#22 K-State v. #15 KU - 67-49 (L) - Post-Game
by TheBigE on Jan 4, 2012 10:19 PM CST
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PrintLet's give them credit, I guess...
There's a reason they win so many games at home. [Insert shameful officiating comment here.]
K-State traveled to Lawrence to take on the Jayhawks in the conference opener for both teams. At least I think so, because the team I've seen sporting K-State jerseys the last couple weeks was only there for about 5 minutes or so. Subsequently, we started our murderous opening stretch to conference play with a loss, on a year that looked to be the most viable opportunity for a win in Allen Field House in quite some time.
The team actually came out with some energy for the first 90 seconds, and suddenly disappeared. The scrappy defense was about as stout as a wet paper towel. The hustle-led rebounding was entirely AWOL. The recent ability to move the ball and execute on offense apparently wasn't important enough to emphasize. Honestly, I don't know what we did to prepare for this game, but to the common observer, I can't tell you for sure that we did.
Every player came out cold, as evidenced by the team shooting under 30% from the floor for the first half. We weren't getting many very good looks, as possession after possession went by with very little offensive movement. I can count the number of times we ran the offense to both sides of the floor on one hand. Off the cuff, the decision to really try and pound the ball inside to draw fouls on KU's two bigs - Thomas Robinson and Jeff Withey - appears to make sense. The problem is that it didn't really work - we kept missing shots, and if you aren't actually drawing the foul when you miss the shot, well, it might as well be a turnover.
I've never seen such a lack of hustle out of a HCFM-coached team as I did in rebounding tonight. No desire. No energy. That's how you get rebounds. The effort isn't in the actual grabbing of the ball - the effort is getting to where you can grab the ball. Early homework. Which we did none of.
The fact the game was as close as it was at half - 35-20 - was a testament to KU's inability to keep possession of the ball. We won the TO battle for the evening - 19-12 - and still lost by 18 points.
Let me get this out of the way, because it honestly deserves to be said. KU's Thomas Robinson is a legitimate NBA prospect. He is powerful, strong, athletic, and can stretch his game out to 18-20 feet. And he was clearly better than any single person we could put on the floor.
Beyond that, I'm convinced we're a better team top-to-bottom. Seeing the way our guys played tonight, I'm not sure they are convinced of it, and THAT'S the reason why we lost.
On the bright side, K-State did fight back for a 5 minute stretch in the second half, cutting the lead to 3 with more than 10:00 to go, with some exceptional defensive effort and some better ball movement. But...
...that leads me into my next little rant. The preparation and coaching by HCFM and his staff tonight was head-scratching at best. I've already said it looked like we didn't prepare...but just as easily, I could see by reaction times - slow cuts offensively, not doing rebounding work, late defensive rotations - that we might have had some horrendously hard practices coming into this game. Either way, it's just not what we needed. Let's go back to that run we put on KU to get the game back to 3...we come out of a KU-called timeout, go out of the man-to-man that had got us to where we were and into a 3-2 zone (which we're not nearly quick enough at), Conner Teahan hits 2 straight 3's, and that's all she wrote. We waved goodbye as KU steadily pulled away the rest of the game. Usually you can pin the team's struggles on lack of executing plans, but there was obviously some failure on HCFM's part tonight, as well. Blame goes all around on this one.
All that being said, let's not get too out of focus here. We're 11-2. Sure, we all want to win against KU. But one game does not a season make. If I remember correctly, we started pretty damn poor to begin last year's conference slate, too. Lots of season left, we just need to pick up, move on, and beat Mizzou at home on Saturday.
Good things to take away:
- Room for improvement. Honestly, that's all I got. We did nothing this game that I could consider net positive. We completely shit the bed so bad over 35 minutes of basketball that it completely overshadows the 5 minutes we played decent. The only reason this game wasn't 30 at the end was because KU's "Top 5 guard in the country" (could you be any more of a complete asinine homer, Dave Armstrong?) Tyshawn Taylor managed to cough the ball up 8 times. Every single facet of the game needs to be improved upon when we play Mizzou on Saturday.
Things to improve upon:
- Everything, but I'll give some specific examples here. Let's start with coherence. This team looked like it honestly did not know what it was doing for the greater part of the game. No movement on offense; rather, no intelligible offense to speak of. No tenacity on defense, continual late or non-existent rotations for driving players. Only two or three examples of ball-hawking, unlike the swarming scrappiness we usually have. I want the team that played the last several games back.
