Kentucky Post Game Reaction

[Thain]

Damn a KRS sighting on the same thread!

 

[rhfarmer]

Links are your friend.

 

[Thain]

http://mbd.scout.com/mb.aspx?s=167&f=1386&t=10475912&p=3

 

[rhfarmer]

Thanks. I love how the DBC'ers show up en masse.

 

[the boogeyman]

I don't mean to be that guy, but while I'm obviously thrilled with how most of our guys stepped up and that we won, I'm a little discouraged by the implications of last night.

The writing's on the wall - contrary to all of the talk about getting bigger and longer, finally having versatile forwards to use, we are going to be the exact same team as last year, with 6'4 Sulaimon taking 6'4 Rivers' place, 6'0 Cook possibly taking 6'1 Thornton's place, and everyone a year older.

It's already pretty obvious that Sulaimon is going to be hard to keep out of the starting lineup. Of course, despite being our best on-ball defender and a prototypical SG/PG - who would have an advantage physically at either position - the only spot for him is at SF, where he's undersized and his quickness doesn't mean as much. Same problem as last year. Murphy and AJ are clearly the 9th and 10th men in the rotation at this point, which means they won't see many minutes once the bench shortens unless they jump someone like Hairston.

Don't get me wrong, the above is still a really solid team (as evidenced by last night). However, like last year, we are going to have to make up for physical deficiencies on the perimeter by shooting threes, fishing for charges down low in help defense rather than contesting high, and relying on our bigs to provide almost all of the rim protection, rebounding and scoring at the rim.

It's just not a style of basketball I'm crazy about and it gives you much less margin for error in execution, but it's what K seems to favor these days.

#FWP

this is exactly how i feel. getting the win is great, but it will be difficult to improve off of this type of performance with this line up. mason, curry, and josh all played as well as possible, and everyone else who played more than 3 minutes was solid. they've had plenty of early games in recent years where they won by being sharper than the other team, and bombing 3s, but those things will inevitably fall off at some point in the year. improvement will depend on growing the bench, which is out of character for K.

 

[Pantone287]

I think the odds were always going to be very very low that AJ and Murphy were going to play serious minutes in such an intense game in a hostile environment in November. Even if the initial idea was to give them a spell in the first half and a spell in the second, it was pretty clear by halftime that this game was too tense to entrust to the kids (and yeah, Rasheed is treated differently here, and for good reason).

Completely agree about AJ, but I don't think that's fair to say about Murphy - a couple weeks ago, he would have been expected to start and play 20+ minutes in a huge matchup with Poythress.

boogeyman, I don't think that's entirely fair, as we still have plenty of room to improve - we're still all hoping Cook will grab the reigns at some point, our backup C and "top 6 player" is out with injury and hasn't played CBB yet, and one of our best players is a freshman, for starters. I'm just not a fan of this style of play, which really makes more sense for teams that are at a physical disadvantage. The staff has the horses to match up with anyone in the country athletically if they want to.

 

[dgoore97]

I don't mean to be that guy, but while I'm obviously thrilled with how most of our guys stepped up and that we won, I'm a little discouraged by the implications of last night.

The writing's on the wall - contrary to all of the talk about getting bigger and longer, finally having versatile forwards to use, we are going to be the exact same team as last year, with 6'4 Sulaimon taking 6'4 Rivers' place, 6'0 Cook possibly taking 6'1 Thornton's place, and everyone a year older.

It's already pretty obvious that Sulaimon is going to be hard to keep out of the starting lineup. Of course, despite being our best on-ball defender and a prototypical SG/PG - who would have an advantage physically at either position - the only spot for him is at SF, where he's undersized and his quickness doesn't mean as much. Same problem as last year. Murphy and AJ are clearly the 9th and 10th men in the rotation at this point, which means they won't see many minutes once the bench shortens unless they jump someone like Hairston.

Don't get me wrong, the above is still a really solid team (as evidenced by last night). However, like last year, we are going to have to make up for physical deficiencies on the perimeter by shooting threes, fishing for charges down low in help defense rather than contesting high, and relying on our bigs to provide almost all of the rim protection, rebounding and scoring at the rim.

It's just not a style of basketball I'm crazy about and it gives you much less margin for error in execution, but it's what K seems to favor these days.

#FWP

this is exactly how i feel. getting the win is great, but it will be difficult to improve off of this type of performance with this line up. mason, curry, and josh all played as well as possible, and everyone else who played more than 3 minutes was solid. they've had plenty of early games in recent years where they won by being sharper than the other team, and bombing 3s, but those things will inevitably fall off at some point in the year. improvement will depend on growing the bench, which is out of character for K.

Agree as well. However, I am optimistic that Rasheed will see some time at PG this year. 5 assists 0 turnovers vs an athletic/talented KU team. The fastest Duke ballhandler from baseline to baseline (witness the fastbreak that ended in the QC layup). Can break his man down. Can shoot. Can defend 1 on 1. Him at PG gives us much more size down the lineup, even if we play QC/TT/SC at the other guard. And good PG play makes Mason an All-American. Seriously.

