🏀 KuBuckets Archive

Oh boy I'd love to read all of these and respond, but I have not the time. I'll say this. We sucked, but we sucked without the potential #1 draft pick playing and it turned our defense to mush.

We sucked. Wiggins as you point out had kind of an incongrous stat line, but it still was amazing to watch, no matter what the reason for it.

No more hostile crowds to play in front of. We're not tough enough for it, that's a plus. Let's back up our conference title with a tourney win and then 6 more games, unless we're in the playin game, then 7 :)

Too bad Cliff couldn't have finished the season better. After the scandal last week they were bounced in the regionals by 18th seeded Dusable in OT. Cliff had 25, 15 and I think 6 blocks. Says he had to be helped off the floor by his parents after the game.

As for the scheduling, a person whose sole job is finding 30 games to play? We just found the easiest job in America! He probably gets paid more than most of us too.

As for those games in our tough schedule we're all talking about. I wish we'd won more of those tough games, it would make me feel better about the postseason. At least we don't have any bad losses, but do we have any really good wins? Aha, almost forgot in this too long of season, Duke, we beat them right? I think it was on the last day of the World Series!

I have enjoyed this schedule however. A lack of cupcakes is always better I believe. Of course more cupcakes and less non con stalwarts and our record is sitting pretty, but maybe we're lulled into complacency by that too.

WVU does scare me, and it's not just that their mascot carries a rifle at games. Staten can really play, he wowed most of us last time. Although I never predict a loss, I do sense a possible tough game today that given our road woes could end up in another disheartening loss.

Where can I sign up to host blue chip basketball recruits in my home? KU will never lose a big time player again!

@HighEliteMajor

On the live blog with @JesseNewell, we often grouse about Wigs missed shots on drives to the basket. It is often times because he goes up in heavy traffic like you show and the degree of difficulty for the layup increases.

I wonder how many pictures you could find of Mason doing the same thing, especially in recent weeks. Mason has really worn on me lately with his wannabe Sherron act. It's wearing thin.

@jaybate 1.0

I agree. I would say that Wiggins was probably viewed as one of those high foundaition OAD's wouldn't you agree? I mean people are/were saying he's the best to come along since Lebron, that's a pretty high foundation!

@Crimsonorblue22

Deal, I have a much greater appreciation of him thanks to some of the things written about him in the last few days. But it's not just KU for me, I follow too many teams in sports and other than the standouts, the names just fade in my mind, and his is one that will probably fade.

That senior class is a testament to the changing times in college hoops. Not a major contributor to the team among them. Tarik has been a contributor, but his is a name that I will struggle to remember in 10-15 years. I hope we get back to having senior contributors to the team.

It is interesting that in our last two NC defeats and the almost third defeat we fell victims to OAD's. Cuse doesn't win in 03, heck, they probably don't sniff the final four without 'Melo and Kentucky, same thing. Memphis in 08 had a nice mix but without DR, there's no way they get close.

Other than those three years I can't recall too many OAD's leading their team to the title.

@JayHawkFanToo

I would say that if the top 10 current teams played the top 10 ranked teams of 30 or 40 years ago, the current teams would wing at least 8 out of the 10 games; maybe even all of them. Basketball is now that much better.

That is a bet I would take. All things being equal, the top 10 ranked teams of 30 or 40 years ago would win hands down. Houston, with Hall of Famers Olajuwan and Drexler could not win the national championship. Illinois with a roster full of NBA players in '89 couldn't win the national championship. Michigan with the real fab 5 recruiting class couldn't win the national championship.

Indiana of 76 would be undefeated nowadays too I believe. UCLA, same thing. Georgetowns great teams from 80-85 would destroy teams these days.

It's a fun argument to be sure.

As for your statement that parity has created a lot more quality teams I disagree too. The level of play in NCAA has diminished greatly. I dislike the NBA, but when I watch a few minutes I'm amazed at how good those guys are. Then I watch college and am amazed at how poor even good teams are. The shooting is generally horrible, guys taking fade away threes for goodness sakes! So again, it's a fun argument to have but I just don't see what you wrote!

If our team is worthy of a #1 seed then parity has made college hoops totally lacking in quality teams. We have too many ugly losses to be considered a #1 in my opinion. Florida, KSU, OSU, SDSU are all games where we resembled 5 or 6 seeds instead of #1 seeds. But........

