It's not something that's ever interested me... and it's one thing to turn a pro draft into a spectacle, but I've never liked the idea of doing it for high school kids.

Hugh Douglas back in the day changed my way of thinking... players sign or they don't, and in the long run you might be happier they never did. No need to stress about it or even give it more than a few minutes of your time.

@phoggg: #kubball MT“@JayJayUSATODAY: Julius Randle's mom Carolyn on KU visit: "Kansas fans were the best. They're the loudest & the best."

Best thing you can do is get you some of these. Your flow seems heavy today.

http://jeffpearlman.com/wp-content/u...ompact_LRG.jpg

What does it cost the school or the coach (or you) to have a recruit visit? The cost is insignificant, especially when 5 guys are already committed and make up the number 2 class in the country.

Honestly, Im not even sure Self wants all these top 3 recruits - a significant chunk are more trouble than they are worth. He wants a mature team, not to copy PayPal Cal's revolving door.

I used to follow KU recruiting and just got tired of hearing the same ole BS from all the recruits about how KU is so great and then choosing Minnesota or some such bullshit. Just gave up on it because the "experts" like Shay, or the guys at Phog know about as much about where a kid will end up as I do.

And even if kid X chooses KU, God only knows what type of player he's going to end up being. So, I just wait until the kid commits and see where he is as a freshman to really comment on where they are going to fit.

So did we land Randle yet? ;)

haha, PayPal Cal

You're right, it's not much of a cost. Although when a guy like Tarc takes 7 visits, you have to think the school is spending quite a bit of time and effort on him. As to what Self wants, he clearly wants top-3 guys because he's recruiting them.

In the 2005 mega-class for KU, when you strip out those early NBA entrants, Self signed:

3. Wright
6. Chalmers
7. Rush
14. Downs

Ahhh, memories. Speaking of which, whatever happened with Downs?

Went to Gonzaga since he was from Washington. He had a few good years there and I can't recall if he was ever drafted or not. Last I heard he was playing overseas.

I remember him at Gonzaga, just wasn't sure if he made a career out of bball or not.

NBDL as of today.

Micah Philip Downs (born September 8, 1986)<sup id="cite_ref-eurob_1-0" class="reference">[1]</sup> is an American professional basketball swingman with the Maine Red Claws of the NBA Development League.
Downs is a former small forward for the Kansas Jayhawks, later transferring and graduating from Gonzaga University. Downs was a member of the West Coast Conference (WCC) All-Tournament Team in 2007 and 2009; in 2009 he was also the WCC All-Tournament MVP.
Downs was not drafted in the 2009 NBA Draft. He participated in the 2009 Las Vegas NBA Summer League as a member of the Phoenix Suns.<sup id="cite_ref-2" class="reference">[2]</sup>
Pro career

In his first pro year in Croatia playing for KK Zadar, Downs averaged 7.6 points per game (ppg) in the NLB League and 11.0 ppg in the Eurocup, while averaging over 50% field goal shooting. After moving to the Leuven Bears Downs averaged 12.4 points, 3.6 rebounds, and 1.3 assists per game.<sup id="cite_ref-eurob_1-1" class="reference">[1]</sup>
In the 2010–11 season Downs played for Ford Burgos of the LEB Oro. He finished in the All-LEB Oro team.<sup id="cite_ref-3" class="reference">[3]</sup> Downs participated in the 2010 Las Vegas NBA Summer League as a member of the Milwaukee Bucks.
In July 2011, Downs agreed to terms with Assignia Manresa, and averaged 13.4 ppg and 4 rebounds per game.<sup id="cite_ref-4" class="reference">[4]</sup> After his first season at Liga ACB, Downs won the ACB Rising Star Award.<sup id="cite_ref-5" class="reference">[5]</sup>
On November 1, 2012, Downs signed with the Maine Red Claws of the NBA D-League.<sup id="cite_ref-6" class="reference">[6]</sup>
On February 4, 2013, Downs was named to the Futures All-Star roster for the 2013 NBA D-League All-Star Game.<sup id="cite_ref-7" class="reference">[7]</sup>

Micah Downs and what was that dude who transferred to Louisville? Him and his dad... what a bunch of pussies. They both would be in the league now, probably. Having had Danny Manning teach them for 4 years... Nah, they'd probably still suck... **** them.

