After just a week it\u2019s already time for some more sports notes.<\/p>\n
I neglected to include a section about college realignment in last week\u2019s post as it seemed like the next domino was close to falling. I was expecting medium-sized news, like the Big 12 adding one-to-three more PAC schools to complete its expansion. Little did I know the general landscape was so tenuous that it would quickly feel like 2011 again.<\/p>\n
First, the Big 12 added Colorado as expected. Which Big 12 fans went nuts about. A lot of people pointed out that CU isn\u2019t all that great of a get. The Buffs haven\u2019t been very good for about 20 years, and have been only marginally better than Kansas over the past decade. Sure, they have Coach Prime coming in, but I don\u2019t know if many people outside himself and their AD think he\u2019s going to turn them into the CU of the 1990s again. In hoops, they\u2019ve been solid since Tad Boyle took over, but have only won two NCAA tournament games in his tenure.<\/p>\n
What got Big 12 fans excited was that the Big 12 was adding again rather than subtracting members. It was a nice bonus that the new school was one of those that fled in the initial exodus a decade ago. Also nice that Boulder is one of the best road trips in any conference.<\/p>\n
Then, a week later, Arizona, Arizona State, and Utah signed up for the Big 12. Or Big 16. Or whatever.<\/p>\n
After over 10 years of being the conference that was constantly getting raided, the Big 12 actually seemed to be operating from a position of strength, now adding eight new schools over a couple years. And it, finally, seemed like a conference of true equals. Mostly similarly-sized schools, mostly public universities, all in the same ballpark in terms of athletic budgets and revenues. And everyone seems content, for now, that they are in the third most important conference that seems locked into its current structure for the time being. There\u2019s no Texas throwing its considerable weight around and constantly whining when it doesn\u2019t get its way. If the Big 10 decided they really wanted Kansas basketball, or a restructuring ACC went after West Virginia and UCF, it wouldn\u2019t wreck the conference.<\/p>\n
In the midst of all of that came the bigger earthquake: the Big 10 landed Oregon and Washington to grow to 18 schools. The PAC-whatever is dead, and the Big 10 has again raised the stakes in the arms war of realignment. Might the SEC try to match them, grabbing Florida State and Clemson? Would the Big 10 then swoop in for North Carolina and Duke to get to 20? Would the Big 12 follow by trying to snap up a couple stray ACC schools and\/or UConn to get to 20 programs themselves?<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t think anyone really knows when this will end. For the moment, it\u2019s nice that KU is in a semi-stable environment. Even if that stability may be illusory and temporary.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve seen several people mention that eventually the most elite of the elite football programs are going to decide they don\u2019t need to share their money and run off and make their own league and try to suck up as much for themselves as possible. Hopefully we have another 10 years or so of the new normal before we get to that point.<\/p>\n
I just hope all this realignment nonsense stops some of the complaining in downtown Indy at the NCAA headquarters and from university administrators about players getting paid ruining college athletics. Amateurism has been dead in D1 sports for decades. The constant realignment churn of the past 15 years shows that the true powers that be in college sports care most about maximizing how much media revenue they can generate, not about any out-dated ideas of amateurism or about the rivalries and regionalism that make college sports special.<\/p>\n
I should have waited another week for my KU thoughts, too. I wrote that it seemed like the roster for the coming year had locked in, as rumors of adding an international player had faded. And then Australian Johnny Furphy, the kid who was generating the buzz in early July, surprised everyone by reclassifying back into the class of 2023 and committing to KU.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m a little suspicious about how much of an initial impact he will make. His highlight videos, while impressive, were often against smaller Australian or International competition. I\u2019m not sure he\u2019s going to be able to take two dribbles and smash on three defenders in the Big 12 as a freshman the way he did in his summer games.<\/p>\n
