I love Releford for everything he did at KU, but I would have loved to have had McLemore in that title game instead of Travis. Not because Travis couldn't contribute, because obviously he could (and did), but because McLemore could have pushed KU over the top. The ring potential is what changes my viewpoint. Brown makes next years team a potential ring team. There isn't another wing out there that can do that.
justanotherfan
3643 posts
AW3 will play at Nebraska this season. I expect he will be a very solid player for the Huskers. AW3 is a good basketball player. My comments above were not meant to say that he isn't a good player. He is absolutely a major college player, no doubt.
But he is not a difference maker. There are probably 30 guys from AW3's own class that can contribute roughly what he will contribute to the Huskers next season. There are probably 25-40 guys every season that come in with a profile similar to AW3 (tall wing with some shooting ability). Every year, some of those guys blossom (hello, Ron Baker) and some tank. There's no telling which will be which. I expect AW3 will have two strong years at Nebraska and will probably average double figures at least one season.
But I also think AW3 never would have started at KU and would have been a fringe rotation player at best, even if Wiggins and Oubre hadn't come. He's a solid player, not a great player. He might be able to start at Nebraska, but he's not really a starting caliber player at Kansas.
The thing that worries me with Mack is that he is merely an average athlete on the wing. He doesn't have a lot of pop or explosion in his game or his frame. When he drives, he can't separate. That's at the high school level. I'm guessing that will mean that he will struggle to drive at the collegiate level as well.
Watching his highlights, he has very few dunks. In the highlight I posted above, the very first clip is him dunking, but look at the dunk and remember that he is 6-7. His head barely gets to net level. He's got long arms and that's great, but he didn't really elevate on that dunk. At the 0:24 mark, he hits a nice pull up jumper, but look at the lack of separation from the defense there. The next few highlights have him pushing the ball, but notice that he doesn't have the speed to accelerate past most players. He's merely keeping pace. In literally every dribble move you see, he doesn't blow by guys. He just gets them off balance and pulls up. That air space will vanish in the Big XII and he will become just a spot up shooter.
Compare that to the Brown video that @drgnslayr posted. Brown literally explodes off the floor. The difference is stark. Also notice the number of different types of plays you see in the Brown highlight versus the Mack highlight. Just in the first minute you see a few alley oops, a couple of nice passes, some great drives finished with dunks, a nifty reverse layup, a couple of jumpers. Mack had mostly spot up jumpers and a few basic dribble moves, plus one blocked shot in his mix. At the 1:36 mark compare the head height on his dunk to the dunk that Mack executes. Brown is at least six inches higher than Mack got on his dunk. That difference in athleticism will be enormous on the defensive end.
The last couple of years we have been shaky defensively, but our OADs have been some of our better defenders. Wiggins was the best defender his year. Embiid was our best interior defender. Oubre was our best wing defender last year. Despite the OAD's not living up to everything we hoped, they have brought it defensively and been solid teammates with the exception of Alexander and Selby's eligibility issues.
I think Brown is the way to go. Mack would just be more of what we already have.
Saying Kansas will be among the favorites in the Big XII is like saying the sun will rise in the east. We already knew that.
This is Kansas. It is presumed we will be in the hunt for the conference title. The question is who we will have to battle, not whether we will be there.
@HighEliteMajor, @FarSideHawk , and @joeloveshawks
I agree that if Brown comes, it tightens the rotation.
My issue is that Brown is better than Mack, and likely better than Svi, Greene and Selden, which means that Brown will likely make next year's team better than what we currently have.
Mack is a nice player. He can definitely shoot it, handles it adequately, decent athlete, etc.
But is there any guarantee he isn't Andrew White III at the collegiate level?
Watch [this highlight](
AWIIIand then [this one](
Mack, and tell me how we know Mack won't be White. Both good players, but we know what White was at KU.I'm not saying Mack can't be more. I'm just saying that we have recently had a player at KU that is very similar to him in build (White was 6-6, 195 out of high school. Mack is 6-7, 200), ranking (both ranked 48 in their class by ESPN) and game (perimeter shooting wing players). If I have to choose between Mack and Brown, it's not really a choice.
There is the potential that Greene may not be ready to go in November. That is a real possibility.
Checking the calendar, Greene is supposed to be out five months before he can get back to running, etc. That means he can't even run until mid to late September. If there's any setbacks or delays at all, he isn't involved in contact practices until late October.
I wouldn't play Greene next year until he was 100%. There is no sense in burning a year of eligibility until you know that hip is ready to go with no risk of further injury. I think this is the one thing lurking out there that makes it important to get one more perimeter guy. Greene may not be ready at the beginning of the year and may not be able to contribute at the level we are hoping until much later in the season.
And if that is the case, Brown is a heck of an insurance policy.
I think we can play a small backcourt with that front line. I would tend to go small in the backcourt because then you could switch it up and go small with Wayne, Brannen, Svi, Bragg and either Mason or Graham. You could go back and forth between big lineups, small lineups and regular lineups and just be a matchup nightmare.
What SF is going to want to guard Bragg for a few possessions, then have to chase around Brannen Greene, then Svi?
What C is going to want to deal with Diallo on the glass, then a few possessions later, be matched up on the perimeter with Bragg, then have Perry a few minutes after that?
You have to bang with Diallo, then get quick against Bragg, then deal with Perry's polish and footwork. That's three completely different skill sets required. Most teams won't have one guy that can do all of that, and if they do have to go with multiple guys, chances are the drop in talent will be noticeable.
Diallo may make this KU team the best defensive team since 2012. I don't know how much he will be able to help offensively because his game is still very raw on that end, but he will be a shot blocking, rebounding, rim protecting force.
His hands are probably average at best right now, which limits his offensive utility. Once the ball is in his hands around the rim, though, he is finishing, and finishing with violence and authority. I don't know if he has any real post moves in his game, and his shooting stroke needs some work.
But I love, love, love the way he runs the floor. He's a mobile shot blocker. He can go side to side, forward and back. He rebounds in and out of area. Since both Ellis and Bragg can score, Diallo can do what he does best - defend, rebound and dunk opposite those two.
Also, because both Bragg and Ellis can handle the ball and shoot from the perimeter, you could conceivably play all three at the same time. That's a nice, tall lineup. I would even say that Self needs to consider that if he doesn't land Brown because Diallo, Bragg and Ellis will almost certainly be three of the best six or seven players on the roster. You can't always have one of those guys on the bench.
