D's Notebook

Tag: Kansas Jayhawks (Page 1 of 39)

Weekend Notes, Part 2: Sports

May 28, 2025 /

Continuing our look back at last weekend (and slightly beyond), let’s get into the sports.

PACERS!!!!

Quite the swing of emotions, this Eastern Conference Finals series.

Game one was the Pacers’ legendary comeback and overtime win.

Game two Friday was a Big Brother game for them, getting another win in Madison Square Garden by controlling the game from start-to-finish and keeping the Knicks at an arm’s length every time they made a run.

Sunday’s game three seemed to be the perfect cap on one of the great sports days in Indianapolis history. Coming a few hours after the Indy 500, the Pacers were red-hot to start. Late in the second quarter Tyrese Haliburton flipped a wonderful pass backwards over a defender that Obi Toppin caught one-handed and threw down. On the next possession Haliburton hit a long 3. Then he got a steal and breakaway dunk to put the Pacers up by 20.

Gainbridge was deafening. The Knicks were reeling. The series was over.

Only the Pacers got sloppy, the Knicks found something with their bench unit, and slowly whittled the margin until they took the lead midway through the fourth quarter and never gave it up. Indiana went from being on the verge of the NBA Finals to facing some serious questions and pressure in the span of about 75 minutes.

Worse than the loss was the lower leg injury Aaron Nesmith suffered late in the first half. He came back and played some second half minutes, but for a guy who missed 35 games with a similar injury earlier this year and is the Pacers most effective defender on Jalen Brunson, it was super worrisome.

I think it’s a measure of how engaged I am with this team that I couldn’t sleep after Sunday’s collapse. Normally only KU basketball can have that effect on me.

Which took us to last night’s game four. It was playing out like a combination of games two and three, the Pacers again getting out early and controlling the game. Their leads weren’t quite as big as they had been Sunday and the Knicks runs sooner. New York tied the game just before halftime but a 14–0 Pacers run that bridged halftime gave them control that they never relinquished.

There were some dicey moments late. The Pacers seemed to go braindead a couple times on offense, by either being passive and one-dimensional or just plain sloppy and throwing the ball away. The Knicks never completely took advantage, though. It went down to the final minute until Toppin splashed a 3 as the shot clock expired with 46 seconds left to clinch it.

The Pacers are a game away from the NBA Finals.

Nesmith played and was again brilliant on defense. He really may be the most important player on the roster in this series, as no one else can guard Brunson as well as he can. Brunson was nearly perfect when matched with any other defender, hitting every shot and getting to the free throw line often. When matched with Nesmith, though, he was a mess. The dirty secret of this series is that the Knicks have played their best ball of the series when Brunson sits. I think it’s because the ball moves so much more and better when he’s not dominating it. Also he has been truly horrific on defense and whoever replaces him can at least pretend to guard someone.

Bennedict Mathurin finally had a positive game after looking overmatched and unplayable through the first three games. He scored 20 points in the fewest minutes played of any player in playoff game in NBA history. He still had some shaky moments and I worry that he’s going to get ejected because he thinks he needs to respond to every cheap shot Brunson and Josh Hart level on Haliburton. The Pacers wouldn’t have won without him Tuesday.

Pascal Siakam was, again, brilliant, hunting mismatches and punishing them when he found them.

And Hali, of course, was spectacular. In 38 minutes he scored 32 points, had 12 rebounds, 15 assists, 4 steals and ZERO turnovers. It’s one thing to have a line like that in the regular season, which he often does. But to do it against an intense, physical team like the Knicks in late May? That was one of the greatest playoff games in Pacers history.

Now it’s back to New York for game five. Logic would suggest that the Knicks get their shit together, ride the emotion of the home crowd, and grab that one, sending the series back to Indy. However, they seemed a little broken late Tuesday. Karl-Anthony Towns was grabbing his knee after every play. But he’s such a weird dude I don’t know what to make of that. We might hear today he’s out for the series or he may play with zero limp Thursday and continue to torch the Pacers D. Seriously, if one of your best players can barely walk and it’s a 10 point game in the final minute, how do you not sit him down? That makes me think he’s picked up the embellishment gene from his Villanova grad teammates.

Brunson is actually taking heat from Knicks fans he’s been so bad on D. Something tells me he’s going to be even more physical Thursday, and will get away with it since the game is in New York.

I think these teams are very close, but as I said a week ago, the Pacers are the more coherent team. They can plug their holes easier. When they get locked in their style is more punishing than the Knicks. They have three chances to win one game to end the series. I don’t think they are going to need all three.

Jacque?!?!?

I’ve been deep in the message board rumor mongering about how KU is filling out their roster for next year since the Jayhawks’ season came to an inglorious end back in March. Last week was a tough week, losing two big recruits that KU seemed to, at one point or another, have the inside track on. Recruiting in the NIL era is a different beast.

Along with those roster rumors was the bombshell that Bill Self was talking to KU legend Jacque Vaughn about joining his staff as an assistant. Rumors that were confirmed last week when Vaughn was officially hired.

That news brought all kinds of mixed emotions and thoughts. On the one hand JV is young (but not super young) and could sprinkle some life into a coaching staff that is filled with guys in their 60s who have been together for ages. He has been a head coach in the NBA twice, and while the results weren’t great, he comes from the San Antonio coaching tree which is the best in the pro game. He coached some difficult players in New Jersey and they always seemed to like playing for him even if the wins didn’t come often enough. With the college game getting more like the NBA every day, his addition could help update Self’s offense for the modern era. And, hell, he’s one of the most beloved KU players of all time. Both an on-the-court All American and an Academic All American, the engine that ran one of the great KU squads of all time. If you polled KU fans of what team that didn’t win a national title they loved the most, that 1997 team would almost certainly top the list.[1]

There was some weirdness to the rumors, though. There was chatter that Self was being forced to bring in a young assistant with KU ties by big money donors. I have no idea if this was true or not, but the talk was out there. I don’t love the thought of Self being told he won’t get the money he wants for his roster unless he hires an assistant donors approve of.

What I worried about more was how, if you’ve been an NBA coach twice, you settle in as an assistant at the college level? Even if you’re joining the staff of one of the greatest coaches of his era at your alma mater, there are some strange optics there.

There was immediate speculation that Vaughn would join as a dreaded “coach-in-waiting,” which would fit the persistent rumors that Self has told people close to him he will only coach one or two more seasons. If that’s the case, it makes sense to give JV the chance to come in, learn the college game, especially recruiting, with a buffer of being an assistant for a year or two before he formally takes over.

These coach-in-waiting deals can get messy, though, if not handled right. Especially if Self isn’t 100% sure of his plan. The last thing you want to do is have the greatest coach in program history leave on bad terms because you forced his successor into the mix too early. What if their styles, either basketball or personality, don’t mesh? Or what if Self has indeed told AD Travis Goff he will retire next spring, but is reinvigorated by a young, exciting team and changes his mind?

I also worry about deciding who your next coach is without a formal, open interview process. Maybe Vaughn is the best person to be the next KU coach. I hate not seeing if there’s someone better “outside the family” available when Self does retire, though.

As far as we know, there is no formal language in Vaughn’s contract stating he will be the next KU coach. Assuming he and Self are on the same page, I think this is a good opportunity for him to test the college game and see if that is where he wants to spend the next part of his career. Maybe he does it for a year and realizes he hates recruiting, or the difference in talent and commitment between college kids and NBA pros is too great, or in the NIL era it is too easy to get out-bid on a recruit you’ve spent two years cultivating and Vaughn decides he’d rather go work in an NBA front office. Better, I suppose, for him to figure that out while sitting to Bill Self’s left than bringing him in after after Self retires and realizing then that his heart and skills aren’t fit for the college game.

That said, come on, if Self retires in the next couple years, JV will absolutely get the job next if he wants it. You don’t bring someone with his background in and then hire someone else.

I have no idea if JV will be a good college coach or not. I kind of hate the coach-in-waiting concept. But if you’re going to take that path, I think he’s as good a candidate as anyone. He’s smart. He knows ball. Has had success and failure in life, so arrives humbled. He loves KU. My hope is that everyone involved has open minds, are clearly communicating, and if it doesn’t work it fails because he’s a bad fit, he decides the job isn’t for him, etc and not because of a power struggle or whatever between him and Self. I’m pretty sure they both want what is best for KU and the long-term health of the program. I would bet that’s the reason it took nearly two weeks to get the deal done as they hammered out those secondary details that may not get written into a contract.

Jim Irsay

Slightly lost in the Pacers fever was the death of Colts owner Jim Irsay last Wednesday. While his death was sudden and unexpected, with him you could never say it was a surprise. Irsay battled a lot of demons and had a couple public brushes with death in recent years.[2] He has genuinely looked awful when appearing in public for nearly a decade. I’ve not seen a formal cause of death released, but, honestly, nothing would surprise me.

