Kansas Game Thread

[KenoshaJay]

And for the second time this calendar year, the Jays beat the #1 team in the country!!!

How sweet it is!

Go Jays!

[Ethanfor3]

Larry Johnson

Didn’t see him near the bench last night…

Was he sick or did he fly the coop?

[Chicagojayfan]

Team's been all over the map this year analytically - 5 games giving up more then 1 PPP, 1 game over 1.12! Games where we couldn't score - 3 games under 1 PPP, NU and the 2 games after in the skid

But we've also had positives in games where the D looked pretty good and the Offense was sharp. This game was the first that we seemed to put both Offense and Defense together in the same game

A bit of context on this: This was the worst offensive game by Kansas this season, and the second worst defensive game they've had this season (only UNC scored at a higher rate than us)

Coaching last night was outstanding. KU took the shots we wanted them to take all night and mostly didn't make enough of them. I saw Self was unhappy with them not feeding the post better, and that would have helped, but this was a game plan built my Mac and relying on Kalkbrenner to be the best defensive post player in the game (which he is)

Outside of the turnovers, our guard play last night was disruptive and productive. They completely outplayed the KU guards, and Pop had one of the best games I've seen from a CU guard. Given that both Ashworth and Isaacs haven't been able to practice, this was an amazing game for them both of them. Side note: I really liked the cuts we did with Pop and Ash that didn't lead to buckets all of the time, but led to second and third passes and buckets. Self uses Dickinson to hedge a lot so I think Mac spent a lot of time thinking about how to exploit their D when he got pulled from the basket

Kalkbrenner had help as we tried to limit Dickenson's touches, but he dominated that matchup all night, and additionally bothered them at the rim. Our game plan to get them to shoot middle-2's worked most all of the night and kept them below their average when they did get to the rim 5/25 from mid-range 2's and 12/23 at the rim - by comparison against Duke they were 14/20 at the rim

Forwards remain a work in progress to figure out who fits where and when, but I think some of the rotation pairings are starting to make more sense. We don't have any 1 guy like Baylor who we count on to do a wide variety of things, so we have 5 guys at those positions who have different strengths and weaknesses - I don't like Neal on the floor without a 3 pt shooter at the 4 (despite his big game vs. Notre Dame, he's not going to shoot lights out much this year from 3), and I don't like Green on the floor without a 3 pt shooter at the 3. So Neal w/ McAndrews or Traudt makes sense, and Miller w/ Green makes a lot of sense as well, IMO.

Mac's going to have to try to figure out the right combo versus the right opponents, along with who's hot and who's not every night out, but as we saw last night, he has confidence in pretty much all 5 of those guys to deliver in crunch time (easier to do now that Miller's hitting some shots again and now that Green appears to be more himself defensively and on the boards). The big 3 (Kalk, Pop, Ashworth) are the keys to our offense, but the forwards need to contribute by hitting the open shots and doing all of the little things as well, and last night they really did that

*******

player of the game Isaacs - was outstanding from outside, but also disruptive in helping to break down their offense over and over

While this was a huge team effort, the other key to the game was Mac and the coaches. As a comment on a KU board put it "Just brilliant coaching by McDermott. Most coaches including Bill coach a team strategy. McDermott coached a player strategy. Total and completely exploitative approach vs Harris and KJ. Just a clinic."

[wildjays]

Creighton basketball invites #1 Kansas into their house and send them home with their first loss of the season.

Matt DeMarinis and Jacob Padilla break it all down in the Bluejay Beat podcast, available to our Patreon subscribers.

https://www.patreon.com/posts/bluejay-b ... =join_link

[Django]

How bout some salt with that heaping helping of crow Mac and Pop bashers!!!!

Last edited by Django on Thu Dec 05, 2024 8:13 am, edited 1 time in total.

[SeattleJay]

Green, Traudt and McAndrew had 10 rebounds combined in about 40 minutes

[Chicagojayfan]

Green, Traudt and McAndrew had 10 rebounds combined in about 40 minutes

And on top of that all of the forwards did a great job blocking out. Creighton bested them in the boards by a big margin!

[drbluejay]

It's a no brainer that I pick Pop as my standout player of the game. He looked like superman on both ends of the court. Kalk was also very dominate on the defensive end along with Ash leading the team in defensive rebounds at 8 and running the show.
This was a total team win as everyone did their job including Creighton's best all time coach.

[anotherjayfan]

If there was a question about Kalk's jersey hanging in the rafters someday, last night solidified it.

[SDJay]

Green, Traudt and McAndrew had 10 rebounds combined in about 40 minutes

And on top of that all of the forwards did a great job blocking out. Creighton bested them in the boards by a big margin!

+13. That’s insane