I wanted to think about what I think I am seeing

Truth be told losing, even at home, to a Final Four quality team when the only real point guard on the team is hurt happens.
To me the loss is ove,r but the concerns raised by the last several games remain.

1) We can't pass into Doke without turning the ball over half of the time. Even if he scores 80% of his clean catches that's not a good rate for 2 pt baskets. It seems like the passes are telegraphed and slow motion whether from a guard or the high post.
Diagonal passes with both players moving work but the lob in with Doke's back to the basket are horrid. I wonder if his wrist issues play into this. Either the team is told no fastballs or the defenders start slapping ball and hand and he never gets possession?

2) Agbaji is a disappointment. He seems long and athletic but doesn't shoot, guard or rebound particularly well.

3) HCBS thinks the three bigs provide, or will provide, mismatches against some opponents. Until they rebound against good teams at both ends and draw defenders to create space for three point shooters I am not seeing it.

4) 27% from the three point line is bad. Hopefully DD recovering improves that.

5) We seem to get out hustled on rebounds; even against West Virginia they got several that had bounced.,

We have had bleak stretches in January followed by rounding into form in February. Might happen this season, might not.

1. Spot on our inability to pass to the post other than a lob on penetration. Agbaji in general seems to have no vision and just can’t pass. He can’t pass to the post,in transition nor just about any other way. If you chart, a high percentage of feeds to Odoka come on penetrations. But only Marcus and Devon penetrate. I think Braun has it in him but hasn’t got to the point where he is comfortable. My bet is by the end of the year he will be more aggressive going to the rim. Agbaji only goes to the rim on set plays. Even when lanes may potentially be available, he demurs. Isaiah pretty much stays outside the arc. Enaruna started off being aggressive but seems to have backed off in his recent outings. Afraid of TO’s and getting yanked? Hmmmm! We need to penetrate to be effective.

2. Agbaji is a disappointment but I disagree on his defense. That is the one area where he is pretty good. But the rest, I agree.

3. Our bigs are just that, big. They are not necessarily multi-talented. Udoka is having a great year, defensively, rebounding, and even coming around to passing. But he is ineffective beyond 3 feet. He is deadly inside three feet. Game plan against Udoka, move him 4 feet or more from the basket. His effectiveness goes down exponentially the farther he is from the basket. Double team or move him out and he is effectively neutralized. Thus, design plays to get him the ball inside 3 feet. Timely angled entry passes are good but we don’t have anyone adept at those. Next, drive the lane and dish to a screened Udoka. Works great but only Marcus or Devon can do that. Dave is. Little more flexible but has been inconsistent. If he can really hit out to 16 feet he becomes much more of a weapon. De Sousa has become very energetic and aggressive of late but minimal offensive moves.

4. This team is shooting challenged. Marcus is simply not a good long range shooter. Isaiah has not been as advertised and even when he is on he is more of a catch and shoot guy. Devon is okay, sort of, but is really limited to a set shot. Enaruna, who knows. Not enough data. Braun, same but has signs of being good. Agbaji is average but like Isaiah, is a catch and shoot guy. We do not have guy like devonte’ who can pull up, step back, rise and shoot. This is our biggest weakness.

5. I am not sure that we were out hustled so much as everything just bounced their way. We do hustle. I am a little worried that we are not healthy. We know Marcus is suffering from his left ankle. Devon seemed to be somewhat slowed. I wonder what other nagging injuries there may be. I don’t think we generally get outhustled. I do worry that we did seem to deflate when we got to within 5 and they hit us back.

We are still a great team and I would put money that Baylor will not have a better game this season and KU willnot have a worse game.

To me this was a story of fool's gold, lack of depth, and a motivated opponent. I'll take these one at a time.

Self has often referred to making 3's (and relying on it) as fool's gold. We saw that today. In the first half, Moss went off. That bought him minutes. But then he cooled off. At the same time, he's a weak defender, doesn't do much else but wait for 3's on offense, is nonexistent as a rebounder, and did I mention that he's a weak defender? He's this year's Malik Newman (I hope). Think back to Malik: he transferred in as a "shooter" and thought his job was to linger around the perimeter and make 3's. It wasn't until he figured out that he needed to occasionally drive toward the basket, and pretend to play defense once in a while that he became a pretty good player. I hope Moss figures this out. Yesterday we saw "fool's gold" because Self probably gave him more minutes than he deserved because he was hot early.

Lack of depth: Holy crap. What do we do if Dotson goes down. Garrett did a decent job, but after that we're cooked. It's not just X's and O's either. He's a true leader and we struggled without him. The guy's averaging almost 35 minutes a game. We need to keep him healthy and we saw how quickly things can go south without him.

Motivated Baylor: Let's face it. This sucks that we lost a home game to that idiot Scot Drew. For them, however, it was a week where their premier team (the women) knocked off undefeated juggernaut UCONN on the road, so they were certainly motivated to make it a big week. Also, they're damn good this year and they outplayed us in many ways. I'm looking forward to the rematch because I think our guys now realize how hard you have to play for 40 minutes to win.

Bottom line Baylor played harder and we were kind of lost the whole time. As much as you can point fingers at players, this one was equally shared by HCBS and staff for not being ready for a motivated and skilled opponent.