I’m personally tired of Self claiming to hear word “real soon”, been hearing that for 3 weeks. I worried if we don’t get him soon, he won’t have time to delevop and won’t be a big bonus. The NCAA office is close til Tuesday now so I’d say the earliest word from the NCAA on De Sousa or Billy won’t be til Friday of next week. I think it’s fine that De Sousa can just practice because he probably wouldn’t be playing this soon anyway.

Kinda scary with our issues in the past with Joel’s back, Malik has a ankle issue that we have also seen hang around. Just have to hope for the best.

@JayHawkFanToo Yes he had 8 blocks, 3 of which were goal tends. That’s the plus and minus of being able to rewind live TV in this day and age. The one they missed on Svi’s layup was ridiculous and I thought it could’ve been a huge play if they’d of hit the 3 on the other end with us up 6 at that point.

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hadto lol

I thought we played fairly well, I’m still concerned about our defense giving up 52 points in the second half. Our guards continue to struggle keeping their guy in front of them, which causes Doke to help And get to far away from the bucket. I was glad to see Coach throw in zone there for stretches and think it helped. DTG did what he does with 20+ and nearly a double double with assists, Svi was huge in building a early second half lead and can switch from ice cold to a volcano in a instant. Garrett maybe our best on ball defender, had a sick lay-in early and put numbers in every column on the stat sheet (once the game slows down offensively for him, he will be a really good player).

Already commented on Doke on a different thread what poise and way to still get his going against a taller player. Vick had his silky smooth jumper falling, had a quiet 21 points and did his job well most of the night. Mitch didn’t see the floor a ton but had a nice block, rebound and then a steal but hasn’t scored in 23 minutes in the last 2 contests. I thought Malik had one of his better games as a jayhawk tonight with 13 points including 4/5 from the line late in the game. Not counting for a few bad shots and a late turnover I was fine with his game.

Other concerns I have is our continued lack of FT attempts, Texas gave us 9 fts late including the technical on Smart because he’s an idiot. But that still only put our total at 15, we hit 13 of them and are shooting well from the line as a team (74% on the year, even with Dokes 41%). We gave up 18 offensive rebounds tonight which would tick me off as a coach and I know it does Self as well. We obviously are going to have to embrace this live and die bye the 3 ball this season unless Billy is able to go and be effective, it’s kinda scary to only win by 6 while hitting 17 3s and putting 92 points on the board. You all know a road win in this conference is always a battle and a good night, on to the next one friends.

I was impressed by Doke tonight, Bamba had 10 points quick and a couple of swats of Doke. He just kept grinding and got his, I said before the season started there was no reason Doke couldn’t be a 12 and 12 guy every night. He’s making that a true statement at this point, averaging 18.5 and 10.5 in his last 4 games. What poise by a guy that’s hardly a sophomore tonight that’s forsure.

@Lulufulu I think the conference race will be highly competitive and very fun to watch as it has been most years outside of a few when we took the rest of the league to the wood shed with little resistance. I’m not sure how good the conference is comparing to other power 5 conferences at this point, I would say the big 10 looks like a joke early but the PAC 12 and the ACC look better than the B12. The conference must do better come March to be an elite conference.

Texas Tech got the post season started for the conference Saturday as they fell in a thriller to South Florida with the last score coming in the last half minute, final score was 38-34. West Virginia was dominated from start to finish today by Utah in a 30 to 14 thumping. Kansas State takes on UCLA tonight 8, hopefully the conference can fair a little here as we get deep into bowl season. Amazingly 8 of the 10 teams were able to get bowl eligible but it won’t look good if the conference isn’t able to win the majority of them.

Other bowl games include Texas vs Mizzou tomorrow evening, Virginia Tech vs Oklahoma State Thursday after noon, TCU vs Stanford Thursday night, Iowa State vs Memphis Saturday morning and of coarse Oklahoma takes on Georgia in the college football playoff Monday night.

I would be shocked if we had less than 4 losses, I could see the winner with 4 or 5 loses. We must be undefeated at AFH to win the conference IMO. All that being said Iets just worry about Texas.

@HighEliteMajor exactly what I was thinking on the matter. KU is going to recruit the best players in the country, everyone with a brain knows they will get recruited over to an extent. As for the redshirt year it worked out quite well for some local guys named Releford and Morningstar.

