My Thoughts

Are you feeling a little better today?  Is there a little more bounce in your step.  Is there a little more glee in your voice?  Is there a smile on your face?  If you watched the Kentucky-Kansas game last night then all the above should be true.  What a game, eh?  In his book Animal Farm, George Orwell penned the classic phrase, “All animal are equal, but some are more equal than others.”  All victories count as one win in the record book but some wins are more equal than others.  This was one of those wins.  And if you think this win didn’t mean a lot to Coach Self and to the players, you were not watching the celebration post game.  I would love to see some videos of the locker room after the game.  I have rarely seen coach Self that animated after a win that was not for a championship or Final Four or something.  Don’t let anyone kid you, this game and this win was far more important than it has been indicated.  To wit,

1.  It halted a 3 game skid and prevented the first 4 game skid for KU under Self
2. It was Kentucky for goodness sake.
3.  It was on the road, in Rupp arena no less.  
4.  There is this little competition going on for WINNINGEST PROGRAM OF ALL TIME.  Does anyone care about that?
5.  It was our POY candidate against their reigning POY and current POY candidate.  We won that too, BTW.  
6.  It helped the Big 12 show why it is hands down the best conference on the land.  
7.  Another quad 1 victory.

Some have downplayed the importance of this game, including Self.  I sort of believed him until I saw his reaction after the game.  Can anyone say, sandbagging.  This victory meant a lot to him.  And it should.  And speaking of Self and coaching, can there be any doubt that he is far superior to Calipari in every aspect other than recruiting.  And I would argue he is even a better recruiter since he builds teams where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts, whereas Calipari focuses on the parts and sacrifices the whole.  What masterful preparation, what a masterful game plan and what masterful execution by these young men.  

Speaking of execution, was this game fun or what.  It had a cornucopia of high points in regards to players executing.  And we seem to have fallen in love with this theme of coming from behind.  Once again we started out somewhat lackluster.  Not quite so badly as in the last three games.  But still it looked like same tune, 4th verse at the beginning of this game.  Harris had an uncharacteristically bad TO.  Our defense looked dazed and confused.  Tschiebwe looked like he was going to toy with KJ.  But this one we nipped in the bud.  This one we let the hole go to only 5 points at 11-6.  Then we kicked it into gear and Kentucky never really had an answer.  At one point, the man-child 265 pound Tschiebwe even appeared to be campaigning to the refs that Adams and Udeh were getting a little too frisky with Oscar.  Poor Oscar.  That is what we call a very effective game plan.  

I suppose you have to give the POG to Wilson and ordinarily he would be the easy choice.  But I would be tempted to give this POG to the entire team including the coaching staff.  Just brilliance across the board.  We have had 1 player really cooking with gas through this dry spell and that of course was Jalen Wilson.  There is some stiff competition for National POY but can there be any doubt that Jalen is a 1st team AA and serious contender for National POY?  Zach Eddy has the stats and Jalen’s stats are not exactly chopped liver.  But Jalen has to be at the top in leading a team and hitting clutch shots and making clutch plays.  For my money, that is the stuff of National POY.  And not only is Jalen rising in the ranks of National POY candidate, he is rising in the ranks of great leaders at KU.  In my lifetime, Danny Manning is set apart in terms of pure leadership of a team and putting a team on his back.  But honestly, I am hard-pressed to find another who exceeds what Jalen is doing this season.  I would love to hear from you if you have thoughts.  Frank Mason certainly did that his senior year, but still not quite to the level of Jalen this year (but close).  Devonte’ was a charismatic leader but he had a great supporting cast.  Tyshawn ditto, great at shouldering the burden but pretty consistent supporting cast.  In 2008 there was great play across the board and all worthy of being in the pantheon of KU greats, but no one was tasked with shouldering the burden Jalen has this season.  I have always liked Jalen just because he is a Jayhawk.  But my appreciation and fondness for him has grown immensely this season.  He is a 7 inch taller Frank Mason in that he is fearless to play into contact.  He inspires fear in the opponents who actually have to defend him.  He is punishing.  He is fearless and he has delivered…consistently.  I sure hope he has played his way into the 1st round.  I think what he lacks in athleticism and natural talen he has more than made up for in grit, drive, determination, work ethic and metal toughness.  

