🏀 KuBuckets Archive

HawkChamp said:

@jaybate-1.0 no you aren't proven right every year. You are excusing crappy play (plus poor game planning) for injuries. Its just flat out silly and is not a logical explanation for losses except where someone does not play. Ku beat themselves today.

Never. I never do that. Certain board rats just don't notice my multifactorial analysis of the poor play, especially in this case involving the loss of poise and quitting, the latter of which is the absolute WORST kind of play.

I ALWAYS include most of the drivers of defeat, or victory, that I can think of. Injury often is a factor. But rarely the only factor. I may miss a few, and then other folks make the necessary additions.

But there are always a few reductive board rats that struggle with keeping more than one driver of outcome in mind, especially when disappointed with a loss, and so get their keyboards in a wad about one driver, rather than looking at the array of drivers I discuss.

Okay, this is an attempt to see clearly through a dark glass.

To see what might have been within reasonable expectations for our team.

KU shot 25% from trey and 50% from the FT stripe.

What if KU had shot 50% from trey and 75% from the charity stripe?

Instead of 5 of 20 from trey, KU would have been 10 of 20 from trey; that's 5 more treys, or 15 more points.

Instead of 4 for 8 from the FT line, KU would have been 6 for 8, or 2 more points.

Ooooookay, that would have summed to 17 more points.

Instead of KU down 74-65, the final score would have been KU up 82-74.

That was easy.

Next, if KU had protected more like a team starting FOUR guards, and cut its TOs from 13 to say, 7, well, KU could have gotten six more shots and probably have made 3. That's at least 6 points right there, and that would have meant KU could have missed two more treys than I just calculated for them above. That is significant, because it indicates that just by playing with more poise allowing more protection, KU could have shot around 40%--well within its reasonable range--and dispatched the Huskies comfortably.

Alas, KU did not play with poise.

And KU did have one of those 25% nights from trey its going to have every once in awhile.

One thing is clear, even if folks don't buy my observation that this team has a chemistry problem and a perhaps a point guard battling some injury tweak he appeared to receive in the Syracuse game preceding this unfortunate game vs. the Huskies, this young, shorthanded team most definitely needs to find more poise when the going gets tough and the shots aren't falling.

A second thing is clear, also. Teams that depend mostly on perimeter scoring LOSE, when the perimeter shooters have an off-night. So: unless this team can find some players to play and score inside, when the shots aren't falling, we should expect this team to lose at any moment and take every victory as decent shooting night.

Until this team develops a well rounded and resourceful approach to winning games when things are not goings its way, expectations of a deep runs are, well, kind of naive.

kjayhawks said:

@jaybate-1.0 Every year just like clock work, someone has a bad and they are hurt arrcording to you. Washington was more athletic than any team we have faced baring maybe a super young UK. DTG has played good for 2 whole games outta 8. Svi must be hurt he shot well under his average, Newman has been hurt all year I suppose too. Pretty much every tonight was hurt I reckon.

Every year I am proven right. Injury is always shaping outcomes and limiting options and forcing teams and players to play other than the way fans expect. Every year certain fans jump to reductive conclusions that the coach got outcoached, and nothing else was involved. Every year, certain fans confuse oversimplification with elegant explanation. Every year I go through this with someone.

I look forward to going through it with you this season.

Rock Chalk!

@kjayhawks

While I don't disagree with your description of Malik's play so far, I want to enlarge the issue to a team chemistry problem, because that is something that could possibly be solved, whereas reducing this to Malik absolves the team and Malik from having to learn to play TOGETHER, and confronts us with the very unsolvable problem of benching him for Garrett, who appears not yet ready.

Something is going on with this team's chemistry. It shows, whether the team is hitting on all cylinders, as it was against Syracuse, and sinking treys impressively, or when it is missing on most cylinders and unable to hit the broad side of a barn from trey, as against the Huskies.

Tonight, it was absolutely shocking to watch a Number 2 ranked, Bill Self coached team roll over and quit with 3-5 minutes left. It was HORRIBLE. And it wasn't just Malik. It was Devonte. And Svi. Really, the only guys that remotely started fighting and kept fighting down the stretch were Azuibuke, who had been a big baby the first 30 minutes of the game (or been avoiding fouls, or both), and The Cobra. But The Cobra's teammates, or Self, or some adjustment by Hopkins, just completely eliminated the Cobra from the game.

Now I know Frank Mason was Sergeant Rock and he often simply willed us past loss of poise by taking over down the stretch and driving for short treys and making long treys until he just flat broke the opponent before the opponent could exploit our wavering confidence. But...

