I am convinced that he is blind in one eye. Self should put his ass under a practice basket with a grad assistant, and make him hit 1000 layups before he can join the team practice. He is the worst low post scorer I have ever seen. He make Eric Chenoweth look like Hakeem or Shaq.

Sent from my LG-H918 using Tapatalk
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It's not a capacity to make layups problem. It is a footwork/body position problem when he catches the ball. He is a giant motherfucker, and when he has his head out of his ass and has a base to work off of, he's fine. When he gets his feet too close together or catches the ball off balance, he's pathetic. What he needs to do if he doesn't have a good base is stop, set a base, then figure out what the fuck to do, and that's probably pass it out, because it will probably take a dribble or giving up your position to do so. But whatever happens, it would be a higher percentage play than throwing up a junk shot off of no base.

:-)

I miss Danny Manning. :-)
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Yeah, he should see Frank's workout video. It's amazing how high that guy can jump.
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I thought overall last night KU played a pretty good game on defense. Other than about 3 crazy/lucky bank in three pointers, KU held them to 59.
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Did you mean 3 years?
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Lucas did brick quite a few layups early, but damned if he didnt hit a 2-3 clutch layups late in the game. They're all important, but those late ones were worth just a little bit more.
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Yeah, he grabbed at least one rebound down in the trees. If he's getting higher than Montley et.al. - JESUS.

Most guards get long rebounds, fucking Mason gets them off the block.

RE: athleticism. He isn't the Ferrari Tyshawn Taylor was, but I have no problem with his athleticism. His first step is quick enough to get around anybody in our league anyway, plus his lateral quickness is good enough, he is a very good defender. From a speed perspective, he consistently beats dudes down the floor with the ball in his hands (which I acknowledge is probably handles not raw speed).

I don't have a single problem with Frank's athleticism, but if you're looking at him objectively, you know he's not just relying on overwhelming athleticism to achieve production. He uses his capacity to play physical ball and straight up toughness to not let anybody neutralize the athleticism he has. The best way to neutralize superior athleticism is do the old Big 10 ball thing and muck it up. Frank can play through that because he is a tough son of a bitch and not lose any efficiency off it, whereas a guy like Wiggins could be taken out of his game (until he decides to go berzerk like the WVU game).

Frank is a special player. I used to think Collins was the most effective player at the point, followed closely by Tyshwan (who teamed up with TRob and drug a bunch of scrubs kicking and screaming to the title game). But Frank, while maybe not as explosive as Collins, puts up similar numbers without the dumbshitass mistake that Collins was prone to. It's tough to compare across teams, because Frank may not be able to what he's able to do if he was the only guard you had to defend like Tyshawn specifically and to a lesser extent Collins, but goddamn Frank is efficient and doesn't make much for mistakes.

This team may not be good enough to win it all, but man, winning games like UK and Baylor are fun.
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A backcourt of Mason, Graham, and Jackson firing on all cylinders is good enough to win it all.
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It's a tough row to hoe since the team is so goddamned thin, especially down low. But I'm with you, I wish they'd do a couple simple things to turn the heat up some. Like last night, when Lecomte would pick up the ball, if Mason would just go get in his face and make the pass more difficult, KU probably would have stolen at least one posession (see: last posession). I know you have to worry about the cut after he gets the ball passed, but it's not like Lecomte has some incredible length that Frank can't recover from. That's frustrating to watch, because that isn't going to expend a bunch of energy, and can jack up the other teams offense - especially against a team like Baylor.

I think KU can get a few minutes of rotation with Lightfoot and Lucas in there together where you can allow Lightfoot to be a pain in the ass in the full court like they did with Kevin Young. I don't know if Lightfoot is that heady of a player, but he seems to be able to make those opponent-frustrating hustle plays that Young used to pull in the half court. Maybe it is just 5 minutes of token pressure with one trap, but if you can get a possession out of it and not give up any transition points, it can turn out to be a big deal. And unfortunately, that's why Lightfoot and Lucas have to be in there together, someone has to be able to adequately defend the post in transition if the press is broken.

I think against the teams that aren't going to run hard on you, they need to crash the offensive boards harder. Mason is an excellent rebounder that would translate to the offensive side, Jackson and Lightfoot are grabbing a lot of OREB, but Svi and Vick have the length and athleticism to be grabbing more OREB than they are. And maybe it is such a thing as you let Vick and Svi get back on D and send everyone else to sell out on the OREB. If you look at the teams that drive us crazy when we lose to, it's not the teams that can run and gun, it's the grinders when we have an off night offensively. I think against those teams, you take chances on the transition defense to try to steal a couple possessions as those possessions could be the difference.

Jackson is doing a good job defending the 4. Far better than a freshman should be able to. Depending on the team, I think you can give him less help, similar to what they do with Lucas, and cover out shooters a little better. Obviously we can't do that to Montley, or probably even Wade or Owundu, but I think there are matchups that we can tweak a little bit to turn up the heat some.