He does have a very nice set of skills to work with. Bill Self called him a mix of Svi Mykhailiuk and Christian Braun. Which is kind of unfair on the kid, but also means if he can come close to that, he\u2019s going to be a very nice, multi-year player for the Jayhawks. We\u2019ll see. I think his biggest immediate contribution will be as another body on the roster, allow Zach Clemence to keep his redshirt status, and serve as a hedge in case Arterio Morris\u2019 eligibility comes into jeopardy.<\/p>\n
I watched most of KU\u2019s three games in Puerto Rico over the weekend.[1]<\/a> You can\u2019t get too up or down about these summer games, and I won\u2019t dive in too deep to my observations.<\/p>\n It was fun to see most of the new guys for the first time (Furphy has not yet joined the program). Hunter Dickinson and KJ Adams already have amazing chemistry. They are going to be a problem for the Big 12.<\/p>\n Elmarko Jackson and Morris looked worthy of the hype they arrive with and bring an athleticism KU hasn\u2019t had on the perimeter in a long time. They, DaJuan Harris, and Kevin McCullar were absolutely killing guys they were guarding at times. Add in a legit shot blocker behind them and the KU defense has a chance to be as good as the 2020 team\u2019s.<\/p>\n And if anyone can consistently hit 3\u2019s – an evergreen concern with KU – this team could be un-guardable.<\/p>\n On the negative side, McCullar and Harris don\u2019t look like they\u2019ve been shooting the 8000 3\u2019s a day I think they should be shooting. Although Harris did hit three deep ones and scored 23 points on Monday.<\/p>\n These were games in August against older competition with weird rules.[2]<\/a> What it all means is just speculation.<\/p>\n One of the highlights of the trip was playing against former Oklahoma All-American and current Indiana Pacer Buddy Hield. He only played two quarters Saturday and three on Monday, but was a great match-up for McCullar and Harris. Both guys ripped him a few times. Monday he hit two ridiculous 3\u2019s with one of those guys draped all over him to turn a two point deficit into a four point lead at the end of the third quarter.<\/p>\n Best of all, though, was when he came over and talked to the KU radio crew during the third quarter Saturday.<\/p>\n He spoke about his recruiting process, and how Self had told him if he came to KU he might not play right away. He said he respected that, since other coaches weren\u2019t as honest with him, and understood it since \u201cyou never really know how kids are going to turn out.\u201d But when asked if he ever lets Self know he made a mistake, he responded, \u201cI don\u2019t have to say anything. He knows.\u201d Hilarious.<\/p>\n When asked about having to play against Kevin McCullar he said something like, \u201cYeah, he\u2019s nice. He plays hard. He talks a lot of shit.\u201d<\/p>\n Broadcaster Brian Hanni immediately jumped in, \u201cI\u2019m not sure we can say that on the radio.\u201d<\/p>\n Buddy immediately looked chagrined and apologized, and did so again at the end of the segment, \u201cSorry about the curse word.\u201d I was rolling. Buddy is the best.<\/p>\n Finally, when Bahamas made a little run and forced a KU timeout, he started yelling at Self, who was about 10 feet away, \u201cWe coming, Self! We coming!\u201d<\/p>\n It was a pretty good five or so minutes of radio.<\/p>\n I found it odd that Washington Township native and North Central High School graduate Eric Gordon was playing for the Bahamas.[3]<\/a> I mean I get it: his mom is from there so he is eligible according to how the rules are these days. What I didn\u2019t get, though, was that he has played for the United States in international competition before. I thought you had to officially change citizenship to be able to swap teams. I guess I was wrong. Or no one really cares about a 30-something NBA role player.<\/p>\n The Bahamas has a stacked roster. There\u2019s Buddy and Gordon, Klay Thompson and his brother will apparently play for them in next week\u2019s Olympic qualifying tournament. Former Texas player Kai Jones is on the roster but did not play against KU. Most of the rest of their roster played D1 ball in the States. And then there\u2019s former NBA #1 draft pick DeAndre Ayton. The Bahamas insisted he would play this weekend. He sat out Saturday\u2019s game but told KU he would play on Monday. When Monday rolled around he worked out for an hour before the game then disappeared when the game began, strolling to the bench in street clothes and sunglasses midway through the first quarter.