Just call them Devil Dogs.
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What can one say? This years KU team are Devil dogs. It’s a term to call marines in the second WW. It Dosen’t matter on style points. This team just finds a way to win. They’ll go into the most hostile environment. Out numbered, battered, and bruised. Yet they refuse to concede defeat. Their general is a mad man. He pushes his soldiers to the brink of madness. Yet when you think they will break they rise to the challenge.
I don’t care what your ranking is. I don’t what style of play you play. I don’t care how many great players you have. When you play KU you better strap it on, and be prepared for war. Because this years KU team are devil dogs.
This years team might be Coaches Mona Lisa/master piece.
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Self is an
for sure.
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After some shaky moments earlier, #14 is lookin pretty good right about now. Amazing. How much is KU and how much is Big12 infighting…
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We didn’t score for like 6 minutes to start the 2nd half… a good opponent would have made us pay and erased the lead on us, but thank god for completely mediocre K-State.
A division win is a win always, but I think our seniors may be wearing out. De Sousa looks as raw and green as I suppose he should be… cunliffe looks to be either not 100% physically or mentally far from where he needs to be. The 64K question(s) is - can these guys hold on and win the B12 ? (That will be of course historic and a true DiMaggio-esque record) … yes we sure can. Can we go far in the big dance ? Not seeing that at all this year… but I’ll root root root hard for them whatever the case.
And the zone really worked against inept k-state
And Doke made TWO free throws in a row!!
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@Bosthawk It’s mental with Sam.
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Ewww Sam
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@Crimsonorblue22 Yeah. Serious question: have we had a guard with worse hands than Sam?
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Lob was perfect
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Just tried too hard. Probably had to do a concussion protocol after he fell over when they told him to go in.
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Malik Newman 10 rebounds. Man, what a corner he has turned.
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HighEliteMajor said:
Malik Newman 10 rebounds. Man, what a corner he has turned.
I commented on this earlier, I don’t remember for sure in what thread. Great job by Self with him. He plays so hard now. Of course some credit to Newman as well.
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You know we have to as KU fans stop saying when KU wins, “If it was a better team”. We really have to stop this thinking. Kstate isn’t a push over. Are they great? I would say no. Yet their house was rocking, and they tried everything to make a game of it. They just ran into some devil dogs wearing KU uni’s.
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Ah the ebbs and flows of a long season. Gotta love it
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No one has commented about Fran defending the officials when KSU fans were calling for KU fouls, or all the complimentary things he said about KU.
I’m thinking he blundered onto our board, read @Crimsonorblue22’s comments, and realized he needed to clean up his act!
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@mayjay ah man I can stand the guy! Neither can my kids.
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DoubleDD said:
You know we have to as KU fans stop saying when KU wins, “If it was a better team”. We really have to stop this thinking. Kstate isn’t a push over. Are they great? I would say no. Yet their house was rocking, and they tried everything to make a game of it. They just ran into some devil dogs wearing KU uni’s.
You are right indeed- they aren’t a pushover and they tried hard of course, but I’m doing the one thing I usually never do- framing my observations of this current KU team in comparison to my “eye-test” perceptions of the other top programs in the country right now. I guess I Just feel like we don’t have all the elements to get to the final four. Hopefully this outlook will pass and I will be back to my usual blithely optimistic self soon.
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mayjay said:
No one has commented about Fran defending the officials when KSU fans were calling for KU fouls, or all the complimentary things he said about KU.
I’m thinking he blundered onto our board, read @Crimsonorblue22’s comments, and realized he needed to clean up his act!
I’ll be honest I had Fran muted per usual. So I didn’t hear any of him tonight.
I would listen to this over Fran:
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That song goes out to all the Purps tonight.
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It’s a great win. Plus now we have a game and a half on the Big 12 field. And one of the easier schedules left. Our hardest games are at Tech, OU at home, and WVU at home. If we run the table at AFH, we win the conference.
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It’s no fault of your own. We KU fans are always looking bigger picture. Like how will our recent play stake up against this team or that team.