- Rebounding. That was downright atrocious. We came into the game Top 30 in the NCAA in rebounding, and managed to get outrebounded 48-24. Let me say that again: FORTY-FRICKIN-EIGHT TO TWENTY-FOUR. That's hustle. That's desire. That's heart. Yes, I'm questioning our team's heart right now. It needs to be questioned.
- Offensive execution. Inept. Stagnant. Incoherent. How many more adjectives do you need for our offensive prowess tonight? Funny enough, we actually got two more shots up than KU on the evening. But when they're not really good looks (6 AST on 18 made FG), that's a problem with not running the offense. The pinch-post offense we run is VERY effective. But dang it, you gotta run it for it to work. We seriously need to stick our second five out there on defense in practice, and run the freaking offense for an hour straight. Every day.
Individual Player Analysis
Starters:
- Rodney McGruder: C+. Put up OK stats with 15 PTS, 5 REB, 3 STL, 1 AST and only 1 TO in team high 39 minutes. His looks were mostly pretty open, actually; just couldn't put them down. Took 14 shots for 15 points - terrible efficiency. His off-the-ball effort seemed pretty listless and lazy at times.
- Martavious Irving: B. 7 PTS on 3-5 shooting, and 3 STL. Made some shots when we absolutely could not go another possession without points, and actually played decent on-ball D. However, he did get burned a number of times when the ball came quickly to his man from two or three passes away.
- Will Spradling: C-. Put up lots of numbers (5 PTS, 2 REB, 5 AST, 1 STL, 4 TO, and a partridge in a pear tree) for having literally no measurable effect on the game whatsoever. He was once a basketball player like the others, until he took an elbow to the head from Tyshawn Taylor (which was clearly a clear-out play - a point of emphasis this year in officiating and should have resulted in a Flagrant 1 called, but since we're in AFH, it was a foul on Sprads). Bonus points for Skyrim reference. 5 PTS on 7 shots is worse than terrible.
- Jamar Samuels: C-. JamSam put up 12 PTS, 5 REB, 1 STL, and 2 BLK in 4-1/2 minutes. Book shows he played for 28, but he was really only present in the game for the first 90 seconds, then 3 minutes of the stretch where we clawed back in the second half. He took 5 3PFG (!) making 2. If we have Jamar launching from 3 at that rate, we better be up big, or we're probably behind. Considerably.
- Thomas Gipson: D. This was the game I was worried about. The Big Gip went scoreless, but did manage to grab 3 REB. Only played 16 minutes, largely due to his obvious ineffectiveness against the play of Thomas Robinson. Too much to ask of a freshman that is an inch taller than me but weighs just short of 3 bills.
Bench:
- Jordan Henriquez: B-. Was playing one of his better games in the first half (honestly, one of the bright spots on the team), then quickly eroded it in the second. Finished with a bunch of 4s: 4 PTS, 4 TO, 4 REB, 4 Fouls, and 2 BLK. The guy missed about four dunks. Dude, finish. Seriously. Oh, and 0-4 FT. Yahtzee.
- Angel Rodriguez: D. 1 TO, 1 REB, and four missed shots in 10 minutes. Largely ineffective (slow and sloppy) on both ends of the court.
- Nino Williams: B. Honestly - the only guy that looked like he was playing with heart the entire time he was out there. Got the call in the first half - which was a little confusing - but made the most of it with 5 PTS, 4 REB and 1 STL in 12 minutes...all as an undersized 4-man. At least someone looked like they wanted to play tonight.
- Shane Southwell: D-. Didn't mention the Paradox once in the game thread, which tells you all you need to know. Managed 1 BLK and 1 missed FG in 9 minutes. Could be his least productive night of his collegiate career. Anon needs to look that up for me.
- Jeremy Jones and Adrian Diaz both made the floor, but were getting either garbage minutes at the end of the game or were so largely ineffective that no remarkable mention can be made.
No one else saw the floor.
So, with that, I'm on my way to Dallas in the AM to go bowling. Hopefully HBCK, HCBS, and the CATS can go make them pigs squeeeeeeeal. SUEY! Follow my Twitter if you want (@BigE_29er) for minor updates - I promised Pan I'd talk about any plans for BSFS renovations described at the pep rally.