I though Devonte Graham was a pretty resilient human being himself. I thought he had the right stuff too. But there was something wrong with Devonte. I'm not talking about him having an off shooting night. He was due for a horrid shooting game. And I saw him tweak something bad during the Syracuse game, so I'm pretty confident he was playing pretty injured tonight. But even shooting poorly and gimping, what shocked me was how he seemed unable, even unwilling, to rally his troops out on the floor. And his troops should have been willing to die for him out there, after the two 30 point games and minutes he has been playing. But they weren't and it looked like during the last 5 minutes Devonte ran out of gas, and he also just got discouraged with his teammates not playing together, not loving each other, not trying to make each other better. This was a shock to me.

Self faces the usual predicament any coach faces with a team that is both young and short handed. He can't wake starters up by sitting them.They have to play through their own malaises. Its very, very tough for young players to do this. The only stick Self has is letting them get the crap beaten out of them. Alas, I don't think that is what he was trying to do tonight. I think he was trying to avoid them getting humiliated, but couldn't find a way to do it.

Everything looks awful, when you shoot 25% from trey. Everything.

But...

Shooting poorly doesn't mean you have to lose your poise and finally just quit!!!!

This was a pivotal moment for this team. The loss is not crucial. But the loss of poise and fight was very dangerous for this young, short handed team.

Self is looking at a team of players that have never been in the toughening box.

They don't know how to go out and win one laboring without their shots, when the opponent has some Blue Meanies inside.

Malik has NEVER been in the toughening box.

Neither has Azuibuke.

Neither have Garret, or Lightfoot.

Even Vick has not been in it.

Really only Devonte and Svi have been, and Svi barely enough to know it.

Self used to turn his players into hardened hombres over the course of a season.

Self used to be what they feared much more than opponents.

But Self used to have enough players on his rosters that had been through the toughening box and endured hard times to make them so that win, or lose, they did not quit.

Quitting is unforgivable in Self basketball.

Quitting stinks up a field house where brave men have made amazing things happen.

Quitting has been unthinkable since Self's first season.

One can probably count on the fingers of one hand the times a Self team has quit.

One time was the Stanford game that Wiggins coasted in, when even Self appeared to just pull the plug and put that team out of its misery. But that was the last game of a fouled up season. That team fought their hearts out and appeared to love each other, despite the politics and issues of reconciling Embiid's injury with Wiggins grand plan of reaching the L without injury.

Even the time the team lost to TCU and Self fumed and compared the loss to the Topeka YMCA days, the team did NOT quit. That team fell to the bottom of the bottom 1/3 of the performance curve. It played far worse than this team played tonight, but it did NOT quit.

This team quit tonight.

Its hard for me even to type the word quit.

I hate the word quit.

I hate anyone that quits.

I loath quitting.

There are players on the KU team that are not toughened up enough yet; that is something that can be fixed with work and harsh experience.

There are players that are being asked to do things that they probably cannot do very well. That's okay, They can do the best they can.

There are players being asked to do roles that they never dreamed they would ever have to do; that's okay, the difficult comes easy and the impossible takes a little longer.

But there cannot be any quitting.

Not by anyone.

Not any time.

This short handed team is waaaaaaay the hell out in harms way right now.

Losses we can take.

But any quitting and the ship sinks.

I have to believe this team needs a team meeting right now, but probably isn't ready to appreciate the gravity of its predicament yet.

I believe that because of the early adversity that has hit this team, its younger and newer players are resentful of the roles they are being asked to play.

I believe the older players are not loving the younger players enough, and are too focused on this being "their" year.

They do not yet understand that they have only one chance in hell of finding their way through this season, which is going to get absolutely brutal very shortly.

They do not yet understand how much accumulated hatred and resentment has developed among opponents of KU over the last 13 years of winning 83% of their games and 13 straight titles and a ring and a runner up, and a bunch of Elite Eights.

They do not understand that their opponents not only want to beat them, they want to beat them to bloody pulps. They want to kick them while they are down. In the temple. Repeatedly.

This is not like going to some .500 program like Mississippi State, where no one cares a whit if you blow up and sink your team. Your team will get beaten; that's all. You will lose some games, that's all.

But at KU its different. Right now, coaches and players are going to burn that image of KU players quitting the last 5 minutes, of them losing their poise the last ten minutes, and they are going to start trying to clean KU's clock, not just beat KU. There are a lot of hard headed, hard hearted coaches in the Big 12 that have had just about enough of eating Self's and KU's leavings.

This KU team is just about the unluckiest bunch of guys to ever walk in and suit up in Allen Field House, because they are about to receive 13 years of pay back in one season, if they don't pull together, and reach down deep in themselves and start saying every moment how can I help my teammate be the flipping best he can be. Its not enough to just run the plays and make the pass to the numbers, so the coach doesn't rag at you. There is no more room for feeling sorry for yourself because you thought you were going to be on a team destined to make a run, and now find yourself as a guard playing the 4 spot.