David Padgett.

Micah downs plays in the Celtics D league team and puts up respectable numbers on scrubs

RANDLE NEWS

Julius on returning to the court: "It feels good to finally be back,I'm healthy and back on the floor with my team. Knowing I have the ability to finish out the season with my team is great. It's really good. I was a little rusty. I'm just working myself back into a rhythm and getting used to playing again. As far as my conditioning goes, I felt good."

Kansas visit: "It was great," Randle said of his Kansas visit. "I've always known a lot about Kansas. It was like my fourth time up there, but I feel like I know a lot more now. I really got to see everything that goes into the program," Randle said. "Like when they get a big-time player, everything that goes into developing that player on the court, in the weight room, it's top notch for real."


How Self feels Randle fits: "He thinks that I fit their system as far as players they've had in the past," Randle said. "The spots he put them in at around 15 feet or catching in the post or isolated on the side, he thinks I can excel in all those areas. He feels what I can do differently than any other player that he has had is get the ball off the glass and bring it up. If I don't get the rebound, he feels I should be the first person up the floor and get to my sweet spot. As long as I defend and rebound, he'll let me play with as much freedom as I want."

Whats Next: Randle will meet with those closest to him -- his mother, Carolyn, and mentor/coach, Jeff Webster -- to decide what the next step will be so that he can move toward ending his recruitment within the next month. "I'll probably talk to Jeff tomorrow and will probably go to his house, and then my mom will be over there," Randle said. "We'll talk about things and look to make a date for a decision. I think between now and the middle of March, when my season and spring break is over, I'll want to get it done. I can't say that I'm sad I've had my last visit; I'm ready to get this done."

Final Notes: "I think I've got pretty good information in terms of what I'm looking for," Randle said. "I know the pros and cons of every school, and I think they've all done a good job of selling themselves to me. Now I have to look at where I'll have the most fun, where I'll be happiest.

"I know that if I'm happy I'll play my best. Even if I'm struggling, being happy makes it easier to get through any adversity."

4 times to Lawrence? Sounds to me like he's made his decision.

7 times for Tarc.

Because every kid is the same...

X grew up with two Jayhawks as parents. Chose Memphis. You never can tell with these kids. Hard to get excited either way during recruitment.

I think Tarc had given Self a soft verbal and was treated as Jayhawk family (thus the 7 trips). Tarc's AAU coach had him go to AZ instead. Them's the breaks.

And even if the above is not true, that's just one example. Your sample size is as small as your brain. Please post less.

I can post hours worth of similar examples if you'd like.

GOD NO!

We concede defeat. Recruiting Randle is a terrible idea and will probably bring down the KU basketball program, as well as the free world.

For those of us that don't follow recruiting a lot....who is Tarc?

the whole thing?

The 7 footer in AZ that has sucked this year so far so he's a bust.

Travis Releford on Oklahoma State's celebration at Allen: "If we go and get a victory there, you won’t see us doing back flips."

LOL....Nice shot Travis!!!

I see no problem with backflips. I see a big problem talking about how you "wanted to punch Kansas in the mouth" and make a statement early. That's flat out laughable to diss the 500-lb gorilla who you haven't beaten on the road in 23 years. Eventually you will hit the lotto and win one. Don't be cocky about it. Not if you're Okie Light and you're playing to 3/4 empty arenas at home.

Sounds a lot like Perry Ellis

You heard Prison Bitch. HE'S VISITED 4 ****ING TIMES.

Ermahgerd, its ferking snewing outserd....

Remember Travis Releford 3 years ago?

Travis Releford didn't have the credentials Ellis had coming into Lawrence.

And Releford was sitting behind some people in front of him up until last season.

That's not the case for Ellis. He has EVERY opportunity to beat out a sub-par Kevin Young and he can't even do that.

Well duh. Beating Kansas at Kansas is a big deal. Beating OSU anywhere is a game you won.

It has nothing to do with Self liking to play veteran players over young players. It's that Ellis is such a horrible player that he will be playing for the local YMCA after this year.



But really, have you ever been right on this board? I mean outside of conspiracy stuff.

I like Young. His efficiency stats are great. But I expected Perry to at least be contributing more than getting stripped every time he gets it. He ain't no Arthur that's for sure.

Kaleb Tarczewski, a 2012 5-star center. He was everything but a lock to go to KU until the very last second.

