D's Notebook

Tag: Kansas Jayhawks (Page 1 of 26)

Weekend Notes

September 16, 2024 /

As has become standard so far this fall, Friday night was jam-packed with sports action from the couch. Things were ratcheted up a notch this weekend, as KU was playing, meaning I couldn’t casually watch tennis, baseball, or basketball while listening to high school football. No, this week I would be yelling at the TV while listening to the radio. Sadly, more yelling than I expected. For the most part that worked out ok, although there were moments that big things were happening in each game at the same time and it was tough to keep track of what was going on where. It was also very confusing for S, who was facing away from the TV and didn’t always understand what was causing my outburst when the radio announcers were fairly quiet.

There was plenty of dumbness over the weekend, with some cool stuff sprinkled in. Let’s get to it.

HS Football

On the radio was Cathedral’s visit to arch rival Bishop Chatard, ranked either #1 or #2 in 4A, depending on the poll. CHS had won eight of the last ten in the series, but last year was one of those losses in the weird, split game that started on Friday (and CHS led 21–0 early) then ended with BC making a comeback Saturday morning after the game was halted because of a power outage Friday.

No worries this year. CHS jumped out 14–0 and never let up, winning 30–7. It could/should have been an even bigger win. The Irish had three touchdowns, including a 66-yard pass, called back because of penalties. Two of those turned into 10 points anyway. The kicker missed a makable field goal, then put what would have been a school-record 51-yard field goal off the crossbar at the halftime horn. Still, always satisfying to beat the rival, especially for the girls who have friends there. L went to the JV game on Saturday, another W for the Irish.

The CHS radio guys were hilarious. Both analysts played for the Irish, one graduating about 20 years ago, the other over 50 years ago. They were a little fired up for the rivalry game. They thought each penalty that wiped out a TD was garbage. They show more uncalled holds than usual. By the fourth quarter they were screaming at the refs from the press box. And this was in a game their team was winning! I was entertained.

KU

Welp, so much for all the big plans for this year.

I would have written a lot more about this game had I taken a crack at it Friday. Some seriously dumb coaching decisions. Any hopes that Jeff Grimes would step right in for Andy Kotelnicki have been dashed. I mean, how you don’t give Devin Neal, who averaged almost six yards a carry on the night and is averaging nine yards a carry for the season, the ball on second and two and instead throw a pass that has not worked all night when another touchdown likely wins the game is beyond me. The KU offense, which would get all kinds of run on football Twitter the past couple years for how innovative and fun it was, is now boring and can’t adjust. Hiring Grimes is the first big mistake of Lance Leipold’s time in Lawrence. I feel like he could have grabbed some OC from a Texas high school and got better results.

Aside from one exceptionally dumb play by the defense that could have ended the game – the fumble they kicked around for 30 seconds before UNLV fell on it – they were, mostly, amazing. Especially the front seven, which was not expected to be a strength. Two weeks in a row they’ve controlled the game and been let down by the offense/coaches.

Losing a contest that, after the game, the analytics gave the Jayhawks an 83% chance to win seems dumb even for a program with as much dumbness in its history as KU has. Something about the entire team seems off. The last two years it seemed more like a Mangino-era team that rarely did things to beat themselves. Through three games they seem sloppier and less disciplined than the past two years. That is true from the coaches through the players. Not what I expected from a head coach wound as tight as Leipold.

The headline has to be Jalon Daniels, though. Clearly he’s compromised. Whether it is physical, mental, a matter of meshing with Grimes, or some combination of those three, it’s not working. Bad throw after bad throw. Terrible decisions. Seeming confused rather than playing with the joy he used to take the field with. Maybe he can be fixed/salvaged/cajoled into better football, but it needs to happen quick if that is a genuine possibility.

There was a lot of call on Twitter to bring in Cole Ballard. Friday didn’t seem like the time to do that. If things go sideways in Morgantown this week, it might be time to give JD a break.

You would have thought it was a KU basketball loss for how long the angry, post-game texts flew around after this one.

Technically, a lot of the big goals for this season are still possible. They could still make the Big 12 championship game if the offense gets fixed in the next, gulp, five days. At this point I’m more worried about finding five more wins and going to another crappy bowl than any of that. After blowing two winnable games, I don’t have a lot of confidence those W’s are on the remaining schedule. Playing the Big 12 home games at Arrowhead always had a measure of risk. If this team falls apart and no one is there – aside from the entire state of Iowa when the Clones come to town – it will make this season seem even worse. Remember, with Kansas football, things can always get worse.

We all know timeouts in college are too long. But KU called a timeout with under 2:00 to play in the game Friday just to stop the clock. It was a standard, FOUR MINUTE time out. Just fucking terrible. Even in the NFL, which will cram as many ads into a game as they can, they limit those late game TOs to 30 seconds or a minute.

College Football

I didn’t watch much ball on Saturday as I found few of the games compelling. The game I watched most was Cincinnati-Miami. M made the 45 minute trip to Oxford to hang out with friends but did not have a ticket. She did get to go to a party with one of her best friends and said she had a great time and enjoyed all Oxford has to offer. Nice win for her Bearcats.

The Victory Bell rivalry is tied for the oldest non-conference rivalry in the country, but this was the last game scheduled to be played on campus, and the 2026 game at the Bengals’ stadium is the last one currently scheduled. When I talked to M on Sunday I tried to explain why – UC wants the games at the Bengals’ field instead of having to go to Oxford, Miami wanted to hang onto those home games, joining the Big 12 changed UC’s scheduling priorities, etc – but she thought most of those reasons were dumb. I’m with her.

S and I went out for an early dinner and got to see part of Notre Dame’s destruction of Purdue. I guess the Irish got re-focused after the Northern Illinois loss.

Colts

So the Colts might be a bad team. A really bad team. GM Chris Ballard insisted the defense would be solid this year, especially against the run. Then the Colts gave up over 250 yards rushing in the first half against a team starting a backup QB that was only going to pass if he had to. Seems dumb not to load up the box and force him to pass. And that was before two defensive linemen got hurt. I refuse to hold Anthony Richardson’s dumbness against him until next year. But something about his passes seems hard to catch, because his receivers dropped a ton of balls that hit their hands. Weird. Those drops make his poor decision making on other passes hurt even worse. And still the Colts had a chance until the final gun. They were fortunate the final score wasn’t more indicative how big a beat down this was.

The Cowboys, Lions, and Ravens all lost at home. The Niners lost. Aside from the Chiefs, who nearly lost at home, do you trust a single team in this league? I’m starting to think the uneven play is a function of teams barely playing starters in the preseason and the added week to the regular season making teams/players more cautious in how they handle injuries. But that’s crazy talk, right?

Twitter During Games

It is funny to look back on your feed at how people react to specific plays. When KU ran that stupid screen pass on second and two in the fourth quarter? People were pissed. And remained pissed well after the game ended. Same in the Colts game. There was a rather curious play call on a third down – something that happened several times during the game – and Colts Twitter, to the extent I follow it, blew up. My favorite was one of our young, local weather ladies getting involved. “What was that play call????” It shows how far we’ve come as a society where it’s not a surprise at all when a young woman has a football take, and it’s 100% legit.

Royals

The R’s took two of three in Pittsburgh, and really should have swept the woeful Pirates. Five games up for the final Wild Card spot with 12 games left. A better record over the last 10 games than both the team ahead of them and behind them in the WC race. 97% playoff odds. A clinched winning season. All summer I’ve been waiting for them to fall apart. It would really suck if they finally did it during this closing stretch.

Fever

Another Friday-Sunday weekend for the Fever. Friday they lost their second game in three nights to Las Vegas, this one much more competitive than the first. I checked on that game periodically but there was too much else going on for me to really follow it.

Sunday they closed their home schedule against Dallas. For some reason the game was only on locally on some third-tier station. One that, even on cable, looked piped in on some terrible, over-the-air antenna. The picture was all fuzzy and blurry. It was like trying to watch European soccer in the 1980s. Pretty sure this wouldn’t happen to the Pacers.

