🏀 KuBuckets Archive

@Marco said in Mitch and Teahan:

Okay, I'll say it, I would prefer that Mitch move on, but maybe Coach knows something that we don't. Teahan is a walk-on, so it doesn't matter.

How does bringing Mitch back next season hurt anything? He doesn't count against the scholarship limits for next year so nobody has to leave to make room for him. With 3 new bigs coming in next season, is having someone like Mitch who can help teach those guys the system when Self isn't around really a bad thing? Self also still needs a back up for Dave so why is having Mitch around a bad thing there? If Sydney Curry is good enough to fit that role, then it's his, if not having Mitch will fill a very large hole in the rotation.

@BShark Dotson not getting drafted at all was one of the biggest surprises of last year's draft and Newman was dead set on leaving after 1 year regardless.

Ochai's only hope at making the NBA is as a 3&D player, but he still needs to become a much better shooter to be considered for that role. Ochai is someone who's likely going to have a long career in Europe/overseas with his skill set.

@BShark said in Mitch and Teahan:

@FarmerJayhawk you hearing anything on Och and Jalen? I think we need one of those guys back, ideally both.

They'll both be back. Neither one are NBA caliber players at this point. Ochai just doesn't have the skill level for the NBA and Jalen needs more time to develop his game to give himself a chance at the NBA probably in 2023 at the earliest.

@DanR said in Mitch and Teahan:

Do we have another big guy coming in? Pretty sure 6 year Mitch is still going to be better than Sophomore Gethro...

All 3 of KU's signees for 2021 are post players. Zach Clemence and KJ Adams are 4's. Clemence is very much a finesse player who has a very similar game to Perry Ellis. Clemence being 6-9 means he could develop into a small ball 5 down the road. KJ Adams is an undersized 4 at 6-7, 200 lbs. so he may have to learn how to play some 3 as well. Adams is also going to need more time to develop because he's not good enough to crack a 7-8 man rotation next season.

Sydney Curry at 6-8, 260 lbs. is going to be a 5 for Self. He is very much a power player that tries to rip the rim off on dunks. His body needs work though because he doesn't have enough quickness to guard B12 post players at this point. He will need to go through the David McCormack system of body transformation to try and drop about 20 lbs. so he can have enough quickness to to play.

Mitch back in his same role as next season is a good thing. His leadership while the team possibly navigates NCAA sanctions will be invaluable. If Curry or Muscadin are good enough next season to supplant Lightfoot in the rotation, the Mitch essentially becomes an extra coach for KU.

@BeddieKU23 Michigan St. also beat Illinois on Tuesday night and now have a really good chance to make the NCAA tournament.

Gonzaga only up 10 at home against Santa Clara with about 5 minutes left.

@nuleafjhawk There's a big difference between saying someone should be on the bench and saying "watch him personally lose the game" like you said.

@nuleafjhawk said in Rankings , Agree or Disagree ?:

@Texas-Hawk-10 - I had a very filling breakfast of crow this morning. That's what I get for getting my hopes up. We suck.

So - McCormack is in the game and we're almost dead even. A bucket up or down.
McCormack rides the pine and we DESTROY Texas. Fourteen up for most of the first half.

Light Bulb !! Hey, Hall of Fame Coach - let's put McCormack back in and watch him personally lose the game for us. Missed dunks, stepping on the out of bounds line, bobbled passes. Self HAD to realize that, in this game, we were better off without him.

Sorry, but McCormack did not personally lose the game for KU last night. McCormack did not lose the ball out of bounds with a chance to take the lead. McCormack did not shoot 2-12 from the field like Garrett did, or even 5-15 like Wilson did. It also ignores that most of KU's run in the 1st half came when Jericho Sims was on the bench with 2 fouls opening up the paint for Bryce Thompson. It also ignores that Thompson barely played in the 2nd half and OT despite what he did in the 1st half.