Yet the Tourney is really unpredictable. The best team hardly ever wins. How many sure fire great KU teams have left the tourney disappointed?
I’m not predicting anything with this KU team. Yet I’m calling them Devil dogs because they just seem to be getting better as each game goes by, and that they refuse to concede defeat.
My God man these KU players are starting to dive for loose balls. When was the last time you’ve seen that?
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@BShark that was awful
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True- diving is always a sign of of commitment and passion.
And I have, for years here, Been an acolyte of the tourney-is-more-or-less-a-crapshoot theory and proselytized on the subject many a time. Which is why I’m surprised I’m even thinking of our tourney chances at this point- a waste of energy. One step at a time - first the B12 !!
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How soon before a KSU fans start blaming the loss on not being able to play Sandstorm and yell F KU?
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@JayHawkFanToo Well…they yelled F KU anyway. LOL
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mayjay said:
No one has commented about Fran defending the officials when KSU fans were calling for KU fouls, or all the complimentary things he said about KU.
I’m thinking he blundered onto our board, read @Crimsonorblue22’s comments, and realized he needed to clean up his act!
At least for me I’ve developed Franitis, the ability to drown out what he’s saying. Anyone else got this?
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BShark said:
@Bosthawk It’s mental with Sam.
Hit in the head with the ball, gets the lose ball then makes a one in a hundred contested layup on the wrong foot. Couldn’t stop laughing at that one
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Newman is becoming a favorite of mine awful quick. That rebounding and attacking mentality is easy to like. He was terrific once again
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BeddieKU23 said:
BShark said:
@Bosthawk It’s mental with Sam.
Hit in the head with the ball, gets the lose ball then makes a one in a hundred contested layup on the wrong foot. Couldn’t stop laughing at that one
I can’t imagine anyone wonders why he doesn’t play now.
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BShark said:
BeddieKU23 said:
BShark said:
@Bosthawk It’s mental with Sam.
Hit in the head with the ball, gets the lose ball then makes a one in a hundred contested layup on the wrong foot. Couldn’t stop laughing at that one
I can’t imagine anyone wonders why he doesn’t play now.
Sure he looked frazzled. That’s what happens when you don’t play for games and then get forced into action. Looked like a freshman out there in that aspect. He made a few good plays. I’m sure he wants that corner 3 back for another attempt as well as the inbounds dunk he biffed. In games where the fouls pile up its at least good to know he can play and the team doesn’t lose its lead because of it
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@JayHawkFanToo i kept waiting to hear their song, and it never came…lol.
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KUSTEVE said:
@JayHawkFanToo i kept waiting to hear their song, and it never came…lol.
privileges revoked, just sad songs
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Sam will do better. Got his feet wet, slipped and landed face down. But except for a few with other issues (Bragg, for ex), kids playing for Self get right back up and try to prove themselves. He will be fine.
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mayjay said:
Sam will do better. Got his feet wet, slipped and landed face down. But except for a few with other issues (Bragg, for ex), kids playing for Self get right back up and try to prove themselves. He will be fine.
Just my own thought but the lack of playing time kind of creates a situation where Sam is eager to prove himself. He’s nervous because his lack of playing time (experience) leaves him worrying about a mistake and if he makes a mistake he’s going to sit. Luckily for him we were in foul trouble so he was able to play through the initial wave of emotions of looking to the bench. Had he converted the lob in-bound dunk or shown better awareness to the ball coming towards him we probably continue to ask why isn’t he playing. Somehow the simple play continues to be elusive for our sparingly used guys (Silvio, Sam). Maybe that’s all part of the process of being molded into what Bill wants from them.
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Don’t forget he picked up his dribble and started dribbling again; can’t have these mental lapses.
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Sam has all the earmarks of a guy who is not comfortable yet. Like the sore thumb sticking out when he’s on the floor. Time will help with that. Not sure he’ll get more than emergency looks, like last night.