Anyway, for the third time this season the Fever and Wings played a tremendously exciting game, with the Fever winning by one, although Dallas hit an unguarded 3 at the buzzer. These teams tend to not play defense against each other, so it is back-and-forth, up-and-down the entire game. That win clinched sixth place for the Fever, and also guaranteed them at least a .500 season. Twenty wins two years after winning five. Not bad. Caitlin had a career-high 35 points Sunday, and broke the WNBA single season assist record Friday.[1] She also collected her sixth technical foul of the year Friday. Her teammates were keeping her away from the refs Sunday so she doesn’t get magic #7, which brings a one-game suspension with it. Maybe just stop complaining.

Weather

Still hot and dry here. I’ve been watering the grass a couple times a week for about a month. Despite that, our lawn got pretty crunchy over the past few days. We were hoping the hurricane remnants would bring us some rain last week, but that fizzled out in southern Indiana. No rain in the forecast, every day in the upper 80s. At least the pool is still open, and staying warm on its own.

  1. The WNBA schedule expanded to 40 games last year, so a lot of season records have been falling. They may add another four games next year, so throw out your record books.  ↩

Holiday Weekend Notes

September 3, 2024 /

It was an action-packed weekend. At least for watching sports from the comfort of my house. Friday night in particular was kind of crazy. High school football on the radio. Indiana Fever and US Open on the TV. Royals-Astros Gameday coverage on the Mac. With bonus weather monitoring on every screen. I guess I’ll break things down by subject rather than day.

KU Football

A slow start turned into the blowout it was supposed to be Thursday night for KU. Not sure you can make any great assessments of the team given the opponent. I thought Jalon Daniels looked a little rusty, but I also don’t know how open the playbook was. It seemed like the coaching staff was doing some experimenting with the offensive line. A pick-six for Mello Dotson, likely not the last for this defensive backfield this season. Devin Neal scoring touchdowns, Luke Grimm catching passes. We’ll find out a lot more about the Jayhawks next week when they go to Illinois.

The first game at Children’s Mercy Park seemed to go just fine. Word from people who went is that it was a great atmosphere. The replay system not working early and likely costing KU two scores was kind of a bummer.

HS Football

A week after beating preseason #1 Ben Davis, #3 Cathedral got a reminder their schedule is still brutal, losing to #6 Brownsburg 30–14. They got there a rather odd way.

BHS jumped out to a 17–7 lead Friday night before lightning was spotted. Although the storm was 10 miles away, and moving away from the stadium, the game was delayed over an hour before a second series of storms popped up and officials decided to postpone the game until Saturday afternoon.

Things didn’t get much better in the resumed game. CHS was playing with their primary running back – who ran for 168 yards week one – hobbled Friday, then without him completely Saturday. L heard Sunday he’s probably having surgery and out for the year. Not sure if he was worth 16 points but I think he would have helped. If he is indeed out for an extended stretch, the Irish’s already brutal schedule looks even more formidable.

Weather

Last week was hot, sticky, and nasty. The heat index was up around 110 a couple days. Friday night three rounds of storms came through, and torrential rains and heavy winds blew the heat away. The humidity stuck around through Saturday. Then Sunday morning it was 52 and 100% pleasant. The extended forecast has a bunch of mornings like that, with a few even colder, and daytime highs mostly in the mid–70s with a few mid–80s sprinkled in. September is a truly glorious month.

US Open

I watched a ton of tennis last week and into the weekend. Week one of the Open might be the best week of tennis of the year, hell one of the best sports weeks of the entire year, with great matches in progress just about any time you turn on your TV from noon to midnight.

Weekend highlights were Frances Tiafoe’s two wins and both Carlos Alcaraz and Novak Djokovic losing early. It was a bummer that Coco Gauff went out early, but at least she lost to another American. In general it’s great to have several decent American players in both the women’s and men’s game at the moment. It sure makes for better crowds in New York.

Royals

Crap on a stick.

Last Wednesday afternoon the Royals were tied for first place and were up on co-leaders Cleveland going into the seventh inning, nine outs away from a four-game sweep of the Guardians. Then the Royals melted down a little and they’ve yet to recover, losing six straight games. Three injuries during that span have not helped. At least they still have a cushion in the wild card race for the time being.

It’s been a bit of a charmed summer for the Royals, totally unexpected and built on out-of-nowhere quality starting pitching. The pitching has still been fine, at least the starters; it’s been the bats that have let them down over the past week. They were nearly no-hit Friday and have gone deep into other games with just one or two hits. Maybe, hopefully, surely the hitters can lock back in and they can hold on to one of those wild card spots to complete this surprise season.

Fever

I know I’m not alone in having watched more WNBA games this year than in the rest of my life combined. I now know exactly when the Fever are playing, and on what channel. Unlike other sports, which S doesn’t really pay attention to, for the Fever she gets kind of locked in. Ironically our basketball playing daughter will still just breeze through and watch a few minutes, but rarely sits down and watches long stretches with us.

Two more wins over the weekend for the hottest team in the league. The Fever are now over .500 for the first time in five years. Which sounds made up. Have they really been that bad, for that long? Again, since I never watched I don’t know if that is a real stat or not.

It’s been fun watching this team figure each other out since their disastrous start. Kelsey Mitchell is a revelation, and a perfect backcourt partner for Caitlin Clark. Aliyah Boston finally settled down and started playing like the former #1 pick she is. Lexi Hull is one of the most fun players to watch, and seemingly can’t miss a 3 since the Olympic break.

And, of course, there’s Clark. She was starting to get comfortable before the break, but has looked like a first team all league player since getting some time to both rest and work on her game. In those seven games she’s averaging 24.6 points, 5 rebounds, and nine assists. And that’s with her teammates still booting 3–4 passes a night, or blowing open layups.[1]

She’s added a floater. Her teammates are getting better at anticipating her crazy passes. She’s handling the physicality of the league better. She still makes a few horrible passes a game, but when she’s averaging almost nine assists a game, you’ll take those. And her outside shot still isn’t locked in. That will come next year. Any questions about her transition to the pro game have been answered.

The only real bummer to the Fever turning the corner is it has kept us from going to a game. Tickets were crazy expensive at the beginning of the season, as you would expect. I planned on waiting until the hype died down and the team fell deep into the bottom of the standings before trying to grab some for a weeknight game. So much for that. I was looking at tickets for tomorrow’s game and even upper level seats were going for $200 each. That seems excessive, especially when L isn’t super into watching. Although she would go if given the chance.

Oh, one other WNBA note. The yammering idiots on TV need to drop the whole Caitlin Clark vs Angel Reese thing and focus on the real issue: how stupid are the four teams other than Indiana and Chicago who passed on drafting Reese? She’s getting 20 boards a night over the past three weeks and leads the league in rebounding for the season. From watching Chicago Friday, it’s obvious that some of those numbers come because her coach leaves her on the court deep into blowouts to pad her numbers. But 20 rebounds is 20 rebounds.

The rookie of the year argument is pretty much over, as CC is both having a better and more impactful year while Chicago is dropping like a rock despite Reese’s play. That shouldn’t hide the fact that Reese is having a phenomenal rookie year of her own.

College Football

It’s always hard for me to dive in this first week of real college football action. There’s so much other stuff going on, both on TV and in real life, that it’s hard to lock in. I had plenty of games on but other than Notre Dame – Texas A&M didn’t get super focused on any of them.

That was a big win for the Irish. Notre Dame’s defense looks incredible. They have a cake schedule. They will be one of the top four teams in the playoff. The obvious joke is they will then lose to Alabama or whatever SEC runner-up they play in the first round. But that game will be in South Bend. In December. Surely Touchdown Jesus will scare up some lake effect snow, or at least nasty windchills, to aid the Irish.

Family Time

We didn’t do anything big family-wise for the holiday weekend. M stayed in Cincinnati. C and L went to the CHS game with friends Friday, but neither went back to the resumption on Saturday. L went to the gym with basketball friends Sunday. C went to the Pitbull concert Sunday night. We had the in-laws over for dinner Sunday, and three of the nephews over to swim on Monday. S and I went to dinner with friends Saturday.

I also found a little project for myself over the weekend. It scratches one of my biggest itches and will have a direct effect on some of my blog posts. I doubt most of you will be as interested in it as I am, but I’ll still share more details about it soon.