You can't pursue only OADs, but Duke showed why the OAD is important. Could Duke have gone to the Final Four without any of their three OAD's? Not even talking about winning the title - I'm talking about making it to Indianapolis. Take any of those three guys (Jones, Winslow, Okafor) off that team, and they are a Sweet Sixteen team.
I agree that going exclusively OAD isn't the way to go, because some years you will miss.
However, you should always be looking for the OAD that will put your current team over the top because, as I have advocated before, you never know how a lower ranked guy will develop. Will that guy ranked in the 70s become Tyshawn Taylor or Royce Woolridge. Tyshawn Taylor can take you to the title game. Royce Woolridge can't. But it will take you 2 years to find out which one you have.
Until everyone is signed, I can't really figure out what we will look like next year.
The other X factor is Brannen Greene, specifically how healthy he will be and how durable that hip will be through the season.
The presence of Ellis, Selden, Mason, Graham, Bragg, Lucas, Traylor, Greene and Svi will mean that KU will not be bad next year. That's an NCAA tournament team easily, top 3 in the Big 12 easily, probably top 20 nationally, even if Greene is not healthy.
The thing is that without adding another piece, this team is not a national title contender on paper. That doesn't mean they can't become a title contender, but I look at that group and I don't see a title contender right now.
That group is a 25-9 team, Sweet Sixteen, competing for 12 in the XII.
Add a Cheick Diallo to the mix and maybe they are an Elite Eight team. Add Jaylen Brown and I'd say the same. Add both, and now we can talk about title potential.
SF is a really critical position in the NBA right now. You've got Lebron and Durant leading a nice group of veterans, but also young stars like Kawhi Leonard and Jimmy Butler, as well as Andrew Wiggins, Jabari Parker, Greek Freak, etc. I wouldn't be surprised if the early part of the draft was very wing heavy. You have to be able to match up with these guys on both ends and there are just so many guys that are really good at that position.
Winslow has set himself apart because he is probably the best two way player of that group. However, I think Kelly has a chance to shine in workouts if he shows that he is the next best individual defender (although Stanley Johnson will be a factor there). Whichever player shows up defensively could move into the top 7, with the rest of the SF prospects falling in the late lottery.
I don't know what to think on Ingram. On one hand, if he isn't done growing, he could turn into Kevin Durant lite - a tall, lanky scorer with a guard's mentality and perimeter abilities. On the other hand, his frame suggests that he could very easily get bullied both in college and at the next level if he isn't a transcendent scorer. If he's a legitimate "could go for 35 any given night" type player, then I understand his ranking.
But the flip side to me is that in watching Jaylen Brown, Brown is a better athlete, more explosive, a better ball handler and is stronger. I have reviewed both players and just don't see Ingram as the better prospect right now, unless he's going to be Kevin Durant.
I'm really torn right now on Ingram. He has really shot up the recruiting boards, but I wonder if that is more to do with the fact that there aren't many unsigned guys, so they are trying to juice the remaining guys by reordering some things.
Kevin Ollie has said that he will not leave UConn. That knocks him off the list.
I haven't seen a statement from Billy Donovan yet today, but I figure that he will say something soon if he intends to stay at Florida.
I doubt there's much stirring at KU as a result of this. As I've said before, I don't think Self, with his rigid structure on offense, is a good NBA fit. The issues we complain about here would only be amplified at the pro level the first time he had a team with Westbrook and Durant pounding the ball inside to Enes Kanter and Serge Ibaka because he wants to run the Hi-Lo.
It's just a bad match for his coaching style.
I am curious to see how this shakes up the NBA because the OKC job should be a tempting one right now, although some coaches may be hesitant to go there unless either Durant or Westbrook signs on long term (Durant is a free agent next summer, Westbrook the year after that. You don't want to end up coaching an OKC team without at least one of those two guys, but if you have both of them (and they are both healthy) you are immediately a factor in the NBA.
Another issue with the Hi-Lo is that it requires traditional post players to run at an optimal level.
Look around the country at the top recruits - how many are traditional back to the basket post players? Not many.
Last year Self really pursued Okafor, and with good reason. Okafor would have been a nice anchor in the Hi-Lo. He would have changed KU's entire offensive approach because he was a big man that commands double teams on the low block at all times.
Now let's think about the last time we had a post guy that you absolutely had to double all the time on the block. That would be Thomas Robinson - we went to the title game with him. Before that, it was the Morris twins - Elite Eight. Before that, Darrell Arthur - championship and an Elite Eight. I don't count Cole or Jeff Withey because neither of them was ever an adept scorer on their own.
So Self's offense is reliant on a rare commodity to be most successful. He has to have a post player that you must double team to be most effective. With Embiid healthy, KU was rolling. Embiid got hurt and we fell apart because the Hi-Lo needs the Lo to be most effective.
In thinking about it, we really needed to grab a guy like Diamond Stone. He's a traditional back to the basket guy. If we are going to get OAD's, that's the type we need. Maybe we would have been better off getting Julius Randle than Andrew Wiggins for that reason. Wiggins doesn't help as much as Wiggins because, even though Wiggins is better, Randle fits the Hi-Lo better.
But here's the thing - if you have great talent, shouldn't your offense conform to that talent. What good is it to have a McLemore, a Wiggins and an Oubre, but not capitalize with all of that lottery talent on the perimeter because you are committed to the Hi-Lo?
We need an offense that can maximize all talent, rather than an offense that focuses on the low post even if our best players are on the perimeter.
@JayHawkFanToo and @jaybate-1.0
I absolutely agree that guys coming back from injury usually recover just fine. My hesitation with BG is that with him missing the entire offseason, he doesn't have a chance to add anything to his game this summer. He can't work on his one dribble pull up jumper (a deadly addition to his game, btw). He can't work on his quickness on defense. He can't tighten up his ball handling.
BG needs the offseason to strengthen the areas of his game that were shaky last year (defense, ball handling). It isn't just about overcoming the injury - it's about rounding out his game to make him a more all around player. With the injury, I just don't see how that happens.
If he comes back too quickly, he risks re-injury or permanent limitation. But not coming back eliminates almost the whole offseason. By the time his hip is likely strong enough for work, it's time for conditioning. He will likely be behind on conditioning, depending on how limited he is during the last 6 weeks of his rehab.