Good night, and big balls.
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This was appropriate summary
Beyond that, I’m convinced we’re a better team top-to-bottom. Seeing the way our guys played tonight, I’m not sure they are convinced of it, and THAT’S the reason why we lost.
All we need is one guy who decides this team is going to win, regardless. Need a Clemente or a Henson. Several candidates but no takers so far.
I would have liked to see more of the younger players late in the game so they can get used to AFH while playing instead of sitting on the bench. Once we were down by 15 again, I think everyone knew the game was over.
The time for calm and rational discourse is past, now is the time for senseless bickering -Anonymous the Younger
bringonthecats.com, K-State's SBnation blog where I hang out during games.
by Anon_the_younger on Jan 4, 2012 10:33 PM CST reply actions
Of all the guys I thought Irving played with the least fear.
He’s obviously experienced so it makes sense. I thought he should have played more minutes and been encouraged to continue to create on offense.
"Beyond that, I’m convinced we’re a better team top-to-bottom."
Based on what? Self’s a far better coach, and Robinson is the best player in the league. This team completely wet the bed against a team that tried desperately to piss the game away.
You’re nicer than I am BigE. No one gets a passing grade for this turd, and I think the coaching staff should donate their portion of the pay for this disaster to charity, in addition to running until they puke. Every person associated with KSU basketball should be ashamed of themselves. I don’t care this is what happens every year in Lawrence, KSU’s program is better than this. I’m fully expecting Missouri to come into Manhattan on Saturday and crush this team.
"If you don't want to work, become a reporter. That awful power, the public opinion of the nation, was created by a horde of self-complacent simpletons who failed at ditch digging and shoemaking and fetched up journalism on their way to the poorhouse." - Mark Twain
BOYCOTT ESPN!
by Sean T on Jan 4, 2012 10:44 PM CST reply actions 2 recs
Oh, calm down...
First of all, I have no less than 6 KU games under my belt from watching other games this year. They honestly played average to above-average, IMO. I’ve also seen all but the first two rounds of the Diamond Head Classic on our side. So I have a pretty decent sample size of what I’m basing my assessment of each team on. I know that KU is Thomas Robinson, a couple of key shots from Teahan, whatever they can get out of Elijah Johnson, and crossed-fingers that Tyshawn won’t blow the whole thing up. Honestly – not much different than us last year.
That being said, KU does have better talent across the board. They always will. I don’t care how much of a “program” we think we’ve built here, or what we’ve had in the past – KU will for the foreseeable future out-talent us. But the makeup of our team – i.e. no one true go-to guy, no “that guy” – means we will generally have a more spread attack, rely on team basketball, and will give us chances to win games against teams that have better talent.
Robinson is the best player in the league, I’ll give you that. I think that saying that Self being a far better coach – in the manner that I’m reading into your comment – sells HCFM short. He may very well be a better coach than HCFM, but he’s also had a lot more chances at it. I’m quite certain Bill Self has been doing this much longer than HCFM (to the tune of about 10 more years), and frankly (no pun intended), HCFM has a lot more to show for his early career than Self does.
I tried to let very little emotion or bias get wrapped into the write-up. We got beat by a team that is admittedly superior athletically, in their place, because we didn’t really have anyone show up. I’ll be the first to admit that I hate KU with a passion second to none. Anyone that has seen us play a considerable amount this year KNOWS that we’re A LOT better than what we showed tonight. If an average showing would have happened – say our other loss against WVU – we probably would have been right in it at the end of the game, with a decent chance to win. The team’s value doesn’t necessarily drop off a cliff just because they had a brainfart in a game that we all would give up our firstborn to win.
I mean, when I do these grades, I won’t give someone an F unless they pull something like Holloway (XU), Gates (Cincy) or any of those guys. That’s failure. That’s just not getting it. As miserable of an effort it looked like at times, no one completely failed Kansas State University in this game. Here’s my general (loose) criteria:
A – exemplary performance, someone you might give a game ball to.
B – Solid, decent play. Might make up for a lack of stats with the “little things”. A “good” game. Good grade for a bench player, or what we should expect as average from our better players.
C – Meh. Didn’t get what we needed, but didn’t completely foul things up, either. Average for a bench player, below average for a good player.
D – Lack of effort, a waste of minutes, or high levels of ineffectiveness.
Based on that, how would you objectively grade each player tonight? Because I don’t know that I would change any of them.
