As a precaution, Greene should probably not practice until at least Saturday, just to make sure there aren't any recurring issues. Concussions are serious stuff and, quite possibly, the most dangerous injury to rush back from.
Here's hoping he takes the time he needs to get his head right.
The assumption that Perry Ellis will continue to improve is a riskier proposition than the assumption that a freshman will come in and be productive.
Perry Ellis has a certain skill set that we have seen against collegiate competition. We have seen both his strengths and his weaknesses at the D1 level. Perry is a very skilled player. We all know that. But although he is a good athlete, he is not a great athlete and he has problems against top notch athletes. He also has issues against, bigger guys. There is no guarantee that he has shored up that issue over the summer.
Has he improved his game use vertical by 2-3 inches? Is he quicker? Has he extended his range to 21 feet consistently? Is he a markedly better ball handler? I haven't heard anyone around KU's program say any of those things about him outright. He may have polished his game more, but the body of his game likely hasn't changed, which means he probably still isn't an NBA caliber player.
I was sitting at a basketball tournament once talking to some college assistant coaches (or eavesdropping on their conversation). They were discussing a couple of players that were on the floor and noting the differences. One said very simply - "Player X is already what he is going to be. Player Y has maybe one more year of big development in him."
Most coaches say they want big improvement every year, but the truth is that they know that most guys aren't going to improve much after their sophomore year. By then they have gotten stronger, adapted to the college game, etc. They are what they are going to be for the most part.
Perry is what he is going to be. A very productive collegiate player that isn't quite NBA caliber.
Is Van Vleet the second best PG in the country? That's where he is ranked. Is Ron Baker the fourth best SG in the country? That's where he is ranked. That seems a bit high to me for both of those guys.
Take it another way. Would you rather have on your team this year Fred Van Vleet playing PG or Juwan Staten playing PG? I'd take Staten. There aren't more than a handful of big guys I would take over Turner and Ashley. There aren't many wings I'd take over Oubre and Dekker.
I look at it like a college basketball schoolyard pickup game. If you gave any coach a pick in the game, would Van Vleet really be the sixth guy picked? Really? I'm not saying he wouldn't be one of the top 20 or 25 picks, but sixth?
Would Sam Dekker really not get picked until 32 other guys got picked? I doubt it. Dekker would be one of the first 25 guys picked in my opinion. Would Oubre last that long? Doubtful.
Compare it to the NBA. Assuming everyone in the NBA was healthy right now, and there was a massive pickup game with real stakes, the first two picks would be Lebron and Kevin Durant. Those are the best two players on the planet and if you were picking with, as Bill Simmons said, your life hanging in the balance, there is no way you would pick anyone other than those two guys in that order with the first two picks. It's a silly premise because no one would ever do that sort of thing, but it puts things in perspective.
Taking that to this level, if you were picking a college basketball pickup tournament with 8 teams in it, would you seriously take Fred Van Vleet with your first pick if your life depended on the outcome of the tournament? Of course not. Van Vleet is good, but not so good that I would grab him with my first pick in a game that was actually important. With pick 16 or 17? Maybe so, Pick six? Nah, give me someone elite - a Kaminsky or at least a Georges Niang.
I have no issue with ranking freshman so high. Many of the freshmen are the most talented players in the country. I am more leery of ranking juniors and seniors, as many of those players are not as talented and may have already peaked from a production standpoint.
For instance, they are basically saying that Van Vleet and Marcus Paige are the two best guards in the country. I doubt that quite a bit.
Looking at the ceiling of certain guys, I would have ranked Turner, Dekker, Oubre and Brandon Ashley much higher (probably all in the top 30). I would have ranked Van Vleet likely outside the top 10 because I struggle to believe that he is one of the best 2 guards in the entire nation. He had an incredible year last year and led an undefeated team. He is really good, but I think the run last year has converted WSU's guys from underappreciated to probably overrated.
Unfortunately this "just keep them eligible" attitude goes back as far as at least junior high school, from what I can tell. There are very few controls on the course load that students take in 6th, 7th and 8th grade. Because of that, each school or school district acts independently other than the yearly assessments (which are also wrought with fraud and manipulation, but that's another story for another day). Since each school or district has oversight, they can make sure that certain kids - whether athletes or kids of donors or whatever - avoid certain classes and get moved into other classes. This isn't just for athletes either. I know of at least two situations involving high school students where kids in line for academic scholarships were able to change their schedule's mid semester to avoid getting B's or C's in a class, thereby keeping their GPA up.
At the base of it all is simple influence peddling. If you are athletic, or your parents know the superintendent, or you have a scholarship to an Ivy League school, or whatever, there is a chance that manipulation will take place because having that athlete or Ivy Leaguer from your school increases that school's prominence. In an age of education budget cuts, where every teacher and school and district is trying to justify itself and it's budget, a little (or a lot of) massaging the curve isn't that surprising to me.
I wish Bowen had some head coaching experience. Otherwise, he checks the important boxes:
Ties to KU or the midwest
desire to stay at KU long term
defensive minded (important in the scoring crazy Big 12
experience recruiting in Texas and Kansas/KC area (the most important recruiting grounds for any coach at KU)
enthusiasm
young
Bowen hits all of those points. He turns 42 later this year, so he would be able to stay at KU for 20 years if he's successful. Even more important, he would stay at KU for 20 years if given the opportunity. He's worked in Texas and has been around the KU program under Mason (player), Allen (assistant), Mangino (D. Coordinator) and Weis (position coach, then D. Coordinator).
The more I watch Bowen work with this program, the more I think he should be strongly considered for the full time job. KU needs a guy that will build the program and stay once it is built. Bowen could be that guy. I at least know he will work long and hard at it.
This UNC story captures the point that I was trying (and likely failing) to make several weeks ago in the thread about whether athletes should be paid and whether the OAD was a good thing or not.
For quite a while now, there has been a tendency to push athletes into these "fake" classes in order to keep them eligible. At some universities, academic advisers would refuse to sign off on an athlete taking a more challenging class load. As many have pointed out here, that degrades the value of the degree enormously.
This is going on at a lot of schools right now. I can't say which ones because you would have to be on the ground at each of those schools to know what is really going on, but it goes on. A few years ago it was the Alabama football program. Before that it was Miami. Ohio State has had some allegations. So has Texas. USC has as well. North Carolina is just the latest to get caught.
And why are they getting caught? Well, more and more players are leaving school with worthless degrees while seeing the university profit from their abilities and they are speaking out - see McCants accusations, which now seem to be ringing very much true.
This is just the latest groundshaking event in what could be leading to an ultimate volcanic explosion of revelations regarding the NCAA and its universities.
I don't fault Roy Williams for this necessarily. From what I understand talking to players, the coaches are rarely involved in that sort of thing - set up a way for them to deny knowledge later. Instead, the academic advisers and tutors are in charge of that. If they think an athlete may be an academic risk (basically if the athlete isn't a student that would have received an academic scholarship regardless of athletic ability) they are steered towards at least some (in some cases all) paper classes.
The NCAA is a sham. The emperor has no clothes. It's time to start accepting that reality.
Bowen is making his case for getting the full time job. He doesn't have any previous head coaching experience, but his enthusiasm is obvious and it has had a huge impact on the energy the team plays with.
I'm not all in for him yet, but I am willing to give it a shot.
I think the matchup works best against Texas because Ridley is not very mobile. Turner is more mobile, but matched up against an elite perimeter player like Oubre, he is still at a pretty decided disadvantage. That's where KU capitalizes.
I have no doubt that against an average D1 wing, Myles Turner could acquit himself very well on the perimeter defensively. But against an NBA potential player like Oubre? That's a different animal. And since we already know Ridley would have no chance 22 feet from the basket trying to contain Selden or Oubre, the pressure would be on Turner to do so, and do so without fouling. Most bigs pick up bad reaching fouls away from the basket because they are not used to having to defend laterally without help. Making a big like Turner do that exposes him to foul trouble or bends the defense in a variety of ways by making guys have to help early to ensure that Turner knows help is coming so he doesn't foul.
Against UK, it doesn't work as well because Cauley-Stein is very mobile for his size, as is Lee. Towns is also pretty agile. Poythress is as well. That means UK doesn't really have to change their alignment if they don't want to because their big rotation can more or less stay intact even if the other team goes small because you're conceding that UK is going to kill you on the glass.
Optimally we go zone against UK and try to force them to shoot lots of jumpers and do some disciplined team rebounding to compensate for their size advantage.
I don't know that Lucas and Hunter help that much in this regard because they are not as good at basketball as some of our other guys. We would be playing our 8th or 9th most talented player just to get some size out there, which is sub optimal against a team with the type of talent UK has.
I see this as a way to spread out big teams and also get our best players on the floor together for as many minutes as possible.
I am going to zag while others take a zig here.
Self is toying around with Selden or Oubre at the 4 because he wants to have his best 5 on the floor as much as possible.
We already have an inkling that three of the best players on this team are Oubre, Selden and Alexander. Talk of moving Oubre or Selden to the 4 may be in response to the potential that Self wants to find minutes for another perimeter player (likely either Greene or Frankamp, possibly both) because he feels that he has more rotation worthy perimeter players than interior players.