And with that, summer is over. Preseason training for school basketball started for L today, and I was up at 5:15 to get her to school on time. A perfect way for her to knock out some of her driving in the dark time!

  1. As the father of a lady baller, I will say the most frustrating part of the women’s game is how many layups are missed. That, more than any other area, is where the difference between men and women is glaring. It’s a lot harder to make a layup in traffic when you release the ball a foot/foot-and-a-half below the rim than within a few inches of it.  ↩

Football Is Back!

August 29, 2024 /

College football is finally here!  With it comes what is the most anticipated and also oddest season for the Kansas Jayhawks in my life.

Anticipated because a program that won nine games last year enters week one with 20 of 22 starters who are either seniors or redshirt juniors, a level of experience this program has probably never had before.

Biggest of all is the return of quarterback Jalon Daniels. When he’s been healthy at KU he’s been amazing. The only problem is he gets hurt every year. Sometimes badly. This year there is no Jason Bean backing him up.[1] Cole Ballard might be able to step in for a series or two, but it is difficult to see him doing what Bean did the last two years when Daniels was hurt. The single biggest factor in KU living up to this year’s hype is keeping JD6 on the field. If he plays 10+ games, the Jayhawks have the talent and schedule to win 10 games. If he gets hurt? 😱

I say oddest because KU will be playing two home games at Sporting KC’s Children’s Mercy Park, and the rest at Arrowhead because of the reconstruction of the stadium in Lawrence. It’s kind of classic KU football that this project hits in a rare year when the Jayhawks enter the season with legit expectations. How much of a home-field advantage will they have in those Big 12 games in Kansas City? Especially the Iowa State game? I know KU has made some moves to protect tickets for that game, but Clone fans live for coming to KC and taking over. If that game is a close loss and the crowd is mostly ISU fans, there’s going to be grumbling about timing and whatnot.

You know what, though? I don’t think it’s going to matter. I think this team will be really good. The defense still has holes, but will be opportunistic. While people were freaking out about OC Andy Kotelnicki leaving for Penn State, I think new OC Jeff Grimes might fit KU’s talent better. Kotelnicki was great. He was imaginative and made KU’s offense one that routinely got national praise. But maybe he got a little too cute at times? I’m not sure that’s fair criticism, but I also don’t think that Grimes getting dinged for his last year at Baylor is fair when he did amazing things at BYU before that.

Again, if Daniels is healthy, this team can cook. Devin Neal and Daniel Hishaw are as good of a running back combo as any in the country. None of the top three wide receivers seem like NFL talent, thus their returns. But they are all super solid, super experienced, and better than most people think.

The new Big 12 should be entertaining, at least. Utah is very good. Arizona looks legit as well. We get to see Coach Prime’s antics up close while welcoming old friends Colorado back.

My favorite thing about the new Big 12 is that it feels like a conference of equals. There is no Texas or Oklahoma that has way more money than everyone else and stadiums twice as big as the rest of the conference. Aside from TCU and Baylor, it’s a bunch of schools that are mostly similarly sized, with similar athletic budgets, and similar facilities.[2] No one is going to be signing a top ten recruiting class; most will be in the 20–50 range each year. There will be egos and rivalries based on stupid things like there always are in sports. It feels, at least for now though, like we’re starting with more programs on similar footing.

Which will last until the conference adds UConn and ACC schools to be determined, or the Big Ten decides they want to grab a couple Big 12 schools. Realignment never ends!

What’s important is that football is back and unlike so many years in my life, the Kansas Jayhawks are probably pretty good.

Rock Chalk, bitches!

  1. Bean had a fantastic preseason for the Colts, granted usually in the second halves of games. So good our local columnist called for the Colts to keep him on the active roster. They did not do that, but did sign him to the practice squad. I don’t think he’s an NFL QB. But he is so fast and has a solid-enough arm and QBs get hurt so often, that you never know if/when someone might take a chance on him.  ↩
  2. Arizona State and Cincinnati are both massive schools, but without the athletic budgets of other schools their sizes. Also ASU is weird in that so much of its enrollment is online that I don’t think you can really put them in the same category as the other schools with over 40,000 students.  ↩

Jayhawk Talk: The End

March 26, 2024 /

I’m sure some of you are far more interested in my thoughts on Kansas Basketball than what we did over spring break. I’ve been ruminating on the topic since Saturday’s loss to Gonzaga. The result is a classic two-parter. Here, in part one, I’ll look back. Part two will look ahead.

I picked KU to lose to Gonzaga in both of my pools. I was not expecting a 21-point loss that featured a ridiculous 39–9 run by the Zags to open the second half, though. Seriously, 39–9?!?!?! That’s what happens when you have an injured, mentally washed, physically drained in March, I guess.

I was more impressed than disheartened or embarrassed. That was a hell of a run. I told my Purdue friends that they owed me a thank you for KU getting the Zags over-confident going into their Sweet 16 matchup. That was the one bonus: KU won’t be next on the Boilermaker Redemption Tour, and I can keep my 2–0 vs Purdue since I moved to Indiana streak intact.

No matter the final score, the result was basically clinched last Tuesday when Bill Self announced Kevin McCullar was out for the tournament. Even if Hunter Dickinson was totally healthy, it wasn’t very realistic to expect a very flawed Jayhawks roster to compete without their best player.

Of course, the McCullar announcement set off a whole level of “discourse” about the true nature of his injury, whether he was soft or not, and his motives.

Man, I have no idea.

I know NIL has changed college sports a lot. I want to continue to believe that a guy like McCullar would play if he could. His game was never the same after he was first injured in mid-January. All the offensive improvements he made last summer were gone. Defense, which had been his calling card his entire career, was compromised. We had six week’s evidence that he would take, and miss, too many shots, not be able to lock people down on D, and generally be a negative presence if he played in the NCAAs.

Still, I wouldn’t have minded if he was on the court simply because it was March and you never know.

Oh well. Nice career. He had a chance to be a Jayhawk legend but whatever he did to his knee in January blew that. Sadly he’s going to be remembered for the last part of his career instead of how hard he played the first year and a half of his time in Lawrence.

As for the rest of the team, I’ve been telling you for months that it was a team where the parts didn’t fit. And that was with McCullar. The mismatches got worse in his absence, with no true perimeter scoring threat.

Johnny Furphy made great strides in January and early February, but hit a freshman wall in mid-February and never fully recovered. He has a ton of potential. He makes moves that seem effortless and are tailored for the NBA. I fear that means he’s going to be in the draft in June, even if his body isn’t prepared. I hope he and his family see how he struggled against stronger defenders, how his shot disappeared when he got tired, and believe that another year in Lawrence will turn him into a lottery pick. Maybe being a top 20 pick is enough for them, though. I say it’s 25–75 he returns. His student visa limiting his NIL opportunities will likely play a big factor, although there are ways around that.

Dajuan Harris regressed in almost every way this year. I’m not sure why. Maybe he was covering too much for the lapses of others and that hurt his defense? I genuinely don’t understand how he missed so many layups. And I continue to be baffled how he hasn’t done a thing to change and improve his shot. We keep hearing how he knocks them down in practice. But his shot is so slow and low that unless he is wide open, he can’t even attempt it in a game. This was his fifth year of college. If he hasn’t revamped it by now, I have no faith that he will this summer, assuming he returns for his Covid year. He is a fantastic player when surrounded by scorers and capable defenders. He won a damn national championship as a sophomore when he had three NBA players around him. I expect Bill Self to fix that problem. It would be awesome if Harris spent the next eight months finding a legit jump shot.

KJ Adams took a ton of heat on the internet after KU’s loss. I felt bad for him. It wasn’t his fault. Dude saw that other than Dickinson nothing was working on offense and tried as hard as he could to make something happen, even if that meant attempting shots he shouldn’t be taking.

No one gives more effort than KJ. No one has a bigger heart than KJ. But he’s not a very good rebounder because he’s relatively small, he’s better suited to the perimeter than the lane on defense, and if he doesn’t have a clear path for a dunk his offensive game is severely limited. I love the dude, but KU needs someone bigger than 6’5” playing next to Dickinson or Flory Bidunga next year. KJ needs to be a super sub next season, the first guy off the bench for the 3–4–5 spots. He still plays 25+ minutes, but filling holes instead of as one of the featured five.