To his credit, he was open about his issues with substance abuse and mental illness. He is given much of the credit for the NFL’s public campaign to de-stigmatize mental health issues. He kept the team in Indianapolis even when the LA market was wide open and begging for a new franchise. He did a lot of good things with his money.

He was also kind of a kook, in both the best and worst ways. We don’t need to get into any more of that. All humans are complex.

I had to roll my eyes at the stories of his career that were bandied about last week. “From ballboy to team owner!” His fucking dad owned the team when he was a “ballboy.” It’s not like he rode his bike to old Municipal Stadium in Baltimore and lined up with other kids from the area to help out on gamedays.

His kids will take the franchise over now. There are plenty of examples of that going sideways in other cities. But the Colts haven’t exactly been a model franchise for the past decade. Erratic is probably the kindest way to describe Irsay’s stewardship. Perhaps the team will be steadier now, whether his kids have the football knowledge he possessed or not.

Fever

Hey, guess what? There’s already an exhausting, manufactured controversy that involves Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese, and race. It only took two games into the new WNBA season for all the disingenuous commentators to crawl out from under their rocks and start lobbing takes. My favorites are all these anti-woke talking heads who whined when Colin Kaepernick took a knee to protest Black people being killed. “KEEP POLITICS OUT OF SPORTS!!!11!!!” they shouted. That “outrage” at their sports being polluted by “angry” Black men has been cultivated into a new branch of the media that is focused on exactly what they complained about: injecting politics into every aspect of sports. You know the people and the forums, and they never miss an opportunity to blame a loss or failure on wokeness, DEI, and all the familiar right wing hits instead of a player just sucking or a team not being good enough. According to them, Clark is now the most discriminated against player in professional sports. I try to avoid these fools, but their nonsense inevitably infects the rest of sports talk and I eventually read their idiocy.

Clark is now injured and will miss at least a couple weeks. That’s bad for the Fever but maybe it will calm down the rhetoric. At least until she comes back and a Black player has the nerve to foul her, which will get the dog whistlers whistling again.

  1. 1986 and 2003 would also get a lot of votes.  ↩
  2. Or at least became public. News only trickled out well after they happened.  ↩

Hoops Chat

April 8, 2025 /

A lot of hoops thoughts to work through as the college season has come to a very entertaining end.

Women’s Tourney

Man, UConn roared through the tournament like they were all mad the program hadn’t won a title in nearly a decade. Their performance in the Final Four was as dominant as I can remember any team, men or women, having over the final two games of the season. They eviscerated UCLA and South Carolina with a gorgeous, flowing, democratic brand of basketball. Try to take away one player and two others were waiting to kill you.

L is a big Paige Bueckers fan. In fact, she wrote her high school entrance essay about Bueckers and how she showed perseverance overcoming her injuries. I’ve shared before how it’s really hard to get L to sit down and watch full basketball games. Well Friday and Sunday, she sat next to me and watched every minute of the two UConn games.[1] I was pleased that she, apparently, watches a lot of highlights, because she knew every player and what they run on offense and defense. I was happy for Paige, I was happy for L since she wanted Paige to win, and I was happy that I was able to sit, watch, and enjoy a couple games with my hoopster daughter.

Bueckers was obviously the headline story, but, man, Huskies freshman Sarah Strong was so impressive. Not quite as flashy as Juju Watkins, but she has just about everything in her game. In the void of Watkins being out part/most/all of next year rehabbing her knee, Strong should become the face of the college game.

I literally laughed out loud when I saw a Fox News headline that Bueckers’ apparent lack of popularity outside hoops-heads (I guess?) is because of her race. So they’re just going to ignore the last two years, or the fact that the most popular WNBA player ever and one of the most popular athletes in the world at the moment is another white, Midwesterner? Now maybe the article was more nuanced, or it went directly political and got into how Bueckers is far more outspoken about things that get the Fox News crowd riled up than Caitlin Clark has ever been. But I didn’t read that shit, so can’t be certain.

Geno Auriemma has always annoyed me. I think it’s just his east coast arrogance. He seems to have mellowed a bit in recent years. I don’t know if it was the (super) relative lack of success for the program over the past decade, age, or something else, but he actually seemed kind of likable this weekend. Although I guess he kind of made an ass of himself in the press conference after the title game. Hopefully Paige yelled at him.

L asked if I thought he would retire now. I think it’s hard to do that when you have a player like Strong returning, along with Azzi Fudd and others. And I’m sure he has another stud freshman or two who will join them. Why quit when the program is still loaded?

The women’s Final Four was in Tampa. Although we flew in and out of the Sarasota airport, it was still filled with UConn folks coming in for the weekend when we left on Friday.

Chomp Chomp

Not much about Monday’s men’s title game was pleasing to the eye. Houston’s defense is remarkable, but it completely sucks the life out of the game. Worse, their offense is kind of terrible, mostly designed to throw the ball off the backboard and grab offensive rebounds while hoping LJ Cryer or Emanuel Sharp hit the occasional 3 between all the bricks. I was trying to remember a team with this combo of attributes making it this far. Virginia and Villanova were both intense defensive minded teams that sometimes struggled to score. But both teams were also focused on playing deliberately on offense, and had a couple guys you did not want to let get open looks. The classic Georgetown teams jumped out at me, but they had a hall of famer in the low post so I’m not sure that’s an exact match for Houston, either. Ironically Georgetown’s one title game win in their three chances was against Houston in 1984.

Florida’s defense was not much worse, creating an absolute slog of a game. Worse, the officials had no idea how to manage the physicality and clearly let it get away from them a couple times. Hell, the entire second half was a mess of too many calls followed by no calls followed by terrible calls to try to quell the near-violence. Slamming the ball on the ground in anger is 100% worthy of a technical, but I’m not sure how J’Wan Roberts throwing his hands in the air and screaming after every single call/no call is not also a “demonstrative act.”

All that made for a disjointed, ill-tempered, uncomfortable game to watch. I was glad I had no strong interest in who won.

Well, that’s not true. The Gators winning made me some money. I won one pool, tied for first in another. Sadly I got those in the wrong order. The pool I won shares the money amongst the top four. The one I tied in gives all the money to the winner, and I lost the tie breaker in that one. That tie breaker was extra annoying because the guy I lost to had KU in the Elite 8. I feel like I should win over him based on that alone.

Oh well. Second time in four years I’ve won a pool. And this year was with me being absolutely terrible on day one. Of course it’s also because I picked four number one seeds to get to the Final Four. But I’m on record as having wanted to pick against one of them, just not finding a team below them I trusted to pull the upset. So at least my cop-out was an informed one.

As some of my readers know, I finished second in my fantasy draft, trailing my buddy Nez in Lee’s Summit by 16 points. If only Clemson hadn’t lost in the first round…

I feel a little bad for Kelvin Sampson. He’s truly a great coach who has been unfairly maligned because he sent too many texts to recruits. Well, he did it twice at two different schools, so he deserves some shit for not learning from his mistakes. But that sure seems quaint in the NIL era. Anyway, he might be the current best example of a “culture” coach. You know what you’re getting from one of his Houston teams. Shame he and his son couldn’t come up with better plays to run on the Cougars’ last two possessions. Four turnovers in the last 2:00 nearly matched KU’s meltdown against Arkansas.

Houston might have the two combined most painful championship game losses ever. Not sure 1983 will ever be topped, especially given the talent on that team. But not even getting a shot off on the last two possessions Monday will smart for years.

Still props to them for one of the greatest comebacks in Final Four history Saturday night against Duke. That was thoroughly enjoyable. It never seemed possible until suddenly it was. That was the second biggest choke by a team from North Carolina in the Final Four this decade.

I had not watched Florida at all until the past couple weeks. When they were rolling, they were incredible. Such a great combination of parts. Waves of athletic bigs. Athletic wings. Shooters everywhere. And although he was largely held in check last night, Walter Clayton Jr. is like a low-rent Steph Curry, never afraid of taking a shot from anywhere on the court and, more often than not, nailing them.

Lots of buzz in the KU community that Todd Golden is the favorite to come to Lawrence when Bill Self retires. Golden has some baggage, to say the least. And now that he’s won a title in Gainesville he may not feel the need to jump to a traditional power. He has proven, though, that he understands modern basketball and how to build a team to compete. As soon as this time next year KU AD Travis Goff could have a big decision to make about whether the allegations against Golden are enough to prevent him from being considered to replace Self. Again, all rumors, but apparently Goff has zero interest in Chris Beard when the time comes because of his legal issues a couple years back. Seems like Golden should be disqualified if Beard is.

