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Rock Chalk Talk: Basketball
Anything pertaining to basketball: college, pro, HS, recruiting, TV coverage
Anything pertaining to basketball: college, pro, HS, recruiting, TV coverage
Player Ratings - Time to Get Real
6 years 2 months ago #16374
by CorpusJayhawk
Don't worry about the mules, just load the wagon!!
Okay, Svi had a bad game. We all saw it. Svi had a black eye. We all saw it. Do they correlate? We should see Tuesday. Svi has had two HORRENDOUS games back to back. There are ostensible reasons. The Svi focus by TCU and the black eye. I will postpone judgement until next game but Svi did not have two diminished games. Svi had two horrendous games. He did not rebound as well, he did not pass as well, he did not defend as well and he definitely did not drive aggressively like he had been. Svi better get well and very quickly or we are headed for something none of us want to contemplate. I have always had doubts about Svi's mental toughness in terms of handling real adversity. But he is a senior. Lack of mental toughness is not a permanent condition. People grow and learn and mature. Has Svi. We have the perfect test tube to test in the Iowa St. game.
If all of you are like me we want to reward guys like Lightfoot with our praise since he is such a straight up kid that gives 100% all the time. But let's get real. Lightfoot is one of those players that will be worthy of 10-15 minutes per game is junior year and 15+ his senior year. He is not ready for the minutes he is getting and definitely not playing center. His rating show that. In the right situation against the right team playing the right times and the right amount of minutes, Lightfoot can be and has been effective. But he is not what we need for what he is doing. I give him tons of credit for giving his all but it is not enough. This is a problem for KU.
Vick!!! Talk about fools gold. Seeing Vick play against smaller, weaker opponents in the early season led us all to believe he was having a breakout year. We have since learned otherwise. Elite players have skill, athleticism, mental toughness (drive) and basketball savvy. Vick has shown he has one of those 4. You can out jump a player to rebound but you still have to have position. His vertical leap is not enough to overcome his lack of strength in establishing position. His shot has looked awesome at times but he is not one to shoot through slumps. He demurs or worse, does not get himself in position to take a pass and shot. Vick has shown me he is worth about 10 minutes per game on a championship team.
Newman is somewhat of an enigma. He came as a team leading player and almost surefire NBA lottery pick. Well we have established he is not that. He has shown that he is a decent starter on a championship team once he understood there were four other players on the team. I have liked what he has brought the last month. The problem with Newman is his shot is only average. He is not the guy you want as the no. 2 option from the perimeter. When he can take the open shots and put up 4 or even 5 a game that is great. He has grown into a good rebounder and even a decent defender most of the time. He has not shown he is capable of being an NBA pick but he is a good 4th or 5th starter.
Azubuike is bi-polar. On the one hand, Dok has been on a great trajectory offensively. Which ever coach is working with him on the offensive end it is working. He has shown steady growth. He clearly has given us all cause to worry about our team's offense when he takes the bench. That's the manic Dok. The depressive Dok is he still shows way less desire and penchant to rebound. I mean he looks like he really doesn't care that his rebounding is far below what it should be. Plus, Dok has shown a bit of an immaturity in that he seems to pout at times to the point that it affects his performance. A 3rd year Dok is something to get excited about. A 2nd year Dok is something to be satisfied about but not the guy you envision on a Final Four contender. His game is coming along but it still needs work. He is in desperate need of a guy who can give him 15-20 minutes of rest every game without sacrificing so much offense.
Garrett is a freshman. He plays often like a freshman although we all acknowledge there are aspects of his game that are more polished. Let's get real. We tend to spend a disproportionate amount of time giving him credit for those strengths than we spend talking about his very real and quite normal deficiencies. Garrett is one of those guys, like Lightfoot, who you can envision being a senior leader that puts up great numbers. He needs three more years before he is that. Now he is a promising freshman that gives often great minutes, especially defensively, that also brings weaknesses to the floor that have to be compensated for. We do not have the compensation on many nights when our real shooters are not hitting and especially since we play a four guard offense and Garrett is far more ideally suited to a conventional 2 big set. I like the kid and I am glad to have him. But let's be real. He is having to play more than he probably should on a top level team.
De Sousa....2019! Nuf said!!
Sam Cunliffe has shown us that he does not seem ready for prime time. His defense is...well you can't really call it defense. I think he could be a good player eventually but I don't think we will see that at KU.
And that brings us to Devonte'. He is everything we could have hoped. He has been the senior leader we hoped for. I doubted that Devonte' was going to be that before the season began. I suspected he was the recipient of the Mason penumbra. Devonte' has shown he deserves to be mentioned with the great point guards in the country. I love the kid and hope he receives a mass amount of love on senior night (which is right around the corner, by the way). He has had a few slumps but the kid plays every minute of every game and necessarily so. He is the indispensable player on the team. Thank you Devonte' for what you have given Jayhawk nation this season.
Self? Is Self mellowing with age or becoming more strident? I would say mellowing. That makes his increasingly obvious frustration with this team all the more striking. Frustration comes from the team not giving the level of effort. I do not think Self would be as publicly open about his frustration if he thought the team was giving their all and simply lacked talent. I think he must see something in this team in practice that does not come out in the games or he sees that they have some capacity they are not putting into their work. I tried to give my opinion of that shortfall in my comments above. Self did not win 13 straight Big 12 championships and get elected to the HOF only to lose his mojo. I will not buy into the "Self has lost this team" rhetoric. He is a HOF coach. I am starting to buy into the "we simply son't have a great team" rhetoric but not that Coach is lacking.
