🏀 KuBuckets Archive

He only played 3 minutes last night. I wondered if he was suffering any residual effects.

Are those numbers averages? Season?

I right click, and select "Open Link in New Tab". In Firefox.

Several years ago some old KU friends were in town, just available for the afternoon of a KU game, so I invited them over to watch it with me. Big mistake. I felt I had to talk to them because I hadn't seen them in years. But my attention kept coming back to the game. I was distracted from both, and as soon as the game was over they had to leave. Very dissatisfying on both fronts - I didn't enjoy the game, or my visit with old friends.

For the last decade I've only watched with people who didn't expect me to talk to them, and didn't try to talk to me about anything not directly related to the game. Much better experience.

That's the burning question, nuleaf, of all Jayhawk fans. Why the extraordinary juxtaposition of the success rates of our two major sports teams? The failures of Kansas football are not merely due to geography. Or is K-State's success the anomaly in a football-poor state?

I do think eventually KU will figure it out and have a consistently decent football program. There seems to be the will and the resources. Even mediocre would be fine. I just hope it's within my lifetime. But I'm not holding my breath.

How much advance warning about rule changes does the NCAA give? Did Self really know early enough that the rule changes would alter his recruiting strategy? Or are we just lucky that this particular year, when the defense is being penalized to benefit the offense, we happen have more offensive firepower that we have had in a long time? We have a lot of newbies that haven't had long to learn Self defense, Perhaps that would have been more of a problem last year than this year, when defense is being handicapped by the officials.

The point is, if the rules had to change, the timing might not be too bad given the makeup of this team compared to others. I'm just not sure it was planned that way by Self. Of course, he is a basketball genius....

I agree. Keegan clearly likes Weis, so I was pleasantly surprised to see Keegan call him out like this.

I'll be there. I really didn't mind the bare bones last week. I'm a big fan of simple.

"A couple of years ago, Tyshawn and Elijah sat out Naadir’s first game, and Naadir almost got a triple-double — 12 points, nine turnovers and eight assists (in exhibition win over Pitt State in 2011)."

Head Coach Bill Self

That's funny.

"Success is one percent inspiration, ninety eight perspiration, and two percent attention to detail."

Phil Dunphy

Lulu, do you think it will be easier for the freshman to adjust because it's all new to them anyway? I'm not familiar with how high school games are called. More similar to the new or old college rules? Is there much variation among states?

That's fantastic, Hawk8086. So far, the TV schedule for Tuesday night has hockey on TSN and NBA (Raptors) on TSN2. Maybe they'll step up after preseason, or perhaps there's another TSN station I'm not familiar with??

HEM, even if we do get a national championship with Wiggins, I don't think he approaches the greatness of our superstars who stayed multiple years. We'll never have another Danny Manning because the great players just don't stay in school that long. Even the superstars for other teams, whom you love to hate, provided excitement and drama by sticking around for awhile. You want revenge for a defeat by a great player, or revel in the glory of a past victory. Rapid player turnover just doesn't do it the same way.

Or maybe I'm just old.

Advertising. Getting the top kid provides huge exposure to the university. I don't like it, and I agree we would likely get more from the 12th ranked kid for 3-4 years than the 1st ranked kid for one. But I don't think you can NOT go after the very top prospects.

Good point, wissox. ESPN is broadcasting the Champions Classic in Chicago. Might as well maximize the hype to increase viewership and ad revenue.

@wissoxfan83 I gave you one of those thumbs ups!

Yes, three! It's getting to be such a regular thing, I lost count!

KUsports is still the best source of information on Ku sports. The articles are generally quite good, the staff is dedicated and insightful. I'll keep reading, and I may even post there occasionally. But it's not what it was.

KUsports in 2013 is Roy Williams in 2003. We had a beautiful thing, and a decision was made that ended it. I appreciate everything Roy did for the university and KU basketball. I understand why he made his decision, and even though I was hurt and disappointed, I wish him the best.

But it sure was nice to beat him in the tournament. Twice. And it was kind of nice to see that the number of posts here during the game Tuesday quadrupled the number at KUsports.

Here's hoping that this site will be Bill Self, making us all feel better about Roy's decision. Indications are good so far.

A couple of hockey friends have heard of him, just because they pay attention to sports news. But he's certainly not a household name yet. Let's hope that changes! As in, maybe he will live up to the hype. Of course, to do that he needs to average 30 pts for the season and lead us to a national championship. And an undefeated season.

He might be better known in Ontario, where he's from.

@STOOPS, Black got 11 rebounds in 13 minutes. I'll take that.

Maybe they will start playing Oh Canada after the Star-spangled Banner.

Oh, yeah. Him.
Ha! The memory is the first thing to go. After the knees, eyes, back...but I've forgotten about those.

Drew Gooden had a single zero. Who else? I don't recall.