McCormack was definitely a factor in KU losing (his lack of rebounding more than anything else), but to say he was personally responsible for losing is just flat out ignorant to the fact that KU as a team only scored 23 points in the 2nd half last night and only shot 57% from the FT line while missing 9 FT's including multiple front ends of 1 and 1's. It also ignores that Marcus Garrett shot 2-12 or that Ochai Agbaji wasn't even bothering trying to get to the rim.

There is plenty of blame to go around for last night that does not involve David McCormack.

The Kansas team that came out in the 2nd half is the Kansas team we've seen all year on the road against good teams. When other teams play good defense, which Texas did in the 2nd half, KU struggles to score.

It's also why I don't have a lot of faith in this team in the NCAA tournament. There's a very long history of teams that struggle to score getting bounced very early in the tournament when they play teams that can score. It's why Virginia has been prone to upsets over the years in the dance.

@DanR said in Tejas (or El Tigre?) game thread:

Kind of felt like EJ passing up the layup against Michigan and kicking it out to Tharpe, except wilson just threw it out of bounds.

Felt like Perry's miss against WVU a few years back.

Dave has always had stone hands.

Should've been a play on, but I'll take anything at this point.

25-11 Texas so far this half.

This is the first time this year this version of Kansas has shown up outside of Lawrence this year. By far the best KU has looked on the road so far this season.

@nuleafjhawk said in Rankings , Agree or Disagree ?:

@Texas-Hawk-10 And at the same time, we've beaten 6 ranked teams. All I'm saying is it's Kansas and anything can happen.

And all but 1 of those wins has come inside Allen Fieldhouse, unless you're counting the Kentucky game which doesn't mean much since UK isn't an at large team this year.

To have success in the NCAA tournament, KU has to prove they can beat good teams away from Allen Fieldhouse and they haven't done that this year. KU being 1-6 away from home against at-large caliber teams is not an encouraging sign that this team is built to win on March. Those 7 teams being Gonzaga (L), Texas Tech (W), Oklahoma St. (L), Baylor (L), Oklahoma (L), Tennessee (L), and West Virginia (L). 6 of those 7 teams are the caliber of team KU would face in the 2nd round or Sweet 16 with everyone in that group but Oklahoma St. being projected a 6 seed or better.

KU is an extremely offensively challenged team with the only away win coming against similarly offensively challenged Texas Tech by a single point in a game neither team reached 60 points. That's also the only game of the 7 in which KU didn't give up at least 75 points.

At this point, I just don't see enough evidence that this team is good enough to beat a lot of the projected 3-6 seed teams that would be a likely second round match up, let alone good enough to beat the projected 1 and 2 seed teams that would be a Sweet 16 match up.

@nuleafjhawk said in Rankings , Agree or Disagree ?:

@Texas-Hawk-10 I don't know how old you are, but please don't put "Sweet 16" limits on this team. I remember in the stone ages, we went into the NCAA's with ELEVEN losses and won the National Championship.

Yeah, I know - we don't have a Danny Manning, but we have some good players who haven't reached max potential either. I hope nobody counts us out until we're out.

If Baylor hands us our asses in a few days you can torch this post.

This team is currently 1-6 in road/neutral court games against at-large caliber teams. There's very little evidence at this point this team is capable of beating good teams away from AFH. KU is 7th in scoring in the Big 12 play this year. This team just doesn't have the tools to make a deep run without a lot of stuff happening beyond their control.

If KU could somehow beat Texas tonight, that would be much more important to me than beating Baylor because this team has to figure out how to beat good teams away from AFH if they want any chance to make a run.

@KirkIsMyHinrich If KU "won" a regular season title that way, it would be an absolute joke and I hope they wouldn't add this to a banner if it happens. I usually buy every regular season conference title shirt, but this is one I would skip if it works out to where KU "won" the regular season.

@BeddieKU23 Playing a full schedule, Baylor wins this league by at least 3 games, maybe even 4 or 5. At most, they would've lost 1 or 2 games in conference play and they're so far ahead of everyone else in the league this season that 18-0 was a realistic possibility for them. I have no issues saying Baylor is the legit regular season champs in the B12 regardless of how many games they end up playing at this point.