Jayhawk Talk

What a wild two weeks for KU.

First they lost almost every player who could return from this year’s team, worst of all Flory Bidunga. There had been rumblings for weeks, and you just kind of expect it these days anyway. I was still super bummed when Flory jumped. There were even rumors that Bryson Tiller, who was on campus this spring and will be a freshman next fall, might not stick around. There was a full-on panic as we realized we barely had enough players to fill out a roster, and worry that Darryn Peterson might decide to take his talents elsewhere.

The tide started to turn over the weekend. Self nabbed a couple transfers from the portal, both athletic wings. Then Bidunga announced he was returning to Lawrence. That news broke Sunday in the middle of a family conversation. Which I interrupted by throwing my hands in the air and yelling “FLORY IS BACK!!!!” My family made fun of me.

Flory’s time in the portal was fascinating, and telling of the state of college ball at the moment. There were immediate rumors that Auburn, his second choice a year ago, was offereing $3 million a year, which seemed insane. If that was true, I would happily let Flory walk. I love him and his potential, but he ain’t worth three million bucks.[2] Then there was word of back-and-forth between KU and Flory’s “team,” with Self even flying to Indiana to meet with them a week ago. Suddenly Saturday night, when all signs pointed towards Flory going to Auburn, the tide seemed to shift and there were strong rumors he would stay a Jayhawk. I guess until the revenue sharing model gets instituted, this is how college hoops will be. Even if you’re happy with where you are and your role, you jump in the portal to basically renegotiate your deal with your current school. I want players to get paid, but I’m pretty sure this is an awful way to do it. It hurts all sides. I haven’t read enough about the upcoming House settlement to understand if it will solve this problem, make it worse, or keep it as it.

Anyway, Flory’s back!

(My winning pool entry was titled Bidungapalooza. I sweated that name for a week but it worked out all around.)

There’s still work to do. I would like another big guard who can start. There has to be another big to play either next to or behind Flory. Even then, I worry that too much is being expected of Peterson, who will be the most talented player to arrive in Lawrence since Andrew Wiggins and Joel Embiid showed up in 2013. You know what, though? KU will NOT be picked preseason #1, nor picked to win the Big 12. There is always pressure at KU, but it will be dialed back a few notches next year, which should be good for everyone from the coaches to players to fans.

  1. She also plays for the AAU program run by UConn sophomore Ashlynn Shade’s parents.  ↩
  2. Message board rumors Sunday were that he’s getting $1.3M from KU this year, slightly better than Auburn’s final, true offer.  ↩

Weekend Notes

March 24, 2025 /

A weekend mostly filled with basketball, the last time I’ll say that until late next fall.

Jayhawk Talk

What an appropriate ending.

KU had a three-point lead over Arkansas Thursday with just over 3:00 remaining in the game. In the following 90 or so seconds:
AJ Storr forced a bad shot early in the shot clock, missing. This came after a time out. As usual with Storr, Bill Self threw up his hands in disgust/disappointment after the play.

After an Arkansas miss, KJ Adams grabbed the rebound, turned to head up court, and crumbled to the ground, losing the ball. After another Arkansas miss, Hunter Dickinson threw a pass literally to no one. It might be the worst pass I’ve ever seen a third team All American make. Arkansas turned it into a layup that cut the lead to one.

Then DaJuan Harris tried to enter a bounce pass to Dickinson. Two pet peeves before we get to the result. For some reason this team insisted on throwing bounce passes into Dickinson all season, despite the fact he is 7’2” and not flexible or mobile. Then, Dickinson was posted up outside the lane rather than inside the paint. Despite being a massive human being, he rarely buried people deep into the restricted area.

Anyway, Arkansas already had two defenders on Hunter, and one easily slipped around him to intercept the ball.

And that, my friends, was pretty much the game. In the final 3:00+, KU turned the ball over five times. The game was right there to win with one or two decent passes or smarter shots. Instead, it was Arkansas who made the big plays late and ended the game on a 15–5 run. They went on to upset #2 St. John’s Saturday and are now one of THE stories of the tournament.

As infuriating as that long sequence was, it was probably an apt ending for a team that was a poor match in too many ways to ever to find a comfortable center. Every player had at least one major flaw. Several of them had a whole bag of flaws. Throw them together and there was never a strength on either end of the court that they could consistently play to. While in the moment what anger I could conjure up – and I have to admit if not for those last three minutes, I would have had zero anger about this loss – was aimed mostly at Harris and Dickinson, as I’ve said before this all falls on Self.

He coached a hell of a game. Switching to a zone against a young team with suspect shooters when the Jayhawks couldn’t stay in front of the Arkansas guards and wings changed the game. I completely believe that had KU made one more bucket to get the lead to 5 or 6, they would have won. Arkansas was flailing and frustrated. Other than Adams’ turnover, which was a result of him apparently blowing out his achilles, KU’s last miscues were more on their actions than anything the defense did to force them.

Like I said a week or two back, I was ready for this season and this mini era to be over. This team never earned any strong affection from me. They were too flawed, too mercurial, too emotionally flat. I’m not going to look back on a single moment this season and think, “That was awesome,” or dig through YouTube highlights late some night.

Of course, when you get what you want, sometimes the reality that follows is scarier. KU needs a big influx of talent to put around Darryn Peterson, Elmarko Jackson, and (please, Hoops Gods, please), Flory Bidunga. You would hope that Peterson would be a huge selling point, especially for shooters who can capitalize from him driving the lane and drawing defenders. But Self and his staff are batting around .200 in the portal the past four years. They need to hit a home run this spring, finding guys who can get to the hoop, fit in with the talent already in Lawrence, and, most importantly, mesh with Self.

And, you know what? Self might need to dial it back a touch with the transfers. They are going to fuck up, they will come in with bad habits, they will chafe at being corrected. Self doesn’t need to meet them halfway, necessarily. But relaxing a little so guys can figure out where they fit in and gain confidence in the process could go a long way for them actually having a clue what to do when conference and NCAA play rolls around. Maybe roll with their mistakes in November and December so they are fully integrated in February and March.

Self was once the king of spring, always finding ways to plug holes in his roster with leftovers and cast-offs. That mojo has gotten tarnished in the portal era. He needs to rediscover it and not miss on anyone he signs in the next couple months.

There have also been rumors that at least one assistant coach will not be back next year. We all know that Self is in the final years of his career, so he’s not going to add a young dude(s). I say bring Danny Manning back for one more run, turn him loose with Bidunga all summer, and watch Flory blossom in the fall.

Swings And Misses

It was hard not to watch players who could have been Jayhawks this year perform for other teams.

Zuby Ejiofor was fantastic in St. John’s loss to Arkansas on Saturday.

KU just missed getting Liam McNeely in his first recruitment, then there were rumors that Self passed on him after he de-committed from Indiana last spring, opting to focus on transfers. His size and shooting were exactly what KU was missing.

Riley Kugel was the first commit Self got last spring, but had academic issues that kept him from getting into KU. Mississippi State accepted him, and he scored 11 in a loss to Baylor. He didn’t have a great season, but he possessed a size and athleticism that was lacking among KU’s wings.

Labaron Philon had signed with KU, but the sides mutually agreed to part last spring. He struggled in Alabama’s two tournament games, but has so much talent his name is popping up in the lottery range in some mock drafts.

KU was a finalist for Derik Queen, although with Dickinson already on campus and Bidunga already committed, odds were never high he was going to be a Jayhawk. Still, one of his last visits was to KU so there was a chance. Hard to see where minutes would have come for him and Bidunga if they were both on the same team with two seniors also in the frontcourt.

Sports are full of What Ifs, especially after disappointing seasons. And they are generally dumb because you never know, right? Maybe McNeely blows out his knee if he comes to KU, or Philon never gets off the bench and is into the portal this week. But maybe McNeely is the perfect compliment to Dickinson by pulling the defense out to the perimeter, or Kugel has moments where he can’t be guarded and creates space for Zeke Mayo as the defense tries to pinch off his drives.

General Tourney Talk

This was, for the most part, a garbage-ass first week. Especially the first couple days, most games turned into blowouts early, or had 10-point margins going into the final TV timeout with no drama in getting to the end.

Sunday rewarded viewers for sticking with it. UConn battled Florida to the closing seconds, in what was the game of the tournament for about five hours. I have zero love for UConn, but that team plays its ass off, and Florida needed everything they had to get by the Huskies.

Later Sunday evening Colorado State and Maryland took that drama to a different level. In what was a great, back-and-forth game to begin with, CSU took the lead on a 3-pointer with just under four seconds to play. Then Derik Queen banked in a runner at the buzzer to give the Terps the win. Amazing finish to an amazing game.

