We're likely to lose in the first weekend regardless. Teams that play this bad defensively rarely do anything in March. We saw it last year and will see it this year. This team has to get better defenders. And they have to find some resemblance of toughness

BUCANDOIT82 said:

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We definitely will be ranked in the Top 20 when the next poll comes out on Monday (unless we lose Friday night which would be tough to watch since I'm going to the game).

We have two one and done players and I think the one not talked much about goes first in the draft no matter how high the other one is picked.

Missi destroyed Filipowski.

This team has no help defenders (not counting the 3 fives) which is why the guards look so bad defensively. If you beat your man off the dribble you are going to get to the rim. No one else is coming to get in your way. This is instinctual and can't be taught. Therefore, we should switch to a zone.

Getting to watch Missi is worth the price of admission even if we don't win another game this season.

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Your last sentence is nonsense.

The point is to win, not to recruit highly ranked players or put freshmen in the NBA. If one-and-dones aren't helping us win, we need to rethink our recruiting strategy.

Another first-weekend exit would mark a trend -- and not a good one for a program that markets itself as nationally elite.

Biggest things for me... Love has to get involved in the game earlier. We need his scoring. Also, I believe we don't use the pick and roll enough, and our guys need to learn how to defend it better and fast. Every Big 12 team will just pick and roll us all game.

I think we're talking about two different things. I was speaking in response to the guy saying Walter won't be one-and-done based on his current struggles playing defense.

I understand and partly agree that freshman shouldn't be leading a team. But NBA draft is more based on upside, not current college production.

Waco Shiesty said:

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Langston needs to start

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If Langston starts we would be even worse on defense, and would have no bench scoring. We need Nunn to keep starting but to play better.

Crawfoso1973 said:

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Waco Shiesty said:

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Langston needs to start

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If Langston starts we would be even worse on defense, and would have no bench scoring. We need Nunn to keep starting but to play better.

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Not so sure he is that far away from Nunn on D and much better scoring. So we bring D of the bench instead of having to have LL score off the bench

Crawfoso1973 said:

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Waco Shiesty said:

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Langston needs to start

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If Langston starts we would be even worse on defense, and would have no bench scoring. We need Nunn to keep starting but to play better.

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In general I agree.. but crazy part is he was as good as either of the guards last night. Walter is struggling obviously and Nunn has looked like a mid major guy when the talent level ups to elite. Fortunately, only KU has close to the talent level of the last two teams.. but concerning considering their size and solid athleticism. It should not be close to this bad.

Your 2nd sentence is the concerning part. Both Nunn and to an extent Dennis have looked like MM guys when we've played top end talent. Nunn was pegged as this elite defensive stopper and I'm just not seeing it. I'd rather dole with LL because he's much better offensively than Nunn has shown. At least to this point. Dennis has got to cut the TOs. Dude is a turnover machine

Baylor dropped to 18 in Kenpom but only to 13 in Parsed Sports.

Per their site's +/- stats, Ojianwuna was only +3. I am surprised he didn't have more of an impact, but I know that +/- is not always the best metric in a one game setting. Just seemed like he had more of an impact when he was in.

I agree. Nunn has good size and is a solid athlete. No reason to be as confused and lost on both ends as he is. And the guy was decent against Auburn.. while not MSU/Duke in name have very good athletes on that team. Which is why this team is confusing me. I think Auburn is decent, aggressive, and athletic. Type of team to give a new group of guys trouble. And they struggled but then worked through it. Maybe confidence thing against the biggest names like MSU/Duke.

Dennis is a little different to me. One minute he looks like he clearly belongs and the next does something wild to lose all momentum. He simultaneously has a good feel for the game while showing poor awareness and pacing the next moment. He's turned it over against weaker comp too. Will probably have to take the good with the bad . They at least need to work on cutting TO's with him. Nunn disappearing on offense along with Walter struggling recently has made Dennis press more. Dennis has showed some signs.. Nunn hasn't.

Oso del lago said:

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Crawfoso1973 said:

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Waco Shiesty said:

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Langston needs to start

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If Langston starts we would be even worse on defense, and would have no bench scoring. We need Nunn to keep starting but to play better.

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Not so sure he is that far away from Nunn on D and much better scoring. So we bring D of the bench instead of having to have LL score off the bench

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We can agree to disagree. I think Love has thrived in a 6th man role where he can focus on scoring, and I think Nunn fits better with the starting unit where offense isn't as needed. Bottom line Nunn simply needs to play better. He was good up until the last 2 games.

