"Proplexed" is the word used for players at the end of the season that are considering their options for bolting to the league.
We have to remember that one (in a few months).
Man..... JB... I missed your post! ha... I'm a big copy cat! I've been called worse. At least my fur isn't purple! lol
Wow... the dynamics will change dramatically when Billy becomes eligible again (got to love my optimism).
Even when Billy gets back on the floor, it will take him some time to catch up.
Just on paper, it seems like Marcus will be a good bet for many situations moving forward.
The 4-guard offense is starting to show some real progress. More than anything, we are able to control pace... something we have ALWAYS sucked at! Controlling pace has always been perhaps the biggest Achilles heel for Bill Self teams.
Controlling pace is probably the biggest weapon any D1 team can have. When you can play at a tempo that pulls your opponent out of their natural rhythm it is hard to lose that game. And it also helps when you do NOT allow another team to dictate to their pace.
But we don't know how fast Billy can play with 4 other players. Not yet. He may actually be a great alternative to Doke sometimes. Imagine the speed of our team with just one big, Billy Preston, on the floor?
Billy has a fast motor, though we still haven't seen him engage that motor most of the time. He's young, still learning everything. Fun to imagine all of these guys dialed in! Wow!
CRH107 said:
"...hopefully, if we can get some pieces back...
There is only one player that isn't with the program that could "come back." Billy!
Self wouldn't lead us on for giggles. He must still have a lot of hope that Billy will be back.
I'm going to hold on to that to keep my hopes up.
Count me on the bandwagon, "I can't wait until we load up 3 more players on this team..."
Kansas 356 Groucho Marx School of Flatulence 21
What more can be said? lol
BeddieKU23 said:
Crimsonorblue22 said:
@BeddieKU23 I saw that. Can an alum seriously be that stupid?
Blame has to be distributed both ways.
Preston has to be smarter then that if this is the case.
The Alum, well I'm sure will get his/her due coming if its true
I think this is a three-way focus - what about the basketball program itself?
If they are just turning these kids loose this is bound to happen. Everyone wants to be their friend and they are prepared to shower them with gifts.
If it goes down like this, I clearly blame the basketball program.
Walton seems far adrift from mainstream. He poses a challenge from what we expect in sportscasting.
I've always pondered why Bill still gets the call from network TV.
I hope we get our act together and then face Duke in March.
"Please help me understand the difference of this “incoming class” that so distinguishes it from other recent “incoming classes.”"
Dump trucks are turning on to Naismith Drive.
Is the auto in question a Charger?
Each day passing makes me feel like the percentage that Billy will never play in a Kansas game grows.
This is not a case where we are waiting on the NCAA for an action. The process is all within our compliance program. This is starting to feel like a situation not so different than what we had with Alexander relating to a "family loan."
We put all of this blood, sweat and tears in our program, including huge financial investments and a compliance program second to none... yet here is the case of a player driving around on campus with a "questionable" vehicle.
The next step we really, really have to make is to put all our players on some kind of chaperone system. I know we might take a mild recruiting hit for a while, but why not SELL this system to players' parents? It seems like many of the parents would LOVE to send their child to a school where they will be carefully watched after.
I think his scoring will come along this season as our offense comes together. Once that happens, he will also probably lift his assist numbers, which are already pretty good.
Good one! Love the "admissions baggage" part. Wish that was the case.
I wonder how long this Billy car issue is going to go on? Seems like a long time passing for the compliance office to check out the ownership in the car. Hope we don't end up with a problem there!
Not sure I would go that far. Bill mentioned high basketball IQ recently because some of our new Jayhawks have court awareness at a different (positive) level than what we are used to. One of those players is Quentin. He sees the court better than most players.
Turned out to be one of Self's "grind games." He loved it!
He also put Doke to the test, and Doke was pretty successful. Not so much on the glass, like he needs to be, but that will come over time as he learns how to seal the glass... something he never had to really do in high school.
But Doke showed us all that his conditioning is coming along well (thank you, Andrea!). I don't think I can remember a player transforming his body as quickly as Doke has. Black made a fast transition, but not on this level. Withey took years.
