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Jaden Nickens Update

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On3's Steve Wiltfong logged a prediction this afternoon for 4-star senior WR Jaden Nickens to choose KU. Per his reports, Nickens would be committing for both football and hoops - similar to what former KU commit/current Buffalo Bill Keon Coleman did before ending up at Michigan State.

Nickens is a former OU commit but decommitted back in March.

Any legitimacy to this?

Story Posted Leipold shared a comment with team from a KSU coach, bye-week plans

Leipold and his staff face a challenge after so many close losses, to find a way to keep getting their team up to play games. He shared with his team a comment from a KSU coach after the game and plans for the bye-week.

Kansas Trio on Naismith Trophy Player of the Year Watch List


LAWRENCE, Kan. – The Kansas trio of Hunter Dickinson, Dajuan Harris Jr. and AJ Storr have been named to the Naismith Trophy Men’s College Player of the Year Watch List, the Atlanta Tipoff Club announced Thursday.

A total of 49 are listed on the Naismith Trophy Watch List and Kansas and Baylor are the only schools with three student-athletes on the list.

Dickinson, Harris and Storr are vying to become the third Kansas Jayhawk to win the Naismith Trophy joining Danny Manning (1988) and Frank Mason III (2017).

Dickinson is the Preseason Big 12 Player of the Year and on most preseason All-America teams. Following the 2023-24 season, the Alexandria, Virginia native was named a 2024 Consensus All-America Second Team, All-Big 12 First Team and the Big 12 Newcomer of the Year selection. Dickinson was the only player in the Big 12 to average a double-double (17.9 ppg, 10.9 rpg) last year.

A 2023-24 transfer from Michigan, Dickinson has 2,208 career points, 1,148 career rebounds and 196 career blocked shots heading into the 2024-25 season. He has 48 career double-doubles, including 17 at Kansas in 2023-24. Dickinson is the only active player in NCAA Division I to have 2,200 or more career points and 1,100 career rebounds.

A three-time All-Big 12 selection and three-time Big 12 All-Defensive Team honoree, Harris was the 2023 Big 12 Defensive Player of the Year. The Columbia, Missouri native has started each of the last three seasons, including the 2022 NCAA National Championship team. A three-time Academic All-Big 12 selection who graduated from KU in May 2023, Harris ranks fourth on the KU career assists list with 676 and sixth on career steals with 215 and he is one of just four all-time Jayhawks to have 600 assists and 200 steals (Aaron Miles, Kirk Hinrich, Darnell Valentine). Harris led the Big 12 in assist-to-turnover ratio in 2022 and 2023.

Storr transferred to Kansas from Wisconsin following the 2023-24 season. The Rockford, Illinois native played his freshman year at St. John’s in 2022-23. Last season, Storr was named to the 2024 All-Big Ten Second Team where he led Wisconsin with 16.8 points per game, a 43.4 field goal percentage and 81.2 free throw percentage. He was named to the 2024 Big Ten All-Tournament Team where he averaged 22.5 points in four games, including a career-high 30 points in a win against Northwestern in the quarterfinals.

Is there a world where Lubick would take a co-coordinator role and coach the WRs?

Receiver play has dropped off quite a bit this year.

Yet their on the field play is freaking amazing in comparison to Terrence Samuel's off the field contributions as a recruiter.

I don't know that Samuel is owed anything if KU were to walk away.

I believe Lubick makes around 300 to 350k or so in his current role. He has concurrently coached WRs while serving as OC in the past.

Seems too good to be true, and it probably is.

Lubick is great friends with his HC, who held a job open for him before it was known if he would be well enough to do it. I have no idea if Grimes would listen to/work well with Lubick. Also could rub Z the wrong way.

In any case, will be interesting to see if Lance sticks with Terrence moves on, whether Lubick is an option or not.

There will be changes to the staff. I predict two or three will be let go/reassigned and one will be poached. Hope LL has an idea of who he wants and the resources to make it happen.
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tickets for weekend of November 8-9

2 seats for UNC basketball game on November 8, Section 7 row 26 seats 3-4 (aisle seats). Camera stand behind you so have a back to lean against when sitting and can stand without blocking anyone's view. Between top of key and 3pt arc across from visitor's bench. Includes parking pass to lot 90 and 2 hospitality passes to the DeBruce Center so can get in 90 mins in advance of tip off. Pay for your own food and drink but have bar and different food selections than you find even with the new concessions. seats running from $700 to $900 on SeatGeek, StubHub and Ticketmaster.

