Five points from TJR in Florida, not even
necessarily related to each other.
1. I'm guessing it may be time to move on from Desouza.
He played a role in 2018 FF run, (as a surrogate for Billy Preston who was
fixing his car while Preston's mother was blowing Adidas reps in hotel rooms)
but what has he done since then? I mean we started out by paying off Turgeon for DeSouza's nefarious deal w/ Maryland. Talk about getting a poison apple from a poison seed........! Problem is, some of frontcourt help looks pretty raw. Muscadin could be four year project, i.e. not at all ready to contribute next year other than garbage minutes. (recall Withey's first year at KU or first half of Cole Aldrich's freshman year.)
but what has he done since then? I mean we started out by paying off Turgeon for DeSouza's nefarious deal w/ Maryland. Talk about getting a poison apple from a poison seed........! Problem is, some of frontcourt help looks pretty raw. Muscadin could be four year project, i.e. not at all ready to contribute next year other than garbage minutes. (recall Withey's first year at KU or first half of Cole Aldrich's freshman year.)
2. Which way rest of season goes after loss of DeSouza
should tell us a whole lot. KU barely beat Tennessee at home in what should
have been an unholy massacre. That was just one game however and sometimes
teams gel over something like this, ala Billy Preston if you care to remember
that team which looked very vulnerable on paper, but won conference and went to
FF, behind Newman Graham and Svi.
3. If KU can hang tough and continue to improve the
freshmen, such as Braun and Enaruna, Baylor is very vulnerable. Notice from
Baylor's scores that even as the opponents have gotten worse, the games have
still tightened up.
4. Is DeSouza incident enough to burn Lightfoot's
redshirt? It might be another opportunity for Lightfoot to finish up on a good
note. If memory serves me correctly his first huge chance was when Billy
Preston ( not sure why I'm stuck on BP) shit the bed, but Lightfoot did nothing
there to instill confidence. Then he got another chance last year w/ Azubuike
hurt and second time around I think Self kinda/sorta gave up on him, when
Lightfoot floundered yet again. This could be a chance to redeem himself, but
then what happens come tourney time when DeSouza comes riding back in as the
knight in shining armor?
5. OK it's hard for me to say this, but KU needs to
consider moving on from Self. For a number of years the recruitment just little
by little inched downward but then seemed to right itself. We now know or
suspect that that correction was the Adidas money starting to flow. I believe
first year was likely Wiggins, Embiid, and Selden class. Anyway the type of
people coming into the program should make us all shudder, and KU in many cases
is even cheating to sign THEM. The poor quality person idea first came up for
discussion w/ Vick and Carlton Bragg class. Brannen Greene, Josh Jackson, and a
few others have really stunk things up as to the character of our players. Self is a pretty good in-game coach and excellent at developing three or four star guys
over several years. What he is NOT excelling at is signing two marquee guys
every year which is what you need in current setup. I have no idea who I'd
replace him with but I'd start by talking to Danny Manning, Greg Marshall, Mark
Turgeon, and maybe an up and coming assistant at UNC or in Lexington.
(Turgeon, bottom right, maxes out on height 1974)
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