February 11, 2022

Point Jalen? Is Remy done? How "real" was the Baylor win?

This week has been a ride, and a few Streakers chopped it up about what our expectation are on Tuesday. It feels like we are all on the same page, honestly—we’ve seen this team go ballistic on a quality opponent and then stumble at the finish line to an inferior opponent 48 hours later, and our expectations may be in line with this duality. That three-point bank? That ridiculously unnecessary court storm? I hate to say it, because I still get mad thinking about it, but that’s college basketball for you1.

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KU still controls their fate in the Big 12, but there’s a long way to go. A critical away game in Waco looms. KU has shown it’s not exactly lockytown at AFH in recent weeks.

Let’s talk about some stuff.

Point Jalen??

The 2022 version of Jalen Wilson has been a different player. After getting to a slow start after an early-season injury, the Wilson we’ve seen in recent games has been a revelation.

So what has changed?

For one, Wilson is a much better all-around player than many of us had anticipated. Early in his career, Wilson found success around the bucket, but spent too much time hovering on the perimeter watching the ball move around. Times have changed. Lately, I’ve found myself thinking, “Jalen Wilson… canny playmaker?!!” and it’s been a wonderful surprise. Since Ochai and CB2 don’t need to be on-ball to make stuff happen, Wilson seems to be at his best with the ball in his hands, making plays off the bounce. (There is a Remy Martin component to this, which I will get into below.) All things considered, this is a welcome development for KU.

Wilson came in with the rep as a shooter, and he has not lived up to that billing—he is shooting 25% on threes on three attempts a game. Wilson is now emerging as a much more rare archetype—point forward. While he only has 38 total assists on the season, 25 of those dimes have come in the last month.

Is Point Jalen actually a thing? I sure hope so. If Wilson can fully flesh out that dimension of his game, he’s looking at an entirely new projection as a prospect, so there’s plenty in this evolution for him, too. Let’s hope we can watch this play out.

Remy and Joe

Remy Martin’s knee is still in bad shape, and after possibly tweaking the injury in the court storm at Texas (‼ if true!), he won’t play against OU.

It’s unclear how soon he might be available—Gary Bedore suggested that he could play next week, we’ll see—but at this point it feels like a reliable basketball situation here just isn’t in the cards. It was worth a shot. However, the convenient emergence of Joseph Yesufu has made the “is Remy Martin available?” talking point less crucial to KU’s ultimate success.

Yesufu can hoop. He gets downhill, and more threes have fallen lately (I expect that percentage to tick up some with more playing time). Self needs to give him a little more rope—just look at this dude cook in the tournament last year!—and inch down Dajuan Harris’s minutes. That KU is third in offensive efficiency with 35+ minutes of Harris on offense is incredible. If Martin can contribute anything—maybe as a supersub microwave off the bench?—it feels like house money at this point.

We HAVE to talk about Baylor

Shout out to the #1 song in the world… I have a lot of feelings about the modern chart and the bumpy math behind it. But here’s one hit that will go down on the right side of history.

That Baylor game… I mean, COME ONNNNNNNN. That was metal as hell. KU was charged up, and the intensity was there from the first second of the game until the Teahen white flag appearance. KU looked incredible, played so hard, and showcased how dynamic they can be when things are clicking.

My favorite things from the game:

• KU had both a 12-0 run and a 23-5 run, Baylor never got closer than 16 points in the second half

• Baylor shot the ball like absolute crap and KU’s defense looked quicker and more potent than it has all season. Yesufu!

• Scott Drew tech on the extremely bad charge call lol.

• watch out for those running Jayhawks, who effectively were running soccer counters when Baylor attempted to crash for offensive rebounds. KU made them pay time and time again. If this team can get into transition—which many teams have worked to limit—no one does as much damage.

Oklahoma tomorrow. Oklahoma is good! And I gotta look into this NFTs thing. Are NFTs kind of… over? Like I get the vehicle but I have yet to see an NFT that does not look really, really dumb. Tabling this for now! Rock Chalk.