Let's play with the rotation again with this new revelation that Oubre or Selden may play some 4.
PG - Graham and Mason
Wings - Selden, Oubre, Greene and Frankamp
Interior - Alexander, Ellis, Traylor, with Selden or Oubre moonlighting here
Notice there is no Mickelson here. I would imagine that this means Self wants to make sure both Selden and Oubre are logging 30 mpg, hence the need to occasionally play one of them at PF to get some minutes with Graham and Mason together (memories of the Collins-Chalmers combos we saw in much of 2007 and 2008 ).
This news tells me there is either a lack of progress on the part of our secondary bigs or some significant strides made by one or both of the Frankamp-Greene duo to make playing either Oubre or Selden out of position.
The benefits are that we add another shooter to the mix. You can never have too much shooting. We can also create some matchup problems or force a team to go with an inferior perimeter player in place of a talented big - this could pay off against a big team like Texas since we have no way of matching their size. There is no way they want either Ridley or Turner chasing around Oubre on the perimeter, and if we force one of them to the bench, the advantage shifts back to us. The advantage is less pronounced against Kentucky because UK can go small as well with their lineups with the twins, Ulis, Booker and Poythress all available to play on the perimeter, as well as a very mobile Marcus Lee. That would still help, as it forces UK to only play one of the Cauley-Stein/ Johnson/ Lyles/ Towns group, but the talent drop off for UK isn't as great as it would be for Texas. writing that just made me realize how stacked UK is at every position
I think this is a way to limit MUA for other teams with size, as our greatest strength this year is not inside since we really only have one NBA caliber big on the roster. Forcing a team to go small makes them match up with our most talented players, which works to our advantage.
I think I'd go as follows:
Bill Self - obviously a top notch recruiter and tactician
Fred Hoiberg - he's still underrated in my opinion
Lon Kruger - wins wherever he goes
Bob Huggins - always gets a lot out of his players, although I think his recruiting has slipped
Tubby Smith - His recruiting is pretty weak at this point, but he's good with tactics. Unfortunately, at TT, he needs to recruit to win.
Scott Drew - underrated developer in my opinion. He's had some high profile recruits, but has done most of his damage has been done with fairly middling players.
Travis Ford - he's a very up and down coach to me. He's okay as both a tactician and recruiter, but won't succeed against the cream of the crop.
Trent Johnson - had some success at Nevada and Stanford, but struggled at LSU. Probably a better west coast recruiter, which has hampered him elsewhere. Solid on tactics, but not strong enough to overcome a lack of talent on the floor.
Rick Barnes - He's a good but not great recruiter and not a strong tactician at all. If he has talent, he can do pretty well, but if he doesn't have tons of talent, his teams struggle, as we have seen recently.
Bruce Weber - He's a weak recruiter and I have not seen any tactical skills to overcome that. If you don't have Jimmy's, Joe's, X's or O's, you can't win much.
By definition, a PG is a primary ball handler. That means that the PG has to go get the basketball whenever necessary. Alternatively, there are secondary ball handlers. They can play just about any position, but usually play on the wings. They don't always get the ball, but they can help a PG out and relieve some of the ball handling pressure and burden.
Wayne Selden is a secondary ball handler, just like Elijah Johnson was more naturally a secondary ball handler. EJ playing with Tyshawn, EJ was steady as a rock. EJ playing without a primary ball handler, EJ's flaws showed up tenfold.
As a PG, you have to find a proper balance between getting people involved, getting yourself going, and just generally orchestrating things. As a secondary ball handler, you don't have to worry about that stuff. You can get other people involved if the opportunity arises, but you can focus more on your shooting/ scoring and let the primary guy see to the task of orchestrating and distributing.
I think @JayHawkFanToo was spot on in saying that Selden and Frankamp are both more secondary PGs than primary PGs. Mason and Graham naturally handle the ball out front. They have (likely) been doing that since they first stepped on a basketball floor. Frankamp played a lot on the wing in high school, but has also played point from time to time, but as I have said before, his best value is as a shooter, not as a PG. That leaves Mason and Graham, unless Conner has significantly changed his game recently.
I think Mason and Graham are up to the task, although I am worried that once again our PGs will be our fifth or sixth best overall players.
Dunking on anything more than a 12 foot rim is basically impossible. Dunking on a 12 foot rim is difficult and likely also dangerous.
As observed above, to dunk on a 12 foot rim requires at least a 35 inch vertical, likely from a running start as few can drop step into a 35 inch vertical. Considering the height you have to achieve and that you would likely have to jump "full out" to achieve the necessary height, there is a huge chance that something could go wrong and a knee or ankle could fall victim to a poor landing.
I believe that Wilt could in fact touch up to or over 12 feet. However, I wonder if he could have dunked at that height.
Wilt was a rare talent as an athlete. He was the classic and athlete. He was quick and fast. He was tall and agile. He was strong and graceful. From everything I have heard about him, he was as strong as Shaq, as agile as Hakeem and as explosive as Dwight Howard, all while being able to run as fast as most any guard.
The closest we have to him now, honestly, is Lebron. A rare combination of speed, power, grace, explosiveness, agility and size. Obviously, Lebron isn't Wilt's size, but until he lost weight this summer, Lebron was playing at about 6-9, 270. Wilt played most of his career at 275-290 before adding weight towards the end of his career. He was taller, but about the same weight for most of his basketball days. That adds to Wilt's agility, as he moved like a guard because, for the most part, he was a guard in his build. He just happened to be 7-1.
However, I also must observe that Wilt stood out as an athlete because the caliber of athlete in the NBA in the 1960's was not what it is today. Wilt would still be a better athlete than most anyone today, but he would not be lapping the field as he was back in his day. PG's were not dunking on PF's in the 1960's. Remember, this was an era where Oscar Robertson and Elgin Baylor dominated physically in large part because they were so much more athletic than their counterparts. Bill Russell has said as much, that the Robertson's, Baylor's and Chamberlain's of the world changed the NBA because they made the game much more athletic than it had been up to that point, Robertson for the guards, Baylor for the forwards and Chamberlain and Russell for big men. The type of basketball we watch today is owed in large part to what those four players did in the 1960's.
The problem is not Brannen Greene. Brannen Greene can play. He would be starting at 300+ D1 schools. He would be a rotation lock at all but a handful of the remaining programs. The problem is that this is Kansas. At Kansas, being 6-8 and a good shooter means you get a scholarship. It doesn't mean you get to play.
There is a distinct possibility that KU could have to excellent shooters that are 6-7 or taller sitting on the bench for 30+ minutes a night. This is Kansas. Everything involved with the KU basketball program is elite. The players. The coaches. The facilities. The backups are even elite.
There are 200 minutes to go around each night. Selden is getting 30 of those. 170. Perry is getting at least 25. 145. Alexander is getting 25. 120. Whatever becomes of the PG situation, the Mason/Graham/ Frankamp trio will amount to at least 40. That's 80 minutes left. Oubre is getting 20 something. Call it 57 left. We need a backup big man at 20 minutes a night minimum. Down to 37. That's six rotation spots and we have less than 40 minutes left to pass out. We probably need at least one more big man, a wing player, and some minutes where we play two of our small guys at once. That probably takes care of the last 37 minutes.
Reality is that either Svi or Brannen won't be in the rotation this year. We already know that one of the Mickelson/Lucas/Traylor group won't be in the rotation. There's a decent chance that one of the Mason/Graham/Frankamp group won't play much. Tubby Smith would love to have the loser in each of those battles at Texas Tech this year. They would probably play 25 minutes or more. But this isn't Texas Tech. This is Kansas. Some really good basketball players will not be able to crack this rotation.
My only tweak to the depth chart would be questioning whether Frankamp would be the only other wing player behind Selden and Oubre (assuming Mason and Graham are the PGs). That fifth perimeter guy rarely gets many minutes, so it may be that Self goes with some versatility there over a guy like Greene, but he may go the other way to get some more size in the rotation.
I agree with the bigs rotation. I think we probably won't see much change in that, barring injury.
I'm not sure how these one year transfers should be treated. I'm happy to have had Tarik on the team, and I will always consider him a Jayhawk, but how do you evaluate that.
Now that a guy can graduate and transfer, I don't really know how they should be handled.
Also, Black is originally from Memphis (the city), so that could be another reason that he is referred to as a Memphis product.
I think more top players are going to wait until the late period to commit. Honestly, I think that there should not be an early signing period at all. Too much can happen between now and when a player arrives. Coaching staff changes, players leaving for the NBA (or staying). You really don't know what the situation will be for next year, and it is unfair to both the current and future student athletes to have to either save a scholarship, or commit to a school, only to have the coach that recruited you leave (or get fired).
A few years back there was some talk about making it into one signing period in the spring, but I don't think that ever really went anywhere. Ideally, there would be one signing period beginning two weeks after the Final Four and ending the next Sunday night. Players could give non-binding verbal commitments, but no paperwork could be signed until that period. By then, most high school seniors know where they stand academically as far as qualifying (avoiding the chaos of a non-qualifier), most jucos have their progress reports pretty well ironed out (for guys that are moving up), players have declared for the draft (making roster construction more clear) and most coaching situations are set, because by then most non-playoff NBA teams have started their search. It's better for everyone around.