See this is the kinda stuff that bothers me. Most of us agree that Mitch is a good kid and a hard working kid, he just isn’t a great ball player at this stage. He was probably thrown to the wolves sooner than he, coach Self and we all would Probably like. He probably would’ve redshirted last year or this year had things been different, heck he may redshirt next with the guys we have coming. You know I’ve been a Kansas fan for most of my life (once I started watching as a little kid), I’ll be the first to say that I get on guys on here when they don’t play well, like a good number of us do. But that’s because I care, I coached basketball for a number of years. Watching the games I see it from a coaching stand point, maybe that’s wrong but when a player messes up you have to teach them or get on them. It doesn’t mean that I want them to transfer or to beaten at mid court. You think everytime coach Self lights into someone he dislikes them? I loved all my players and I think coach Self does too. If you go to a big time school you better be prepared to deal criticism, not all of it is warranted but isn’t easy for most.

@HighEliteMajor The team that Diallo played on had considerably more depth at the post position. We have 2 post players in Mitch and Doke. They will both play over him obviously but if they both are in foul trouble it would make more sense to play De Sousa whom maybe able to help us later in the year and in all honesty watching De Sousa I’d be shocked if he isn’t getting most of Mitch’s minutes bye seasons end. He’s bigger, stronger, more athletic and most likely a better rebounder walking in the gym today. It will depend on how long he takes to buy in and get used to the speed of the college game.

@BeddieKU23 Yep, I wouldnt bet on him playing for a week or two, maybe longer but if the other guys are in foul trouble it’s better in the long haul for him to play over them.

@BeddieKU23 of coarse I wouldn’t plan on him playing but if your choices at the 5 spot are 6’4 Young or a 6’7 football player over the 6’9 4 star recruit who would you play? I doubt his cleared by the NCAA that quickly and hope we don’t need him but you never know.

I personally hope De Sousa is available for Friday’s game just in case we get in to foul trouble. No knock to Clay Young or Solinski but having another legit big to go if Mitch and Doke both pick up fouls would be nice. Mitch will foul, it’s a given his blocks are nice but once people get the hint that he jumps at every shot fake, he’ll be in foul trouble. Doke IMO hasn’t got a ton of calls this year, he’s so gruthy that if was smaller he’d half twice the ft attempts but probably would’ve missed more than half anyway lol. I hope the refs let the boys play a little down in the paint.

My wonderful wife got me the new book bye Jason King on the B12 title streak. I’ve read the beyond the Phog book as well. It’s very similar written and even has some of the same quotes, but I like it and think it goes a little more in depth about each individual team rather than just about some the players. I’m about a quarter of the way thru, not a hard read for a jayhawk fan.

If Trae Young was in a jayhawk uniform, we would be undefeated and No.1 in the land. But he’s not and we need remind him that it was a bad decision lol.

I’d probably trade him for some draft picks, because I’m not sure he’ll ever have another season like this. That being said I’m not high on Mahomes at all, tho his skill set matches Hills well. I always thought in college he just threw the ball as far as he could and used speedy receivers to do most the work. I see a ton of interceptions and growing pains with him. So basically you can get something for Smith after this season while he’s worth something and he’s under contract or keep him around to see if he can have a repeat season the next few years while mentoring Mahomes. Then theres just not resigning him after next season, which is the dumbest move IMO.

I always liked Eddie, the battle we had with him in the 90s and early 00s were tons of fun. I’ll never forget him running down the sideline to shake Collison and Hinrich’s hands on senior day.

@truehawk93 Ya for sake of Billy I hope it’s close, if not he could waste all year sitting. I bet Self thinks he gonna get cleared or he wouldn’t be on him so bad in practice. If wasn’t gonna get cleared he could hire an agent and start working towards the NBA or go overseas to play til the draft.

@wrwlumpy Damn he looks good, we had better stop going under screens and actually contest shots when we play OU ir they hang 100 on us like ASU darn near did.

I think Oklahoma and West Virginia will be our biggest challenges. I wouldn’t call a top 20 in Oklahoma a dark horse, ESPN just ran an article about how Young wants to be us and it wouldn’t be surprising at this point. Baylor along with KSU has played schedules ranked in the mid 300s and lost any decent team they've played. TCU has won 17 straight and 12-0 this season but has hasn’t played a great schedule ether. I think KU, WVU, TCU, Baylor and OU will finish in the top half of the league. Tech is decent but hasn’t impressed me when I’ve watched them. The bottom half of the league is a crap shoot. Watching KSU Im worried we could see the remake of the valentines massacre that KSU always yaps about when they stomped us by 20 in the octagon of dumb back in 2011. This teams lack of toughness worries me on the road, we must win all games at home this year to win the conference IMO.