I thought MSU looked EXTREMELY SLOW!
Izzo recruited a team full of bruisers. But where is the speed?
I'm usually hopeful we don't play MSU in March, but I like our chances this year.
Because of their slowness on the court, I think it sort of diminished the fine performance from Duke. Let's see what Duke does against speed.
Billy's current situation was caused from Billy driving into a curb and damaging a tire.
Not sure what he is driving, but his auto raised a red flag with compliance. Self has sent the message for us to not worry about it, so I don't worry about it.
Actually, Billy is showing some maturity by not being drawn into making this a bigger thing than it already is. Self has stated his pride for Billy in recent days... let's just play off of that.
I have the little man on one shoulder telling me these same fears.
Fortunately, I have the other little man on my other shoulder keeping it positive about Billy. This is backed up with quite a bit of knowledge coming from people close to the situation. From what I have heard and read, we don't have anything to worry about. This is all about the compliance office making sure Billy's car is "legit."
Let's all feel good about our compliance department. With all the cr@p going on in the D1 world, feel good that we have perhaps the best compliance department in college and from this current situation with Billy, we now know that our compliance department takes priority over everything! Like it should be!
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Thank you, Quentin Grimes! Welcome, new Jayhawk!
"“We are very excited about this class,” Self said. “The four we've signed are high IQ basketball guys that understand how to play with other good players.”" - KUSports.com
This recruiting class is taking shape as our best "basketball IQ" class of all times in the Self-era.
Basketball IQ is always important for success... especially as we focus more on recruiting OAD-type players.
dylans said:
I expect so much more from Malik. He’s terrible right now. Drives 100 mph to nowhere. He needs to figure out how to play against length and equal athleticism.
Show some patience with Malik. He needs time to grow into his role.
Playing UK was the hardest on Malik because he is the guy that wants to drive the lane, and he doesn't have the size to take it to UK. I don't know how many of his shots were blocked, but I can easily imagine at least 4 of his shots were swatted. Kind of reminded me of our disastrous game with UK back when Frank was a freshman and UK seemed to block 100 shots that game (felt like it anyways).
Let's hope he learned a lesson from this game. But it does take a huge effort and open mind to fix talents regarding driving to the hole. The hardest lesson is to learn a concept that seems counterproductive: slow down! The biggest key to successfully finishing in the paint is to slow down at the end so you can assess the defense and adjust to a successful finish. This requires being in control. Malik is not in control on his finishes right now. He's making the mistake made by TT and Sherron when they were young. Trying to finish at full speed.
I think we all need to recognize the size and athleticism of UK. They may be young... but they were causing us trouble only because they are a team of all stars. Some of the turnovers related to their size and athleticism pinching in on the passing seams. They were the perfect team to play in November and expose how we need to tighten up certain aspects of our offense.
Doke was a nice surprise last night. It was good for him to be put on the spot by not having Billy and sort of being on his own to face a tall, athletic UK team.
I like how he seems to step up for big games. Let's hope that continues!
Svi, Vick and Malik also made some key plays.
It seems like this tournament needs to happen a couple weeks later, after teams start playing better.
I try to convert my expectations into hope instead. Just framing it in a different light has helped me cope with the times when my own expectations weren't met.
This season has a long ways to go. Don't judge our team too harshly just yet. There is an excellent chance we have 3 more quality players on our team soon. Hopefully Billy becomes available immediately. Sam will become eligible in a few weeks. And we have a good chance of having Silvio join our team and be available for all or most of our conference play and the big dance.
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Our game yesterday with Kentucky was downright ugly. The saving grace was leaving Chicago with a "W."
My focus in that game was clearly on the play of Devonte Graham. He is our point guard, our most-experienced player and the leader of our team. He was also the most-experienced D1 player in this game.
I have to admit; I was frustrated with Devonte's play in this game. He committed many turnovers and took several questionable shots, contributing to his low FG%. It didn't feel like he was always in control.
Towards the end of the game, I started to see Devonte's play in a different light. It was clear that Devonte was often forcing play attempts, resulting in turnovers. It was clear that Devonte was often forcing shot attempts, resulting in missed shots. But should he always be held personally accountable on his play without looking at the play of others?
