Interesting comment by Weber on Kaosi in press conference

[xtrawildcat]

Good discussion. Thanks
We play Baylor and Freddie Gillespie on Monday. He was a walk on from a small college. He is athletic and long but then used individual drills to develop a lot of his game. Mikan drills and lots of close in form shooting to develop touch around the rim and now has a jump shot out to 12 to 15 feet that has to be guarded.. Scott Drew did a heck of a job developing him but he was also a guy with the physical ability, desire and intelligience to quickly become one of the very best big men in the Big 12.

A couple of my thoughts.
1. Although I like big guys that can shoot a three in order to spread the defense, most coaches don't want that and also have smaller guys to shoot from range. Looks to me like bigs now have a lot of open 15 foot jump shots during games as defenses collapse on drivers. A big that can knock down that shot at a high percentage has a lot of value. (Stockard has added value to our offense with that shot but needs to be more proficient with it.)

2. A big man should be able to score against one on one defense every time he gets the ball in the paint. Every big needs to come up with one or two go to shots that are hard to defend and work on them til they are a factor other teams have to defend with double teams.. IE: jump hook, short fade away jumper, Sikma, spin. Become great at that one move so defenses have to defend it and it opens up counter moves and open looks for other players .

[tmcats]

before i got to the end of your post, xtra, i thought of jack sikma. 6'11" guy who might have been the first with a true three-way game as you define it. obviously, dean wade had it too.

[bindweed]

I find it very strange Bruce saying Mak has energy some night's and some night's he doesn't. That's not normal for a healthy young man. Maybe it's more of a medical condition. Such as blood sugar's out of normal or a really poor diet. Also maybe he is bipolar and that can be treated with medicine.

[tmcats]

mak has really brought it the last couple of games. hopefully, that continues as his career draws to a close. when he's good, k-state is a tough out.

[Gorhoops]

I find it very strange Bruce saying Mak has energy some night's and some night's he doesn't. That's not normal for a healthy young man. Maybe it's more of a medical condition. Such as blood sugar's out of normal or a really poor diet. Also maybe he is bipolar and that can be treated with medicine.

Not going to lie, it seems strange to me also. Coach Weber said after the OU game that Mak won the opening tip the other night, but at OU a few weeks ago he lost the opening tip to the same guy. Weber said he can tell if Mak has energy by just how aggressive he attacks the opening tip.

That is pretty strange. Lots of things come to mind. Like you said, is it diet, etc?? Really weird.

That was a bit of my point about not putting it squarely on the development by the coaches with a guy like Mak. He could have some medical condition that requires he use medication and that medication could obviously affect his energy levels. Hard to say. It might just be that he is just a naturally sluggish person that always is borderline asleep. We all have had people like that we know.

Now, that doesn't change the fact that he can't catch the ball very well, or handle it well once he does have it. He can be half asleep when he plays, but if he could catch and finish, it would be fine by me.

[tmcats]

who knows what these guys see on social media? all the negative vibes directed at mak would wear on me as well. i think they get way more blowback than we comprehend. and some guys aren't going to handle that. some may react well, others are de-motivated. that's one reason i hate seeing negativism on boards like this. might make me ill as well. they do get read.

[Section 12-2]

Mak has shown that he can be a real force on offense. Why that doesn't happen more often I don't know.

[epicsnyder]

Training table. Nutritionist. Position Coach. Head Coach. Strength Coach. Sports psychologist. Athletic Training. Academic advisors. Counselors......... and on and on and on.........if there were issues in any of these areas, they would have presented themselves by now and either been addressed, or moved on from.

Mak is Mak. He looks good one moment. He performs worse than a Manhattan High JV girl the next. It's just who he is. None of the above is going to matter at this point. We all played with guys like this. Shine one moment. Shite the next. Anyone expecting consistency out of the young man is delusional. After this many minutes in uniform, he has proven he can't be a go to guy on a consistent basis. I am sure he's a great kid, but it is what it is. I hope he gets his degree in something he can actually gain positive employment in and leaves the university having had a mostly + experience here.

And if he, or anyone else on the team, wastes their time being affected by social media, they have no business playing P5 sports. Anyone that puts themselves out there by being in the public eye these days will eventually receive some negativity. It's the mainstay of society that has been progressing since the narcissist phone was invented paving the way for the look-at-me-look-at-me culture we now live in. There's good and bad. They love the good, and piss and moan about the bad. If you can't handle the bad, pull up your diaper, take your ball, and go home. D1 sports and the scrutiny that comes with being on that roster just isn't for you.

[tmcats]

remembering how young these guys makes me question the effect social media may have on them. we have guys here going off at one another over silly sports arguments. imagine getting messages that say: you're a wasted scholarship; why don't you transfer to d6?; when are you going to contribute? i know they get a lot of negatives. remember, they're teens or slightly older.

[IStillLikeHarv]

before i got to the end of your post, xtra, i thought of jack sikma. 6'11" guy who might have been the first with a true three-way game as you define it. obviously, dean wade had it too.

I remember watching Sikma in the Illinois State High School tournament. He was very skilled, but he was also a skinny 6' 8" as a senior in high school. He was one of the more amazing physical transformations in college -- and that was not due to the high tech stuff used today. He was huge by the time he left college.