Oklahoma St. over Tech by 5 in OT.

Marcus Garrett was announced as one of 10 finalists for the Senior CLASS Award today. Voting is open through March 22.

http://www.seniorclassaward.com/vote/mens_basketball_2020-21/ ↗

This is a Sweet 16 team at best. This is a good defensive team, but they also can't score and are a bad rebounding team. This team has only shot over 45% from the field once in the last 9 games.

That also doesn't factor in that this team only has 1 quality win away from AFH this season so playing away from home whether it's a neutral court or road game has been a big struggle and the NCAA tournament is not being played at AFH. This week's games will be telling about what kind of chance KU has to make a any kind of run this year. If KU sweeps somehow, they become a dark horse to make a Final Four run. If they split, KU probably peaks at the S16, and KU getting swept (the most likely outcome this week) probably means a second round exit at best.

KU has hired Jake Schoonover to be the new LB coach and Special Teams Coordinator. Schoonover spent the past 3 years in a similar role at Bowling Green and 7 years at Illinois St. before BG.

No. 3 Michigan over No. 4 Ohio St. in Columbus 92-87 in a game of the year candidate.

Duke's slim tournament hopes still alive as they got a signature win. They have 4 regular season games left and none against bottom feeders. Louisville and UNC are tournament teams as of now, Syracuse is a bubble team, and Georgia Tech is above .500 in ACC play as of now. With the way Duke is playing right now, them winning out is a real possibility and racking up some Quad 1 wins while doing so. Jalen Johnson quitting looks like it might have been the best thing to happen for Duke down the stretch.

UNC murdered Louisville 99-54 tonight. And the Kitties got their second B12 win tonight on the road over TCU.

KU women lost by 1 to Tech in OT. KU blew a late lead and let Tech go on a 10-0 run to begin OT.

Good win today, but the last 2 are going to be a struggle. Can KU beat a good team on the road and can KU score against Baylor's defense?

I think KU has a chance against Texas on Tuesday because Texas has struggled against the top part of the B12 and their only recent wins have been over KSU×2 and TCU.

@benshawks08 I'm fine, I'm on the same power grid as a hospital so I never lost power. There was a burst pipe in my apartment building on Tuesday night (not my unit) so I didn't have water for a few hours, but it came back on sometime Wednesday morning.

@BeddieKU23 Clemence and Mitch can coexist because they won't play the same position on the floor. KU is going to need more a lot more help on the defensive end of the floor than they will on offense. That's not to say the offense will be good by any stretch because we don't know what the PG situation will look like next season. What we do know is that Marcus Garrett is leaving and that's going have a huge negative impact on the defense. We saw how much the post defense regressed without Doke, it's going to be very similar on the perimeter next season without Garrett on defense.

Without Mitch, this is what KU will have for interior defense next season, Dave who will probably be improved over this season, but not significantly, Zach Clemence who gets pushed around by HS kids, so imagine how much he'd get owned by 22-23 year old men, Sydney Curry who looks like a post player version of Sherron Collins and needs to drop at least 20 lbs. to have the quickness to guard B12 bigs, or Gethro Muscadin who makes Zach Clemence look like Arnold Schwarzenegger in his body building days.

With Mitch Lightfoot back, KU wod have a guy that doesn't get pushed around, is willing to take charges and do dirty work, is an above average shot blocker, and currently the best post defender on the team. That's also not even factoring in all the off court intangibles Mitch brings to the table which will be needed desperately next season as well when KU likely learns their fate from the Adidas investigation.

KU desperately needs a quality post defender next season and Mitch Lightfoot is currently the best fit for that need. His leadership is also something that will be desperately needed while KU guides the Adidas investigation and ruling waters as well. Self and staff need to do whatever they can to convince Mitch to stick around for his 6th year.

@jayballer67 McCarthy Hall is the biggest reason why KU hasn't had a delay caused by KU. Those players have essentially been locked down in McCarthy since basketball season started other than Christmas. That really is the biggest reason for KU not having to postpone games.

