@bskeet I'm just a middle man connecting a good platform with good people, and greasing the wheels with links to stories. Glad it feels like we've got a nice roll going now, and glad people are pitching in like you do to keep the stories hooked up and bringing out the best in each other.
Btw, noticed that the reply button now automatically puts the @ in the reply. woot! nice touch by the nodebb guys.
@highelitemajor Really really don't want Andrew White to transfer either. I think if he stays 4 he will end up being the heart of this team as an upperclassman. Here's his brother kicking butt and taking names for Thomas Dale High School, near me:
http://www.hopewellnews.com/article_6057.shtml#.Uq3h9fRDtO0 ↗ ↗
@highelitemajor Been thinking a lot about Selden staying/going league of late. It'll be interesting to see how much hype he gets depending upon the success of the team, his individual success, and how much the media wants to play up the youth movement at Kansas beyond Embiid and Wiggins. My guess is he stays, especially if we don't make it to the Final Four.
What a difference a game makes.
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It had been a long, grueling month for the Kansas Jayhawks, the kind of stretch that can leave doubts in the mind of any young basketball player.
Kansas had suffered three losses in four games, played five games away from home, and traveled about 7,000 miles round trip since its last home game, a dominating victory over Towson on Nov. 22.
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Perry Ellis scored a team-high 21 points on 9-for-14 shooting, leading the Kansas men's basketball team to an 80-63 victory over New Mexico on Saturday night at Sprint Center.
Kansas City, Mo. — Freshman center Joel Embiid makes this young Kansas University basketball team so much better when he plays as opposed to when he nurses foul trouble. His extraordinary numbers — 18 points, six rebounds, four blocked shots, three steals and no turnovers — compiled Saturday night in 25 minutes against New Mexico in the Sprint Center, tell only a portion of the story.
KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Sophomore forward Perry Ellis and freshman center Joel Embiid combined for 29 of their team's 41 second-half points to help No. 13 Kansas defeat the New Mexico Lobos, 80-63 Saturday night inside Sprint Center. The win, which was the Jayhawks' ninth-straight inside Sprint Center, put an end to Kansas' two-game losing streak
Perry Ellis scored 21 points, Joel Embiid added a career-high 18 and No. 13 Kansas pulled away in the second half to beat New Mexico 80-63 on Saturday night and end a frustrating two-game skid.
Kansas City, Mo. — The Kansas University men's basketball team got back to its winning ways with a hard-fought, 80-63 victory over New Mexico at Sprint Center in Downtown Kansas City.
With Naadir Tharpe back in the starting lineup for the Jayhawks, Kansas looked much more like the early-season team we saw and a lot less like the team that suffered back-to-back road losses at Colorado and Florida. Tharpe finished with 9 points and 8 assists in 37 minutes.
@wissoxfan83 thanks dude! Glad your badgers are rolling! Maybe this is the year I should get a dvr given the foul rules. Didn't even think of it til you said so.
Along the lines of your post I like @bskeet for posting the dailies taking one for the team and @drgnslayr for posting another original for us to sink our teeth into.
And I like that jaybate is reading this too. Like our Jayhawk Kenobi.
@drgnslayr loved this read. Patient well developed points and examples. Fun stuff. Perry needs to go hard the whole possession even if the initial option doesn't go to him. Don't just run the play and play the position. Be the play and be the position. Perry has to internalize what it means to be the 4. Post like a 4, bang like a 4. Though I think he should be a 3 in the league I don't think there will be a good time for him to play it for us this year or next .
@RedRooster I'll fire up a new bucket called "Crochet work, garden tips, and KU football" and spin up that single thread. Haha
LAWRENCE — It’s been nearly a week since Kansas junior point guard Naadir Tharpe lost his starting spot to freshman Frank Mason.
LAWRENCE — After signing a few basketballs in the locker room Wednesday, the Kansas men’s basketball players huddled in a circle to air out their thoughts and frustrations during a players-only meeting.
The blueprint most college basketball coaches like to follow calls for packing the early portion of the schedule with what are known as “buy games,” one-and-done competitions that don’t require the big school committing to return to the small school’s court to complete the series. The visitor flies back home with money to help fund its athletic department.
Because they won't make the sweet 16 in our bracket?
Kansas University’s basketball rotation players work on attacking the zone defense regularly at practice.