I expect Dickinson to come back. He won’t get drafted and he makes more at KU than he will going overseas. He averaged 18 and 11 this year with a flawed roster that didn’t give him much space to operate inside. I don’t get how some KU fans don’t want him back. Yes, his pick and roll defense is atrocious. But so was Udoka Azubuike’s and he improved his for his senior season. Hunter’s defense looked worse because everyone else other than Harris often had no idea where they were supposed to be on D. Put better defenders around him and KU is a much better team.

The defense was probably the most disheartening part of the Gonzaga loss. Self has never been afraid to throw a gimmick defense out when nothing else is working. That’s how he, famously, beat North Carolina in the 2012 Elite Eight, rolling out a triangle and two that shut the Tarheels down.

But he did nothing Saturday, to the chagrin of a lot of KU fans. He didn’t try anything because he didn’t trust most of his players to run any defense correctly. He looked maddest when (insert any KU player other than Harris here) made a terrible rotation or messed up a switch and left a Bulldog open for an easy dunk or unguarded 3. The collective defensive IQ of this team was as low as any team Self has had. And that was compounded by Dickinson’s immobility.

Which gets us to who to blame for this season. I still think if McCullar was completely healthy, KU had a run in them with the right matchups. They also might still have lost in the second round because of those defensive issues, the lack of consistent shooting, and the lack of depth.

All of that goes back to recruiting. Self has won some big battles in recent years. Getting Dickinson, McCullar, and Remy Martin in the transfer portal were huge. Same with getting Furphy and Gradey Dick out of high school.

But Nic Timberlake couldn’t figure things out until March, and even then was a disaster on defense.

Arterio Morris arrived in Lawrence with a domestic assault charge. Days after those charges were dropped, he was arrested and charged with rape, then dismissed from the team.[1]

Elmarko Jackson was a McDonald’s All American, but looked utterly unprepared for college level ball, often struggling to dribble and run at the same time.

Jamari McDowell was too inconsistent/raw to earn meaningful minutes.

Last year MJ Rice couldn’t stay on the court and left. Sadly he seems to have some serious mental issues and left the North Carolina State team twice this year to deal with them.

Ernest Udeh got rightly pissed when KU signed Dickinson and left for TCU. Zuby Ejiofor beat him to the punch, going to St. John’s after Self talked about getting another big man. Either of them would have given KU a lot more inside depth and better defense off the bench than Parker Braun provided.

Of the four freshmen who came to Lawrence in the fall of 2021, only two remain: Adams and Zach Clemence, who left, returned, redshirted this year, and many expect to leave this summer.

Martin was a huge part of KU’s 2022 national title team, but Joe Yesufu and Cam Martin were big misses that year.

In short, I think rather than being a boon for Self, who traditionally is an excellent “make up” recruiter, finding players late to fill holes, the transfer portal has suckered him to a disjointed recruiting strategy. Freshmen get pissed off and leave when they see older transfers coming in, which robs the program of the stability that the dominance of the last 20 years was built on. Those older guys have often struggled to fit in. Then, more often than not, Self and his staff have signed the wrong kids. It’s become a vicious cycle they need to get out of.

Not a great ending for the preseason number one team in the country. But not unexpected, either, after what we saw over the past four-plus months. When on, this team was very good, beating Kentucky, Tennessee, UConn, thrashing Houston, and destroying Texas. They also got waxed by Marquette and humiliated in the return game at Houston.

It was the nights when things were just a little off, though, that proved this team’s ceiling was lower than we thought. The loss at UCF seemed flukey at first. Then they blew a thoroughly winnable game to a bad West Virginia team because they couldn’t play simple defense. A healthy McCullar who doesn’t go 6–18 from the field and 2–5 from the line probably means they win in Manhattan and don’t blow the game against BYU. Pick off three of those and KU is tied with Iowa State for second in the Big 12, likely seeded as a #2 in the NCAAs, and perhaps still playing.

There’s been a lot of grousing amongst KU fans about this being the worst team of the Self era or whatever. I don’t think that’s fair. It was one of the least fun teams to watch, for sure, because, again, the parts didn’t fit and they rarely put together those stretches that blew games open KU is famous for. The season really came down to McCullar’s knee, a missed box-out here and there, or a bad three minutes on defense. Fix those and I’m still not sure this was a Final Four team. But our perception of the season would be much different.

I trust Bill Self to fix the issues. He’s going to have to recruit better and smarter than he has since the transfer portal and NIL changed the game, though, to get KU back where we Jayhawks fans expect it to be.

More about that in part two.

  1. Shout out to Illinois and Texas Tech for continuing to play their accused rapists, although Illinois tried to suspend theirs and was forced to play him by a federal court.  ↩

Weekend Notes

March 11, 2024 /

In some ways it was a terrible weekend. In other ways it was a good one. The common theme was a lot of basketball.

Jayhawk Talk

I’m very glad that I didn’t see a minute of Houston destroying KU. I had this game chalked up as an L ever since KU easily beat the Cougars last month. A 30-point loss, though? I have to admit, that was unexpected.

It wasn’t a huge surprise that Kevin McCullar was ineffective then sat the entire second half. But Hunter Dickinson injuring his shoulder and leaving the game was not on my BINGO card for the day. I’m starting to think the Hoops Gods are punishing KU for not getting the hammer from the NCAA. Or perhaps for us Jayhawk fans for gloating when we didn’t get the hammer. This is shaping up to be a terrible March and lost season for my favorite team.

The Hoops Gods may also be preparing to punish me for talking shit to M every time KU beat Cincinnati in anything this year. If the Bearcats beat West Virginia Tuesday, they play the Jayhawks Wednesday. I’m assuming neither McCullar or Dickinson will play. Good grief.

The KU women also lost their Big 12 tournament game to Texas Saturday. Bad day for the Jayhawks.

HS Hoops

This didn’t really bother me too much, but Kokomo and future Jayhawk Flory Bidunga were playing in the regional round of the Indiana state tournament at the same time KU was losing to Houston. Flory had 20 points, 7 rebounds, and 4 assists, but #4 Kokomo lost to #1 Fishers by 14.

Time for him to get in the weight room so he’s ready to compete in the Big 12. Unless he can play next week?

Pacers

The Pacers have been in a bit of a funk lately, sandwiching great games with ones when something just seems off. Their offense, which was bound to regress, isn’t nearly as free-flowing and fun as it was the first three months of the season. Some folks are complaining that trading Buddy Hield messed up the team’s chemistry. While Pascal Siakam has been solid since coming over from Toronto, I wouldn’t say he’s been a dramatic game changer.

The biggest factor is that Tyrese Haliburton has been in a slump. His shooting has gone in the toilet lately, and his already mediocre defense has taken a step back. I wonder if he should have taken longer to come back from his late January hamstring injury, even if that meant missing All Star weekend action.

Anyway, adding to the bad of Saturday was the announcement that evening that Bennedict Mathurin will undergo shoulder surgery and miss the rest of the season. After a slow start to his second year, he had really picked it up lately. He isn’t the shooter Hield is, but he’s a far more complete player and the additional minutes seemed to do him wonders. Until he got hurt.

Blech.

Youth Hoops

Why did I miss the KU game? L had two days of “training camp” this weekend with her travel team. The sessions were way out in Plainfield, about 40 minutes from our house. Don’t ask me why they were out there, I have no idea.

After Saturday’s session we had a team dinner for our first hang as a new squad. Three of L’s teammates from the past two years are back, but the other four girls are new. It was nice to meet the parents and new co-coach. The kids seemed to have fun. L said she really likes everyone so far.

They also had two new girls work out with them both days. I’m not sure if they will officially join the team or not – there’s some intra-program politics involved – but they are both above six-feet tall, which is huge. Literally.

I talked to the head coach after Saturday’s workout and he said one of them has some skill and promise while the other is pretty raw. However, he said that raw girl got a ton of rebounds when they scrimmaged. I suggested he teach her how to throw outlet passes and tell her to just get every loose ball she sees. It would be kind of crazy if we went from no height the past two years, to three girls 5’10” or better this year.