@KirkIsMyHinrich said in Dave is coming on , getting better game by game.:

Soccer might help as well. I know Joel played/plays soccer, and he has some of the best footwork in the NBA.

Embiid and other African players footwork does usually come from soccer, but Dave won't ever get there because he didn't grow up playing the sport from an early age and playing for about 10 years before discovering basketball.

@BeddieKU23 I'm going to go point by point here. TGF is a major rebuilding project. If Self finds two more players, TGF should be the second player to go after Enaruna. There's a bunch of work to be done with TGF to make him a serviceable role player with the biggest issue being that TGF doesn't pass the basketball once it gets to him. The problem with being able to develop TGF is I don't see this offseason looking much different than last offseason in regards to what coaches and players can do and how much they can be together. I really don't see TGF being much different as a player than he is this season to me which makes him expendable to me.

If Bryce Thompson starts at PG for KU next season, KU is in deep trouble because that's a really bad offensive team and a bad defensive team.

Zach Clemence is not a 5 and if KU depends on him for any meaningful minutes, that's going to be a disaster because he isn't strong enough to play the 5. Zach Clemence is a stretch 4 and has a very similar game to Perry Ellis. In his highlight video, not one single dunk and his low post game still mostly involved him getting pushed away from the basket. He is a finesse player and I don't see him being much of a rebounder or defender.

As far as bringing Mitch back, he doesn't count against the scholarship limit and he doesn't have a professional future and he wants to be a Jayhawk. It makes all the sense in the world to bring Mitch back if he wants to be back. While Mitch isn't much on offense, he's an above average defender.

Sydney Curry is a going to be a good player for Kamsas, but he needs to work on his body before he'll be able to contribute meaningfully. If he can get down to 240 lbs., that's probably around his sweet spot weight wise to keep his power, but have the agility and quickness to play beast ball in the Big 12. Without an offseason though, he probably won't be able to work on his body properly with the new S&C coach.

@BeddieKU23 said in KU vs that other team Game Thread:

@BShark said in KU vs that other team Game Thread:

@BeddieKU23 Problem is we aren't gonna be able to add 3+ guys so you end up keeping guys around if you can for practice.

Say this was the starting 5 next year.. This assumes Tristan moves on.

G- Thompson

G- Agbaji

G- Braun

W- Wilson

C- McCormack

Bench-

G- Harris

W- Grant- Foster

After that Self is playing Clemence (Lightfoot's role), Adams (Enaruna's role) & Curry (3rd big).

Jossell is 3rd string PG again & Muscadin is 4th string big. Find these kids a good transfer destination.. We need a PG & maybe Self finds another under the radar wing..

That line up is worst case scenario next season. That's a line up that will struggle to score worse than this group does, and will stuggle to defend anyone well.

I also disagree about running off Jossell and Muscadin at this point and not bringing Mitch back next season. With NCAA sanctions looming, I would not run off guys that can develop into rotation level players down the road yet unless there's scholarship reductions as part of the sanctions against KU. Is Jossell ever going to be a starting PG for KU? Probably not, but he is someone who could come off the bench and knock down a 3 and be a spark on offense and with the uncertainty about KU's future, I wouldn't run that skill set off at this point. Muscadin may never develop into anything special on offense, but he has the tools to become an elite rim protector and rebounder because KU's best teams have always had an elite rim protector on defense. Because of KU's uncertain future, I would not run off either Jossell or Muscadin at this point for a transfer player.

I also wouldn't let Mitch leave yet. If I'm Self and staff, I'd bring Mitch back next season in his current role because Zach Clemence is not a 5 and will struggle in that role. Clemence is a stretch 4 and would be better suited backing up Jalen Wilson next season.

As for who needs to be sent packing to make room for a PG, the two options to me would Enaruna or TGF. Most of Enaruna's issues stem from his lack of effort and hustle. Combine that with his poor shooting and not being a willing passer, Enaruna absolutely should be first choice to transfer out.