So BG will, by virtue of the injury (not anything to do with his work ethic) probably be out of shape when fall conditioning starts, having not played actual basketball in more than five months. Just not a good recipe for improvement.
I'm definitely rooting for BG. I like his game and think he has a lot of potential. Just the timing of this injury is a killer.
That's an easy question to answer - Brannen Greene.
With his injury basically wiping out his entire offseason, Brannen Greene that we saw last season will be Brannen Greene that we see next year, except healthy. He can't work on his defense, his ball handling, his conditioning or really anything because he can't run or jump for five months. Just a horrible break for him, and for KU overall.
Ollie is very highly regarded in NBA circles as a coach. I would not be surprised if he landed an NBA job within the next few years.
Scott Brooks is a coach that is not very well thought of around the NBA, so it is no surprise that his name is being circulated as a possible firing candidate. However, OKC knows that if they wait until next season starts to get rid of Brooks, they won't have a chance to get many of the better candidates, so they would basically be punting on next season, too.
If Ollie is leaving, he announces within the next two weeks.
It's not about a system's complexity or simplicity. It's about a system's unpredictability.
You can run a very complex system, but if you give me enough time, I can figure out all of the wrinkles and I can still stop your complex system because it's not that unpredictable.
On the other hand, you can run a simple system, but a system that allows a lot of freedom and freelancing, and no matter how much I know about your basic stuff, I can't predict what you're doing because your players may go outside the basic tenets of the set at any moment.
The Hi-Lo is a complex system. It has lots of options. It's a very viable offense. But it's not like there aren't coaches all across the country that know and understand the Hi-Lo and haven't schemed up ways to stop it. The key then is to add some variations, or allow some variation that otherwise you don't normally have.
For example, Perry is a very skilled player. We should take advantage of that by allowing Perry to freelance on the perimeter more. Put Perry on the perimeter while you send one of our smaller guys inside and run the Hi-Lo with Perry high and Selden low. Make the defense do things they haven't necessarily practiced.
Run a basic pin down every now and then (something we almost never do. Screen for the high post with a shooter, then run a pick and roll with the shooter and the ball handler. It's all about options and about creating defensive confusion.
If Self is running a system that is so complex that players cannot learn it within a season, his system is too complex for college. At every school, your rotation turns over basically every season because even without OAD's, you have players graduating, players coming in, transfers, etc. You will have 2-3 new guys almost every year no matter where you are. If your system is so complicated that you can't get contributions from those guys, you're doing it wrong. This isn't the NBA, where you have the chance to keep your core together for 2-4 years at a time. This is college. No player will be in your system for more than 5 years.
Look at a school like Wichita State. They don't have OADs. Here are the WSU rotations for the last five years (averaging double figure minutes playing in at least half the games, or over 20 minutes in less than half):
14-15: Baker, Van Vleet, Cotton, Carter, Morris, Wessel, Brown, Kelly
13-14: Early, Baker, Van Vleet, Cotton, Carter, Lufile, Wiggins, Coleby, Wessel
12-13: Early, Hall, Armstead, Baker, Williams, Cotton, Wiggins, Van Vleet, White, Orukpe
11-12: Ragland, Stutz, Murry, Smith, Kyles, Hall, Williams
10-11: Durley, Murry, Kyles, Stutz, Ragland, Smith, Blair, Hatch, Ellis, Williams
Every year except one, WSU introduced at least 3 new guys into the rotation. And this is without any OAD's! And with Cotton and Carter graduating this year, they will probably introduce a couple new faces to the rotation again next year. If the system is too complex to learn in a year, you will constantly be wasting years because guys need to be able to come in and contributeon some level as freshmen/ first year players.
I agree that many of our sets are too vanilla. I don't think we need complex sets, though. Instead, I think we just need freedom within our existing sets.
For example, certain guys should have a continuous green light to freelance. The threat of a drive from the wing always exists just because certain guys always have that green light. Adding just that element of the unknown means that now defenses must gear not just to the play (playing the play, as we used to say in high school), but also playing the man because he may break away from the play.
When I was in high school, in scrimmages when I was on the JV we would often frustrate the varsity by freelancing out of our regular sets. The varsity had more talent (obviously), but because everybody in the building knew the sets, it was easy to bog them down, even for the less skilled JV. And obviously, when the JV had the ball, the varsity could easily clamp down on the sets because they knew what we were running and had more talent.
But we used that knowledge to our advantage. We would get into our regular sets, then go opposite of where the action was supposed to go. If we were supposed to run a pick and roll, I would sometimes just reject the screen and drive the opposite way. With the defense expecting me to go to the screen, the guy defending the screen was up to high trying to hedge and the guy guarding me would be slipping under the screen to pop out on the other side. Many times we would get an easy basket for me on the drive, or for the screener on the roll because the defenders would be out of position.
We would backdoor instead of popping out for passes on the perimeter. We would dribble to the wing instead of starting the offense with a pass. We would backscreen the post instead of doing a cross screen. We would sometimes post our perimeter players and let our post guys feed them, just to confuse the defense if they were waiting on a perimeter guy to pop to the wing.
All of that stuff just to create uncertainty on the defense because they knew the plays, but had no idea what we would do.
As you said, we have to create that uncertainty, where guys feel free to break away from the regular set.
For example, we need to have guys occasionally spin back to the sideline when we run our dribble weave instead of always trying to drive middle. The defenses have discovered that they can just funnel everything middle and we will drive right into trouble. However, if we spin back to the sideline and get a quick screen from the post man, we have a quick hitting side pick and roll out of a set that many teams are trying to force into the middle of the floor.
Or out of our standard high screen, maybe start screening with a shooter rather than a big. You can't go under a screen if Brannen Greene is the screener because Greene may separate and punish you with a triple.
Back screen with littles for bigs. Post up Selden and let Perry feed him. Screen and roll with Perry as the ball handler and Selden as the screener.
All just little wrinkles to confuse the defense so they can't just sit back and assume they know where the action is going.
Good defenses can stop any scheme. That's what's different about basketball versus football. In basketball, you can run a sophisticated offense all you want, but I can have a defense shut it down if you don't have good enough players. But give me a great player - a Durant, Bryant, James, Jordan, Wilt, Bird, Magic, etc. - and I don't care what kind of defense you play, I can score.