This is NOT war.

But what these young Jayhawks have just entered into has the makings of a perfect storm against them, if they don't figure out how to reinvent themselves as the world's closest team that ever overcame adversity to save themselves and join the ranks of the streak. The streak doesn't matter a damn in and of itself. We fans will love these guys whether they win, or lose. But if they ever quit again, if they refuse to circle the wagons, and all the other cliche things that aren't really cliche in a team sport, but necessary for safety and survival in as tough of a sport as D1 college basketball, where opponents are gunning for demolishing 13 straight years of holier than thou KU racking up titles,

These young men have to wake up.

Last season, Frank Mason had incredible toughness and seemed to understand just how huge the mountain was he had to climb without a full house. He pulled it off with a will of steal and unwavering commitment to make his mates better than they were.

This years team has to realize, not just that they are in much tougher straits, but that this is their chance to do something incredible, something that at this moment seems frankly impossible. They have to band together at a level that only Devonte and Svi have any experience of. Its a lot of guys to wise up. Its a lot of talented guys that know they are each good, but each guy knows that on this team he can't take this team anywhere on his own. This team isn't deep enough and good enough for everyone to just be himself.

Self is renowned for pulling out hat rabbits to get teams to the conference title.

But this team is going to have to pull out a hat rabbit of its own, before Self can even work his magic.

This team is going to have to learn to love each other and depend on each other to an extent that none of them have ever experienced before.

Rock Chalk!

At 7 p.m. on Wednesday, December 6, 2017, the first assault wave of UW Husky basketball players attacked the KU basketball base at Sprint Center, Kansas City, Missouri, taking the Jayhawks completely by surprise.

The first wave targeted bigs and perimeter players. The second wave targeted scholarship reserves and walk-ons. The basketball raid lasted until 10:05 p.m. five starters were damaged, with three reserves sunk. Four starting perimeter players, one large aircraft carrier and three smaller reserves were humliated along with the entire coaching staff. The Huskies lost no-one and actually grew as a team in their penetration of one of two inner harbors and successfully launched 9 of 21 three point torpedos.

Three prime targets; the Jayhawks projected Division 1 fleet aircraft carriers, Preston, DeSousa and Sosinski, were either not in the Sprint Center, or their and cryogenically iced and thus escaped damage.

The casualty list at Sprint Center included nearly 16000 Jayhawk fans and civilians which shattered expectations, and a coaching staff suffering from being badly outcoached. Several players aboard the KU basketball team broke and ran after Matisse Thybulle launched 5 of 8 three point bombs that penetrated the team's magazine causing catastrophic loss of poise.

News of the "sneak attack" was broadcast to Jayhawk nation via internet posts, with many popular Wednesday evening entertainment programs being tuned out. The news sent a shockwave across the nation, resulting in a tremendous influx of young volunteers into a waiting line outside Allen Field House within a few hours after the game. The Husky attack also united the nation behind President Franklin D. Roosebate and effectively ended the Jayhawk Hubris Movement noted by Roosebate just two scant days before the disaster.

On Thursday, December 7th, President Roosebate will appear before KUBuckets and make his speech asking for a declaration of war against the Petroshoeco-Agency Complex that has left KU so shorthanded that such a disaster was inevitable, calling the previous day "...a date which will live in infamy..."

An advanced copy of the speech to be given by President Roosebate tomorrow has been printed below.

"Mr. Chancellor, Mr. Athletic Director, members of KUBuckets and of other online Jayhawk communities:

Yesterday, December 6th, 2017 - a date which will live in infamy - the University of Kansas was suddenly and deliberately attacked by 3-point and post forces of the Empire of the Petroshoeco-Agency Complex.

The University of Kansas was at peace with that complex, and, at the solicitation of that complex, was still in conversation with its leadership and its Emperor looking toward the maintenance of peace in Division 1.

Indeed, one hour after the Husky air squadrons had commenced bombing in the KU island of Sprint Center, the Complex's Ambassador to the University of Kansas and his colleague delivered to our Athletic Director a formal reply to a recent KU message. And, while this reply stated that it seemed useless to continue the existing diplomatic negotiations, it contained no threat or hint of basketball war or of three point attack.

It will be recorded that the distance of Sprint Center from the West Coast makes it obvious that the attack was deliberately planned many days or even weeks ago. During the intervening time the Petroshoeco-Agency Complex has deliberately sought to deceive the University of Kansas by false dump truck deliveries and expressions of hope for continued peace.