The reason I would send TGF away over Jossell or Muscadin is because he's a JuCo guy meaning he won't be around as long to develop as those two. TGF might be the most athletic player on the team, even moreso than Agbaji, but there's zero skill behind that athleticism and he'll exhaust his eligibility before he can develop any skill. He's the worst shooter I've ever seen at this level, even worse than Garrett and it's taken 4 years to fix that shot, TGF doesn't have 4 years. Combine that with him being a black hole on offense because once that ball touches his hands, it's not going anywhere else. A ball hog who can't shoot isn't much incentive to keep him around.

Ideally the rotation next year would look like this. An incoming transfer at the PG spot with Harris backing him up. Jossell in his same role as this season or a redshirt. Braun and Thompson battling for the off ball guard spot and the other being the first guard off the bench. Agbaji starting at wing with the loser of the Braun/Thompson battle being the main back up for a 5 man guard rotation.

In the front court, Jalen Wilson at the stretch 4 spot with Zach Clemence being his primary back up and TGF being the emergency guy if he's still around or KJ Adams if TGF is gone or an Adams redshirt if TGF is still around. At the 5 spot, Dave starts and ups his minutes to about 25-27 mpg, Mitch is his primary back up, Sydney Curry gets spot minutes, and Muscadin redshirts. If Mitch does move on, then Clemence by default would have to be a universal sub for McCormack and Wilson.

When I was still there, the songs I remember we're Chicago's "25 or 6 to 4", Neil Diamond's "Sweet Caroline", Bon Jovi's "Livin' on a Prayer", Fall Out Boy's "Thanks for the Memories", sometime in the second half they'd always play Twisted Sister's "Not Gonna Take It", and I want to say they played a Hendrix song, but I don't remember for sure about that one. This was from 2008-2010.

@Kcmatt7 Who's KU's liaison with Adidas now because I assume it's no longer Gassnola? That's something that's going to impact KU recruiting as well while they develop a relationship with a new liaison.

Time for a real opponent on Saturday and find out how much of this better play is real and how much was the lack of quality of the opposition.

@jessejayhawk said in KU vs that other team Game Thread:

@Texas-Hawk-10 Do you think we will get to 50?

That's why first one there wins.

First one to 50 wins?

This team is good in AFH, crap away from AFH. Beating Tech in Lubbock is the only good win KU has away from AFH this season.

Playing good at home, crappy away from home has the been the norm this year.

@Crimsonorblue22 I found out I'm on the same service grid with a hospital so I never lost power fortunately. I did lose water pressure last night and got pressure back this afternoon. My mom lost power Sunday night and stayed with me the past two nights until she got power back this morning.

It's bad down here. GOP trying to blame wind turbines when the bigger issue is the coal and natural gas wells that froze.

Prison Mitch reference, lol!

@Kcmatt7 said in KU vs that other team Game Thread:

I can't tell if we just look better or if we have just been playing terrible teams?

KSU and ISU are both sub 200 in NET rankings, we are beating up very bad teams, but hopefully the confidence carries over to Tech on Saturday.

Defense has showed up tonight, that's a good sign at least.

That Svi game brings back happy memories. Always enjoy refs screwing over Weber and KSU.

Florida St. blew out Virginia last night by 21 points.

Top 25 streak has restarted as KU is #23 this week.

@Crimsonorblue22 said in Non-KU Games Thread:

@Texas-Hawk-10 my bro in Houston has no power. Fireplace. 52 in the house.

There's widespread power outages here and most electric companies websites have crashed because of people trying to find out when their power will come back on. I'm lucky that I didn't lose power at all, at least so far. Most people lost power between 1:30 and 2:30am when the brunt of the storm came through and had thunder snow with it.

@BeddieKU23 said in Non-KU Games Thread:

Sub-zero wind chills are the norm for me this time of year but that is crazy it reaching Texas

This is normal for the Panhandle up near Amarillo and Lubbock, but tonight is supposed to get close to an all time record low in Houston tonight.

TCU and Texas Tech has been postponed due to the winter storm that has the entire state of Texas under a winter storm warning. This is also the first time I've ever experienced a sub-zero wind chill in Houston. It feels and looks like a Kansas winter here right now.