That was fun.

31-16 free throws, damn it refs, try harder next time.

Mayo is an offensive monster but he needs to work on his footspeed for defense

Will take the W but the defense has gotta improve

Lots of potential lots to work on. Should be a fun season.

That was a thriller. Fun way to really start the season

This team is gonna put up multiple 100 point efforts

Zeke is such a breath of fresh air on the offensive end.

Just gotta get him in a little better shape, but otherwise...

stud.

Not me, they don’t win that game without Dickinson’s offense doesn’t the stretch. Easily the most reliable offense they have and creates open shots just about any time he’s got the ball.

Too bad about his defense though

Obviously I posted that when he was missing a bunch of bunnies inside of 5'.

He closed the game out for the squad.

He was gassed given the pace of that game before we called the timeout. They need to find a way to get his minute total under 30 this year, should be doable. It’s pretty clear Flory is gonna be the far better defensive option too, his minutes should increase as the season goes on.

Maybe we can scrap the "KJ plays in the middle of the court while they bring the ball up and leaves his guy wide open in the corner for an easy 3" play.

Never a doubt.

Flory looked like he belonged tonight. I was a tad worried that he might be a little too raw his freshman season.

But he had a really good game tonight and I'm excited to watch him develop and grow the rest of the year.

Also, please scrap the whole KJ bringing the ball up the court too.

They were over helping to prevent rim runs because Dickinson couldn’t defend the screen actions he was being put in almost every possession. They also didn’t think that Withers guy could shoot (he couldn’t last year but did today).

I don't know what happened to our shooters down the stretch, but it's a lot better than last year for sure. And the depth is night and day.

He still doesn’t really know what he’s doing but his athleticism is NBA level. He could very easily be an impact player in a few months.

Just another ho-hum victory at the Phog between two irrelevant teams. I'm bored. Who's next?

He showed a couple of moves down low after a rebound or two I didn't expect.

Things like that get me excited for this team's potential.

But, all we really need is for him to come in, play defense, rebound and dunk.

Tonight to me, it felt like he did more than that. I'm impressed.

Missed 7 consecutive threes (almost all of which were wide open) to end the game, felt like nerves to me. That was the first real AFH game for all but three of those guys.

I think Dickinson is out of shape from missing some time.

Hopefully we can limit his minutes with Bidunga playing well.

Michigan State on Tuesday

Shoulda won by 30+ but instead it ended up being a good learning experience.

That's awesome we played UNC for the first time since 1960 at Allen Fieldhouse.

****in' Dean Smith and Roy were pussies and didn't want to play KU. Bitches.

He also had some great passes. I don't understand his defense he can literally just stand in one spot with his arms straight up and that would be better than what he's currently doing

KU Basketball is so good for the Kansas and Mo sides. Super program and historic quality that is unmatched anywhere locally

He played good defense on the last play of the game.

Could just be a stamina issue, which you'd expect to improve as the season progresses.

That is very true

No, they shouldn’t have won by 30+. Lol. North Carolina is a legit team.

We are now 7-6 all time vs North Carolina.

When Self got to Kansas, we were 2-6.

5 straight wins. 4 in the tournament.

1 to go to the National Championship.
1 to go to the Final Four.
1 to win the National Championship.

Bill Self.

The new sound system in the Phog is phenomenal. And the new intro video is outstanding.

They are still working out the kinks on the sound but it's like being at one of the loudest concerts you could imagine going to. When the cheerleaders started their halftime routine it was way louder than they wanted it and you could tell the system has more juice then they are typically using throughout the game. They quickly dialed it back and the lady behind me's face was mortified. I wouldn't take little kids without earplugs anymore and I took my kids when they were little all the time.

The downside is that to me the crowd felt quieter. It was like there didn't feel a need to get loud because the sound system was drowning you out, even though it was shut off during gameplay.

That's good stuff.

He was outstanding.