Colorado State, man. They’ve put guys into the NBA in recent years, have a couple high transfers playing for other teams. And they were still one of the most fun teams to watch this weekend. If Nique Clifford had any eligibility left he would be getting a big bag from a Power 5 school. I hope he gets drafted and a chance to play at the next level. That’s a good ass program.

I loved Stan Van Gundy screaming about teams who insist on throwing bounce passes to big men. Maybe Self should bring him in as a special consultant. Or should have brought him in this year.

The Sunday schedule always sucks. Three games with exclusive windows to start the day, and Duke is always in one of these games. Then five games crammed into the evening, with one always starting super late. Seems like there’s a better way to stagger games and not have them lasting until midnight Eastern.

Every March there’s a batch of commercials that drive dedicated watchers of the tournament crazy. I DON’T FUCKING UNDERSTAND WHY GEICO BROUGHT BACK THE ‘LITTLE PIGGY WHO CRIED WHEEEE ALL THE WAY HOME’ COMMERCIAL. It is one of the worst ads ever made, forcing me to either mute or switch the channel the moment it comes on. Geico has tons of clever, funny ads. Why would they bring this one back and throw it in high rotation during the NCAA tournament?

I hate pretty much every Buffalo Wild Wings ad, too. The giant, doofus buffalo pisses me off.

I do like the Justin Bateman – Will Arnett ads for State Farm.

There sure are a lot of insurance ads, aren’t there?

My brackets stink. I have 11 of the Sweet 16 but did so poorly on day one I don’t think I can get into the money even if the rest of my picks work out. I’m 22/58 in one pool, 22/46 in another. At least I’m consistent.

I vaulted into first place in my player pool, and have six of eight players remaining. That lead is tight, though, so I need my players to keep winning and racking up the points.

Sports are dumb, by the way.

Weekend Visitor

M flew back to Cincinnati, a much easier journey than her trip down, Friday evening after a good week on Anna Maria island. She drove home Saturday for her first visit home since Christmas. It was good to see her. We took her out for sushi Saturday, she requested chicken white chili Sunday. The crappy, wet, chilly weather was perfect for a final round of chili for the season. She has five weeks of classes left.

And now we have four days until we fly to Florida for our week in the sun.

NCAA Picks

March 20, 2025 /

I hate my picks.

That’s how I’ll sum up this year’s NCAA tournament. Which seems perfect for a college basketball season I have mostly hated.

Spoiled KU fan, I know.

As hard as I tried not to, I ended up going with all four #1 seeds to reach the Final Four. Which is an idiotic way to fill your bracket since it has happened exactly one time.[1]

Some people think Auburn is creaky and vulnerable based on their late-season lull. I see a team that was focused on one thing – winning it all – getting complacent late. Some people are screaming the “It’s March, that’s Tom Izzo time!” nonsense but I still don’t think Michigan State is Final Four good. Auburn is, frankly, more Michigan State than Michigan State is this year.

Houston has some injury issues, but if J’wan Roberts can survive this weekend, I think the Cougars roll into San Antonio.

Duke? Come on. They just blitzed the ACC tournament without Cooper Flagg in the last two games, and he’s coming back. Although the ACC kind of stunk, so we should maybe tamp the excitement down a notch or two. And they got the easiest, by far, route to the Final Four. As usual.

I really wanted to pick St. John’s out of the West. In fact at first I did. But I think Florida is the best team in the country, and as fearsome as the Johnnies are on defense, they can’t shoot, which will kill you in 2025. Seriously, a KU-SJU game Saturday could be an all-time brickfest.

I found it hard to pick upsets, too. I have BYU in the Elite 8, for some reason. I could also see them losing their opening game and blowing up my bracket.

I have Clemson and Illinois in the Sweet 16 in the Midwest, but those only require mild upsets. Otherwise my Sweet 16 is pretty chalky.

Yuck.

As for my Jayhawks, they should beat Arkansas tonight. Doesn’t mean they will, but they should. The Hogs will be missing their leading scorer and rebounder, but I believe he didn’t play in the exhibition game between these two teams, either. Freshman sensation Boogie Fland returns, but he’s missed two full months of action with a serious hand injury. He’s probably still fast enough, rust and all, to cook DaJuan Harris. But will he have the ball/finishing skills to match his performance back in October? The Hogs will be quicker on the perimeter, and have a mobile big man that can put Hunter Dickinson in bad spots.

But I think the Jayhawks will come together for two hours and dispatch the Razorbacks. KU 75, Arkansas 70.

That will bring Zuby Ejiofor and the Johnnies on Saturday. Like Arkansas, St. John will be much more athletic at every position than the Jayhawks. There is also that defense, the best in the country, which isn’t exactly an ideal opponent for a team that has clicked offensively only a handful of times across 33 games. This is not the KU team to pull the upset.

However, I did take Ejiofor in my player draft. It would somehow be appropriate if he played like ass and KU knocked off SJU.

Nah, the Hoops Gods are more about punishing my real team for whatever reason than my fantasy team. St. John’s 83, KU 70.

Florida over Houston in the championship game.

  1. That was a pretty good Final Four, with a fantastic ending.  ↩

Early NCAA Thoughts

March 18, 2025 /

Here we are, NCAA tournament time. The time of some of my favorite, non-family of course, moments of my life. And also some of my least favorite. I suppose that’s the good thing about KU’s relative mediocrity this year: if I genuinely have no expectations, there is only opportunity for good memories this week. I expect them to shit the bed, so anything other than that will be a pleasant surprise.

The Jayhawks didn’t do a thing in the Big 12 tournament to change how I think about them. Moments of brain-dead play, often from the most experienced players, against Colorado. Then the Arizona game was the exact opposite of when the teams played a week before in Lawrence. Instead of the Jayhawks controlling the game and the Wildcats making constant runs, even briefly taking the lead in the second half, this time it was Arizona in front and KU rallying. KU made the big plays late in Lawrence; Arizona was clutch in KC. Two pretty even teams playing two pretty even games over six days. Not that long ago this was a game that KU 100% would have won in Kansas City. This year’s team is on a different, worse, level, though.

Crazy that the Arizona game was the first time KU had worn blue in the Big 12 tournament since the 2008 championship game. And even then they only wore blue because of losing the regular season game vs Texas, and thus the tiebreaker when determining who the home team was for the regular season co-champs. This has been a truly glorious era of KU hoops, and this was just another bitter reminder of how the last two years have brought all that to a screeching stop.

As for this coming week, playing Arkansas might be the ideal draw for this team. But not for the reasons you think. The Razorbacks blew out the preseason #1 Jayhawks in an exhibition game back in October in John Calipari’s first game in Fayetteville. Hunter Dickinson didn’t play, and KU clearly didn’t run anything serious on offense. But that game pointed out flaws early, like the lack of shooting and athleticism, that were masked in early wins over Michigan State and Duke. Arkansas has their own issues between injuries and inconsistencies and perhaps some general weird vibes in the program. But losing to them, likely because the Hogs are more athletic and can exploit KU’s deficiencies, would be a perfect bookend to the year. I’m already fearing DaJuan Harris going 2–11 from 3 as Calipari happily leaves him wide open to shoot all night.

But beating them sure would be fun, and I think KU is the better team if focused. Do they have one good game in them?

Should the Jayhawks survive the Hogs another near-perfect storyline opponent likely awaits in St. John’s. I say perfect because that game will shine a bright light on the choices Self made two springs ago. He sacrificed freshmen Ernest Udeh and Zuby Ejiofor for Hunter Dickinson. I contend that was a decent gamble. He had Kevin McCullar coming back, Dickinson was an All American big, and you build around those two established players instead of two raw, rising sophomore bigs.

Udeh has struggled with inconsistency at TCU, although I contend he would have developed better had he stayed at KU.

Ejiofor, however, has been a true revelation this year. His offensive stats aren’t as good as Dickinson’s (17.6 ppg, 10.0 rpg vs 14.6/8.0) but he’s been red hot late in the season. Zuby shoots better from the field and is a better defender. He is a perfect match for Rick Pitino’s style and his teammates, where Hunter is clearly not a good match for the talent around him.[1] None of us know for sure if Hunter is a good teammate or not, but there always seems to be some cloud over the team that might lead back to him. Zuby seems like a guy everyone would love to play with.

Who knows, Hunter may dominate Zuby if the teams play on Saturday. And that may not matter as St. John’s is genuinely the better team. I’m kind of laughing at the thought of KU’s guards facing the Johnnies’ pressure. We have dinner plans Friday and I considered moving them to Saturday so I could avoid the KU game. Then again, it may be a cathartic end to this mini-run and worth my time even if it is ugly.