KU needs to hire a current mid major coach. We are an underdog right now and have to accept that status. We can't act like a powerhouse because in football, KU is not a powerhouse.
Whomever this new coach is needs to be thoroughly vetted not just on the personal side of things, but they need to talk to people in his area about how he is as a recruiter, how he is with the local media and how he is on campus. Remember, Mangino was a personnel nightmare on campus. Weis is notoriously prickly with boosters and media. That stuff matters. KU needs a coach that is personable off the field, but can bring that underdog fighting spirit on the field.
I am hoping for a midmajor coup here, but I will wait and see. If KU goes out and hires some "name" retread, I can guarantee we will be back in this spot having this same conversation in four years.
Good observation. I would counter that we knew going in that Wiggins was a finisher first and foremost. He never displayed great ball handling and passing skills as a prep player. He wasn't Lebron. He was an athletic finisher on the wing. He wasn't a drive and dish guy. He was a drive and dunk guy.
Becoming a distributor is about more than seeing guys open. In the freeze frame you have above it shows Wiggins drawing the collapse and having a wide open teammate on the baseline, hands ready for the dump off and dunk. But look at how Wiggins is holding the ball. He doesn't have it in a position where he is ready to pass. He has it so that he can go up for a shot, which is what he does here. A natural distributor sees the action before it happens and knows that as the defense collapses to him, he will have a small pocket to throw a quick bounce pass into. In the freeze frame you have above, a distributor wouldn't even have the ball at this moment. It would be bouncing up off the floor from that bounce pass and into the waiting hands of Embiid for the dunk.
Wiggins doesn't see the floor like that yet. He sees the lane for the drive. He doesn't see the pocket for the assist yet. That is the part of his game that has to improve.
It would be nice to have a player like Doral Moore, provided that by the time he's a junior he is a potential NBA prospect. I'm not against guys developing into high level players. In fact, I am all for it. But I am against passing on high rated prospects simply for the hope that a player develops into a high level guy.
For example, two years ago KU signed Andrew White III. AW3 was a solid player coming out of high school. He was ranked #48 in the country. He never developed to the point we were hoping at KU. So would you have preferred, knowing what we know now, to have a guy like Gary Harris Jr or Kyle Anderson (potential OADs at the time) to pair with McLemore and the rest, or have AW3 on that squad.
Having a guy stay to develop only counts if he eventually becomes that type of high level player, like TRob or Tyshawn did. If a guy doesn't reach that level, you just have a talent deficit, especially if you sign them in favor of a higher skill player.
Not saying that Moore won't be a good player. It looks like he probably will be, and Danny will be able to work with a kid that has a bright future ahead of him for probably 2-3 years at Wake. But he's also quite raw. He's not the kind of athlete that Zimmerman is. He isn't as fluid as some of the higher ranked players. His moves are very basic at this stage. Can he get better? Absolutely, and under Danny I think he will. But is that a guarantee? No. Three years from now, Doral Moore may be an All ACC player, he may be in the NBA, or he may be a very mechanical collegiate 7 footer with questionable hands and no advanced post moves.
You never know.
@DoubleDD Challenge accepted :)
Wake was pretty solid during the Chris Paul years. They have fallen off quite a bit since then, however. Danny has a tough job ahead of him, but getting a recruit like this is huge. It says to everyone else that Wake is going to be a player for top 100 talent again, something that hasn't been the case over the last 5-7 years. That's an important step in getting back into respectability.
For Kentucky, this is similar to Kaviar Shepherd picking TCU instead of KU. Would it be nice if KU had a guy like Shepherd? Of course. Would KU rather have had Embiid than Shepherd? Definitely. Would UK rather have Zimmerman or Diallo or Ellenson (or Swanigan or Labissiere or Bragg) than Moore? Absolutely.
So this is significant for Wake (puts them back on the map, so to speak), but a radar blip for UK.
I think this news is more significant to Wake than it is to UK. Wake needs to land some solid recruits to get back into the mix in the ACC. Landing a four star recruit gives them some credibility.
For UK though, they are in on #4 Ellenson, #7 Diallo, #8 Swanigan, #10 Zimmerman, #11 Labissiere and #18 Bragg. That's 6 interior guys that are much more highly ranked. Moore was a secondary target for UK, but a primary target for Wake. Good for him to make his decision early and lock in his scholarship rather than waiting for everything to play out with the McD's AA's at the top of the list.
This is a huge get for Danny. He still needs to get some backcourt help, but if he can land a few top 50 recruits in the next couple of years, he could make the Demon Deacons a force again. He should reach out to Chris Paul to make sure that relationship is strong.
Last year's team struggle primarily because that team could not get a stop when it had to have one. Look at some of the losses last season. Against Florida, staged a huge comeback, but could not get a stop to complete the run. Same thing against Colorado. Same against SDSU. Same against WVU. Some of those teams were very good offensive teams. Some were not. But regardless, we were a very middle of the road defensive team last season.
Part of the reason for that is that, of our rotation players, the only above average defenders we played were Wiggins and Embiid. With injuries, Selden was not above average. Black was roughly average. Jamari is above average on PFs, but against bigger guys, he is below average because of the size difference. Tharpe and Ellis were both average at best. Greene is a very average defender as well. We didn't a have anyone in the backcourt that was an above average defender, and only one perimeter defender that was above average. That killed us last year. Once Embiid went down, we weren't strong either inside or out on defense, and it showed.
This year, we have Graham, who is supposed to be a good defender. A healthy Selden should be an above average defender. Oubre should be average or above. Alexander is a good defender. The only player that will likely play over 25 minutes that will likely be only average or below is Perry. So long as he is paired with good defenders around him, I think he is an astute enough player to play within scheme to make this a good defensive team. Since he should be surrounded with our four best defenders for 80% of his minutes, he should be solid, just as last year with Embiid in there Perry was solid, but was exposed when Embiid went down.
An improved defense will improve KU overall. If we can get stops, we can win lots of games.
I think you have to evaluate depth and strength separately. The Big 12 is very deep. However, beyond KU and ISU (and perhaps Texas) I doubt there is much strength. At the same time, only Tech and TCU will be bad. The SEC is strong with Florida and Kentucky, but not deep. The Pac12 isn't strong or deep. Big 10 may be deep, but I doubt it will be strong. Big East will be strong, but without depth. Strength is created by teams that can win it all, or at least go deep in the tourney. Depth is having lots of teams that can go to the tourney.
Finally had a chance to watch all of the perimeter players (Brown, Newman, Dorsey, Ingram and Jones). There is definitely a wide array of skills on display here. From the lowest rank to the highest.
Dorsey:
Physical - He's listed at 6-4, 180. I wonder if he's not closer to 6-2 as he doesn't seem to be a bigger guard. He's athletic enough, but I wouldn't mark him down as a great athlete.
Positives - He will play PG in college. He's got the handle, quickness and vision to play the position. Loves to pass the ball and puts it on time, on target. He has a knack for getting into the lane and negotiating around contact and through traffic. His jumper is very solid. Understands how to create space for his shot.
Negatives - I can see a ceiling for him. He's a very good player, but I don't think he will be much more than that. That's okay because I think he's a productive player for four years at the collegiate level. He should be a good defender, but probably will struggle with bigger wings if he plays there. Small, quick PGs may also trouble him. He won't be a huge scorer in college.
Overall - if he's a PG, I'm actually much higher on him. As a SG, I am really not that excited. He probably won't be the kind of scorer that you want as a 2. He's definitely not the type of athlete you want there. However, move him to the point and things get much more interesting very quickly. He's an adept passer and if he can handle running the offense and embracing being a PG, he could be a four year starter.
Jones:
Physical - he's a long, slender, athletic guy. He has not put on much muscle, although he's not so slight that a stiff breeze would knock him over. The recruiting services list him at 6-6, 180, which is probably about right. He's left handed.
Positives - He can jump out of the gym. His athleticism is incredible. Either elite or near elite. He is absolutely a D1 athlete. He explodes off the floor when going to the rim and can finish with violence and authority. He does not fear contact or defenders, as he will just jump over them and dunk on heads at will. He has a good ability to take two hard dribbles and explode to the rim. He has a useful crossover and a nifty eurostep. His jumper is okay. His athleticism should allow him to guard just about anybody on the perimeter, and he should be at worse an above average defender, with the tools to be very good.
Negatives - Right now he's more athlete than basketball player. His jumper is a bit fringy, and I wonder if he has a lot of confidence in it, as his release isn't always consistent. On defense he's a bit too eager to block everything, which will get him into foul trouble against older, craftier players. His ball handling is pretty basic. He would have to play with other ball handlers because he isn't the type of guy you want handling out in the middle of the floor.
Overall - He's ranked where he is because he's a super athlete that may turn into a very good basketball player. If he doesn't, he still has value as a defense and athleticism/energy guy, but he may not be much of a scorer in college if he doesn't develop either a handle or a jumper.
