[Utopia]

Well Kansas just got annihilated in Provo by 34 pts – Bill Self’s worst ever loss at Kansas. I think it’s safe to say they are not a top-25 team right now and at this rate might even end up on the bubble. Self seemed weirdly unbothered in the Utah postgame presser as if he isn’t surprised or disappointed in these mediocre/bad performances.

This conference is very top heavy with a substantial drop off after the top 4.

[Utopia]

One interesting connection between K’s last season and this season is Caleb Lohner, who was a Freshman in 20-21.

I had wondered if Lohner had not flipped to TDS, would he have made enough of a difference to result in a record that might have saved K’s job for another season. The 20-21 team’s regular season record was 11-12 with 8 of those losses being within 9 pts. That team’s frontcourt lineup was Allen, Carlson, Jantunen, Battin. Lohner averaged a solid 7pts 7reb (24mpg) in his Freshman season on a good TDS team (19-5) that made the tourney, which indicates he was a productive role player, especially defensively. If half of Utah’s <9pt losses are flipped, that puts them at 15-8 – decent/good, not great. Enough to save K’s job for another year? Possibly…but I doubt it would have been enough to change the growing sentiment that he had stagnated, had a concerning trend of losing key players every year, and that fans were ready for a change.

[Utopia]

The Dawes dynamic continues to be so frustrating and confounding. He is the only the player on this team with quality size and athleticism and is the most consistently and efficiently productive player and yet he isn’t even consistently playing 20 min. At this point I will be very surprised if he doesn’t transfer. He will have plenty of interest/offers from better programs and he would be completely justified in thinking there are better opportunities for him.

[Utopia]

I really didn’t intend to keep this topic going, but I just learned of this open letter/post by Philip Low, a close friend and colleague of Musk’s for many years, that provides highly relevant insight on Musk’s personality and motivations that relate to his “gesture”. Here are links to the original facebook post and an archived copy:

Original facebook post / Archived copy

Fact-checking site Snopes’ take on the post

There are a few points in the post that jumped out at me as they basically describe exactly beliefs/claims I have made in my comments throughout this topic post:

4. He enjoys a good thrill and knew exactly what he was doing;

I. My point is that he is transactional rather than ideological

Note that the facebook post pre-dates this topic post by hours, but I only learned of the facebook post yesterday, so it did not have any influence on my comments here despite the above highlighted points having almost identical verbiage as some of my comments.

Make of this what you will; I just thought some would find it relevant and worth consideration. This will be my last comment on this topic post (this time I promise, lol).

[Utopia]

Really ugly game between two bad teams, but a win is a win.

Fortunately CIN is as bad as us in FTs and it cost them this game (14-22). We were fortunate it was Gabe getting fouled at the end.

19 turnovers. Only 4 pts in the first 9 min of the 2nd half. 8 min without a FG.

Up 4 with 4 min left. Mike gets flagrant fouled – a chance to really stretch the lead. Mike misses both FT and then turnover on the free possession.

Just very sloppy and ugly play all around. Really seems like Smith has no idea what to do with the lineup. There’s almost no consistency to the lineups and rotations – changes wildly half to half. It’s like he’s just constantly rotating players desperately hoping something good happens.

[Utopia]

We’ll see – they’ll be tested playing 3 of the top 4 teams to end the regular season. Not the point in the season to be slumping and losing by 34 indcates a complete lack of effort.

[Utopia]

I think in large part because the mechanics of the granny shot are so singular and different from all other shooting mechanics, which almost all involve some form of overhead extension + wrist flick. The bankshot method would seem to be a much better alternative/compromise as it still uses the conventional shooting motion with just a slight adjustment. You wouldn’t have to learn completely new mechanics (how many granny shot experts/coaches are there?) and it mostly avoids the “goofyness” issue.

[Utopia]

Not just Lovering. Ausar (57%) leads the team in FTAs (26% of the team’s FTAs) and has almost twice as many FTAs as Lovering. Ausar and Lovering account for 40% of FTAs and are shooting a combined 49%. The entire frontcourt is shooting a combined 53% with only Dawes (70%) shooting over 63%.

I have said this many times before, the frontcourt is severely underskilled offensively. If Lovering, Ausar, Wahlin could reliably make a 5-ft baby hook, we would be averaging 8+ ppg more. Wahlin had multiple mismatches against guards off defensive switches where he backed the smaller player down into the paint, but then wasn’t able to create or make a shot.

[Utopia]

I for one have been harping on the Dawes situation since mid-Dec. I’ve been high on Dawes since the beginning of the season, so I noticed when his minutes suddenly plummeted in Dec. I pointed out his DNPs following the Radford and Iowa games and have continually questioned and been critical of his erratic playing time considering his consistent productivity.

[Utopia]

Here are a number of side-by-side full-gesture comparisons:

Musk previously doing heart-to-audience gesture:
https://www.reddit.com/r/JoeRogan/comments/1i7kkc0/unless_he_was_having_a_heart_attack_i_think_one/

Compared to actual sieg heil:
https://www.reddit.com/r/JoeRogan/comments/1i6ql2m/elon_musk_compared_to_neonazi_group_blood_tribe/
https://www.reddit.com/r/gifs/comments/1i6par1/elon_musk_vs_hitler_nazi_salute/

Kamala’s gesture (still photo from this has been used to equate to Musk’s gesture):
https://www.reddit.com/r/JoeRogan/comments/1i72ih8/in_response_to_all_of_the_still_pictures/

Musk re-tweeted an edited photo of Taylor Swift supposedly doing the same gesture as Musk:
https://www.reddit.com/r/popculturechat/comments/1i7jwln/elon_musk_retweets_two_edited_images_of_taylor/

[Author]

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