Nearly speechless

First of all, as we know, KU is in a complete funk, devoid of an identity, and at risk of free-falling.

But what scares me is when you couple that with UT's style of play. Shaka Smart is the king of press (or "havoc" as they called it at VCU). The whole mission is to be the aggressor on D, to speed you up, trip you up, make you uncomfortable, create mistakes, and knock you out of your game plan. Against some teams, they don't succeed. But given how impotent we looked against West Virginia's press, and how badly they sped us up and forced us into mind-numbing mistakes, Texas is obviously a very dangerous foe for this particular KU team.

Add to that that the Longhorns have better scoring talent than WVU, and that they have the guy (Isaiah Taylor) who wrote the book in his freshman year on how to slice and dice our guards with brutally effective dribble-drive penetration, and I'm seriously worried. Taylor single-handedly destroyed us in that game in Austin two years ago, and it was the same exact recipe that WVU and OSU used against us just recently: systematically exploit the Matador Defense of KU's frontline guards by beating them off the ball, penetrating freely, drawing the help D, and either making a shot (and often getting fouled) or dishing to the open man for the easy bunny.

Bottom line: every single Jayhawk player needs to grow a pair of steel you-know-whats and draw a line in the sand. Declare that this crap ball of late will not stand, and that Shaka Smart and his merry band of Horns are NOT walking out of Allen Fieldhouse with a win. Then go out, play smart, don't get sped up, BE THE AGGRESSORS, and execute. On top of that, Self and the staff need to come up with a great game plan, AND be willing to make adjustments (like going to a zone D if our guards can't guard in man). They will have had five full days to prepare for that, so there are no excuses about not having time to practice zone defense, etc. UT had to play two nights later and therefore has two fewer days to prepare. And the last time Self faced Shaka Smart, he took Self to the woodshed in a huge tourney upset over a stacked KU team. So if Self can't get motivated for this one, and impart that motivation onto the team so they bring it in spades on Saturday, then truly I don't know where the heck the Jayhawks are headed this year.

Yes, that would be the more common vernacular. But I've heard steel, um, "tossed" around too. LOL

Whichever it is, let's just hope they grow 'em.

Thx, mate.

I definitely didn't forget him. He and Ridley were in the back of my mind (along with Taylor) when I said they had better scoring talent than WVU.

Sorry about the bad, personally felt memories. We need some good ones to help you forget those (if that's possible).

If Self has to call them into his office to push them to call such a meeting, our problem is even more serious than we think.

As for who might call it, the candidates are not promising.

Ellis has no fire, so he's unlikely. (Though, if he did, it would represent such a shock to the others--owing to it being so out of character--that it might be worth more value than anyone else)

Selden also rarely exhibits fire, and you don't see him doing much talking, so he seems unlikely as well.

Mason is really the only one you could see doing it. But something is wrong with him, and with it being a 2-guard-led offense, maybe it's diluted some of his leadership capacity?

Graham probably hasn't been around long enough. And our bigs don't contribute enough to be taken seriously as forceful team leaders.

It probably comes down to Mason, or Ellis having an out-of-character transformation.

Back to my point in other threads, this team lacks a "refuse-to-lose" winner-type assassin.