@dylans I see us as a Sweet 16 caliber team at this point, that can change if Billy is able to and Newman finds his groove. But I just don’t see this team being in the NC conversation anytime soon. Maybe it’s better that way and we won’t play tight in NCAA. If we make 3s at a high rate which we’ve done at times this year, we could beat anyone on any given night. @ParisHawk I agree, I think that having a bunch of evenly matched teams can be better for us when we haven’t looked near as dominant as some of our past teams.

@JayHawkFanToo Ya that’s definitely a bad look to force him out. Most of the fans want better for the teams. When they were in their best in the late 90s, early 00s they were winning 10 games a year a lot more often, since his return they have struggled to make it bowl eligible. Most were happy to see Dimmel leave, the question is does Sean take over the offense to proof his worth? Will it be a disaster? CBS ran an article saying Snyder was holding the school hostage, not a good ether.

Good news, I’m not sure how much help he will be right off the bat. It may take a month before he figures out how Self does things but will come in handy when we have foul trouble. Mitch had best stop with the fouls and turnovers (4 fouls, 3 turnovers Thursday in 13 scoreless minutes) or he many see most his minutes disappear bye February. We already know De Sousa is bigger, faster and stronger than Mitch.

My Wife Graduated from Kansas in 2002, her favorite KU player was Kirk Hinrich. So naturally when she got a dog, she named it after Hinrich. Monday morning her beloved dog of 15 years had to be put down for health complications. I was able to met Kirks dad at a KU game with my wife in 2014 and at that time we didn’t have any kids and had told him about how much we liked Kirk. Enough so that we had a dog named after him at home, I think he got a kick out of it. I thought I’d share with everyone and give our dog one last shout out.

@JayHawkFanToo I was gonna say the same thing about Leavitt. From what I hear from KSU fans is no one but Bill wants Sean to take over but Bill has refused to retire or quit unless Sean is to succeed him. It could get a little interesting if they have a few losing seasons because he won’t step down and firing the coach that your stadium is named after can’t be a positive thing. Although I have read books that claim Phog Allen was forced to retire earlier than he wanted to, he wanted coach Wilt til he was gone. Some of the stuff I read claimed Phog wanted Ralph Miller or Dean Smith to replace him in the end and not Dick Harp (could you imagine, Harp was decent but the worst of the 3).

Kinda cool, when I was younger we lived in Salina for about 5 years which is a metropolis compared to the 700 population town I’ve lived the rest of my life in. Any how my grandpa always got free tickets for the Kansas Cagerz that played in the USBL back then and I enjoyed going. Jeff Boschee and Billy Thomas both played for them for a number a years, they won the title a couple of times. Seems like the opponents always had a famous player or two as well. Randy Moss, Roy Jones Jr (boxer) were some of the guys I met after the game from those teams. I have their autographs somewhere, I always enjoyed it but I’m a basketball nut lol.

I could see a 5 loss team winning for sure. The conference looks fairly even at this point, lots of teams will lose on the road this season. Oklahoma has emerged as maybe our biggest threat with WVU not too far behind. Baylor will be tough I’m sure but they haven’t impressed me in the 2 games I’ve watched. TCU has played some serious cupcakes so they are hard to read. KSU actually looks decent from what I’ve seen.

Stanford isn’t a good team, 198th in RPI and 106 in kenpom. They are pretty much a one man band with Travis who did hurt us a year ago. Seems like we play like crap in these games before Christmas. Lets just play hard and get a win.

@Crimsonorblue22 I shouldn’t talk I’ve gained this year as well lol, Texas Southern down 2 at TCU at the half.

We went to the new Star Wars movie as my wife is a big nerd lol but yes it maybe my least favorite. Disney has ruined Star Wars even worse than the prequels. I’m a sucker for most 80s and 90s movies from when I was a kid. Just watched uncle Buck the other night one of my all time John Candy favorites to go with Planes, Trains and Automobiles.

He honestly looks like he’s gained about 40 pounds this off season as well.

Anyone else get a little ticked about the whole home losing streak thing? Nice to stomp someone after a close win but likely our last big win of the year (+25). Sam looks a little lost but will be handy in a few weeks.

