Senior Swag
Ok State becomes the favorite to win the Big 12 title. Of course, I can remember plenty of yrs when Kansas won it w/o being picked to do so.
https://twitter.com/JasonKingESPN
Agreed. Self >>> Ford. @nickryan10: @GoodmanCBS Even as a wildcat, foolish to bet again Self. Dudes a machine
https://twitter.com/GoodmanCBS
Ppl saying OKL St over Kansas in conference play - advice -DON'T BET AGAINST @CoachBillSelf & Jayhawks - still must go thru Lawrence Baby!
https://twitter.com/DickieV
You don't tug on Superman's cape! H/T Bhapnin w/assist by Texasjhawk on jayhawkslant.com
KU assistant coach Joe Dooley is a candidate for the head coaching post at Florida Gulf Coast, ESPN.com reports. Other candidates: Ohio State assistant Chris Jent, Oklahoma assistant Steve Henson and Gulf Coast assistant Marty Richter. The Fort Myers News Press on Monday said that Wichita State associate head coach Chris Jans and Florida State assistant Corey Williams were also in the running.
LJW
Before every game you’ll find Tyshawn Taylor working on his game with assistant coach Doug Overton. Taylor is always one of the first players to hit the court and one of the last to leave.
Taylor routinely works on his ball handling with a weighted ball, his mid-range shooting at the elbow, and pick-and-roll game with Overton. On Monday night against the Wizards, Taylor’s dedication was validated.
Taylor scored a career-high 14 points, including a career-high three three-point field goals. None of which showed Taylor’s progression more than the final three-pointer he sank to put the game out of reach at 106-101.
Taylor used an in-and-out dribble to create space on a pick-and-roll before backing the ball out. Once Wizards forward Trevor Booker switched on the pick-and-roll Taylor had the confidence to hoist one final three-pointer that sealed the win.
“I knew it the whole time,” said Taylor. “They called a timeout and I shot it after the timeout. It went in and I told myself I’m shooting it again. Then I got the switch with Trevor Booker so I was just like, yeah, I’m going to let it go.”
As the ball hung in the air, Taylor leaned back on one leg while maintaining the flick of his wrist behind his back to guide the ball in, but it wasn’t necessary. The ball swished through the hoop, just like it has done numerous times during warm-up routines with Overton. This time, the major difference was Taylor heard the thunderous roar of a nearly capacity crowd at Barclays Center cheering him on along with his teammates.
Coach P.J. Carlesimo felt comfortable putting the ball in Taylor’s hands in a position where he has seen his most success when called upon.
…As Taylor continues to hone his craft as a point guard, he believes he’s found his niche in the league and will look to strengthen it.
“I’m working on pick-and-roll because I feel like that’s a lot of the NBA game and I think I’m a pretty good pick-and-roll player,” Taylor told SNY.tv. “But I think that’s it’s just a different level. So just working on that and just trying to get stronger and be a more consistent shooter.”
SNY
"You can't teach the way he runs pick-and-rolls," Carlesimo gushed.
Carlesimo may not think it's teachable, but Taylor says he's used this season as a learning experience. "All I've been doing is working on pick-and-rolls and my jumpshot. Towards the end of the game, that's the play coach (Carlesimo) was calling for me. Everything was a first option, and then if that option wasn't there, he'd come back to me for a pick-and-roll."
…His third and final three-pointer put the Nets up 106-101 with 22 seconds left, icing the game. Taylor responded by throwing up a "3-holster" as the crowd roared. "I love playing in front of a crowd," Taylor added. "That gets my blood going. At Kansas, we played in front of 16,300 every night no matter who we played. So that gets me going."
Taylor finished the night with 14 points on 5-8 shooting, hitting all three of his three-point attempts, and his three assists and two steals all came in the game-deciding fourth quarter.
Brooklyn Game
Kansas University officials on Tuesday officially broke ground on the multimillion-dollar Rock Chalk Park athletic complex in northwest Lawrence, with the hope of unveiling a world-class track and field stadium in time for the 2014 Kansas Relays.
In other words, a ribbon-cutting should be on tap for the complex near Sixth Street and the South Lawrence Trafficway about this time next year.