I hope you're being sarcastic, bro.

Lol sarcastic. He has underperformed but sometimes a kid doesn't come in and light it up right away. The people screaming for Ellis' head are ridiculous. It's better for us and him anyway that he stays in school another year like every other player should.

I'm less worried now about Florida if we face them.

Yeap. 100% agreed.

SEC......one ranked team. Next best team only received 4 votes. Incredible conference.

You're completely missing my point.

Ellis is a MCDAA. He should start immediately and immediately make an impact. He had a wide open opportunity to seal the starting PF spot with TRob gone...and he couldn't even beat out Kevin Young.

Ellis won't amount to a whole lot. Self better get Randle to Lawrence. In a MCDAA you should see flashes of brilliance, dominance etc. Ellis still at this point looks like an overmatched HS kid that was a big fish in an awfully small pond.

He's weak back to the basket player with virtually no power, strength, nose for the ball, doesn't know how to get open, I could go on. The good thing is that some of those things can be learned....the bad part is that he sucks overall so much it's not going to matter, he won't amount to much.

Quoted for dumbassery. I'll bump this in two years when he's first-team All Big 12.

ROFL ok will do

You are kidding yourself if you thought "Hey, he's a MCDAA - he's going to start and be awesome as a freshman." He's a freshman playing at KU. He's obviously had some struggles, but he's still the 1st big off the bench.

Without looking, I'd bet you can count on 1 hand how many freshman have started the majority of their freshman season for Self. Freshman bigs even less.

this wasn't around when I was lawrence...

http://www.kansascity.com/2013/02/19...er-casbah.html

But nobody cares about basketball, right? So who cares if they're ranked below the Mountain West?

GO POKES!

:D

I know, I'm a selfish bastard. What can I say?:ksu:

I have an 8th grade grand son starting on the HS varsity that grew up in my house, a Jayhawk fan until 2 years ago. Now all of a sudden he's a Louisville Cardinal fan? A baby Pinto bean ?:shake:

It's usually just kid's visions change for some stupid reason, a friend,team's logo, etc. In this case, a friend that moved away back to Louisville where the boy says he wants to go and hang out with him again.

I have another 4 years to change his mind, that friend is living a hard life now and separation may come easily or could draw him near.

I hope he goes to Louisville wins them 4 titles :)


Then becomes a millionare in the nba.

8th grader playing Varsity? How goes a MS kid play HS ball?

I was wondering that as well.

As for Ellis ?

Some talented kids have the ability to excel at the next level after HS BB. Some do not, they hit a rut, after not playing against elite competition in HS, getting lazy within their game thinking they are already good enough for college to find they are lacking the mind set as much as skill set.

The good part is , they are talented enough and can be taught the next level if they are interested in doing so. Their attitude makes the difference in getting to the next level of competition.

That's cool. A coworker was raving about the one in Topeka. I'll definitely have to check it out.

From everything I've heard, Ellis has a great attitude. I really like this kid and I'm hoping he comes around. I'm pretty sure he will.

Ellis is going to be good.

Great coaching ( Me, Seriously, I just had a small part of this ) :D,He is a very gifted kid, the talent level is there. We had to bring him along slowly to start the year off, get the skill set & mind set together with a faster pace of game. He's adjusted well, been starting now the last 7 games. The last 4 he has averaged a double double.

He dominated the Fr. level games, averaged double doubles on JV games.

He's 6'4",takes 1 step and dunks it, plays the 4 & 5 right now.

In KY, they let you play up in HS if you are good enough and can keep the grades up. Currently we have 3 kids off of our AAU team we travel with that are starters at their H S's and 2 others are playing Fr & JV games as starters. We have another 3 others that are Fr. starters & JV back ups, while 2 more are playing 8th grade.

Once you play up, you stay up all year, both AD's have to agree with the kid playing up.

This is BB only, the state will not allow you to play up in football.

LMAO

:#

He does have NBA dreams, I tell him 1 day at a time, it's still a pipe dream for a kid of his talent. Div I ball , Very good chance, he already has Div II scouts watching him since last year.

The kid has ability to play football at Div I level as well.

If your son's parents both played basketball and met at KU, your comparison would be a bit stronger. X was free to do what he wanted, but there were zero compelling reasons not to choose KU. Which he eventually did, thanks to Cal's departure.