Oh, come on now. That's just stupid.
Twitter - @BigE_29er
One bone of contention:
I think that saying that Self being a far better coach – in the manner that I’m reading into your comment – sells HCFM short. He may very well be a better coach than HCFM, but he’s also had a lot more chances at it. I’m quite certain Bill Self has been doing this much longer than HCFM (to the tune of about 10 more years), and frankly (no pun intended), HCFM has a lot more to show for his early career than Self does.
I love Frank, but saying Self is a far better coach is just stating the obvious. He is. Frank may well get to his level some day, but he’s not there yet, and it’s not particularly close at this point. I don’t think Frank would even have any qualms admitting that.
As for Self’s early career, it’s impossible to compare him with Frank. Self took over a horrendously awful ORU team, and won 21 games with them by his fourth year (when he was 34 or 35). Then he went to Tulsa, and won 32 games, and went to the Elite Eight by his third year there, when he was still only 38 or 39. Frank has just had such a different “early career” experience (including not becoming a head coach until he was 41) that it’s impossible to compare them in that regard.
by Collin's Bloody Elbow on Jan 5, 2012 12:24 AM CST up reply actions
Bill Self's eyes have to light up like a Christmas Tree
when he sees the defense that KSU plays, the over-playing on the weak side, bigs playing pressure D 45 feet from the basket. The number of back door cuts for easy buckets just takes it out of our kids.
KU is the best defensive team in the league, year- in and year out. Watch how they play. They play pretty much straight up man, a little overplay of the passing lanes on the strong side, with help, WHEN NEEDED. This way, a player is in a position to box his man out when a shot goes up, and get the rebound. We are always out of position, even on the defensive end, to be a good rebounding team against KU, and it sure showed tonight. That rebounding margin was hideous (although I will say our players gave subpar effort in actually GRABBING THE FRICKIN ball tonight, and that has little to do with schemes).
oh hail the Purple and White
I think it's a give and take.
I think we need to overplay to force the issue. KU can play a settled in man defense because they are long and athletic enough to. We don’t have the same caliber of athletes across the board, so we have to play much more aggressively on D to force the issue. Yes, this gives up back door cuts all night long. The problem we ran into last night is that no one was rotating over. With proper rotation, the back door gets cut off.
Oh, come on now. That's just stupid.
Twitter - @BigE_29er
Aggressive D played correctly is not an issue.
When K-State wins it is because of good defensive play. When we lose, it is because of defensive lapses. You can call it overplaying defense but in my mind it is just good aggressive defense, you’ll get burnt occasionally but it pays off for the most part.
Last night’s issues when way beyond defense.
The time for calm and rational discourse is past, now is the time for senseless bickering -Anonymous the Younger
bringonthecats.com, K-State's SBnation blog where I hang out during games.
by Anon_the_younger on Jan 5, 2012 9:39 AM CST up reply actions 1 recs
"Last night’s issues when way beyond defense."
Absolutely.
And, imo, it is relegated to the team’s approach to AFH alone. I would be shocked if we see anything in the ballpark of last night’s “effort” again this year. I would hope we wouldn’t pull that shit in Columbia.
I think there are going to be a lot of fans that are surprised by how much differently the ku/KSU game is going to look in MHK.
by Itchy n Scratchy on Jan 5, 2012 9:49 AM CST up reply actions
Eh, we always play in dogshit in Columbia, too.
Frank hasn’t won there, either. Don’t expect that to change in our final visit.
But at least we finally should win in empty, forlorn Gallagher-Iba, right?
I'm just expecting something a little more than zombieland in Columbia ...
not to win, though. I don’t think anyone is winning in Columbia.
by Itchy n Scratchy on Jan 5, 2012 10:32 PM CST up reply actions
I agree that either could (especially Baylor) ...
I’m just leaning toward them not.
by Itchy n Scratchy on Jan 6, 2012 9:00 AM CST up reply actions
I agree that the Cats are a lot better than they showed tonight, they'd have to be
But I can’t take away a single good thing from this game. The run the Cats made was enabled by awful play by KU, and even then the Cats couldn’t finish the run because of stupid plays. And I think you’re right, an average night from the Cats would have made this a 2 or 3 possession game at the end, but that wasn’t an average night, that was the most awful basketball I’ve seen from KSU since last year’s debacle in Lawrence. I blame the coaching staff for the crappy play.