From a schematic perspective you can put guys into great spots, but all the positioning in the world doesn't put the ball in the basket. It all comes down to shotmaking, and if you have shotmakers and playmakers, you will score points in almost any offensive scheme.
The San Antonio Spurs have a tremendous offensive scheme, to be sure, but they also have Future HOFs in Duncan, Parker and Ginobili, as well as one of the 15-20 best young players in the league in Kawhi Leonard. Schemes look a lot better with that type of talent. The Showtime Lakers had great schemes, but if you just hand the ball to Magic Johnson and have Worthy filling one lane on the break with Michael Cooper filling the other and Kareem trailing, again, you will score the ball pretty well regardless of what you're actually running.
This has been the problem KU has confronted. Good defenses can clog their schemes and KU's guys are left standing around wondering "now what?" Well, now you get into a new play, or you take advantage of a MUA, or you go one four, or you run a high screen roll for a ball handler. The thing is, you have to have a creative option when things are clogged up by good defenses.
I think Self has seen that because he knows we were better than Stanford, he knows we shouldn't have lost to KSU either of the last two years. He lost to less talented teams because they were able to clog up our regular schemes. So now he's looking for guys that can't be bogged down because they can create their own, and I think he is wanting to let those guys do their thing.
He dipped his toe in the water this year with it, but it was too late in the year to fully embrace that approach. He has the University Games and the entire offseason to work on this now, and if he gets Brown or Newman (or both) he has the right personnel to do it.
I hear Weber is scouting the Topeka YMCA to get some players for next season
Self has realized that his offense stagnates too easily against the better defenses in the country, or when opposing coaches have time to prepare.
Self needs creative scorers that can score outside of the playbook. That was the difference with his better teams - Mario could go outside the playbook because of his handling ability and great shooting range. Tyshawn could because of his speed. Sherron could because of his quickness and range. Those guys opened things up for KU because they were effective even if the defense tightened up because they didn't have to be in the offense to score.
That's where Newman and Brown come in. They both can handle the basketball and score, so they give us the level of creativity that we need offensively against some of the better offensive teams in the country.
I predicted earlier this year when Foster was suspended that Weber had two years left. With everything falling apart at the rate it is, he may not have that. I am not sure he can keep the K-State job if he finishes last in the league next year. With the attrition he has seen this offseason, I don't know how he stays ahead of TCU, and Tech is so close to him, he could fall to the basement with a bad home loss. Can K-State win even 5 games in the Big 12 next year?
Completely agree, although we have seen that they have more depth than they previously had. If nothing else, this weekend drew some attention to what is going on with MLB, so if the Royals continue to get dinged by opposing pitchers, we may start seeing some action by the league, because the Royals have shown they will fight back.
The Royals have a lot of high energy emotional guys. The silly unwritten rules of baseball say you can't play the game like that because that doesn't "respect the game".
I think a lot of teams are trying to push the Royals buttons and get them to lose their composure. It doesn't seem to be working because a lot of the players seem to feed off that emotion, while some of the other teams seem to lose focus trying to get the Royals fired up.
You have to remember that Wilt averaged over 30 per game during his career in scoring. He and Russell faced off over 140 times, which is statistically significant. Russell held him a point and a half below his average.
Wilt dominated, but notlike he dominated everyone else. That's why Russell has the rings.
I think your analysis is correct on some points, but misses a critical aspect of why the game has changed.
In the late 1940's and early 1950's, George Mikan was able to dominate the slower game because basketball was played on only one axis. No one had really demonstrated that you could play basketball in the air. Bill Simmons does an excellent job in his Book of Basketball talking about the transition.
It happened when Bill Russell entered the league. Russell brought athleticism to the center position in a way that it had never been done before. There was no more of just trotting the big man down to the block and dumping it inside. Russell's speed and athleticism (remember, he was only 6-9, but very quick and agile) changed the game completely. Then Wilt came in and rewrote everything.
Wilt was a guard with a center's power and size. Literally no one was ready for Wilt. It was like dropping an alien into the game. Wilt was a true center in that he could go down on the block and use his power, but, especially in his early years, he could also get up and down the floor. There's a reason that he was averaging over 20 rebounds a game. He was just a force of nature that no one could stop.
No one, except Russell, who flustered Wilt with his quickness. Russell was the only guy Wilt faced during the season that was as quick as him. Wilt could overpower Russell whenever he wanted, but Russell's quickness and intelligence kept Wilt from getting to his spots and overwhelming Russell's Celtics. That's why Russell has more rings than fingers. He was the only one that could neutralize Wilt.
Meanwhile, something else started happening. Out on the perimeter, Elgin Baylor and Oscar Robertson had begun showing that big, athletic ball handlers could dominate games in their own way. Robertson did it all - rebound, pass, score, defend - and he did it to a level that got some people wondering whether you could win without a great big man. Just when some thought we might find out with Russell and Wilt aging, a new giant emerged.
Kareem had changed college basketball. They outlawed dunking for a time just because of him. But Kareem was more than a dunker. He could move away from the basket. Where Wilt was about power, Kareem glided. He showed that you could be a center and yet not rely on your brawn to get your points. His signature sky hook is still one of the most balletic moves in basketball. But Kareem was still a true center. Age took things away from him, but he was effective into his 40's because he wasn't dependent on brawn.
While he wasn't dependent on brawn, the revolution that Baylor, Robertson, West and others like Rick Barry, Pistol Pete and David Thompson had started was coming full circle. A new crop of perimeter guys - Dr. J, Magic, Larry, Isiah, Michael - they had already decided that it wasn't a big man's game any more. The early key - elevation - was now accompanied by a rule change - the three point line.
From 1981 until 1993, the best player on every NBA champion but one was a perimeter guy - Magic's Lakers, Bird's Celtics, Isiah's Pistons, Jordan's Bulls. The lone outlier was Moses Malone's Sixers.
When a big man reached the throne again, it wasn't a bruising guy. Instead it was former soccer player Hakeem Olajuwon, who was so light on his feet he would put Fred Astaire to shame. He was a center, but not in the fashion of Wilt or Russell, or even Kareem. He was a center that could fake and stutter step like a much smaller player. He beat two traditional centers (Ewing and Shaq) to claim his two titles.
Just before the doctors were able to pronounce the center position dead, a new king rose to the throne - Shaquille O'Neal. No one was as strong. And yet, for all his size and strength, O'Neal was also surprisingly fleet. He was a one man wrecking crew. 4 titles from 2000-2006. Throw in the Spurs in 1999 and 2003 and you had big men leading the way again.
