Posts Tagged Kevin Young

2012-2013 KU basketball preview and predictions

Posted on: November 12th, 2012 by jayhawktalk 1 Comment

Time for one of my favorite times of the year: way too early predictions! Yes, I’m one of those guys that likes to speak his mind on the team at the beginning of the season so that I can take credit (rare) for such brilliant foresight (or, you know, ignore that I wrote such a terrible prediction piece).

I wrote this piece on November 12, 2011 last year. In that piece, I predicted KU to be a #2 seed in North Carolina’s bracket. Nailed that one. Also predicted we win the league (shocker) and that we’d finally have some good luck in the tourney. In the interest of full disclosure, I also predicted Oklahoma State would be good and that we’d see a lot of Tharpe, so what the hell do I know.

I do think predictions will be much tougher this year. We had a pretty good idea what we had in last year’s group. We knew T-Rob was a beast. We knew Tyshawn had all the talent in the world if he could keep his head on straight. This year there are so many unknowns.

Can Withey function absent Thomas drawing all the defense’s attention? Can Elijah run the offense? How will the freshmen react to playing huge roles right away? There are a million questions.

That’s what makes the predictions for the season all the more fun. Here we go:

(1) Big 12 Champs. Listen, there are challengers once again. But there have been challengers each of the last 8 seasons. Baylor looks phenomenal on paper. K-State will actually be really good. Once again, I’m a fan of Oklahoma State’s team. Texas and West Virginia both look legitimate. But I’m not looking through crimson and blue glasses here. I will not bet against Bill Self. Make it nine straight.

(2) Freshmen will lead. I believe a freshman will lead the Jayhawks in scoring this year. I think it will likely be Perry Ellis early (non-conference) and Ben McLemore late (conference). Perry will be 2nd team Big 12 by the end of the year and Ben will be Newcomer of the Year. They’re two very different players though. Perry is so polished. Ben has the crazy high ceiling. They’re going to be a blast to watch.

(3) Withey. I think KU fans might be expecting a little too much from Jeff this year. I think he’ll have a great year, but he may not meet the expectations some appear to be setting for him. He is a preseason first team all Big 12 selection and probably deserves to be. He can average 12.5 points, 10 rebounds, and 3 blocks per game and be the best player on this team. What he brings to the defensive end cannot be overlooked or replicated. He is a true rim protector and if he rebounds and plays efficiently on offense, he’ll be perfect for this team. And he will be defensive player of the year in the Big 12.

(4) Rotation. We know the starting 5, and I expect it to remain the same all season: Elijah Johnson, Ben McLemore, Travis Releford, Perry Ellis, and Jeff Withey. I believe Kevin Young will be the first man off the bench and will average the most minutes outside the starters. Naadir Tharpe will likely be the first guard off the bench. That makes 7 and generally Self doesn’t go beyond an 8 man rotation. Traylor will certainly get minutes, and I think that leaves Andrew White III and Rio Adams somewhat on the outside in terms of playing time. I think they’ll both play roles, though. Just not regular rotation guys.

(5) Non-Conference Schedule. KU has a 13 game non-conference schedule with marquee games against Michigan State, Ohio State, and Colorado. There are certainly some potential losses in that bunch, and we all saw through the exhibition season that this team will struggle at times. The good news is that this team will improve with every week of practice and should be primed for a great conference season run. I predict the Jayhawks will be 12-1 when Big 12 play opens against Iowa State.

(6) Big 12 Season. I predict we’ll have 4 losses in Big 12 play and will once again win the regular season championship. The Big 12 is strange this year in that there are quite a few teams that are “good” but I’m not sure there are any “great” teams. But here’s the deal. KU has 18 conference games, 9 at home and 9 on the road. At worst, KU wins 8 games at home, and will likely win all 9. That leaves 9 road conference games of which the Jayhawks will be favored in at least 7. I believe 4 losses sounds about right. And it should be enough to at least grab a share of the Big 12, if not win it outright.

(7) Postseason. For all the math people out there, I have thus far predicted 5 losses in 31 tries, which would give the Jayhawks a 26-5 record going into the Big 12 tourney. I believe that will be good enough for a #2 seed in the Midwest bracket. It ought to also be enough to give the Jayhawks a great chance to make a run in the tourney. This is an Elite 8 caliber team and anything above that will be absolutely house money. If McLemore ends up reaching anywhere close to his ceiling, it could be a very special year.

 

 

(8) Defense. They Jayhawks will have the best defense in the nation when Withey is on the court. It may not be all that close. The only weak link is Ellis, but with Withey on his other side, the paint will be covered against most teams. This particular team seems far more advanced on the defensive end early in the season than on the offensive end. They’re only going to improve from here. As I mentioned in my last post, we’ll struggle to score at times this year, but we’ll always be in the game because of defense.

(9) Offensive strategy. The key to Bill Self’s offense is ball movement. When the ball is swinging and the offensive is going inside-out, there will always be a wide open jump shot available. The difference between this team and last year’s team will be whether we settle for that jump shot or attempt to feed the post. We don’t have a replacement for Thomas Robinson. It will have to be a combination of multiple guys that will all need to step up. I said before that I believe Perry could lead us in scoring early and Ben could lead late. Elijah will also be a big factor in scoring. Beyond that, I believe Kevin Young, Withey, and Releford will all be around that 7-13 point range every game. I think the offensive breakdown will actually mirror the 2008 championship team relatively closely, where a different guy will lead in scoring each game.