Ingram:
Physical - another, long, lean, athletic guy. He's listed at 6-8, 180 and judging from how skinny he looks, I bet that's pretty accurate. His build suggests that he might get bullied by bigger players, but on the perimeter, he can probably hold his own.
Positives - He has a better handle and better shooting stroke than Jones. That said, his calling card is also his athleticism. He's not the athlete that Jones is, but he's an athlete and his size and length - wingspan alert! - should make him a good defender as well. I'm not sure about his quickness, however. His shot and range are good. He shows confidence in his shot out to 20 feet or more. His handle is solid, but his height makes his dribble a bit high. He is a good passer as well. He can finish with either hand. Blocks shots by extending rather than leaping, which should limit fouls.
Negatives - Very lean and could use some strength. I could see smaller guys giving him problems because of his high dribble and bigger guys muscling him up. His shot is good enough to catch and shoot, but that's not optimal value for him. I'd like to see him tighten the handle just a big. His release needs to be a bit quicker, as right now he shoots like a stretch 4, but he isn't big enough to handle the position in college.
Overall - If he can play on the perimeter all the time in college, he's a matchup nightmare. He can handle the rock, pass, shoot and drive. His length will drive guys crazy on defense. If he gets stronger, his ranking could really move up.
Newman:
Physical - Here's where you start to see the differences. They say Newman is just 6-3, 175, but physically he looks bigger and stronger than that. On top of that he can flat out bounce. He's a 6-3 kid that plays every bit of 6-6. Watching his highlights you forget that he's so small.
Positives - In addition to the crazy athleticism, Newman can flat out shoot. Pullups, catch and shoot, off screens, whatever. He can put the ball in the basket. @JayHawkFanToo asked about the lack of true PGs. Newman is another that could be a PG, but he's such a good scorer, I'm not sure you want to ask him to shut down that part of his game. Yeah, he can pass and handle and he's got speed and quickness, but you watch him on offense and it's no wonder his coaches want him shooting. He's just too good a scorer. Also, his speed in the open court is amazing.
Negatives - As clean as his jumper is, he has a little leg kick that makes his shot a little hitchy at times. It is still very slick and the results are there, but he probably needs to clean that up. He also takes too many challenged shots, in part because he can get away with it now. Savvier guards will punish that sort of decision making.
Overall - Newman is an NBA PG, but at the college level, he probably would play off the ball because there aren't many perimeter scorers as gifted as him. What makes him interesting, though is that if he ended up on a team without a PG, I bet he could slide over without much problem.
Brown:
Physical - Lists at 6-7, 220 and he is likely every bit of that. He can be a jet or a tank with his speed and athleticism, either bruising through or just jumping over.
Positives - Where to start. He can shoot, handle, defend. He's athletic. He's strong. His jumpshot is clean as a whistle. He finishes with violence and authority. He can break you down off the dribble or catch and shoot. The only reason he's not the #1 player in the country is because Ben Simmons is unreal (and Simmons is a bit bigger with a similar skillset).
Negatives - The only real negative for him is that he hasn't seen enough consistent competition on his level. At 6-7 with his size, strength and skills, there aren't many high school players that can handle him. He can go 75% and still make 95% of HS players look ridiculous. Motor is a concern because he's so good he doesn't have to compete with HS players.
Overall - Brown is a mix of Wiggins and McLemore. He has McLemore's shooting and Wiggins' athleticism. But he has added to that a ball handling ability that neither of those guys had. Brown is a special player.
I believe Perry will stay unless something significant has changed in his game over the last few months. Ask yourself this - is Perry as good right now as Marcus Morris? If the answer is no, then you have your answer as to whether or not you believe Perry will leave for the NBA.
I think it's possible that Cliff will stay two years. Not likely, but possible. Still, I think HCBS will cover himself by really pushing to land Zimmerman and Bragg. I think this also tells us that the Landen Lucas experience will probably be limited to mop up time. Lucas just isn't athletic enough to garner big minutes at a place like KU. Lucas is a classic fringe guy - he could be a very solid rotation player at a major school, or a starter/star at a midmajor and a star at a low major. Lucas would play 20-25 minutes a game at a school like West Virginia or Texas Tech. He would definitely start at a place like Tulsa or Missouri State and would be a star if he played somewhere like UMKC, probably putting up close to a double double every night. But he's at KU, where he barely gets any run.
The most interesting guys, though, are Brown and Newman. Brown is a mix of McLemore and Wiggins as an athlete, but probably a bit stronger and a better ball handler. He's a monster. I will find some time later to do a full scouting report, but trust me, this kid is ridiculous. He would be the next in the line of OAD wings we have had (Henry, McLemore, Wiggins, likely Oubre) and he would fit in nicely. Because we are probably losing Oubre and Selden, we need some elite wing talent. Newman isn't quite the player that Brown is, but that's not a knock on him. Newman would be a really strong add, although both he and Brown are likely OADs.
Dorsey, Ingram and Jones are not OADs, but the difference in talent is significant from Brown and Newman to Dorsey, Ingram and Jones. If both Selden and Oubre leave, I think we would need at least one of either Newman or Brown to go with any of the latter trio.
A three man class of Zimmerman, Bragg and Brown would probably be the top class in the country. I say that because I am higher on Zimmerman and Bragg than most. Brown will be one of the best 3 players in the country, but I think when all is said and done Zimmerman could be top 7 and Bragg will be top 10. If that happens, that's a truly elite group.
That's one of the craziest games I have ever seen. They tried to lose and found a way to win. Just absolutely nuts.
I think its critically important that we avoid coaches that have failed elsewhere. We can't just grab up Hoke right after the crash and burn job he's put together at Michigan. Not saying that Hoke won't be better in his next stop, but KU cannot offer him a situation that is any better than what he has right now in Ann Arbor. How can we feel like he will succeed here when he failed with better resources at UofM?
That's the biggest lesson of Charlie Weis. We ignored his ND failures and just looked at the name and experience, forgetting that all of the resources and tools that were available at ND were there when he failed so spectacularly and didn't factor in that he would not have the shadow of Touchdown Jesus to recruit from at Kansas.
I like both Applewhite and Smart. I doubt Smart leaves Bama unless he gets a nice contract, and he's never been a head coach. Applewhite is available, but has also never been a head coach, which is worrisome, as well as the fact that his UT offenses weren't exactly setting the world on fire. Frost is a nice name, but again, no HC experience. Frost is intriguing because he has been both a DC and an OC.
Turner Gill would not have been on that list five years ago. But let's post the resume of someone that would have been:
42 years old (in 2009). 18-9 record in two seasons at a midmajor school. Had previous experience as a position coach at several major conference schools, including stints as an offensive coordinator at two separate Power 5 schools. Coming off a season that saw his team go 10-4 and win their division in their conference.
That of course is the resume of Kevin Sumlin, now the head man at Texas A&M. KU probably could have landed him for the right price back in 2009. But they would have had to make that decision before Sumlin led Houston to a 12-1 season, because A&M came calling after that.
KU has to go with an unproven commodity.
Think of it this way.
In 1999, if you were a major college basketball program in need of a coach, you could have hired a pretty successful young coach from a midmajor program. That coach only had six years experience, and his overall record was just 97-76 (.560 winning percentage), but he was coming off a conference title (his first ever) and an NCAA tournament appearance. He wasn't a proven commodity yet, but if you had made the leap right then, you would have hired then Tulsa coach Bill Self. The next year Self led Tulsa to a 32-5 record, went to the Elite 8 and got the Illinois job. 3 years later he was the coach at Kansas. If you were a program that wanted to strengthen your basketball team, you would have had to hire Bill Self the year before he broke out and got the attention of the big boys. You would have had to hire Mr. .560 winning percentage with one conference title and one NCAA tournament appearance, because once Illinois came calling (a mid tier major conference school) if you were a bottom tier major conference school, you were out of luck.
KU is at the bottom of the major conference football pile. The only way to change that is to make the leap the year before everyone realizes what the coach is capable of and everyone comes calling. You want someone young (under 50) that may be ready to break out. You prefer HC experience and success although that success will likely be at the FCS or midmajor level.
With that, I submit the following candidates:
Mark Hudspeth, current HC at Louisiana Lafayette. 48 years old. 11 years experience as a head coach, 7 at North Alabama (FCS) where he was 66-21, 4 at UL-L, where he is 28-15. Has worked mostly in the south (Delta State, Central Ark., Mississippi St., etc.)
Troy Calhoun, current HC at Air Force. 48 years old. 8 years experience as head coach, all at Air Force. 52-42 record. Has some NFL experience as an OC.
Matt Campbell, current HC at Toledo. 34 years old. 4 years experience as head coach, all at Toledo. 20-11 record. Originally from Massillion, OH. Has worked either at BGSU, Mount Union (his alma mater) or Toledo.
Rod Carey, current HC at Northern Illinois. 43 years old. 2 years experience as head coach, all at No. Ill. 15-4 record. Originally from Madison, WI. Has always worked in Big 10 country.
