Posts made by benshawks08

@BShark said in I'm Back:

@approxinfinity They don’t think he will need a colostomy bag at least… Hopefully that proves true.

ETA: It really does help to just have a place to talk about this.

I’ve never been a big support group kinda guy but have recently started attending one and man does it help to say things to people who really understand and care. Mine is super specific to care givers/partners of cancer patients who are also parents of young kids. Seems so hyper specific but with the power of the internet there is a community out there for everyone.

Clean scans is awesome though!!

There needs to be some kind of service that just handles all of the bull shit administrative work our ridiculous healthcare system creates for patients and caregivers.

Glad things have hopefully slowed down for you a bit.

I can’t imagine the powers that be are dumb enough to hire Chris beard no matter how much self likes him. Would absolutely hate that hire and might be one of the few ways to get me to stop watching ku hoops.

@drgnslayr Like right now? or over the course of the next year? the next couple?

@approxinfinity was it the AI summary from Google? That’ll get ya every time. It’s never factual. So apparently ai is bad at both math and handedness. lol

@approxinfinity said in The portal.:

I think @dylans has a fair point that we need separation / compartmentalization of concepts.

It is a noble goal to find common ground, compassion and consensus with and for people with different beliefs than yourself. If all concepts bleed together that goal can become increasingly hard.

We need to fight back against the winner-take-all globalizing singularity of all ideas and be able to appreciate things like moderation, diversity, balance, satisfaction.

Lets not lose our taste for these beautiful concepts!

YOU SAID THE D WORD! J/K Sorry, @approxinfinity While I disagree with you, I do respect and appreciate you and all you do to keep this little community together.

So… Is KU going to have a full team next year? Seems like maybe we should have taken on more players previously and just eaten all of those penalties this year!

@wissox said in The portal.:

@RockkChalkk Sorry/not sorry if I can. The topic was threaded into the discussion of someone being deported who’s here to play basketball. I see a lot of parallels. It’s not a hogwash narrative. Hyperbole has been used to make points a lot in writing. I was employing the same. Trumps policies are already leading to deaths and so I’ll speak up, even on a great basketball blog.

It’s almost like the concept of sports and politics cannot actually be separated. Hmm…

@FarmerJayhawk said in The portal.:

@Texas-Hawk-10 to quote a senior administration official, “The cruelty is the point”

I don’t think enough people understand this. Even all the FAFSA revamp stuff (started under trump but finished under biden) seemed to purposefully make things more difficult for those who would need the support the most.

@Texas-Hawk-10 said in The portal.:

Don’t really know where to put this, but Duke C Khamen Maluach has officially entered the NBA Draft. Not newsworthy itself because he’s a projected top 10 pick. Unfortunately he may not be drafted as he is here on a student visa from South Sudan which were recently canceled. Since his visa has been canceled, that means he can’t legally play basketball in the United States. He could play 41 games if he was with the Raptors (home games only) or play in Europe. ICE is currently trying to locate him to deport him, but Duke is doing what they can to hide and protect him.

Regardless of personal feelings towards Duke, this is a beyond f-ed up situation where Maluach may miss out on making generational wealth because of a situation far beyond his control.

Don’t forget sports aren’t political! Lol.

This is so gross and wrong. I do think it at least helps to have some of these more high profile cases shared over and over again just so people know what is really going on. Imagine all of the folks who don’t have the name recognition, the support of a rich private university, etc. It’s heartbreaking.

The Pitt is worth everyone’s time. On max from the folks who brought you er. It’s really good. First season just wrapped up on Max. I’ll be shocked if Noah Wiley doesn’t get an Emmy.

Chat GPT is often bad at math. lol

@approxinfinity I do think there is some what of a question of do we WANT continuity from this past season? That team was such a mess, is it better to just start completely fresh?

To be clear I also love Flory and wish he was going to be a jayhawk next year, but once you put yourself in the portal… loyalty, trust, and continuity are no longer traits you can lean on. There is also the idea of precedent to consider. Like does every player then just put themselves in the portal every year hoping to get a raise from their current school? Does KU want to set that as standard operating procedure?