L missed her CHS awards banquet last Monday because she came home from school sick. The team FaceTimed her in so she could participate virtually. She won the Rising Star award, given to the best underclassman. She didn’t seem to think it was all that cool but I thought it was a great way to cap off her first year of high school ball.

Spring Break

M is flying to Florida today for a week in Sarasota with a group of UC friends. She sent us a picture this morning as she walked onto the plane, so her early alarm and Uber to the airport worked ok. We trust her to make good decisions. Still, I have to admit I’m a little nervous. I never went on spring break as a college kid, but I’ve seen movies and heard stories.

We leave for Anna Maria next Saturday. Our trips overlap by one night, so after we land we are going to pick her and her St P’s/CHS buddy up and they will spend that night with us. We haven’t seen her since she went back for second semester, if you don’t count the weekly FaceTimes and calls.

My Stupid Brain

Saturday night I fell into a car research rabbit hole again. I’m an idiot. The issue with these spells is they get my brain cranked up, increase my pulse and blood pressure, and make me a little anxious.

I couldn’t relax and stay asleep so after a couple hours of tossing and turning, I got up to try to re-set my body. Unfortunately I waited too long to do it and I was sitting in my chair, wide awake, when the clock jumped from 2:00 to 3:00 as Daylight Saving Time arrived. Wonderful. I need to lock away all my devices two hours before bed until I actually have a new car.

The rabbit hole gave me more content for posts, though, so you, my loyal readers, are the big winners!

Weekend Notes

March 4, 2024 /

A relatively laid-back weekend, although some of that was unexpected, so a quick post to get the new week started. No, I did not buy a car.

Jayhawk Talk

Another road loss, although the game at Baylor was chalked up as an L to begin the season, so no real harm. Kevin McCullar came back and looked decent. He still can’t hit a 3 and missed two makable layups, so maybe he’s 100% healthy? He was certainly rusty, so maybe the outside shot comes back if he can stay on the court.

KU battled well, coming back multiple times to take the lead. Baylor just did not miss in the last 5:00, or when they did there was a 100% chance they were getting the rebound. Still, the Jayhawks blew a couple possessions in crunch time that could have kept it close to the final buzzer.

The most concerning thing was Johnny Furphy getting absolutely cooked on defense. He’s generally been fine on D, balancing bad possessions with decent ones, his length making up for bad footwork and his lack of strength. But, man, the Bears put him insolation against either smaller or longer players and worked him over. KU fans immediately requested that film be sent to every NBA GM to show that he isn’t ready to be a pro yet.

Illness

Sunday was supposed to be L’s first “training camp” for her travel program. She had to stay home, though, because she tested positive for Covid Friday after school. She felt pretty bad most of the weekend but was acting better Sunday evening. She’s like a Covid magnet. She told us it seemed like everyone at school has the flu. I’m guessing those kids parents don’t test them for Covid anymore like we do.

So far no one else is the house has got it. I guess it was good for her to get it out of the way two weeks before spring break.

She has her school team end-of-year gathering tonight then first official travel practice tomorrow night.

School Calendar

She and C have reached the silly part of their school year.

Wednesday C takes the SAT, so she only has half a day and L gets to stay home and eLearn. They get next Friday off going into spring break. The week after spring break they get Good Friday off, then Easter Monday the following week. Finally CHS announced two weeks ago they are elearning on eclipse day, April 8.

The next time they have a normal, five-day school week is the week of April 15. And then the school year is almost over.

Weekend Notes

February 26, 2024 /

It was a three-day weekend at CHS. Which was good since L and I started the weekend off early.

Caitlin-palooza

I took L and one of her hoops buddies down to Bloomington Thursday night for the Iowa-Indiana game. This was my first time in Assembly Hall 2003. Our seats were better for that game.


We were UP THERE!

We arrived right when doors opened two hours before tip and found the back of the line, which was roughly half a mile from the arena. Fortunately it was in the low 50s and dry. Things could have been much less pleasant in Indiana in late February! It took us exactly 30 minutes to get inside. By then the only sections of lower level seats that were GA had been taken, so we went into the balcony and grabbed a few.


Assembly Hall is behind those trees somewhere.

Caitlin was already on the court and warming up, 85 minutes before game time according to the official clock.

She must have used up all her shots in pregame because she turned in one of her worst games of the year, going 8–26 from the field and just 3–16 from three. She even missed three-straight free throws at one point. Still she put up 24 points, 10 rebounds, nine assists, exiting the game with a couple minutes left as IU closed out their win. It is crazy this was considered a bad game for her.

IU was ready for their moment. They blew a game to a bad Illinois team last Monday but were 100% focused for the Hawkeyes. They took the lead late in the first quarter and steadily pulled away. The Hoosiers nearly got the lead to 20 a couple times before winning by 17. Local girl – from Fishers, just north of us – Sydney Parrish hit consecutive 3s to push the lead to 17. A third-straight 3 just missed. I’m not sure Assembly Hall would have survived that moment had Parrish connected. IU was fantastic defense and rode a few hot streaks on offense to build their margin.

The game was super chippy, which was awesome. As much as I enjoy Caitlin, I don’t always love some of her antics, which seem unnecessary and over the top. The Hoosier players and coaches weren’t having it. Mackenzie Holmes stared Clark down twice after blocking her shots. A couple other IU players yelled at her when she complained. And Clark got into it with the IU coaches at one point.

Assistant coaches in women’s ball seem way more aggressive than on the men’s side. Both teams had to have assistants held back from going after refs after bad calls.

The crowd was almost as hot as the Hoosiers. It was officially a sellout, although there were scattered empty seats in our area. There were plenty of Iowa folks mixed in but it was still a 98% loud, proud Hoosier crowd. One national writer said the crowd was better for this game than when KU came to B-town in December.[1]

They showed lots of good fan signs on the video board. One student had a white board on which he was tracking Clark’s “Flops” and “Whines,” which was funny. Another kid had a sign showing Clark and a crying baby next to each other. The best was a student who had a sign that showed Iowa coach Lisa Bluder and labeled her as a “D1 Yapper,” which was awesome. I’m going to start using that phrase.

For some reason former Hoosier (and Pacer) Victor Oladipo was there, wearing sunglasses the entire time. He’s getting paid $9 million to do nothing at the moment, so I guess he can roll back to his alma mater for a big game when it suits him.

Fun to get to see the biggest star in the game, hell the biggest star in sports, in person. Who was the last athlete that had people lining up for hours almost every night they played? Also fun to see the Hoosiers, who aren’t quite as good as they were last year, put it all together on the night of their biggest home game of the year.

At halftime L ran down to find one of her travel teammates. They, in turn, met one of our new girls on their team for the coming season. She is 5’10”! She looks athletic. I think she got some varsity time at her 4A school this season. I am intrigued!

Jayhawk Talk

Well that was an almost perfect Saturday for the Jayhawks. The much-hated Texas Longhorns made their final visit to Allen Fieldhouse before leaving for the SEC. KU jumped on them early, had a 20-point lead at halftime, and auto-piloted it a bit to a 19-point win. The starting lineup was balanced and efficient. It might have been the best bench game of the year. KU’s defense looked terrific and the offense was humming. As several national writers said, if you give Bill Self a week to prepare, he’s going to find your weak points.

And, HOLY SHIT NIC TIMBERLAKE!!!!

https://x.com/KUHoops/status/1761568235684573184?s=20

Oh, and the uniforms KU wore were fantastic. I love these updated versions of old uniforms Adidas has been rolling out every year. I prefer the version with red letters a little bit more, but these were nice.

Not all was great for KU, though. That they won without Kevin McCullar, whose knee acted up again, was encouraging. What was not encouraging was Self using the phrase “If Kevin comes back…” four times in his postgame, radio interview.

IF?!?!?! WTF?!?!

I mean, KU might have just played their most complete game of the year, against a talented but flawed team. So that was cool, and a great development for March. But the Jayhawks need McCullar to win NCAA games. And a month before the biggest games start the head coach is talking like he’s not sure McCullers knee will be healed by then.

Terrific.