That just hasn’t been evident in the past two games — Saturday’s 75-72 loss at Colorado and Tuesday’s 67-61 setback at Florida — in which the Jayhawks labored offensively.
Gainesville, Fla. — Nobody can make a freshman point guard play like a rookie quite like a polished senior backed by a frenzied crowd in a building where only a few feet separate the spectators from the participants.
The members of the Kansas University men's basketball team held a players-only pow wow in the locker room Wednesday, a day after suffering their third loss in four games at No. 19 Florida in Gainesville.
@drgnslayr woh woh woh! I may be out on a limb here, but I typically by default assume you're not talking about Bill Self sexually! :=D
that key combination maps to an emoticon.. here's the list of emoticons on this board.
@Blown It looks like he was on the live blog yesterday -- Link to live blog text ↗
That sounds like a perfect solution. Thanks! I will try that with just the pre/post game threads, and lock threads when the next game's thread begins. Haven't tried the lock functionality yet, but it is there.
Sorry @eastcoasthawk. I pin stories because people didn't like that the most recently responded to show up above the most recently posted, but I forgot to pin the last 2 football posts, so they had dropped below the pinned stories. I now unpinned all football stories, as it probably doesn't need to be regulated the same way bball stories do. I might also unpin bball stories, as people are probably accustomed to seeing the most recent stories promoted to the message of the day, so pinning might well be redundant.
Good question, thanks for bringing it up.
Didn't get home until the second half... My takeaways from the second:
Wiggins' offensive greatness was pretty apparent down the stretch, and if he goes after it, he could be unstoppable.
Brannen Greene is out of the doghouse and coming to a theatre near you soon. Jam Tray got more run and played with heart and purpose, I thought.
Saw Self yell at Greene for apparently not making a particular cut.
Sometimes this team looks like its never played against a zone before. I've mentioned before that the ball rotation and skip passes, and entry passes and big man flash to the other block or high post were all slow, and that was prevalent again tonight and cost us dearly. But I also noticed tonight that the guys off the ball just don't know how to space the floor to get open against the zone. Like the wings aren't leaking toward the corner when the zone is collapsing on penetration, so the kick isn't there because the angle isn't there.
I thought Greene was one of the few players (other than Wiggins' arsenal and maybe Jam Tray's hustle) that seemed to have any clue how to take what the defense gives you to get a bucket down the stretch. Yelling at him for not making a particular cut (and maybe I read him wrong, but let's just assume that's right) seems a little silly.
Maybe Self is struggling to teach these kids how to play intuitively, spacing the floor, when a shot is a good shot, and when it's bad, etc.. What we might be seeing is an X's and O's guy demanding execution of plays from guys, for what? Should we be focusing on fundamentals first / play execution second?
Would this loss have been avoidable if we were reenforcing fundamentals that resonate with the larger body of basketball knowledge that these kids have already accrued, rather than learning Self's playbook which may be confusing them? Would they be able to speed it up if perfecting Self-ball and fear of the Self-hook weren't in their heads?
GAINESVILLE, Fla. — The No. 13 Kansas men's basketball team couldn't recover from a nightmarish first half, falling 67-61 to No. 19 Florida on Tuesday at the Stephen C. O'Connell Center.
On a night when Kansas coach Bill Self started four freshmen for the first time in KU's long and storied history, the young Jayhawks took their lumps against a veteran Florida team.
By Matt Tait — Gainesville, Fla. — In hopes of snapping out of a funk that had contributed to losses in two of its past three games, the Kansas University men's basketball team sent four freshman to the floor to start Tuesday's game at Florida. It's believed that it marked ...
Even when athletes looks desperately lost, way overmatched, getting worse by the second, it’s tough to count them out when they have the best player on their side and ample time remains on the clock.
GAINESVILLE, FLA. — The number of areas in which Florida’s basketball team outdid visiting Kansas University during a 67-61 UF victory on Tuesday at the O’Connell Center reached double digits
GAINESVILLE, FLA. — Life on the road hasn’t been rosy for Kansas University’s basketball team this nonconference season.
@ParisHawk Not heresy; makes sense. I'll reiterate though that its not just our outside shooting why we can't bust the zone. Our ball reversal sucks. Also, I don't think I've seen a skip pass in weeks. And I can only remember one designed play ending in a converted entry pass against CU (the and one to Embiid).
