We're up by 3 on everyone but Texas and OU.

@RockChalkBlog: If KU wins out this week and Iowa State can take care of Oklahoma in Ames, #kubball will have a three game lead on every team in the #Big12.

Really. Shit the bed pistols firing?? ROFL

Winning out this week won't be easy to do, of course.

Think so, yeah. Although he's sure making it look like he doesn't need anyone's coat tails.

One game at a time.

This was Gott's prediction for both of the Big Monday games...

“@GottliebShow: Taking #Duke and #OState tonight - Pitt struggles vs stretch 4 teams- Pokes struggle vs size (OU isn't big)"

LMAO it's hard to take this guy seriously. This was just one example too mind you. He has no objectivity in his "analysis." I love watching/listening to him because he's OSU's version of Knowmo.

I was wondering if anyone would catch that.

I would have taken OSU in that game as well, TBH.

:clap:

I didn't think they'd win because of the craziness Smart was going through. I thought he was rattled on Saturday and that it'd linger into this game. The guy is young and learning how to be a leader. I think he's embarrassed of his actions and that may have affected his and the team's play tonight. Great player but obviously they have a ways to go, like every other team right now.

Did something happen off the court? Or just losing?

Sorry I've been out all week.

He was acting all Dennis Rodman Saturday when he fouled out. Kicked the chair and shit. Out of character. He apologized...on twitter. I'm assuming he apologized to his team in person but there was no word that I know of anyway. It was weird. I think that carried over. His teammates looked at him they were disgusted with him during his tantrum.

I thought they'd win because they're still the superior team talent-wise.

And they're still easily the biggest threat to KU winning 10 straight. Smart is going to will his team to wins in conference play. I'm just thankful OU put a little more distant between us and them.

Smart's the only reason why OSU is any good at all. Even when he shoots poorly from the field, he's almost always their best player anyway because of everything else he contributes. He has nothing to apologize for.

Tonight, though, was pretty much a 50/50 game for them. If I was picking before it, I'd probably have leaned towards the home team for the officiating benefits (which OU clearly got tonight). They'll be fine, though, and are still likely to beat us in Stillwater (if you think Smart's flopping worked at AFH, wait until you see it there), so it's good to have another game on them at this point.

Looks like he was right on the mark with the Duke game anyway. I have no real problem with him. He's one of the few in the media that makes a point of giving Self a ton of credit for the incredible streak of B12 titles. In fact, last year, I specifically remember him calling KU the best program in the country during that late night show he's on.

http://imageshack.com/a/img208/5718/trj.gif

Smart would hit more shots if he focused less on drawing fouls. He fakes contact on most of his three's. Did you see the gif of his flop while dribbling down court to end the game?

OU foul called

Our own beloved HCBS called him a "pro at drawing fouls". He made sure to clarify that he didn't mean Smart was a "flopper", only that he was exceptionally good at calling attention to fouls and making sure they were called.

I still can't hate the guy for this. He's the best at his position and will likely be a top 5 pick and be an absolute star for some NBA squad. He's really, really, really good. And if over-exaggerating is his fatal flaw, I assure you I could live with it as an NCAA or NBA fan.

It's not even exactly a flaw. This particular skill of his is helping his teams get a lot of calls at this level and it will help him do it at the next level too.

I meant from a fan (in particular rival fan) perspective, it could be construed as a flaw.

I understand the benefit of it.

Well the B12 is not going to lay down for us but they are making it much easier.

Doubt he's worried about it at all. In his eyes, I'm sure that perception is just a small price to pay for getting some extra calls his team's way.

He's actually not.

WSU > ISU, this year and last. By a wide margin.

Smart...

LMAO

He just seems to be getting bitter and being more of a fan now than a member of the media. I can understand though. I'd imagine if my allegiance lied elsewhere in the Big 12 my respect for KU would start to lean to hate and cloud my judgement after the 9th straight time they won the conference my team was in lol. So I guess I can't blame him.

I'm not sure taking OSU in that game would have been any kind of stretch nor would I say he was being a homer.

Ugh, what a clown. :shake:

haha

He's the biggest homer in the media.

How so? I must of missed a bunch of stuff because I've always thought he was pretty decent.

He is, though. There's no PG better than Marcus Smart in the NCAA. Has a huge impact on the game in a number of ways.

If he hates KU, it certainly doesn't show through his work. At least in my experience with watching/listening/reading him.

Twitter.

