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NotOstertag
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5 years 2 months ago #20960 by NotOstertag

Saturday was great despite the bad news on Silvio and Garrett's injury. Hopefully Garrett will be healthy enough to play on Tuesday.

While Saturday was great, we now need to prove that it wasn't a one-off. So far this team hasn't been consistent, and it will be very interesting to see if Vick and Grimes both continue to make smart decisions on the court. Fingers crossed, but I won't be confident of it until I see a trend.

I'm also a little worried that Tech was a bit of "fool's gold". Before conference play started, Tech's one loss was to Duke, but they had played NO other ranked teams and if I remember correctly their SOS was in somewhere around 250. I felt then as I do now that they had beaten a lot of JV teams leading up to the conference season. Now, in conference play they've lost to each of the "contenders" (ISU, Baylor, KSU and KU). My point is that playing at Manhattan will be a very good test to see if what we saw Saturday is real, or if our good play was partly enhanced by Tech being somewhat more "bark" than "bite".

Hope this is the kind of play we can see going forward, but it'll take a while before there's trust.

"When I was a freshman, I remember Coach Naismith telling us how important it was to play good defense." - Mitch Lightfoot

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HawkErrant
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b82, g84 Lift the chorus...

5 years 2 months ago #20967 by HawkErrant

Actually I'm hoping that Garrett is resting for a least one more game to give the Saturday lineup a chance against a team that is arguably better than Tech in personnel and is certainly playing better than just about anyone in conference now that Dean Wade is back. (See Corpus's latest Big XII trend graphs).

I know HCBS changed the offense so that Dedric was not posting up much (DL said he didn't at all in H1), preventing the opposition D from collapsing on him all the time and clogging the lane. That and our success in taking and hitting the 3 (thanks for the "Just shoot when you got the shot" pep talk DG!) enabled a balanced scoring attack from both outside and in the paint. (History note: this is the same strategy that Brown went to in late January 1988 with Danny Manning that led to the Jayhawks turn around after all the injuries and other personnel losses that season).

But another factor in the Tech game was that Tech could not afford to double DL anywhere and dare another Jayhawk to beat them, because everyone else playing was capable of scoring from the outside (even if they had not necessarily been that great at it lately) or driving into the "left open" paint for easy points (which they did a lot).

I want to see if the same holds true on Tuesday against KSU.

If it does, it would be indicative of Garrett not being as valuable as HCBS thinks he is, despite his great defense and occasionally solid offense.

Don't get me wrong, I like Garrett, I like the young man a lot. I just don't think he helps our offense to any great degree because of his limitations.

"Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime." - Mark Twain "Innocents Abroad"

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NotOstertag
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5 years 2 months ago #20971 by NotOstertag

Good point, but nevertheless, I'd like to have him available if possible. Hell, I'd take Dok back too if it were possible.

So if given the choice of winning, not needing Garrett, and giving him more recovery time, yes, of course.

If option B is losing the game because he's only at 80%, and playing him gets us the W. I'll take the W.

Nevertheless, I trust the medical staff to make the right decision.

For now, Mr. Garrett: do whatever they're telling you to get better ASAP.

"When I was a freshman, I remember Coach Naismith telling us how important it was to play good defense." - Mitch Lightfoot

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HawkErrant
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b82, g84 Lift the chorus...

5 years 2 months ago #20978 by HawkErrant

No argument from me on your options, NotO. If I was HCBS and Garrett was cleared to play he would be in my game plan.

But if he is at all questionable, sit him for the next time and see if you can get a repeat performance from the team that carried the day on Saturday. That hard earned battlefield intel will (hopefully) prove useful in the future.

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b82, g84 Lift the chorus...

5 years 2 months ago #20979 by HawkErrant

FYI, I just read that Self reports this afternoon Garrett will not play tomorrow.
www2.kusports.com/weblogs/tale-tait/2019...tt-expected-to-miss/

For better or worse, I got what I wanted.

Fingers crossed I didn't jinx us.

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