10 highlighting a 2-3 play stretch and ignoring the last 5-6 minutes is like saying

The chiefs lost to the bills initially because the offense turned it over ignoring the fact dirty dan was atrocious leading to the other teams points

Harris hit two 3’s.....that was it. Was completely dominated on both ends from tip to double 00’s

We get it, you hate Harris as a player and have a hard on for Yesufu, but he's not the one who cost KU the game.

@bskeet said in Tejas Game Thread:

Yes they let both teams assault about equally.

I don’t like that kind of basketball.

Reminds me of a really shitty regional final I saw I think it was Pitt vs Memphis. That game was in the 50s. These teams deserve better.

You may not like that style of basketball, but don't try and blame the refs when they call it the same for both teams. The refs did not cost KU this game. Maybe if Braun or Wilson had made a free throw down the stretch, KU wins.

@bskeet said in Tejas Game Thread:

The biggest choke is the officials that must be choking on their whistles.

Don't try and blame the refs. They were letting both teams play tonight

Ochai lob pass off the rim and FT's down the stretch were a bigger issue than Dejuan's play. The Ochai lob puts that game away if it's a good pass.

Also, Courtney Ramey did a helluva job defending Ochai all night.

According to ESPN, the betting line has flipped to KU being favored by 1.5 points now.

@Jethro said in Jayhawks in the pros:

@jayballer67 Joel probably got a tape of Kobes, just like he did with the Dream.

Kobe was mentored by Hakeem quite a bit.

@BShark said in Baylor Game Thread:

@Kcmatt7 said in Baylor Game Thread:

That moved our Kenpom D to 30th

Lists of coaches I would like all our opponents to be coached by

Scott Drew

Cuonzo Martin

Mike Anderson

Anyone feel to add on to this, it's a fluid list.

Bruce Weber

@approxinfinity said in Baylor Game Thread:

@Texas-Hawk-10 I think it was pretty clearly an ass-kicking :)

Could Yesufu be more consistent with consistent minutes? Maybe he just needs volume?

Even with volume like he had last year, he's not at that level yet. That's probably the biggest reason he ended up as a mid major recruit, especially coming out of a market as competitive as Chicago is.

@kuballin10 said in Baylor Game Thread:

Post game Bill loves Harris - no surprise always likes the least offensive talented player who tries hard

Side note: Harris was terrific tonight

Joe - not as terrific needs to attack twice as much as he shoots. Defensively was okay but didn’t impact like ISU.

This is my biggest issue with Yesufu and why I'm not on board with handing him the keys to the offense. When he's on, he's a great a player, but he's extremely inconsistent. I honestly didn't even realize he played almost half the game today because he completely disappeared out there for long stretches.

Harris is the more consistent player and that's the biggest reason why Self loves him and others like him that maybe don't have as high a ceiling as someone like Yesufu, but consistently play closer to their ceiling on a much more consistent basis as well.

This is the frustration with Dave too because we all know what his ceiling is, but he's also been pretty inconsistent this year as well. Even though Dave didn't shoot well today, I'll still take this Dave every game because he got to the line a bunch today and made his FT's and rebounded with aggression.

KU got 17 and 13 from the 5 spot today, I'll take that every game and this was by far KU's most complete and best game of the season. Just wish they could've kept it over 30 at the end.

Whenever Bad Dave shows up, whoever Self puts at the 5 is lacking in at least one significant area of their game. To me, that means it should be a situational determination on who gets those minutes. Jalen Wilson is by far the best offensive option and rebounder among the three options. Wilson is also the worst defender by quite a bit regardless of which position he's playing.

KJ is the best defender of the three, but he can't score and can't rebound to the point where it hurts his defense because he gives up too many offensive rebounds. If Adams is in, Wilson almost has to be to help with rebounding, but if Wilson's offense is off that game as well, that's minimal offensive threat at the 4 and 5 spots.

Mitch is in the middle of those three categories which is why he gets the majority of the back up minutes. He's not the offensive threat Wilson is, but he's capable of getting the ball in the basket. He's also an average rebounder for his size and he's a better defender than Wilson and KU's best shot blocker.

