@TYOHawk Wow… just watched Stokes. In some states he could be arrested for molesting the rim like that!
I’m with you. Let next year be a “Self tribute” year and let Self SMASH THE F*CK out of college basketball! Lets put an exclamation point on college basketball. Lets show Duke how to get the job done with star freshmen!
Go on, Bill… show college basketball how its done!
For the first time I now watched tape on Council. Thought I was watching TT. It doesn’t appear that he can finish with his left hand. His jump shot is like TTs first 3 years… shuffling his feet and not establishing his lower body form. TT went to shooters camp before his senior year and started to correct his form. To me, he looks like a 6th man candidate. Maybe his defense can earn him more PT.
I’ll take a guard tandem that drives the ball and scores any day over a couple of perimeter shooters. All it takes is trey shooters getting cold to lose games. I’d rather not count on the trey and then take it when its there. Penetrating guards are the guys who stir up the defense and create scoring space for others. It also earns us plenty at the charity stripe and puts defenses in foul trouble. Another thing it does… rarely discussed… it exhausts all those non-contact-playing guards who then suddenly can’t hit their treys.
@dylans said in The portal.:
All I know is there is a big push to get as much money right now before the ruling on NCAA direct payments puts a salary cap on it. Basically breaking the salary cap before it’s in place. More loopholes to come…
It seems like that new rule will be a big mess immediately. So I’m KU and we only have $2 mil left in our legal kitty fund. Won’t we contact a corp with big pockets (cough… cough… Adidas) and have them make up the difference with a private NIL package for the guy we want to sign? Private NIL is unlimited and will remain unlimited!
Gosh… is this another one of those KU-Adidas situations where the NCAA smells trouble so they just investigate us again for a decade and then come up with nothing?
Sooooo… we are all sitting on our hands, awaiting news on our portal grabs or even possibly having 2 #1 picks playing on the same team next year.
I read where most of the guys in the portal are still there. What a friggin’ zoo!
Are people in here optimistic or pessimistic on our current situation? Seems like there is plenty of negativity out there, but I’m usually suspicious of it being purple kitty trolls. They should be focused on their own transfer problems.
To me, it feels like we are in the running for some good players and Self is being more careful and refined this year to attempt to have a better result than last year. I’d like to know where our NIL budget sits right now. Anyone have a clue?
Will be interesting to see how Storr does next year and compare his last 3 seasons with KU in the middle.
@BeddieKU23 said in The portal.:
If he was healthy there would be more to talk about with him. Unfortunately, he came to KU early from the HS ranks still recovering from a major ankle injury
Just recently I visited AFH and read what was on the Phog Allen statue… “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” 
@Texas-Hawk-10 said in The portal.:
I really enjoy how good of a passer he is in his highlights. He can create some pretty crazy passing angles and find lanes that shouldn’t be there. Him and DP in a little two man game would be insane.
My thought exactly. Let DP create off the ball sometimes…
I’m sure you are spot on. And since he usually likes that 1:2:2, like @Texas-Hawk-10 mentioned, it definitely requires some practice.
I’ll take my NIL in Freddy’s burgers! 
Good zone takes practice, like any other defense. And it plays out differently depending on what players are on the floor. I like our 1-2-2 sometimes.
DEFENSE - if you ask Self what his calling card is, he would say his focus is defense.
Is it realistic for Kansas to only play M2M? It’s always seems to be effective when we sometimes flip to a zone when our M2M isn’t cutting it. Self always mentions they barely practice zone or don’t.
Should we practice more zone and use it more? Isn’t it a multi-year education process to learn M2M? When was the last time our guys fought hard to get out in front of picks and not switch?
I saw Frank last summer, in Wichita. Thinking maybe it was during the 3-on-3. He looked very fit. It was right before he signed on an Italian league team. He’s skipped around on Int’l ball. Latest I know of is a Puerto Rican team.
I feel comfortable in saying he’d like to be back in the Midwest with a paid gig or earn his way on someone’s staff, even if it isn’t KU.
@MR11 said in The portal.:
@BShark IDK if this is included in that 3 million but honestly assumed most of his NIL money was coming directly from Adidas with them nudging him to KU.
How does that work? That 3 mil wouldn’t come out of the KU NIL pot, right? I’m guessing that is private NIL.
@nuleafjhawk ha! I’m laughing! Think how much NIL you can score in the portal when you still have 2 or 3 years of eligibility left?
I’m still confused on how NIL is used… especially when it comes to enticing players to come here. I know schools are paying NIL and that is about to have caps to it. But then there is private NIL and that’s unlimited. For example… Flory has a deal with Freddy’s. And when he decided to stay here I saw several posts thanking Freddy’s. It seems to me… it’s the contracted school NIL used to get players here and then once they are here their private NIL might help keep them here? If someone knows more on this, please post it!
