Statistical Rearview: Kansas vs. Baylor, Big 12 Tourney Edition
by Owen Kemp on Mar 12, 2009 2:40 PM CDT
in Basketball
11 comments
For the 2nd time in our last three games we've witnessed what happens when a young team get's the opportunity to take their foot off the gas. Winning the Big 12 regular season wasn't the expectation for this group at the beginning of the season and it seems like even though we were fairly inexperience we played hungry all year for it.
After we locked that up we suddenly changed from a team that jumped out to a lead and hung on, to a team that fell behind and tried to scrape back. Maybe at home that can happen. As we saw with Texas we got over the hump and the crowd provided the energy to maintain. On the road or on a neutral floor though, I don't see that working with this group. Against Tech we never got out of the hole. Against Baylor we made it out but then we quickly fell back into bad habits that put us behind early.
Tough game, tough loss but we weren't going to make a major run in the Big 12 and the NCAA with this team. We're probably looking at a 3 or 4 seed at this point. A 2 is out in my opinion and a 4 is looking more an more likely. Regroup, refocus and get to the 2nd weekend, that's all I can ask at this point realizing expectations at the start of the season are still probably the most realistic. Sweet 16 or bust...that'll make me happy.
Game flow looks like this...
More breakdown and stat recap after the jump...
In terms of the four keys to the game this one was a combination of what we did wrong and what Baylor did right. I guess that is the recipe for an upset. Neither team was great from the field but based on quantity of threes hit the Bears take the edge. Rebounding we did pretty well but there were still 2nd chance points that we can't afford to give up when playing poorly. Defensively we didn't do a whole heck of a lot to bother Baylor as they finished very efficiently in terms of taking care of the ball.
In terms of player impact this is yet another example of our two leaders just not showing up. Sherron was clearly bothered by the leg injury he sustained early in this one and Cole seems to simply dissapear at times against less than stellar competition. Sure his 14 rebounds are a good looking stat but I wouldn't have expected anything less with the way Baylor likes to shoot. The inability to shoot effectively from outside let Baylor pack it in inside and pretty much eliminated Cole offensively. All in all not a recipe for success when it comes to this team.
From a team stat standpoint a 32% shooting night beyond the arc hurts against a sagging 2-3 zone. We really played right into what they wanted to do today and it's hard to imagine winning when we shoot a mere 40% from the field. Honestly a pretty solid job in other areas and Baylor definitely came back down to earth after a hot start. All this says to me is this was more about us losing than Baylor winning.
Looking at the player stats we went back to our more standard 8 man rotation that we saw during much of conference play. I'm kind of surprised we never saw a move made for Travis Releford in this one. Not much that deserves mentioning, Collins was 6-20 and Cole only took 5 shots. Tyshawn Taylor and Marcus Morris continue to improve and show flashes but they aren't to the point of leading yet. One other area that is a little surprising is Cole with only 29 minutes. I honestly can't remember the last time he played that little in a game. Makes me wonder if Coach Self was trying to conserve him for later rounds...doesn't matter now.
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The good news
We can spend an entire week discussing Spring Football and Beisbol.
I think it goes without saying – but I’ll say anyway – As Collins goes, so do the rest of the ’Hawks. This is almost never a good thing. And Collins is not exactly a Michael Beasley, Kevin Durant, or even a Carmello Anthony – I guess Blake Griffin could be tossed in there as well…
You cannot expect Collins to walk onto the court and just dominate everyone who plays him. Now, Collins can take over a game now and then, but we can’t expect it.
I know this is Collins’ team. But the most important word there is Team, not Collins. I’m not saying that Collins is overly selfish or that he isn’t a leader but he has to realize that in order for him to take over a game like he so desperately wants to, he’s needs to find a way to be a point guard.
We’re running a shooting guard at point. In order for a shooting guard to get open you have to have someone running the point who is savvy and lacks the impetuousness of Collins. When Collins is cool, he can kick it around and act as a point guard by proxy. When the balls out of his hands he lapses into a role of a 2 guard which to me is his natural position. At that point when the ball is put back into his hands he can use all of his tools and he’s deadly, no doubt. He gets in trouble (and by extension, the Jayhawks) when at the times “Collins’ Team” needs a point guard he’s playing the role of the trigger happy shooting guard.
So I guess the point of all this is, does anyone think we can sneak Jacques Vaughn into the NCAA tournament?