If KU gets into a situation where the defense is playing poorly and KU is losing, then I'd be in favor of Wilson at the 5 along with Harris and Yesufu/Pettiford/Martin next to him to help spark some offense and let KU play quicker.

If KU has a lead and needs to get some stops then, KJ is probably the best choice, but if it's a tight game, I'd rather see Mitch because he's going to make the right play 95% of the time which Wilson amd Adams won't do.

@BeddieKU23 said in 2022 Recruiting Thread:

Still think we should be after Bobbi Klintmann. Kid can really shoot it at his size. 6"8 with tools to work with.

And who out of Jalen Wilson, Christian Braun, Gradey Dick, MJ Rice, or Zuby Ejiofor is he better than? He's not a need and KU can find prospects like that in every class or the portal if they need that in a class.

I'm going to disagree with others that say KU needs another guard because unless someone transfers, KU's going to have 4 on the roster next season (Harris, Yesufu, Pettiford, and Cuffe). KU needs a low post player that can score because Udoh and Adams aren't offensive threats at all and Clemence is a face up player.

@Jethro said in Non-KU Games:

Arizona is the best team in the west. That's a massive front line.

Depends on the night. They were good tonight and both games with UCLA played out similarly with the home team looking dominant and not really being challenged too hard each game.

I finally got to watch the game. Some things I saw were that ISU's offense was really bad. Part of it was KU's defense, but to force 22 turnovers and only score 61 points is garbage offense.

We also saw something we haven't seen in awhile and unless I missed it, haven't seen brought up that I think was a bigger factor than just playing Yesufu extended minutes and that was Self running two lead guards together for most of the game. We haven't seen much of that recently since Remy hurt his knee against Nevada than anything else. Yesufu had a Christian Braun type game where he shot like crap, but filled the sheets up in other areas and gave positive minutes.

I know I saw people talk about KU's pace being quicker, but I don't think it was specifically Yesufu being responsible for that and I think it was just more of KU playing two lead guards like they were at the beginning of the season. I will also say that even though Remy hasn't scored much this year, I think he was largely responsible for Ochai being to do what he did in the non-confernce because Self was playing two lead guards which opened the floor up more.

Ochai is a 3 and D player, that's what his skill set is. He's the most athletic guy on the team, but he can't create for himself against good defenses so having two lead guards out there opens things up for him.

KJ Adams again had another game with zero defensive rebounds. KJ might be the best low post defender KU has right now, but if you can't get a defensive rebound, it almost doesn't matter how a good a defender you are because you're not ending the other team's possession. KJ has 9 defensive rebounds in 122 minutes, almost all of those minutes coming at the 5 spot. That's unacceptable levels of bad and will cost KU a game at some point if he gets extended minutes in crunch time because he'll give another team multiple opportunities while costing KU possessions. Here's some other players that have more defensive rebounds than KJ this year, 6-5 Jalen Coleman-Lands, 6-0 Joseph Yesufu has 2 more defensivereboundsin only abiut 20 more minutes, Zach Clemence has more defensive rebiumds despite playing over 50 fewer minutes than KJ, and finally 6-1 Bibby Pettiford has more defensive rebiumds than KJ Adams despite being significantly smaller and playing about 15 fewer total minutes.

To me, the 5 spot minutes should be Dave, Mitch, Jalen, KJ in that order right now. Mitch and Jalen could probably flip depending on situation, but KJ doesn't do enough things well yet to justify an increase in minutes.

This is the version Dave we need every game. If that's not the Dave that shows up for a game, then I think Mitch and Jalen need to split most of the minutes at the 5 spot.

Jalen Wilson had a Jalen game and whoever said Jalen should be a point forward, absolutely not. Jalen doesn't make good enough decisions or have the handles to do that role.

I'm sure there's other stuff to add, but that's all I can think of right now.

@benshawks08 said in Iowa St game:

@Texas-Hawk-10 said in Iowa St game:

@rockchalkjayhawk said in Iowa St game:

Looking like Self will have to let Yesu loose if Och/Remy are both out. Somebody’s gotta score.

Coleman-Lands more likely since he plays the 3 spot.

MOST likely would be a combination of players. If Remy is also out it will be all hands on deck. Plenty of minutes to go around.