And speaking of mental toughness, there are those who have said Self should consider bringing McCullar off the bench.  I have never subscribed to that belief.  I think the greatest “Team” defender I can recall at KU under Self has to be either RussRob of Travis Releford.  There have been as good or better face-up, one on one defenderse, but those two stand out it my mind as true glue guys that made the entire team better defensively when they were on the floor.  But I am close to moving Kevin McCullar to the top of that list,  Watching him play last night was really fun.  He is a completely different kind of player than we have had at KU.  Marcus Garrett was a great one-on-one defender and a very very good team defender.  But Kevin just plays the game a little differently.  And boy is it valuable.  And talk about tough, Jalen has nothing on Kevin.  Kevin went mano a mano with Toppin, Tschiebwe and the rest of the Kentucky squad in battling for rebounds.  Kevin led the game with 12 boards and also with 3 offensive rebounds.  And if you were watching, they were not easy rebounds.  That dude was fighting for position and manning up something fierce.  And of course he leads the conference in steals.  But in reality, he should be leading by a lot more because he initiates a lot of steals that are ultimately credited to other players.  Kevin is clearly extremely valuable to this team.  And even when his shot is off like it has been, he may lead the team in clutch shots.  There have been a number of games where his offense was uninspiring only to hit a clutch three or an and-1 in clutch time.  That is the epitome of mental toughness.  And don’t overlook the fact that KJ tied for team lead in drawing fouls with 4 and also had a team high (tied with Gradey) +/-.  Is Kevin valuable to this team?  

Sone have speculated that Dajuan was not quite right after that fall he took.  I think the data is clear that that is the case.  Was the fall the cause?  I don;t know but that conclusion sure seems reasonable to me.  But his head got cleared up last night.  He was the old Dajuan.  He executed the game plan to perfection whether it was KJ, Zuby or Ernest.  That little hook, slip screen lob was just hilarious to watch.  Credit Calipari for being an idiot to never find a way to adjust for that.  If someone keeps walking up to me and slapping me, eventually I am going to learn to put of some sort of defense as I see them approaching.  We kept running that play and it was beautiful.  At one point after Kentucky’s Ware was burned by Udeh, he turned to the bench to plead his case to Calipari.  In my opinion the announcers got it wrong in claiming that Ware was saying “it’s not my fault.”  I think Ware was saying, “Coach, change the stinking game plan.”  And over the last three games, every time Dajuan went right toward the basket he would veer off.  Not last night.  And Dajuan made a couple big 3’s early.  That was huge for him and the team.  He missed his last two and his lane floater was not falling, but I am glad to see Dajuan back in attack mode.  

And speaking of attack mode.  The subject of KJ as Most-Improved player is still strongly in play.  Listen, a good game is a good game and regardless of who the opponent is, 17 points on 8-10 shooting is a great game.  But wait, there’s more,  He was going against the reigning National Player of the year and one of the two most feared big men in the country.  Please, read that line again.  That is huge,  What KJ did last night was borderline epic.  He had been in a real rut, and especially when it comes to committing fouls.  He could have easily taken a much more conservative approach.  But the dude was just irrepressible.  But as a possibly inappropriate aside, with his body, he should never be afraid of anyone.  That young man is just a pure rock-star adonis.  

If you watched the game casually, you may think that Gradey was the only starter to be sort of average and not really stellar.  But in my opinion, that is not correct.  Gradey was 1-5 from 3 and 4-11 overall but Gradey has become way more than a spot-up shooter.  Look closer.  Gradey tied with Kevin for team lead in +/- at 10.  Gradey also tied for team lead in drawing 4 fouls.  Drawing fouls is a great stat.  I am really glad they started tracking that.  That indicates a lot. And Gradey hit all 4 of his FT’s and that was critical.  Plus the 1 three he hit was pretty critical.  This was not his best game, but he did what the team needed and played a solid overall game.  

The other HUGE bright spot in this game was Udeh.  I love the fire.  This is the first time I have seen Udeh just play and not try to think about Avery little thing.  He showed flashes of what is to come.  Can he be the 2008 North Carolina game Cole Aldrich.  After last night, I think the odds went up tremendously.  