It looks like our coaches are fine with just having one year players now. So every year moving forward we may only have 1 or 2 guys returning. We’ve never been known as a system built for one year players. Anyone know if our coaching style is adapting now to this situation? How do we prevent outcomes like the last two years? Seems pie-in-the-sky to think we can just recruit enough to find the promised land!
So Diggy is gone to Maryland… any other of our last bunch committed? Seems like some might try to return to KU. I wonder if each are welcome back?
Yeah… you and me both… and every D1 school! Wish he was out there. Ballard does not have the presence of Doke… but we are picking through bones.
I’m sure to get some hate for this… but here goes…
What about snagging Quincy Ballard? He’s listed at 6’11" and he is every bit of that. I believe he is over 7’. I’ve met him several times. He’s “besties” with my son (sort of).
First… surely he can be landed with a minimum hit on NIL. I read where WSU is upside down in NIL now.
Second… though he is limited to shots under the basket, pretty much like Flory, he’s a solid post presence. His numbers were pretty good on a team that struggle to breath oxygen last year.
If we every wanted to “play big” the combo of him with Flory would be nuts. Give our coaching staff a lesson in low post screens. They could use it regardless if we landed him or not. I’ve been pretty amazed this year how many college post players set low post screens for driving guards… something KU has NEVER DONE! Imagine a beast like Ballard setting a single or double low post screen for a driving Peterson!
I know on paper we need a big who can stretch the floor. I’m not convinced those guys are out there and I’m getting pretty sick of running offense for bigs bricking up treys. I still feel like the biggest mistake we made the last two years was playing Hunter at the top of the key.
Okay… I’m done… blast away on my post!
@approxinfinity said in The portal.:
@drgnslayr yeah. I am amazed watching them rebound. Its beautiful. When a shot goes up, layers of guys fold in from the sides and half the distance to the opposing player who isnt trying as hard. Some possessions i became suspicious that they seemed to care less about making the shot than rebounding… just throw it toward the rim and someone will get it!
YES! When I was 10 years old I wore a mouthguard in league play. I love how Houston actually puts effort into rebounding. Almost any other school who claims to do the same… bs… after watching Houston really do it.
What a tough loss. Florida was tough, too!
No doubt they are well rounded. But look at that Duke game. They had 18 ORs on the tallest team in the nation! And for the game they had 11 total rebs more than Duke.
I bet if they can create 18 ORs on Florida tonight they will take home the trophy!
@msanchez said in The portal.:
I’d much rather watch a team full of solid, versatile, gritty, physical & athletic players who can all handle the ball and score — not just stand around while the system runs through a couple of ‘go-to’ guys.
This is my opinion exactly. We have to have players that can easily create for themselves.
Look at last season… we only had two players capable of creating their own shots… Hunter and Zeke. And Zeke was undersized, so often had to back out on his shot.
KJ drove me nuts. For a while in the season before this one he was comfortable hitting that baby 12-footer in the paint. This past year, he missed a few then lost all confidence. Teams were giving it to him and he wouldn’t take it most of the time.
Griffen was a catch and shoot. He wasn’t open enough or we’d pass it to him at his knees and then he’d take a shot with no flow.
AJ… I’m not sure what his strength was. His long ball shooting form was odd, but he could hit an open shot sometimes. Then he was asked to drive and it looked awkward. Down the stretch I give him credit for trying.
Juan… only created when he was forced to. That’s not the attitude you need from your PG.
We shot so few FTs. But this group of guys were never able to accel at playing beyond their comfort zones.
I’m convinced we need better coaching. I’m not talking about Self… just his cling-ons.
The ONLY reason why Houston is in the finals is because of their offensive rebounding. Sampson explained how he put a lid on the goal and made these guys fight it out in every practice. Why aren’t we doing that? What else is he doing to get his lower-ranked players to step up?
It does start with recruiting. I’m so sick of having anemic teams incapable of playing physical. Recruit some bruisers… But then, they need to be coached up in how to use their brawn.
I’m thinking the NCAA ruling will be coming down soon and schools have $20.5 - $23.1 million for internal NIL. That is separate $$$ from individual player NIL earnings. I wonder what Flory is earning on his individual NIL earnings? I know he started a nice deal with Freddy’s. I wonder if that deal stipulates he has to stay at KU?
My thoughts on Flory… if we had a quality GM… none of this was necessary. They could have renegotiated his NIL contract and he would never have to be in this mess. He would have received a big bump in his money and would have kept his Jayhawk family love in perfect shape. It also makes his image look like he isn’t all about money, which might help him at the next level. Maybe I’m wrong… maybe players need to get out there and get offers to determine their best money.