I don’t call out the KU fans often, but chanting “SEC” at Texas and Oklahoma is dumb. I know it is meant to mock, but if you’re going to chant about conferences, give your own conference some love. Don’t chant what SEC teams chant in big, non-conference games. Or just start the Rock Chalk Chant early and throw the Horns Down when you’re waxing Texas.

Also, KU is 3–0 against SEC teams this year. And 3–0 against teams going to the SEC next year. I still fear some .500 SEC team more than anyone else in the second round of the NCAAs.

Court Stormings

Oh so much hand wringing about Duke’s Kyle Filipowski getting knocked over and apparently injuring his knee when the Wake Forest students rushed the court after beating the Blue Devils Saturday. Seriously, the rest of the day on ESPN every other game seemed secondary as each broadcast team had to weigh in, and each halftime show was devoted to breaking it down, in Zapruder Film like detail.

Hey, it super sucks Filipowski got hurt, and hopefully it is nothing severe or lingering.

But Filipowski isn’t the first person to get injured in a court storm/field rush. It’s just when it happens to a Duke player, who is a potential All American, it becomes the biggest story in the world.

Court storming is great. But, come on, these aren’t new. If you’re playing a Duke, a Kansas, a Kentucky, and your school is either a Little Brother or just not as good, you have to know this is a possibility and be prepared for a court storming. You’re not going to keep all those kids off the court. But you can either delay them, or funnel them to a section of the court giving all the players a chance to get clear and safe before the celebration really kicks off.

Some KU fans made a big deal about how Wake Forest athletic director John Currie was the AD at Kansas State when there were a couple particularly scary court stormings in Manhattan. I’m not sure he’s directly responsible – Wildcats gonna Wildcat when they beat KU – but it is weird that after he was forced to take measures to protect visiting players in Bramlage Coliseum, there didn’t appear to be much in place to avoid bad situations in Winston Salem.

Kid Update

Our big accomplishment for the weekend was C finding a prom dress. She is our procrastinator and it had been a struggle to get her out shopping. But she found a beautiful dress and we’re on schedule to have everything ready for prom in two months.

CHS had elearning on Friday so the school could set up for their big, annual fundraiser. L got her work done early so we went out to get her some new basketball shoes for the travel season. She was hoping to get the Sabrina Ionesco shoes, but they are mega-narrow and she had to settle for some Nike GT Cut 2’s. New hoops shoe time is one of my favorite parts of her basketball calendar. I’ve been known to grab some AAU Dad shoes on the same trip, but I held off this time.

We had a travel parent zoom meeting last night and she starts workouts next weekend. Her team will play for the first time while we are on spring break, but hopefully we make it back in time for her to play the second half of their second tournament. Right now we are scheduled to play in Cincinnati twice and Louisville three times then everything else is 20 minutes from our house.

M got a job leading tours around the UC campus. I talked to her before her interview and she was a little nervous. Then she texted and said the interview lasted five minutes and she got the offer right away. Surprised it took them five minutes to realize she’s like the perfect person to show prospective students and their families around UC. Not sure if she’s led any tours yet but she’s on the call list for helping out when folks need a guide.

  1. You probably don’t follow the IU men, but they are having a rough season.  ↩

Weekend Notes

February 19, 2024 /

Snow!

Our first significant snow of the year hit Friday afternoon. Which was perfect for A) kids who are driving home from school, B) a wife who has to commute through rush hour traffic, and C) the opening night of All Star Weekend. Perfect in this case meaning the opposite of perfect.

We ended up getting between 4–5” inches of heavy, wet snow at our house. Everyone made it home safely and I was excited to get to use the snowblower for the first time in three years. It broke exactly three years ago right when I finished clearing the 9” we got in that storm. I didn’t get it fixed for the ’21–22 winter, gambling we wouldn’t get a big snow. Which turned out to be a good gamble. I got it fixed in the fall of ’22 but again we never got enough snow to break it out.

But Friday was my night! I pulled the starter, it fired right up, and I got to work. It threw snow like a champ and I was looking forward to clearing the driveway in a fraction of the time it would take with a shovel.

Then the fucking thing broke after about five minutes. Once again the auger stopped turning, the same thing that I had fixed a year ago. Sigh. I’m guessing work done 16 months ago probably isn’t under any kind of warranty.

So I pushed the heavy-ass snow around with a shovel for about an hour until the driveway was clear.

Then the sun came out Saturday morning and even though the windchill was around zero, everything on pavement quickly melted.

Someone hates me.

All Star Weekend

I watched a lot of the ASG activities, way more than I usually do. I don’t know if this has been done in other recent host cities, but it was interesting that Friday night’s activities were split between two locations. The celebrity game was at Lucas Oil Stadium, then the Rising Stars games were in Gainbridge Fieldhouse. Saturday’s events were in Lucas, the actual All Star Game in Gainbridge. A little surprised the game wasn’t in Lucas, too, given how many seats in Gainbridge were blocked off for various non-spectating functions.

I tuned in late for the Celebrity Game. Dumb, but good, clean dumbness. The Rising Stars games were fun, mostly because Pacer Bennedict Mathurin led his team to victory and won the MVP. He was going off in their first game, but badly missed two dunks that would have been spectacular. The highlight, though, was him taking things super seriously when Indiana native Jaden Ivey talked a little trash. Mathurin told him, in very uncertain terms, that Ivey couldn’t guard him in the regular season or this game. The playful smile quickly disappeared from Ivey’s face and he looked ready to throw down. TNT picked the right guy – Mathurin – to mic up for that game. Solid exhibition game drama!

Saturday’s events were fun. The Skills Contest is goofy and largely relatable. It helped that the Pacers squad of Mathurin, Tyrese Haliburton, and Myles Turner won. The 3-point contest still holds up, especially now that everyone can routinely hit 30-footers. The dunk contest remains kind of sleepy, the judging sucks, and even the cool dunks aren’t as cool as the original cool dunks were in the Eighties. There were way too many dunks that involved jumping over people.

The best event of the night was the shortest, Sabrina Ionescu’s 3-point competition with Steph Curry. I’m sure like 5% of viewers wrote it off as “Woke Basketball,” but I found it charming and entertaining. Reggie Miller quickly called for (hopefully) future Indiana Fever Caitlin Clark to get an invite next year.

The LED court used at Lucas Oil was nutty. I would think that would be super distracting if you were actually playing on it but I didn’t hear any complaints.

It was great having Uncle Reggie be on the mic for so many events. He was never my favorite player, but having a local cheerleader as one of the main announcers made the Indy homie in me feel good.

Like the dunk contest, the game was the game. The East scored 211 points, which is more about how the game has turned into a 3-point shooting exercise played by shooters with unlimited range and accuracy. It’s not terribly engaging, but you have to admire the skill. The East being up so big meant there was no ratcheting up of the intensity in the fourth quarter as guys suddenly started caring about winning.

There’s been a lot of grousing in the media about how badly the game is broken. I don’t have a good answer for how to fix it – players decided 20 years ago they weren’t going to risk injury and play actual defense – other than scrapping a traditional game. Maybe go to a series of mini-games with smaller teams, more like the Rising Stars game? In the era of load management and constant injuries because of hyper-bulked up players, I don’t think it’s possible to play a normal, 48 minute game. Football has scrapped the traditional all star contest because of the injury risk. The NBA really should do the same.

Draymond Green complaining all week about the game being in Indy got annoying quick. MFer is from Saginaw. A little cold and snow shouldn’t get to him like that. Soft as hell.

I guess LeBron James has been fighting an ankle injury and his minutes Sunday were limited because of that. When he was on the court he still had flashes. But it was very evident that he’s lost a significant amount from his game. Now I’m even more suspicious of how he managed to play so hard and well during the In-season Tournament in December. Not that I would accuse a 39-year-old man still playing at a high level of not being 100% clean.

Steph Curry may be in the process of losing his first step, too. I loved how he was still out there having fun Sunday. He saw other dudes were lighting it up and ran around making crazy passes to get them shots. Compare him to game MVP Dame Lilliard who seems to play with whatever the opposite of joy is. We need more Stephs.

