***** Official '20/'21 Kansas Men's Basketball Repository Thread *****

[cmh6476]

Defending the National Championship of 2020

Roster:

https://kuathletics.com/sports/mbball/roster/

Schedule:

https://kuathletics.com/sports/mbball/schedule/

There you go!

[lawrenceRaider]

Originally Posted by Prison Bitch

F*** Covid

Best team in 15 years and the f*** China folk f** us

We’ll never know what last year would’ve done

We were far and away the best team in the nation last year.

Probably zero real reason to cancel the tournament, but we'll never know.

[bdj23]

Meh

[KC_Connection]

Originally Posted by Buehler445

Uhhh yeah. Not being able to pay dudes because of an FBI investigation is the elephant in the room.

We aren’t going to be beating any Nike schools out any time soon for the top guys so Self is going to have to find some diamonds in the rough to keep us on the top level. He’s done it many times before.

[KCTitus]

Originally Posted by Buehler445

Who is a 5 star? I don’t follow recruiting much but these guys aren’t elite talent guys. McCormack maybe? He’s not a very natural player. I’m impressed with the strides he made but the difference between him and an Aldrich type, who wasn’t even all that good of an athlete is pretty staggering.

Garret? Great defender limited offense.
Ochai? He wasn’t hardly even recruited.
Braun? I can’t imagine he’s a 5 star guy from Burlington.
Wilson might be a 5 star guy. But he’s got a ways to go before he’s a playmaker.

Think about what this team would be if it had Thomas Robinson on it. That should show you the difference between elite talent and what we have here now.

I'm not a recruiting expert, but I do on occasion pop into these threads to see who KU is recruiting...maybe they dont have any 5 star recruits. My limited memory goes back to Wiggins and his lackluster play at KU, only to become the NBA's ROTY. He was just waiting to get paid. KU didnt mean shit to him. Many other players recently have done same. I dont appreciate that and frankly, I'm not sure how the boosters do either. This team has been shit for a decade regardless and at some point I hope it changes.

[KC_Connection]

Originally Posted by lawrenceRaider

We were far and away the best team in the nation last year.

Probably zero real reason to cancel the tournament, but we'll never know.

Still don’t quite understand why it was canceled so quickly rather than postponed. Never will.

[Bearcat]

Originally Posted by BWillie

I did. The narrative is always I'm wrong though. It's better to be right about things that don't ruffle feathers.

Probably has something to do with all the shitposting... but, who knows. And people can be "right" for dumb reasons, too. Call the blowout before Oregon stomps Iowa, there's it doesn't look like reactionary bullshit from a game that has nothing to do with KU's game.

[smithandrew051]

Originally Posted by BWillie

Really? I think it's the opposite. I think they care just fine, they just lack the talent. Talent beats hard work almost every time.

I will mostly agree here.

The few higher-ish level recruits (Thompson, Wilson, McCormack) all have pretty obvious flaws and inconsistencies.

The lower level recruits (Agbaji, Braun, Garrett, Harris, etc) are either 1) making the best of what they are or 2) showing exactly why they weren’t ranked very high.

I don’t want a team for of one and dones, but this scenario isn’t very good either. Our best teams have had a combination of quality 3-4 year players who were 4 star recruits and 5 star players who didn’t stick around.

[KC_Connection]

Originally Posted by BWillie

I did. The narrative is always I'm wrong though. It's better to be right about things that don't ruffle feathers.

Your prediction always did make some sense even if I didn’t want to quite admit it (although I certainly wasn’t confident heading into this one). I think anybody who had seen Mobley knew this was a nightmare matchup for this group.

[Bearcat]

Originally Posted by KC_Connection

Still don’t quite understand why it was canceled so quickly rather than postponed. Never will.

Yeah, hadn't at least the NBA and NHL both postponed by then? It was like they were more focused on making a statement that "we care about the students!!!" than sitting down and figuring it the **** out.

[smithandrew051]

This team also shows what an amazing coach Self is.

Most coaches aren’t getting this team to finish top 3 in a major conference and a 3 seed. We might’ve even won the conference tourney if not for Covid.