So what does this all mean? It means we are most likely going to finish 2nd in the Big 12 but we still have a chance for a title (most likely shared). It means we could find ourselves 3rd or 4th in the Big 12 with a 10-8 record as well. That is a sad state for KU basketball but let's get real. I have not given up on us winning the Big 12. But I recognize it is going to require this team stepping into a place they have not been.
If all of you are like me we want to reward guys like Lightfoot with our praise since he is such a straight up kid that gives 100% all the time. But let's get real. Lightfoot is one of those players that will be worthy of 10-15 minutes per game is junior year and 15+ his senior year. He is not ready for the minutes he is getting and definitely not playing center. His rating show that. In the right situation against the right team playing the right times and the right amount of minutes, Lightfoot can be and has been effective. But he is not what we need for what he is doing. I give him tons of credit for giving his all but it is not enough. This is a problem for KU.
Vick!!! Talk about fools gold. Seeing Vick play against smaller, weaker opponents in the early season led us all to believe he was having a breakout year. We have since learned otherwise. Elite players have skill, athleticism, mental toughness (drive) and basketball savvy. Vick has shown he has one of those 4. You can out jump a player to rebound but you still have to have position. His vertical leap is not enough to overcome his lack of strength in establishing position. His shot has looked awesome at times but he is not one to shoot through slumps. He demurs or worse, does not get himself in position to take a pass and shot. Vick has shown me he is worth about 10 minutes per game on a championship team.
Newman is somewhat of an enigma. He came as a team leading player and almost surefire NBA lottery pick. Well we have established he is not that. He has shown that he is a decent starter on a championship team once he understood there were four other players on the team. I have liked what he has brought the last month. The problem with Newman is his shot is only average. He is not the guy you want as the no. 2 option from the perimeter. When he can take the open shots and put up 4 or even 5 a game that is great. He has grown into a good rebounder and even a decent defender most of the time. He has not shown he is capable of being an NBA pick but he is a good 4th or 5th starter.
Azubuike is bi-polar. On the one hand, Dok has been on a great trajectory offensively. Which ever coach is working with him on the offensive end it is working. He has shown steady growth. He clearly has given us all cause to worry about our team's offense when he takes the bench. That's the manic Dok. The depressive Dok is he still shows way less desire and penchant to rebound. I mean he looks like he really doesn't care that his rebounding is far below what it should be. Plus, Dok has shown a bit of an immaturity in that he seems to pout at times to the point that it affects his performance. A 3rd year Dok is something to get excited about. A 2nd year Dok is something to be satisfied about but not the guy you envision on a Final Four contender. His game is coming along but it still needs work. He is in desperate need of a guy who can give him 15-20 minutes of rest every game without sacrificing so much offense.
Garrett is a freshman. He plays often like a freshman although we all acknowledge there are aspects of his game that are more polished. Let's get real. We tend to spend a disproportionate amount of time giving him credit for those strengths than we spend talking about his very real and quite normal deficiencies. Garrett is one of those guys, like Lightfoot, who you can envision being a senior leader that puts up great numbers. He needs three more years before he is that. Now he is a promising freshman that gives often great minutes, especially defensively, that also brings weaknesses to the floor that have to be compensated for. We do not have the compensation on many nights when our real shooters are not hitting and especially since we play a four guard offense and Garrett is far more ideally suited to a conventional 2 big set. I like the kid and I am glad to have him. But let's be real. He is having to play more than he probably should on a top level team.
De Sousa....2019! Nuf said!!
Sam Cunliffe has shown us that he does not seem ready for prime time. His defense is...well you can't really call it defense. I think he could be a good player eventually but I don't think we will see that at KU.
And that brings us to Devonte'. He is everything we could have hoped. He has been the senior leader we hoped for. I doubted that Devonte' was going to be that before the season began. I suspected he was the recipient of the Mason penumbra. Devonte' has shown he deserves to be mentioned with the great point guards in the country. I love the kid and hope he receives a mass amount of love on senior night (which is right around the corner, by the way). He has had a few slumps but the kid plays every minute of every game and necessarily so. He is the indispensable player on the team. Thank you Devonte' for what you have given Jayhawk nation this season.
Self? Is Self mellowing with age or becoming more strident? I would say mellowing. That makes his increasingly obvious frustration with this team all the more striking. Frustration comes from the team not giving the level of effort. I do not think Self would be as publicly open about his frustration if he thought the team was giving their all and simply lacked talent. I think he must see something in this team in practice that does not come out in the games or he sees that they have some capacity they are not putting into their work. I tried to give my opinion of that shortfall in my comments above. Self did not win 13 straight Big 12 championships and get elected to the HOF only to lose his mojo. I will not buy into the "Self has lost this team" rhetoric. He is a HOF coach. I am starting to buy into the "we simply son't have a great team" rhetoric but not that Coach is lacking.
So what does this all mean? It means we are most likely going to finish 2nd in the Big 12 but we still have a chance for a title (most likely shared). It means we could find ourselves 3rd or 4th in the Big 12 with a 10-8 record as well. That is a sad state for KU basketball but let's get real. I have not given up on us winning the Big 12. But I recognize it is going to require this team stepping into a place they have not been.
Don't worry about the mules, just load the wagon!!
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