@highelitemajor I agree that we would probably have won the game if Self had picked one of our 3 shooters as the guy. Being that this comes down to a coaching decision, it's the low hanging fruit.
Along with the stuff I said earlier, it also looked like we are getting blown by on D too much. Throughout this young season, we've seen plenty of botched defensive rotations and open shooters, but I always thought "we'll fix that soon enough".
But seeing the frequency of the blow bys, I'm questioning the footspeed and ability to anticipate from some of our guys, and while that apparently can be vastly improved with work (ex. White last year to this), I'm thinking that is going to take a lot more work and time that fixing off ball rotations.
In my perfect alternate universe, Xavier Johnson's first attempt at inbounding the ball past Landen Lucas, in which he threw the ball off of Lucas to avoid a 5 second call, instead results in Landen tipping the ball towards the goal, then collecting it and dunking it as time expires.
Won't you all join me for 3 seconds to picture this moment of zen?
I'll repost here what I posted on the other game day thread:
Seemed like we didn't flatten our D when they flattened their offense, thus they were banging corner 3's on us repeatedly. Also, the 3-pt specialist carousel burned us again. How does Frankamp end up with the crunch time minutes? Finally, on offense, our ball reversal was too slow a lot of the time. Come on, we know their zone isn't going to try to cut the passing lanes, they were packing it in and were being successful doing it. Our PGs hardly had to think about the second pass but they did, and the Buffs defense had time to adjust. Then, on the possessions where the ball reversal was fast enough, it looked like our bigs werent cutting across the lane to receive the entry pass fast enough (Perry). Again, giving the D time to adjust.
Colorado's Askia Booker hit a running 3-pointer at the buzzer from 24 feet, sending the Buffaloes to a 75-72 victory over No. 6 Kansas on Saturday afternoon at Coors Events Center in Boulder, Colo.
BOULDER, Colo. — It was nearly 20 minutes after the shot had fallen, the pain of the loss still fresh, and Kansas coach Bill Self stood in a back hallway Saturday inside the Coors Events Center. Everyone wanted to know what had just transpired.
Did Askia Booker travel? Did KU guard the buzzer-beater the right way? How did the Jayhawks come to this building, a place they once owned, and lose a 19-game winning streak against the Buffaloes?
A year later, Colorado finally got the reversal it deserved. The buzzer-beater it was owed finally, officially counted. The upset it earned was finally recorded as a win.
Boulder, Colo. — It took awhile, but Bill Self and his Kansas University Jayhawks have finally experienced the agony of defeat against Colorado.
Dear Kansas fans: Do not start freaking out just yet.
I know what happened on Saturday. I saw Colorado’s Askia Booker hit that buzzer-beating, euro-stepping three to beat the No. 6 Jayhawks, 75-72. I saw the bench mob him at half court and Jimmy Dykes ask him questions on ESPN in the postgame that made little-to-no sense. I watched it all happen.
And I’m still telling you that Saturday was a good thing for your team.
Seemed like we didn't flatten our D when they flattened their offense, thus they were banging corner 3's on us repeatedly. Also, the 3-pt specialist carousel burned us again. How does Frankamp end up with the crunch time minutes? Finally, on offense, our ball reversal was too slow a lot of the time. Come on, we know their zone isn't going to try to cut the passing lanes, they were packing it in and were being successful doing it. The PG hardly had to think about the second pass but he did, and the defense adjusted. Then, on the possessions where the ball reversal was fast enough, it looked like our bigs werent cutting across the lane to receive the entry pass fast enough (Perry). Again, giving the D time to adjust.
Hey there @wrwlumpy! Jo Jo won't start soon enough! Lumpy, it looks like 3 people posted same thing within 30 minutes, can we kill this thread and move over to bskeets?
Looks like three people posted the same thing within 30 minutes of each other about Frank starting. Can you kill this thread and move the Ben link over to bskeets thread? Great find! That speed is incredible!
'Run and gun Roy' is what I used to call him. I like Roy and it was nice to see him thump Izzo. I'm probably in the minority in here, but I like Izzo, too. Cal is one of the few coaches I really dislike.
With you... Izzo is my second favorite coach.
Holy smokes, he's 7-0 against Izzo? That's a secret recipe Bill Self needs to ask Roy for.
There's one rule here, don't be a jerk... and since being a jerk is in the eye of the beholder, and there aren't any offended beholders here, we're straight right? This thread does seem a little far out there, its somewhat gloomy opinion, flavored with hyperbole and not really news or analysis, so that's why I didn't link on the front page.
