Related pages Coach's comments Box score Season stats Possession analysis Explanation of NEP

If you are reading this you are probably a Jayhawk fan. If you are a Jayhawk fan you are probably unhappy right about now. As Jayhawk fans we have been endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights. Among those are life, liberty, and the pursuit of victories. Note that it doesn’t guarantee victories, just the pursuit of victories. Obviously our pursuit has been unfruitful in New York this week. Fear not, for the pursuit continues in the friendly confines of Allen Fieldhouse on Wednesday next. The Jayhawk ship will limp into port bruised, battered, and battle-scarred but under their own power. We are listing to starboard a bit but the ship is afloat. Yes, we are taking on water but there are reasons why this will turn around. We are about numbers here at ITN (Inside the Numbers) International. As we embark upon our analysis of this latest dubious drubbing keep in mind two very important numbers. The first number is the number 10. Why is 10 so important? It is the number that appears on the jersey of our most critical player. The box score indicated he played 31 minutes against Florida. This is incorrect. Number 10 did not play against Florida. Kirk Hinrich was present and on the court but he did not play. Kirk’s back is in great pain and his mobility, quickness, and form were so radically altered as to render his ability to effectively perform essentially zero. His leadership is so critical to the team that his presence alone, regardless of his athletic effectiveness, is a critical part of our success. Hence, he ignored the pain and gave all he had. The second number you need to keep in mind is the number 0 (zero). This is the number of bench players who have shown they are prepared to step in and contribute quality minutes to the cause of victory. I am not trashing Moulaye, Bryant, Jeff G., Michael, or Jeff H. I am making a measured statement based on their actual performances through 4 games. When you combine the virtual absence of our most critical player with the lack of compensatory contributions from the supporting cast, it spells doom when playing a equal team. Our top 5 players can play with anyone in the country. Four of our top 5 players cannot compete with a complete cadre of quality opponents. Feel free to email me with dissenting opinions, but I am not prepared to inject great heaping amounts of pessimism upon this team yet. Nor am I blind to their deficiencies. My assessment, while not devoid of emotion, is guided by rational evaluation. I entreat you all to consider the two games in NYC in context of all the salient factors and to not extrapolate these losses into a prognostication of certain demise. They stunk it up, and we got our butts kicked. We have some things we definitely need to work on. We will probably lose a few more games while we are working on them. We are still a good team with good potential. These two games have shown us nothing more than a berth in the Final Four next March is not an entitlement for the Jayhawks. Rather it is something we will have to scratch, claw, and work our butts off to earn. Would you want it any other way? Now that you have firmly entrenched 10 and 0 in your minds, let’s take a little breather and look at one very positive aspect of being a Jayhawk that is irrefutable. The Basketball Hall of Fame currently has 246 individuals enshrined. When a person is enshrined in the HOF his associations with colleges and universities are listed as to whether he attended or coached at a particular institution. All enshrines are inducted as either 1) coaches (68), 2) players (120), 3) contributors (46), or 4) referees (12). Thirty-one of the enshrinees have no American college or university association. Of the 215 enshrinees with affiliations 246 institutions are listed. Bear in mind if an individual attended 2 schools and coached at 2 additional schools, that would account for 4 institutions. Only 24 schools have more than 3 affiliations. The University of Kansas tops that list by far having 15 affiliated enshrinees. UCLA is second with 9. Some affiliations are very loose in that some schools, such as Columbia University, was listed as an affiliated school because an enshrinee attended there as a graduate or Doctoral student. Or in other cases an enshrinee might have been an assistant coach for a year at a school prior to moving on to another school where he (she) developed the credential for enshrinement. In KU’s case, all 15 are solidly affiliated with KU basketball. 13 actually played at KU while 2 only coached at KU (James Naismith and Larry Brown). College Affiliations University of Kansas 15 UCLA 9 Ohio State University 8 New York University 8 St. John's University 8 Indiana University 7 Springfield College 7 Columbia University 7 University of Minnesota 6 University of Wisconsin 5 University of Southern California 5 West Point 5 Stanford University 5 University of Iowa 5 University of Kentucky 5 University of North Carolina 5 University of Chicago 4 University of Notre Dame 4 Dartmouth College 4 Harvard University 4 Oklahoma State University 4 University of Pennsylvania 4 University of San Francisco 4 Yale University 4 Here is a look at the KU affiliated enshrinees. Enshrinee Affiliation Adolph F. Rupp Player Arthur C. Lonborg Player Clyde E. Lovellette Player Dean E. Smith Player, Asst. Coach Dr. James Naismith Coach Ernest C. Quigley Player Forrest Clare Allen Player, Coach Forrest S. DeBernardi Player John B. McLendon Player John W. Bunn Player, Asst. Coach Larry Brown Coach Paul Endacott Player Ralph H. Miller Player William C. Johnson Player Wilton N. Chamberlain Player Now you can take two points of view on all this. You can take the stock broker viewpoint that, “past performance is no guarantee of future profits.” Or you can the Geology 104 (I spent a fair amount of time in Lindley Hall) viewpoint that the past is the key to the future. All the accomplishments of the past do not mean we will waltz into the Final Four with bells on. It does mean we will stand proud in victory and defeat knowing we will survive the throws and setbacks and will never stay down too long. EOSB (end of soap box). Florida vs. Kansas We don’t like to lose and we definitely don’t like to lose two in a row. The manner in which we lost gives pause to the legitimacy of KU’s claim to a top 10 spot. Perhaps even a top 20 spot. Before we throw in the towel let’s look a little closer Inside the Numbers to see if the horizon is really as bleak as some of us feel. I contend there are many