Heading into the back nine ( a bit late)

My first thought is that a really good basketball team could end up in second in the Big XII this year.
Most years 9-1 would leave breathing room.
Now that Drew has stopped recruiting lanky 5 stars and playing zone ( and playing a very experienced mentally tough bunch) they could stay ranked #1 a while.

We have road games there, Morgantown and Lubbock. It seems treacherous but the numbers 57, 50, 52, 53, 46 give me hope that we can win a couple of them.
Those are points allowed in our conference road wins. Defense travels.

The bottom of the conference seems a bit off so it really might take 16-2 or better.

The top 4 make me ponder the Semi- in Kansas City if seeding holds. About like a Sweet 16 ticket.

The Hawks offense is still clunky. I don't know how it improves much . Braun had a freshman day Saturday. Agbaji plays his minutes and gets boards, steals , assist a bit of something in all columns.

I guess I have learned to stop worrying about how we shoot 3s and love the way we close out on the perimeter sometimes 3 or 4 times in a sequence.

Maybe the Horns help out a bit on Monday?

I have no clue what this team will do. Very good defense, but boy, that offense sure struggles all too often. And take away a few dunks and drives, and where does the scoring come from? This team will go only as far as that defense takes it.

Self wins 700 and could get 800 in 4 more years, so there's little to pick at with him for sure. But at some point he has to embrace the 3 pt shot, and bury "fools gold" forever. Going small with four guards is not the same as embracing the three. We just run more weave and still wait for Dok to get position.

I don't think we're a bad shooting team. I just see an offensive system that prioritizes getting the bigs good position to receive an entry pass, and makes outside shooters work very hard to get open shots. TCU was so obvious that letting Dok dunk at will, pressuring our guards to take away open shots, and they hit a few threes, and it's a close game. We finally hit a few threes and blow the game open, against a team that had no business being in a close game with us.

Defense is impressive, but we need to break away from the lesser teams and just outscore them. We're at risk of losing to one hot shooting team if we can't match it.

Take a look at the TCU box score and something kind of scary jumps out: Dok had 20 and Dotson had 18. 38 out of KU's 60 points (63%) came from those two guys. Not so great are these point totals:
>Garrett: 0
>Braun: 0
>Enaruna: 0

Moreover:
>Agbaji: 1-3 from three and 2 free throws and one 2 point basket in 32 minutes.
>Moss: 3-11 shooting overall.

Offense like this worries me if Dok and/or Dotson end up injured or in foul trouble.

That said, the schedule favors us In the KU/Baylor/WVU trio, KU as one win as does Baylor....BUUUUT Baylor and WVU have one fewer game played. Out of the 4 games, KU has 2 opportunities left and both of them have 3. That's 3 potential stumbles vs. 2. If Baylor wins all 3 they deserve the crown. I don't think it'll happen.

Granted, Tech and WVU are both 4 games out, so it's a very long shot for them. But Baylor/WVU is unique since they're playing twice. If I'm Huggy Bear, I'm telling my guys that if they beat Baylor twice they're only 2 back. If they beat KU, they're tied with KU and 1 back. At that point, anything can happen. Bottom line outside of KU, only WVU has a real "path" to winning the conference, which makes them VERY dangerous this Wednesday.