The attack yesterday on the Sprint Center has caused severe damage to Jayhawk backcourt and frontcourt forces. I regret to tell you that very many Jayhawk hopes for post season have been lost. In addition, Jayhawk fans have been reported being laughed at in airports and business meetings between Seattle and Kansas City.

Recently the Petroshoeco-Agency Complex also launched an attack against Wisconsin.
Recently Complex forces attacked Louisville.
Recently Complex forces attacked North Carolina State.
Recently Complex forces attacked the Miami Hurricanes.
Recently the Complex attacked Mississippi State.
And recently the the Complex attacked Nebraska.

The Complex has therefore undertaken a surprise offensive extending throughout the Division 1 area. The facts of yesterday and today speak for themselves. The people of the University of Kansas have already formed their opinions and well understand the implications to the very life and safety of our basketball program and nation.

As wannabe Commander-in-Chief of the backcourt and front court, I have directed that all measures be taken for our defense, that always will our whole nation remember the character of the onslaught against us.

No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the KU people, in their righteous might, will win through to absolute victory.

I believe that I interpret the will of the administration and athletic department and of the faithful fans when I assert that we will not only defend ourselves to the uttermost but will make it very certain that this form of treachery shall never again endanger us.

Hostilities exist. There is no blinking at the fact that our people, our program and our interests are in grave danger.

With confidence in our basketball program, with the unbounding determination of our people, we will gain the inevitable triumph. So help us Basketball God.

I ask that the KU administration declare that since the unprovoked and dastardly attack by the Complex on Wednesday, December 6th, 2017, a state of war has existed between the University of Kansas and the Petroshoeco-Agency Complex's Empire."

(NOTE: all fiction. No malice.)

The Cobra is the only one that came to play.

Garrett should never shoot a trey.

Devonte injured something against Cuse and is about 3/4 speed.

Svi and Malik stink!

Who the hell told me these Huskies were no good!! ??????

We owe this game to LaCobra!!!

This more like it. Doke took out the pacifier and started planting!!!

Crimsonorblue22 said:

Play the fb player

Ditto

Cannot make treys

Man, this was what I was talking about yesterday. Ku can’t make treys, and Huskies look very comfy in their schemes finally. Also Boeheim gave them a good scout. We would be blown out without La Cobra striking for twos repeatedly

Devonte’s legs legs look gone

Fan hubris before the game was a good indicator of Team hubris

This s#%<>€£ has to quit!!

@jayballer54

Way to bring it. I’ve had a good feeling about Sam, but I needed some reinforcement.

@KUSTEVE

Lol!!

@mayjay

Your point is well taken. I will think on it, but I am not in the best of health these days, so I am not sure I could do the job. Also, I am at work on a long, unruly novel that requires most of my concentration. Excuses, excuses.😎

@JayHawkFanToo

Thanks for the recall on the Self hire. Is that man still alive? He deserves at least a commemorative plaque in the Field House. I don't recall Self ever talking about him. Would love to see Self bring him back for a halftime, mid court thank you!!!

And Frederick was a man that I loved, when he was at KU, along with Roy, until I learned the petroshoeco and recruiting subtext that came with hiring both LB and Roy. Very, very VERY "complicated" connections. Some day maybe some one will write a book about what really went down. Dean, Sonny, Larry, William Wesley, and Roy. Talk about the legacy epicenter of the birth of the Petroshoeco-Agency Complex that has come to haunt college basketball today. But the book will likely never be written until the current regime in control of college basketball passes on and someone can once again reasonably expect honest histories to be published in a media market that is NOT dominated by the six holding company cartel currently making beau coup bucks out of fake news.

Rock Chalk!!!

(Note: what follows is all fiction. No malice. As Tom Petty sang, the waiting is the hardest part!)

DeSousa: has to take some Ritalin to get his scores up (just kidding, but the research is in, if one still dare trust grant biased, er, funded research without grants for repeating the experiments by other teams!). I have his nickname fully baked: Dr. de Zeussa!

Sosinski: we need his consonants! Heck, let him wear a horse collar as a psy-op! The guy can at least fill 3 minutes each half, so Self can bench chew, er, coach Lightfoot and/or give Doke a blow against a wide body.

Billy Preston: his media disappearance appears near TOTAL!!

Kling-On cloaking level stuff.

Just a few chimeric references.

An occasional wavering desert mirage allusion.

Transporter dematerialization temporarily lost in space?