Agreed, the only thing I can add to it was, he lived RCJH for the first 10 years of his life, the 2 years later other kids influence started to mettle his way of thinking. He started joking around about it with me as a dig telling me was going to go to Louisville. Now his BF moved away and moved back to Louisville and now Louisville has another calling reason to him.

A lot can change between now and 4 years later, I can live with just about any place but a few. It's not my call, it's his, but let me tell you, it would be hard as HELL if his choice is a few of them. :shake:

http://kenpom.com/blog/index.php/web..._on_3p_defense

KU's been the best by far at 2PT defense over the last five years. Pomeroy also shows that they've been 7th best at 3PT defense over that time as well (although that's mostly a product of their 2 PT defense). His old conclusion about defenses having much more impact on 2PT% than 3PT% doesn't change in this analysis, though.

Basically, if you're a team that wants to upset KU, you'd be best served to just jack up a bunch of threes and hope for the best (or just hope they're sleepwalking like at TCU). But that shouldn't be much of a surprise to anybody here.

I'll bet it will be a surprise to certain KU fans (Laz).

Reasonable KU fans.

I would shoot threes and try to get Withey out of the lane. Even when he doesn't block the shots, he makes the shooters look stupid by throwing up ridiculous trash hoping to avoid the block.

It really is weird watching teams attack him. Maybe he just doesn't look that imposing on the court. Maybe it's because he's white. Whatever it is, guards continue to attack him, and they lose that battle almost every time. When they do actually score over/around him, it generally looks like a lucky shot just happened to fall. It's never something that you watch and think, "they should keep attacking because that shot is there". It's more like, "he got away with one there".

For the most part, ISU and OSU did that in the games they played (well except when Smart took it to the rim and dunked right on Withey...but that only works if you're ridiculously built and athletic like Marcus Smart). Both shot a ton of threes and tried to get Withey out of the lane (and for the most part, it worked...they both made a lot of shots).

It's really the only way to play Kansas. I don't quite understand why teams like Baylor and KSU haven't picked up on that. Might be the coaching or it might be that players are just too undisciplined on a lot of these teams to do it. Also, I guess you've got to have the right personnel as well (some bigs just aren't comfortable playing on the perimeter offensively, which is necessary to bring Withey out).

one word summarizes this: Vealy-ed

Looks like Rio Adams missed the bus to Stillwater and now is going off on Self/the team/his position on the team: https://twitter.com/RealAnrioAdams2

Pretty funny stuff.

That was pretty hard to read.

What an absolute idiot...

I should probably also post them directly in the thread...as I'm sure they'll be deleted whenever Self finds out (which should be soon).

LMAO

2Easy ‏<s>@</s>RealAnrioAdams2 Yeah the situation I'm in is great and all but it's obvious they want me to quit...


2Easy ‏<s>@</s>RealAnrioAdams2
There's no question that I would of been getting mad minutes anywhere else in America people its a <s>#</s>FACT..






Sure thing little buddy. Does Washburn need a player?

On the bright side, tonight it looks like we won't have to deal with the one mistake that he makes when Self rather generously plays him for that 1 minute at the end of the first half (or perhaps any other night for the rest of the season).

This doesn't mean anything.

In recent history other than the 06 recruiting class w/ Chalmers, Rush etc. there has usually been an established player already in the starters role.

The #4 spot has been literally wide open for taking....and Ellis simply has not been able to transition from the slower HS game to the much quicker bigger faster, stronger NCAA KU-level type of play.

I hope to God he changes overnight during the summer or something and comes back next season being all big12 or something. But it ain't happening. He's a boy playing w/ a bunch of men out there and it's completely obvious.

Young isn't anything special. He can't shoot, he has athleticism that carries him a little bit but he's not a scorer, if he gets fouled and gets to the line he can't make free throws. He's a tweener, just another body. I will say he plays good defense at times. But Ellis, couldn't even beat out someone that probably should be coming off the bench in certain situations.

Is it safe to say goodbye Anrio Adams?

He already deleted the Self blinded by favorites tweet. Guess he thought that one was too much. LMAO

well, it was probably inevitable with adams...every freshman at KU has a moment where he thinks about quitting...Self humbles them on purpose


truth is we'll probably get a better recruit to take his place...