Still, the best players in the league were more and more on the perimeter. James, Wade, Anthony, Bryant, Iverson, Carter, the list was long. Not only that, European's like Dirk Nowitzki had introduced something new - a 7 footer that could drain threes at will.
That's where it changed for good. Guys like Chris Webber and Kevin Garnett had always been anomalies, big men that could handle the ball, run the floor, pass, shoot from the perimeter - they were always the outliers. But now it was okay for a 6-10 guy to step out and nail a 19 footer one possession, then rock the rim with a dunk on the next.
Something else changed along the way, t00. Kids started having later growth spurts. Anthony Davis was a 6-3 guard heading to Cleveland State to play basketball right up until he grew 8 inches and became a skinny power forward. Davis will never be a true center. His guard tendencies are too deeply ingrained. But he's nearly 7 feet tall. 40 years ago, a coach would have parked him on the block and made him become a traditional center. Now, a coach knows that a 7 footer with that agility and ball handling skill is a match up nightmare every night, and he doesn't have to be on the block to cause problems.
But this increased athleticism across the board has come with a price - the floor is more clogged than ever. That's why NBA teams shoot so many threes. You can't get a good look at a midrange jumper anymore! A guy like Anthony Davis can challenge any shot within 10 feet of him. Add in long agile perimeter defenders and that 17 footer is not such an easy shot anymore. Watch an old basketball game sometime, and notice how many shots go up relatively open from 16-18 feet. Then watch a game today and notice how much less airspace there is to take that shot.
So you have two options - Run and Gun (the Warriors) or Grit and Grind (the Grizzlies). To Grit and Grind, you have to have lots of size. To run and gun, you need skilled players. Guess which is easier to find now? There are athletic 6-7 guys everywhere. Literally every single D1 roster probably had at least one guy fitting that description, if not two. There were maybe 5 guys with the size and skill to Grit and Grind effectively in the NCAA last year.
That's where the game is headed because those are the athletes we have.
I don't consider Ron Baker as a miss. As a junior, Baker wasn't the 6-3 he is currently listed at. He was a couple inches shorter than that if I recall correctly. Because of that, I can't see any way KU would recruit an unranked SG that is barely 6 feet tall. KU would love to have a guy like Baker now, but there is no way he was a legitimate scholarship player at Kansas even after he grew. Remember, he barely played at WSU leading up to the tournament as a freshman. There is 0 chance that he sees the floor at KU with McLemore, Releford, Johnson, White, etc. in front of him as a freshman, and Selden, Greene, Frankamp joining his second year. If anything, he would have ended up transferring after a year. I doubt he would have lasted at KU because he would have been good enough to play elsewhere, but would not have gotten that chance at KU. Going to WSU ultimately worked out best for him. For every kid that ends up like Baker, there are a dozen that turn into fairly average mid major players. That's not a miss.
Cauley Stein is a miss. He was a top notch recruit. Ojeleye may have been a miss. He was highly ranked. The issue between Self and MoKan Elite has to get solved because there will be some talent coming out of KC at some point and KU can't afford to just sit on the sidelines while other schools poach their backyard.
I also don't consider Alec Burks to be a miss. KU tried to get in on him very late, but Colorado was already in on him and he stayed with that. He was another guy that hit a late growth spurt (going from 6-1 or so to 6-5) that completely changed his level - he was considering UMKC as his top choice, with only Colorado giving interest from major conferences, before he hit the growth spurt and showed up on a lot of radars.
The NBA is moving away from true centers because true centers are difficult to find. Look around the NBA right now and you see just a handful of true centers - Marc Gasol, Dwight Howard, Joakim Noah, Roy Hibbert, Brook and Robin Lopez, DeAndre Jordan, Andre Drummond... maybe a couple others. You could probably convince me that there were less than 10 credible centers in the entire NBA.
In college, there probably weren't a dozen legitimate centers in the country last year, fewer than that if you really looked at the size and skill of guys.
At the high school level, you probably couldn't find more than a few dozen actual centers at any given time, if that many. There just aren't many Shaquille O'Neal or David Robinson type of players out there. There are a lot of tall, lanky, Kevin Garnett types, guys that can protect the rim, score, rebound, etc, but they aren't really true centers.
More guys are developing their ball handling and shooting range because they have learned from guys in the past. How many times have we seen a kid have an early growth spurt, get stuck on the block as a 6-2 12 year old, then end up being a 6-4 player in high school and end up being frustrated and disappointed because he didn't keep growing. Everybody learns guard skills now. That was the European model for years, and that model has crossed the Atlantic into the US, where more and more big kids are hoisting jumpers and handling the basketball in the open floor.
Ultimately, that's better for the game because you end up with a 6-9 guy like Bragg that can handle the ball, is a great athlete and could end up being a really super player because of his versatility. If he was purely a back to the basket player, I wouldn't be nearly as high on him as I am right now.
When recruiting the top 10-15 players in the country, you have to put a lot of time/ effort into them because they have 10-12 schools working hard to get them. Dropping down to the 40-75 range, if you're KU or Syracuse or whoever, those kids are going to take the first really strong offer they get because those top tier offers will start disappearing quickly once the top players start to sign.
Thus, if you target only second or third tier players (rankings 15-40 and 40-75) you are likely to fill up a class more quickly than targeting top tier guys because the top guys will almost always wait.
Agreed that we don't have enough talent in Kansas to supply us. Add to that the fact that we have to convince a lot of out of state kids that it's worth it to come to KU, which usually requires a campus visit. That adds to our costs to have 10+ guys come on visits every year, plus go and see them multiple times.
Only signing the scholarship papers gives the player some flexibility.
I think we will see more of this if players are allowed to return to school after declaring for the draft if they do not hire an agent. Most guys will commit (verbally), then sign scholarship papers upon arrival in the fall (or summer).
I think our issue is that we have not adapted to the talent we have.
For example, Cal rose to prominence at Memphis with the dribble drive motion, which featured very few post ups for interior players. However, at UK, he has used post ups when he had serious post threats like Cousins, Davis, Randle and Towns.
But at the same time, he still uses some DDM principles with his other guys when those post threats aren't in the game. He has a lot of pick and roll action in his offense so his guards get to be creative on that. He also uses the flare screen action to free up shooters like Doron Lamb in his title year, or Booker this year. He let's the Harrison twins run clear outs to show their strength and finishing ability.