He’s as hard to find anything about, as the shooter on the railroad overpass in Dealy Plaza (don’t even start with the crumbling Las Vegas story). He’s as hard to get clarification on as who the real “George Bush” was that J. Edgar Hoover’s reputedly declassified memo reputedly mentioned as a CIA asset posing as a Houston Texas oil man and clumsily being arrested outside the Dal-Tex building shortly after the assassination. Are we soon to be given a Warren Basketball Commission report so full of holes that any one that asks WTF gets memed a “conspiracy theorist!” for 60+ years, as per The Company’s reputed former policy?

WTF!

Do we need Jim Garrison 2.0 to come forward and get “on the trail of the car buyers”?

It’s a riddle, wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma, man! Don’t you get it? The free masons don’t even remember the recitation from the 18th Century that Churchill cribbed for a radio speech and that Stone cribbed for Dannie Ferrie to say in JFK.

Has Wichita-an D-CIA Pompeo stepped in virtually here between bouts of trying to learn hydrological re-engineering of the DC Okeefenokee on KU’s behalf, or what?

The kids a basketball player, unless we’ve been fed photo shopped pics putting some one else’s head on a 5-star’s body and gotten the shadows wrong!

Either he is eligible, or he isn’t, right?

We are not talking quantum phenomena here. This is basketball. Why can’t the guy lace’em up and play in a game? When Joe Citizen gets pulled over, they run the tags, registration and DL and boom! They know the score in a second.

It doesn’t depend on the observer and timing of observation, does it? We are not talking quantum level, superluminal transmission of fact checking from distant parts of a folding, or unfolding space-time legal basketball universe, right??

Tell us about Preston and his wheels. Why is he being investigated for ownership of a 🚗 for this long? Why is it taking so long to investigate? What black, vibrating monolith with a bas relief of a car on it is vibrating on a crater on the moon that requires Dr. Heywood Floyd to go there under cover to inquire into its connection to KU basketball.

Dave? Dave?

Open the pod bay door, Hal.

I’m afraid I can’t do that Dave.

Does this go all the way to our coaching staff?

This appearance is looking increasingly like a space odyssey.

Daisy, daisy, give me your answer pleeee....

P.S.: the most important thing of all is to have some one picking him that knows basketball and basketball coaching and that has some right way character. KU needs to put a statue out front for the man that picked Self. I apologize to him for not remembering his name. That man and James Naismith were the men in charge that hired our two greatest coaches. They are the real geniuses without whom our great coaches would never have gotten their shots at the KU job!!

@HawkChamp

Janks is the only guy that has proven he can get to the magic 30 with solid talent to coach. Right now that makes him the only candidate from the assistants. But we’ll have to see if he can recruit without Larry and Larry’s mystery assistant. Still, I’m a big Janks fan.

The rest are not quite there, or struggling. If Danny could get a class and get to 28-30 he would join the ranks.If Joe could jump to a major and get a 28-30 same.

But the key will be the time when Self retires. At that time, who will have the best recruiting connections? That will depend on KU petroshoeco contracts, age, record and experience as usual.

Right now, the chance KU hires one of these guys is slim.

But I have a sentimental spot for all of them.

Even Gillispie, who could have been such a great coach but for a flaw or two.

Rock Chalk!!

I checked the wiki pages for the following former Self assistants.

-->Tim Jankovich--starting second full season at SMU at 7-3, after glossy 30-5 his first full season after taking over for Larry Brown the year before and going 9-0 down the stretch of his first partial season. Overall .894!

-->Joe Dooley--still at Florida Gulf Coast. Off to a 6-3 start. .664 career at Florida Gulf Coast.

-->Danny Manning--continues to struggle at Wake Forest with a 5-4 start this season and overall .440 after three full seasons and the slow start of a 4th.

-->Barry Hinson--sixth season at Southern Illinois, off to 4-2 start, with but only .494 overall at SIU.

-->Billy Gillispie--his theme song ought to be The Eagles "Desperados". After taking a few years to dry out after the 80 proof melt down with player abuse allegations at Texas Tech, Billy came home to his alma mater of Ranger juco in 2015-16 and promptly played ineligible players and Ranger vacated his first season. In 2016-17 he got off to a 10-2 start, but cited health problems (high blood pressure) and reputedly left coaching for good. But like Sean Connery, never say never. In 2017-18 Billy is back at Ranger and off to an 11-2 start!

-->Doc Sadler--4th season at U of Southern Mississippi and its looking ugly with a .241 record there. But he's off to a 6-13 start, so maybe getting a little better.

@jayballer54

I predict at least 5 teams with 8 man rotations will make the March Carney with exactly the composition of our second team plus depth.

I predict 3 of the 5 will bee seeded in the path of KU.

I predict KU will beat two of them.

Mr. Ball’s strategy does not appear to add up to a net benefit for his sons.

This leads one to wonder, if it were perhaps a net benefit to Mr. Ball?