<\/p>\n How NBA guys handle these exhibitions is always strange. The games don\u2019t mean anything to them, and with Olympic qualifying ahead, they are glorified scrimmages for them. Often their NBA teams will place minutes restrictions on them, and the Pacers seemed to do with Buddy.<\/p>\n Ayton being weird was no real surprise, though. I am not sad that the Suns matched the Pacers\u2019 offer sheet for him a year ago.<\/p>\n I saw Buddy and Gordon have long moments with the KU coaches and players after each game. They would often tap the KU guys on the shoulder or side as they walked past during dead balls. I didn\u2019t see a ton of interaction from Ayton, although Hunter Dickinson was notably bigger than him when they shook hands. If you know your college basketball recruiting history, you know that Ayton and KU once seemed like a sure thing, until Arizona and Nike beat what KU and Adidas were offering. Allegedly.<\/p>\n Well, it sure looks dumb to have all these ads with the US Women\u2019s National Team members running in high volume during prime time when the team could only muster four goals in four games and lost their opening knock-out game.<\/p>\n I did not wake up to watch the loss to Sweden, which proved to be a wise decision.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve chosen really poorly this tournament. Every game I\u2019ve watched has been pretty boring. And then I\u2019ll check a micoblogging social media site formerly represented by a blue bird and learn a game I did not watch was bananas.<\/p>\n Hey, they ran their winning streak up to seven games! Of course they\u2019ve lost three-straight since then. Kind of crazy a team that hadn\u2019t won three-consecutive contests all year turned their first winning streak into the franchise\u2019s longest since 2017.<\/p>\n After just a week it\u2019s already time for some more sports notes. Big 12\/Realignment I neglected to include a section about college realignment in last week\u2019s post as it seemed like the next domino was close to falling. I was expecting medium-sized news, like the Big 12 adding one-to-three more PAC schools to complete its expansion. Little did I know the general landscape was so tenuous that it would quickly feel like 2011 again. First, the Big 12 added Colorado as expected. Which Big 12 fans went nuts about. A lot of people pointed out that CU isn\u2019t all that great of a get. The Buffs haven\u2019t been very good for about 20 years, and have been only marginally better than Kansas over the past decade. Sure, they have Coach Prime coming in, but I don\u2019t know if many people outside himself and their AD think he\u2019s going to turn them into the CU of the 1990s again. In hoops, they\u2019ve been solid since Tad Boyle took over, but have only won two NCAA tournament games in his tenure. What got Big 12 fans excited was that the Big 12 was adding again rather than subtracting members. It was a nice bonus that the new school was one of those that fled in the initial exodus a decade ago. Also nice that Boulder is one of the best road trips in any conference. Then, a week later, Arizona, Arizona State, and Utah signed up for the Big 12. Or Big 16. Or whatever. After over 10 years of being the conference that was constantly getting raided, the Big 12 actually seemed to be operating from a position of strength, now adding eight new schools over a couple years. And it, finally, seemed like a conference of true equals. Mostly similarly-sized schools, mostly public universities, all in the same ballpark in terms of athletic budgets and revenues. And everyone seems content, for now, that they are in the third most important conference that seems locked into its current structure for the time being. There\u2019s no Texas throwing its considerable weight around and constantly whining when it doesn\u2019t get its way. If the Big 10 decided they really wanted Kansas basketball, or a restructuring ACC went after West Virginia and UCF, it wouldn\u2019t wreck the conference. In the midst of all of that came the bigger earthquake: the Big 10 landed Oregon and Washington to grow to 18 schools. The PAC-whatever is dead, and the Big 10 has again raised the stakes in the arms war of realignment. Might the SEC try to match them, grabbing Florida State and Clemson? Would the Big 10 then swoop in for North Carolina and Duke to get to 20? Would the Big 12 follow by trying to snap up a couple stray ACC schools and\/or UConn to get to 20 programs themselves? I don\u2019t think anyone really knows when this will end. For the moment, it\u2019s nice that KU is in a semi-stable