This is the first year Devonte has been our leader, our soul point guard. Comparing him to Frank Mason... Devonte has more true point guard skills than Frank when relating to running a team. Frank's best skill was related to his ability to get his own shot, which we counted on often to salvage poorly executed team offense.
There is a message we need to take from this game. Don't expect Devonte to be Frank. And why should he be Frank? We need a point guard to run the team far more than we need a point guard that can mainly be successful at creating his own shots.
Devonte "looked bad" last night because our team offense looked bad! Devonte was often put in situations where he had to suddenly become Frank. That isn't fair to Devonte. It isn't fair to just judge this game's play on Devonte. He must carry his share of accountability, but we need to realize that Devonte is only going to be as good as the players around him. That is the way it SHOULD be!
Time will pass... our offense will come together... and Devonte will look much better when he gets the guys around him on the same page.
What a silly story... valuing uniform design, mascots, etc, with coaching skills, etc.
Rupp ahead of AFH? Total laugher! Rupp is extremely mediocre.
Putting the Jayhawk mascot last? Ha... are you friggin' kidding me?
All three other mascots are nothing more than public property mascot designs. You can see those devil, wildcat and spartan logos everywhere, from primary schools on up.
The Jayhawk is original. Only one existing. The design itself is protected. The rest of the school's mascots are only protected when teamed up with their colors or words about the school because the design of the mascots alone is public property.
I've learned over the years that I don't expect KU to win. I hope KU wins. All college D1 basketball teams will get upset sometimes. It just helps me a tiny, tiny bit to try to frame it this way. But I always remain positive concerning our outcomes and direction of the program.
From what I've been hearing... we are focusing on this game the right way. Devonte knows he has to lead us through this game. He is THE SENIOR player for this game (on both teams) that should control the game because of his experience, poise and talents.
Devonte is key and the rest of our players need to follow his example of poise.
If we do this... we will most-likely win, possibly win big!
I've been impressed with Self's growth in basketball over the past few years. Not having enough post depth has also been a blessing because it forced Bill to go with "small ball." It just wasn't enough to have a team full of trey shooters (back when we had B Greene) to convince him to focus on a 4-guard offense.
How many times have we heard Bill bark about tempo (in the past)? I recall he used to complain about our pace being too slow. Sometimes he mentioned "the ball sticking" while other times it was "walking the ball up the court" or "not aggressive enough."
The 4-guard offense is an instant cure for a slow pace.
Now Bill has another tool in his chest. The 4-guard offense is definitely well-polished and sitting in his tool chest.
Imagine having to play against Kansas. What game will Kansas bring?
3-2 - Three guards with two bigs. They might setup in a 3-2 structure, or it could be he just keeps his center in the low post and his other big anywhere from the FT line to playing out on the trey line, setting picks and taking shots from trey to mid-range.
4-1 - Four guards with one big. Using a motion offense hybrid somewhere between dribble-drive and hi/lo, including shifts in tempo somewhere between it being run like a secondary break or slowed down to an aggressive form of a Princeton offense.
4-1 - Four guards with one big. Using an aggressive hi/lo where almost every possession works through the post, either creating low post scoring or open trey opportunities.
I'm thinking a great extra tool is to have our 4 big able to nail the trey. This creates an easy scoring for our 4 to come out setting high ball screens for pick-and-pop opportunities. Get our opposition bigs away from the paint so our athletic guards, like Vick, can crash the boards!
I can believe that.
I could be wrong, but thinking back to my days in the late 70's in Lawrence it seemed like most of KC was Tiger territory.
I think some of the Mizzou fans shifted allegiance to Kansas after Mizzou quit the Big 12. Granted, these were not the hardcore antlers, but if you look at fan bases there are always a bunch of fair weather fans in them.
mayjay said:
@Lulufulu Correct. Not a "wildcat" (bobcat). A wild cat.
Who knew a simple space could, despite looking empty, carry such an amount of meaning?
"I chased after a bobcat with a stick. I ran away from a cougar with a gun!"
