Crystal Ball!?!?

This is mostly conjecture, but this is how I see the next month of the season playing out as far as our roster and lineup changes.

Last day of finals is in one week, Friday the 15th. Cunliff will have sat out his semester and should be ready to go Sat 16th. I think that we will learn that there was some sort of “minor” impermissible benefit to a family member of Billy Preston and that time served (one semester) of ineligibility is the extent of his playing time penalty and he may be able to play as early as the 16th also- Jan 16 (first day of spring classes) at latest.

DeSousa’s test scores should be in and if all his paper qualifies he could be available, at least in body, no later than Jan 16 or the date he actually enrolls.

Finally, I expect to see Svi pull some of the duty at high post against zones until Preston on board. This would free up Vick to do some work on perimeter- his tre is good and he is quick slashing to the lane from wing or baseline. I also expect to see Garrett take more of Newman’s minuets if Malik keeps his score first mentality and doesn’t add more nuance to his offensive game.

Finally, what if no Preston or DeSousa- does HCBS entertain a zone defense as a way of protecting Dok from foul trouble??

I do not see HCBS using zone on a consistent basis. He may have some zone looks on occasion or some "junk" defenses like a box and 1 or triangle and 2 but I do not think you will see a 5 man zone for long stretches from a HCBS team. Obviously if he tries it and the other team can't get a good shot off he may stick with it a bit longer.

I see the opposite. We need to speed the game up, and we have the guards to do it. Press more and rely on aggressive defense to get the offense rolling. Zones slow everything down, and that's not our strength. Even with Cunliff coming on board, we don't upgrade on the interior - we just add another athlete who needs to defend aggressively, create turnovers, and run. I also have serious doubts that Preston upgrades our interior, if he ever returns. He's another Bragg, who doesn't want to play as a big, and will fight it the entire time. Take him for what he is, and get him involved in the running game.

Zones will appear when we have bad foul trouble inside, but otherwise, having Vick, Graham, Svi, Newman, Garrett, Cunliff and others flying down, driving to the hoop, kicking out for three's, is lethal.

If we are to rely on a much more open transition game for scoring our points we had better perform a lot better than we did in this last game. We forced 12 turnovers and scored a whopping eight points off of those while Washington University forced 13 turnovers and scored 16 points off of those. There wS also a discrepancy in three-point shooting where we had almost equal number of attempts -20 for us and 21 for WU. We hit 5 to their 9. If one corrects both of these categories to the seasonal averages for each team the game likely goes the other way!

In a story in the Kansas City Star this morning Coach self discusses the competitive “dog” attitude needed on the team that is thus far lacking. He seems to be very strongly of the opinion that Vick will definitely be this type of player. He thinks that Devonte is almost there. He feels tha Dok needs to learn how to be competitive and he feels that Marcus Garrett will develop this mentality. He indicates that Svi is tougher than he was last year but the implication is that he has pretty much topped out on that aspect. At no point does he mention Newman.

Finally, NO news on Preston or De Sousa. I find it interesting that HCBS never seems to even mention Cunliff and what he might bring to the rotation. I still suspect some news later this week as the fall semester comes to an end.

It's from the LJW (not the Star), but covers the same material.
www2.kusports.com/news/2017/dec/08/kansa...self-searching-dogs/