Chris Creighton, current HC at Eastern Michigan. 45 years old. 18 years experience as head coach, 4 at Ottawa University (KS) (32-9), 7 at Wabash College (63-15), 6 at Drake (IA) (42-22) and this year at Eastern Michigan. He's won 8 conference titles.
Obviously, of this list, the most intriguing is Campbell. He's young, he's reasonably accomplished and he may be ready for a new challenge. There will probably be competition for him, but if KU gave him time, he could be a great hire.
The only way KU gets any reward from this hire is if they take a risk.
KSU is absolutely the better program right now, but KSU is also still in Manhattan, over 100 miles from Kansas City, and that matters quite a bit. I know quite a few people on the high school scene in Kansas City and from talking to them, it's still a task to get those KC kids to want to go to Manhattan. Some will go, obviously, but if KU shows it has a direction, there are quite a few kids in the KC area that would be more than happy to pick KU over KSU.
Out in western Kansas that won't be the case, but the bulk of Kansas talent is going to come from Wichita and the corridor between Kansas City and Topeka. KU has a huge location advantage along that critical corridor between Kansas City and Topeka.
As for tradition, tradition is a funny thing. Does it matter to recruits that KU basketball has a tradition? Of course, because that means going to KU means you will compete for conference and national titles every single year. Does K-State's football tradition mean that? Not quite. It means you will go to a bowl just about every year, but let's remember that Snyder has only led KSU to 2 conference titles in his tenure. KSU's football tradition is more about 9 win seasons than conference and national title relevance. In that respect, KU is behind, but not the same distance as say, KU and Oklahoma or Nebraska. For all that Snyder has done at K-State, he has not been able to get KSU over that hump and make them a national force. They are good, but they aren't a "I'm gonna go to K-State because I want to win a Big 12 and a national title" good.
I agree that KU has to depend on out of state talent. However, when there is in-state talent, KU needs to get it. How are you going to get a good player from across the country to come here when you can't get the guy from across the street?
My point in referencing the 5-7 record was that Mangino had Reesing, Meier, Briscoe, Sharpe, Stuckey, Chris Harris, and Justin Thornton. That's basically the whole offense as far as skill guys and most of the secondary. Even if you argue that Mangino could have replicated his 7-5 regular season from the year prior, he still was in line to regress just because of everything he was losing talentwise. Any way you slice it, 2010 was not at all similar to the Orange Bowl year or either of the previous two seasons. You had a new guy at every offensive skill position, a brand new secondary in a pass happy conference and very little depth because the firing occurred at the end of the season, so there wasn't much time for whomever the new coach would be to assemble a full class. I just get frustrated at the "we were three years removed from the Orange Bowl" argument when that 2010 team did not have a single player on it that had a meaningful role on that Orange Bowl team, and in fact the 2010 team didn't have many players that played a meaningful role on the Insight Bowl team in 2008.
The best players on the Orange Bowl team were Talib, Fine, McClinton, McAnderson, Reesing, Briscoe, and Meier. Not one of those guys was on the 2010 team. The best players on the Insight team were Reesing, Briscoe, Meier, Sharp, Jonathan Wilson, Stuckey, Harris and Thornton. Only Harris remained. This was an entirely different team from a team that was probably an 8-5 or at best 9-4 type team. 2010 was at best a 6 win team even if Mangino had stayed.
In hindsight, I agree that Gill was overmatched. We basically have a situation where both Gill and Weis were bad hires, meaning that KU basically had two consecutive mistake hires for their football program.
However, I disagree about what Gill inherited. KU went 5-7 the year before Gill was hired. That team graduated the program's all time leading passer, #10 all time rusher, the top 2 all time leading receivers and a healthy portion of the defense. Gill didn't get Reesing, Meier, Briscoe, Sharp, Stuckey, etc. Whoever got hired had a rebuild in front of them. Gill was overmatched by the task, but it wasn't like he had Aqib Talib and the Orange Bowl secondary coming back, plus Reesing and that offense returning.
The point I made about in-state recruiting is not that KU can survive on just in state players. However, KU needs to maximize what they get in-state because KU also cannot survive on second or third tier players from Texas, Florida, California, etc. That's what makes recruiting the KC area so important. KU is the closest D1 school to the KC area. 10-12 D1 players come out of KC every year. For KU to maximize its success, they need to land 5-7 of those kids every single year. That's also why I make the point about working with the high school coaches in Wichita, Topeka and Kansas City. KU needs a talent upgrade and the best way to do that is to upgrade the nearby talent as much as possible because that is the talent KU can most easily recruit. As @jaybate-1.0 said, KU can't simply rely on foreign oil.
I absolutely agree that whoever comes to KU has a long, tough row to hoe. This is a 5 year project if it will be done right. Weis tried to short cut it, but I can't really blame him. At his age, why would he want to put in that kind of effort on a 5 year rebuild job. KU needs to hire someone young (under 45) that won't mind putting in the work to rebuild over the next 5 years and will be willing to stay at KU (with the rising salary that will come with success) long after that.
The Weis era was a mistake when it started. First, firing Turner Gill after just two seasons was a mistake. Gill wasn't the right guy, but giving any coach only two years ensures that a senior on your team will have played for three different coaches during their time on campus. That is not good. Too much turnover in a short time span.
But even ignoring that, Weis was always the wrong man. He's a subpar recruiter coaching at a school that needs an exceptional recruiter in order to be competitive. On top of that, Weis is not a good head coach at all. He proved that at Notre Dame. Weis is an offensive coordinator. He is not a head coach. He cannot handle the #1 job. Look at his time at both ND and KU. His offenses got steadily worse the longer he was there, even though that is his strength. Why? He can't handle the responsibilities of being head coach and still run a competent offense.
And then Weis sealed the deal that he was the wrong man by dismissing 29 different players from the team, many without even meeting with them. Think about that for a second. He dismissed over two dozen players and, according to several accounts, at least half of those dismissed were dismissed without Weis even sitting down and talking to them either one on one or addressing the team. He basically just got rid of a lot of the guys Gill recruited. Look back at the freshmen that played significantly as Gill's only full recruiting class - Weis kicked almost half of those guys off the team. It was as if he wanted to just get rid of Gill's "guys". Well, even he admitted that backfired on him, but I don't think he even realized how badly.
See, to do well at KU you have to recruit the KC metro area well. You basically have to plant your flag in Kansas City. There are a handful of schools in the Kansas City area that put out consistent D1 talent - Rockhurst, Blue Springs, Olathe North are three of the best. Weis dismissed a player from each of those schools. You think that didn't get back to those schools, the coaches there and, more importantly, the guys that they played with in high school. Talk about burning bridges that you haven't crossed yet. Weis basically ruined his chances at being a power recruiter in the Kansas City area.
So how does KU improve from here. Well, the first step is to hire a new head coach that is going to put an emphasis on recruiting. Not just recruiting juco guys to make it "respectable", but recruiting HS kids to build the program. KU is at an enormous talent deficit right now in football. KU has maybe 15 guys on the entire roster that could play at the other Big 12 schools. That's probably it. Expand it to all of the Power 5 and you might find 25 guys on KU's roster that could play at other power 5 schools. The rest would be backups, wouldn't see the field, or couldn't make the roster. No matter what your system is, you can't win if you are at that kind of talent deficit.
Second, KU needs to find a football identity. In the uniform thread, there was discussion about Oregon and all of their uniforms. However, Oregon's blur offense is more popular than even the uniforms. The blur is really Oregon's identity. KU is not an Alabama or Oklahoma or Texas or Ohio State, where you have a statue of Bear Bryant or Billy Sims' Heisman, or Bevo or dotting the I as a tradition everyone recognizes for football. KU has to create an identity.
Third, although this goes somewhat to the first point, KU needs to help cultivate in state talent by working with coaches at some of the schools in the Kansas City, Topeka and Wichita areas. This point will probably be controversial, but hear me out. In the state of Kansas, the best high school football coaches are, for the most part, not at the schools where the best athletes are. There are lots of good coaches out there, but coaching at schools like Smith Center, or Louisburg or Madison doesn't help KU because those schools don't consistently produce D1 talent because they don't consistently have D1 athletes. There are D1 athletes in Wichita, Topeka and Kansas City, but a lot of those players are not coached well (or don't even come out for football). That's a problem for KU because KU desperately needs those players. If you go down to Texas or Georgia or Florida, the best coaches coach at the schools with the top athletes. That's why Miami Central and Miami Northwestern consistently are so good. They have tremendous athletes and some of the best coaches in the state. The best athletes get the best coaching and develop the most, so there is always an abundance of talent. Kansas has less people, so the amount of talent will always be less, but you can't exacerbate that problem by also having some of your best athletes end up being poorly coached. Whoever the next coach is should take an interest in working with the HS coaches in those three cities (which is legal under NCAA rules) to help them teach proper techniques to their players.
And that leads to my last point. This is going to take some time. KU is not going to get good in the next three years. There's not enough talent on the current roster to change where we are at in a couple of years, and its doubtful that the overall talent level will change enough in a couple of years to have much of an impact. It's going to be 2018 or 2019 before we can see sustainable results if this is done right. We will see some incremental results in recruiting wins, plus results in the strength and conditioning program over the next couple of years, but as far as win and loss results, KU will be a 3-5 win program for the next 2-3 years at best. But, if its done right, the kids they recruit next year may go to the first of many bowls when they are seniors.
