February 22nd, 2012

8 PM CST

Who: Kansas Jayhawks vs Texas A&M Aggies

Where: College Station Texas

TV: ESPN2

Online: ESPN3

FirstRowSports

Radio: Jayhawk Radio (Listings across Kansas)

Welcome to Rock Chalk Talk and your open game thread for the Kansas Jayhawks vs the Texas A&M Aggies. Not going to lie, I'm pretty nervous about this one. Kansas State handed us a nice little gift last night and I hate to see us give it right back just like we did last time Missouri was kind enough to give us an edge. Bill Self needs to have this team 100% focused on taking care of tonight and I hope we can do it in a relatively boring and efficient manner.

Jump in, follow the Hawks and join in with your comments below, don't have an account? Sign up here for free and get in on the discussion. Also, a friendly reminder that you can follow RCT on Twitter and Facebook pages if you prefer. You know what to do, If you like RCT, "like" us.

Rock Chalk and Beak em Hawks!

First off, hats off to Frank Martin and Kansas State. Missouri has three losses on the year, and two of them are to the Wildcats. Part of it is that the Wildcats have a big personnel advantage inside and are a great offensive rebounding team but Frank Martin did a great job coaching, whether it be managing the minutes of Angel Rodriguez, getting the ball to the rim, or telling his guys on a possession in the waning minutes that their opponent was taking the ball out of bounds with only a handful of seconds on the shot clock so you shouldn't foul them. (oh wait that was Frank Haith who did the exact opposite. Coach of the year!)

As for the Jayhawks, Bill Self will no doubt use Missouri's loss as a warning against looking passed Texas A&M. Fortunately, Texas A&M isn't good. While, like everyone, they are more dangerous at home, they are just 3-4 in Big 12 play in College Station. The chance to play spoiler and bullseye on Kansas's back has done weirder things, but the opportunity presented to the Jayhawks should override all that.

Continue reading this post »

Bill Self Press Conference
February 20, 2012
Lawrence, Kan.

Bill Self, Tyshawn Taylor and Thomas Robinson stepped to the mic on Monday to preview the upcoming game against Texas A&M. The theme seems to be defense, low scoring slugfest and NOT overlooking this team heading into Saturday's matchup against Missouri.

Head Coach Bill Self

On low scoring games against Texas A&M:

"It started with Billy (Gillespie). He always tried to muddy the game up and then Turg (Mark Turgeon) was the same way. Of course, with Billy Kennedy, in our first game against them (Texas A&M) here, we labored to make a basket, but they did too. It's got a Big 10-middle-of-the-season type feel to it."

On what he likes about low scoring games:

"That's been a little over-exaggerated because I like it when we make shots and there's some free-flowing action. I do think if you don't play well, you have to find some way to make them (A&M) not play well also. A&M is very good about not letting their opponent not play well."

Continue reading this post »

You could use a lot of different adjectives to describe Kansas Basketball under Bill Self, and none would be as accurate as "consistent." Year after year, the man wins the league and takes Kansas into the tournament as a high (or low, whichever way you want to look at it) seed. Every time we are expected to have a "down" season (See 2006, 2009 and this year) Self's teams still wreak havoc on the league. I need to know how. Immediately. So I've decided to develop some different hypothesis as to why Self and the Jayhawks own the Big 12. Self is a great coach and one of the best in the game. Still, there has got to be a little something that gives Kansas even more of an edge. What is that something?

Theory One - Kansas Simply Has More Talent than Everyone

Let's take a close look at this year's team. We all worried about the talent drop off after losing the Morris twins, TyBrady MorningReed, etc. Oh no. Well, even this year's team is still loaded if we take into account the player's recruiting rankings (the only metric way I have to rank talent). Kansas has a starting five that was highly touted, and better yet, they are all experienced.

Continue reading this post »

February 18th, 2012

7 PM CST

Who: Kansas Jayhawks vs Texas Tech Red Raiders

Where: Allen Fieldhouse Lawrence Kansas

TV: Big 12 Network

Online: FirstRowSports

Radio: Jayhawk Radio (Listings across Kansas)

Welcome to Rock Chalk Talk and your open game thread for the Kansas Jayhawks vs the Texas Tech Red Raiders. Should be an easy hurdle before heading out on the road for a game against A&M. Here's hoping we don't lose our edge for some reason.