“I’m still feeling good about (the timeline),” said Thomas Fritzel, the Lawrence businessman who is the lead donor for the park and the chief contractor for the project.
Feeling good was the general mood of about 250 KU officials and boosters who gathered for the groundbreaking ceremony for a project that KU Athletic Director Sheahon Zenger said will address 20 years worth of frustrations with facilities for the track, softball and soccer programs.
Still to come: the start of construction of the city’s proposed 181,000-square-foot regional recreation center, which is slated to be adjacent to the KU facilities. City officials are scheduled to receive construction bids for the recreation center on May 14.
The Rock Chalk project — which KU officials have said would cost KU about $40 million to build, but is being constructed and financed by Fritzel and leased back to the university — will include several components:
LJW
KUAD Photo Gallery
Big 12/College News
The time for Marcus Smart's announcement appears to have arrived.
A news conference concerning Oklahoma State basketball has been set for 12:30 p.m. Wednesday in the Student Union Atrium and is open to the public, a team spokesman said.
The topic was not disclosed, but a source indicated Smart and teammates Markel Brown and Le'Bryan Nash will announce they are staying in school instead of declaring for the NBA Draft.
Smart, the Cowboys' freshman point guard and the Big 12 Player of the Year, has spent the past three weeks weighing his decision. He is projected to be a top-five pick in this year's draft.
Tulsa World
The University of Texas played host to a Big 12 Commissioners Panel earlier today, during which current Big 12 Commissioner Bob Bowlsby and former commissioner Dan Beebe answered questions on a range of subjects, including conference realignment. Current Big 12 Deputy Commissioner Tim Weiser was also on hand to field questions.
Bowlsby discussed the summer of 2010, during which it was rumored that the Pac-12 had invited the Texas Longhorns, Oklahoma Sooners, Texas Tech Red Raiders, Oklahoma State Cowboys, and the Texas A&M Aggies to head west. Bowlsby said that no official invites were sent, and that such moves wouldn’t have made geographic sense.
It was somewhat surprising to hear a conference commissioner talk about the importance of geography given that a conference branching outside of its traditional borders to add members is becoming more common. It was more surprising hearing it from the man who ushered the West Virginia Mountaineers into the Big 12. Continuing on the point of geography, Beebe said that location can’t be the only factor, and that where the students attending a school come from was also important.
Beebe used the Colorado Buffaloes as an example saying that they were a good fit in the Pac-12 since many of their students come from the west coast. He also pointed out that the Big 10 adding the Rutgers Scarlet Knights and Maryland Terrapins made geographic sense because it helped connect the Penn State Nittany Lions to the east coast where a large number of their attendees hail from.
Link
How do we make college basketball watchable again?
Tom Izzo thinks he has an answer. He went on a radio show and discussed what he thought were a couple ways that the nationwide scoring drought could be addressed. Namely, reducing the shot clock.
“One of the guys I have great respect for — Johnny Dawkins, who is at Stanford — and we were in our meetings the other day, and he said, ‘We have the slowest game in the world,’” Izzo said. “As you say, the international is less. The pro is less. The women’s is less. And here we are with 35 [seconds].”
The NBA and FIBA use a 24 second shot clock, and women’s college basketball uses a 30 second clock despite the fact that they don’t have a 10 second back court violation.
“It was talked about at our meetings in Atlanta,” Izzo said. He was on the NABC’s Board of Director’s this season. “You know the bureaucracy of committees and what it’s got to do, but I think there is getting to be a growing run at maybe doing that, and I think more coaches are in favor of it.”
This is a topic that has bounced around basketball circles for a while. Will reducing the shot clock in college hoops really have the desired affect, increasing tempo, or will it further erode the quality of play at this level. The argument made against reducing the clock is that NBA possessions quite often devolve into isolations and ball-screen actions, and with so much college talent fleeing for the NBA before their eligibility is exhausted, there isn’t the kind of talent left to be effective in mainly iso’s and pick-and-rolls.
