A disastrous turn of events Saturday has Kansas' arrow pointing down heading into the postseason. Can we go back to November when the season was full of hope?
I'm more of a 100 Broken Windows man, myself. I'm also way down on Dickinson after Big 12 play. Though he maintained his scoring and rebounding volume, the former came despite his shooting cratering (59% from the line, 23% from three) and the latter felt like he was the latest in the Ike Diogu/Michael Beasley/Caleb Swanigan line of excellent defensive rebounders who don't/aren't able to do much to impact defensive possessions before a shot goes up. McCullar is a huge loss, but I was already curious about Adams going back to the 5 to help defend the point of attack before Dickinson got hurt (coupled with Dickinson tripling his 3PAs per game) and am more curious than morbidly curious to see how the remaining Jayhawks try to make it work in Kansas City. As for the NCAA Tournament, there's every chance, if they can win their first-round game, they'll have an easier second-round matchup than they had last season.
That's also a great album. They've just been rocking for the last 2.5 decades. Completely understandable on being down on Dickinson, but I think he gives more than he takes. His shooting numbers dropping is a huge issue and a large reason why the offense struggled with spacing over the past month despite the emergence of Furphy. The one thing that I would point out is that Big 12 opponents fully scout Kansas weeks ahead of time, and preparing for someone like Dickinson or even Edey at Purdue is easier when you have more than a day or two to implement a game plan. I agree with being curious about how Kansas performs in the conference tournament. It feels like they could lose the first game by 10+ or come out and win by 10+ if all the guys step into their roles and embrace the change (which I think happens). Having to play Baylor if they win would be pretty daunting without Dickinson or McCullar, though. Arkansas was an awful matchup for last year's team, and the projected five through six seeds this year don't have the same upside that team did. That being said, this Kansas team has lost some inexplicable games this season so no matchup will be easy for them.
I'm more of a 100 Broken Windows man, myself. I'm also way down on Dickinson after Big 12 play. Though he maintained his scoring and rebounding volume, the former came despite his shooting cratering (59% from the line, 23% from three) and the latter felt like he was the latest in the Ike Diogu/Michael Beasley/Caleb Swanigan line of excellent defensive rebounders who don't/aren't able to do much to impact defensive possessions before a shot goes up. McCullar is a huge loss, but I was already curious about Adams going back to the 5 to help defend the point of attack before Dickinson got hurt (coupled with Dickinson tripling his 3PAs per game) and am more curious than morbidly curious to see how the remaining Jayhawks try to make it work in Kansas City. As for the NCAA Tournament, there's every chance, if they can win their first-round game, they'll have an easier second-round matchup than they had last season.
That's also a great album. They've just been rocking for the last 2.5 decades. Completely understandable on being down on Dickinson, but I think he gives more than he takes. His shooting numbers dropping is a huge issue and a large reason why the offense struggled with spacing over the past month despite the emergence of Furphy. The one thing that I would point out is that Big 12 opponents fully scout Kansas weeks ahead of time, and preparing for someone like Dickinson or even Edey at Purdue is easier when you have more than a day or two to implement a game plan. I agree with being curious about how Kansas performs in the conference tournament. It feels like they could lose the first game by 10+ or come out and win by 10+ if all the guys step into their roles and embrace the change (which I think happens). Having to play Baylor if they win would be pretty daunting without Dickinson or McCullar, though. Arkansas was an awful matchup for last year's team, and the projected five through six seeds this year don't have the same upside that team did. That being said, this Kansas team has lost some inexplicable games this season so no matchup will be easy for them.