I’m sure there are some KU fans talking themselves into things finally clicking and the team making a run. I can’t do that. Even in this team’s best wins this season – Duke, Michigan State, Iowa State, Arizona – the team has never been fully locked in. When it doesn’t happen over four-plus months, it’s not suddenly going to happen when the tournament begins. A shame.

Please, never rank KU #1 in the preseason again.

As for the broader tournament, I’m really struggling to come up with interesting picks. It feels like the top 4–6 teams are CLEARLY the best teams in the country. I watched more of the SEC tournament last weekend than any other, and kind of fell in love with one seeds Auburn and Florida, and two seed Tennessee.[2] Those three teams are all loaded with talent and athletes and shooters and can guard. But each also has these awful lulls because they get out of control or play too fast or can’t create in the halfcourt or take ten terrible shots in a row. Then I look to try to find an upset over them and think of how bad Michigan State looked when they lost to KU in November, or how many injuries Iowa State is fighting, or how young Texas Tech is, etc.

I love Houston, but that team also seems to be lacking something that I can’t put my finger on. Maybe because they are a true program team, totally bought into their coach’s philosophies rather than loaded with obvious talent? Which probably means they’re going to race through the bracket with ease.

Naturally Duke got the easiest draw of any of the #1 seeds. Amazing how often that happens. Maybe Cooper Flagg will re-tweak his ankle this weekend and that will doom their efforts to get out of the east. I think that’s something America can get behind in this divided age.[3]

At the moment I lean towards picking all four #1 seeds, which is dumb. I feel like Florida might be the most talented roster in the country, but St. John’s is the most complete #2 seed. Naturally they are together. If KU wasn’t the #7 seed I would complain more about how the west is, by far, the stoutest region. But it doesn’t matter to us.

I’m going to sit on this a couple more days and offer my picks on Thursday.

  1. Bill Self’s fault, not his.  ↩

  2. Side note, why did ESPN used C+C Music Factory’s “Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now)” so prominently in their coverage? The song is 34 years old. It was perfect for the 1991 tournament. A year which, coincidentally, Kansas and Arkansas played. But in 2025 seems weird to use it almost every commercial break.  ↩

  3. You know that you know who is pulling for Duke.  ↩

Weekend Notes

March 10, 2025 /

I had a busy morning, so will blow through a few items from another rather laid-back weekend.

Jayhawk Talk

Saturday’s regular season finale with Arizona summed up the season for KU.

Nice start, only to fell apart when Hunter Dickinson went to the bench. Another solid run in the last 6–7 minutes of the first half on the verge of going up 16, only to give up a seven-point swing in the final minute to destroy their momentum.

Then, in the second half, letting Arizona tie the game, stretching another nice lead out, then falling behind, and finally playing great in the last three minutes to win.

All about wild mood swings, but at least they finally won a game against a good team by being the better side in the closing minutes.

Dickinson was spectacular. KJ Adams’ energy early carried the team. His lob dunk that put KU up by 7 late was the loudest I’ve yelled all year.[1] And Zeke Mayo found his mojo again.

I’m not going to get too excited about this game, thinking they’ve fixed their issues and are now dangerous in the NCAA tournament. I’m just glad they figured it out and gave fans a fun game against a name opponent for the first time since November. More on that next week. A nice win to a frustrating regular season.

By the way, it drove me INSANE that ESPN said multiple times that this was the eighth straight year KU wore red uniforms on senior night. I was 1000% sure that was wrong, not because I remember every year clearly,[2] but because I DID clearly recall the crazy Texas game in 2022, a game that I knew KU wore white for.

So I spent the first three timeouts of the game digging back through the six senior night games since this “tradition” allegedly began. KU indeed wore red in 2018. But then they wore white in 2019 and 2020. Red returned in 2021. White, as noted, in 2022. Then red the past two years. So, rather than an eight year streak, it was only three, and then five of eight.

Yet another sign of the dumbing down of ESPN. This is basic shit.

I was also a little bummed that the Lawrence Journal-World finally slapped a paywall on their KU coverage. I’ve been reading their coverage since I was a student. It was a big deal to get an apartment and be able to have the city paper delivered, staying up on all the latest KU news that the campus paper didn’t report. I’ve been following their online coverage since whenever they first started posting on the web. Once upon a time I would have gladly paid for their coverage. But, like so much of print media, it has gotten dramatically worse in recent years. Where once a minimum of three writers covered each KU game, now it is one guy doing it all. And he’s a young dude who tries hard but isn’t all that great at his job.

Worse, with just one writer at games, the old “notebook” stories that were a staple of postgame coverage have disappeared. Every sports fan knows the glory of the notebook pieces, a collection of blurbs no where important or deep enough for entire stories, but of high interest to the serious fan. These were the tidbits that insane people like me loved to digest. Hell, I (eventually) named this website after that concept!

In recent years the LJW started putting video of KU press conferences on YouTube. I’ve found watching those are often more illuminating than one writer boiling them down to their basics. So the only thing I really garnered from them was looking at their photo galleries. A lot of their pictures have enhanced my posts over the years. I guess I’ll have to search harder for those going forward.

HS Hoops

This was sectional weekend on the boys side of basketball. To honor the occasion, I read a fantastic book about a key moment in Indiana high school basketball history. I’ll get to that later this week or next.

The biggest upset in the state came in 3A, where #1 Cathedral lost in Friday’s semifinals to their in-city rivals Crispus Attucks. It just so happened the book I read was about Attucks as well. Apparently the Irish were up 11 going into the fourth quarter and totally fell apart to lose by six. L was not super upset; she was glad the girls went further than the boys.

Big 10 Tournament

L was not at that game Friday. Instead she went with some friends and sat in a suite at the Big 10 tournament to watch the night games, which included eventual tournament champs UCLA.

She’s a big fan of USC’s JuJu Watkins, so was disappointed the Trojans had played during the afternoon session. She asked me if she could buy a shirt, and suggested it would be a tournament shirt. Then she arrived home with a nice, pretty expensive USC shirt. When the Trojans blew a 13 point lead and lost to UCLA in Sunday’s championship game, I told her she had to burn the shirt. Those are the rules.

Super dumb that UCLA and USC traveled to Indianapolis to play for their conference championship. Can we fast forward 5–10 years when we go to two conferences with multiple, regional divisions and return some sanity to the games?

Weather

This winter has sucked. And by that I mean it’s been pretty normal, which is mostly cold and dreary. A few really cold weeks but mostly just two months of temps in the 20s and 30s.

That finally broke on Sunday. It was only 60, but the sun was so warm it felt at least 10 degrees warmer. L actually got a little pink from sitting outside. The coming week will be in the 60s and 70s. Mother Nature surely has some tricks up her sleeves for the next eight weeks, but we’re getting close, people, to shorts and t-shirts weather. Hang in there.

Kid Notes

We’re approaching the final countdown for C’s senior year. She’s trying to find a prom dress, which is turning out to be harder than last year for some reason. We just bought her senior ad for the yearbook. We’re finalizing plans for which of her friends will be hanging out with us on spring break at the end of the month. And we’re trying to figure out grad party plans. I believe she has eight weeks of classes left.

M accepted the offer for a summer internship in Cincinnati. She’ll be working for a company that makes a variety of products, mostly in the hardware/construction space. It’s a marketing position but I’m guessing she’s going to have to learn way more about hardware than she knows now. And it pays pretty well, which is a bonus. She’ll be home for two weeks in early May then head back to Cincy. Timing worked out perfectly and she was able to claim a sublease at a friend’s apartment before another girl could.

L had her second post-op visit this morning. They cut off her first cast, removed her stitches, then re-casted her. Everything looked good and she’s not feeling any pain. Seventeen days in this cast and then she’ll switch to a boot.

We took advantage of the nice weather Sunday and did a seated shooting workout. She got about 180 shots up from various distances and rim-heights. She threw in some ball handling drills, as much as she could do around her chair.

  1. Later, during dinner, C asked me what happened when KU was ahead 79–72. She had heard my screams from two floors above and looked at the score to see what happened. A couple of my KU buddies and I have a long-time saying of “WAKE THE KIDS!!!” when we are yelling during an evening game. We haven’t had too many of those moments this year. It was nice to have one. Also a reminder that C was my one kid who was awake and aware of what was going on when I was losing my mind during the 2022 national championship game.  ↩
  2. You damn well know once upon a time I could remember that kind of shit, though.  ↩

Jayhawk Talk: Checking Out

March 4, 2025 /

What a stupid, unserious team.

That was one of my biggest thoughts after KU lost to Texas Tech Saturday.

There’s no shame in losing to Tech; they are a hell of a team and now have wins at KU, at Houston, at K-State, and at BYU. They are very much like Iowa State in that they have a terrific coach who recruited players that fit his style of play and have the mentality he wanted, so they blend seamlessly. Hell, they reminded me of those classic Villanova teams in that they always play at their own pace and never seem rattled by the moment.