Simply put, Cal's offense reflects the strengths of the individual players that he recruits. Cauley-Stein rarely posts up because he's not a good back to the basket player, but he scores because he runs pick and rolls up top, catches lobs and works the offensive glass. It's pretty easy to see how that can translate to him becoming a Tyson Chandler type of player at the next level, just like you can see the Harrison's becoming Arron Afflalo type players at the next level. You can see Towns being a Demarcus Cousins lite because you can see the skills and how they will translate.
Same thing for Duke. You can absolutely see how Justise Winslow will be at the next level, probably similar to Kawhi Leonard. Tyus Jones has all the makings of a solid NBA point guard, and the system allowed him to showcase that.
How often have we seen KU really highlight the strengths of its best players? Not to say Self hasn't been effective, because he has, but he hasn't truly highlighted his best player's abilities. That is something that the elite players can see. Self has built a system that highlights the system. For a while this year, he was heading towards highlighting his best players, but then he pulled back (remember the "Fool's Gold" comments).
Self feared taking that next step and handing the reins over to his best players. Cal has done that. Coach K has done that. Sean Miller has done that. There's a reason that Coach K won a title, Cal has been to back to back Final Fours and Miller keeps going to the Elite Eight. They have adapted their system to fit their personnel. Self wants his personnel to run his system.
He wants Perry to dominate with his back to the basket, but Perry is better facing up.
He wants Wayne to be a standstill shooter, but Wayne is a slasher.
We have to do more to mold our system to our current personnel.
I doubt any of those guys were looking at the NBA as a goal. When they played, the average NBA salary was less than the salary you could make as a college graduate going into the work force.
That changed in the 1980's. The potential to make a huge living as a player now existed, even if you were not a superstar like Wilt or Kareem. Once that happened, players with pro futures could envision themselves playing in the NBA as early as high school. Remember, most players in the 1950's and 1960's wanted to play college ball because that was more popular than pro. It wasn't until the NBA took off in the mid 80's (the Bird/Magic years) that this changed.
Avoiding OADs assumes that non-OADs will be comparable in talent by the time they are juniors and seniors. Basically, the Frank Kaminsky model.
KU has had guys like that the last few years.
Andrew White did not improve enough to make the rotation, so he transferred. Jamari Traylor is here right now, but we really need a guy that plays ahead of him because he is undersized. Frankamp could not beat out Mason and Graham (two other non OAD players), so he transferred.
The hope is that everyone will improve each year, but the truth is that some guys hit their ceilings much more quickly than we would like. Will Landen Lucas improve enough to be the third big next year, or would we be better off with another freshman big man? That's the pressing question when recruiting guys beyond the top 20 or 25. How much will they expand their game year by year? Will they make the team better as a junior than a potential OAD would make the team as a freshman? That question has to be asked on a player by player basis.
Can he build from the ground up? I think that's the question K-State has to ask.
Am I fine with some of our current guys transferring - Yes.
Selden has been a disappointment as a player. Good, but inconsistent. He's going to be a junior, so I don't know how much we can anticipate that he will improve.
Greene is a great shooter, but his defense has been below average. He's also going to be a junior, so I don't know that he's going to ever be anything more than average as a defender, and average will take some work for him.
We need to improve on the perimeter as well as inside. Standing pat on the perimeter is a surefire way to end up at home after the first weekend again. Maybe Selden improves. Maybe Greene improves. Maybe they both improve. But maybe they don't. If that happens, I'd like to have some other options.
I have come to accept the fact that this years team, while good, wasn't good enough to compete in the national conversation. The two guys most likely to make large steps forward (Oubre and Alexander) are gone. It's doubtful Perry makes a dramatic leap forward as a senior. I think we know pretty safely what Perry will give us (probably 15/7 for what it's worth). That's a good start. Can Bragg give us 11 and 8? Frank should be able to nail down 10 and 5 assists. Devonte is good for 7 and 3 assists. The question then is who is our second scorer? Can Wayne consistently give us 12-14 points? Greene? Svi? If the answer is no, give me Jaylen Brown or Malik Newman, or both. If the answer is yes, then I am more than happy to roll with what we have. I'm just not sure that answer is yes.
If I have my preferences, we get Newman, Brown and Diallo (to keep him away from ISU). That gives us two creative perimeter scorers (which we need), plus two athletic big guys in Bragg and Diallo. If we lose Diallo, I think he lands at ISU and becomes our headache.
I don't think we can get Zimmerman. He's probably either UNLV or Arizona at this point. Rabb also probably stays on the west coast (UCLA or Arizona, maybe Cal).
Don't know about Maker. He's the wild card here. He could change everything in this class.
Ingram is the other wildcard here. He isn't the top guy for any of the schools still recruiting him, but he is a nice addition to any class. If we miss on Brown, I would take Ingram in a heartbeat.
Completely agree on Hoiberg. I doubt he ever pursues the NBA. However, if he were asked to coach the national team, he may consider it (I don't know enough about the current state of his health), and his style of coaching is a better fit than Self's style.
The University Games team was selected based on colleges that expressed interest in competing. KU was selected over the other applicants. Because this isn't a team selected from around the country, I think it is a different sort of thing. Perhaps USA Basketball will use this to evaluate Coach Self for a future role, but I think the guys I listed yesterday have the inside track, particularly Donovan.
I agree that he and Pop are close, but Jerry Colangelo is currently on the Board of Directors, along with Chauncey Billups and others. They will select a new board after next year's Olympics, but the current board make up doesn't give Self the inside track.
If that argument is true, then it was unfair when UCLA was just as stacked during their run in the late 60's and early 70's. Saying it's unfair that some schools get better recruits than others just doesn't hold merit to me. KU gets better recruits than K-State does. Is that unfair to K-State? K-State gets better recruits than UMKC. Is that unfair to UMKC? All of those schools are D1 schools within 150 miles of each other, but their recruiting bases are very different.
That's the nature of college athletics. When you have recruiting, you have a chance to have some teams that have tons of talent and others that can't ever hope to land that sort of talent. There are 350 D1 teams and about 12-15 truly elite players in each class. Even if every single elite player went to a different school every year, there would be schools that would not land an elite player for over 2 decades.
