Kansas State Defeats Baylor 69-61: Thoughts & Questions
by Joe Loyd on Jan 25, 2011 7:15 AM CST
in Big 12 Basketball
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PrintKansas State beat Baylor last night in Manhattan by a score of 69-61. The game was basically a must win for K-State as their NCAA Tourney hopes could be argued rested in the balance. Instead of a full recap I thought some observations and questions might in order after watching that game.
As usual whether you agree or disagree (more likely) with me please let me know in the comments section.
- (1.) Bobby Knight and Brent Musburger still are not good announcers and made me happy I was not able to watch the whole game. I guess its good to have an announcer (Knight) point out obvious things and complain about players and tell us ad nauseum about shot fakes. Why does Knight continue to want to announce? Why does ESPN let him? Why did I continue to listen to him?
- (2.) The Preseason "stars" of Jacob Pullen and LaceDarius Dunn went a combined 8 for 30 from the floor. In my opinion neither player can create their own shots the way a true star can, they need a true PG playing in the backcourt with them. Makes me appreciate just how much Tweety Carter and Denis Clemente meant to these clubs.
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Your #8 is the question that intrigues me the most.
Glad I came, just wish I hadn't stayed so long.
People ask me what I do in winter when there’s no baseball...Rock Chalk Talk
And the best guess right now is a definite
NOPE
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At the time I voted
It was 26 votes for Pullen, 25 for Lace. Talk about right downt he middle…
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Agreed.
The losses of Carter and Clemente for these teams were bigger than most people thought. Both team’s turnover rates have gone from mediocre to godawful minus their primary ballhandlers from last season. And here we see a case study for why experience at the point guard position is so important: AJ Walton turns the ball over at a 33.7 percent clip. And who the hell IS K-State’s point guard?
Lots of people are saying this...
and it’s not like I didn’t think Tweety or Clemente were good, but were they THAT good that they are the reason these teams are failing? In college, schools lose guys every year, stars, yet they are able to rebound. And it isn’t like Tweety or Clemente were All Americans. KU lost Sherron Collins, who i would say would be as important to the Jayhawks as either of thee guys and they seem to be doning fine. Baylor also got Perry Jones and still has Lace. K-State still has Pullen and Kelly etc. There is talent there.
I just dont get it.
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Yes.
Losing a good point guard hurts a lot more than losing a star player at the two or three. You’re talking about probably the most difficult position to play, the one with the highest learning curve. Good wing players are a dime a dozen, but good point guards are very difficult to find.
disagree on bobby knight
i wouldn’t say he’s a skilled announcer persay, but i find the way he analyzes the game like a coach fascinating, and he’s not afraid to point out what a team or player is doing wrong, which is something that really annoys me about most game announcers
capital letters suck.
Bobby Knight
I would like to sit next to him at a game and listen to him tell me the intricacies of the game happening that would be great. But from an announcing viewpoint I find him to be a cranky old man, some of his analysis is very good, but its sprinkled in with talking about how dumb the players are playing on the floor and him wanting to go back and call all his old players who were smart and thank them for being smart.
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Don't forget that both Clemente and Carter were senoirs.
They were cagey, experienced veterans who knew the ins and outs of Big 12 conference play. And both were quite talented. That made them ideal leaders for their teams. I don’t think it was mere coincidence that both those teams just happened to have great runs when their point guards were seniors. They had the great runs BECAUSE their point guards were seniors and they happened to have good players at the other spots too.
Not saying you have to have seniors at the point to have a great run, but it sure helps.
Marty
For two more examples...
Look at how much better Colorado and Nebraska are this year with senior point guards Corey Higgins and Lance Jeter leading them.
Hrmm, if their improvement is due in large part to senior point guard leadership, then you might expect both of those teams to return to their traditional bottom dwelling next year. But sadly we won’t get to see if that happens because both teams are leaving the Big 12.
Oh well.
Marty
So maybe I'm wrong
I actually just looked it up and through 21 games last season K-State is off by 3 wins, and through 19 games last year BU is off by 2. I would concede that Denis and Tweety are worth 3 and 2 wins respectively.
By the way, the fact they are only off 2 and 3 wins really shocked me. I thought it’d be a lot more. From here on out, BU and K-State each only lost 2 additional regular season conference games. I suspect that BU and K-State might lose more than that this season.
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Yeah, I thought it would have been more than that too.
Funny what preseason expectations can do to your outlook on teams.
Marty
Strength of schedule matters too.
Against the KenPom top 100, by this date.
2010 Baylor 4-4
2011 Baylor 1-6
2010 KSU 8-3
2011 KSU 4-7
So it's not really 2-4 games out of 18 or 21 that we're talking about,
but the games against quality competition… Those lost games are indicative of a pretty serious dropoff of quality.
Yep
good call. I didn’t have time to look that up, though I did scan through Baylor’s games and hadn’t heard of half the schools.
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