environment. Even if that stability may be illusory and temporary. I\u2019ve seen several people mention that eventually the most elite of the elite football programs are going to decide they don\u2019t need to share their money and run off and make their own league and try to suck up as much for themselves as possible. Hopefully we have another 10 years or so of the new normal before we get to that point. I just hope all this realignment nonsense stops some of the complaining in downtown Indy at the NCAA headquarters and from university administrators about players getting paid ruining college athletics. Amateurism has been dead in D1 sports for decades. The constant realignment churn of the past 15 years shows that the true powers that be in college sports care most about maximizing how much media revenue they can generate, not about any out-dated ideas of amateurism or about the rivalries and regionalism that make college sports special. KU Hoops I should have waited another week for my KU thoughts, too. I wrote that it seemed like the roster for the coming year had locked in, as rumors of adding an international player had faded. And then Australian Johnny Furphy, the kid who was generating the buzz in early July, surprised everyone by reclassifying back into the class of 2023 and committing to KU. I\u2019m a little suspicious about how much of an initial impact he will make. His highlight videos, while impressive, were often against smaller Australian or International competition. I\u2019m not sure he\u2019s going to be able to take two dribbles and smash on three defenders in the Big 12 as a freshman the way he did in his summer games. He does have a very nice set of skills to work with. Bill Self called him a mix of Svi Mykhailiuk and Christian Braun. Which is kind of unfair on the kid, but also means if he can come close to that, he\u2019s going to be a very nice, multi-year player for the Jayhawks. We\u2019ll see. I think his biggest immediate contribution will be as another body on the roster, allow Zach Clemence to keep his redshirt status, and serve as a hedge in case Arterio Morris\u2019 eligibility comes into jeopardy. I watched most of KU\u2019s three games in Puerto Rico over the weekend.[1] You can\u2019t get too up or down about these summer games, and I won\u2019t dive in too deep to my observations. It was fun to see most of the new guys for the first time (Furphy has not yet joined the program). Hunter Dickinson and KJ Adams already have amazing chemistry. They are going to be a problem for the Big 12. Elmarko Jackson and Morris looked worthy of the hype they arrive with and bring an athleticism KU hasn\u2019t had on the perimeter in a long time. They, DaJuan Harris, and Kevin McCullar were absolutely killing guys they were guarding at times. Add in a legit shot blocker behind them and the KU defense has a chance to be as good as the 2020 team\u2019s. And if anyone can consistently hit 3\u2019s – an evergreen concern with KU – this team could be un-guardable. On the negative side, McCullar and Harris don\u2019t look like they\u2019ve been shooting the 8000 3\u2019s a day I think they should be shooting. Although Harris did hit three deep ones and scored 23 points on Monday. These were games in August against older competition with weird rules.[2] What it all means is just speculation. One of the highlights of the trip was playing against former Oklahoma All-American and current Indiana Pacer Buddy Hield. He only played two quarters Saturday and three on Monday, but was a great match-up for McCullar and Harris. Both guys ripped him a few times. Monday he hit two ridiculous 3\u2019s with one of those guys draped all over him to turn a two point deficit into a four point lead at the end of the third quarter. Best of all, though, was when he came over and talked to the KU radio crew during the third quarter Saturday. He spoke about his recruiting process, and how Self had told him if he came to KU he might not play right away. He said he respected that, since other coaches weren\u2019t as honest with him, and understood it since \u201cyou never really know how kids are going to turn out.\u201d But when asked if he ever lets Self know he made a mistake, he responded, \u201cI don\u2019t have to say anything. He knows.\u201d Hilarious. When asked about having to play against Kevin McCullar he said something like, \u201cYeah, he\u2019s nice. He plays hard. He talks a lot of shit.\u201d Broadcaster Brian Hanni immediately jumped in, \u201cI\u2019m not sure we can say that on the radio.