NBC Sports
DraftExpress Early Entry Tracker
CBS NBA Draft Early Entry Tracker
Recruiting
Joel Embiid
Height w/Shoes: 7'0
Weight: 240
Wingspan: 7'5
Andrew Wiggins
Height w/Shoes: 6'8
Weight: 195
Wingspan: 7'0
DraftExpress.com Hoop Summit Measurements
DraftExpress.com: Early International Team Storylines
Another scary prospect is seven footer Joel Embiid who has a ridiculous amount of potential on the defensive end. Embiid put on a clinic in the first practice using his length to block and alter shots, get steals in the post, and physically dominate other post players.
Link
Kentucky may be the most popular choice, North Carolina the most glamorous and Florida State the most likely, but from a strictly basketball perspective, the least talked about finalist of all may make the most sense for Huntington Prep wonder boy Andrew Wiggins.
Even for a Canadian transplant, there’s no place like Kansas.
Ignoring all miscellaneous variables, the birthplace of basketball presents the most appealing collegiate checkpoint for the sport’s fastest-rising star.
KU may not have any one signature selling point to contend with the other three schools, but the net value of its total package is enough to win the Wiggins showcase. More than the stand-alone star power of Kentucky, cachet of North Carolina and familial comfort of Florida State, Kansas hoops has a program, better yet a culture, that unites a combination of the three.
If Wiggins desires a coach capable of producing pros through radically different courses, Rock Chalk Nation is worth a second look. In a decade-long stint in Lawrence alone, Bill Self has coached 24 pros, 18 current or former NBA players and 10 first-round picks, with several more to come this June. He has reared one-and-dones, four-year projects and everything in between. Better than any other coach in the game today, Self has maximized the individual components in his talent trove, both for short and long-term benefit.
If Wiggins values a culture of winning. Kansas, a storied program with a spate of recent success, should garner special attention. The Jayhawks have won nine consecutive Big 12 regular season titles and six of the last eight conference tournament crowns. They’ve made the NCAA tournament in each of the last 24 years — all the while without a player of Wiggins’ ilk — and have reached the Sweet 16 in six of the last seven. They invariably make Final Fours. They win national championships. Don’t forget, KU is a blueblood too.
If Wiggins fancies a strong supporting cast capable of competing for a title, don’t overlook the KU crew. Yes, Kansas must replace all five starters from a 31-win team, but the reinforcements lining up in their wake are ready to step up in true Self-ian fashion. The Jayhawks have an emerging point guard — which is critical to Wiggins — in rising junior Naadir Tharpe plus a returning interior presence with sky-high potential (Perry Ellis) if he can ever finish at the rim. Incoming freshmen Wayne Selden and Conner Frankamp are talented imports on the perimeter and 7-foot fiend Joel Embiid, a late-bloomer, has the highest upside of any center in his class. Bruising big man Jamari Traylor will stabilize the frontcourt rotation, and the soon-to-be sophomore could be in store for a quantum leap in production with available playing time aplenty. Pundits are quick to write off KU as a national threat year-after-year, as talented stars matriculate out of the program, yet the Jayhawks remain one of the most consistent presences in the Top 10 today. The role players are already in place for next season. All Kansas needs is the centerpiece around whom to build. Paging Andrew.
If Wiggins wants to be “the guy” without forfeiting a legitimate chance to win, KU ought to be his future domain. He’d have no prominent competition for floor time or touches in Lawrence, and Self would most certainly tailor his offense to run through the Canadian hotshot. Kentucky has a cavalcade of highly-skilled freshmen competing for touches, never mind a returning sophomore (Alex Poythress) sure to bite into Wiggins’ minutes. North Carolina returns P.J. Hairston and James Michael-McAdoo, two players sure to shoulder a large percentage of the team’s shots next season. At Kansas, Wiggins would have the spotlight to himself, absent the do-or-die expectations at the other two bluebloods.
If Wiggins wants familial comfort, Kansas has him covered. His older brother Nick plays at nearby Wichita State, a two-and-a-half hour drive away.
If Wiggins covets a legacy, James Naismith’s alma Mater can offer quite an opportunity. Wiggins could be the best player (shy of Wilt) to ever suit up at the school responsible for inventing the game of basketball. How’s that for a legacy?
