Nice photo, Scott, but it makes me wonder what visual elements you are saving for our next tournament loss, and I'm a little scared.
I did not appreciate seeing Brandon himself blaming the cover jinx after the game -- that shows he isn't taking this loss as seriously as he should. Actually, I think the jinx is real, but it happens because the cover subjects get an inflated self-image (hopefully temporary) which infects their performance -- it sounds like Julian had an awful game last night.
I mercifully didn't see this game -- did ORU indeed have a 900-foot Jesus on the roster?
Our hopes for a #1 seed have suddenly been cut roughly in half, and I imagine we're the laughingstock of the basketball world right now. The only good thing is, as ORjayhawk said, the curse has come early rather than late; we can redeem ourselves very quickly with a win over Florida next week.
One thing is sadly clear -- we have lost our Fieldhouse advantage under Self. Every single year he's been here we've had an inexplicable home loss against unranked competition -- Richmond in '04, ISU in '05, K-State in '06, and now this, the most humiliating of them all given our ranking.
We only had about 3 games like this in Roy's last decade -- all of them occurring in the rebuilding year of '99. Did Naismith floor lose its mystique when they painted that obscenely huge Jayhawk on it? Or did Roy know something about home cooking that Self hasn't figured out?
Well, I did see the game. G*dd*m "Full Court" (maybe I'm the jinx? hope not, 'cause I had to buy the whole season up front . . .).
Anyway, it was pretty ugly (and that 52% free thow average is especially unattractive), but a guy who'd only hit one 3 in his life (if I heard Dave Armstrong right) comes in and goes 7-8 from outside? That's just bad luck (and, I suppose, suspect perimeter defense).
Julian? That judgment's a bit harsh, Deron. His play (along with Jackson) was what kept us in it during much of the first half. Yeah, he missed the ally-oop and the lay-up; yeah, he shouldn't have tried that 3; and yeah 6 is too many turnovers--but here's the rest of his line: 6 points, 12 rebounds, 5 blocks, 2 steals. If that's awful, that's an awful I can live with.
Stunning and disappointing (and the worst, for me, was being the lead story on NPR's 8am news today--ouch), no doubt. But at least it's early.
Sorry, Julian. You're right; that isn't such a bad line. I was basing my statement on the turnovers and on this sentence from the LJW:
"... But Green scored over Matt Kleinmann, who was in the game in place of an ineffective Wright."
I take this to mean his post defense was inadequate. As you point out, he had those blocks and steals, but those aren't necessarily the whole story on defense.
Why the hell were we the lead story on NPR? We weren't even the lead sports story most places I looked (somebody's suing Kobe).
We did not know how to handle Caleb Green. We tried doubling him, but he passed out of them extremely well. Then we tried single coverage in the post where he dominated Jackson and Kleinmann. WE really missed C.J. and Sasha in this game. He posted up at about 10 feet out, so you couldn't really try to front him.
Beyond that, Julian made terrible decisions, especially when he tried to go behind his back under the opponent's basket with under three minutes to go.
Rush played okay in spots, but disappeared the rest. The only guy that really played worth a damn was Darrell Arthur.
Basically, Scott Sutton pwned Self on the Hi-Lo defense. He disrupted it at the key and Self did not adjust on it and spread the floor until five minutes to go in the game when it was too late. I lay this one squarely on Self.
Nice photo, Scott, but it makes me wonder what visual elements you are saving for our next tournament loss, and I'm a little scared.
ReplyDeleteI did not appreciate seeing Brandon himself blaming the cover jinx after the game -- that shows he isn't taking this loss as seriously as he should. Actually, I think the jinx is real, but it happens because the cover subjects get an inflated self-image (hopefully temporary) which infects their performance -- it sounds like Julian had an awful game last night.
I mercifully didn't see this game -- did ORU indeed have a 900-foot Jesus on the roster?
Our hopes for a #1 seed have suddenly been cut roughly in half, and I imagine we're the laughingstock of the basketball world right now. The only good thing is, as ORjayhawk said, the curse has come early rather than late; we can redeem ourselves very quickly with a win over Florida next week.
One thing is sadly clear -- we have lost our Fieldhouse advantage under Self. Every single year he's been here we've had an inexplicable home loss against unranked competition -- Richmond in '04, ISU in '05, K-State in '06, and now this, the most humiliating of them all given our ranking.
We only had about 3 games like this in Roy's last decade -- all of them occurring in the rebuilding year of '99. Did Naismith floor lose its mystique when they painted that obscenely huge Jayhawk on it? Or did Roy know something about home cooking that Self hasn't figured out?
Well, I did see the game. G*dd*m "Full Court" (maybe I'm the jinx? hope not, 'cause I had to buy the whole season up front . . .).
ReplyDeleteAnyway, it was pretty ugly (and that 52% free thow average is especially unattractive), but a guy who'd only hit one 3 in his life (if I heard Dave Armstrong right) comes in and goes 7-8 from outside? That's just bad luck (and, I suppose, suspect perimeter defense).
Julian? That judgment's a bit harsh, Deron. His play (along with Jackson) was what kept us in it during much of the first half.
Yeah, he missed the ally-oop and the lay-up; yeah, he shouldn't have tried that 3; and yeah 6 is too many turnovers--but here's the rest of his line: 6 points, 12 rebounds, 5 blocks, 2 steals.
If that's awful, that's an awful I can live with.
Stunning and disappointing (and the worst, for me, was being the lead story on NPR's 8am news today--ouch), no doubt.
But at least it's early.
Sorry, Julian. You're right; that isn't such a bad line. I was basing my statement on the turnovers and on this sentence from the LJW:
ReplyDelete"... But Green scored over Matt Kleinmann, who was in the game in place of an ineffective Wright."
I take this to mean his post defense was inadequate. As you point out, he had those blocks and steals, but those aren't necessarily the whole story on defense.
Why the hell were we the lead story on NPR? We weren't even the lead sports story most places I looked (somebody's suing Kobe).
We did not know how to handle Caleb Green. We tried doubling him, but he passed out of them extremely well. Then we tried single coverage in the post where he dominated Jackson and Kleinmann. WE really missed C.J. and Sasha in this game. He posted up at about 10 feet out, so you couldn't really try to front him.
ReplyDeleteBeyond that, Julian made terrible decisions, especially when he tried to go behind his back under the opponent's basket with under three minutes to go.
Rush played okay in spots, but disappeared the rest. The only guy that really played worth a damn was Darrell Arthur.
Basically, Scott Sutton pwned Self on the Hi-Lo defense. He disrupted it at the key and Self did not adjust on it and spread the floor until five minutes to go in the game when it was too late. I lay this one squarely on Self.