There is something to that. And it’s not all about NIL and the portal. I think some of it is the times and youth are not into traditions like they used to be.
@BShark I think most of us were in love with his upside. We haven’t always come out great living on a dream.
His upside was defense and rebounding.
On offense… realistically… he could go from being effective at 3-feet (dunks) to being effective around 7 to 8-feet.
I think we really liked the contrast he showed comparing him to Hunter. What would have to be addressed this coming year is all the offense we lose by losing Hunter!
Heard Zion’s brother is still available -
https://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/gtunln/bodybuilder_basketball_player/
Am I wrong… or might we be sitting better today with Flory had we had a GM?
I could be wrong… but I heard from someone at Duke that their GM manages players’ handlers. Not sure what that means. Is the GM attempting to be their handlers? Seems a conflict of interest and I don’t think that is possible because these people have been around players while they come up and many stick with them all through their basketball careers after college. Maybe the GM is the voice of the university dealing with the handlers.
This Flory situation is the perfect situation where we see the weakness of our athletic program’s relationships with handlers. It is possible we lose Flory over monster communication errors or lack of communication. I’m seeing Flory is receiving nasty remarks from fans and it just perpetuates his departure. As someone else said on here, I wonder if the KJ injury impacted Flory. It should. He risks a huge chunk of his future everytime he steps on the floor for KU. At least fans seem to now be educated enough to stop the nonsense of claiming an education is fair trade.
Imagine if we had a GM who stays in constant contact with all the players’ handlers. I’m pretty sure, just giving handlers acknowledgment would be a huge step in recruiting the handlers as Jayhawks! I am certain we would be in a better place today with a GM!
I would like to be a fly on the wall, of Bill Self’s brain right now.
Bill has been treated nothing short of a God since he arrived in Lawrence.
I know he’s getting some blow back for the first time.
We’ve had the typical blue-blood expectation failures in the past… basically… every year we don’t win a NC. But we’ve never had so many “fans” calling for his head within the Jayhawk nation.
I’ve never called for Bill to receive the ax. But I have questioned if it is smart for Bill to stick this out. Is his current situation building on his legacy? I would say “no” but that could change and send him skyrocketing over Jayhawk Mountain if he would win another title.
I believe… he is the only one on the planet that knows if he has another title in him.
So more guys exiting the program. Makes me feel more like Flory isn’t coming back. He’s the guy I wanted back… even though his offense is limited to 5 feet from the basket.
Is this true that DP isn’t worried? Glad he isn’t because I’m not feeling comfortable with all new guys after the past couple years.
I’m sorry for being so damn skeptical!
Now I’m seeing a coming year with all new guys in a system we all agree players need years to learn. We will have all the cameras in town surrounding DP so what can we expect on the court?
I’m hoping Bill is busy now; waking each morning with a health smoothie and stepping 5000 steps! He’s reading all the player reviews and building his third title team! He’s interviewing a new assistant coach, an expert in development, along with reading resumes for the new GM position! There will be a big announcement coming out of the AD’s office as soon as next week!
While we are busy panicking over all the player losses… think about this… no players will have seniority and favoritism next year!
Someone tell me… are the NIL caps starting now? Maybe we will need a little extra help from Adidas! (Sorry, bad joke!)
Up until this year, I always backed Bill, especially if something went down with a player. This year I changed and backed the players over Bill. That didn’t come easy to do. I still am a huge fan of Bill. Something has happened and I think we are all in the dark on what has happened within the program. At this point, it really sickens me to listen to fans criticizing our players.
Congrats to Houston! Sampson is absolutely one of the best coaches in D1. They are a team full of non-NBA talent that worked hard, plays as a team, and leaves their guts on the court!
I’m a fan of college ball. When KU stinks like they have the past few years, I still remain a Jayhawk but I don’t give up on supporting players and teams everywhere. Maybe this will piss off some of you…. I am going to mention other teams and my appreciation makes me compare directions to us. First is Houston. They’ve been on the edge of greatness for some time and that final lift was joining the B12. Sampson doesn’t need pro-bound players in his system.
Hold your noses now…. I’m a fan of Pope at Kentucky. It had to be a challenge coming in after Cal. His first year outperformed us in March. It took him all year to defeat the critics in their fan base.
This is going to make you sick…. Duke seems like they have D1 figured out. I hate that school. And I didn’t like Scheyer right from the start. But he has done something similar to what ratface did…. He developed a winning system. It’s hard to imagine that we beat them this year. Had we drawn them in March… get real… they would have beat us by 50. They are a team of youth and new players and you wouldn’t know it now. I thought this team would meltdown in March because of counting on youth and no way I believe it now. They have to be the fav to win it all. Makes me want to barf but it makes me compare how they got there. They did it by developing Scheyer then using his knowledge and youthful energy as their base. They brought in a GM to be better prepared in recruiting and NIL. They have built an excellent basketball atmosphere around their program. Their students do creative projects to build team support. They seem to have more past stars constantly involved. They easily have the most to offer top recruits. So they are the future of revolving door basketball. What makes them different is their understanding of what it takes to win. Cal never had a real plan. He lived off of boasting how many players he got into the league only. I still hate Duke, but I’m taking notes.
