***** Official '24/'25 KU Men's Basketball Repository Thread *****

[cmh6476]

The Team:

https://kuathletics.com/sports/mbball/roster/

The Schedule:

https://kuathletics.com/sports/mbball/schedule/

[RockChalk]

Let's be real here...this is kind of like D Neal and baseball. Once they see where their true future is, they'll drop that second sport pretty quickly.

[Fansy the Famous Bard]

Originally Posted by smithandrew051

And:

https://www.si.com/college/kansas/ba...-jaden-nickens

noice, i hadn't seen that. Wonder how long that'll last.

[smithandrew051]

Originally Posted by RockChalk

Let's be real here...this is kind of like D Neal and baseball. Once they see where their true future is, they'll drop that second sport pretty quickly.

It’s fun until then though

[BWillie]

Originally Posted by smithandrew051

And:

https://www.si.com/college/kansas/ba...-jaden-nickens

Bill Self taking one for the team and helping Liepold out

[Lzen]

Originally Posted by KC_Connection

As it is, if we’re not gonna play 4 guards/wings, I far prefer the Flory/Dickinson 4-5 lineup to KJ/Dickinson because while we lose offensive spacing (with both lineups), we gain defense and rebounding with Flory.

I agree. I love KJ's contributions to this team but he is practically worthless right now. And we have better talent. He's just making the team worse. I think he would be much better in limited minutes coming off the bench. But we all know Self is not going to do that.

[cmh6476]

Originally Posted by Lzen

I agree. I love KJ's contributions to this team but he is practically worthless right now. And we have better talent. He's just making the team worse. I think he would be much better in limited minutes coming off the bench. But we all know Self is not going to do that.

I keep hearing that but doesn't he have a history of moving more veteran players to the bench while more talented players are elevated as they adjust to college play?

[smithandrew051]

Originally Posted by cmh6476

I keep hearing that but doesn't he have a history of moving more veteran players to the bench while more talented players are elevated as they adjust to college play?

Yes, he does.

Embiid wasn’t a starter right away.
Oubre wasn’t a starter right away.
Doke wasn’t a starter right away.

We think he won’t bench KJ, but look at the bench we’ve had the last two years. Who was the best bench big? Udeh probably? He was out of control most of the time.

We haven’t had hardly any good guards on our bench either.

[SithCeNtZ]

Originally Posted by smithandrew051

Yes, he does.

Embiid wasn’t a starter right away.
Oubre wasn’t a starter right away.
Doke wasn’t a starter right away.

We think he won’t bench KJ, but look at the bench we’ve had the last two years. Who was the best bench big? Udeh probably? He was out of control most of the time.

We haven’t had hardly any good guards on our bench either.

I think Embiid and Flory are going to have a fairly similar freshman year in one key aspect. People like to say Embiid started on the bench, and while this is technically correct, it's ignoring the real reason he wasn't starting: foul trouble. I don't have any memory of this at all, but Embiid had horrible foul problems at Kansas. In 28 games, 15 of them had him at 4 or 5 fouls. It's hard for self to start him when in back to back games in November against Wake Forest and Villanova he had 27 total minutes and 9 fouls. That sounds like Flory last game, who was impactful when he was in but he wasn't in very long because of foul trouble. If you are going to put KJ in a limited minutes role, then you have to have confidence that the guy primarily taking his spot can play more than 15 minutes a night.

[RockChalk]

Originally Posted by SithCeNtZ

I think Embiid and Flory are going to have a fairly similar freshman year in one key aspect. People like to say Embiid started on the bench, and while this is technically correct, it's ignoring the real reason he wasn't starting: foul trouble. I don't have any memory of this at all, but Embiid had horrible foul problems at Kansas. In 28 games, 15 of them had him at 4 or 5 fouls. It's hard for self to start him when in back to back games in November against Wake Forest and Villanova he had 27 total minutes and 9 fouls. That sounds like Flory last game, who was impactful when he was in but he wasn't in very long because of foul trouble. If you are going to put KJ in a limited minutes role, then you have to have confidence that the guy primarily taking his spot can play more than 15 minutes a night.

2 of the foul calls on Flory were absolute trash. In fact, most of the fouls on KU that night were hot garbage. Man I hate Big 10 basketball. Just a shit product of the sport.

[Fansy the Famous Bard]

Originally Posted by RockChalk

2 of the foul calls on Flory were absolute trash. In fact, most of the fouls on KU that night were hot garbage. Man I hate Big 10 basketball. Just a shit product of the sport.

The UNC game was worse. The NBA style throw your head back with no contact to get a foul when you drove into a bad situation was frequently repeated... and called fouls. Really do not enjoy watching that style of gameplay when the refs buy into it.

I'm not blaming the refs for that. KU should have had better on-ball defense on the perimeter where they were able to drive consistently, just not fun to watch an entire game of that crap.