@baris, that's the way it works for me on Firefox. Love the Unread feature. That's where I go first. The only problem is then I don't remember where to find a discussion! e.g., after reading this one I tested the Unread function, then searched through several buckets before finding it again. I just need to remember to look before leaving.

I will benefit greatly. I live in Canada, and might not have to go through the e-contortions needed to view games online that are not allowed to be broadcast outside the US (e.g., anything on ESPN).

http://www2.kusports.com/news/2013/oct/29/naadir-tharpe-miss-kus-season-opener-after-playing/ ↗

It's just one game, but we will miss our floor general.

I've been wondering the same thing, HEM. Our high expectations certainly can lead to disappointment (see KU football), and I'm a wee bit concerned about Wiggins for the same reason....those expectations are out the roof.

What Black brings is some experience. I'd be pretty happy if he's a push with Young, overall (better scoring, fewer rebounds & assists). I'm hoping he starts out decently, and by the end of the season one of our young bigs will have gained enough experience to blossom and take Black's starting spot. Or if Black turns into a superstar, I'd take that too!

I should share one other tidbit for online viewers who are blacked out of coverage, which I learned from our community before the LJW broke us up and would like to make available here. I live in Canada, and access to ESPN, ncaa.com, and many other sites is blocked for users outside the US. Firefox has an add-on that allows you to modify the HTTP request headers sent to web servers. So the site thinks you are outside the blackout area, and allows you to access its content.

The add-on and instructions can be found here:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/modify-headers/ ↗
http://mbd.scout.com/mb.aspx?s=172&f=2487&t=11250787 ↗

It works for local users in a blackout area, or international users who for some reason aren't allowed access to US content.

I'm not all that tech savvy, but I can follow instructions, and I've been able to watch almost every KU game online the past 3 years.

I just took a quick peek at the schedule, and we have 25 games that are on some version of ESPN (1,2,3, or U). I have an old college buddy on the east coast who gave me his login and password for his cable provider. You should find an old college buddy and do the same. Then you can watch all those games online through ESPN, which is usually clearer and more stable than firstrow, and doesn't have all those popups.

The only games I can see on TV are those on CBS. Every other game last year I watched online. Firstrowsports does have a ton of popups, but if you view full screen they don't pop up. The name has changed, however.
http://www.feed2all.eu/type/basketball.html ↗

It can be a bit blurry at times, and every now and then they link to the wrong game. But it's usually not too bad. Sometimes they a few minutes late getting started, but then so is ESPN. It's sure much better than missing the game completely!

You can find a direct link to ESPN under the American Football page. I could never get their hi-def download to work, so I just follow the game link directly. I have a computer hooked up to the TV to watch the game on, and then use my laptop to follow the online chat and the box score.

I think the # at the beginning of a line does it.

@approxinfinity How's your French?!?

Fast on the airport free wifi.

I think I like this layout better, and it is nice how it updates in real time without having to refresh. But I would hate to have our community split....again!

Canada. This group has been wonderful about sharing workarounds to viewing games online that otherwise are restricted to viewing only within the US. I am really grateful.

Exactly, Trublue. We'll never have another Danny because anybody with that amount talent won't stay longer than one year. It just doesn't happen anymore, and it takes a wee bit more time to develop true greatness.

I thought Smart said a big reason he came back was an injury at the end of last season. He wouldn't have been 100% in pre-draft workouts, which would have hurt his draft status.

Yep, watching the snow out my window right now.

Coach said the Cozart move in the second quarter was planned from the start, but you'd think if the offense was clicking you wouldn't want to shake that up. Isn't that the second game in a row where a quarterback change killed our momentum? It's good to have a plan, but if it ain't broke....

Apparently some discussions get pretty nasty....not on KU Sports, but other topics like politics. So the company who owns LJW wants to raise the level of conversation, and they believe eliminating anonymity will do that. So they implemented this policy on all their sites.

I understand the policy and really don't mind it. I just don't like the mechanism they have chosen to confirm identities. Surely there must be alternatives to using Facebook. They just aren't giving us any, and I really don't understand why.

Two possibilities. First, maybe it's just easier. Facebook does the work of confirming identities so newspaper staff don't have to spend the time. That's possible, but if they really wanted to keep their readership I think would provide us alternatives. Many of us would have happily paid a small fee to continue to participate in our online community, which could have compensated for staff time.

The other possibility is that it is a financial deal. Our beloved sportswriters deny it. However, they might have been kept in the dark.

Regardless, kudos to the creators of this site for giving us an alternative. I don't like Facebook, and I don't like being forced to use it. But I really enjoyed the discussions on KUsports, even though I was often just a spectator and rarely chimed in. My quality of life was diminished when that discussion forum was taken away from us, and I'm grateful that we have an opportunity to get it back.