Biggest stat that really stood out to me and I think went (for the most part) unnoticed last night was KU only committed 4 turnovers. Such a frenetic pace and only 4 turnovers. That is pretty incredible and ultimately allowed the Jayhawks to maximize their possessions. Coit and Mayo in addition to Harris (and KJ lol) handling the ball is potentially a HUGE strength for this season. Hope it continues.

If we don’t hit that cold stretch from 3 midway through the second half, we probably win by a dozen. Eventually UNC would’ve started fouling to extend the game and the free throws would’ve evened up a bit.

Just from my laymans eyes, we have A LOT more talent on this years team than we have had in a long time. Maybe its just a better bench than a better team?

Its maddening that KJ is out there playing and then I see this guys come off the bench and score, play defense etc.

More Bidunga. Less KJ and Dickinson.

Less Coit and more Mayo and Griffen.

Passmore's an afterthought right now, but he might be the best pro prospect on the team. I think he'll have a bigger role by the end of the year.

Interested to see what Moore brings to the table.

I want to see more 4 guard lineups with Dickinson and Bidunga rotating at the 5.

KJ can come in for energy spurts. His lack of rebounding completely negates one of the benefits of having a second big on the floor.

I want to see us play a game without Harris, Dickinson and KJ. Just to see how it would look. Bidunga has been better than Dickinson so far this year...yes in limited minutes and there is no way he's actually better than Hunter yet except maybe on defense.

A lineup of Coit, Mayo, Griffen, Storr, Bidunga would be FUN to watch.

If nothing else, we ran Dickinson and Harris into the ground last year.

Need to load manage with all this depth.

No.

Through 2 games, Dickinson ranks 6th in KenPom POY standings. He’s doing a ton offensively out there. Benching him for a freshman is not it, limiting his minutes so he can actually play some level of defense is where it’s at.

That's why I said defensively and I am not saying to do that. Would like to see him get more minutes though.

Bidunga looks exciting but he looks like he would be a big liability at the end of games shooting FTs.

So, how bad does a take have to be for me to agree with you? Saying any big on the team has been better than Hunter is just stupid.

Dickenson is an all america. Lol

I re-watched the second half and just focused on the defensive end for the most part, and I actually came away a bit more optimistic than I was watching it live. I know people were pretty down on Dickenson due to the last 5 minutes or so, but he is far from the sole reason UNC made it a game like they did. Here are some things I saw:

-First, some things should be easily correctable. I counted 4(!) possessions where we gave up points simply because we couldn't figure out who was guarding who, and to be clear I'm talking about basic half court defense not transition baskets. I assume this will get better as guys get more experience playing together, but it was frustrating to watch someone draw a foul or get an easy basket because two people ran to guard one guy and left someone else open.

-KJ's impact on our defense is even more impactful than what it may seem because of his impact on the offense. We gave up multiple run outs early in the second half because of where KJ has to be when they want to isolate Hunter down low. If Hunter is on one block looking for the ball, KJ is almost always standing in the opposite corner doing nothing, and I mean this literally. He's not cutting or screening or anything. The issue is what happens when Hunter doesn't get the ball and someone else shoots. For example, early in the second half Storr gets the ball on the wing and drives and doesn't get the call on the shot at the rim, and UNC rebounds. Now you have Storr, Hunter, and KJ all basically standing at the end line as far from our basket as possible. A quick outlet pass to a guard kills us because Harris is so small and can easily be bullied by a guard in the open court, which leads to easy baskets and fouls. This didn't hurt us in the first half when we were shooting well, but it becomes more of a problem when we go cold.

-The game plan was kind of weird. We would randomly put guys in the center of the lane because they assumed some of their guys couldn't shoot. Well, they made some, but what made this worse is, going back to my first point, they don't understand rotations yet and who guards who in a scramble situation. This means we gave up multiple easy baskets off of this and I'm surprised Self kept doing it. Coit in particular had one of the worst possessions you will see all year where he didn't really guard anyone and just blindly ran around and gave up an open 3. Not surprisingly he didn't enter the game after that. I'll be interested to see if they try it against Michigan State, but I'm not worried about this long term.

