frantic mode

For years I've watched KU go into the frantic mode when things get tough. It's, "Let's see how fast we can run and dribble without a clue as to what we plan to do with the ball." Shots are thrown up instead of making that extra pass to the open man. Turnovers mount up. What was calm, methodical, intelligent playing turns into an out-of-control catastrophe waiting to happen. One player usually tries to take over and be the hero. What begins as confusion on defense turns into nap time.

The fan watching from the safety of her couch screams, "Breathe! Breathe!" and prays Coach Self will call time out and actually make them breathe deeply for a couple of minutes. She knows from experience he won't.

The frantic mode usually results in a loss.

By the way, I thought we needed Mitch a lot more tonight. He isn't a scorer but he rarely hurts the team when he's on the floor. Au contraire. Not that I'm biased or anything......

Texas has a top 20 offense for sure and we held them overall to 75 points on 78 possessions for a PPP of 0.962. That is not great defense but it is at least decent or better than decent. We surely had some lapses on defense on a number of possessions. But in a normal year, holding a team to 0.962 PPP will result in a win. But this season KU's offense is just not great. I will update my DPPI this morning later but going into the Texas game, KU's offense was ranked 49th. As I see it, our offense suffers from the dread disease lackus talentus. We simply do not have enough weapons on offense to consistently overcome so-so defensive performances. Against Texas, David was up against one of the best and most athletic defenders in the league and even the country. Jericho Sims is a very very good defender and he is big and athletic. It showed. David did not have a bad game nor was it a particularly good game. So when we are up against a matchup that hinders David's offense as Texas did we need some other weapons. In the first half we moved the ball and found Ochai for some open threes. But give Texas a ton of credit. They adjusted at halftime and took that away very effectively. So this is where KU's lackus talentus comes to bite them. They were effectively taking away the perimeter looks and Jericho was having pretty good effectiveness against David without double teaming. The Texas game plan is working after halftime adjustments. So what does KU do? Well here is where our options become very limited and our lack of skill becomes very obvious. You Set a bunch of screens and try to penetrate either down the lane, off of a high screen or possible a baseline screen. We attempted that over and over but our lack of footspeed and our lack of elite penetrating ability resulted in blocked shots or bad shots at the rim. Ochai tried twice to penetrate and was ineffective. He is just not a player who can do that against fast and athletic competition. Sorry, but offensively, Ochai is close to a on-trick pony, although he has developed a pretty decent Paul Pierce pull up mid-range jumper. But off the dribble, Ochai quickly becomes very mediocre. Christian is even worse off the dribble. Try to count the number of shots Christian has created off the dribble this season. It is not a long suit for him either. Jalen is aggressive as hell and I love that. But his skills at the rim are a work in progress. He is no Frank Mason or Devon Dotson by a long shot. He will get there because he works hard and he is aggressive. But how many terrible shots did he have at the rim? Marcus is the only guy that has a pretty decent game off the dribble of the starters. Bryce is probably 2nd on the team in creating off the dribble.

I give David a ton of credit for developing his decision making this season. But as I said, if you can minimize David with a single man on man and also play aggressive perimeter defense, you pretty much shut KU down this season. Picture adding Devon to this team. It is all the sudden a completely different team. Not because Devon was such a great point guard because he was not. But he was a scorer and playmaker. And that freed Marcus up to do what he does best. And Ochai would be likely the 5th option on a team with Devon. When you have such limited ability of player to create off the dribble and penetrate to the rim, you will struggle all too often to score. And that is what happened against Texas in the 2nd half. In our first half run, how many points were scored by creating off the dribble or transition? A lot. Bryce had his best half by far. And our defense was creating turnovers and we were transitioning effectively.

This is a decent team, but the fatal flaw in this team is the lack of one true elite playmaker. If Cade Cunningham would have chosen Kansas, we would be a top 5 team. If Devon had stayed, we would be a top 5 team. If Bryce had not been hurt and had a chance to really develop, we would be a top 15 or possibly 10 team. I really love the players on this team. I have great admiration and appreciation for guys like Ochai, Christian and David. But they are all limited and unable to be the dominate playmaker we need to be a great elite team. They all have some nice skills and are all worthy of minutes, even on an elite team. But we are missing the key link.

I would agree. I would put a different way. This team does not have anyone that can create there own shot. I think Marcus, who has been asked to do it all year is getting better at it and for a freshman Bryce is doing well but neither can you give the ball to at the end of the half and be very confident you will score. I agree with you that I like the guys on this team but that is a weakness.

Talent on this team is a cut below. SVP on ESPN flat out said last night HCBS is doing great job with the talent he has...It’s a strange feeling to watch a Big 12 game where KU doesn’t have the top talent...it’s mildly annoying, just me don’t like other Big 12 schools, to see the Baylor and Texas to be more talented..something not right ...NCAA situation needs to be resolved, HCBS even said as much.