While there's three sure #1's, Florida, Arizona and Wichita, you could argue us receiving the 4th as easily as you could Virginia, Duke, Villanova, or Syracuse. Heck if 6 loss Duke is being mentioned, then I'll mention my Badgers and their 5 loss team with the 2nd strongest schedule and a win at Virginia. And yet unless one of them distinguishes themselves in the last week and a half here, well one of these teams will get the #1. My guess is it will be Duke, they'll get to play in Raleigh for the regional and we'll all complain.

I'd say this year because its' freshmen are quite a bit better than those three freshmen. I don't recall the twins stats freshmen year, but I imagine they didn't knock our socks off.

Of course guard play was better. I imagine Tyrell Reed and Brady Morningstar played significant minutes on that team as well? I'd guess they didn't have the TO's like this years team. Of course they were good enough to come close to knocking off MSU to get to the FF so until this years team accomplishes that, then we'll wait to see! It feels like I'm starting to change my opinion on which team is better!

@Crimsonorblue22
I was one of those fans I suppose. He is growing on me however and much of it has to do with the qualities mentioned here, qualities which I should have recognized at the beginning of the season. Add me to the list of Tarik admirers!

I always like it when players stay. I too was glad Marcus Smart stayed because now I have reasons to dislike him. I didn't get too worked up about the flip last year, who gives a flip if an 18/19 year old shows some exuberance over a big win?

This year I have seen him diminish in the eyes of many and that is a shame. And if it was diminishing because his skills mysteriously disappeared that would be one thing, but he has diminished because of things that have nothing to do with the game. His antics, going into the crowd, overtrying to be the best player on the floor and looking horrible in the process (see the first 30 minutes of our game last week), even his flopping, which I don't recall happening last year.

I said last week his flopping doesn't bug me too much if it works and it does. It's the refs fault for buying it every flipping flopping act of it.

I really hope that the NBA puts an end to this foolishness and makes a kid stay in college if he doesn't want to commit to the pros immediately. It wouldn't hurt the college game too much. It would hurt Cal, and we're fine with that, but most of KU's success under Self has been accomplished with upper classmen. If anything it gives KU better chances to win because we have Self.

Bill Self coming up on Katz Corner on ESPNU. It looks like the same episode might re air at 1 and 2 today also.

@drgnslayr
They're playing good, but they were at the end of last season too, and were a trendy final four pick and then lost in the first round to Mississippi.

By the way, while not as impressive a streak as KU's, Bo Ryan has never finished worse than 4th in the Big 10. He's been there for 13 seasons. When you consider they've had a few pros and that's it, it's pretty impressive.

@Crimsonorblue22

Hold on Crimson. You're making a leap from flopping, to which I say if the refs are letting him do it then it's not his fault, to me condoning his other bad behavior.

And I'm serious, if the refs are going to call the flopping in his advantage why wouldn't he do it?

Virginia has the Tony Bennett effect. The name Bennett and coaching is synonymous with basketball in Wisconsin. And it's synonymous with successful basketball.

While Dick never won national championships at UW Stevens Point, he did put Terry Porter into the league. His brother took over after a great HS coaching career and won back to back NC's in the 2000's. Dick Bennett put UW GB on the map in the 80's and 90's and his son Tony hit one of those legendary buzzer beaters in the tourney in the early 90's. Dick then took an 8th seeded Badger team to the final four in 2000 drawing the ire of Roy Williams after they and MSU played to a 21-19 halftime score in the final four. Tony's sister won a national championship at UW Oshkosh and eventually was the head coach at Indiana, and is currently at NIU.

Tony led Washington St. to their 'glory years' a few years back when they had a strong team. He headed to Virginia and is using that same style his dad used. Hard nosed defense. It aint pretty, UW seemed to have 8 minute scoring droughts in every game I watched when he coached there, but it's generally effective. I believe he is UW's next coach whenever the legend Bo Ryan steps down, although that is just speculation on my part, nothing firm to base it on.

So I'm proud of Virginia doing what they've done. Interestingly they've lost to both Wisconsin and UW Green Bay this season, travelling to Green Bay, name another major conference winner who played at a mid major's gym this year!

As you can tell, I follow Wisconsin basketball almost as closely as KU, thus the history lesson!

We've seen Nick Wiggins at KU games, does anyone know if Andrew has attended Wichita games this season?