If it ends up being just Ochai and Remy out, Remy hasn't played much recently so not many minutes to replace. Yesufu and Pettiford probably split those minutes. Ochai does need a replacement in the line up which will likely be JCL because JCL typically plays the 3 and is also the primary wing sub. Yesufu and Pettiford do likely see a bump in minutes tonight, but JCL is the one likely to see the biggest jump in minutes tonight.

@rockchalkjayhawk said in Iowa St game:

Looking like Self will have to let Yesu loose if Och/Remy are both out. Somebody’s gotta score.

Coleman-Lands more likely since he plays the 3 spot.

@rockchalkjayhawk said in Self provides injury updates:

Is it like a hernia thing with Bobby? that may require surgery.

Probably still related to the abdominal strain he dealt with a while back. That's an injury that can take a long time to get back to 100%

@kuballin10 said in Squid Game (Thread):

@Texas-Hawk-10 congrats on the district title those are memories you won’t forget.

Yes, the undersized 2 guard id absolutely hand the keys too over what we have done instead. Frank was undersized and out of high school shot it all the time same for devontae’. You 100% give the guy who has shown his ceiling is incredible the same shot as the guy who will never bring us a title. Joe shot 12/14 and 4/8 for 36 against Evansville. His last 6–7 games plenty of volume no doubt but why did the coach not know he had this all season? Also, the more he shot he still scored all great players gotta shoot. Joe is plenty athletic and plenty skilled give him the Harris leash and you’d see that.

Same with self not identifying ochai right away then getting him here and still redshirting him. Crap went so bad he had no choice but to pull it. Self consistently plays the wrong guys.

You can say practice but someone insiders here say Zach is looking great in practice and then he doesn’t sniff the floor (pre injury).

I understand as a coach you want to see it in practice but when the lights are the brightest how guys perform is more important than practice. I played against a guy who was a great practice player then gets into a game he was awful just brutal. Same was reverse for another player he’d be alright in practice but not great get in a game and he could play. Self has his priorities mixed up and it’s February and he still can’t get the lineup down.

Yes, KJ I agree has no low post moves and is undersized but he’s dunked the last two games more than McCormick has the last 10. You 100% have no other options so play him like he’s jamari traylor jr and roll with the pro’s and cons. Funny if he was traylor he’d be starting.

When Braun and Harris are starting over whether it be Grady, mj, pettiford or Joe yeah this and the other ku boards will explode.

Same for bigs because udeh is a stud and zuby is a trob clone. Already has a jumper granted self won’t let him shoot one 12 footer and if he does he’s pulled.

Can’t ever get not pushing guys to be offensive threats and excel at their game versus “play in my system”. Your system has one title....one. Your system these last few years are ending in blowout loss and you at a podium making drastic claims about getting bigger and mortgage athletic. Put your money where your mouth is and make the changes.

I'm sorry, but I can't completely get on board with your vision. Your vision goes too far to the other extreme to me than what KU's dealingwith now. There's a reason why Calipari has the same number of national titles as Self does and it seems like that's what you'd rather see.

In regards to Yesufu, I will almost guarantee his coach knew Yesufu was capable of going off and those 30 point games came against an Evansville team that was 9-16 last year. Against better teams, Yesufu's stats came at the expense of winning games. Yesufu started Drake's last 7 games and Drake only went 4-3 in those games. His production was nice, but not at the expense of winning games and Yesufu didn't make Drake a better team. That's kind of the hallmark of volume shooters is that their individual success frequently comes at the expense of team success. And no, I'm not convinced we'd see Yesufu light it up if he played as much as Harris considering Yesufu has made 2 FG's since December started.

With Clemence, we've seen enough of him in games to know that he cannot play defense at this point. Whatever offensive skill he has, doesn't make up for just how bad a defender he is at this point.

In regards to your KJ and Jamari comparison, that might be the best comparison for KJ, but Jamari Traylor was never a permanent starter for Self and never averaged more than 20 minutes per game in any season. Traylor actually only played 13 minutes per game his senior season. Your recollection and claims about how Jamari was treated by Self don't match the reality of what happened with Traylor.