There was a shot of Martin early on when the Cats were down by 18 or whatever it was, and he simply looked bored. Bored? Really? The same guy who will howl at one of his players for not boxing out correctly is getting obliterated at a rival, and he’s BORED?!?! He looked like he simply surrendered the game after 4 or 5 minutes.
"If you don't want to work, become a reporter. That awful power, the public opinion of the nation, was created by a horde of self-complacent simpletons who failed at ditch digging and shoemaking and fetched up journalism on their way to the poorhouse." - Mark Twain
BOYCOTT ESPN!
I blocked this stat until I read Curtis' recap of the game
KSU was out-rebounded 50-26. If that’s not and indictment of the entire organization, I don’t know what is.
"If you don't want to work, become a reporter. That awful power, the public opinion of the nation, was created by a horde of self-complacent simpletons who failed at ditch digging and shoemaking and fetched up journalism on their way to the poorhouse." - Mark Twain
BOYCOTT ESPN!
It's an indictment of a shameful (in basketball terms) performance last night ...
And an indictment of Frank’s approach to playing in AFH. imo, nothing larger than that.
by Itchy n Scratchy on Jan 5, 2012 9:20 AM CST up reply actions
I can't either...I believe I said as much.
The only thing we can do after a game like that is pick up and move on.
Oh, come on now. That's just stupid.
Twitter - @BigE_29er
x
" I know that KU is Thomas Robinson, a couple of key shots from Teahan, whatever they can get out of Elijah Johnson, and crossed-fingers that Tyshawn won’t blow the whole thing up."
Man, that is 100% accurate.
Other than the gigantic factor of KSU pissing its pants for the first 12 minutes of the game last night, the one thing that pissed me off the most was when we put a token zone out there (right in the middle of our fucking comeback) to give up the 2 three’s to Teahan. THAT’S ALL THE GUY CAN FUCKING DO. IF YOU ARE GOING TO PLAY A ZONE WITH HIM ON THE COURT, ONE OF YOUR GUYS CANNOT LEAVE HIS PRESENCE … EVEN IF THAT MEANS GIVING UP A WIDE OPEN LOOK TO ANYONE ELSE. It effectively decided the game from that point on, because it broke our back, mentally. I don’t even think the guys were tired from the comeback. I just think they broke mentally after that.
by Itchy n Scratchy on Jan 5, 2012 9:17 AM CST up reply actions
I wonder if KSU's defense is a little bigoted
How many white guys have the Cats let get off easy 3 pointers in the last few seasons? That little bitch for Oklahoma State, Wisconsin’s entire team, Teahan, Iowa State at home two years ago. What do you think?
"If you don't want to work, become a reporter. That awful power, the public opinion of the nation, was created by a horde of self-complacent simpletons who failed at ditch digging and shoemaking and fetched up journalism on their way to the poorhouse." - Mark Twain
BOYCOTT ESPN!
I think our coaches have a problem pounding certain specific ideas into our players' heads ...
regarding game plan.
Either our coaches made little effort to impress upon the guys how important it is not to allow Teahan to shoot wide open 3s … or the guys just couldn’t find it in their mental abilities to take note of that little piece of info.
I prefer to think it’s the latter, since college basketball players aren’t exactly brain surgeons and the idea that we didn’t make a point of not allowing Teahan to shoot open jumpers as part of our game strategy is just too horrifying to contemplate.
Kevin Jones getting off an open look from 3 to tie the WV game was another instance. There is just no way that should have been possible under those circumstances.
by Itchy n Scratchy on Jan 5, 2012 9:34 AM CST up reply actions
My take on grades
A – play makes you wonder where that’s been
B – play above normal expectations
C – what I would normally expect from the player
D – play below normal expectations
F – play makes you wonder what the heck
Last night there were few C’s and lots of D’s. Rodney is a good example, decent stats but watching the game he showed a lack of hustle on several plays that marks him down to more of a D+. Gipson I would give a C to since he had good defense on Robinson, okay it didn’t prevent Robinson from scoring, but he did not have good offensive statistics.
JO as much as I like the kid needs to learn to shoot an 8’-12’ jumper in the lane. He can drive the lane from the high post as he showed in HI, but last night his attempts at this did not work out well. If he had spotted up at 8’, easy 2 points. Then again his FT’s shooting is bad enough that maybe he wouldn’t score shooting an 8’ jumper.
