Is the Golden Era over?

[Deleted User 89]

05

thanks

[NewtonHawk11]

So here's my final thoughts after sleeping on it twice..

We were fortunate to have a tournament this year. I'm glad I watched ball for 4 straight days and that made me happy.

We are who we thought we were. An inconsistent team with a high upside, but an unbelievably low floor as well.

We had some good wins over Baylor, Creighton, West Va, swept a solid Texas Tech squad.

But man we had some gross losses, USC, Tennessee, swept by Texas.

Self grew soft, and he admitted as such. He became more focused on mental stuff about the guys than ever before. He flipped a bit of a switch in February, but he still stayed pretty calm throughout the year.

The team lacked a true alpha guy. We were extremely spoiled to go from Frank to Devonte to Devon.

The team was really small. Clemence and KJ Adams will help with that.

CB HAS to have a quick trigger. He's one of the best shooters out there, he is too passive with it though.

Ochai has to be able to drive and finish in traffic.

Dave has to slow down. When he slows down, he is one of the best bigs in the country.

The staff needs a shakeup. I'd be fine with KT and Howard being shown the door. Self is far too loyal for that to happen, but it's something that probably should happen.

I'll always be excited for Kansas basketball. The interest has definitely waned though based on the recent tournament performances. I wish that I had something that pulls me right back in. And a deep run in the tournament would do that.

We're kind of a ways away now from the 3 straight seasons of Elite 8 or better. We need that back to get the morale of the program back up.

[ousdahl]

CB has to have a quick trigger, sure, but dunno if that’s an option with his drawn out shot form.

I kind of wonder if Dave would benefit from the senior Dok diet. Loose 20 pounds and maybe he wouldn’t miss so many dunks. And it’d be one thing if he used his mass to play bully ball, but that’s not really his style.

Maybe it should be his style - at least get better about establishing position to score before he gets the ball, rather than have to square up and give time for the help to come double.

[Deleted User 863]

Dave ain't Dok. We've got to move away from that comparison. Dok was a historically dominant low post college basketball player. What he did is not easily replicated.

[PhDhawk]

I'm not the biggest adidas guy in the world either but the amount of money they threw at us compared to what other apparel brands were going to give us was insane.

$14M a year. Nike isn't paying you that. Under Armour is a sinking brand. Don't really have another option.

We'd also be 4th or 5th in line at Nike.

At Adidas we are (or at least were) at the front of the line. Better to be the biggest fish in a medium pond than a fairly big fish in a big lake.

Either Adidas stopped filling up the duffel bags, Bill Self had his Pete Bell from Blue Chips moment and is doing everything on the up and up, or the negative recruiting/scrutiny is working against us.

[PhDhawk]

So here's my final thoughts after sleeping on it twice..

We were fortunate to have a tournament this year. I'm glad I watched ball for 4 straight days and that made me happy.

We are who we thought we were. An inconsistent team with a high upside, but an unbelievably low floor as well.

We had some good wins over Baylor, Creighton, West Va, swept a solid Texas Tech squad.

But man we had some gross losses, USC, Tennessee, swept by Texas.

Self grew soft, and he admitted as such. He became more focused on mental stuff about the guys than ever before. He flipped a bit of a switch in February, but he still stayed pretty calm throughout the year.

The team lacked a true alpha guy. We were extremely spoiled to go from Frank to Devonte to Devon.

The team was really small. Clemence and KJ Adams will help with that.

CB HAS to have a quick trigger. He's one of the best shooters out there, he is too passive with it though.

Ochai has to be able to drive and finish in traffic.

Dave has to slow down. When he slows down, he is one of the best bigs in the country.

The staff needs a shakeup. I'd be fine with KT and Howard being shown the door. Self is far too loyal for that to happen, but it's something that probably should happen.

I'll always be excited for Kansas basketball. The interest has definitely waned though based on the recent tournament performances. I wish that I had something that pulls me right back in. And a deep run in the tournament would do that.

We're kind of a ways away now from the 3 straight seasons of Elite 8 or better. We need that back to get the morale of the program back up.

Agree with most of this.

