A bunch of wallflowers

No defense- nothing, give up 90+ to WVU...This team is worse than the 2019 D Lawson team.. this team deservedly is 12-7 and warrants whatever criticism of their on court effort comes their way.

I would agree that they were not as good defensively as Kansas Fans are used to but I disagree about the effort. I thought in today's game they gave a lot of effort. In that game things went WVUs way. WVU shot 84% from the line and better than 50% from 3. There were a couple open looks from 3 but most of them were contested.

Hairy - But that is what folks said about the Tennessee game, Texas game, Baylor game ..I think 1 game is anomaly but this is a trend for this team..other teams are going off on them. HCBS even said as much..tells me.

I would agree that the opponent 3 point shooting % is something that they need to improve on but I do not know a way to improve their free throw defense. I think opponents really get focused and are dialed in to beating KU. This team has not been good enough to keep the good teams from imposing their will on the Jayhawks. In the game today I didn't see a lack of effort by the Jayhawks.

A lot of the FT’s were late. You have two guys set career highs and another go for 19, something is wrong...talent, talent, talent.. ok I’ll concede maybe effort was better but this is not a talented Kansas team. NCAA issues aside, HCBS and coaches are responsible for assembling and maximizing talent. This year they have not done it..its been a good 30+ year run but to crash and burn like this is frustrating. I am sure the team is feeling it but they just keep piling up L’s with no obvious improvement. Maybe it’s time to clean house and hit reset..this is now 2 out of last 3 years where Hawks have had or are having a lousy season.

I really thought they put out a lot of effort today. They were scrapping for loose balls and rebounds. And they fought back to tie the game several times.

There was simply an obvious disparity in general athletic ability.

And I love the kid and respect him, but when your offense starts with Garrett, you’re already playing at about 70% capacity. We just don’t have the horses.

Did not play a lick of defense- KU scoring 79 usually means a W, nope made WVU guards look like 1st All Americans. This team is just no good..happy to be proven wrong, but the parts aren’t meshing and with meh talent this team has no margin. NCAAT is not a given and honestly this team has no gimmes on its schedule...

As much as I love Coach Self and admire his coaching abilities, I continue to see a trend that he does things his own way, regardless of a player's skill or lack thereof. My bias in Lightfoot's favor heightens my awareness of this trend, as does Self's determination to see Garrett as his forever choice to lead the team and the big guy as KU's eventual savior.

What would I love to see? Mitch starting. Every game. Garrett returning to his original role of a great defender. Every game. Coach Self recognizing that this is a growing year so letting the little guy play. A lot.

I can dream, can't I?

FWIW, I will agree and disagree with LKF. I do not think this team is underachieving in really any way. In fact, I think this team is playing pretty spot on to the talent they have. I do not see a lack of effort or a major attitude problem. I will agree with LKF when he says there is just not enough talent. This is Kansas and we are not supposed to be where we are, namely less talented than 30-40 teams in the country. We are a team that has about 30th-40th ranked talent. That is just pretty much the way it is as I see it. And they are playing about like a 30-40th ranked team should play. I was caught in the trap earlier in the season of higher expectations than the talent warranted. I am in the process of adjusting my expectations for this team.

For those of you follow my DPPI (DPPI Here) , it has been projecting KU as a 30-40th ranked team all season. In fact, we are currently 1 game up on where I projected us to be which means we have a positive long-term trend. So that is actually reason to be sanguine about this team. We are not nearly as bad as we were against Texas nor are we as good as we were against TCU (1st game). But LKF cites the Tennessee game, the West Virginia game and the Baylor game, Tennessee was a very poor game at 12 points below projection. But West Virginia was only 7 points below projection (not great but pretty common) and Baylor was actually 6.5 points above projection because Baylor is that good. . We actually played 13 points above projection against West Virginia the 1st game. The bottom line is, this team has the talent level of a 30-40th ranked team.

Murph commented that when we have to put Marcus Garrett at point and build an offense around him, then we are in trouble. And I totally agree if by "in trouble" you mean you are shooting for a top 10 team. Marcus Garrett is not a top 10 PG type player. Dajuan Harris would be at best some spot minutes on a top 10 team. Christian Braun is a nice player and I am a huge fan, but on a legit top 10 team, he is a 10-15 minutes off the bench guy. David is a very solid player and all things considered has been playing pretty well this season, at least he has been steadily improving, but while David could be a legit center on a top 10 team, it would only be with a better backcourt to take a lot of the focus off of him. And his defense is probably not top 10 legit. There is a lot about this team that is positive, but the reality is, the sum of the parts of this team is simply not talented enough to be much better than low top 25.

The sad thing is that that is not a bad place but it is near catastrophic for a Jayhawk Nation. LKF points to the coaching staff and posits there may need to be some serious reconciliation (my term, his term was house cleaning). I don't necessarily disagree but that is topic for another time. If there is any underperformance this year it is on the part of the coaches who have recruited and developed this minimally talented team.