But what kind of benefit might it be?

Who might benefit from an African American father of basketball playing sons that taunts and insults a President of the United States?

What if Mr. Ball lived in Arizona, which, exclusive of Senator McCain, strongly supports President Trump’s policies on immigration? Would Mr. Ball be cheered on for disrespecting the President? Probably not.

But in Los Angeles, where Congresswoman Maxine Waters operates a popular and influential political organization, devoted to discrediting President Trump, Mr. Ball might be viewed as a hero.

If Mr. Ball were rationally pursuing self-interest, my best guess would be that it would involve some kind of local political calculus.

But he could simply be one of many, many Americans that just plain don’t like President Trump and his policies, and he doesn’t want to miss his opportunity to be heard.

In any case, I don’t see his actions helping his sons sell petroshoecos.

Hard to understand. If I had a son released from a dangerous scrape in a country he was lucky not to get some weird punishment in, I would be greatful to EVERYONE!

But what he’s sewin’ he’s gonna reap.

Sad.

@BShark

Our only big that can guard a >6-8 and >245 lb 4 or 5 with average or better game.

Self gets it.

He played Lightfoot 8 vs UK and 9 vs Cuse.

No more to say.

Sosinski plays 5 minutes vs Huskies to break the ice. If he can handle that, his minutes rise as rise as much as he can take.

They are learning a new scheme.

Players take awhile to adapt.

If they don’t adapt by our game, and we shoot 38 or better from trey, we blow them out.

BUT...

If they get the hang of their new schemes, Doke gets fouled up, and we shoot 25-30% from trey, unless Sosinski’s ready, watch out.

Et al,

I agree Huskies are rebuilding, but....

I smell fan hubris.

The only way KU makes any 2-3 zone against a major look sick with Doke only in 23 minutes is with huge production outside; I.e., 55 from DG and LaCobra. KU blows cold and the going gets tough.

Huskies have a 6-7 245 pounder that Sosinski might be required for.

@Gorilla72

Self gets the seriousness of Doke and nothing else ready for prime time.

Sosinski sees minutes soon, unless Lightfoot and Garrett transmogrify.

@Barney

Good insight. Bet he will, too.

Jim BONEheim never met an opponent he couldn’t diminish.

It’s why he appears to be genuinely, deeply disrespected by colleagues and knowledgeable fans.

He’s not just a poor loser. It apparently goes to the deepest part of what he uses as a substitute for character.

Get ready for another annoying game of 2-3 zone. New UW Huskie HC MIKE HOPKINS basically coached Syracuse for Sleepy Jim the last 5 years, after playing for him, too, then moved to UW in frustration with Sleepy Jim wanting to keep coaching.

UW’s 2-3 stretches more, but the rest seems the same as Cuse. Long guys standing up in long socks, but

Hopkins assistants are former Romar assistant Cameron Dollar and former Tarkanian guy and UNLV HC Dave Rice.

David Crisp is their guard and scorer.

Bummary: not as long as Cuse, but brawnier. Working with Romar’s left overs. Should beat them handily, but playing zones is tricky if we blow cold outside. They’ll probably try to rough us up to avoid what happened to Cuse. They’ve got a week to adjust their zone to what we did to Cuse’s zone. We’ve got a week to fine tune. It ought to net help us to have just seen the 2-3.

@drgnslayr

I agree. Self seems to be moving toward dictating tempo, rather than playing it any way they want. Something is changing. It was absolutely weird how easily we
took them, given how much longer they were. Usually when small teams play long ones the longs get lots of blocks and alters. Not this time. This was the opposite extreme of bad ball. Ku refused to drive on them, even when it seemed the right thing to do. Compare how little Devonte and Vick drive it this season compared with how often Frank and Devonte drove it last season, and how much more KU drove 2 seasons ago. This is a radical shift in strategy, not just this game, but the whole season. It is striking, too, because Devonte and Vick could drive it very effectively. This suggests Self is massively buying into the spacing thing and that he has decided that these guys are all such good trigger men and so quick that he NEVER wants them taking contested shots. He seems to be saying try to get open close, but if you can’t, then get open farther out, and whatever you do get open soon. It’s a sea change for Self. It’s also expedient, since he has so little depth to work with and wants to minimize injuries to his starters.

@JayHawkFanToo

Way to break out with the humor!!!

@Fightsongwriter

Many coaches, Self included, cannot bring themselves to isolate on mismatches. I have never understood it. They don’t hesitate to isolate on a guy with 3-4 fouls, but they refuse to feed a guy a foot taller than another guy. Go figure!

Full Monte Devonte!

Slam, Bam, Thank You Graham!