I'm not advocating for anyone to "give" the players anything. I am saying that if people are willing to pay them for the use of their likeness, they should be able to.
For example, last year, Jabari Parker cooked up something called Jabari bars. Guess what, he couldn't sell those and profit from it without putting his scholarship in jeopardy. That's where I think this has all gone sideways. It's not that I want the student athlete to be given something. I just want them to have the same ability to generate income for themselves.
If a business sees a student athlete and says "hey, I want that kid to promote my (insert business here)" why is it that that's illegal. I know you argue that its a slippery slope, but isn't that business making a business decision about where to allocate their marketing dollars? Would some businesses use it to just shuttle thousands of dollars to athletes? Of course, but in the free marketplace, why should we say a business can't waste money on a spokesperson.
Do you ever notice that when showing clips promoting the NCAA tournament, the NCAA uses images of players who no longer have eligibility? Do you ever wonder why? It's because the NCAA (and it's member schools) own all rights to those images, and they do it without paying any royalties whatsoever. That's why the NCAA has been fighting this unionization thing. If the student athletes unionize, the whole structure through which the NCAA promotes its events will have to change because the union would require the NCAA to compensate it for the use of the likeness of its former members. That's what's coming and that's why EA Sports stopped making college sports video games. The pro games already pay licensing fees to the pro players associations. The college games did not. The whole structure of the system will change if students are allowed to profit from their name and likeness, or if it is determined that the NCAA cannot use the name and likeness of student athletes without compensation.
Much respect for your story. I did not mean to offend you, and apologize if I did. You are right that I did not know your story, and now that I do, it offers some insight into what you wrote that I did not have before.
The story behind my comments is this:
I grew up in sports. I'm African American, so most people were of the belief that sports was all I had going for me. They were wrong. I was a very good student in school, scored in the top 10% on the ACT, went to college on an academic scholarship, went on to graduate school on scholarship, and now work a white collar job. It's nice, no doubt. I wouldn't have been able to afford college without those scholarships. So it is unfortunate that many feel that all these athletes have is sports when for many, that is not the case.
My frustration is the fact that because they play NCAA sports, they cannot do anything else. They can't work or profit from their name, image or likeness. That really upsets me. I think I told the story of a university marketing campaign that I appeared in while I was in school. A group of students were appearing in an ad campaign and as a part of that, we were being paid to be in a few pictures. When I say paid, I don't mean a lot of money. I think it was either $25 or $50 each. One of the people that was going to be in the ad was an athlete. However, they couldn't be paid for that because it wasn't related to their sport. Athletes can work summer camps and stuff, but they can't be paid for other things. As I have said before, I didn't think that was fair then and I don't think it's fair now.
But more than that, I remember being in school and talking to an athlete who was literally on the floor crying. This kid had just gotten a call from a family member telling him that his mother and two youngest siblings had just had their power cut off. This kid was in tears contemplating dropping out of school that night. But what made it even worse was the fact that as he sat there talking, he didn't even know how he would get back home to help his family if he dropped out because he didn't have enough money to buy the gas it would take to get him back there (I think he was from somewhere in Texas). It was just a really sad situation. Yes, he's getting an education and that gives him future hope, but none of that was going to do anything to help his family in that moment, which is what made it so sad. Granted, this kid wasn't a future pro, but the fact remains that the NCAA restrictions that monitor every penny an athlete earns, every free meal they get, etc make it really hard to do anything other than go to school and play their sport.
You point out the issue of qualifications. What exactly are the qualifications to be in the NBA? What is the skillset required? It's the same as being an actor, or being a musician. The skill is being able to do that at the highest possible level. Should a singer have to go to college before having a professional career? An artist? An actor? Schools have music, art and theatre programs, but I don't see anyone restricting who gets into those fields even though literally thosands of people wash out of those careers every day. Where are the people to say that those individuals need to go to school and shouldn't be working until they have an education. Where are the rules that prevent movies or music producers from signing those people until they are out of high school for at least a year? That's my issue. Why is it that we think it's not right for an athlete to go pro and make big money right out of high school, even as Taylor Swift and Miley Cyrus make millions as teenagers?
There's an old saying that the most valuable dollar is the first dollar.
I didn't come from poverty, but I did come from a family that was not well off. I definitely understood what it meant to live paycheck to paycheck growing up. However, I did know quite a few people that grew up in poverty. When I say poverty, I don't mean paycheck to paycheck - I mean actual poverty, where you don't have enough money for necessities like food, clothes, shelter, etc.
@DoubleDD, I believe you are a reasonable person. How many days would you want to go hungry? How many nights would you want to fall asleep in the cold? How many days would you want to live not knowing where you would sleep that night? That's what poverty is. You have to ask (and answer) those questions every day. Living like that for even one minute longer than you have to would be crazy.
@DoubleDD said:
Maybe if some of these families actually cared about their sons. They wouldn't put pressure on them to skip an education (like they did)(are you seeing the madness yet?), or experience that will last him a life time so that he can chase some lotto money that will leave him broke and his family.
Have you ever thought that perhaps those sons looked at the struggles their family went through and couldn't imagine asking them to live like that another year? For a kid from poverty, living in dorms at college is quite a bit more comfortable than where they are from. So you get to live in comfort while your parents and siblings live in abject poverty? That's something that most people, especially those that care about their parents and siblings, would do. I know if I were in that position, I would not ask my family to live in poverty while I hung out in college for another year.
I agree with @Wigs2 that the players should be able to capitalize off their name and likeness. That's an easy fix. If a player could earn money by appearing in commercials or endorsing products, college would be an easier thing. Wiggins could have signed with Adidas and spent four years at KU if he wanted, earning millions while in college. But that's currently against the rules. Wiggins can't touch a cent from Adidas unless he goes pro.
@JayHawkFanToo I agree that most go to college for a degree and work at our career. But the thing with being an athlete is that, at best, your career as an athlete has a window that closes when you are 40. You have basically 20 years to capitalize on your athletic talents. After that, the opportunity is gone. Whether you pursue that at 20 or 25 or 22 or 30, your window closes at 40. And it closes forever. You simply can't earn money as an athlete after that window closes.
That doesn't mean they can't go into another line of work. It just means that the earning opportunity of being an athlete only lasts so long. I've posted often on the differences in earnings between Rasheed Wallace and Kevin Garnett (back to back picks in the 1995 draft). Because Garnett was 2 years younger, he made twice as much money as Wallace during his career. Yes, Garnett was a better player, but his age allowed him to sign big contracts three times during his career, while Wallace only got two big paydays.
Let's ask this another way. If you knew you wanted to be an accountant, and you could be an accountant at 20 (and be paid to do so) would you stay in college for the experience, or go be an accountant. Let's say that you also knew that no matter what, you knew that you would not be able to continue being an accountant past the age of 38. Add in that at any time, your career as an accountant could end because you may not be physically able to continue being an accountant (although you would be able to do other things). Would you insist that all accountants stay in school for four years, or would it be acceptable for really talented candidates to pursue their career after only one or two years of school. I know that this is a bad example because of the education required to be an accountant, but put that aside and look at only the opportunity and the limited window. Would you demand that every accountant stay in school, or would it be okay for the most talented candidates to leave and go make money?
The point is sad, as @drgnslayr says, if Russell Robinson was in a position to become Jarrett Jack or Kyle Lowry, probably the two best comps for him as an NBA player.
Robinson isn't quite as big as Jack, who has always been a physical load even though he isn't as athletic as some of the other top PGs like Westbrook and Rose, or as keen a floor game as Chris Paul.
Jack never averaged less than 4.5 assists per game while at Ga. Tech. Add in the fact that he's 6-3 and improved his 3pt shooting tremendously over his career (28% as a freshman to 41% as a junior) and you can see why he jumped up as an NBA prospect. He was tremendously efficient, particularly as he matured. I don't think he's a good comparison for RussRob because of the size and shooting, and the fact that Jack was a better overall player from day one than RussRob was.
Lowry is the better comparison. Both he and Robinson are around 6-0 tall. Lowry was not a good perimeter shooter in college. He attempted 40 3's total in his college career. He didn't do much that set him apart from Robinson, but he left Villanova after his sophomore year. I think the difference was that while Robinson was seen as peaking as a backup, Lowry was seen as a potential starter by most NBA teams. RussRob has done well for himself, in my opinion. As a backup in the NBA, he wouldn't make much more than he's making now in Europe, and he wouldn't have as much stability because backup PGs are always on the move.
Texas has something KU still lacks - talent.
KU has probably fifteen legitimate major D1 starter quality players. Texas probably has 25 (well, probably 20 since Strong has been cleaning house a bit).
Still, KU doesn't have much and I am not exactly brimming with confidence that Weis is the man to turn things around. He's a below average recruiter, a poor defensive coach and, when tasked with being the head coach, merely average as an offensive coordinator. Weis as head coach is the Peter Principle in full view. KU will probably keep it close because Texas isn't very good, but will fold late because KU isn't good, either.
