at this point

this is one really poor KU team offensively. And I don't mean just this game. Turnovers, missed free throws, no flow, no rhythm...this team just struggles to run decent offense. Too many guys who can't shoot, and bigs who (a) shouldn't be playing together, and (b) are very limited in their skill sets. There have been too many games and/or halves like this. Not encouraging for the second half or the conference.

I agree that we have looked offensively challenged at times but I think that is where the players have room to grow. The Hawks are still a pretty good team. They really need to get better at securing the loose ball. If we make shots the offense looks different.

but that seems to be an all too often thing, doesn't it? This team does not shoot well. And pretty good team? Yes, of course, but that hardly comes close to expectations or the supposed #3 team in the country, does it?

The defense is ahead of the offense for this team which is a good thing at this point in the season IMHO. I think this is a better defensive team than we have had for several seasons. I agree that we have lacked flow on offense but we are trying to force it inside because that is our strength. That looks ugly when it is not working. That entry pass when they are fronting the post needs to be perfect and we have not mastered that.

We are talking past each other a bit. By shooting I mean jump shots. Dok's dunks are high percentage. Other than that... .
Defense is better, as you say, and it has to be. they may have to rely heavily on that this year.

I agree that this is not a good jump shooting team.

It's odd though. This team doesn't seem to play well at times, like 28 turnovers against Duke, or 21 against Stanford and yet they have two losses by a combined three points. It's honestly very promising to me how good they could be. I think it's a combination that they play great defense and they are gritty in key areas. The shooting should come, there are enough guys that can actually hit three's. Moss, Braun and Dotson are solid shooters. I'm excited about their potential.

To call this team a poor offensive team defies the data. In Self's 1st 16 years the Jayhawks averaged 1.111 points per possession. This year we are averaging 1.103 points per possession. This is just about an average offensive team by KU/Self standards. Having said that, we have struggled on offense against tougher competition. That is a little concern and if that continues then certainly this team will finish as a below average offensive team by Self's standards. But the flip side is emerging as being the far more important factor. This is thus far, the best defensive team KU has had under Self and that is saying something. This team is averaging 0.852 PPP and that doesn't change much if you consider only the top tier teams. This team is developing into a great defensive team and that is more critical than offense. As for shooting, this team has an overall shooting efficiency of 58.0%. That is well above average for a Self team (56.7%) and would rank 5th in Self's 17 seasons. Having said that, it is important to distinguish that this stat is dominated by our 2pt FG% which is 58.7% which would be the best back to at least 1981. The average 2pt FG% under Self has been 53.1%. This years team is below average from the 3pt line (35.6% vs a 16 year average of 37.7%) and our FT shooting has been atrocious.

If you would like to see a comprehensive review of the stats you can find it here --> KU Stats

Well Corpus you are the data man, so I yield to you and your expertise there. But sometimes can't data be misleading? Does the data you cite include all the games, including cupcakes like Monmouth, Chaminade, and UMKC? I would certainly think those games (and a couple of others with less than stout competition) would skew the numbers. To my inexpert way of thinking, the games where this team has been given a good test are Duke, Dayton, Villanova, and now West Virginia.
Those, with the exception of Dayton, seemed like lackluster offensive performances at best. Perhaps as I mentioned earlier, I am thinking too much of jump shooting, but in terms of things like turnovers and free throw shooting as well, this doesn't seem like a good offensive team at all. But maybe your numbers disagree with that as well. I certainly do like this team's defense, and I think it can actually get better.

Offense is not monolithic. It is a composite of different attributes and skills. Judging an offense based on statistics is limited to the ability of those statistics to gauge or effectively measure these various attributes or skills. It can measure things like shooting percentage but does not effectively measure or gauge shot selection. It can measure offensive execution indirectly through assists, turnovers and so forth. But these are indirect measures of offensive efficiency. So someone who sits and charts every play like a scout coach, will see things that statistics will not see well or sometimes at all. Like what percentage of shots are open shots and how effective a team is at spacing and moving the ball. So that is a long explanation to affirm your speculation that statistics have limitations in measuring detailed attributes of a teams execution. However, there is value that aggregates to valid and meaningful assessment of a team as the data accumulates. Broad stats like points per possession are actually quite an effective tool for assessing an overall offense or defense. So for instance, this years Jayhawk team has a decent offensive PPP, right at the average for Self's 17 years. But it is among the poorer FT shooting teams and certainly below average as a 3 point FG shooting team. Furthermore it is a below average offensive rebounding team. Those are three key attributes of offense, so how can this team be average when 3 of the key attributes are below average. The answer is, this is THE BEST 2 point shooting team under Self. Now the problem going forward is, if you are a one-dimensional offense, you are prone to gimmick defenses. You can bet your bippee that Self is working like crazy to improve the offensive rebounding and the also looking for the lineup to improve 3 point shooting. The schedule ahead is not much more difficult than the past schedule so the numbers KU has posted should reflect meaningfully for the future. But the proof is in the pudding. We'll see at the end of the season if this PPP offense stays at 1.1 or so.

This was a tale of 2 halfs. We did nothing in the 1st half but played pretty good defenses. In the 2nd half, Doke dunked everything within 8' of the rim. He also shot 50% from the line.

If I had to pick ONE weakness with this team, I'd point right at the 3 point line. Moss did nothing on Saturday and got few minutes. Both KU and WVU shot lousy percentages from beyond the arc. Agbaji is a streaky 3 shooter, and so is Dotson. Dotson isn't an assist machine, but makes up for it with his ability to get up the open court quickly and ability to get to the rim seemingly at will.

The more I see, the more I appreciate Garrett. Not a great shooter, but another guy who can get to the rim and a super solid defender. If we can get a consistent 3 point assassin, we might as well cut down the nets. Nevertheless, I don't see that happening, so we'll have to play it out and I still like our chances.