Not just twitter but more recently during halftime of the OSU/KU game. And Seth Davis was calling him out on it. Davis calls him out on twitter at times as well. They're good friends though it's just funny. He still gives teams their props it just seems like it has gotten a little homered recently. Understandable. Hey just today he said KU was gonna win the conference. He's a former player so it's hard to keep it in check at times.

If you look at his legs and not his elbow, he's being tripped by the Gooner. That is , again, clearly a foul on the defense

I've followed him on Twitter for years. Haven't noticed anything that would indicate hatred of KU. He did call out the officials in the KU/OSU game last week for some of their calls, I guess, but KU did get the benefit of most of them (as they usually do at AFH).

Agreed, it was definitely a foul on the defensive player. Exaggerating the contact and flinging himself on the ground successfully drew attention to it.

Lol he doesn't hate them. He's just getting a little Knowmo.

You did kind of just say he hated them earlier, though.

No. He's getting bitter. As is the rest of the Big 12. That I don't blame him or them for.

I thought it was a little excessive.

so around what time frame was it that embiid had that knee injury that looked nasty and could've been bad, i didnt get to see the game saturday.

beginning of 2nd half. It looked bad.

I'm actually very thankful I was at a buddy's house and drunk bull-shitting in the kitchen, and missed the first part of the second half. I don't need those sort of panic moments.

Ennis. A few less points, but he fouls less, turns the ball over less, has more assists, shoots the same percentage and is better at the line (although he doesn't get there quite as often as Smart).

Ennis isn't the same caliber of NBA prospect, but that's different.

I haven't gotten a chance to see Syracuse play. I really should fix that. Hell, there's probably a ton of games on watchespn.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Acc. to <a href="https://twitter.com/GroupStats">@Groupstats</a>, Frankamp has been on floor 183 possessions. KU is +0.42(!!) PPP when he&#39;s on court and +0.10 when he&#39;s not.</p>&mdash; Jesse Newell (@jessenewell) <a href="https://twitter.com/jessenewell/statuses/428244331258859520">January 28, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

What is PPP?

Points per possession?

i was thinking maybe purchasing power parity? or maybe public private partnership? or maybe Paul's penis party? Oh wait maybe its points per posession? i dunno man

Meh. If I was watching a bunch of terrible calls go against my favorite team on the road, I'd probably make a point of mentioning it too (see KU/ISU game thread this month).

As a Canadian, I've made a point of watching a lot of Ennis this season to assess his NBA potential and I just can't agree here (even though the raw numbers are closer than I perhaps gave him credit for). He's very good right now, but he isn't even the best player on Syracuse (that would be CJ Fair).

In addition to being a better NBA prospect, Smart simply does more for his team than Ennis does (his PER is 27 this season, compared to Ennis' 23.8). OSU would not even be ranked without Smart's production (and probably wouldn't be that good at all, as their entire offense revolves around his ability to create shots for himself and others).

That said, Ennis is a very good passer in his own right, but he lacks those same elite creation skills that Smart does. If Ennis took on the same enormous role that Smart does for OSU, I think he'd have trouble handling it and maintaining his current efficiency levels.

Small sample size fluke, it would seem. Had the good fortune of being on during a lot of KU runs. Although I do think his presence helps with the team's spacing on offense.

Smart isn't always the best player on OSU.
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1...oma-state-back

NBA prospect doesn't enter into the equation, as I said before. We are talking about NCAA.

Smart is obviously very good, but he does a lot of really stupid shit, too.

I've noticed that in the past couple of seasons with Smart and the rest of the team... they take more than their share of really stupid shots.

No, regardless of a few ill-advised shots, he almost always is. Contributes in a variety of ways (scoring, facilitating, rebounding, defense) in a way and to an extent that nobody else on OSU does. Even when he shoots poorly, he has a huge impact on games.

I'm aware. Smart's the better NCAA player of the two at this point in their careers. He takes on a major responsibility for OSU and handles it very well.

Who doesn't at the college level? The point is that the positives far outweigh the negatives for him.

They've gotten much better in this regard than last year. Better offensive efficiency from the team as a whole (which speaks to Smart's distribution skills and Forte's ridiculous sharp shooting).

Well, he certainly impacted it last night. He was busy bricking shots while ignoring the guy who was 6-6 on his attempts from 3. Markel Brown has been a better player for his team than Smart lately.

Disagreed.

As good a shooter as he is, Forte relies on others to create shots for him (Smart being the key distributor this season in that regard). I'm assuming Smart's creation ability had a hand in a few of those shots yesterday.

And please, Markel Brown doesn't do half the things for OSU that Smart does.

Noted, but objectively he is. His antics really seem to have irked you.