I am excited about this incoming freshmen class because there is a genuine upgrade in athleticism, but I'm also tempering my expectations because we don't know if MJ Rice is actually going ever play a game for KU and that would be a huge blow to this class if he ends up deciding to go pro instead. Rice is the guy Self has to do whatever to make sure he gets to campus because he's the guy in this class that is a scorer. I like Gradey Dick, but he's much more of a shooter than a scorer and therefore much easier to guard than a player like Rice is. I also like Udeh and think he'll develop into a great player, but he's also extremely raw on offense and will be a liability on the offensive end his first couple of seasons.

I'm also not as enamored with Zuby as you are and pretty strongly disagree about the T-Rob comparison. Zuby has a solid offensive foundation, but like Clemence is a liability on defense and I don't think he cracks the rotation next season. T-Rob was never a very skilled offensive player and was an elite defender. That's not what Zuby is as a player.

@kuballin10 said in Squid Game (Thread):

@Texas-Hawk-10 KJ the same guy who delivered big against tech the best team we’d played prior to Kentucky? Yeah after that 20 point beatdown in the first half you bet KJ getting a few minutes was worth whatever “risk” u presume we lose by not having Dave and Mitch in there to lose rebounds.

You give the most athletic guard on the team the keys and let him go (not including och). He consistently beats his man off the dribble and is athletic enough to stop dribble penetration.

You are 100% correct his turnovers are terrible with pers because if he makes any mistake ANY (wrong switch, poor help, wasn’t in the right position, turns it over) he is immediately pulled even if he just checked in.

You played a sport before? I’ll assume so because you know that if you make one mistake you’re yanked versus the less athletic and talented guy who can make a million and stays in the game....answer me how you’d play?

Tentative and scared is the answer with zero confidence and “hoping” not to make a mistake.

Blowout loss to nova in final 4
Blowout loss to auburn
Blowout loss to usc
Blowout loss to athletic UK
We shall see how the season ends but if it’s another round of 32 or sweet 16 blowout I sure hope Self actually matures and doesn’t “oh not gonna look at this game”

Sorry, but handing the keys to an undersized 2 guard and a guy who couldn't even start a Drake last season is clearly the answer at PG. And in regards to KJ, a guy who has no offensive game and is an absolutely terrible defensive rebounder for a guy who pretty exclusively plays the 5 is not the answer for KU's issues. I do like him as a defender, but when he can't rebound his position, it pretty much negates his defense though when teams consistently get multiple chances against him and eventually will score.

I'm also fully aware that KU isn't likely making past the 1st weekend again this year. A little history lesson for you. I was about the only person here who said USC was going to blow KU out last year because of their athleticism.

I'm also a basketball coach and just won a district championship today. I'm fully aware about giving a player a short leash in games and it almost always comes down to those players being bad or inconsistent in practice as well leading up that game. Go look at Yesufu's game log from Drake last year, when he came on scoring wise, it was mostly because he became a volume shooter and wasn't very efficient.

I get your obsessed with athleticism, but the upgraded athleticism KU brought in was in the form of low skilled players which creates a different set of issues we're going to see rear its head next season most likely which a very low skilled team. Next season is going to be very rough on offense despite the improved athleticism. Next year might be a worse shooting team than last season and potentially an even worse defensive team as well.

@kuballin10 said in Squid Game (Thread):

@BShark

Give Joe, Harris’ leash and we’d be a completely different team with him at the point. He can defend the ball and beat his man off the dribble.

Mitch has had some great minutes, bleeds red and blue but give KJ all of Mitch’s minutes and see where we’d be.

I agree part of this isn’t fixable but in no way did Self do everything in his power to maximize the efficiency of this team. If he’s all about defense like he says then no
way he watched this team for months and thought this is gonna give us the best chance to win.

Your idea to fix today was to play a guy who had 0 rebounds in 11 minutes all of the minutes of a guy who had 7 rebounds in 13 minutes in a game where KU got their ass kicked on the glass? Clearly that's the fix. KJ has a sub 10% defensive rebound rate. That's not going cut it to fix the issues of a below average rebounding team. Also, Yesufu is not the answer at PG. His PER is 5.9 on the year which is beyond terrible and has a turnover rate of 22% which is actually worse than Harris.