Last words of guy who cheated on his wife.
Time to spank these Bobcats!
mayjay said:
@drgnslayr I cannot tell if you are being facetious.
Strangely, my middle name isn't "Fineus" (or "Phineus"), the King of Thrace... or "Phineus" from "Phineus Phreak" and the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers.
My middle name is "Facetious!"
lol
We may be in for a down year in the Big 12. That could also threaten our conference streak if we don't feel challenged and try to sleep through league play.
Prediction: How about Kansas 151 - Kentucky 94. Just a bit better than what we handed them back in 1989 -
"“He didn’t score the second half and he dominated the game,” Self said of Graham."
I hope to hear that more often this year. Sure... I like seeing Devonte hang some points in the book, but what we really need is a floor general from the point. Self's comment holds true; Devonte dominated without scoring the second half.
Before last night, I was sure we would have several silly losses to bad teams, but not as sure after last night. Tuesday will give us more info on where we might think this team goes this year.
What if we pull into January with TWO additional players!?!?! Sam AND Silvio! Sam is the sure thing and he should offer some depth help, and Silvio would be a sick addition! If he can just adjust enough to offer some post help, we will have all the right pieces for March!
We have a great Kansas Wildcat team this year! LMAO
Doke - I'm looking for other signs from Doke... I'm looking at his conditioning (speed, energy). I'm looking at his foot movement. I'm looking at his ability to mesh with the team concerning timing, positioning, aggressiveness. I'm looking at his ability to finish with his back-to-the-basket. And last, I'm looking at his polish... soft touch at the FT line? Aggressive defense without fouling? Aggressive offense without fouling? Aggressive rebounding without fouling? I saw a big overall improvement in Doke's play. He has a long ways to go, but at times, I could hardly tell that was him out there because he looks lighter and quicker. Let's hope he keeps moving in this direction because he is improving QUICKLY!
Billy - Wish he could have played, but Self did the right thing. Rules are rules. This isn't high school any longer. I'm not worried about it. Billy will just do better when being push with discipline. He's going to be an offensive beast for us and we really need his offense moving forward. I just hope he starts focusing more energy on defense and rebounding.
Devonte - He did a great job in leading last night. He got his points, but didn't make it about him. His high assist numbers are HUGE! We just need him to know that he can't take off any nights like he did the past 3 years. And that also means... when the going gets tough, he has to stand and fight. Not back down. I've been saying for the last couple years that Devonte has the most upside and talent of any player on our team. Okay.. he doesn't have the size, reach, vertical etc.... but he has brains, awareness and the ability to use deception on both offense and defense. No look passing, no look steals, etc etc etc. Devonte is like a magician and magician skills are always a great tool for a point guard, just ask Magic Johnson.
Vick - Last night was the first time we really saw Vick start to cut loose. Self is doing a great job of bringing him along to use his athleticism and skills to execute winning plays. Vick just has to realize that being a star isn't just about making the highlight plays. It's about getting down in the trenches and doing the thankless work that rounds out the big stars' stat sheets. I hope he takes on the responsibility to become a consistent high scorer. Vick needs to play a little more cautious when trying to finish at the rim. He charges in at high speed and with a high vertical. One mishap and his season is over with an injury. He isn't built like Frank Mason.. who could be a great football running back.
Malik is very skilled. He just needs to continue to listen to his coaches to learn how to do ALL of the things he needs to do to help his team. His ability to drive and finish at the rim is crucial to our success. He is the closest thing we have to Frank Mason... and we are missing all of his finishes at the rim and free points from the FT line. Over time, Self will find more ways to draw Malik into more offense. Since we often run 4 guards and 1 big, there is all kinds of room to drive the paint. And with our threat from trey, defending guards will have to play us tight on the perimeter. Malik couldn't ask for a better situation to be in. And if he warms up from trey, he forces defenders to play him tight, giving him opportunities to get his shoulders past them on drives. I'm not too worried about Malik. He's going to look better and better as the season progresses.