Not really.

He shoots better from all over the court and turns it over less.

Antics aside, Smart isn't a particularly good ball handler, can't really shoot and tries to play the hero far too often. All he really does on offense is bully into the lane and try to draw a foul, but he's not a particularly good FT shooter, either. Last night, he was 3-11 from 3. He has to know that he's not a good shooter and pull back from that. That's what a good PG does. It's the reason people lambaste Tharpe for taking shots he shouldn't be taking when he shouldn't be the one shooting them (although that has cooled a bit since he started hitting them).

He's very, very good on defense, though. I can't really criticize anything about his game there.

Yes, Forte's shots come from the creation abilities of others (which, on that team, is mainly Smart).


And contributes less in every single area of basketball beyond the ability to hit open perimeter shots at a greater efficiency (that he generally doesn't create for himself). There is no comparison.



Among players from major basketball conferences (B10, B12, BE, AAC, ACC, P12, SEC) that take on as significant an offensive role for their teams as Smart (30% Poss), only Doug McDermott, Russ Smith, Jabari Parker, and Roberto Nelson have been more offensively efficient than Marcus Smart this season (by ORtg). For a guy who supposedly can't shoot or handle the ball (which isn't exactly true), he seems to find a way to contribute quite a lot offensively for his team. That speaks to his elite creation abilities (and yes, his ability to get to the line is a major part of that).

As for Tharpe, he's suddenly turned into one of the most efficient shooting guards in the country this season after being one of the worst last season (which Smart has clearly never been). If anything, Tharpe should be shooting more (although that might get him back into his old patterns).

An alumni who is on national TV often, and just a random fan. He's more under a scope than you are. Quite different.

Interestingly, Marcus Smart's closest statistical college comparison in both his freshman and sophomore seasons is '08 and '09 James Harden at ASU.

If Smart's ceiling as a NBA player is something like James Harden with great defense, perhaps he should be considered higher in the draft than he currently is.

That part is correct; I was talking about last night.

He still just isn't a great shooter. His handles are average. I'm not sure how heavily ORtg factors in getting fouled, but that's gotta be a big part of it.

I don't think anything he tweeted crossed the line. IIRC, he might have been engaging in trolling KU fans for a while after that game, but that's nothing unusual in the sports media game.

Didn't have a good game last night, but he still played a role in creating shots out there.

Not a great perimeter shooter right now, but his 2PT FG% has gone up a ton this year. And yes, FTs are part of it.

Depends on your interpretation. Neither of us know DG on a personal level, so we don't know if he was trolling or not.

I thought it was a little excessive for an alumni of his caliber. I would be embarrassed if I was an OSU fan.

But, to be fair -- I haven't seen him do it in re: any other B12 game. So, he must be jealous of KU's success.

https://twitter.com/GottliebShow

I'm just not seeing anything particularly bad on that feed. During the OSU game and after it, he questions a joke technical on Traylor, calls Embiid an NBA all-star, questions a few more calls both ways, jokes about Wiggins being missing, and then pokes fun at the fact that KU fans are so offended by Smart's flopping by posting that Paul Pierce Celtics fake injury image (which is probably where my trolling memory came from). I don't know what, if anything, he said on the broadcast, but based on that, you sure you're not being overly sensitive with this?

I'm not sure having an opinion based on a guy's tweets could be rationalized as being over sensitive.

I'm just trying to understand which tweets you had issue with. Don't see anything there that would cause embarrassment or could be described as excessive.

His usage rate was 50%, but he still shot 3-11 from deep. He was incredibly selfish last night and it is mostly why they lost.

He doesn't have nearly the shooting ability of Harden.

Actually, his stats are pretty damn close to Derrick Rose. He's obviously not as quick as Rose, but I think he will be very good in the pros. He's flopping too much, but I ****ing love how Smart plays the game otherwise.

Here's Rose's stats:

http://www.sports-reference.com/cbb/...ck-rose-1.html

and Smart's:

http://www.sports-reference.com/cbb/...s-smart-1.html

I think everyone here agrees with you. He's a great ball player and great for the conference. But, the flopping, man...

So much for Baylor getting an at large bid.

Drew is so, so, so bad.

Ouch. WTF are they doing? Christ they're loaded.

Sparty is shitting the bed, shower, stove, and couch.

They held Iowa without a FG for better than 15 minutes. Not 5 not 10. FIFTEEN ****ing minutes. And have bricked their way to only being up 2 and Iowa has the ball.

Being coached by Scott Drew. :D

ROFL