As for the video playing at the top of the page as I recall Perry got called for a foul on that play right? While we criticize (rightly so) Smart a lot here, if the refs call that a foul on Perry is that Smarts fault or would we be applauding a play like that if it were one of our players? In other words would we call it savvy, court awareness, etc.? I think we would. And he keeps doing it because the refs fall for it. It cost us the win as much as anything the other night and for that at least, we can give Smart some credit, although I hate it at the same time.

Jesse's article, while I didn't read it, but certainly get the gist of, describes this team to a T. Our offense, at least to my untrained eye has seemed putrid at times this season.

We had a 10 point lead and very quickly it seemed Wigs, Joel, and Selden picked up their 3rd fouls and went to the bench. A momentum killer if there ever was one and that I believe is what cost us the game.

The turnovers sure didn't help either.

Giving up 47 points to OSU in the 2nd half was so unlike KU's normally stout defense sure didn't help either.

Scoring a pitiful 27 points in the first half sure didn't help either.

Thanks guys, I never met a Shocker fan, but if I do, I will try to be annoyingly rude to them and I'll blame you. I'll say something like "you messing with my friend nuleaf, you messing with me, and let me tell you about my cole aldrich look alike friend missing a tooth, he'll slap the silly out of you."

I've only spent three years in the state of Kansas, and even those were'nt full years, just 2 semesters each year at school. So I don't pretend to have a finger on the pulse of what drives the anti Wichita animosity, but I don't get it. I know my friend @nuleafjayhawk really doesn't like them. Some one fill me in. I am capable of learning to hate a team, see mizery, the cubs and gbpickers as examples, but I don't quite get it.

I see Kentucky lost again last night to Arkansas, and I'm sure some of their fans wrote the same after we lost to kstate a couple weeks back.

I happened upon a liveblog of the Badgers game the other night. I thought I'd try it out. A few Badger diehards there, but not much else. Who ever was running it felt the need to describe every play, i.e. "Brust misses 20 footer, Yogi rebounds". It was hard for discussion to develop because of the too frequent updates, updates that were telling all of us what we were watching anyways. That's one reason why @jessenewell is the best at what he does, and why all of you are the best college hoops fans out there.

Speaking of hoops fans and writing, Keegan decided to write a political piece several weeeks ago about the bill being discussed in Kansas about permitting some discrimination in some cases against gays. What followed was predictable for an article like that. Everyone who was unified in their fanaticism for the greatest college program out there suddenly were being divided by their opinions on the matter. Please don't start that here by the way!!! Arguing by keyboard is never productive, it's too easy to name call and not discuss. And I don't mean we can't disagree obviously, but it often gets nasty on these types of forums. But rarely does it get nasty here.

And one more thing, time to shut up OSU and their bandwagon fans and win the thing outright tomorrow. Enjoy the skill of Smart, etal, I do, but let's give them a Stillwater slaughter they'll talk about for years.

I fear that our team of freshmen play like freshmen.

I also fear this years Stephen Curry whoever that may be.

I also fear this years Glen Rice, whoever that may be.

In other words players that can carry a team all the way.

I also fear a matchup with Wisconsin any earlier than the championship.

Interestingly KU and Duke almost mirror each other for NCAA appearances since the 80's. Duke and KU both began NCAA tournament runs in 1984 with each team missing the dance once, us in 90 and them in 95 (this is according to wikipedia). Not Kentucky nor Carolina can touch that reign of success during that timespan. Kentucky has missed twice in the last three years and had a five year absence around the time we gave them the 150-90 beatdown in 89 or 90. UNC has missed a smattering of tournies recently and in the Matt Daugherty debaucle years.

But to be consistent with what I wrote before championships matter the most to me and two is not enough. We need more!

@AzHawk97 Great read AZ! Nice to see the east coast media give us some love. I listen to Ben Cohen a lot on a podcast called the SportsRetort. Very entertaining.

@RockChalkinTexas

I think our streak of dancing for the past 24 years is more impressive. And it probably would be 30+ had it not been for the probation year which probably cost us Coach Brown and the roughish season that followed.

Either way, we're incredibly fortunate to have chosen such a great program to cheer for all these years.

@RockChalkinTexas
I know how good Self is! He's amazing, the best thing to happen to KU basketball since Roy who was the best thing since Larry. I love KU basketball!! It still doesn't change what I wrote! I want championships. I couldn't tell you what years KU won the league championship besides the last 10 years. But I can tell you what they did in the tourney just about every year.