Okay, the game was not without downside.  Zuby is hurt and out for who knows how long.  Kevin sprained an ankle and I will be surprised if he does not miss a couple games.  Obviously there were a number of micro elements that one could complain about but that is true of every game.  The one that always raises my blood pressure is when somebody commits a “Jamari”.  That is my name for a moving screen violation.  Jamari Taylor was good for about 1 per game.  It is one of my biggest pet peeves because it is the epitome of preventable mistakes.  And KJ had one last night.  Dajuan had a couple bad TO’s and we still managed to miss a couple layups, 2 especially egregious, one by Kevin and 1 by Gradey.  But hey, who’s counting.  It was a fantastically fun game.  

Unfortunately, the slate of game yesterday did little to change the Big 12 race.  That will come over the next 10 games.  And what a race.  There are legitimately 6 teams in the race for the Big 12 title.  Baylor is currently in 6th probabilistically and still has a 10% probability fo winning this league outright.  That is insane.  In 27 years, there has never been anything like this in the Big 12.  Not even close.  Of course, depending on the MRI today for Mike Miles, TCU may have been dealt a tragic loss.  And KU may have suffered a loss if McCullar cannot play for a couple games.  

In a brief review of the Big 12 games yesterday, it has to be mentioned that OU was the shining star.  In my opinion, Alabama is one of the 4 best teams in the country.  And OU just annihilated them in every phase of the game.  We know what that feels like after the TCU game only the Alabama loss was worse.  It happens to every team once a year or so.  Had TCU had their full contingent of players, this would have almost certainly been 8 wins for the Big 12.  Texas lost to Tennessee, but right now, I have Tennessee as the top team in the country in my DPPI.  Texas should have lost.  The outcome that was most surprising, other than the OU win, was the Iowa St. loss.  I watched part of that game and Mizzou could not miss from three in the part I watched. And Iowa St. had some incredibly stupid TO’s.  Mizzou deserved to win.  But Iowa St. would probably win 6 out of 10 against Mizzou.  It was just Mizzou’s day.  And 8 home teams won, with the lone exceptions being Texas Tech at LSU and Kansas at Kentucky.  I found it rather satisfying that even though the KU-Kentucky match was not the biggest in terms of current rankings, it was by far the most hyped and talked about during the day.  The Keyontae Johnson playing against his  team of Florida was a nice story and got a lot of play. The Texas-Tennessee game got a lot of hype since both teams are ranked highly and the Rick Barnes against his old school angle.  But the KU-Kentucky blow blood matchup with two of the top POY candidates  was the most compelling matachup.  

While yesterday's games didn't impact the Big 12 projections much there was some movement in the DPPI.  Alabama was in a strong 2nd before yesterday and fell to 4th in the pack.  Tennessee moved to first, but the pack has tightened at the top.  There is no super dominant team like here has been most of the season.  UConn is still coasting from their super hot start.  They had a rating of almost 90 at some point.  So even though they are fading those early games are buoying their ranking.  You can see Kansas has faded quite a bit to 11th.  But the games yesterday landed KU with the toughest schedule in the country.  You can see that if the DPPI had it's way, 9 Big 12 teams would be tourney bound.  Kentucky is still bubblish, at 46th,  Usually it is the top 48 that make the cut.  Tennessee and Houston are still very strong leaders at present.  They also happen to be the top 2 defensive teams in the country.  That is KU's achilles heal right now.  We really need to improve our defense.  We are ranked 8th in offense.  It will be interesting to see where the Big 12 teams end up in SOS.  TCU will likely not break the top 15 since they played such a ridiculously weak non-con schedule.  Ditto Kansas State.  But the other teams will all be likely top 10.  The team that, based on the DPPI is being way overlooked is Saint Mary's.  On the other side of the ledger, Gonzaga is way too highly ranked if you believe the DPPI.  And finally, the ACC is very close to being ranked 8th among conferences.  Wow!!  They have only 1 team in the top 30.  How embarrassing.  



Texas is still in the drivers seat in the Big 12.  But as I said, it really is a wide open race.  If KU could win the next three games that would be absolutely huge.  Based on the DPPI, there is only a 1in 6 probability of that happening.  But we are due.  We really need to win at least 2 of the next three, especially Texas.