Selling the whole package - 2 seats, parking, 2 hospitality passes for $1400. Message me if interested. Will throw in 2 seats in Section 101, row 37, seats 26 & 27 plus parking if want the full KU experience that weekend. Please don't take the football tickets if you aren't going to use them.

Tickets for North Carolina game

2 seats Section 7 row 26 seats 3-4 (aisle seats). Camera stand behind you so have a back to lean against when sitting and can stand without blocking anyone's view. Between top of key and 3pt arc across from visitor's bench. Includes parking pass to lot 90 and 2 hospitality passes to the DeBruce Center so can get in 90 mins in advance of tip off. Pay for your own food and drink but have bar and different food selections than you find even with the new concessions. seats running from $700 to $900 on SeatGeek, StubHub and Ticketmaster. Selling the whole package - 2 seats, parking, 2 hospitality passes for $1400. Message me if interested.
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Some random observations

- Logan Brown is an NFL guy. He dominated yesterday.

- That was the least imposing line I've seen from KSU in a long time. KU dominated the line of scrimmage on defense, just had one run inside that broke past the linebackers and the outside run to Edwards that was pure speed.

- Our guys were ready to play and played with fire. Lots of skirmishes and talking. I like that we got to this point in this particular season and wanted to take the fight to KSU and think it is dumb that any of our fans are talking down on them for not "earning" the right to talk.

- Skinner drop is going to go down in our history in the same breath as the Rich Miller drop. Simply incomprehensible that guy doesn't make that play.

- Wudke had a really solid game yesterday. Made a lot of plays and blew up plays where he isn't credited with the tackle.

- I know this will get me lynched on here, but I thought Grimes and Borland both called good games overall. Sure, a play here and there that I would have done differently, but on the whole I thought really well called games.

- Marvin Grant on the blitz was a revelation. Got home twice on the fastest QB we will see. Maybe more of that.

- That pansy ass pop pass BS to their tight end drives me crazy. Play real football, you cowards.

- I had a feeling at some point this season that not having a more confident kicker was going to bite our ass, and didn't know when it would happen. That was bad timing. I thought the dagger to my heart was going to be getting in position to make a last second field goal and missing it, but we never got there.

- JD was good, not great. Obvious mistakes. Also some absolute dimes. And ran hard and well. I may be in a minority, but I'd really like to see him back again next year and see what we can do with him with a year in the system.

- I think we should be playing Trevor Wilson over Lawrence Arnold. He's earned it.

- Grimm and Neal are two of the best I have ever seen at KU at their positions, and it is a shame that we can't close out games in their twilight of their careers. I don't think they will be truly and fully appreciated until they are gone.

- I am glad that we have another year with Dean Miller on the weak side. Him, Brooks, Warner--we are going to have a great rotation there and really get pressure on the QB going forward after this year.

- Getting really old to have the better team on the field and not come away with wins. It is almost impossible to have the season we've had this year.

- Finally, I know fans are upset and frustrated--Lord knows that I am too. But I wish our fans responded to things just a little more rationally and less emotionally at times. I mean, I was emotional as heck last night--those of you I was texting with certainly know that. But acting like Leipold suddenly can't coach after everyone agreeing he's the best coach we've had, maybe ever, is ridiculous. He'll figure this out. It isn't going the way we wanted, but it also is impossible to build a program in a day. This part sucks, the sustained winning that I hope comes after won't. And if two years from now we still can't close out a half and are the better team but losing on a regular basis, we can revisit this discussion and you all can shove it in my face. But we look like idiots on social media right now and the Slant isn't a lot better.

- Can't wait to ruin the season for one or both of Iowa State and BYU. I have supreme confidence we win at least one of those games. Still holding out a smidge of hope this next bye week finishes the turnaround and we win out (I know you'll all think I am crazy).

A potential interesting roster dilemma

I've been on the side of liking this roster on paper quite a bit all off season, and for the most part my biggest concern has been how will Self use this roster to play good enough defense to win at the highest level in March.