Crawfoso1973 said:

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Waco Shiesty said:

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Langston needs to start

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If Langston starts we would be even worse on defense, and would have no bench scoring. We need Nunn to keep starting but to play better.

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We would sacrifice defense, but we need more offense. Extended scoring droughts have killed us to start each of the last two games, and it's not like Nunn has had a dramatic impact on our team defense. His disappearing act against quality competition has been pretty disappointing frankly. We need more out of him than he's currently providing.

Crawfoso1973 said:

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I think we're talking about two different things. I was speaking in response to the guy saying Walter won't be one-and-done based on his current struggles playing defense.

I understand and partly agree that freshman shouldn't be leading a team. But NBA draft is more based on upside, not current college production.

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Fair enough. I always think it's funny when our fans think we'll get another year out of these freshmen. Most of these guys were one-and-done before they stepped foot on campus.

Yes, it's naive to think otherwise.

Love averaging 23 minutes Nunn averaging 25 minutes it's just a matter of lineup combinations. Nunn needs to play better than he's looked the past 2 games, bottom line. Or we are in trouble. Hopefully it's just a matter of adjusting to better competition and he will improve as we get into big 12 play. He had some strong games early on.

bear2be2 said:

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BUCANDOIT82 said:

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We definitely will be ranked in the Top 20 when the next poll comes out on Monday (unless we lose Friday night which would be tough to watch since I'm going to the game).

We have two one and done players and I think the one not talked much about goes first in the draft no matter how high the other one is picked.

Missi destroyed Filipowski.

This team has no help defenders (not counting the 3 fives) which is why the guards look so bad defensively. If you beat your man off the dribble you are going to get to the rim. No one else is coming to get in your way. This is instinctual and can't be taught. Therefore, we should switch to a zone.

Getting to watch Missi is worth the price of admission even if we don't win another game this season.

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Your last sentence is nonsense.

The point is to win, not to recruit highly ranked players or put freshmen in the NBA. If one-and-dones aren't helping us win, we need to rethink our recruiting strategy.

Another first-weekend exit would mark a trend -- and not a good one for a program that markets itself as nationally elite.

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You totally misunderstood my last sentence. It was a compliment of his talent and not an expectation of our having a losing program. And yes, he is worth the price of admission even if the Bears lose.

Don't forget we were the best team in the country in December of 2021 and by the time the Tournament rolled around in March we weren't. It's nonsense talking about whose doing what in March.

True Grit said:

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Biggest things for me... Love has to get involved in the game earlier. We need his scoring. Also, I believe we don't use the pick and roll enough, and our guys need to learn how to defend it better and fast. Every Big 12 team will just pick and roll us all game.

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Not if we play Zone.

Crawfoso1973 said:

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Waco Shiesty said:

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Langston needs to start

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If Langston starts we would be even worse on defense, and would have no bench scoring. We need Nunn to keep starting but to play better.

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We should start Grimes and bring Nunn off the bench.

We're slow with rotations. If we go zone I imagine will get torched from 3. Granted that's better than lay up drills.
You bring up a good point with Grimes. The little we've seen from him he looks explosive. I wonder what he would like with the starters

IowaBear said:

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We're slow with rotations. If we go zone I imagine will get torched from 3. Granted that's better than lay up drills.
You bring up a good point with Grimes. The little we've seen from him he looks explosive. I wonder what he would like with the starters

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Possibly. We do have what we didn't have when we played zone in the Ekpe Udoh era: length at the perimeter. The reality is whatever defense we run, we must have 5 guys communicating with each other, trusting their teammate. We haven't really had that the last couple of years.

It was obvious that Duke watched the film of the Michigan State lay up fest and exploited the defensive weakness that we can't rotate to help on the dribble penetration. It was painful to watch. I can't tell if it is slow footed help D or fear of the dump off dunk. But if we don't figure it out, then teams with decent guards will just keep driving to the basket all year long.

We are not slow footed. We are slow to react and that is instinctual and can't be fixed in a couple of months. A trapping zone plays to this team's strengths and minimizes its obvious defensive weaknesses.

Dale.

- KKM

{ sipping green tea w/ ginseng and honey }

Go Bears!

IowaBear said:

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We're slow with rotations. If we go zone I imagine will get torched from 3. Granted that's better than lay up drills.
You bring up a good point with Grimes. The little we've seen from him he looks explosive. I wonder what he would like with the starters

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I think we need to mix and match. Zone until a team shoots us out of it or man until a team pick and rolls us to death. But we need a curveball off the fastball because we're throwing a poorly located 86 mph heater right now -- which coincidentally also describes my high school baseball career.