It will be hilarious? Sad? Tragic? when KU lands all the portal riches we can imagine and gets ranked pre season number 1 again. I have to agree my expectations are extremely low for next year. And I’m not sure there are portal guys that will change those expectations.

@approxinfinity he is the face of the most unsuccessful back to back seasons KU has had in a long time. I just keep telling people, Hunter just wasn’t a winner. He faded in big moments apart from an amazing performance on senior night.

No one on the staff is old enough to remember us NOT being in the tournament so they assumed it must be automatic.

I think it’s just really hard to beat a team twice in such a short tie span. And this team doesn’t do hard things well. My expectations are pretty low for the tourey. One win, maybe two, possibly 3, definitely not 4. This team hasn’t won more than 3 games in a row since furman. Haven’t won more than two in a row since winning at Cincy.

18 threes and no one made more than 3! That’s so hard to guard. They’ve been super hot lately. The blowout over us is just the tip of the iceberg for big wins they’ve had.

Do we HAVE to replace anyone who leaves? We have sooooo many coaches!

Just came across this on tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZT2CAqrJt/

Any guys on our team keeping up with this analysis and prep? Lol. I’m not even a big painter fan. Feels like self has had times in his career where he’s been able to talk like this but this conversation surely isn’t happening in practice with this squad.

@drgnslayr the age old positive vs. negative reinforcement debate. Positive reinforcement has been proven over and over again to be more successful than negative. Tough to convince boomers of it though. Old habits die hard. I do think he even tried some with this group. But I think he’s been trying everything he can think of a nothing has seemed to land with this crew. That’s why I keep being hard on Hunter even when his individual production has been fine.

Accountability still has to exist even when positive reinforcement is the key motivating tactic. And if only one person is willing to hold others accountable, then they are the bad guy no matter what. The relational capacity of this team is so low. I think that was the big coaching mistake of this year. They had some success early and seems like (I don’t actually know) they may have skipped out on some early team building thinking they’d be ok but then those cracks exploded as soon as any adversity hit.

@rcjhdraft being able to catch a pass or inbound the ball would be an improvement from this years group.

At least they showed good energy in that second half. I’d be curious what the plus minus of the three big line up in the first half did to us…

Too many inexplicable mistakes down the stretch. I’m

@approxinfinity Flory may be the only player on this team who is truly good without the ball in his hands. I will acknowledge that Hunter has gotten better this year at working off ball to get deeper position and push his man up the lane for those entry passes (even if only Juan and kj can actually throw those passes).

Doesn’t Peterson need to be “on ball” too? Is anyone good “off ball”?

Seems like that’s a big part of our problems this year. AJ needs the ball in his hands, Hunter needs the ball in his hands, and if the ball isn’t in Juan or kjs hands they are actively not guarded so better get the ball in their hands, and if Rylan doesn’t have the ball in his hands he just kind of floats to the corner and waits (this has been a little better the last few games).

I see why we all love flory.

@SlimShaddy54 Allen field house is very friendly so I think we’ve got a good shot at 2-1 as well. I don’t think 3-0 is actually impossible. I’d be more surprised by 0-3 than 3-0 at this point.

@kjayhawks said in Man is KU is really going to stomp Colorado tonight!:

@approxinfinity with Shak out I think we have found our 7 with Flory and Diggy off the bench. At this point Storr is just a lost cause

Worst all big 10 player of all time? I’d be happy with Diggy getting all of Store’s minutes at this point and I never thought I’d say that.

Gotta give it to Hunter this game. HUGE game from him when the shots weren’t falling for anyone else. We make some free throws and any threes and that game wouldn’t have been that close. Feel good about the win. Gotta keep it going though to prove they are more than I currently think they are.

Was hoping my sad thread wouldn’t be the game thread!

@Zabudda I have concepts of a plan to watch the whole thing.

@Crimsonorblue22 You look forward to us losing? Lol. I know that’s not what your saying. To be clear I am still 100% cheering for my jayhawks every chance I get. Just had to adjust my own expectations a bit this year. Hoping they are moving into the underpromise/overdeliver territory now.