That’s not totally fair. I think most of the players were having a good time, goofing around as much as they can. Karl-Anthony Towns looked like he was having the time of his life. Jason Tatum was running around laughing. Haliburton is always having fun. Nikola Jokic was making fun of himself, attempting half-assed dunks. It’s just a bummer the game MVP was the one guy who did not seem to let his competitive guard down.

Jayhawk Talk

I knew last Monday’s game at Texas Tech would be a loss. KU doesn’t win on the road this year for starters, they had beaten Baylor in a tough game two days earlier, and Kevin McCullar was still out.

I did not expect a 29-point loss where the guys on the court didn’t look super interested in competing.

Saturday I was getting pissed because for the first 18 minutes against Oklahoma, not much seemed to have changed. McCullar was back, but he was beyond rusty and not close to 100%. As with Tech in Lubbock, KU was letting OU shoot 80% from 3 while shooting 10% on their end. The team looked lethargic and lacked fire.

Then they put a little run on before halftime and came out a completely different team in the second half. I’m not sure OU is all that good, especially down a couple players, but a road win is a road win in a year KU has had zero luck when playing true road games.

Now they get a six-day breather to heal and recharge before the final regular season run. Protect the home court and they are a comfortable 2–3 seed. Just be healthy in March.

Rabbit Hole

I will share that I fell into an unexpected and exciting rabbit hole Sunday. I am not going to share what that rabbit hole was just yet. Maybe in a day or two, we’ll see how things go.

Weekend Notes

February 12, 2024 /

Super Bowl

Most years I watch the Super Bowl fairly closely, tracking the game, commercials, and halftime show with an idea of being able to take an active role in whatever the post-game discourse is. Last night I sat on the couch for four-plus nearly uninterrupted hours, but was often letting my attention drift to other things.

So no deep takes today. A game that was super boring turned super exciting in the fourth quarter and overtime. No 49ers fan will ever agree if you tell them points after are not important. The Chiefs ascend to the game’s pantheon, and Andy Reid and Patrick Mahomes do so for the coaching/quarterback elite of the elite levels as well. The Niners, once one of the most blessed franchises in the game, have a legit argument for least blessed (Super Bowl division, of course). And now ESPN can start forcing the draft down our throats for three months…

I had no idea about the clock rule in overtime, how the teams were basically playing the first quarter and there was no reason for either team to be using time outs late in the extra frame. That seems super dumb to me. It’s overtime; there should be some sense of urgency to score. Glad that didn’t end up being a factor because then we would have heard about it endlessly for the next six months.

Usher’s halftime show? Solid. The grumpy old man in me continues to be bummed that these shows have become more about spectacle than performance, and often a spectacle that is much better viewed inside the stadium than on TV. Usher did the right thing trying the thread the needle between dancing his ass off without relying exclusively on recorded tracks. To me, though, that’s almost more distracting as he would sing a handful of lines then drop out so he could dance again. I know that’s a hell of an expectation and there’s no best way to do it.

Once again the big takeaway is that no one did it better than Prince, and I’m not sure anyone ever will.

Jayhawk Talk

Not the best week for my Jayhawks. Blew a double-digit lead on the road for the second time this season, losing in overtime to a Kansas State team that often seemed only mildly interested in winning Monday night. Seriously, there were a few stretches where both teams played more like middle schoolers, kicking the ball back-and-forth in the dumbest ways possible.

Johnny Furphy, who was apparently sick, didn’t hit a 3 for the first time since he entered the starting lineup. Hunter Dickinson and KJ Adams missed a handful of relatively easy shots that could have kept KSU at arm’s length. Dajuan Harris again had several inexplicable turnovers. And Kevin McCullar was truly bad, forcing bad shots and missing four free throws along the way.

Guess those free throws should have been a clue something was up. McCullar shocked KU fans Saturday morning on ESPN Gameday when he said he might not play that evening against Baylor. Might Not turned into Definitely Won’t as game time got closer, and our sphincters got extra tight.

Fortunately KU’s defense was very good, Baylor’s offense was very bad, and the Jayhawks survived a truly terrible final minute to hold the Bears off. I was glad I missed the second half so those final 60 seconds didn’t ruin my entire night.

Put that all together and I’ve decided KU isn’t winning another road game this year. That’s not a super bold statement, as they have road games at Texas Tech, Oklahoma, Baylor, and Houston, with only OU being a game KU might be favored in. I’m assuming McCullar doesn’t play tonight in Lubbock. Who knows if Harris, who rolled his ankle badly Saturday, will. Furphy still seemed sick Saturday and Jamari McDowell didn’t play because of illness.

The Big 12 title is probably out of reach, as much because of strength of remaining schedule as KU not being able to win a road game. KU has five games left against ranked teams while Houston and Iowa State have just three. Unbalanced schedules suck.

With KU’s road woes, I’ve reached the point where I just hope the Jayhawks can win out at home and then be completely healthy in mid-March. Finishing in the top four of the Big 12 likely means nothing lower than a three seed in the NCAA Tournament. When healthy, KU can beat anyone and go on a run. If they are still banged up in mid-March, they could easily lose to whatever 14-seed they are matched up with.

Other College Hoops Thoughts

Baylor is starting to seem like a lite version of Kentucky. They sign a top ten kid every year, and have multiple freshmen who are expected to leave after one season in Waco. Most nights they have way more raw talent than the teams they are playing. Some nights those young guys are all locked in and look amazing. More often one or two of them are floating through the game, or are overwhelmed by playing against older, more experienced players, and the Bears look disjointed and lost. Not that I’m complaining. Scott Drew is a phony putz and I enjoy seeing him flail around, trying to get those young pieces to work together.

I have no love for Baylor, but it was a true bummer seeing how much Jonathan Tchamwa Tchatchoua struggles after his knee injury a couple years back. He was a breath-taking athlete and seemed poised for stardom when he wrecked his knee. He seems like a shell of his former self, but at least he’s out there still making an effort.

Saturday night was also the second Indiana-Purdue game of the year. The Boilermakers beat the Hoosiers by a combined 41 points in their two games this season. Woof.

I’ve always been strictly neutral in the rivalry since I moved to Indiana. I generally root for whatever is the funniest outcome. Right now Purdue spanking IU is the funniest result, because IU fans are not happy. They are sick of Mike Woodson. They are sick that they would miss the tournament if the brackets came out today. They are sick of the national media fawning over Zach Edey and Matt Painter. They are sick that while they still have five more national championships than Purdue, the last one was nearly 40 years ago and doesn’t mean a thing to most recruits. I think they are also preemptively sick that this might be the Purdue team that finally doesn’t fuck up in March and at least gets to the program’s first Final Four since 1980.

Of course, I watch all this with a healthy dose of worry. IU has never fully recovered from firing Bobby Knight, even if they weren’t the same power in his final 5–6 years as they had been the previous 20. Bill Self is going to retire one day. Maybe someone seamlessly slides in and keeps the airplane aloft, the way he did when he replaced Roy Williams. But IU is a big, fat warning sign that sustained success should never be taken for granted in college sports.

Finally on the college hoops tip, I watched all of the Iowa-Nebraska women’s game Sunday. That was highly entertaining, with Caitlin Clark doing Caitlin Clark things for three quarters until the Huskers shut her down and erased a 14-point deficit to win in the closing seconds. We are going to the Iowa-Indiana game next week and L is looking forward to it.

Props to the Wall Street Journal for pointing out that not only does Lynette Woodard have the true women’s college basketball scoring record, but how the NCAA screwed her and a generation of female athletes when they reluctantly took over women’s sports in the early 1980s.

Clark is going to blow by Woodard’s record a week or two after she breaks the “official” NCAA mark. Hopefully Woodard gets a little more love from the national media in that interim.

Woodard was the first famous athlete I saw up close. When I was visiting an uncle who went to KU and lived in the same dorm as her, Woodard sat a few feet away from us in the cafeteria. I was astounded that she had like four trays of food. I couldn’t wait to get to college so I could get four trays of food at lunch! I also sat by her on a flight about a decade ago. But since I don’t talk to famous people, I didn’t say a word to her. Idiot.

Date Night?

Finally, we went out to dinner with friends Saturday. While eating I noticed something odd at a table near ours.