I think he is still figuring it out, but he is going to get there quick. Separately, I have no inside info, but as a team, we seem way more cohesive on the court and off. Subtraction may have been addition in this case, if that makes any sense.

 

[rome8180]

To respond to one thing boogeyman said, I wouldn't say we won by "bombing 3s." Of our 57 field goals attempted, only 18 were threes. We made 8 threes versus 18 two-pointers. Mason had 18 pts, 14 in the paint (discounting his four FTs). Curry had 23 pts, only 9 from three-point range. Maybe you were referring to how we won in the past, but it's unfair to lump this team's approach in with those teams.

I do agree that it would be much better for team makeup if Murphy and Jefferson were ready. I understand not wanting to play them in this game -- it was big game against a highly ranked team and a win certainly helps us with seeding in March. However, I don't see any reason not to play them against scrubs. I hope Murphy gets some minutes in our next game.

 

[marleyboy4945]

I don't mean to be that guy, but while I'm obviously thrilled with how most of our guys stepped up and that we won, I'm a little discouraged by the implications of last night.

The writing's on the wall - contrary to all of the talk about getting bigger and longer, finally having versatile forwards to use, we are going to be the exact same team as last year, with 6'4 Sulaimon taking 6'4 Rivers' place, 6'0 Cook possibly taking 6'1 Thornton's place, and everyone a year older.

It's already pretty obvious that Sulaimon is going to be hard to keep out of the starting lineup. Of course, despite being our best on-ball defender and a prototypical SG/PG - who would have an advantage physically at either position - the only spot for him is at SF, where he's undersized and his quickness doesn't mean as much. Same problem as last year. Murphy and AJ are clearly the 9th and 10th men in the rotation at this point, which means they won't see many minutes once the bench shortens unless they jump someone like Hairston.

Don't get me wrong, the above is still a really solid team (as evidenced by last night). However, like last year, we are going to have to make up for physical deficiencies on the perimeter by shooting threes, fishing for charges down low in help defense rather than contesting high, and relying on our bigs to provide almost all of the rim protection, rebounding and scoring at the rim.

It's just not a style of basketball I'm crazy about and it gives you much less margin for error in execution, but it's what K seems to favor these days.

#FWP

All of this. Good post

 

[dukedavidson13]

I don't mean to be that guy, but while I'm obviously thrilled with how most of our guys stepped up and that we won, I'm a little discouraged by the implications of last night.

The writing's on the wall - contrary to all of the talk about getting bigger and longer, finally having versatile forwards to use, we are going to be the exact same team as last year, with 6'4 Sulaimon taking 6'4 Rivers' place, 6'0 Cook possibly taking 6'1 Thornton's place, and everyone a year older.

It's already pretty obvious that Sulaimon is going to be hard to keep out of the starting lineup. Of course, despite being our best on-ball defender and a prototypical SG/PG - who would have an advantage physically at either position - the only spot for him is at SF, where he's undersized and his quickness doesn't mean as much. Same problem as last year. Murphy and AJ are clearly the 9th and 10th men in the rotation at this point, which means they won't see many minutes once the bench shortens unless they jump someone like Hairston.

Don't get me wrong, the above is still a really solid team (as evidenced by last night). However, like last year, we are going to have to make up for physical deficiencies on the perimeter by shooting threes, fishing for charges down low in help defense rather than contesting high, and relying on our bigs to provide almost all of the rim protection, rebounding and scoring at the rim.

It's just not a style of basketball I'm crazy about and it gives you much less margin for error in execution, but it's what K seems to favor these days.

#FWP

All of this. Good post

Yes I would agree with this for the most part as well. However one think that you fail to mention is the fact that the team seems to be closer and more tight-knit than they were last year. I also think our best lineup is Cook, Curry, Saluimon, Kelly, and Plumlee (until Murphy proves that he knows how to play defense, which I have serious doubts about), which is hardly different from last years team. But the team chemistry does bear mentioning because with strong senior leadership we can come together and be a better TEAM in March than we were last year. Other than IU, no one team really scares me, and this gives me hope that we can still make a run in March/April.

 

[Pantone287]

^Good point.

Also, I kind of selfishly hope we don't see Sulaimon at the point. Only reason being that I'd probably take him in the lottery this year if he proves he can play that position at a very high level, and I want him for longer.

 

[ChibCU]

Sheed's loop around pass to Mason early in the game was great stuff. As he drove that deep I thought "swat incoming", but then his basketball IQ delivered a free two points to Mason. Something Austin was incapable of doing.

 

[krsmith16]

I agree with Topher...lots of big (winning) plays in this one.

I would submit that the back-to-back threes by Rasheed and Quinn, early in the 2nd half, keyed this win. We went from tied to up 6. Seemed to loosen the team up a bit.

Further evidence that winning plays do not always occur in the last five minute.