Self is obviously schematically better than I am, but I wouldn't mind seeing some of those things come out in some games in case we need them in the tournament. I normally sit right with you and beat the effort drum, but as thin as this team is, it may not be in the cards. You'd like to see the effort early, and against crappy teams, run up a big lead, and sit the vital guys for 10 minutes a game, but it never seems to happen.

RE: winning it all. This might be a different year for us. It is often discussed in here that it takes good guard play in March to win in April, and Self relies too much on post production to win. Well, we can put that to the test. Obviously, guards can still lay eggs *cough*COLLINS*cough*, but this team is set up more to win like the teams that drive the guard conversation. Vick's shot has fallen off, but pretty much you have to defend this team for 50 feet. Plus we are getting production from several different guys. You'd like to see a little more from Svi and Vick, but you've got 3 starters that can get in the lane consistently, Mason is our guy that gets a bucket when you have to have one. I'm not sure you can lean on Lucas if the shots aren't falling, but this team is the anti-Self team that guys in here complain about needing guard play to win.

We'll see. It should be fun. I am far from expecting a F4 birth, but it is certainly possible with how this team is playing down the stretch. But looking around the different leagues, there really aren't any teams without big ass holes all over the place. Puke might be pretty formidable if Kazoo can right the ship and Jefferson gets back. Nova is playing decent ball, but looks underwhelming periodically, and back to back doesn't happen much. UNC has a lot of talent, but there is a decent probability Roy will Roy it up. Same with UK. UCLA looks pretty nasty but there isn't a lot out West so it's hard to tell. Who the fuck knows how good Gonzaga is. An optimist could look at the landscape and say it's KU's to win. But I look at the roster, then I look at what happens when Lucas goes out, and holy shit. I've kind of shed the expectations and am just enjoying the good games.
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One of the things that kills me, is that Lucas still commands a LOT of attention down low from the opponents.

..... Why? He is damn near lost with his back to the basket. Stop collapsing and let him throw up his flatfooted over the right shoulder shots with a hand in his face. Your efficiency on defense will increase. But for whatever reason... they collapse still (natural player tendencies?). And then our offense runs a whole hell of a lot better.
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Anyone read the ESPN article from Brennan recapping the game last night?

Guy insinuates Baylor lost because of home-cooking officiating.

I know I'm kind of a homer, but I felt the refs were letting them play way more than they should have in the first half - which benefits Baylor way more than KU.

And the free-throw disparity? They're not a team that slashes to the bucket like our guards/forwards do....

Excerpt:

Oh, I don't know, maybe because they shot 27 free throws and we shot six? Because Kansas was called for 10 fouls in 67 possessions in a close game, and we were called for 21? Because it's hard to play five on eight?

http://www.espn.com/blog/collegebask...kansas-through
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Since I've already posted a novel worth of shit on KU this morning, allow me to step up on the soapbox some.

[soapbox]
Games like last night are why I get so fucking furious about the officiating early in the year. Last night was pretty physical. It wasn't bad ball, or even largely bad officiating. They got a little ticky-tack in the second half after letting a lot go in the first, but overall, the officiating was decent. It was physical, but both teams were largely playing good ball.

But if that game would have happened in November, Tyler Self would have had to play 35 minutes. And goddamn it, if you are not going to officiate games that way in February, why the fuck are we doing it in November and December? Call it the same way all through the year, then you don't have to have Bilas spending an entire broadcast saying, "Well, it technically is a foul. You can't run into a guy." Bullshit. You can't run into a guy in November, but once January gets here, go right ahead.

That bullshit is so fucking bad for the game it isn't even funny. Think about a guy like Jackson, who gets 3 fouls before tipoff. How the hell is he supposed to learn the collegiate game, if one game is badminton and one game is rugby. If they would officiate it the same over the year and across conferences, then all the teams can learn how to play. Then, when March Madness (Your fucking cash cow) comes along you don't have teams that have to sit 3 starters 15 minutes because of foul trouble or teams that get trucked because they haven't had to play a physical game all year. And god for fucking bid a coach can have the opportunity to coach some fucking defense in the league. No, we can't have that.

God that pisses me the fuck off. And it's not like it's the set of officials in November, every crew was calling every game that way, not just the KU games. So it was obviously intentional. Fuck that shit. Call it the same way in November you call it in April. Let teams learn how to play offense and defense in the same system all year long, rather than learning how to win early, scrap it, and then learn how to win in Conference play.

:-)
[/soapbox]
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Like I said before, if he gets a base established before the ball comes, he can do things, and those things are on film, so it's tough to say, "Screw it, stick out." When hes capable of scoring down there. It's just a tough thing to ask. Without re-watching the games, I'd bet some coach do it. There have been several games Lucas got some easy buckets early and then disappears. May be coincidental, IDK. Maybe we should delete all these posts so there is no chance a team will figure it out. :-)
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Buehler has got a lot to say this morning. :-)
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