A couple sat there eating. It was a four-top table, and they were seated so they were next to each other rather than facing each other. They were young, attractive, and looked to be in love; good for them.

However I eventually noticed that the guy had an AirPod in his left ear. And he wasn’t saying much. Odd.

I shifted in my chair so I could see his partner and she had an AirPod in her right ear. She wasn’t talking, either. Very odd.

As much as was acceptable I kept glancing their way. They seemed to be looking at their table. This was during the IU-Purdue game so I wondered if they were watching it on a phone/tablet. Maybe it was hidden, but I couldn’t see a device on their table, and they never seemed to be reacting positively or negatively as you would when watching a game.

Even odder, at one point the guy leaned over, wrapped his arm inside his partner’s and they kind of snuggled into each other as they focused on whatever they were focused on.

Mega odd.

It was crazy strange to me that they chose to probably drop $150 on a dinner for two when they didn’t talk the entire time and spent their time watching/listening to something via AirPods.

Weekend Notes

February 5, 2024 /

Last week was pretty much a lost week for me. I could never shake my cold. In fact, it kept getting worse. I thought I had turned a corner Friday before my stomach and head started hurting in the evening. I woke up Saturday feeling even worse. I ate some cereal, took some meds, and passed out on the couch for another three hours. Sunday morning I again thought I was feeling better. Then I woke up after an unexpected nap of 90 minutes. I just can’t get rid of this congestion. As I try to clear the cobwebs Monday morning my head still feels full of various fluids over a week after they first made their presence known. If I didn’t have a haircut this morning, I would probably be crawling back into bed.

I say it was a lost week because I barely left the house. I went to the grocery store a couple times. I picked L up from practice Monday and Tuesday. I went to her game Wednesday. And that was about it. Otherwise I just laid around the house, bundled under my blanket all week.

Maybe this week will be better.

Weather

Thursday was February 1. That was the first day we saw the sun here in Indianapolis in 10 days. It also got up over 50. I walked out to get the mail that afternoon and had that false sense of imminent spring that can come this time of year.

It’s one thing for that to happen on February 25th. It’s another on the freaking first of the month, when spring is still six-to-twelve weeks away.

We might get close to 60 a couple days this week, but there is snow in the forecast next week.

I’m just saying I wouldn’t mind an early spring.

HS Hoops

Friday night I watched the big CHS sectional semifinal on the computer. It was #9 Lawrence North, who beat the Irish on Wednesday, vs. #1 Lawrence Central. LN led by 11 late in the first half, then gave up a 22–2 run that bridged halftime. LN fought back and got as close as three a couple times, but LC won by seven. LC won the next night, too, capturing only the second sectional title in school history. They hadn’t won a sectional GAME in 20 years before Wednesday. Not sure how you go from that to 22–1 in a year, but that’s exactly what they’ve done.

There are five teams that CHS played this year that are still alive.

The highlight of the game for me was that the wrong team inbounded the ball to start the second half, and the refs had to re-start the half. I say this was a highlight because the teacher who normally runs the clock/possession arrow at CHS is notorious for talking too much and having the arrow pointed the wrong way. It’s not an every game occurrence, but it’s happened at least five times this season. Once he had the arrow wrong, they caught and corrected his error, then seconds later there was another held ball and he again forgot to switch the arrow. Come on, man!

It was nice to see he’s consistent and does it in non-CHS games, too.

Jayhawk Talk

I thought about putting this off until tomorrow. Saturday’s performance was so good, though, that I didn’t want to risk not being able to give it proper credit if the Jayhawks drop a turd in Manhattan tonight.

So…

OOOOOOOOH YEEAAAHHHHHH!!!

A good, old fashioned, ass kicking of an elite team in the Phog!

That was KU’s best performance of the season. Not only was it against the best defense in the country. It was against a historically great defense, one that was poised to set records for defensive efficiency. And the Jayhawks sliced them up for 40 minutes, shooting nearly 70% for the game. SEVENTY PERCENT!!!!! They scored more points in the first 35 minutes of the game than any team had scored against Houston all season, including overtime games. Even the area where KU struggled – 18 turnovers – was more about them throwing the ball out of bounds for no reason than anything Houston was doing on defense.

It was just the latest entry in the Magical Saturday Big 12 Games In Allen Fieldhouse catalog, one that the kids who were in the stands Saturday will recall fondly the rest of their lives.

The funniest part of how easily KU handled Houston is that most KU fans – including me – had been extremely worried about this game for a couple weeks. Houston is a fearsome team on defense. They are limited offensively but they also can put up numbers if their defense forces a lot of turnovers, as they did to Kansas State a week ago. This was exactly the kind of game that KU has always found a way to win at home. I’m not sure most KU fans had that much faith in this year’s team going into the game.

To beat the dead horse a little more, Johnny Furphy is the difference. He just keeps producing, and gets more efficient each game. He missed just one shot Saturday (although he missed two from the free throw line). His 3s came in huge moments. He threw down a powerful dunk in transition. He grabbed rebounds. He played decent defense. I was worried he might not be up for the task against a team like Houston. He proved me wrong. Now everyone is worried that instead of a 2–3 year player, he will spend a single year in Lawrence. Declaring for the draft is a ways away, but if it indeed happens, that would make his rise even more incredible.

It’s a small sample size, but since Furphy became a starter, KU is, by one analytical measure, the second-best offense in the country and the third-best team overall. Wild.

It’s not fair or realistic to expect him to keep going for 17 & 7 every night. Whether he is scoring or not, opponents have to account for him on defense. Which opens things up for the other four Jayhawks on the court.

My one hope coming into the game was that Hunter Dickinson would carve up Houston. For all their athleticism, they are not a big team. And athletic defenders don’t bother Hunter. He just uses his big body to render them helpless, as long as he can get the ball in scoring position. He had great numbers, 20 & 8 on 15 shots, but his willingness to share the ball was what made KU’s attack really hum.

We are now at the midpoint in the Big 12 schedule. KU and Houston are tied for first, with three teams a half game back. TCU is another half game back. The next month is going to be crazy. Houston would seem to have a slight edge because of their schedule, which includes a return date from the Jayhawks the last day of the season. Sure would be nice if Iowa State had to come to Lawrence…

Speaking of wildness, how about that Iowa State – Baylor game? Sadly I missed Scott Drew getting ejected. I did see each team blow five-point leads. I saw Baylor miss a ton of free throws. I saw the clock operator start the clock too soon, giving Iowa State a chance to stop the clock and inbound the ball instead of trying to grab a rebound and get up court for a final shot. I saw the Clones bank in a game winner that was wiped out because it came a fraction of a second too late. Imagine if that had counted. Whoever runs the clock in Waco might need to find a new city to live in because their itchy finger had just cost the Bears an important game. Situations like that are why parents make themselves scarce when coaches come looking for someone to run the clock in youth games. You never want to be the person who messes up the clock and have to deal with irate coaches/parents/kids afterward.

One thing that jumped out in those chaotic closing minutes is how imperfect replay review is in basketball, especially college. I’m sure I’ve made this rant before, but the fact you can review a play and overturn an out-of-bounds decision but not also review the foul that caused the ball to go OB is insane.

In the ISU-BU game, the referee gave possession to Baylor after a ball went out of bounds. Since there was under 2:00 to play, it got reviewed. The replay showed the ball, in fact, touched the Baylor player last. But it also showed that the ISU defender clearly hit his arm and caused the turnover. But the non-called foul isn’t reviewable. ISU got the ball.

The NBA allows fouls to be switched upon review. College should go to this system. If an offensive player loses the ball because he was fouled, call the foul, even if it takes replay to show it.

The best thing to do would be to say there was incidental contact that caused the turnover, and give the offense the ball back. But then you’re introducing even more variance into the replay interpretation, and not all plays are as obvious as the one Saturday. I can only imagine the outcry when three refs huddle around a monitor for five minutes trying to determine if there was enough contact to adjust the call one way or the other.

Even better, give each coach one review per half, which do not carry over if unused, and otherwise get rid of replay review except for clock malfunctions/scoring questions. There are 15 marginal possession calls every game. Why the game has to grind to a halt for only the ones in the last two minutes has never made any sense.

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