It was the final three minutes that pushed me over the edge, though. After trailing by 14, KU came all the way back to tie the game twice and eventually take a one-point lead. Naturally they gave up another open 3 – Tech had open looks all day from beyond the arc – immediately after that effectively won the game for the Red Raiders. On that three, DaJuan Harris and KJ Adams, both seniors with a combined nine years of college experience, stood there and watched as the shot was taken, one or both of them having made the wrong decision on a switch. The two best defenders on the team failed to cover a shooter in the closing minutes. 🤦‍♂️

It got worse from there. Zeke Mayo had three brutal turnovers. Once he failed to catch an easy pass that hit him in the hands, and watched helplessly as the ball careened out of bounds. Harris threw a pass to where he expected a player to be. Although that player, likely a wing who was supposed to come off a Hunter Dickinson screen, was not there, and Dickinson had already cut away. The pass sailed into the stands without being touched. And would you believe that Dickinson missed a couple shots right at the rim when it was a single possession game?

Yet somehow KU had a chance, but Bill Self did not use his last remaining time out in the closing minute to help a team that was clearly out of sorts settle down and set something up to extend the game. There was a part of me that genuinely thought Self had given up on this team when he didn’t call the time out. They had fucked everything up for 90 seconds, perhaps he believed stopping the clock and drawing up a play was a pointless exercise. It was bizarre.

Anyway, again a team filled with experienced players fell apart when they faced some adversity. Meanwhile Tech had a sophomore and freshman who made some of the biggest plays of the game.

This was probably the maddest I’ve been at a KU team in a long, long time. So mad that I saw no reason to stay up and watch them surely get blown out at Houston last night.

They did lose to the Cougars, but they kept it close all night, apparently playing some of their best defense of the year. However, they gave up about a million offensive rebounds to UH, Dickinson and Mayo combined for 13 turnovers and 11 missed shots, and neither Harris nor Rylan Griffen did much to impact the game on offense. All that would have made me toss and turn for hours had I watched.[1]

I’m done trying to diagnose the cause for this team’s issues. But something that had been subtly bugging me for weeks finally jumped out at me on Saturday.

With a couple exceptions, Self’s teams have never been great outside shooting squads. This year was supposed to address that, but it hasn’t worked out that way.

While the lazy analyst says that Self’s teams are focused on playing through a big man, in fact his best offenses have always been built around creating easy shots at the rim for everyone.

Take the 2020 team, which was ranked #1 in the country when Covid struck and the tournament was cancelled. That team had maybe one reliable shooter in Isaiah Moss, and he had struggled to acclimate all season after transferring in (sound familiar?). Ochai Agbaji was capable of shooting from outside, but not very reliable at that point. Devon Doston and Marcus Garrett were even more suspect.

But that team destroyed people because the entire offense was built around getting Udoka Azubuike dunks and lobs, and Dotson, Garrett, and Agbaji open lanes to drive.

Same for the 2012 team that lost in the national championship game. Its best shooter was a walk-on who came off the bench, with three upper classmen who could hit a 3 but you wouldn’t want to bet your mortgage on them making a shot to win a game. That offense was all about getting Thomas Robinson and Jeff Withey the ball inside, with Tyshawn Taylor, Elijah Johnson, and Travis Releford attacking the lane from the perimeter.

Even the 2024 national championship team, despite starting three NBA players, was built more in attacking the rim from angles than beating teams from outside.

Saturday KU had stretches in the second half where they played some gorgeous basketball. Guys were cutting, the ball was zipping around the perimeter, dribble handoffs were exchanged. The weird thing was that it rarely produced those open drives. It was 25–30 seconds of beauty, and then someone who is not a good driver putting their head down and getting into trouble. Griffen tried hard to make something happen a few times, but he’s not explosive enough to get by the defense or beat bigger defenders at the rim. Harris misses two shots for every one he makes inside. Mayo turned it over too often. Adams played his ass off Saturday, one of the best games he’s ever had. But for all of his explosiveness, he’s a two-footed jumper who either needs a clear lane or a lob to finish. He can’t drive, jump off one foot, and still get to the rim.

The staple of the Bill Self offense, the open look at the rim, has disappeared. And I don’t really understand why. For years he was able to scheme around personnel deficiencies to ensure his guards always got layups and his bigs buried people in the low block. This team can’t do that for more than a couple of possessions.

Even if we somehow pull it together and beat Arizona this weekend, and/or win a couple games in Kansas City, that’s not enough to fix the many issues with this team. I’m just ready for this season to be over with. KU should join the SEC because right now I’m way more interested in spring football than how this dumpster fire is going to wrap up its season.

  1. Coincidentally, as I continue to review blog posts that are 20 years old, Sunday I read my entry from March 1, 2005, in which I detailed how I had stopped watching college hoops for a week to try to settle down. Times change but people don’t.  ↩

Weekend Notes

February 24, 2025 /

As I mentioned in Friday’s Playlist, last week was a very odd one in our house.

Monday was a school holiday. Tuesday the girls got up and went to school, then C called me as soon as they arrived saying she had thrown up in the parking lot. So back home she came. She puked again that night, so she was home again on Wednesday.

Wednesday was also L’s surgery day. We left the house at 7:35 and were back home around noon to begin the process of managing pain. No real issues there; she’s pretty tough and doesn’t complain much. She’s been keeping her foot elevated and wiggling her toes, as instructed. Two weeks from today she’ll switch from a splint to a cast.

Thursday is S’s day off, so she was home to help with L. C finally went back to school.

Friday was an eLearning day to prepare the CHS campus for the big annual fundraiser Saturday. L was doing just fine in the morning and we were discussing whether we would drive down to the semi-state game Saturday morning. After lunch and her round of meds, she started feeling bad. Eventually she spent about two hours throwing up. Curses! I have to tell you, I was impressed with how she was able to keep her leg elevated and still puke into a bowl. By the evening she stopped vomiting but still felt terrible. I told her we would just watch the game from home as she did not want to start feeling bad two hours from home and be stuck in the back of the car another two hours if we had to turn around.

Saturday morning we watched the game – more on that in a bit – and shortly after she had another round of throwing up. Some of her travel teammates planned on visiting but postponed for obvious reasons. She felt better in the afternoon so had her first shower on her new shower stool while wearing her waterproof cast cover. I assume that went well; I was not involved.

Finally Sunday she felt better and kept food down. Her travel coach and his daughter stopped in briefly. I told her it was lucky it took her two days to process whatever C had given her. I was super worried she would wake up sick Wednesday, we would have to postpone surgery, and that would mess our timeline up.

This morning both girls felt 100%, at least in their stomachs. L’s foot pain is manageable. Her doctor told her she didn’t have to rush back to school, but she’s too tightly wound to miss any more class. I think the getting around is going to be a big pain, as unlike when she was in a boot in December, she can’t put any weight on her left foot. We insisted she take her scooter, which she kind of hates, to give her more support and safety, especially in the hallways between classes.

Oh, and C leaves on her senior retreat tomorrow and will be gone until Friday afternoon. So I’ll be carting L to-and-from school.

Maybe we’ll have a full, normal week of classes for both girls next week.

End of the Road

Semi-state did not go as we hoped. CHS fell behind Roncalli early, climbed out of a couple holes, and tied the game at 21 early in the second quarter with a 9–0 run. Next thing you knew, RHS had ripped off 15 straight points and the game was basically over. I believe we got as close as 8 or 9 once, and they pushed it out as high as 21 points. The final was 72–54. Ouch.

Biggest factor in the game was RHS hitting their first seven 3s. That will win you a lot of games. Twice we hit 3’s and they immediately answered. They shoot a lot of 3’s normally, but pretty sure they hadn’t hit seven-straight before Saturday. We didn’t help ourselves in that 15–0 run by missing three layups and four free throws. But, still, RHS was the better team so not sure that made a difference.

It was hard to gauge things by streaming the game but the officiating didn’t help, either. The fouls in the first quarter were 6–0 against us. Which seems kind of dumb as RHS was playing more physical than we were. One of our starters was called for a touch foul 20 seconds into the game. Naturally, if you know her, she committed a clear and very dumb foul 30 seconds later and had to sit until the third quarter. Our best inside player had a similar experience. She got called for a touch foul in the first two minutes, then crashed into a girl a minute later and had to sit. Poor officiating + bad IQ = trouble.

As if to even things out, the refs called the first four fouls of the second quarter on RHS. That’s when we made our run to tie it. After that the fouls didn’t matter since RHS couldn’t miss and we couldn’t hit.

We heard one of our parents got ejected at halftime for being all over the refs, but as I wasn’t there and only got tidbits of the story, can’t really share details. Not surprised this parent got tossed, though. They have a history.