If Bo Ryan is mad that he can't get elite recruits to Madison, that's on him as a recruiter.
I agree that the next national team head coach will almost certainly be a collegiate coach. I just don't think it will be Self.
I think Self's lack of success with big time recruits means that, although the coaches at the pro level respect him, I am not sure the players feel the same way. Bill Self is very much a "system" guy and the players in the pros understand that a "system" is not as effective if it doesn't fit the personnel you have. His coaching style makes him a poor fit to coach a roster of pro players.
I think Pop likes and respects Self as a college coach, but I also think that he may believe that others - particularly a coach like Hoiberg who works to develop and exploit matchup advantages - would be a better fit to work with pro players. I think that would be a consistent view among a lot of pro evaluators - Self is a good college coach, but may not be a good fit at the pro level. Notice also that the Self to the NBA chatter has significantly slowed over the last 3 years or so.
My other reason for believing that Self isn't under serious consideration is that he isn't currently in the pipeline.
The U19 coaches were Tony Bennett (Virginia), Shaka Smart (now Texas) and Billy Donovan (head coach of the U19, Florida).
The U18 coaches were Donovan (head coach), assisted by Ed Cooley (Providence) and Sean Miller (Arizona).
If Self were under consideration, I think they would have brought him into the pipeline by now. The fact that they have not, even as an assistant, says to me that he isn't on the radar for that job.
The question is really whether or not Kelly would have improved where he needed to improve by staying at KU.
Would he have faced enough quality competition to make him develop his secondary skills, or would his superior primary ability have allowed him to ignore that need to develop?
Kelly needs to learn to go right, but are there enough collegiate defenders that could have forced him to go right?
Look at the way Andrew Wiggins has improved since leaving KU. Kelly isn't Wiggins, obviously, but it is instructive. The better defense has forced Wiggins to add things to his game. The additional practice time has been to his benefit and he's starting to unlock a lot of things that we only saw flashes of while he was in Lawrence.
Kelly could be in a similar position. The improvement he needs to make may not be fostered in college because it won't force him out of his comfort zone.
Is Cal a good coach, @jaybate-1.0 asks?
Well, you can't just cherry pick the years. Let's throw out the UK years because he has so much talent. Let's look at what he did at Memphis without Derrick Rose.
I had to look this up because I didn't know:
Calipari was at Memphis for 9 years. In that time he went 214-67. Throw out his last two years (with Rose and then Tyreke Evans) when he went 71-6 (yeah, 71-6, that's insane) and he went 143-61 (.700 winning percentage). His two years before Rose came to Memphis he went 66-8 (not quite 71-6, but still crazy good) and went to a pair of Elite Eights. So his last 4 years at Memphis he won 137 games and lost just 14. That's almost a 91% clip, 89% before Rose, 95% with Rose, 89% after Rose. Not just good, but darn consistent.
At UMass he went 30-5 in 1992. I think the best player on that team was Lou Roe because that name sort of rings a bell. I don't remember a single thing about that team and honestly, I'm surprised they were a 30 win team that I literally remember nothing about.
Those seasons led to him landing his big time players. Going 33-4 in back to back seasons is impressive. Going 30-5 with a cast of characters that probably no one outside New England remembers is impressive. It also suggests that he can coach, but he coaches better when he has talent, like most other guys.
In the last decade he has gone to just one Sweet 16. But he has also gone to three Elite Eights, two Final Fours, two title games and won a championship. In eight of the last 10 years, Calipari's team was one of the last eight standing. If it's truly all about matchups, Cal has gotten his team in position to win a title in all but two years in the last decade.
I wish Bill Self could say he had done that.
I don't think Self has enough respect among NBA players to be the next coach of the senior men's team. I think he has enough respect among the collegiate world to be the coach of the University Games or the U18's, but I haven't seen anything to suggest that he's on the short list of candidates for the senior team.
I wholeheartedly agree that the tournament is all about matchups. That's why the OAD theory works. OADs give you more talent, so they tend to have more matchup advantages. That's why UK was 38-0 heading into the Final Four - no one could exploit a matchup advantage against them.
Wisconsin themselves had a rare matchup advantage with Kaminsky that they were able to exploit pretty much every game. However, Dekker was awful last night because Duke had players they could put on him that negated his strengths.
Really, Wisconsin benefited in the UK game from the fact that Poythress tore his ACL this year. If Poythress were healthy, he draws the assignment on Dekker, where he would have been the same height and stronger. That would have shifted the advantage from the Badgers to the Cats. But of course, no Poythress gave Wisconsin an advantage there, and they used it to their full benefit against UK.
The thing that baffled me was that after Wisconsin beat UK, people were writing articles and calling in to talk shows saying that this proved that the OAD model didn't work, even though Wisconsin was going to still have to beat Duke to be champion. That just confused me because Duke has two guys that are OAD's that are top 7 picks, while UK probably only has one freshman that is a top 7 pick (I think Lyles could be a lottery guy, as could Booker, but not in the top 7 like Winslow and Okafor).
Duke's 8th guy was just as good as Wisconsin's 5th and 6th guys last night. That's why Wisconsin ultimately lost the game. Neither team was really that deep, but Duke got more quality from their last guy than Wisconsin did from the middle of their rotation. The MOP was a freshman, and he isn't even one of Duke's OAD's (although Jones could leave this year, but probably won't).
Wisconsin got beaten by a better team, and that team was better in large part due to OADs.
I thought Bo Ryan sounded really pathetic in his postgame comments. He had a lot of calls go his way, but they couldn't take advantage last night. Both Okafor and Winslow, Duke's two best players, were in foul trouble, much like Saturday when UK had foul trouble, and Wisconsin couldn't put Duke away because their eighth man kept them in it. That's not a time to blame the officials when the other team's #8 guy holds down the fort while their two best players ride the pine due to fouls.
There were some bad calls, but there are always bad calls in college games because the officials at the college level frankly aren't all that good as a whole. They missed two big calls that went in Duke's favor (Winslow stepping out of bounds on the drive, and the ball that he hit going out of bounds), but the third foul on Okafor was atrocious and the no call when Jones went deep late in the game was also pretty bad. Bucky had it's chances, but they didn't capitalize.
As for the OAD, I hope everyone realizes that Duke's three best players were all freshmen, and their two best were OADs. This is an OAD title. Two of the four Final Four teams were teams with OADs. UK has four Final Fours in the last five years. Duke has embraced the OAD model. UNC is embracing it. UK is all in. Arizona is pursuing it. That's two of your #1 seeds this year, as well as a 2 and a 4.