@kjayhawks

Ah, yes, UDUNKA; that’s the best one.

@BShark

I'LL work on more nicknames, but I'm only usually good for one a season. Probably others will come up with better ones.

Rock Chalk!

Thx 2 all 4 the strokes.

Now let's see if our Birds can sweep the 2 in 4 vs. Washington and Zona State coming next!

Yeeeee hawwww!

Basketball season in full swing is the next best thing to being young again!!!!

What a flipping GREAT win!!!!!!

I am still luxuriating in it late this evening the same as I was 15 minutes afterwards.

Boeheim enters the ranks of coaches that have spent a second half completely unable to figure out how Self is not just winning, but making the opponent look inept.

Boeheim had his usual collection of arrogant longs that look like great basketball talents, but actually don't know how to do anything but stand around in a zone and look like they are expending more energy whining about not getting calls and being made to look like basketball dorks, than guarding and running offensive sets.

The chief difference between this collection of Boeheim's long-handled garden hoes in tennies and his others that can be annoyingly hard to beat was the absence of a great point guard. Jim Boeheim without a great point guard exposes what a pitifully unimaginative excuse for a basketball coach he truly is. I kick him when he's up, so I'm sure as hell going to kick him when he is down. I learned years ago that Boeheim needs a kick in the nuts whenever possible, because when ever he has a 5-star scorer outside, preferably at point, his arrogant smugness is intolerable.

Here Coach Boeheim, let me put on my steel toed Danners with the scuff guard. There, they are on. And whack!!!!! One more swift kick to the nads for all the Fab Melos you've brought college basketball over the years.

Ahem.

Now about the game.

KU was lead by Devonte Graham's 35 (?) poured down from some higher dimension I've never had the pleasure to have played on, and LaCobra Vick's 20. Note that was Graham's second 30 point outing and that Graham played the full Monty (40 minutes). There were stretches of the first half where he looked positively human, but he kept his team in the game, while the newbies discovered the irritating experience of patiently probing a 2-3 zone staffed with whining, cheap-shot artists. The newbie Jayhawks struggled with the simplicity of what had to be done to shred the de-legendary Syrxcuse zone. Let me nutshell it for you before returning to LaCobra.

Possession 1: throw the ball to the high post man standing on the mid point of the free throw line. He turns and looks down the lane, but pitches it to an open wing that trifectates. That was easy.

Possession 2: point drives right, passes through seam to low post right in a seam of the base line of the 2-3; low post right then pitches out to Svi in corner, Svi pots a triceratop. That was easy.

Possession 3: point passes to wing, wing reverses to point, point to back side wing, drive seam toward lane and lob to the Cobra (Vick) ranging sideline to sideline on the baseline. That was easy.

Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Till Boeheim whines. Then repeat some more.

That was easy.

That's all there is to it. Nothing else. But as often happens to teams with newbies facing Boeheim's zone the first time its just hard to break the habit of running the offense and doing a lot of die-doe moves Self has tried to install for the game to give Boeheim something slightly different to sleep through. Then about 8-10 minutes in with Self red enough to fry eggs on his neck, someone new, like Mitch Lightfoot gets the wrath of God treatment and Self looks down the bench for some familiar face that's got some facial hair and knows the play book Some years its someone decent. In lean years, its just someone that Self would trust to take his daughter out on a date. They don't have to be great. All they have to be able to do is walk and chew gum and find the mid point of the free throw stripe and stand their and call for the ball and catch it and not do something stupid with it. This year, that savior of Self was--drum roll please--Clay Young. Clay Young's line score does not look like much, but he was a crucial to KU's victory today as Cole Aldrich was in the semi final game against UNC in the magical year of our basketball lord 2008 AD. Clay Young allowed the team to discover just how little everyone had to do against the whining giants of the Empire State. Find the seams, make the shots. No French pastry. No complicated plays. Clay Young was glue personified today. Next time someone tells you glue doesn't matter, or anyone can do glue, remember this game. There were a lot of guys with fast twitch muscle and serial stars after their recruiting rankings and there were bigger guys, and faster guys, and more skilled guys, and guys with better looking cars not even on the road trip to Miami, and NONE of these guys could give the Birds what they most needed at that moment: someone to just get to the spot, catch, pass. and do no harm. Someone that actually saw where the seams were to stand and to throw to. What Clay Young did was so simple it was contagious. Suddenly every Jayhawk seemed to go: aha! I get it now. And after Clay's 9 minutes his job was done and he quietly retired to the bench and that was it for him for the night.

Now, let's get back to starters.