@Kip_McSmithers
I don't want facts to get in the way of a good theory!

@brooksmd

I know Brooks, I'm a wet blanket on the party! I'll say this, it's better to win the league than not winning the league!

I guess I could add to my post that I'm much more impressed by dancing every year since 1990.

@nuleafjhawk I respectfully disagree with what you wrote. There are programs in other conferences that if we were battling them every year winning 10 in a row would be huge.

HEM, I see the point of consistency being impressive. When I attended KU, I'd guess we won the league one of the three years but were in two final fours.

I am going to risk banishment from all things related to KU basketball, probably even get my degree revolked.

Here goes. I don't get that excited by it. We've won 57 conference titles according to ESPN last night. Yes I do recognize the achievement, but it just doesn't strike me as being that remarkable.

Our conference lacks a consistent challenger that year in and year out is our equal. Duke has UNC, Wisconsin has MSU, OSU. Other than Texas, Bill Self has not faced a league foe that's even been to the final four if memory serves correctly.

Since the 80's when I came to KU, I've seen KU teams in 86, 88, 91, 93, 02, 03, 08, and 12 make it to the final four. I rattled those off without hardly thinking about it. Those are what makes me go. It's better to be known as the big 12 champs, but it's even better to be known as a final four, finalist and champion. Sorry to be a wet blanket on this celebration, but it just doesn't rile me up too much.

@JRyman Officially? As far as I know there aren't offical stats for dunks!

Look at the video! Tarik's dunk wasn't really a dunk! He threw the ball through the hoop! It was still pretty awesome!

TRob had a big game yesterday too, 14 pts, 18 boards, 2 blocks, 2 assists in a winning effort. Kieff, Pierce, Mario and Kirk also had pretty good games yesterday.

BMac should be getting more PT since the Kings traded Marcus Thornton. They played kind of similar roles on that team.

Interesting post Dragon.

I asked this question last night on Jesse's live blog (Jaybate, where you been?) but no one really bit.

How does Joel rank among our best passing big men? I go back to the mid '80s so I'm not qualified to discuss anyone before then.

I would rank Danny as our best ever. Although we liked his scoring, he could pass and that was a reason why many compared him to Magic Johnson when he was playing in college.

I would rank Joel as next. His acumen for passing is unreal for someone as inexperienced as he is.

After him, I really don't know who to add to the list. Any ideas?

There are none in particular I remember, but the run n gun Jayhawks of the early 2000's with the slasher Keith Langford remain the best dunks in my KU memory. Keith really threw some down!

My favorite sign was in 1986 (when we played Louisville and beat for the second time that season, the same year they won it all, and the same year we were denied the chance to beat them a third time by the refs against Duke). NBC had the game, they used to have great coverage I always thought with Al Mcguire (SP?) and my sign said Nobody Beats Cansas. I was sure NBC would beam that home to my folks!

@lincase

Just wondering, why would he be on your favorite player list? I mean, I'm fine with it, but why?

@eastcoasthawk
I don't know how or when it will happen for me, but I do need to do what you did and get back there. My drought is only since 1988, uh, 26 years, but it's been a long time and I want to come here and write what you wrote. I did get to see them in the dome against Kentucky several years ago which was awesome.

I just got done watching Cliff Alexander in the Public League final on ESPN3. His team won in 4OT's! Amazing game with two buzzerbeater threes. Cliff wasn't a scoring beast, 19 points, must have snatched 15 boards, but made some pretty boneheaded plays down the stretch especially.

Embiid to break Chenowith's record. I'm not sure why people like to dog on Eric. I believe his second year he received some honors, maybe honorable mention AA?. Sometimes when players don't live up to the fans expectations we really like to dog them. I'm just glad I wasn't under the scrutiny of fans when I was in college, I sure wasn't perfect!

Noticed in the same article that there's an opportunity to watch Cliff Alexander in the Public league championship tonight on ESPN3. He'll face Jahlil Okafor and Whitney Young in yet another star studded Public league final.

I am amazed at Alexander's numbers but in the back of my mind I just hope his hat ceremony stunt isn't a sign of immaturity that will be evident when he's here. Bill Self is pretty good about checking these guys egos and we've had a nice stretch of years without a lot of outside distractions.

The amazing run of conference championships will continue Monday if we handle the two games Saturday and Monday. Like all of us, I'd like to see April championships to follow those up! RCJHKU!