As happens this time of year to every team but the eventual champion, it was a very disappointing end to a fun couple weeks. We were double City champions (JV and varsity), beat our arch rivals twice in three weeks, and then won our first sectional in 20 years, followed by the first regional in 24 years. Adding a semi-state would have been tough; Roncalli lost to the #1 team in 3A by 13 in the semi-state championship game Saturday night. It would have been fun to have had that opportunity, though.

If you’ve paid attention to these posts, you know I’ve quoted the computer rankings often. Those rankings were locked after sectionals two weeks ago. The four state championship games this Saturday are, according to the computer, #3 vs #5 in 4A, #1 vs #3 in 3A, #1 vs #4 in 2A, and #1 vs #2 in 1A. Seems like the computer is pretty accurate.

We played two of the remaining eight teams, losing to one of the 3A contenders and beating the #1 1A team.

Jayhawk Talk

A nice bounce-back win vs Oklahoma State Saturday. The Jayhawks became the first team, I didn’t track if it was P4 only or any D1 school, to lose a game by 30+ and then win by 30+ in their next outing. At least they’re making history, I guess! Funny how much better the team looks when they can knock down outside shots.

Two very good things from Saturday. Flory Bidunga had 16 rebounds in 21 minutes. I remain on record that he will be the best rebounder of the Bill Self era if he returns for another year.

Second, Diggy Coit got going, hitting three straight 3’s to blow the game open in the first half. I think most people forget he was a very late signing and did not go through summer as part of the program. Throw in his size and Self’s traditional reluctance to give transfers much leeway, and he started waaaay behind everyone else. It seems like he’s finally getting comfortable with his role. The CBS guys claimed Self said Diggy is the most vocal leader on the team. Which is kind of concerning since our team is mostly 4th, 5th, and 6th year guys. But it bodes well for next year. I’m sure Diggy will start some games, but he seems like an ideal 6th man who can come off the bench, hit some 3’s and steady the team in minutes when Darryn Peterson, Elmarko Jackson, or whoever else fills one of the starting backcourt slots needs to sit.

Tonight we get to experience one of the true joys of the far-flung conference: an 11:00 PM Eastern tip in Boulder. I am NOT staying up to watch this game. Hope it works out better than when I went to bed instead of watching the BYU game last week.

College Girl

M spent the weekend in Toronto, Canada. I guess it’s a thing for fraternities at schools east of here to go to the Toronto area for their formals. I believe the key is the lower drinking age. That was the plan for her boyfriend’s frat. So they got on a bus at 8AM Friday and spent 12 hours driving north. Then 12 hours returning yesterday. That sure sounds awful to me. I remember going on a date party where we got on a bus in Columbia and headed to St. Louis, less than two hours away. That was both a very fun bus ride and a terrible one. College kids + lots of drinking = well, you know.

My comment to S was that you better not break up with your partner halfway through the bus ride. Or if you’re just going as friends, as a couple of M’s sorority sisters did, not realize three hours into the ride north that the dude you’re going with is kind of a douche.

I guess the formal was fun, and M said Toronto was very cool.

She has been struggling to find a summer internship, sending resumes out since the fall with no bites. She finally had one for a job in Cincinnati last week, then drove to Dayton for another. And this week she has a phone interview with an advertising firm here in Indy. It is run by a CHS grad, and a former neighbor of ours is rather high up there. I think she wants to stay in Cincy for the summer, but would be perfectly fine with the Indy one. If both those fall through, or nothing else pops up, she’ll take the Dayton one if she has to. I just hope she gets an offer.

Jayhawk Talk: Hopeless

February 20, 2025 /

I’m starting this post Wednesday as I sit in the waiting room while L gets her foot operated on. I thought about just skipping this topic, but since I have time to kill, I might as well share a some thoughts about the Jayhawks.

I don’t know of any way to label the last few weeks as anything other than the biggest on-court disaster this program has faced in over 40 years. It seems like the team lost whatever heart they had on those back-to-back Saturdays when they first blew the lead late against Houston – twice – and then coughed up a 21-point lead against Baylor. I’m not sure how much heart this team had to begin with, but whatever it did possess was crushed into meaningless dust after those two losses.

Last Saturday’s game against Utah was a perfect example. Utah is not a good team and has one good player. The Jayhawks let that one guy get open continually and drain 3’s so the Utes built up an immediate big lead. KU showed almost no effort on either end of the court, were routinely late with switches on defense (if they switched at all) and when they were aggressive on offense, it was reckless, not calculated and controlled.

They made a run just before halftime, let the Utes stretch it out again, came all the way back one more time, then absolutely fell on their faces in the closing minutes. They somehow kept Utah from scoring for nearly seven minutes and still trailed when they finally made a shot.

Rumor has it there was an intense “conversation” in the locker room after the game.

A lot of good that did.

As bad as Saturday was, Tuesday night against BYU was so much worse. Thank goodness I used needing to get up early to bring L to the hospital as an excuse to not watch the game. I expected bad news Wednesday morning but was utterly shocked when I saw KU lost by 34 points. Thirty four.

Yep, this team is toast. Even if the roster was ravaged by the combination of flu, Covid, and norovirus that seems to be waylaying most of the country, that would not be an excuse for how they have completely fallen apart. They just don’t play hard enough, or ever have five guys on the court who seem pissed off enough about the way things are going to change the team’s path.

There is plenty of blame to go around, and I’ve addressed some of those targets in previous posts.

It has reached the point, though, where everything lands on Bill Self and his coaching staff. They recruited the wrong players, or at least the wrong combination of players. They haven’t found a way to get the kids they have to work together. There are apparently accountability issues. Schisms because of how different players are treated differently. And so on. We’ve reached the point where there are 1000 rumors about what is wrong, so it’s hard to know which are accurate and which are just speculation by frustrated fans.

All that is 100% on the coaches.

I think they looked too much at the resumes of transfers and not enough at how those players would fit together, or into Self’s system. Worse, he has seemed at a loss at how to make adjustments to style of play and/or how he manages minutes/personalities to find a way to get these mis-matched pieces to work together.

Every Big 10 fan I talked to said AJ Storr would not be able to guard and would drive Self crazy. That’s been the case since before the first game.

Rylan Griffen was a solid defensive player at Alabama. But Nate Oates plays a completely different style of defense from Self. I’m not sure if Self should have been able to see that Griffen’s skill set did not fit his switch-heavy preference. I do think he saw a terrific shooter and figured the rest of it would work out. The problem being Griffen might be the worst defender of the Self era – he literally falls down for no reason multiple times each game – thus can’t stay on the court, thus can’t get in a shooting rhythm, and has become a wasted scholarship.

Zeke Mayo has done exactly what he was asked to do, come in and be a scoring guard. But because of Storr and Griffen’s failures and DaJuan Harris’ limitations, way more has been asked of Mayo than expected. When he’s good, he’s been very good, and arguably KU’s most consistent player. But too often he’s forced to handle the ball against pressure and commits terrible turnovers, or forces shots because no one else on his team can hit one.

Nick Timberlake was a disaster last year.

Bill Self struggled so much connecting with Remy Martin that it nearly ruined the 2022 National Championship team.

Joe Yesufu never found his role.

Cam Martin was a bizarre first signing of the portal era and a waste of a scholarship.

Kevin McCullar was great, until he got injured and disappeared last year.

Hunter Dickinson was also great last year, also until he got injured. While he’s had some good games this year, he’s been far less consistent and missed way too many close shots for a guy who is 7’2”. He wrecks KU’s defense, which a lot of anonymous coaches suggested would be the case before he arrived in Lawrence. And while we don’t know for sure if he has been a problem in the locker room, there is plenty of smoke to suggest that his personality and effort is part of the problem. He also seems to have lost that edge he used played with.

Then there’s the whole long list of high school recruits that have either not shown up in Lawrence, have gotten hurt, who have transferred away after one year, or just have been duds.

Seriously, over the past four high school recruiting classes, only Gradey Dick and Flory Bidunga have come close to reaching their potential. To be fair, KJ Adams over-achieved, but he was seen as a career role player. The fact he’s a three-year starter shows another issue with KU’s recruiting. Someone, Ernest Udeh and/or Zuby Ejiofor most notably who both fled when Dickinson signed, should have taken KJ’s minutes three years ago. That never happened.

The staff gets bonus points for grabbing Johnny Furphy at the last minute in the summer of 2023, but he developed so much faster than expected that he only lasted a year on campus. Perhaps if he had stayed he would have fixed some of this year’s issues, and kept one of this year’s transfer disasters from getting his scholarship.

