No more pompons for me, just the truth

[Puffdad]

Laziness can be mental or physical.

[xtrawildcat]

Lots of reasons for getting fouls called but the two reasons mak got too many fouls called this year
was pushing with his arms to get rebound position and setting moving screens. Did a lot better the last third of the season.

[Puffdad]

Makol had a steep learning curve when he got to campus this year. The mental picture I have of CW and CL with two hands on his waist guiding Mak on positioning during a live 20 minute scrimmage was shocking to me. I am positive a lot of those concepts were totally new to him. I would bet he hadn’t played much but a town team 2-3 zone in high school or 1 year of juco ball. But he improved and is getting better.

[xtrawildcat]

I have heard both Weber and lowrey in different interviews at the end of the season say mawien is one of the best ball screen defenders in the country. He must have learned well.

[Puffdad]

Not sure he used the words “in the country” for Mak. He did Barry. But here’s a good article showing Weber’s comments and where Makol came from and his improvement.

http://themercury.com/k_state_sports/wi ... 959b4.html

[learnin]

I'm glad this discussion evolved into a discussion about fouls. As Puff stated, I happen to believe the new kid on the block gets targeted for more fouls. Some of it is due to being out of position, reaching, etc. This is, especially, true in high school basketball where fouls are generally called by the book and not by the score. In the College game, it is so physical that refs seldom call by the book. They get criticized by fans for "not letting them play." They also get criticized for taking the best players out of the game because that's who TV viewers want to see. Now, I'll bring this back to topic.

There is a very good chance that Austin will find himself sitting on the bench, early in the game, with two fouls this coming year. This is, especially, true if he is the aggressive player we think him to be. Some of the foul trouble may be due to bad positioning, etc., but I believe some will be due to his "newness" if you will.

[xtrawildcat]

Not sure he used the words “in the country” for Mak. He did Barry. But here’s a good article showing Weber’s comments and where Makol came from and his improvement.

http://themercury.com/k_state_sports/wi ... 959b4.html

This was Webers comments after the TCU game in the Big 12 tournament. He is talking about KSUs defense that held TCU in check during that game:
We've gotten Xavier to believe in it. Mak, I said he's one of the best ball screen defenders in the country, and Dean has great read of things. It's solid.

Since this thread is about Mawien, this is another comment by Weber after that game.
Mak, in fact, John Underwood from the Big 12 said that 14 has come a long way. Mak has slowly and surely become more of an offensive threat, he's rebounding. He is playing hard. He understands it.

Lowrey also said Mak is one of the best ball screen defenders in the country during one of the "Coffee with Chris" interviews.

[xtrawildcat]

This is a sports forum not a cheerleading camp. All views should be freely expressed here. Some opinions vary markedly with others, especially when it comes to evaluating players and their effectiveness on this Kansas State basketball team. Some of us don’t buy the arguments made with 40-minute analytics and using selective games to prove a player’s worth. That’s disingenuous and insulting.

Most posters on this site take a broader look at a season, a player and even a coach. It’s called objective reasoning.

Players are given a fair chance to succeed and help the team, but if one doesn’t measure up to the standards set by the coaching staff, then someone else should be given the opportunity to step in. It’s not difficult from a fan’s perspective to discern who those players might be. It’s

The recruitment of Trice potentially addresses a crucial need that Mawien failed to provide. That’s not a slam on Mawien, it’s just the truth. Makol had 30-something games to prove he could be an effective rebounder from the 5 position, one of the main jobs of a center. He couldn’t do it consistently. No doubt Mawien will play a role on next season’s team, but none of us need the Sunshine Boys to tell us how good he’s going to be. We all saw for ourselves both his potential and his failings. And there was more of the latter than the former.
.

Now, my apologies to other posters on this forum and please don't read this post if you have better things to do. And I am sure you do.
However, since a large portion of the original post in this thread was attacking me for having postive comments about our players and team, I am responding to the comments that caused the last big discussion.

That discussion was about Mawien and it was pointed out that Mawiens problem rebounding was a lack of want to. Quote: There has to be a lot of "want to" when it comes to rebounding. I didn't see much of that last season. My response was maybe we should just say all our bigs should improve their rebounding.
So regarding want to: Mawien finished at 153 on the team on the play hard chart while only playing for 20 minutes a game. Stay out of foul trouble and average 30 minutes a game and he would have led the team at 230. I think maybe Mawien needs to increase his rebounding by working on using his lower body to establish position and work on getting stronger with his hands.

**PLAY HARD CHART.................SEASON.... CAREER
Dean Wade ______________________213 ________59
Xavier Sneed ____________________213 ________359
Barry Brown, Jr. __________________185 ________523
Makol Mawien ____________________153 ________153

[pulitzerdave]

I read through this entire thread trying to figure out what a pompon was, yet I still do not know.

Read the first sentence of my post. I would rather discuss basketball, and how we can improve, rather than gush over players and make them appear better than they are. CHEERLEADING! POMPONS! Not for me.

[pulitzerdave]

some of us have more time on our hands than others, it seems.

as for me, i prefer concise statements to ruffles and flourishes.

I wrote it in about 15 minutes, so fair enough. Here are the bullet points, or Cliff Notes if you will -

We were the worst rebounding team in the Big 12 last year -
We got very little help in that area from the 5 position on the floor -
We filled a need by signing the 4th best rebounder in the JC ranks -
The coaching staff was very jacked about this -
In order to earn minutes, there MUST be rebounding from the 5 position, regardless of who that is.
This JC rebounder needs to play to be productive, otherwise, why did we recruit him. We only have him for two seasons.

That sums it up. I hope that helps.

Oh, and also, I'm not real fond of cheerleading on a forum. I think it should be more of a place for discussion and analysis. If you bask in sunshine too long, you can get burned.