positives amongst the detritus of these ugly losses. First, the... Milestone Update Kirk’s 5 points moved him into a 28th place tie for career points with Milt Newton. Nick’s 16 points moves him to 1475 for his career, trailing Tony Guy by 13 for 15th place. He will likely move into 15th after the next game. Kirk still trails Adonis Jordan by 18 assists to move into 4th place all-time. Player of the Game Nick (The Tortoise) Collison wins POG hands down for the second game in a row. Remember the children’s fable of the Tortoise and the Hare? So far this season Nick has been the Tortoise. In no way is this intended to insinuate he is slow. Rather it intends to extol his perseverance and tenacity. He has posted solid numbers every game thus far and has been KU’s most consistent performer. Once again he posted team leading numbers for NEP and n-NEP. Here are the results. Player NEP n-NEP Nick Collison 23.3 27.4 Aaron Miles 21.3 23.0 Keith Langford 17.4 19.4 Wayne Simien 16.4 21.2 Kirk Hinrich 6.1 7.8 Moulaye Niang 5.6 37.0 Jeff Graves 2.6 11.5 Bryant Nash 1.1 2.8 Jeff Hawkins -0.5 -21.4 Aaron also had a better night despite his continued shooting woes. He dished out 8 assists against 2 TOs and scored 11 points. Conventional wisdom tells us the starters all need to be in the 23-25 range or better for n-NEP for us to taste victory. As you can see we were fell short. Kirk was hurting, and the other starters simply did not pick up the slack. Keith scored 17 points and hauled down 10 rebounds. These sound like splashy stats but when you add in 2 TOs and a 40% shooting, you get a decent but not great game. When a key player is out we need great from Keith. Simien was slightly better but still only decent. With one or two fewer missed shots Aaron would have been right in there. Nick met the goal but certainly did not exceed it. Significant Stats When looking for a culprit for the Florida loss look no further than SE (shooting efficiency). SE is the actual points scored divided by the total possible points scored if all shots were made (including FT’s). This is the measure of the teams overall shooting effectiveness. Last season we had a SE of 52.7%. Through four games this season we have a SE of 48.2%. That doesn’t sound too bad until you consider we had a SE of 41.3% in the last two games and only 40.6% against Florida. Part of the problem is we are getting our shots blocked at a prodigious rate. Florida managed to block 10.9% of our FGAs which is certainly better than the 20.4% that North Carolina blocked. Both numbers are too high. Furthermore our team 3 point shooting percentage is a very anemic 18.8%. Quite simply, when you are not threatening from the perimeter with any consistency, your opponent can adjust their game plan to be more effective in the paint and the post. Another very significant stat is that KU hauled down 45% of the rebounds on the offensive glass. We are shooting poorly yet we are still dominating the glass. We outrebounded Florida overall by 11 rebounds pulling down 56.2% of the total rebounds. I was unable to see the game so I can’t make a qualitative assessment of this next stat. Florida scored 50.6% or their points on 3 pointers. So far this year our opponents are scoring 36.3% of their points on 3 pointers. This is up almost 20% from last year when we gave up 30.6% of the points on treys. It could be we just ran into a streak of hot shooting teams. Watch for this stat in future games. We have four games under our belts and some trends are beginning to emerge. Let’s look at the data on a player-by-player basis and see where the areas of concern are. Wayne Simien: Wayne has played 122 minutes of basketball and has a total of 2 assists. The inside-out motion offense necessarily needs to have an “out” to be complete. Wayne has been somewhat of a black hole to date. Teams will begin to collapse on him and his effectiveness will go down considerably unless he learns when to shoot and when to pass. This is the bane of sophomore big men in general. I suspect it will be a focus for Roy in future practices. Kirk Hinrich: I will defer on Kirk since 2 of the four games he has been essentially injured. Nick Collison: There are two huge plusses for Nick. First he has a FT% of 76.7%. Secondly he is fouling at a rate of 2.60 fouls per 40 minutes. Last season was his previous best and he fouled at a rate of 4.36 per 40 minutes. Very nice concentration and effort. The only slight criticism of nick is he is shooting at a combined rate (FT & FG) of slightly over 20 per 40 minutes. Given our lack of depth and given that Nick is our senior leader and primary scoring option he needs to be a bit more aggressive and move this number up to about 22 or 23. Last season Drew shot at a rate of 23.88. Keith Langford: First let me make a qualitative assessment. Keith shows flashes of being able to simply dominate like no one else on the team. At other times he almost disappears. This lack of consistency creates a vacuum for his teammates. Keith has done a nice job of getting to the FT line. Shooting 42.9% (8 for 17) from the stripe is simply not going to cut it. He is too good of a shooter for this. Opponents will start to play him much tighter if he continues this trend. Keith also needs to be slightly more aggressive. He is shooting at a rate of about 17.5 shots per 40 minutes. This needs to increase by about 10%. On the big plus side, Keith is hitting 42.9% of his 3 pointers and 63.4% overall. Aaron Miles: Aaron is leading the team in A/TO at 1.71. That sounds okay until you consider he finished the entire season last year with an A/TO ratio of 2.25. Plus he is a pass first PG and A/TO is his primary stock in trade. This needs to be no less than 2.5. Stated another way, Aaron needs to be a better playmaker than he has so far this season and quit turning the ball over in the process. Aaron’s shooting % is a concern, hitting just over 23% of his shots but that issue would be partially ameliorated if he would revert back to more of a playmaking role and less of a press scorer. By press scorer I mean the run and gun type of 2 point shots. Consider that Aaron is hitting 25% from the arc but only 22.2% inside the arc. That is because he is attempting too many run, stop, and pop type of shots. I like that shot, but if he isn’t hitting he needs to rely on his number one weapon, namely the pass. We will take a look at the reserves in the next edition of ITN. Hope all of you had a wonderful and blessed Thanksgiving. Please email me if you have any questions or requests. Stats all for now, folks.

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