Marcus - What a great surprise! I think most of us knew he brought a lot of talent with him to Lawrence. What has been so surprising is his early poise. He doesn't seem to play like a freshmen... but let's see how he does against Kentucky... Big 12 play on the road... March Madness. His defense is solid and can still improve considerably. Over time, I hope he picks up some of Devonte's deceptions... and he learns a bit more about defensive hedging... something not taught at Kansas. I'm excited we should have Marcus for probably 4 years!
I don't know. We only have these silly exhibition games to base our opinions.
From what I have seen so far, I'd say the #2 scorer could very well be Billy. I do think it is clear that he may have the second best scoring tools on the team, just behind Devonte.
So far, I just don't see Vick stepping up with scoring consistency. The key word in all of this is "consistency." I'm not even sure we can get scoring consistency out of Devonte! I've been on him for his previous 3 years for taking games off.
I think Doke will become a bigger threat throughout the year, as he acquires more tools and also creates more of a connection with the rest of the team harmony.
We are going to need solid point contributions from at least 2 players not named Devonte. These players need to put up consistent scoring numbers. These two players need to take this on as part of their responsibilites.
We will also need to nail players down on rebounding expectations.
If we don't do some of this... relating to accountability... I'm afraid we will have a pretty good team, but will be marred with some bad losses because everyone was hoping Devonte alone could save us.
Players like Svi will have to change their mentality. He is no longer a secondary player. He has the most-experience on this team besides Devonte. Svi will HAVE TO step up this year if we plan to make much good happen.
We also need more from Lagerald. He doesn't have as much experience as Svi... but he has massive upside and needs to tap into it this year.
I hope this is the year Bill finally ends this hurtful concept that players have to wait their turn. I don't know if this is something he instills in players, but it is clear we have had this mentality during his entire tenure at Kansas. If you remove a few superstars, like Wigs and Josh, it has always been that seniority was earned, and the expectations seem to just fall mostly on our upperclassmen. This is vital as we move towards possibly recruiting a higher percentage of OAD and TAD players. If we are only really counting on Svi and Devonte this year.... OUCH!
I want to play Mizzou and WSU every year. We just have to keep going with Self making us "elite" to the point that we will mash these two wannabes every year!
It is looking like the Big 12 will be down this year... What if our only real threat is WVU? Is that good basketball? When we only have a few games of high interest every year?
I want us to kick Mizzou and WSU's butt so hard every year that they will beg to stop the series!
I want to be able to tell their fans, "Chickenhawk? Better than being a chicken sh#t!"
WE have the capabilities to truly keep these teams as "wannabes" in everyone's heads by blowing them out by 40 every year.
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Ooops... wrong poll (pole)!
I'd like to conduct a poll to see what KUBucket members think about the direction of our rivalries in the future.
What rivalry situation would you like to see?
A. Keep everything like it is today.
B. Find a way to play Mizzou every year.
C. Find a way to play Wichita State every year.
D. Find a way to play both, Mizzou and Wichita State every year.
E. None of the above. I have a different idea...
It would be great if everyone votes so we better understand fan support. After posting your preference, please feel free to support your decision with more info.
Not good for us if our league is down this year. Will hurt our SOS and rankings. It will also hurt us in preparing for March.
It is too early to tell. Let's hope things turn around for the rest of our league.
True... true... and it looks like the NCAA enjoys mating WSU with UK, for some reason. So... IF Mizzou can make it into March, I can see them stick it to us.
Penchant from the Doge of Venezia, instructing the Moor, Othello.
Didn't think of that. If we add it to our preconference schedule then we risk our rankings if we lose. Unless.... Mizzou starts regaining a rep and can go up in the rankings.
Ha... yeah... where is "Multnomah?" It's in Oregon. But we've all seen this guy on I-70 when pumping gas to keep moving...
"@HighEliteMajor Can we still call them Meth U?"
Only if it is true...
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Uh... go ahead!
I see Lightfoot as a different flavor of Kevin Young. He is focusing on this role of being the "energy guy" now. That will take him far with Kansas and can do nothing but help us!
If we can teach our post guys to pass well... shouldn't he be on the floor with Doke much of the time?
It seems like those two together could really pound some offense on all teams in D1!