Here's Perry's starts after his 20 point games this year:
Duke 24 and 9, then Iona 21 and 7, then Towson 10 and 4

New Mexico 21 and 9, then GTown 5 and 2

Toledo 21 and 11, then SDState 4 and 5

OK 22 and 11, KST 12 and 5

IA St 20 and 6, Tex 11 and 2

TCU 32 and 8, TTech 4 and 2

On the other hand by looking at his 'poor' games, less than 10 points, he only followed that up once by another poor game. 4 times he followed single digit scoring games with 20 or more points in the next.

About time Wiggins made a layup!

Oakville we will put you on the Mt. Rushmore of KU basketball, Phog, Wilt, Danny, Roy, Bill, Mario, and Oakville. I know that's more than a normal Mt. Rushmore, but we can carve out some more space.

@JayHawkFanToo

Good catch on that! I'm fully aware we've beaten more ranked teams, but as I was looking at the rankings I just noticed all the ranked teams UW beat, 3 which are right above us. Of course UW has some victories over teams that were ranked at the time too, like Marquette and Illinois I think.

I am proud that the Jayhawks have the best schedule and the Badgers the third best.

@HighEliteMajor
I remember after beating Marquette in 03 at the final four I thought, Roy better keep these guys away from ESPN/newspapers/websites, etc. because there's going to be a lot written about the team which could lead to overconfidence. I don't know if overconfidence makes a team miss FT's that Monday night, but we sure didn't do to Syracuse what we'd done to Marquette, still one of the most thorough dominations of a team in a final four I've ever seen.

I did notice that for all of KU's ballyhooed schedule they own two victories over teams that are currently ranked, Duke and Iowa State.

Meanwhile my other team Wisconsin has victories over 5 teams that are ranked, four of them are ranked ahead of them by the way. One asterisk, when we beat Florida, FL was missing several starters who I think were back by the KU game.

Rankings are goofy and Wisconsin beat Virginia impressively in VA and have identical 21-5 records yet VA is ranked ahead of UW. VA's coach Tony Bennett I predict becomes the next UW coach when Bo Ryan retires.

I'm hoping this is the year KU plays UW in the tourney. I hope it happens in the finals! It could have happened in 08 but Davidson got in the way of UW just before we snuck by them

Of course none of you care about that, but since there's no UWbuckets.com I've got to write about this somewhere. Sorry to bore you!

I pay close attention to KU of course, but beyond the top competitors in the league I don't know much so this surprises me to see Texas Tech playing well. I'm suddenly concerned about this game from our inconsistent team.

Tubby Smith, coached at two of my least favorite teams, Kentucky, and then at Minnesota (an intense rival of Wisconsins). I normally hold no hard feelings for TTech, but with Smith at the helm, well, I don't like them now, but I do respect them.

How does a school like Texas Tech attract two NCAA title winners to come coach there? I can't figure that out at all. I guess Smith and Bobby Knight were looking to keep coaching and Lubbock seemed like a good place to do it. I just looked at Lubbock on Google street view, and goodness, it is flat, dry and not very attractive. I'm sure there's good people there. I don't know how coaches recruit players to a school in a city like that.

I like that I read Bill Self coaches our boys to not talk to fans at all. Maybe if Travis Ford had taught that (and we don't know he didn't either) then Marcus Smart is still not a household name among the average general populace. Needless to say, if that fan represents TTech fans, then we must be wary of their fans.

I had a sense that the Commodore Perry follows up his great games with duds so I looked it up. He has only had back to back 20 point games once this year, and generally falters after such high scoring games. A consistent Ellis makes us a more consistent team as well.

I hope there's nothing good on the Olympics tonight that my wife wants to watch or I'll be watching this on my computer.

RCJHKU!

@globaljaybird I've commented to him several times to come on over, but to no avail obviously.

@ajvan

He could have a star studded finals matchup with Jahlil Okafor in the Public League finals if they both win their semis as expected.

The Public League could be at it's all time best right now. Young had three players nominated for the MCD's game! Alexander's Curie team has beaten the top ranked HS team in the nation this year.

@approxinfinity How do I make my headline big like the others? This is my first attempt to post to Our Daily Threads (love the title of this by the way!)

@approxinfinity How do I make my headline big like the others? This is my first attempt to post to Our Daily Threads (love the title of this by the way!)