-I do think fatigue played a part for Hunter, and certainly nobody is confusing him for an elite defender out on the perimeter, but I think it's interesting that he's getting all the blame in pick and roll situations when teams also pick on someone else in this situation: Harris. Almost every single pick and roll down the stretch was Hunter and Harris, and this isn't an accident. Hunter accentuates all of Harris' weaknesses: he's small, not fast enough against elite guards, and he isnt physically capable of blocking guys from getting to the rim on a roll situation. Not every pick and roll was hunter's fault. I think we are going to keep seeing more of this and I wonder how self is going to counter it, because simply being less fatigued won't cure it.

Tldr

Rock chalk

Withers couldn't shoot last year (4/20 from three in total), so that strategy of protecting the lane from his perspective at least had some reason behind it. He's now 5/8 so far this year (including three 3s against KU).

I also don't think Harris to blame for their weakness on defense at all (in fact, he's probably the only guard we have right now who even plays a passable level of defense not counting the injured Moore). Dickinson has been a problem in that regard for his entire college career and teams know to target him due to his lateral movement. It's especially an issue when the other team has a big that can shoot (as we saw last year).

Per 40 minutes total
Flory Bidunga 30 ppg, 22.9 rpg, 4.3 blk, 2.9 stl, 90% FG, 8.6 FTA

Zoinks

With exception of a few games (UK and Indiana come to mind) over his tenure, Roy rarely ever scheduled any tough non-con games at AFH. Maybe he just assumed we'd play enough tough games in the Nov/Dec tournaments we were always in.

I was a student at KU when Roy left and I remember how "scared" everyone was because we just didn't know that much about Self and it felt like our security blanket was being taken away. But man, I think both schools ended up getting the best coach for the respective universities.

Yeah, it was rough.... and I hated watching Illinois around that time, they had that awful hacker specialist in the middle. That was the last style of basketball I wanted to watch from Kansas, but eventually that first Self class figured it out.

Gameday PBJ

Birthday PBJ

Happy birthday bud!!!

I want a minimum of 30 minutes for my guy Zeke Mayo tonight.

I was graduating when Roy left, and remember Self got endless questions about whether he would play the up and down style that KU had been known for. In 2002 and 2003 we had teams exhausted well before halftime.

KU fans, at least the ones I was around, took such pride in that style under Roy. And wanted no part of "high-low".

We all ate crow for Self owning/still owning Roy and UNC, and it's ****ing delicious.

I had just graduated in December '02, but I immediately hoped we'd get Self. I liked what I saw from him at Illinois.

That guy looks like a lottery pick some day.

Do you remember the other coaching candidates in the running who Bill Self beat out?

Tom Crean and Mark Few were on the list. And the guy from Notre Dame, can't recall the name.

Edit: Mike Brey?

Few probably would have done well at KU. Crean would not have.

wasn't Pritchard rumored to be in the running as well?

Few, Mike Brey and Tom Crean. God, could you imagine Brey or Crean? :cuss:

Time to kick MSU in the teeth!

Name was thrown around, but I don't think he was ever considered.

Shaq Moore still not even practicing. Self said scans coming back fine for a while now. Doesn't know why he's not practicing and that he must be going through something else. Sure would be nice to have his defensive presence.

Mayo is starting!

Dickinson used this thread for motivation

No Clemence please

Okay that’s enough

Wtf is Clemence doing in a NCAA division 1 game

I don't know, but he got blasted and no foul.

We've gone stupid!

Is Bill Self concussed? Or drunk? Does he know Clemence is in the game?

So frustrating when we go on these runs of missing gimee's...

We have no idea how to score without Dickinson on the floor