Now that the season is upon us we will soon find out. The thing that I find myself thinking is that the roster has plenty of great pieces but how to best fit them together is going to be interesting:

1. You have your 3 returning starters which is always great to have in today's game because of the valuable experience they bring playing together in this system. However, playing all three of HD, KJ and Juan 30+ minutes per game is not going to work best because they don't compliment each other very well. Self has already stated that he wants to reduce the amount of minutes all 3 of them play to under 30, but how low is he willing to go, especially with KJ in my opinion.

2. You brought in 3 very highly regarded transfers in AJ, Rylan and Zeke who provide a lot of what we lacked last year which is perimeter scoring and outside shooting. They should all help with spacing for HD and KJ in the paint, especially when it's just one of those two playing in the paint at a time. However, it could take a couple months for them to really click at KU. All 3 might have to deal with the same challenges simultaneously of being in a new system.

3. We brought in 2 SR point guards to help Juan, which was badly needed but they are opposites skill wise and I'm not sure you can play them together much. Coit is an offensive spark potentially but he's 5'8" which might cause him to get exposed pretty badly on the defensive end at times. Moore is a lock down defender and athlete but he's kinda like Juan in that he's not much of a scorer so who knows if they can play together for long stretches?

4. The two freshman appear to have very high ceilings and might be our best athletes but they are freshman so it's completely up in the air as to how much they will contribute this year. Clemence and McDowell are probably at the end of the bench.

I think figuring out the best combination of players that compliment each other will be a huge task this year. I do think the right combination is on this roster but will we find it, will they gel, and will Self actually use it substantially, even if it means playing the returning players a lot less potentially. I hope so, but it very well could require some tough decisions to be made about the minutes distribution.

Coordinator moves in conference

It appears both UCF and WVU have fired their D Coordinators. I don’t expect HCLL to make any moves mid season, but unreached expectations often generate change at some point.

I think the earlier recruiting windows really force earlier action with coaching moves. It will be interesting to watch all the coaching moves as we move closer to the end of the season.

Teams used to hold on to some coaches until after signing day because they didn’t want to lose their recruits, but with no NLI and open transfers, there really is no longer any leverage for teams.

After watching Arkansas Game Replay

I know Self just wanted to experiment but I think we would have won if we would have done these few things differently:

-Only played KJ and Flory at the 5 and split the minutes between just them two. They both looked good playing inside but not always together. Clemence was terrible and contributed more to Arkansas then he did KU.
-our starting backcourt unit with Harris, Mayo and Storr got subbed out every time they started showing signs of clicking together. Storr and Mayo just need to find their confidence and stay aggressive (which they will)
- Passmore and Coit could have been solid as bench pieces for stretches but McDowell and Clemence just flat out need to get better or they aren't gonna play. McDowell likely redshirt anyway.
-Not concerned with athletic ability or shooting once the top 7-8 gets 95% of the minutes and learns to play together, takes the right shots, and runs sets designed to maximize individual strengths. Open shots will be there once HD is back in the middle. Hope we play a lot of 4 out 1 in, because we have the pieces to do it.
-Think about the upside of Flory and Passmore and how they can contribute later on defensively and athletically. Passmore can even knock down a few outside shots perhaps. Wish they could have taken all of Clemence and McDowells minutes.
- Coit has moxy and will surely help us but he will need to learn when to not play hero ball. Love his confidence and wish we would have played some 3 guard lineups with him, Harris and Mayo for a few just to see how fast we could play. I'm sure Self will try this at some point, because that will be hard to defend.
- How did they shoot 5 times as many free-throws as us? My guess, Storr and Mayo weren't as aggressive as they will be later on, and Moore should be able to help draw fouls as well.

NEGATIVES:
-Gonna take awhile to find the right combinations of guys I'm afraid and a lot is riding on Storr and Griffen buying in defensively in my opinion. Their scoring will come along as they have proven it at the highest levels already. Defense is my main concern right now, but I'm encouraged by what Flory can do as a paint protector in time..
-Mayo has to stay aggressive, if he loses confidence while trying to adjust to playing at this level we will NOT play at our peak until it clicks for him. Thankfully, I saw enough personally that I think he will get there and I don't believe there's a Timberlake type problem with him. More like a Remy problem, where he's got so much adjusting to do that I hope he can get there by February??
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