Overall the team was a D-, they came out and played for a couple of possessions then disappeared until the 2nd half. After closing the deficit to 3, the team did not continue to play.
Coaching was an F. KU played excellent D, K-State played cruddy D. You could see the KU offense and what they were going to do, yet K-State still gave up easy baskets. The zone defense allowing 2 open 3’s by the same player who is known to shoot threes really well, that was just not good. On offense the players did not execute and when they began running the offense, KU was right there to prevent easy shots.
I’m still happy with the team, but that performance was not something anyone from K-State should be proud of.
The time for calm and rational discourse is past, now is the time for senseless bickering -Anonymous the Younger
bringonthecats.com, K-State's SBnation blog where I hang out during games.
by Anon_the_younger on Jan 5, 2012 9:36 AM CST up reply actions
It was one game.
In a place that Frank obviously has no idea how to prepare the team for.
MU is not crushing anyone on Saturday. This was the worst possible thing that could have happened for MU.
All ku did was hold serve. And the only thing we learned about KSU that we didn’t already know for sure was that Frank definitely can’t deal with AFH.
by Itchy n Scratchy on Jan 5, 2012 9:12 AM CST up reply actions
Kudos for a great write up
And not putting this one on the refs
by 2.1 seconds left on Jan 4, 2012 11:01 PM CST reply actions 1 recs
I really didn't need to pin the refs.
The refs didn’t lose that one. I’ll bitch and complain during the game about missed calls, but I can guarantee we could go back through the game tape and find that it’s pretty even. Bad both ways, but even.
Oh, come on now. That's just stupid.
Twitter - @BigE_29er
I thought the refs were okay outside of Taylor wacking Spradling in the head with his elbows. How the hell is that a foul on Spradling?
"If you don't want to work, become a reporter. That awful power, the public opinion of the nation, was created by a horde of self-complacent simpletons who failed at ditch digging and shoemaking and fetched up journalism on their way to the poorhouse." - Mark Twain
BOYCOTT ESPN!
Yeah, that was crap.
And the fact they went to the monitor and still didn’t get it right was atrocious.
Oh, come on now. That's just stupid.
Twitter - @BigE_29er
I think the refs got it mostly right.
it’s one of the “Major Officiating Concerns” in the 2011-2012 rulebook to cut down on the overzealous calling of flagrant 1 fouls that resulted from the point of emphasis last season.
I.e. Spradling getting brushed in the head by Taylor trying to start the dribble (not swinging), then doing a half-assed job selling it to a ref ain’t gonna do it.
So… Should it have been a flagrant 1? By last year’s draconian rules, yes. But not this year. The refs were not insane.
Should it have been a blocking foul on Spradling otherwise? Not sure.
Did it affect the outcome of the game? Was the game overall officiated unfairly? I can’t see an honest case for “yes” on either one of these.
I'm shocked* that a KU fan would call Taylor's elbow "getting brushed in the head."
*By “shocked” I mean “completely unsurprised at all.”
by Collin's Bloody Elbow on Jan 7, 2012 4:16 PM CST up reply actions
I've been making the rounds with friends
Everyone seems to think Martin punted on this one because: A. He was so calm on the bench and B. there was no offense run or coached.
He was bitching earlier today that they had a bad practice yesterday. Would anyone be surprised if he just kick up his boots and took a, “If you don’t want to listen to me because your heads are getting being ranked, go win on your own” attitude? It sounds just like him. Losing to KU doesn’t hurt you (although by 18 might) and if we turn around and beat them at home by more than 5 everyone will call it a wash. You best believe the boys will paying attention in practice tomorrow. Hopefully Frank won’t be dumb enough to make them run too much. We need fresh legs Saturday.
When life hands you lemons, make grape juice. Let them wonder how the F*ck you did it.
Fight till Hell freezes over and then fight them on the ice.
by BlackCats on Jan 4, 2012 11:50 PM CST reply actions 3 recs
The "punting it" part, or the running them and killing their legs for Saturday part?
by Collin's Bloody Elbow on Jan 5, 2012 12:25 AM CST up reply actions
Good on you, regarding the spread ...
I really didn’t want to believe that our guys were still so dumbstruck.
Until proven otherwise, there is no KSU value at all in any spread whatsoever in AFH. No matter who is on either team.