I agree with the underlying point... the dimensions of the game we congregate here to talk about are in serious flux. Most notably, rule changes. What other major sport is experiencing such sweeping rule changes year after year? In regards to changes off the hardwood and their impact on the sport, it seems much more subjective. It doesn't really bother me as much as it does some others I guess... It is what it is.
However, whether we perceive these changes to be good, bad, or irrelevant, I'll offer that... "Let's enjoy the moment" because basketball IS the sport of the RIGHT NOW. It is why we play "One shining moment" for the champion -- ultimate victory is one shining moment amongst a torrent of moments that do all sorts of things besides shine...
It's why .8 seconds on the clock, behind < 3 is still enough time, no matter where you are inbounding on the court, to get a shot off and change the outcome of a game.
We live for the precious, fleeting moments of this sport. Maybe we can appreciate this nature in a larger context. Enjoy our Self, enjoy our Decade of Dominance, enjoy the farcical good vs. evil paradigm we've constructed with Self vs Calipari and what this represents in the here and now of the sport, and what it makes us feel to be brothers in arms cheering on the ones we consider the good guys, as silly or as very real as it may be.
Enjoy it fellas. "This is our year!" And as long as we can make that wild claim, with some glimmer of certainty that we may actually be right, and this may in fact be our year... The magic still courses through our tv sets, our message boards, our newspapers, radios, or other media forms of our choice... It still makes us dream, and imagine the possibilities. Let's enjoy it fellas. It's still pretty awesome, isn't it?
(EDIT: And even when the possibility of a title isn't remotely in the cards, which luckily hasn't been the case in a long time for KU basketball, there is still a reason to cheer, of course. This just is the extremely fortunate position we find ourselves in: Rock Chalk Championship? )
@nuleafjhawk aww man, I'm not the boss. I just liked your point and the fg% didn't seem right. Thanks to everyone posting the collective secrets of their statistical sauce, I felt empowered to Sherlock it.
@nuleafjhawk Wiggins FG% is .561 not .493.. thats his % of shots at rim. As people have mentioned before, with some more hustle, the steals and blocks can and will rise, the FT% I don't think will in a season. Once the game slows down a little for him, if he shoots less midrange j's (38.9%) and 3's (33.3%) and his team moves better without the ball, I could see his FG% surpassing Danny's freshman year, and his assists getting in the same ballpark.
So while his stats are less across the board right now, your point is valid -- Let's see what Wiggins' looks like end of season. His freshman year might just end up better than Danny's statistically.
No, seriously, what's the recipe?
Nicely done!
@Wishawk I really like your take on this. If Selden can show the ability to knock down a clutch trey when we need it, it would help immensely. I don't think we'll see that from Wiggins this year, but his midrange game could explode. I'm envisioning a wow moment for us viewers somewhere at the beginning of conference time where this Bahamas tournament feels like it was last season.
News flash! ESPN loves Duke! Parker better than Wiggins, but not better than Jack Taylor!
I didn't really get to see the game.. so whats the deal? Anything to take away from this game? Other than we didn't want to be there, and it was obvious?
PARADISE ISLAND, Bahamas — It was just one play, but to Kansas coach Bill Self, it signified an example of the largest issue facing his KU basketball team.
Paradise Island, Bahamas — A narrow victory over UTEP in the third-place game of the Battle 4 Atlantis Tournament was no cause for celebration for Kansas University’s basketball players, coaches and fans on Saturday in Imperial Arena in the plush Atlantis resort.
Paradise Island, Bahamas — UTEP men’s basketball coach Tim Floyd busted out some gimmicks Saturday night against Kansas at the Battle 4 Atlantis.
First, it was the stall on offense. Then it was the triangle-and-two zone defense.
PARADISE ISLAND, Bahamas -- Of the six halves Kansas played on its three-game trip to the Bahamas, Jayhawks coach Bill Self thought only one of them was any good.
The other five, he thought, were "crappy."
“It’s hard to coach execution if you’re worried about energy and effort,” Self said. “Because no matter what you do, if you’re worried about coaching execution when the energy and effort’s not there, it’s never going to look right, because you don’t ever play 100 percent all out.”, Coach Self.