Most of the knocks on Self’s tournament resume are due to this as well. His teams over perform at such a high level that we expect more FFs and Titles. His regular season success almost works against him in a way. Sorta like Reid before Mahomes.

[KC_Connection]

Originally Posted by KCTitus

I'm not a recruiting expert, but I do on occasion pop into these threads to see who KU is recruiting...maybe they dont have any 5 star recruits. My limited memory goes back to Wiggins and his lackluster play at KU, only to become the NBA's ROTY. He was just waiting to get paid. KU didnt mean shit to him. Many other players recently have done same. I dont appreciate that and frankly, I'm not sure how the boosters do either. This team has been shit for a decade regardless and at some point I hope it changes.

Wiggins ultimately just wasn’t that good. Shitty NBA player and kind of a shitty college player too despite all the hype. He got a dumb team (TWolves) to give him like 150M though so he gives no shits at this point.

[Chiefs Pantalones]

Jesse Newell was saying a few months back that the reason teams go off on KU from 3 in the tournament and just overall is a Bill Self defensive philosophical issue. Rather than chase teams off the 3 point line (like you should do in the modern game) Self would rather take away easy baskets and help inside. That’s an understandable approach...if this were the mid-2000’s according to the stats he referenced. Even mentioned KenPom (KCC would be proud lol). The point Jesse was making was (he went on about offense too) for how good of a coach Self is, he’s proving to be human by battling with himself as it pertains to changing philosophies to fit the modern game, both offensively and defensively. I think talent is the bigger problem but I see where he’s coming from and agree in a way. I don’t want to see the high/low or playing through bigs ever again in this great time of 2021 basketball lmao.

[KC_Connection]

Originally Posted by Bearcat

Yeah, hadn't at least the NBA and NHL both postponed by then? It was like they were more focused on making a statement that "we care about the students!!!" than sitting down and figuring it the **** out.

As I recall, they officially postponed the entire thing on the Friday, like a day after all the other sports starting postponing. Seemed like a rather extreme measure that quickly but the entire Western world was panicking at that moment.

[Bearcat]

Originally Posted by KCTitus

I'm not a recruiting expert, but I do on occasion pop into these threads to see who KU is recruiting...maybe they dont have any 5 star recruits. My limited memory goes back to Wiggins and his lackluster play at KU, only to become the NBA's ROTY. He was just waiting to get paid. KU didnt mean shit to him. Many other players recently have done same. I dont appreciate that and frankly, I'm not sure how the boosters do either. This team has been shit for a decade regardless and at some point I hope it changes.

Meh... I'm not here for the post game pep talk, but in a decade they're a few wins away from two more NCs, which would be their max 'expected' in that span (of course, no one was ever beating that UK team).

The trend the past few seasons is alarming, even if one was in the Final Four, but they've also had their fair share of bullshit... no Embiid, Covid, etc.

[Buehler445]

Originally Posted by KCTitus

I'm not a recruiting expert, but I do on occasion pop into these threads to see who KU is recruiting...maybe they dont have any 5 star recruits. My limited memory goes back to Wiggins and his lackluster play at KU, only to become the NBA's ROTY. He was just waiting to get paid. KU didnt mean shit to him. Many other players recently have done same. I dont appreciate that and frankly, I'm not sure how the boosters do either. This team has been shit for a decade regardless and at some point I hope it changes.

Agreed on Wiggins. There were definitely games where he mailed it in. Selby was the hype guy that really sucked having on your team. He was supposed to be one of the nations best recruits and he wasn’t as good as Braun. There are some risks in those guys. They can bust as well as the lower recruits.

But let’s be real here. Wiggins won us some games.

There needs to be a mix of long term guys like a Mason or Robinson that carry the load and a Big time guy for some splash plays. IMO.

Overall though I think there are a wide swath of kids that are different. They all play AAU ball all year long and they get a million games and none of them really mean anything. Whereas when they weren’t playing as much ball, the competitiveness was dialed up because of scarcity. Now there are dudes that are wired to fight every second of every day, but a lot of kids are “meh. Had a bad game. They’ll be another one.”