\u201d Buddy immediately looked chagrined and apologized, and did so again at the end of the segment, \u201cSorry about the curse word.\u201d I was rolling. Buddy is the best. Finally, when Bahamas made a little run and forced a KU timeout, he started yelling at Self, who was about 10 feet away, \u201cWe coming, Self! We coming!\u201d It was a pretty good five or so minutes of radio. I found it odd that Washington Township native and North Central High School graduate Eric Gordon was playing for the Bahamas.[3] I mean I get it: his mom is from there so he is eligible according to how the rules are these days. What I didn\u2019t get, though, was that he has played for the United States in international competition before. I thought you had to officially change citizenship to be able to swap teams. I guess I was wrong. Or no one really cares about a 30-something NBA role player. The Bahamas has a stacked roster. There\u2019s Buddy and Gordon, Klay Thompson and his brother will apparently play for them in next week\u2019s Olympic qualifying tournament. Former Texas player Kai Jones is on the roster but did not play against KU. Most of the rest of their roster played D1 ball in the States. And then there\u2019s former NBA #1 draft pick DeAndre Ayton. The Bahamas insisted he would play this weekend. He sat out Saturday\u2019s game but told KU he would play on Monday. When Monday rolled around he worked out for an hour before the game then disappeared when the game began, strolling to the bench in street clothes and sunglasses midway through the first quarter. How NBA guys handle these exhibitions is always strange. The games don\u2019t mean anything to them, and with Olympic qualifying ahead, they are glorified scrimmages for them. Often their NBA teams will place minutes restrictions on them, and the Pacers seemed to do with Buddy. Ayton being weird was no real surprise, though. I am not sad that the Suns matched the Pacers\u2019 offer sheet for him a year ago. I saw Buddy and Gordon have long moments with the KU coaches and players after each game. They would often tap the KU guys on the shoulder or side as they walked past during dead balls. I didn\u2019t see a ton of interaction from Ayton, although Hunter Dickinson was notably bigger than him when they shook hands. If you know your college basketball recruiting history, you know that Ayton and KU once seemed like a sure thing, until Arizona and Nike beat what KU and Adidas were offering. Allegedly. USWNT\/World Cup Well, it sure looks dumb to have all these ads with the US Women\u2019s National Team members running in high volume during prime time when the team could only muster four goals in four games and lost their opening knock-out game. I did not wake up to watch the loss to Sweden, which proved to be a wise decision. I\u2019ve chosen really poorly this tournament. Every game I\u2019ve watched has been pretty boring. And then I\u2019ll check a micoblogging social media site formerly represented by a blue bird and learn a game I did not watch was bananas. Royals Hey, they ran their winning streak up to seven games! Of course they\u2019ve lost three-straight since then. Kind of crazy a team that hadn\u2019t won three-consecutive contests all year turned their first winning streak into the franchise\u2019s longest since 2017. Props to KU for coming up with a way, last minute, to show the games. The single cam on the sideline wasn\u2019t perfect, but was better than a lot of high school single-cam streams I\u2019ve watched. \u00a0\u21a9 It was clear in the two Bahamas games that the refs were making calls late to keep the games close. KU got dinged in for a few bad calls in the game they won Saturday, and benefited from a couple terrible calls when they were losing Monday. Self seemed surprised by the calls, but perhaps international refs try to make the end of exhibitions more interesting, or give coaches a chance to practice more late game stuff. \u00a0\u21a9 If you don\u2019t know your Indy geography,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[31,52,21,58,37],"class_list":["post-12109","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-basketball","tag-college-sports","tag-kansas-city-royals","tag-kansas-jayhawks","tag-soccer"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12109","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12109"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12109\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12111,"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12109\/revisions\/12111"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nUSWNT\/World Cup<\/h3>\n
\nRoyals<\/h3>\n
\n\n