You guys make me want to be a better poster. This analysis was heartfelt, brain felt solid gold! Hope to review the tape and see the specific callouts.
@Blown thats true. And Mason's passes over the top of the pressure were rainbows, because he was at a size disadvantage. I'm sure we'll get better at breaking the pressure going forward.
@nuleafjhawk I agree with you, but when you win as much as we do, L's make a much bigger statement than W's. Now that Self has his L to work with, the change has to come.
Good points everyone. Welcome back skeet!
@Blown For sure, the officiating was horrible. We got mugged, and they traveled a lot, not just that play.
To me, the poor decisions regarding the wing, and not getting Greene or White back in the game, was Self trying to figure out Naadir's role on this team. This two PG lineup seemed odd to me before this game. It may make sense for small portions of a game when the situation demands it, but certainly not for the extended run we saw it yesterday in the midst of a dogfight. We give away inches on D, and the second PG isn't needed.
Is Self doing this because it is a more natural transition in moving Naadir to the bench? He's stated that he believes the offense runs better with Mason at the helm. Now he is showing everyone, team / fans / Naa / himself that he is exhausting all options trying to keep Naa on the floor but it just isn't working?
If Self had looked at what the game demanded, I have to believe that it would have been obvious that we needed Greene or White in there. It only makes sense that Self was squarely focused on the long play and not the situation at hand -- how do you determine whether the longest tenured Jayhawk needs to come off the pine? How do you make everyone else ok with that decision?
Oh well. Our guys battled back in the second half, but weren't able to seal the deal. Frank Mason was fantastic, while Naadir really seemed out of sorts, and I didn't really understand why we went with a two PG set for most of the second half. Bright spots were Mason's play, capped by a full speed spin move that absolutely torched their rim protector, Greene's play (he finally got the call when we were down badly and responded by helping to ignite our offense with a few key plays), Embiid playing tough on both ends with 4 fouls before fouling out, and Wiggins getting some run at the low post... Lots of teaching moments here, including how to overcome circumstances when the calls don't go your way. This was a great game for us.
(If anyone sees post game stories come out, please throw them on this thread)
PARADISE ISLAND, Bahamas — Kansas coach Bill Self likes to call these games “muddy.” And if he’s honest with you, it’s the games he really likes.
*KU Sports - * “The first thing is, there’s nothing we can do about that game now. It’s over,” KU sophomore Perry Ellis said. “We have to tell these younger guys we have to move onto the next game. We have to get better as a team, just go into the game tomorrow and play more competitive than we have been.”
KU, and its legion of 3,500 (or more) fans, will square off against UTEP (4-3) in a 6 p.m., Central time, contest in Imperial Arena at the Atlantis resort.
@truehawk93 I like your memory. Hope we look like that today!
It's pretty simple. Kansas beat Duke. By double digits. They're averaging 87 points per game, scoring at least 80 in each contest. They're 8th in the nation in assists at 19.3/game, and lead the NCAA in field goal percentage shooting at a .568 clip.
Forgot about the Lowry punch to Jeff Hawkins..
[Lowry](
Happy Thanksgiving YB! I must have eaten close to a whole bird today, but it didn't have a yellow beak, be not a-feared!
@civilhawk Me as well, Civil!
I'm also thankful for all you guys and your manyfold contributions to a constant stream of Jayhawk consciousness, and Jesse Newell and his outstanding insights, and the other writers that produce the quailty KU stories we devour... the KU Sports guys, Rustin Dodd over at Kansas City Star, kenpom, Bilas and the other guys who started tipping the collective media cap towards the last decade of Jayhawk dominance, and back to all things civil, a country where we can afford to pontificate over our favoUrite (and thanks Julian and the Node BB guys! I can't spell favourite without U!) sports teams.
It's been a good year for sports, and a good year in general.
@JRyman Glad it went okay, and welcome back! Happy Turkey Day.
@kirkismyhinrich Our guys looked pretty decent on offense. Our defense had some lapses guarding the paint, and especially in transition. The game got as close as 4 points late in the second half. Our first unit appeared to get in the doghouse with Self, and we had ne'ery a starter in for a 7 minute stretch in the second half when the game in the balance. The second string performed admirably.
Wake Forest looked impressive and they seem Madness bound in March, if they play like they did against us for the balance of the season.
Thomas got ejected for jawing at an official (who was also jawing at Thomas inappropriately) repeatedly.