Here's the truth about athletic scholarships
Scholarship athletes, particularly in the money making sports of football and men's basketball, are typically steered away from more challenging majors by academic advisers. I know this for an absolute fact. Advisers will set the student's schedule for them, and they steer them towards easier courses with "athlete friendly" professors so they don't have to worry about eligibility, and because being an athlete requires missing a healthy amount of class, especially at the D1 level. This isn't about intelligence so much as its about whether the athlete will insist upon changing their schedule (and major) and going against the adviser. I personally know athletes that wanted to pursue a particular field and basically had to fight the athletic department academic adviser as well as the coaching staff to let them take certain courses or switch majors.
Many of these athletes have other skills. It just so happens that their most valuable skills are athletic. Many of these athletes are skilled musicians, writers, artists, etc, but none of those professions offer them a chance to make the kind of money their basketball skills could translate to. If you have one career path that could lead to a $1m per year job and another career path that could lead to a $35k per year job, which would you pursue first?
Colleges fear the changing of the OAD rule because of the things I cited above about the possibility that NCAA basketball starts becoming more like NCAA baseball. That is the unspoken thing here. NBA GMs do not say this on the record, but the scouts do - they are already heavily critical of the level of play at big time college basketball programs. It's just not very high. Look at KU's schedule last year, the toughest in the nation. You want to evaluate Andrew Wiggins as a wing player for the NBA. How many games did you have where you had enough opposing talent on the wings to really evaluate Wiggins? Let's count - Duke, Florida, Colorado, San Diego State, and Oklahoma State (2). That's it. Six games with NBA caliber talent/size on the wing to evaluate Wiggins against. KU played 35 games last year. 29 were worth very little from a level of competition standpoint for a guy like Andrew Wiggins. If you start having the OADs skip college again, the level of talent will be even lower. At that point, the TAD's and others with NBA potential are, at least from a basketball perspective, better served to play wherever the rest of that talent flows. If you have to stay three years, the top talent won't be flowing to the NCAA. That means either juco's or the D-League will be getting most of those players. That terrifies the NCAA since the NCAA tournament represents about 85% of the entire income for the NCAA in any given year. The NCAA is the currently accepted path, but if there's a rule change, there's no reason that has to continue.
That whole "walk on" if you want freedom thing? Not true. Check out the Baker Mayfield situation between Texas Tech and Oklahoma. Mayfield was a walk on at Tech last year that happened to end up being their starting QB. He has since transferred to OU, but Tech initially blocked his transfer and he is now in a position where he may not be eligible to play this season, even though he was not on scholarship at Tech. OU may not even be able to give him a scholarship because of the transfer situation with Tech. And this for a kid that was a walk on to begin with.
The NCAA and colleges take almost 0 risk when it comes to student athletes. One of the false assumptions is that a scholarship is a four year investment. Completely untrue. A scholarship is a one year commitment, renewable for up to five years. We see all the time that students are released from scholarship for all sorts of reasons, be they academic, behavior, or athletic. But just because you make grades and attend practices, there is no guarantee that your scholarship will be renewed. That is at the discretion of the coaches each year. If a player doesn't perform as well (or if a better one comes along) you can just not renew the scholarship of a returning player. The student athlete is guaranteed nothing - not a four year degree, not full tuition, nothing. The athlete is the one risking injury performing for free. They play while banged up or risk that their coach will tell pro evaluators they lack "toughness" or "heart". I know for a fact that this has happened in the past, too.
Changing the OAD rule could be a boon for colleges if top players continue to come to college. It could also turn D1 basketball into a product that looks a lot like D1 baseball.
The thing is, most any player selected outside the lottery is hit or miss, regardless of experience.
For example, let's take the 16th overall pick. That's a non-lottery, mid first round pick. John Stockton was a 16th pick. That's pretty good. Ron Artest, Hedo Turkoglu and Nick Young were, too. Not bad. Bill Wennington. Tony Delk. Some solid players here.
But Troy Bell, Jiri Welsch, Randy Woods, Kirk Haston all were 16s and they were not productive at all. You can find a good player at any pick, but outside the top 10, there are some massive misses.
The sad truth is that there are some guys that can play at that level and some that can't. If you can, you will last in the league, even if you struggle for a few years. If you can't, you will wash out regardless of experience.
Take Jermaine O'Neal for example. Through his fourth year in the league, O'Neal never played even 1000 minutes for a season. He didn't average even 5 points or 4 rebounds in any one of those years. I suspect many people would have labelled him a bust at that point. The next seven years in the league O'Neal averaged 13/10, 19/10, 21/10, 20/10, 24/9, 20/9, 19/9 and was an all star six times. Jermaine O'Neal was able to survive because he was a good enough player to merit an NBA roster spot that entire time, and once he took off, he took off. After that peak, he spent 3 years averaging a very solid 13/7.
Now the question is this - would Jermaine O'Neal have had a better NBA career if he had gone to college? Looking at that peak again - six all star seasons, averaged a double double 4 straight seasons, averaged over 20 per game 4 straight seasons - does college improve on that at all, or was Jermaine O'Neal prepared just as well by sitting on the bench in Portland for four years as he would have been playing at Clemson or North Carolina. I would say this - going up against NBA players every day in practice was much more beneficial to his development on the court than going up against guys with no pro future because it made him develop his skills even more so rather than depend on his superior athleticism and size in college.
The baseball model would be interesting for basketball. I don't think the level of play in college would increase, as most elite players would opt to go the juco route because they can leave juco early rather than being tied to the three year commitment of NCAA ball. For instance, a player like Selden or some of the other highly touted freshmen may opt for juco because they can leave after one or two years rather than committing for three. It could literally cause most top 50 players to opt for NBA, Juco or D-League. Almost no top 100 baseball player ends up actually enrolling in college. Most head to the minors instead. I doubt the cut would be that deep in basketball, but I could see the top 30 or 35 players all skipping the NCAA.
As for HS to NBA busts, there have been surprisingly few. Let's look at every player that declared for the draft straight from high school.
Looking purely at how they performed in the NBA:
1970's - Moses Malone, Darryl Dawkins, Bill Willoughby. Willoughby was the least successful of this era, but he played 8 years in the NBA. Dawkins played 14 years and Malone is a hall of famer.
1980's - Shawn Kemp. One of the best players in the 1990's.
1990's - Kevin Garnett, Kobe Bryant, Jermaine O'Neal, Taj McDavid, Tracy McGrady, Al Harrington, Rashard Lewis, Korleone Young, Ellis Richardson, Jonathan Bender, Leon Smith. Garnett and Bryant are future HOF's. Jermaine O'Neal and Tracy McGrady were perennial all stars. Harrington and Lewis were both rotation level players for the bulk of their 10+ year careers. Bender fell out of the league due to a congenital knee problem. Young and Smith were both busts. Richardson and McDavid weren't even D1 recruits when they declared, so its no surprise they didn't make it.
2000's - Darius Miles, Deshawn Stevenson, Kwame Brown, Tyson Chandler, Eddy Curry, DeSagana Diop, Ousmane Cisse, Tony Key, Amare Stoudemire, DeAngelo Collins, Lenny Cooke, LeBron James, Travis Outlaw, Ndudi Ebi, Kendrick Perkins, James Lang, Charlie Villanueva, Dwight Howard, Shaun Livingston, Robert Swift, Sebastian Telfair, Al Jefferson, Josh Smith, JR Smith, Dorell Wright, Jackie Butler, Martell Webster, Gerald Green, CJ Miles, Ricky Sanchez, Monta Ellis, Lou Williams, Andray Blatche and Amir Johnson.
Big group here. James is one of the best of all time. Howard and Stoudemire have both been elite players when not saddled with injuries. Chandler, Livingston, Jefferson, both Smith's, Ellis and Blatche have all been starters for multiple years in their careers, at times performing just below all star level. Williams, Johnson, Wright, Outlaw, Webster Stevenson, Brown and Perkins were/ are all rotation level players during their careers. Butler, Sanchez, Key and Lang were not big D1 recruits. Darius Miles' career was cut short due to chronic knee issues. CJ Miles and Gerald Green have been in and out of the NBA. Villanueva went to college and eventually became a lottery pick. Curry, Diop, Cisse, Ebi, Swift, Collins and Cooke were all busts.
That's 49 players total, a little less than a full draft. There are no less than four HOF or future HOF (Malone, Garnett, Bryant and James). You could make a case that Dwight Howard is a future HOF. For all star caliber players there's Kemp, O'Neal, McGrady, Stoudemire and Jefferson. That's 9 players that are at least all star level players. There were only 15 players that should be considered busts in the entire group, and 6 of those guys weren't even major D1 recruits. That means that there were as many all star level (or better) performers as there were outright busts if you consider the players that had a reasonable shot, since declaring for the NBA draft really only requires paperwork.
I actually had a high school teammate that didn't even start for us consider declaring for the NBA draft just to get his name in the newspaper since all of the declared players are listed. He had no aspirations of playing in college, so his eligibility wasn't at risk. It was going to be a joke more than anything. He didn't, but I kind of wish he had. He had as much chance of being drafted as a guy like Taj McDavid.