What's lost on the people who say this team is better than others is just how low the floor was with this team. When it shit the bed....it SHIT the bed. but also had some good moments.

I don't think the staff NEEDS a shake up. But man, can we send each assistant to a summer camp with either NBA teams, international teams, successful DII teams, anything to bring in some new ideas?

[CrimsonNBlue]

I do agree on the low floor. Overall, it was a better team than what it showed in many games. The up and down swings the team showed all season was pretty disappointing.

I can't give Bill a good grade on coaching overall because of that. I was so frustrated with Bill because of how stubborn he was early on and insisting on doing it his way. He did, and we got slaughtered.

[ousdahl]

Dave ain't Dok. We've got to move away from that comparison. Dok was a historically dominant low post college basketball player. What he did is not easily replicated.

Of course Dave ain’t Dok. Dude was historically good.

But I’m talking footwork in the post here. Basic fundamentals. Could I instead use the example of Landen Lucas for you? Cuz that dude too was better at sealing his man than Dave.

I don’t think it’s a stretch to expect Dave to improve fundamentals. It’s that Dave seems to think of himself less as a 260 pound old school big, and more as some Dirk wannabe.

I wanna see him get his defender on his hip and catch the ball in rhythm toward an easy layup cuz the d was already beat. Instead, he too often catches and collects and tries some fadeaway type thing over a squared up defender, often two defenders, since the help got the chance to come double.

Is that really what we want for our post offense?

[Deleted User 863]

I felt like we had a low floor, but it also felt like we had a low ceiling too. I can't remember more than a few games where i thought we looked elite like teams of the past.

[ousdahl]

I suppose our ceiling was the first West Virginia game, when Jalen/Christian/Och/Marcus combined for 16 threes?

[PhDhawk]

I suppose our ceiling was the first West Virginia game, when Jalen/Christian/Och/Marcus combined for 16 threes?

Second half of our first tournament game, the Baylor game, both TTU games.

[pdub]

I know TCU was not a good team but I need to throw that one in there in terms of gellin/flowin/makinitrain.

[CrimsonNBlue]

TCU was the rebound the ball and fucking run game.

Never understood why we never saw that again. Sure, you can't do it all the time because it takes Dave out of the game, but we needed to play games this season a few different styles throughout the game.

It felt silly then and it feels really silly now to have kept contributing to the Mitch Lightfoot make a wish foundation when come tournament time we had Braun and Garrett getting pounded on by the other team's 5 position player.

[ousdahl]

Remember the games when feeding Dave in the post wasn’t working so we’d adjust by feeding Mitch in the post instead?

But that is in no small part cuz of guards standing around

[pdub]

And Dave still had an impact in that one ( @TCU ) too.
( Enaruna had one of his better games as well )

[ousdahl]

Man I’d love to get Tristan up to speed.

He could be a heck of a back up 5...about the same size as Mitch but moves better to switch

[CrimsonNBlue]

We always knew Tristan would be a late bloomer because of his past, so this was expected. But, the concern is that he doesn't look much better than when he first got here.

Like turnovers from TGF, I get it, but Tristan is god awful there and has been in the program for 2 full years. I would have liked for him not to be unplayable at this point, and we still see that from him. He is even further behind Wilson and Braun than he was when they first arrived on campus.

[Leawood]

I don't understand the negativity. The pandemic ruined the last two seasons. Television fans were lucky to have this year.

No fans at the games, which is important from a "fun" factor. The games this year were little more than scrimmages. When there are fans, the kids get juiced. That was not there this year, and, to me, it is not on the coaches that the lack of fans need a substitute.

[Deleted User 863]

I think a lot of the negativity is more of an accumulation factor.

[CrimsonNBlue]

I don't understand the negativity. The pandemic ruined the last two seasons. Television fans were lucky to have this year.

No fans at the games, which is important from a "fun" factor. The games this year were little more than scrimmages. When there are fans, the kids get juiced. That was not there this year, and, to me, it is not on the coaches that the lack of fans need a substitute.

That is a very fair point. We clearly saw that college sports need fans to be good. So I suppose, why wouldn't the players be better with fans?