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@BShark If you had Fran muted then you missed a comment that explains much about our winning at the Octagon of Dumb. That is the fact that KSU and the fans get so pumped up to beat us that they play very tight. He claimed that not only was this the case last night but it is usually the case. Sometimes you can want something so badly that you get in your own way to get it.
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@BeddieKU23 Those plays that look simple have been practiced together for 3.5 years by DG and Svi, 2.5 years by them with Vick, 1.5 with Malik, and a total of over a year with UA (whose reach corrects a few errant passes anyway).
End of bench Sam has had just a few opportunities to execute set plays in a game, and I doubt he gets to practice his timing on the starters’ plays much with them. Newbie Silvio has had 4 weeks to learn those and all other plays, and no one knows what his timing will be consistently. I doubt either of them has had much chance to try to catch passes as hard as that bullet thrown by Svi last night.
And as the announcers tell us every game when we see a beauty, the regulars work on them all the time and that is why they look so fluid. Freshman sub Mitch looked like a dunderhead last year trying to catch his first lobs, and he booted a number of passes. He did it even a few times this year. Layups are supposedly easy, and DG has made thousands in his life, yet he continually puts the ball too hard off the glass.
Easy and simple in games is the result of hours and hours of repetition and drill on stuff that is not always so easy and simple. We are seeing early season mistakes from bench mid-season arrivals. They will get used to the pace.
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@BeddieKU23 Last night Sam reminded me a lot of SVI as a freshmen. He looked nervous, for good reason.
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Few players at the college level can not play for a while, then come in and be productive. In the NBA, that’s one of the reasons teams will keep a veteran or two around at the end of the bench - they know those guys can sit for days or weeks at a time, then hop off the bench and play solid minutes in a pinch. But that takes years of training and knowing how to prepare yourself without getting practice or game reps.
Sam hasn’t had that yet. Since the last KSU game (January 13), Sam played just the closing seconds of the OU game (less than a minute of court time). That was 16 days prior. He probably had no idea he would be called on last night, and doesn’t yet know how to prepare himself to go 2-3 weeks without playing, then come in and contribute.
The secret, of course, is to not look to contribute by scoring. Defense first. Rebound second. Hustle third. You don’t want to hustle first because that will lead to being out of control. Defend first. You don’t want to hustle second, because you still might be too eager. Rebound second. Then hustle.
The defense makes you focus on the gameplan. Where are you supposed to be. How are you supposed to guard this guy. What are the defensive principles.
Rebounding makes you focus on fundamentals. Boxing out. Positioning. Not simply standing and watching. Doing your work early.
Then you engage the effort. Once your mind and fundamentals are engaged, that’s when you can do extra work to try and steal a possession or two.
Getting a good sweat working on defense and the glass will settle your nerves so you don’t shoot the ball to Larned.
Same goes for Silvio. He should focus on protecting the rim and trying to grab every available defensive rebound, which means he has to box out every time.
Once you do that, the rest will come in time. It’s easier said than done, though.
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Hey I’m all for defending Sam as he looked clearly nervous getting his name called and playing in a hostile environment. I imagine i would crap my pants in the same situation. Some of the stuff that we noticed from him last night are basic, like catching a perfectly thrown lob or not double dribbling. Nothing earth shattering. Those kind of things seemed to reinforce what self was pointing out why he has played sparingly.
Right now he’s the depth guard, when we are in foul trouble or some unforseen injury going forward. His minutes didn’t effect the outcome of the game so that is encouraging. I hope he continues to grind every week to prove at some point he deserves more minutes
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Fran had one of the best comments about svi. He said svi should buy real estate in the corners with how good his shooting has been. That was after he put the final nail in the coffin to get the team up 14.
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@justanotherfan exactly! Rebound was perfect!
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BeddieKU23 said:
Fran had one of the best comments about svi. He said svi should buy real estate in the corners with how good his shooting has been. That was after he put the final nail in the coffin to get the team up 14.
No need to…he already owns those spots.
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It odd hearing Fran talk good about us and the officiating for a change this year.
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