I’d say Frank Mason, Jo Jo white, Paul Pierce, Clyde Lovette and Wilt Chamberlain as starters with a bench of Nick Collison, Danny Manning, Mario Chalmers and Kirk Hinrich. Man that was hard

@blackmild33 Yep they won today, isn’t odd to play back to back days? I realize Lawrence is a short drive.

I think we looked like crap for much of the game. Self calls this team soft because they can’t put teams away, or play well from behind. Lightfoot was solid, DTG and Doke. Svi deserves credit for hitting a big shot but other than that the rest of the team wasn’t good bye any stretch. I think the B12 is better than I thought they would be and we are not as good. The streak ends IMO and we know it real quick once conference season starts. Maybe it lights a fire under the teams butt for March being a 7 seed and finishing mid pack in the B12.

I stopped watching ESPN for their political BS a year or 2 ago. I only watch KU games on ESPN, I used to watch sports center every morning, have seen most of the 30 for 30s but after that and now the sexual harassment scandal. I hope fox sports puts them outta business. It’s kinda funny to me about all these news outlets and celebrities put down Trump who I’m not a fan off for accusations of sexual misconduct but then news breaks of all the disgusting junk they have done. An old friend of mine used to be a psychologist and always told me people that consistently accuse others of a certain crime are often guilty of it themselves, they want to feel better about it by hoping you did the same.

@JayHawkFanToo I’m okay to agree to disagree with anyone but not many times does a guy go from starter to 8th on a team in a year, not sure I’ve ever seen or heard of it.

Can I vent about the Nebraska game too lol. I tell you I’m worried, we don’t even look decent half the time to this point. Watching some of the other B12 games today I’m worried we will struggle to be .500. Even KSUCK looks like they would stomp the daylights outta us to this point. Newman shouldn’t play more than a handful of minutes a game, he’s as lost as a guy can be. Both him and Garrett couldn’t hit the ground with their hat in 3 trys.

@JayHawkFanToo I don’t think ASU is that great personally, but I’m willing to bet he would’ve started or been the 6th man. ASU is not a deep team bye any remote stretch of imagination.

Could you imagine how much better we’d be with Trae and DTG instead of Newman.

Explain how Sam could start for the team that just spanked us for 35 minutes in our own building but he’s not better than Newman? Garrett is okay defensively, no reason to start Newman Monday absolutely none. I’d start Sam to see what he can do Omaha is terrible and should be a 40 point win. Let’s see what the kid can do.

So all Lavar team so far Frankamp, Downs and Henry. Let’s add Cliff for his moms deal lol.

Brings back great memories as a kid playing in the snow, we loved it. Also brings back the memory of a Ressing to Meier pass in the Kansas City snow to win the border war in 2008, that’s still one of the best game I’ve ever watched.

@Crimsonorblue22 He’s a got a solid point, hopefully that means they can learn to defend better. DTG and Svi are both pretty much in their 3rd year of starting but Doke is hardly even a sophomore bye playing just a few games a year ago. Malik is just a redshirt sophomore, Lightfoot is seeing his first meaningful minutes this year and Vick is in a much bigger role in his first season of being a starter. I’m just worried we aren’t as athletic as we normally are which means we have to be very smart and in the right position defensively.

@BShark yep I’d be good with that as well and would expect him to average 8-12 minutes a game this season.

@wissox Good info, it kinda reminds me of the movie Semi Pro with Woody Harrelson and Will Ferrell where they are trying to get in the NBA when it merged with the ABA. I too think that a sub division should be made kinda like in football. FCS is still considered D1 but is better for the smaller schools. There are I believe 351 D1 basketball programs, the bottom 150 should be in it own sub division.

Self has said to be easy on expectations for Sam. Self has also said that he will be a great player but in a few years, ether way just having a guy to go in for a few minutes for Self to bench a guard and tell them why they got pulled . Didn’t really have that the first 10 games. With Marcus and Sam on the bench if Svi and Newman make a few bad play Self can sit them both for a bit (while chewing some butt lol).

Haha. I’d say a spot could be put in for Micah Downs, Conner Frankamp and Xavier Henry dads. If you read the book beyond the Phog sounds like all 3 dads were pains in Selfs ass (outside of Conner who came later). A case for JR Giddens bar fight could easily be made same goes for Rio Adams, Josh Selbys prom money and Carlton’s Mary Jane smoking. Tyshawn was at an All American level his last semester here but he made us all pull our hair out on and off the court several times.