Maybe this was all just Bill Self’s way to get his team peaking at the right time! (See there I go hoping again…)

A. It’s on the road. We have sucked on the road.

B. It’s in the mountains. We have sucked at altitude.

C. We just played well vs. OK State. We have been unable to string back to back good performances together.

Colorado is bad. But so was Utah…

I’d say I was very worried about this game if my level of investment in this team was that of a normal KU mens basketball season. But unfortunately while I will likely watch the first half before falling asleep, my level of caring about this team is still pretty low as I’ve grown to expect nothing from them.

Even if they win this one, I think I will need at least one more before I let myself feel ANY hope for this team in March.

That’s still 9:00 mountain time? What the hell? I’d get it if it was full west coast pacific time because a game starting at 8 isn’t unheard of but 9 seems late add in the central time of 10:00 and it just seems silly.

Unfortunately I think two things:

1. Allen fieldhouse is very good
2. ok state is very bad

We ended up playing with energy but the start was still slow. A good team could have buried us right from the tip that game. They missed some open looks early that could have made that a very different game.

It’s a good start but I’m not calling this team “BACK” yet.

@DanR said in Biggest game of the year thread:

No movement on O at all

This is the real issue with Rylan and AJ and why they aren’t panning out.

@patoh3 if he had real scorers around him someone would have been there to throw that down.

@drgnslayr said in Tonight's game:

There is no lineup that fixes this. The spirit of this team is broken. I don’t think it’s fair to blast a few players placing blame.

What can we expect moving forward? With my limited experience of seeing teams broken at this level I’d say expect the unexpected. But in this case, I’m not expecting these guys to have the ability to string together 40 consecutive minutes of execution. I expect everything to be very stiff and laborious.

I previously said there should be a performance clause in their NIL contracts. I guess indirectly this exists already because most, or all, their NIL values have dropped and they continue making new deals.

I think it WAS fair to point out some of the earlier issues and focus on what one or two players/coaches/etc. could do to address some weaknesses and amplify some strengths but for it to get to where we are now it is such a total failure that no one can really escape blame. Everyone is responsible for this. There is still strangely a lot of basketball left. Seems to me there are three real possibilities.

1. Everyone stays checked out and hating each other and we lose out. I don’t see how a team that plays like they played last night would win another game. (I hope to god this isn’t the path they choose)
2. There is some form of reconciliation that brings the guys together to spark more energy in some upcoming games. In this scenario we can still win some home games, maybe pick off Colorado on the road. Limp into the tournament and maybe win a game two at most. (this seems most likely at this point)
3. This team players and coaches included, does some SERIOUS soul searching and has it out until they get to some consensus. With rekindled effort, adjusted scheme, and a real passion for the product they put on the court, there is still a chance for a run. There are always the legends of those players only meetings that changed the season, but this team needs more than that. Real change has to happen at ALL levels for anything close to a “successful season” being the end result. To me an elite 8 run would be successful. Win 3 tournament games. anything else is really special. (this seems like the least likely scenario at this point)

@rockchalkjayhawk I’m not sure if he is trying to fit square pegs into round holes. To me it seems more like trying to see if any of these pegs can stand on their own. I think all he is trying to do right now is get guys to care and the more he tries, the less they care. But we may have ourselves in a cycle where the less they care, the less he cares, and the less I seem to care.

Honestly down thirty maybe ONLY Hunter and AJ should play. Like no breaks.

Good shot hunt.

Hunter got a double double!! He’s the best.

I think this is the appropriate time for an overrated chant. Can I start it?

@approxinfinity yep. He is not off the hook. This is his fault. There is PLENTY of blame to go around for this mess.

Saving all the offensive sets and defensive wrinkles for the tournament. That’s what it is. I’m sure of it.

Honestly this looks a lot like the gonzaga game last year.

I’m gonna say the half time speech might be something like, maybe don’t leave the guys in the corner.

Why?

@DanR would you if you were coaching this team?

lol. Maybe diggy will save us.

@wissox S. O. F. T.

If we take a three at least someone is already back on d! lol.