The Cobra "only" played 37 minutes, but on an "off shooting night" still roamed the baseline endlessly leaping out of his wicker basket and stabbing his fangs into the orange rim for 20 points, while grabbing 8 rebounds, only one shy of the footer Doke the Buke. Oh, and when he finally got the hang of high posting, he got 7 assists, too. I still don't think he really "understood" the high post, but he did it finally and KU pulled away.

Since The Cobra is my new nickname for Vick I should explain it. He is so named, because of his incredibly skinny legs that rise up to shoulders that flare out like a Cobra hood and gather in to an endlessly watching, sensing and menacing pair of eyes and because of this players tendency to kind of sway around not doing a lot for several seconds at a time before then striking with blinding quickness. The Cobra struck the Orange Boys repeatedly, injecting them with points and his unique venom each time.

Next Malik. Well, Malik just discovered what it feels like to suck on national television amongst some teammates having great games.Talk about getting his ego put in perspective. It will probably single handedly turn his season around. Malik disappeared. Invisible 5-star. His face showed his frustration. By the end he was demoralized. But you know what? Self forced him to own it and kept him in. And Malik kept fighting to do doing his job the best he could on a night that starkly dramatized the bottom one third of human performance Self talks about players having to deal with. But he will probably come back and go off like a roman candle next game.

Azuibuke did not have an impressive game, and got fouled up, BUT he still eeked out 6 points and 9 boards in prime time. If this is an off game for Doke, then he has come a long way. This was prime time and 6 points and 9 boards against a long bunch with its own footer, like Cuse, is not abject failure. Doke showed that he too can keep struggling and contribute, even when things aren't breaking his way. This is something to carry forward. At the same time, Doke learned today just how tough it is to be a starter in D1 against a D1 Major. He has a lot of getting better to do.

Svi? Svi had a so-so night statistically, and got fouled up, but I likes the way he TOO struggled through adversity and played a kind of ugly game that he needs to be able to do. This was the kind of floor game I always hoped to see him play, when the going got tough against a big team. Svi was getting in there and mixing it up with the Syracuse bigs, as if he himself were a big. This is how Larry Bird used to do it on his off nights. He went inside and stuck it in their ears. Svi appears not to be a trash talker, like Bird, but he has developed his own version of the hard case look and ice-cold stare. My favorite play of all that he made was when he went up and stuffed their footer. He didn't get credit for a block, but it was sweet nonetheless. Svi can really get up! He is not super quick-footed, but the guy has Tyrel Reed like spring. He has come a long way from the wild point guard to the stretch 4 trying to model Larry Bird. He's not completely their but he can make it this season, if he doesn't get discouraged. Remember Ty keeping his 41-inch vertical a secret all those years, while he tried to build up his foot speed strengthen his upper body? Self may have to ask Svi to use his springs the same way Self had to ask Tyrel to start using his. Svi was good for 11 points, 4 boards and 4 assists. Looks modest, but he really seemed a presence on the floor.

Which brings us to Mitch Lightfoot and Marcus Garrett. Um, these two proved not ready for prime time. Since the same thing happened against Kentucky, we have to call this a reliable indication of what their capabilities are right now. Both produced lines comparable to walk-on Clay Young. But where Clay Young, a 6-5 senior walk on, oozed constructive glue for 12 minutes, two scholarship players found themselves both unable to glue and unable to impact. Mitch and Marcus oozed goose eggs and fouls, same as Clay Young, but Clay Young made the team play better and they did not. Mitch Lightfoot could not even find a single rebound, which is something he ought to be able to do at his height. Garrett, to his credit, did grab a couple caroms. Mitch and Marcus flaming out was especially chastening for this team. Self might as well get Sosinski practicing. And if de Sousa can get admitted, we need him in a big way. Syracuse was long inside, but they weren't good long, just long. Its a little concerning to think about bigs having to go up against a major with a big man rotation of truly good players.

But one of the things that made this such a sweet victory was that KU was playing small at all 5 positions for significant lengths of time against a very long Syracuse and our guys adapted and made it look like something they could live with. It was a superior effort by our shorties and it was a fine job of coaching by Self.

At the end of the day, Boeheim was clueless how a bunch of runts had taken his longs to the cleaners.

But KU did take them to the cleaners. KU made Syracuse look like a not very good team today. KU made them look bad in fact.

And that felt good.

Real good.

@BShark

PHOF!

Hawks wound up pasting them!!!

@mayjay

And he’s doing it against giants!

DeSousa, Sosinski, get ready!!

He knows the freaking plays!!

@approxinfinity

Hey, I like that rigging the Alexa idea.

Should we call in a chit from Cal and have him not know about a Memphis alum arranging a surrogate test taker for de Sousa to help get de Sousa eligible for KU?

Just joking!!!!

Really!