Each of the remaining four suitors for Andrew Wiggins has its own unique bargaining chip. The Jayhawks claim an entire stack. Kansas may not be the next stop on the Wiggins NBA expedition, but it isn’t for lack of a compelling pitch.
Busting Brackets
“If we could get a couple more if they are the right couple, then I think we’d be interested in doing that,” KU coach Bill Self said heading into the spring signing period, which runs today through May 15.
“We’re involved with some guys. I don’t know if it’s a situation where it will probably benefit us if we are able to sign a couple more from a depth standpoint. I’m really happy with the guys we have coming in.”
...Tyus Jones, a 6-1 junior point guard from Apple Valley (Minn.) High, tells USA Today he will have an in-home visit with KU’s Self either Monday or Wednesday. He has a final list of KU, Duke, Michigan State, Minnesota, Baylor, Kentucky and Ohio State.
LJW
Tyus Jones’ heavy recruiting season began last weekend in his home.
The Apple Valley junior, considered by many national recruiting services the Class of 2014’s best point guard, was visited by Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski on his first stop of the April recruiting period. The Blue Devils are considered by many recruiting analysts to be among the front-runners on Jones’ list of seven colleges he’s considering, including Michigan State, Minnesota, Baylor, Kansas, Kentucky and Ohio State.
Duke has yet to offer a scholarship to another point guard in the 2014 class and seems to be in good standing with Jones’ close friend, center Jahlil Okafor at Chicago Whitney Young High. The pair has continually said they plan to play together in college.
Over the weekend, Jones also met with new Gophers coach Richard Pitino, Ohio State’s Thad Matta and Baylor’s Scott Drew. The point guard said he likes Pitino’s energy and vision for the program.
None of the visits led Jones to narrow his list, but he continues to say he would like to make a decision by this fall. He also said he might considering delaying the decision to see how Pitino’s first year with the Gophers begins.
Minn Star Tribune
Recruiters fawning over Apple Valley’s Tyus Jones required the nation’s top-rated junior point guard to implement a new move of misdirection to his repertoire.
Upon each request for his phone number, Jones recites 10 digits that belong to his mother.
“They don’t need to call all day or night. Nothing over the top,” said Jones of college basketball coaches eager for his attention. “I definitely give out my mom’s phone number a lot.”
A change in NCAA rules in October 2011 reformed men’s basketball recruiting practices to allow unlimited contact with players beginning June 15 after their sophomore year. The deregulation unleashed limitless phone calls, text messages, e-mails and private messages on social networks to elite high school athletes such as Jones and other highly sought players.
The NCAA, which believed the changes would help coaches and recruits build stronger relationships and reduce influence of third parties such as AAU coaches, is also considering such deregulation in football and women’s basketball.
To manage the attention, star athletes sometimes utilize parents or coaches as intermediaries, or try to manage when and how often they can be contacted. But with cellphones as indispensable commodities, these teenagers often end up dealing with buzzing and ringing that they either have to answer or ignore.
“All … the … time,” said Rashad Vaughn of the frequency of incoming messages. The Cooper shooting guard, who has yet to narrow his college considerations, said he has received up to 30 messages in a single day. One night in January, he heard from coaches at North Carolina, Louisville, Florida, Iowa State and Baylor.
“It’s nice, I guess,” Vaughn said of the attention. “Sometimes it’s overwhelming.”
…Debbie Jones was ready for the attention directed at her son.
“We had a plan, and that included calling coaches and telling them one text message or one phone call a week is enough,” she said.
Minn Star Tribune
Kaleb Joseph & I were on the phone with Kansas University today. They will be in Dallas this weekend & will be recruiting @kalebjoseph15.
https://twitter.com/RivalsNation
Derby Classic (Frankamp scheduled to participate)
4/18 Night of the Future Stars (3pt and dunk contest)
4/19 Derby Festival Basketball Classic
4/20 Nike Hoop Summit
4/26-4/28 Jayhawk Invitational
2013 Spring/Summer AAU & Camp Schedule
My KU Alumni games, 2011-12 Border War, Legends of the Phog, KC Prep Invitational, & Jayhawk Invitational Videos, Late Night in the Phog, and more now on YouTube
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