Jump in, follow the Hawks and join in with your comments below, don't have an account? Sign up here for free and get in on the discussion. Also, a friendly reminder that you can follow RCT on Twitter and Facebook pages if you prefer. You know what to do, If you like RCT, "like" us.

Rock Chalk and Beak em Hawks!

Bill Self Weekly Press Conference
February 16, 2012

Thursday afternoon Bill Self held his weekly presser. Topics of conversation included Texas Tech, Jeff Withey mania, Tyshawn and his high level of play and the Big 12 title race.

Kansas head coach Bill Self

On Jeff Withey being productive in high school:

"He was a highly recruited kid. We recruited him when he went to Louisville and then he decommits and goes to Arizona. Then the coaching change occurred there when Coach (Lute) Olson retired. He wasn't a McDonald's All-American, but he was certainly in everybody's top 50 or 70 players in the country. Those rankings are important, but really you should look at them three or four years later to see where they all develop. In his class, at this time, he would certainly have to be someone worthy of a McDonald's All-American award or something like that. He's a guy who averaged three minutes a game last year, so it is pretty much out of left field to become the player that he has the last week and a half. Now, it isn't out of left field for him to average nine points and six rebounds. That should be a given. If you are 7-0 and start at Kansas and average 24 minutes, how could you not average nine points and six rebounds? His performance has taken us to a whole different level."

Continue reading this post »

Jordan Tolbert scored 1,000 points and grabbed 1,000 rebounds in high school in Fort Worth, was named All-City, All-District and All-Area as a Senior....and for that was rewarded by being named a 3 star prospect by Rivals, and not only was he not a top 150 guy, he wasn't ranked at his position or even in his state. He had some semi-good to good offers out of high school, such as Arizona State, Creighton and Wichita State, but he wasn't a highly sought after recruit at all.

A half season later it appears that everyone missed. While the Red Raiders certainly aren't good, it's not Tolbert's fault. He has the third highest usage rate in the league, and fourth highest shot percentage. He's the only Red Raider averaging double digits in scoring, and he's done so efficiently, shooting 53.6% from two. He gets most of those shots at the rim, but it's not as big of a split as you would think for someone with that high of a percentage on a team where he's the only weapon. 42% of his shots are two point jumpers and coincidentally he's shooting 42% on those shots, which for the record is better than every regular Jayhawk except for Conner Teahan and Travis Releford, but they take only 11% and 25% of their shots as two point jumpers respectively.

Tolbert has also done a fantastic job at getting to the line, drawing 6.3 fouls per 40 minutes, and has the 6th best free throw rate in the Big 12. In Big 12 play he has kept that part of his game up, ranking 6th in FT Rate in conference play as well. And once he gets to the line he's shooting 71%. Despite all of the attention on him, Tolbert has just a 23.6% TO rate, which is pretty darn good considering Tech as a team turns it over on 25.5% of their possessions. Clearly he is a handful of a matchup, and at 6'7" he is probably too big for perimeter defender Travis Releford to defend, so expect to see a lot of Thomas Robinson on him.

Continue reading this post »

Time to get WAY ahead of ourselves and take a look at what we're looking at with this team right now. It's been covered ad nauseum that this was a Kansas team with lower expectations, but things have certainly changed as the season has progressed.

First we had the emergence of Thomas Robinson as a National Player of the year candidate. Then Tyshawn Taylor went from a highly criticized Dr Jekyll/Mr Hyde type player to a 'can't live without him' type of leader at the point. Yes bad Tyshawn still shows up from time to time but without him this team isn't in the same ballpark as where they currently sit in the conversation.

The latest addition to the growing list of pleasant surprises is the sudden aggressiveness and leadership from junior center Jeff Withey. In all that makes three players that averaged just over 40 minutes a game combined last year, now making huge contributions and finding their time on the bench dwindle to a minimum due to the lack of a consistent bench.

In all that means Kansas currently has one player in the running for National Player of the Year, they probably have two in the running for Big 12 player of the year and while it's probably too little, too late, Jeff Withey could make a strong argument for most improved given his recent surge.

Continue reading this post »