I think it would take at least two consecutive seasons missing the tournament, or four consecutive subpar seasons (finishing worse than third in conference, no advance past the Sweet Sixteen) to start the conversation about firing Self. He could be terrible each of the next two years and, aside from a serious scandal, would still get at least one more year to redeem himself.
Look at Mack Brown at Texas. That's absolutely a football school. He won a title in 2005, went back to the title game in 2009. After that he had a terrible season (5-7), then three okay but not great years. That was enough to get him pushed out. I think that's about what it would take for Self. And consider that Mack Brown was not regarded as a top coach, so Self may have even more leeway than that.
I am excited about Mason (and Frankamp) as well. I am just guarded because with Mason, some of his decision making on drives wasn't good last year. That could be small sample size, or that can be a tendency that will lead to him turning the ball over constantly this year. His size also means that he may have trouble against traps, which I am sure we will see this year after how we handled them last season.
With Frankamp, I am worried about his defense. In short spurts, he has been okay, but over long stretches, he will have to stand up on his own because rolling the help his way early won't work if he's playing 23+ minutes per game. I am also worried about the possibility that he gets into foul trouble if he can't keep quicker guys in front of him.
Those concerns can't be answered until I see them play heavy minutes against good teams. I think they can do it, but check back in December to see how I really feel.
The absolute worst that KU would probably do barring something truly catastrophic or tragic, would be probably 13 or 14 losses. That would take a lot of injuries, suspensions and other problems. Simply put, the only way to have a season that would be pretty bad would require things that are out of the coach's hands. Otherwise, KU is basically set to win 25 games again this year, if not more.
The nature of college basketball makes it tough to really build for the long term. You are never guaranteed to have a core of players together for more than a few years, even if they all stay in school and graduate.
Think back to the recruiting class of 2004 - Darnell Jackson, Sasha Kaun and Russell Robinson. You add Mario Chalmers and Brandon Rush the next year. That's a good group. Then you come back the next year and get Sherron Collins and Darrell Arthur. That's the championship rotation. But it took us three years to put that group together and we had two chances with that group. One chance went down the tubes because of Sherron's late season injuries in 2007. If Rush goes pro, we never get another shot with that group. Three years of work would have likely been down the drain because of a guy getting banged up down the stretch of the season. We would have had an Elite Eight and a first round loss to show for it.
As I have said, for experience's sake, you have one shot every three years or so. Maybe not even that. The 2009 team wasn't talented enough to go deep into the tournament. Sweet Sixteen was their absolute ceiling, I believe. We should have had a shot in 2010 (due in large part to the addition of OAD Henry), but a random upset knocked us out. That's just bad luck, but that knocked off a team that otherwise probably would have had a chance. In 2011 we got to the Elite Eight, but ran into VCU. Had OAD Selby been healthy, we probably have a Final Four team, maybe even a title considering that was a pretty weak year. 2012 I firmly believe had we had OAD McLemore, we could have beaten UK. Without him, we didn't have the firepower. 2013 we didn't net a single elite recruit (I don't consider Ellis an elite recruit because I feel his ceiling is very good college player) and without our big guns (Taylor, Robinson) back in the fold, we again didn't have the firepower. This year, more bad luck with injuries knocked us out.
So the question is - do you want one shot every few years when things go perfectly, or do you want a shot every year (or every other year). If you want a shot every few years, recruit for experience. If you want a shot every year, you need the best combination of talent every year. That means OAD's, because it's likely that OADs will produce better in their only season than most of the experienced juniors and seniors will.
I added Selden because if he had been healthy last year, I absolutely think he could have been an OAD. He returned because of health issues limiting his production. I added Graham because KU hasn't had an elite PG recruit since Sherron Collins. I wish we had a better PG, honestly. But we don't. We have complained about PG woes for the last few years. If you are banking on experience, you're basically betting that a guy will get better at basketball than he is right now, because he isn't good enough right now. But what if he doesn't get better? If you're betting on talent, you're betting that a guy will be good at basketball now, without hoping that he will get better later on. The talented guy will make inexperienced mistakes, but also make talented plays. The experienced guy won't make as many mistakes, but there are some plays that he just won't be able to make.
UK has proven that you can be good year in and year out with OAD's. They went to the Elite Eight with Wall, Cousins, Bledsoe, went to the Final Four the next year with Brandon Knight (probably would have been the favorite to win it all had they had an eligible Enes Kanter), won it all with Davis, Kidd-Gilchrist, etc., missed the dance with an injured Noel and Co., then went to the title game with Randle, Young and the twins. They are in the hunt just about every year. Not just projected to be. Actually there.
The thing with experience is you get maybe one shot every three or four years. With talent, you can be there just about every year. Why did UK beat a very experienced KU team in the 2012 final? They had more talent. They were just better at basketball. Had we had McLemore to go to, we could have played with them because we could have evened out the talent. But the simple fact was that regardless of experience, when you have Anthony Davis and Michael Kidd-Gilchrist at the college level, you have a defensive behemoth that almost nobody can touch. No amount of execution can eliminate Davis' shot blocking.
I would not take the lineup with White and Shepherd over Oubre and Alexander. Oubre and Alexander are better at basketball than White and Shepherd. As I've said before, to win a title, you have to get some breaks along the way. Every title team gets those. But more than that, you have to be in the conversation. Oubre and Alexander give us a chance to be in the conversation this year. White and Shepherd would not. You can hate UK all day long, but if they are healthy, I wouldn't be the least bit surprised to see them playing deep into March again this year.
I'm not so much worried about our size disadvantage because Alexander is an elite player. Texas is a concern because that have two guys with size that are very good to elite players, but among the others, they either have very talented undersized guys or they have big guys that aren't necessarily long on talent. Some stiff that happens to be 6-10 doesn't worry me because Cliff is strong enough and athletic enough to handle that.
PG is a much bigger concern because the size difference will matter there since none of our PGs are elite talents. Not to say they aren't good, but Marcus Foster, for example, is every bit as good as Frank Mason or Conner Frankamp. Because there isn't a huge talent difference, the size will factor in. That's the unknown we have to worry about, because we either need Graham to be very good right away, or we need Mason/Frankamp to be much improved over last season because somebody has to play 25 minutes a game, and with those kind of minutes, flaws will be exposed. Remember, we felt good about Tharpe when we saw him as a backup, but all of his warts showed when he had to play a lot of minutes.
The thing with the OAD era is that if you consistently have that talent, as Calipari has shown, you will always have a seat at the table when it comes down to it. As I wrote a while back, since 2006, Calipari has only missed the Elite Eight in 2009 and 2013. Other than the UCLA streak of championships under Wooden and Coach K in the late 80's and early 90's, I don't think there has been such a long string of consistency as far as postseason success by a coach, and if so, I can't point to one in the last 15 years.
The simple reason why Calipari is there that much is that he fields one of the six or seven most talented teams every year. If his team is healthy come March, you can basically write him into the Sweet Sixteen or Elite Eight. I think Coach Self saw that and has decided that he wants the same thing. If healthy, I think we had a Sweet Sixteen/Elite Eight squad last year and I think we have the same this year, maybe more.
A lineup of non-elite recruits - something along the lines of Mason-Greene-White-Ellis-Lucas - isn't a lineup that you look at and say is an Elite Eight lineup, even though that's a more traditional college lineup of a two sophomores and three third year players. But a lineup of Graham-Selden-Oubre-Ellis-Alexander could absolutely be a title team. The experience (assuming those guys all played between 10-15 minutes during their previous years in the program) can't make up the talent gap when comparing the Selden-Oubre-Alexander trio to Greene-White-Lucas.
I agree with your ideas to a point. I agree that Self has a lot of in depth things that he runs and that those things require practice. However, I disagree that last year's team was Self's worst - I would argue that the team from the Rush-Chalmers-Wright freshman season was worse.
The other thing to remember about last year is that the two things that hurt us most were Embiid's injury and a lack of elite (or even above average) talent at PG. If Embiid is healthy, I think we get by Stanford and probably beat Dayton. The Florida rematch is a toss up, but a healthy Embiid probably sends us to the Elite Eight. Heck, a healthy Selden may have been enough to get to the Elite Eight. But with neither Embiid (at all) or Selden (operating at what, maybe 75%), KU was reduced in overall talent level to a point where Stanford was pretty close to as good as us. Selden at 75% isn't an NBA caliber talent. Tharpe isn't an NBA type talent. Neither is Ellis most likely, although he is a very good college player. No Embiid at all. Traylor is a good college energy guy, but its not like those guys aren't available to every other school in the country. Frankamp and Mason don't set us apart from a talent perspective. Injuries reduced us to a Stanford type level.
Every system works better with experienced players because college practice restrictions mean that most times, unless the core has been together for a full offseason, the level of reps is not very high. But talent cannot be substituted for with experience. A guy like Landen Lucas is nice, but he can't replace a talent like Alexander. Andrew White is nice, but trust me, you would rather have Ben McLemore, Andrew Wiggins and Kelly Oubre for one year each.