Kansas, you're not in Kansas anymore

Basketball
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Three weeks in Columbia and I come home to this?
You know Kansas was in trouble when they went up to the Hill and got beat by lowly Utah. They talked about how mad Kansas would be coming into Provo and how Self would avenge the beating he took from BYU at home last season… Whelp!

1 Self was right when he said after the game that nobody could of beat BYU tonight. BYU made 14-36 from 3, that is 40%. When BYU had 66 total possessions and 36 were 3 point shots, nobody is going to beat you!!!.

2 Knell had a BIG game, 15 points and 8 rebounds, never seen that stat under his name in 7 years of playing. I have always said, with the kind of defenders like Saunders, Mag and Demin, you could hide Knell on defense. To bad his 66 % long distance shooting does not translate on the road.

3 Mag has been a game changer replacing Catchings. He always locks down their best player. Between Saunders and Mag, we have two pit bulls who can bother anyone’s shot. These two along with Demin did not give Kansas many open looks. Kansas by the way has two great outside shooters, Mayo and Griffin. Mayo got 6 points all night and Giffin got 9. So nobody helped Dickerson, game-set-match.

4 I thought Keba had his best game as a Cougar. Sure felt like his had more then the 2 blocks, he was bothering everyone’s shot and those rebs…Whoweeee.

5 Saunders is bent on all Big 12. just does it all.

6 Someone please explain to me who stole Hall’s soul? He is not the same as in past years. Very tentative at driving, dribbles late into possessions then BYU is forced to throw up rushed shots.

7 Would love to see Catchings play more minutes but how can he get time when Mag is dominating out there and Boskovic is starting to cook. Dude, you got to step up.

8 With this win, BYU jumps 7 spots in rankings, that is how much media respects Kansas. THis was the biggest lose in 22 seasons for Bill Self.

9 If I were a coach playing BYU at home, I would knee cap the 3s and make BYU put that ball on the floor, daring BYU to score inside but no, Kansas never covered a single shot the entire night.

10 Kansas is NOT a good outside shooting team, and they are certainly not elite at scoring anywhere. KY knew that if we shut down Mayo, Storr and Dickerson; we would get the win…Harris is no outside threat (0-5) and Adams Jr. has never been a scorer. Very good scouting job by BYU.

now on to Az. BYU will have no such luck with their 3s on the road and Az will most likely dare us to score inside, not good odds but I have now moved BYU into the Dance column for good.

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I am not worried about Hall anymore. He didn’t take the ball to the basket much last night but he did plenty against KSU and had 16 points. He had 10
points and 8 assists last night. The last 3 games he has looked like the Hall of last season. If Demin leaves as expected we are in good hands at the point next season.

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Hall and Crawford? Will Hall stick around? He almost left last summer. Crawford is a true point. But will he have the tools to stick out a full season against the bruisers of the B12?

I expect KY to pick up a transfer point…can you image if Ques Glover had chosen KY over Tennessee, which he almost did last summer? After last night the future looks bright.

1 Like
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Something KY and others said that is also different. Instead of mostly setting up and running an offense, they have been working on pushing the ball up the court before teams can gain defensive control on us and get the open 3’s or drives to the basket.

We also are now working together as a cohesive team on both offense and defense including Knell. Knell has had better games offensively but as the crew said post game that was his best defensive game in 7 years. He’s played his way into starting.

Self was right. Finally an honest coach. After the game he said Kansas didn’t beat themselves. He said BYU beat them. Not taking a thing away from what BYU accomplished. We should do the same and not trounce all over Kansas. Utah beat Kansas State too. Utah is vastly improved. Glad we play them at home.

Arizona will be an important test at their place. We will know if we are piquing at the right time.

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Why would Hall not want to play with AJ? Heck, AJ may play the point as well. Hall did bring the ball up faster last night. Especially when it was after a rebound. He is moving better and playing defense too. I think his injury early on was more mental on him than physical.

I’m more worried about how Baker hasn’t been playing well lately. We really need him to start shooting the ball instead of guiding the ball ending up short all the time.

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look at his stats: he is not even close to his scoring, punishing drives of the past two years. I suppose that he is tentative, having been replaced by a one and done.

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Well he had 10 points off the bench last night and 8 assists. He had 16 against K st and a lot of those taking the ball to the basket. I thought he played well against WV as well. I am going by what he has done the last 3 games.

He wasn’t playing up to last season”s standards until
the last 3 games. I think he may have turned the corner.

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I think the whole team has turned a corner. By their game comments after the game, they seem to have figured out how to play as a team for the purpose of winning. I’m still not convinced Demin is one and done. Don’t worry about Fish. He’s been away for a while.

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We are in St Croix USVI for our annual late winter/early spring. We are 3 hours ahead of Mountain time, so it’s testing my loyalty to keep staying up to watch games that start at 10 or 11pm! I almost still can’t believe my eyes. KU is full of the very highest of the high national recruits. But Who were the two best players on the court? Keba and Richie. And it wasn’t close. I remember a couple guys early last year saying Richie should have been playing starter’s minutes from the jump. Does ANYONE in college hoops have a quicker or prettier release from deep? And Keba? Wow is all I can say about the way he showed Dickinson who the BOSS was last night.

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This isn’t the first time this season they have “turned a corner” only to end up on a dead end street and then have to put it in reverse and look for another corner to turn. We will see if they actually turned the corner and are headed down the road to the final four (not saying they will be in the final four, just that they are on the road like the other 60+ teams).

I’ve seen this kind of thread on here before over the years and it has a similar path and/or ending. Let’s just not get too far ahead of ourselves, especially with Arizona up next.

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They did turn a corner, although it was the wrong corner to turn. :open_mouth:

They are 13-2 at home… and 3-5 away…

Jerry Sloan who I admire a lot as a coach once said that to develop a good team you must first learn to defend home court, THEN learn how to win on the road.

So, I think this team has a pretty good feel for winning at home, now they need to learn how to consistently win on the road. which is harder, because your routine, time zone, sleep patterns are all different. That will determine if the Cougars has turned that preverbal corner.

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Very good post. Makes sense too.

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Keba and Saunders were the best players on the floor Tuesday night for sure. I haven’t been a Knell fan but he had an outstanding game as well. He had 15 points, 8 rebounds, 4 assists. He had a couple of good drives to the hoop and on a couple of his assists I honestly thought it was Demin making the pass. He probably had his best ever game at BYU. I’ll will give him credit where credit is due. He is usually just a shooter but he contributed across the board against KU.

It seems we have Saunders who is always good and then it changes game to who else is going to shine.