Guess I was good on the o/u, though.
by Itchy n Scratchy on Jan 5, 2012 11:28 AM CST up reply actions
rec'd ...
I could see that being a possibility.
It’s either that or he really is totally flummoxed by that place.
Either way, two teams had a bad night last night in lawrence. KSU and MU.
by Itchy n Scratchy on Jan 5, 2012 11:23 AM CST up reply actions
I guess the shiny trophy was still dancing like sugar plums in their heads...
nicely shanked boys.
The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather in a lack of will. - Vince Lombardi
Point of disagreement -
BigE, you said: “Off the cuff, the decision to really try and pound the ball inside to draw fouls on KU’s two bigs – Thomas Robinson and Jeff Withey – appears to make sense.”
Sorry, this strategy, which is what Frank always tries to do in Allen, is wrong, first, because THE VISITING TEAM NEVER GETS THE CALLS early when in Allen. And second, KU’s bigs are better than our bigs.
You could tell we came out looking to run our offense specfically to get the ball down low and to the rack, rather than run our offense in order to get a good look, where ever the “look” might be. Until Frank gets over his macho, tough guy act on this point, we will continue to get our ass handed to us in Allen.
Frank does not know how to set a game plan to create mismatches and exploit weaknesses in the other teams D.
And his comments before the game that “it is so loud there that it makes it hard for me to communicate with my team” pissed me off to no end. Hey, here’s an idea: coach during the week, and let the players execute a game plan they work on in practice. Shouting directions to your players from the bench, at all times during the game, tells me your practices ain’t gettin it done.
oh hail the Purple and White
I think you and I are in complete agreement, actually.
All things being equal, if I know the best thing the other team has going for them is a very good big, and things drop off considerably after that, I would definitely pound it inside to get him out of there. But it doesn’t work, for the reasons you and I both agree on. I’m not saying it was a good decision for our game, I’m saying it’s the right decision most of the time.
Oh, come on now. That's just stupid.
Twitter - @BigE_29er
Agreed ...
You should never, never, ever go to AFH with a strategy of getting players in foul trouble.
If you have the offensive talent to consistently finish plays … sure, go ahead, because you should be attacking the rim in that case anyway.
That strategy was just another piece of evidence of how Frank doesn’t really get AFH yet.
by Itchy n Scratchy on Jan 5, 2012 9:24 AM CST up reply actions
I should ammend ...
I don’t have an issue with attacking the rim against ku in AFH (or against anyone anywhere, pretty much) … you just can’t feed offensively substandard post players with any expectation that anything good is going to come from it.
by Itchy n Scratchy on Jan 5, 2012 9:25 AM CST up reply actions
What is going on
with post players just blindly flinging the ball toward the rim. I just don’t see any progress being made in being able to finish around the rim. While Jamar has improved other areas of his game, this looks exactly the same as it did 2 years ago.
The coaches said recently the problem here - Jamar looks to draw fouls too often.
He’s very good at it and it’s overall a major positive to his game. But sometimes he focuses on it too much instead of just trying to make the bucket. It’s too late to think he’ll find the right middle ground here. Jamar is a solid, not great player, who does a lot of good things out there. Finishing strong in traffic will never be one of those things.
Coaching & Players
I hate to kick my beloved Cats, however, they deserve it. I watched first 10 minutes of game and could not take it any longer and switched to “Moonshiners”. It was so obvious that we could not play defense or offense and did not have any basketball IQ. We basically did what we have done all season but it does not work against a great team that is well coached. We had our bigs pressure the ball 40 feet from the basketball and they went right around us and scored. We are not smart enough to rebound, a good high school team would have got more rebounds that we did. We think rebounding is simply jumping high from wherever you are on the floor. Where is the coaching of recognizing the angle that the ball will come off the rim and position yourself with a hip on someone?
Disagree ...
The team that played the first 12 minutes and the last 9 minutes last night is not even in the same universe as the team we have watched so far this season.
All the guys did the first 12 minutes was stand around, let ku get any shot they wanted and let ku get any rebound they wanted. They were zombies.
All the guys did in the last 9 minutes was mentally check out when the comeback didn’t get over the hump.
And ku is nowhere near a great team (what does that say about our effort?).
I can’t argue with your choice to change channels, though.
by Itchy n Scratchy on Jan 5, 2012 9:30 AM CST up reply actions
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