The Snozberries taste like Snozberries
Added factor
I think its pretty obvious looking at the game that the leg injury Cole has is bothering him worse than the coaching staff is letting on. If thats the case, it might not be that bad to get a week of rest of him and practice for everyone else before the tourney.
Sucks to lose our Big XII tourney streak, but the season is already a success and now we can just watch a lot of good basketball until we see the Hawks again.
by 2.1 seconds left on Mar 12, 2009 3:39 PM CDT reply actions
No doubt
Had I taped the game, I might have gone back and tallied how many of his rebounds were caught flat-footed. He really can’t move very well right now which both limits his defensive impact* and exacerbates his difficulty passing out of double-teams.
*Is it possible he was underrated defensively much of the year? This is four out of five games the Hawks have struggled defensively.
SUCKS...
What a disappointment….not sure what role, if any, the fouls played in the game…but only 25 fouls for the whole game is almost unheard of now…the fouls were even…but that doesn’t mean it was fair…..
Either way…a 3 seed KU will be and that’s nice…u play 14 seed, then 6 or 11, and then 2…no #1 seeds until the elite eight…
good luck.
yeah...right when the game ended...
I thought to myself it seemed like the refs let em play and then watching K-State v Texas it was the same thing it seemed. The refs are swallowing the whistles which I generally don’t have a problem with.
Looks like you guys are the lone remaining representative from the North…really blows all of our arguments that the North was improved this year. Good luck the rest of the way since I guess we won’t be playin it’s safe to say that now.
Some people are like Slinkies...not really good for anything but they make you smile when pushed down the stairs.
THE WHISTLE...
We’ll see about the referrees swallowing their whistles when if it comes to Missouri’s pressure defense…if you let Missouri get into people’s chest without calling fouls they’re almost unbeatable….but I suspect that when Missouri plays a “good” team, the whistles wil start again…
Easy one tonight…Tech has got to be exhausted….
I'm fairly confident the crews change for the evening session...
hell they may even switch between games.
Some people are like Slinkies...not really good for anything but they make you smile when pushed down the stairs.
it's gonna be a hell of a long wait til Sunday now...
but through reading a lot of these posts and hearing some of the talking heads on ESPN, it seems like maybe this could still work out for the best.
for starters they get a whole week to rest, and God knows we have 2 very important players who would seem to benefit astronomically from that. as it would seem to shake out now (and obviously a lot can happen so yes, this is very premature), KU looks like a possible 3-seed or at the very least the top 4-seed. i think that puts them in the one quadrant that’s always “loaded”, but at the same time not as top-heavy. for instance, if they get lumped in with Memphis, Washington and Wake Forest or something like that, yea it’s tough, but at least they would avoid the Pitt’s and UConn’s of the league, and now they hopefully come in a little under the radar as opposed to the overly confident bunch that we’ve seen over the last week.
2nd, and this kinda goes along with that last sentence, i loved this quote from Self right after the game:
“Today’s a reality check. The first thing we’re doing is going back, as soon as we get through at the hotel, and we’re going to go to school and make all the players walk around class tomorrow with all the other students wondering why the heck they’re back here already.” …“And then we’re going to practice as hard as we’ve ever practiced the next two days and get them thinking about that as opposed to worrying about what just happened,” he said.
so basically, i think those 2 things could very well add up to next weekend’s Jayhawks being as dangerous as they’ve been all season… Self will see to it that the Kool-Aid they were drinking the last 8 days is BURNED AND CONVERTED TO FUEL FOR THE DEFENSE OF THEIR NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP.
I think you hit on a good point here...
I do think once we won the conference and we went from a young Kansas team to one of “the best stories in college basketball” this team might have lost their edge. They might have drank the kool aid themselves.
The last 2 weeks have brought this thing back to earth and if you’ve watched TV or logged onto the internet today you can’t get away from our “major upset” so hopefully these guys take a cue and become remotivated.
I’m not crazy to think this thing is a championship caliber squad but in a one and done scenario you never know. We’ve been battle tested, sometimes we’ve passed, sometimes we’ve failed. Time to see what that’s made us into.
Some people are like Slinkies...not really good for anything but they make you smile when pushed down the stairs.
+1 Danny
the alcohol has worn off a little and you have eased my wounds a litttle, just a little
by I need more Esteban on Mar 12, 2009 5:36 PM CDT up reply actions
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