Beyond that group, the high school recruits are a bunch of guys who washed out at KU, and often at their second and third schools as well. Now a couple of these classes were put together under the cloud of the NCAA investigation. Still, the lack of success over four classes doesn’t bode well for identifying players and developing them the way the staff used to.

Add a bunch of transfers on top of those failures, and you have an old roster that didn’t come of age at KU. They didn’t pick up the cultural DNA from the guys in front of them. They didn’t go to Ames and Waco and Morgantown and Manhattan and steal games that seemed lost with 2:00 left because some guy who had been on the roster for four years made a couple of big plays late.

That’s a recipe for disaster in modern basketball.

There is zero hope for this year’s team. This was supposed to be the easiest six game stretch of the season, and they are 1–3 so far, with the one win coming against a then winless in the Big 12 Colorado team that we had to sweat out until the final minutes. Dickinson isn’t going to suddenly start shooting 70% from the field and moving quickly on defense. Harris isn’t going to suddenly stop taking terrible shots and start guarding the way he used to. Griffen and Storr aren’t suddenly going to start playing at the level they did a year ago at their previous schools. Mayo won’t suddenly stop turning the ball over and start scoring 30 points a night to carry the team. And so on.

We Jayhawks fans have always had the hope of next year when we lost to some stupid team in March. There were always new, highly ranked recruits coming in to join with young guys on the roster who would improve. There was always the certainty that Bill Self would find a way to mold a team that was greater than the sum of its individual parts.

For the first time in the Self era, I’m worried about what’s ahead. Even if Bidunga returns (Please, Lord, let Flory stay!) and Darryn Peterson and Bryson Tiller are as good as advertised. Because I’m not sure I trust Self to pick the right transfers to slot in with that group. And there won’t be those old heads on the roster to guide these young bucks. And I’m worried that between going all-in with transfers to chase a third title, his health scare, and the utter depression of back-to-back preseason number one teams falling apart, Self might have lost his mojo.

I hate to be defeatist, but I guess I should appreciate that we had a pretty good 40 year run and hope that this era of relative shittiness will pass quickly.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that my YouTube feed suddenly got flooded with highlights from classic KU games over the past week. I mean, once you watch one you’re going to get more, right? But there were several from the tournament runs in ’22, ’18, and ’12 that popped up before I watched any of them. Algorithm always knows.

Weekend Notes

February 10, 2025 /

Well, one big topic to get to, and not the one most of the rest of the world is discussing today, so I’ll blow through the first two subjects quickly.

Jayhawk Talk

More stupidity. This team seemed to quit in the second half against K-State. Afterward, Bill Self said his players showed poor effort in practice Friday. This entire team is too old to not figure out the effort thing. And they get paid too much. But we’ll probably crush Colorado tomorrow and fool people into thinking they are close to figuring it out. I feel another blowout loss to a more athletic, engaged team in the round of 32 coming.

Meanwhile top recruit Darryn Peterson, ranked #2 in his class, played the #1 recruit’s team Friday and scored 58 points, including a game-winning 3. Next year can’t get here fast enough.

Super Bowl

I don’t like either team, rooting against the Chiefs has brought me more aggravation than joy in recent years, and I had zero interest in some of the peripheral aspects of the game involving famous people watching from the stands, so I kept the game on mute and worked through my YouTube queue most of the night. Obviously I should have done this a few Super Bowls ago. That was a total ass kicking. Crazy that Nick Sirianni was probably one game away from getting fired back in October, and now he’s a Super Bowl champion coach.

I didn’t watch a single commercial, either, so no opinions or comments about that part of the evening.

I did watch the halftime show. I like the idea of Kendrick Lamar, and am 100% on his side in the whole Drake beef. But my old man ears can’t decipher what young guys with his style are saying, so I can only give his performance a solid B. C was disappointed he didn’t choose a few other songs and bring in more guests than SZA. Apparently old conservatives were annoyed with the entire thing, which is a true bonus.

L went to a party at a friend’s house. She gave another friend a ride back to our house so his mom could pick him up, since we live about halfway between his home and the party. They arrived when there were still about three minutes left in the game. I explained to the friend how I was from Kansas City but not a Chiefs fan. Which probably really confused him as I was wearing a Royals World Series champs shirt.

Sectional Champs!

OK, time for the topic of the day.

Cathedral won their first sectional championship in 20 years with a dominant performance Saturday night.

The girls took on the Polytechnical school from downtown that has a few nice players and was picked as a “darkhorse” to win the sectional in the paper last week. There was never much doubt. We jumped out by double digits early, pushed it to 20 early in the second quarter, and other than a couple lulls around halftime never let up.

The only real drama came when Poly’s coach got ejected in the third quarter. We’re not sure what happened. I saw her get warned in the first half but hadn’t noticed her doing anything too crazy. I did hear their fans going nuts when they thought one of our girls should have been whistled for a five-second call (they were probably right). Seconds later the coach got a T. She was seated on the bench, but I guess she kept jawing because she quickly got T number two.

We hit three of four free throws then Poly hit a 3 and got two free throws to pump up their fans, but that burst was short-lived.

The only down side to the night was that had L been healthy, she definitely would have played. Our coach cleared the bench with 3:00 left, which is very early for her. And I bet a healthy L would have got some minutes well before that.

She did get to help cut the net down though, which she was excited about. She wasn’t on the court, but she is in the trophy picture of a team that made a little school history. Amazing it had been two decades since the last sectional champion, but until this year we were slotted into one of the toughest 4A sectionals in the state. Moving down to 3A had an immediate benefit.

It was fun to see how happy the girls were, especially for our four seniors. Girls basketball at CHS isn’t a glamour sport. There are often more visiting fans than Irish ones at our home games. The boys team gets better warmups and gear. CHS teams play difficult schedules in every sport but that seems to hit our girls a little harder. They earned all that happiness they got to display this weekend.

Our Friday semifinal was more interesting than the championship game, even it if was less competitive.

We played CA, the school that won a game 115–5 last month. Well, their coach was suspended for the game by the state athletic association because of that. Which seemed weird on a couple levels, but whatever. CA is led by his two junior daughters, who have attended four different schools in the past four years.[1] The better of the two sisters is a ranked recruit that lots of Big 10 schools are looking at. But the team is basically the sisters playing off each other, while their three teammates are expected to screen, rebound, and play D.

Although they were ranked well behind us, they still had the most talented player on the court and we were coming off an emotional win over our arch rival. So, you never know, right?

No doubt Friday. We opened on a 22–0 run and that was pretty much that. TWENTY TWO STRAIGHT POINTS!!! Final score: 65–27. We shut down their star and other than letting her sister hit three 3’s, contained the rest of the team. Dominant.

The best thing to come out of these games was that one of our seniors, T, has finally shaken off the bad luck that plagued her all year. I swear this poor kid is shooting 20% because she has shots rim out in the cruelest possible ways. Wide open shots will bounce around the rim 3–4 times before falling off. Layups will spin out or catch the wrong side of the rim. It’s impossible to accurately explain but if you just watch her work to get open and shoot, you would guess she scores 15 points a night. In reality she averages less than 10 ppg.

L and T became good friends last summer, with T often coming over to hang out at our place. I know she has a tough home life. Her parents are very hard on her. She has four older brothers who all played D1 football and the parents expect the same from her. You can see the weight on her shoulders getting heavier each time she misses a shot.

Tuesday against BC she was very good on both ends of the court, keying our pressure and hitting a couple big shots early. Friday she got the defensive assignment of the better CA sister and completely shut her down. Saturday she was on fire, scoring 19 points before halftime. Most of all, you could see her playing free and easy. She hit a 3 in every game, the first time this season she’s hit one in consecutive games, let alone three-straight.

Saturday, as the team was celebrating, I found T and told her whatever she’s been eating, DO NOT change it. She laughed and said she agreed that she wouldn’t change a thing.

The Irish advance to the Regional round of the state tournament.[2] We will play a team that is 20–6, but against a schedule ranked 194. They are #26 in 3A to our #9. According to the computer rankings, we are a 13-point favorite with a 78% chance to win. We just need to keep everyone focused and get any illnesses out of the way early in the week (L is home sick today) and we should be fine. The computer says we have pretty good odds.

  1. That’s as far as I know. They were in 8th grade on the southeast side of town, freshmen in a different district on the southwest side, spent sophomore year in Florida, and this year came back to an inner city school. Who knows if they were somewhere else for 7th grade, or will move out-of-state again for senior year.  ↩
  2. I could get real geeky about the structure of the Indiana playoff bracket, but I’m guessing no one wants to read about that. Long story short, Regionals were two games in one day for a long time, but a year or two back reverted to the old school style of Regionals being a single game, then the Semistate round consisting of two games. If we are lucky enough to win this week, I’ll share more about that.  ↩
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