I’m watching all these other programs… UCONN, Auburn, Houston…. then I look at us and I don’t think we can recruit enough to play with the big boys today. It still seems like we aren’t going in the right direction. To me, it feels like we aren’t keeping up with top teams. Recruiting a top tier player isn’t going to cut it. The stakes have gone up around us. Our league is losing esteem to the SEC. Not sure we can win our own league again anytime soon. We no longer can blame being investigated by the NCAA for why we aren’t sizzling with talent.
Burying our heads in the sand won’t improve things. I will always be a Jayhawk and will continue to throw in my lousy 2 cents on how to make it better.
HOW TO IMPROVE -
Build more basketball atmosphere - be more creative building student enthusiasm. Yes… we have great student enthusiasm but we can do better developing closer and better connective enthusiasm with our team. We need more than late night, and late night needs an overhaul. You want to recruit more players excited from our basketball environment, then build it up more. I love having the rules but how many recruits did it win over? Involve more of our legend players into the atmosphere.
Resolve coaching situation - I’m not calling for Bill to resign, but we need to acknowledge that something isn’t working properly. This became obvious this year. We were probably the most-experienced team in D1 but we played like a high school team. It was more than having a bad match of players. These guys didn’t improve at all this entire season and may have even gone backwards. An easy cop out is to blame the character of the players. Then explain why the transfers mostly had huge drop offs in their stats. This stupid idea that they just got spoiled on NIL shows an ignorance in knowing the psyche of players. None of these guys got to this level without wanting to win and having good personal pride. I’m convinced if we don’t have a change from this year’s approach, we are headed for the same thing next year, regardless of the talent we bring in. To win, our guys need to overachieve.
My guess is Bill has lost his edge after his heart problem. And up to now, we haven’t adjusted to make things better. I think we need a GM. We will be hiring one eventually and by waiting we are just delaying the benefits. I think we need a shake up in assistant coaches, too. Had we been smart like Duke, we would have been developing Self’s replacement for years. Seems to me Scheyer was an assistant for many years… maybe 8 years? I seriously doubt Self goes more than 1 or 2 years. If next year goes like this year, he will be gone. Not because he gets fired but he’ll leave on his own to save his legacy.
Did players develop this year? I can make arguments for Zeke and Flory only. I think both mostly improved by getting PT. Flory did seem to learn the most.
I feel like we suffered a black eye by recruiting Hunter over Zuby and Udeh. Not only did we lose those guys, it may have had an impression on Flory now. Every man for himself! I think Flory lost some enthusiasm after he played well when KJ went down, then came back and regained most or all of his minutes. Flory stumbled after that.
I’ve always felt like Bill was a player’s coach. He constantly goes to bat for his players. But this year he seemed to only be close with Juan and KJ. I didn’t sense a closeness on this team with Self like he used to have with his players. I remember how close he was with Sherron…. Frank…. and many/most of his guys. Granted, he had those guys for 4-5 years.
I think Bill is going in the wrong direction. His coaching model should be like Sampson… recruit athletic players coming to be developed. Then develop them. Sprinkle in a transfer or two. But we’ve never been a coaching staff capable enough to develop faster. What would have happened with KJ had he gone to Houston? I feel comfortable in saying he would have had a shot at the NBA. All those Houston guys can play and none have KJs athleticism. I firmly believe Bill needs better help around him. It won’t happen because of his loyalty.
Look at the Final Four and how these teams got there. Auburn… Pearl is a motivator! It helps him recruit and develop, and he’s the best cheerleader in games. Houston… Sampson knows how to develop players and teams. Duke… has the total basketball environment! Florida…. I don’t know enough about but feel sure they must have their strong suit.
I want to be optimistic but give me a reason for it! Maybe it’s enough to land better talent… but I doubt it. Bill is a HOFr for a reason and I’m holding on to that plus he has made changes before. I’m just afraid that the changes he needs to make now involve going against his loyalty.
My only smile this year was watching KSU not invited to the NIT then saying they wouldn’t go
Darn… too dark to pick up dog poo
I was in the mood and wore my Miles Davis shirt
@Kcmatt7 we need players capable of benching 100 lbs
Think Bill’s beer belly is back
@BeddieKU23 first time I’ve ever been relieved to see us finished. Been watching for about 60 years!
Come on, brother… hit one more dagger trey!
Why did Bill change the lineup