Unless the rules change, OAD is the model.
I would prefer Brown or Newman to Ingram. Ingram cannot create his own shot as well, so he will be dependent on Frank or Devonte to do that for him. That bogged the offense down this year.
We need a creative wing scorer, so that's either Newman or Brown of the elite players left. Ingram is a decent fallback, but the preference is for a scorer.
What I recall from this recruitment is that Self wanted Ellis. Cauley started his HS career in a small town in Kansas and wasn't really challenged by the competition, so he left there to go to Olathe Northwest.
I was personally always high on him because he was raw but very athletic. Self wanted Ellis because Ellis was a more polished scorer that you could potentially run the offense through. Cauley wasn't ever going to be that, but Self missed on a potential game changing defensive player.
Self also thought he would land Tarc and have Ellis and Tarc for multiple years. He guessed wrong on that.
We need to improve on the perimeter. Our wings without Oubre are not very strong. Can anyone say that they are honestly confident that Selden will be both healthy and consistent next season? Anyone? Bueller?
Is anyone confident that Greene can cover anyone for 25 mpg?
If you answered no to either of those questions, we need a perimeter player that can come in and help right away. Those are the facts.
I used to feel like KU had an advantage when pursuing top level inside players, but I think that has disappeared almost completely over the last few years.
UK and Duke, our two biggest rivals for big time interior players, have both shown an ability to utilize inside guys, and even have those guys be successful at the next level. Who is HCBS most successful big at the NBA level? Probably Markieff?
Calipari has Davis, Cousins and Jones that are all at least as good as Markieff, with Davis and Cousins both decidedly better. And that ignores Noel and the injured Randle. Maybe Embiid puts a strong tally in Self's side, but if you are thinking about pro prospects, Cal has the upper hand. Coach K has the historic advantage, and he gets to add Okafor to that this year.
Self needs some guys that come to KU, do well and then go pro and become stars as well. That's what the top guys are looking at.
I think Marshall could be competitive at Texas relatively quickly. He has all the resources he could ever need. He's a good coach. The only thing that may stop him is ego. He wants to be the number one coach on campus, and at Texas (or Bama) that will never be the case. But that's his dilemma. I think he would make Texas very good very quickly, unless his ego kept him from recruiting the top players.
As for Calipari, I think he convinces guys that his practices are better prep for the NBA than most college games. Towns gains more from facing Dakari Johnson in practice than he did last night torching Notre Dame's undersized front line. That matters to NBA scouts because they know guys coming out of Kentucky know how to bring it in practice because they go against legitimate talent every day.
Calipari deserves credit for getting a team full of potential stars to play the right way. They share the ball. They defend. They don't care who gets credit. They play for each other. They play with poise. Seriously, if it didn't say Kentucky on the jerseys, I think most people on this site would enjoy this team for being a really good team that plays great team basketball on both ends.
Watching that game last night, I was waiting on UK to panic down the stretch. They never did. I kind of hope they do go undefeated at this point. This is a great team - the kind of team you will tell people about 30 years from now. That's why I rooted against WSU going undefeated last year. That WSU team wasn't the kind of team you remember 30 years from now. They weren't great. People years from now would have looked at them and said they weren't as good as probably any of the last 10 or 12 NCAA champions. This Kentucky team is historically great enough to stand up over time.
I can't hate on the Cats at this point. I like good basketball and they play good basketball.
Same with Jaylen Brown do we want a year fix again at the SF spot or do we ride with Greene & Svi and hope they have great summers.
The most important word you used there was hope. We can hope that Greene and Svi improve over the summer to the point that they can produce at a higher level.
However, as we have discussed here at length, the development curve does not always continue on an upward trajectory. Svi looks like he has a lot of potential, but what happens if his frame just can't handle the extra bulk, or if that extra bulk slows him down significantly?
What happens if Greene just can't develop into a good enough ball handler, or remains a subpar defender?
The thing with Newman and Brown is that we know what they are capable of from an athletic standpoint. Greene and Svi are not on that level athletically, so we would be depending on them to be better based on experience or improvement from where they are now.
We have seen how that works. We were hoping for big contributions from Hunter. That never materialized, although I am optimistic for next year. Last year we were hoping that Andrew White III would make a leap forward. Never happened.
Truth is, most guys that are not NBA caliber talents start hitting their ceiling between their sophomore and junior year. The NBA caliber guys keep developing, which is part of why they make it - they just have so much more room to get to their ceiling.
We can't assume that Perry or Wayne will improve any more at this point. I think Wayne has probably peaked, and Perry is either very close to his peak, or has already achieved it as well.
If we don't add a big time playmaker, we will probably be having these same discussions next spring.
I am sticking in the Do Not Play camp.
The reason KU stopped playing WSU in the 90's was because of this:
1989 - KU won by 20 in Lawrence
1990 - KU won by 27 in Wichita
1991 - KU won by 34 in Lawrence
1992 - KU won by 30 in Wichita
1993 - KU won by 49 in Lawrence
Wichita State, after having some strong teams in the 70's through the mid 80's, fell off significantly. They weren't competitive. The game was irrelevant.
And that's why I think KU shouldn't play them. If WSU is good, the game would be on at least regional TV, but KU will be on regional TV whether they play WSU or Towson State. However, WSU doesn't help expose KU to a bigger audience because WSU is only on TV here in Kansas and KU is already going to be on here in Kansas either way.
I'd rather KU play San Diego State, or SMU, or Houston, or Loyola Marymount, or Seton Hall, or La Salle, or DePaul, all schools that are in major recruiting areas around the country than play WSU.
I like playing the D2 schools as exhibitions. Those games are good for both KU and the D2 schools because the D2's get a nice check and KU gets a nice tune up game, sometimes against a pretty darn good team. But WSU wouldn't want to play an exhibition, and because they are D1, the game would count. It doesn't help KU to play them because KU gets no additional exposure, and it doesn't add to KU's schedule strength over playing a game that KU could schedule anyway.
There's just no real point unless WSU gets to a level where they are similar to Louisville (who UK plays every year). WSU has to show that they won't fall back off like they did in the late 80's and early 90's because KU gains nothing from beating a team by an average of 32 points with no game being closer than 20.