(10) Overview. As far as expectations, I am somewhat lower on this team than I was last year’s team. I think we’ll struggle at the point guard position and will routinely rely on jump shots. I think we’ll go through periods in games where we just can’t score. The good news is our defense will always keep us in games and Self will have the guys on the same page after the Christmas break.  This is definitely an Elite 8 caliber team with a whole lot of upside. It could be a fun run in 2013.

Enjoy the ride and rock chalk!

 

The Definitive Kevin Young Post

Posted on: December 13th, 2011 by jayhawktalk No Comments

“The Energizer Bunny”

His Community College coach, Reggie Howard, called him the “Quiet Assassin.” Loyola Marymount Head Coach Max Good called him the “Energizer Bunny.” Self called him “bouncy” and compared his skill set to Julian Wright.

So who exactly is Kevin Young?

You might remember him from the first game of the year. Against Towson, Young played 14 efficient minutes going 6-7 from the field with 13 points and 7 rebounds. A pretty impressive output for a guy playing his first official game in Allen Fieldhouse.

Kevin Young about to snag a rebound

Kevin Young goes for a rebound

More likely, you might remember him from the Ohio State game where he had a similar stat line (6-8 from the field, 14 points, and 4 rebounds) in 24 minutes of play. He also took two impressive charges and made the best assist of the game – faking a three pointer and delivering a bullet pass to Robinson for a timely dunk that “energized” the crowd to the loudest it was all game.

Sandwiched in between the Towson and Ohio State games were seven modest performances, where Young averaged only five minutes of playing time and had no significant statistical impact on the game.

Through nine games, Young has shown that with additional minutes comes additional output. So why hasn’t Self played him more?

When a player is beyond the seventh spot on Self’s depth chart, he’ll often come in for a few minutes, and on the first mistake, get pulled not to play much again the rest of the game. Young only has five turnovers on the entire season. His defense has been solid. His energy has been a spark off the bench. And he looks like a guy KU fans will quickly get behind for doing all the little things.

You have to think Young proved to Self that he deserves a longer leash after Saturday’s game. As Self put it, “I haven’t seen that, or if I have seen it, then certainly we’ve made a mistake by not playing him…But that was something today like his coming-out game.”

Perris High, Loyola-Marymount, Barstow C.C.

When Young was a senior at Perris High School (Calif.), he logged three triple-doubles. He averaged a double-double for the season. He grabbed 31 rebounds in a game – twice. At Loyola-Marymount, Young broke the freshman record for rebounds (224) and rebounds per game (7.2). He also broke LMU freshman records for blocked shots and steals.

After his sophomore season at LMU, Young enrolled at Barstow Community College to focus on academics. Once he got those back in line, he signed a grant-in-aid agreement to play for San Diego State. Before he was able to get on the Aztecs campus, the opportunity to play for Kansas arose and Young decommitted to Bill Self.

Steve Fisher vs. Bill Self

Young’s decision to break his grant-in-aid with SDSU in favor of Kansas became somewhat of a national story when Aztecs Head Coach, Steve Fisher, went straight to the media to complain. He told the San Diego Union-Tribune:

I’m disappointed that a young man who I am very fond of would not feel an obligation to honor an eight-month commitment. And I’m equally disappointed in a program and coach I’m very fond of to pursue a player who made an eight-month commitment.

Young had every right to decommit from SDSU as the grant-in-aid he signed did not bind him to the school the way a national letter of intent does. A player is only allowed to sign one letter of intent during his career, and Young had already exhausted that signature with Loyola-Marymount.

Fisher continued, “Unfortunately, the only people who suffer in this situation is us because we passed over three or four very talented players because we did honor our commitment (to Young).”

Interestingly, Self responded to Fisher by telling the Lawrence Journal World:

“I don’t blame coach Fisher for being disappointed at all because Kevin did commit to them…but Kevin also told them he wasn’t going to San Diego State before we recruited him, so we didn’t steal him from San Diego State by any stretch.”

Whether Self and Co. contacted Young while he was “committed” to SDSU is up for debate. Young states that he spoke with Assistant Coach Kurtis Townsend and expressed interest in coming to Kansas in May. Young said that Townsend told him to talk to Fisher before he took a visit to KU.  Once Young spoke with Fisher, he visited Kansas and committed. Whether Townsend contacted Young or Young contacted Townsend is unknown.

Kevin Young Dunking

Kevin Young throws down a dunk against Towson

It also doesn’t matter.

The coaching fraternity is a tight knit group. Self certainly doesn’t want to make a habit of pissing off his brethren. At the same time, Fisher came off as desperate with his comments. The letter of intent is a powerful tool for small schools in small conferences. In this instance, he could not rely on it.

I’d also be remiss not to mention that Fisher was of course fired from Michigan in 1997 when he was the at the helm of one of the biggest college basketball scandals in history. Under his watch, booster Ed Martin allegedly paid Michigan players hundreds of thousands of dollars. In short, Fisher has very little room to be telling off other coaches.

Quiet Assassin

Kevin Young has not said much this year. Perhaps he has made the effort to let his play do the talking. If that’s the case, his play was yelling as loud as the Allen Fieldhouse crowd was on Saturday. Self perhaps put it best when he said, “That’s the Kevin Young we thought we recruited. Maybe this will give him the confidence moving forward. We could use another weapon.”

Another weapon.

Or an assassin.

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