Man, I loved some Langford and Miles (even named my son after him). So it pains me to say this: I think if you start stretching the guidelines for jerseys in the rafters there will be too many players that deserve to be up there. I almost appreciate the difficulty in getting your number retired at Kansas. There are so many deserving players that probably won't make it up there, but I'd rather be a little more exclusive than oversaturated with borderline players. I'm probably just a snob, though.
Hope the move went well! Let us know if you guys need anything!
Devon, I respect your take, especially since you provided that information about your son. Absolutely incredible and #11 is worthy of that kind of tribute.
I hear you... my question is, what is the threshold? If it's first team AA or MOP, then Marcus Morris, Sherron, Rush and Aldrich don't make the cut. Maybe we've retired too many—Devonte and Ochai have to go up, if First Team AA is the standard—and fan consensus is clearly a thing, bc Jayhawks that played 3-4 years clearly get a bump.
But! Based on the current precedent, there's no way Miles and Langford can be excluded! The case for guys like Embiid is more complicated.
That's where I don't have the right answer. Maybe it should be 1st, 2nd, or 3rd team AA, Big XII POY (which is probably an AA), or MOP. It just feels like there are so many guys that should be deserving over the past 15 years that it's tough to limit it, but I also don't want to retire jerseys just to retire jerseys. I think some of that is recency bias because of how good they've been the past 25 years. I think if you open it up to some other guys then Miles and Langford should be at the top of the list.
I actually don't think Embiid would have much of an argument, sadly. If it took NBA accomplishments into account then he would surely be up there, and I think it's obvious he's been the professional face of Kansas basketball for the past 3-4 years (He and Wiggins probably shared it until Embiid made his leap) which holds a tremendous amount of value.
I wish they could retire them all or keep it super restricted. It's a tough balance, but since they've opened it up I can see the argument for Miles and Langford.
I feel like Miles case is ironclad. All time assists leader, and if you check out the deeper stats like assist % it’s even more impressive, bc there’s a few people on the leaderboard that benefitted from pace/possessions (no offense Ryan Robertson). Langford requires more creativity but no Jayhawk fan would be like “What?!!!”
And yeah, I think the sheer number of retirements has devalued them. But that shouldn’t keep 11 and 5 off the wall.
I bet Embiid happens. I know a lot of people don’t agree with this, I just think the weekend they retire Embiid will be the greatest recruiting weekend of all time and legit every recruiting target in attendance will sign ASAP.
I'm a jersey retirement free spirit. I say we throw D-Mac up there (universally regarded as the Final Four MOP and hit the shot to win the title game -- basically a verbatim case as Chalmers with just worse reg season stats?) and I say we throw T-Rob, Withey, Wiggins, Embiid, Frank, Devonte and Ochai up there, too.
I think fans generally have a sense of who the "special" players in their program's history are (either through individual performance, achievement and/or vibes or a combo of all three) and that's all we really need to determine this. That would be my list at least.
The floodgates are already open. So let Keith and Aaron in!
Devonte is going up. Ditto Ochai. Withey has an excellent case but he came in as a transfer so that would appear to be a knock on him. Either establish a rigid rule or just let the jerseys fly!
Withey gets in for me solely because of his advanced-stat god status as a shotblocker and how fun the runouts were after he stuffed one. I've never seen a post defender impact a game as much as he did. Wiggs and Embiid absolutely don't have a numbers/achievement case but I feel like from a fan excitement/national prominence case they're in -- they were the biggest national cbb story that year and any time that happens, I say they go up. I get we're KU and have some major history and bars to clear but I don't think that should exclude us from honoring our coolest one-and-dones.
I was just a kid for Miles and Langford so I can't really speak intelligently on them, but it seems like a travesty Miles isn't already in there and Langford's case is strong too!
I don't think it's common knowledge just how good Withey was, particularly on defense even though we could all tell he was awesome there. 15.1% block percentage in his best year, an absolutely bananas number. Has a top 10 PER season in Kansas history, and a top 5 career PER in Big 12 history. Want normal stuff too? Led the nation in blocks in '12-'13.
Soo the 2005 class is my favorite class. I would love to pick Selfs brain about the 04-05 season. WTF happened? Coming off of 2 Final4s and an OT away from a 3rd the team should have been incredible. They were preseason number 1. Started off great. Then.....poof. that was all gone. They struggled down the stretch and lost to Bucknell. How? I really want to hear Selfs thoughts on this.
This was my first year in college, so forgive my memory which is probably riddled with inaccuracies, but I remember there being a mid-February skid that was "Uh-oh."
The high-low pumped the ball into Wayne Simien, but there wasn't enough variety on offense. Langford was hurt all year, and Giddens was not a reliable third scorer. A lot went wrong in the Bucknell game—which I blessedly missed because I was on a flight to a school program overseas, a story that ends with me becoming a Tottenham Hostpur fan, maybe that's a post for a slow month someday—but I don't harbor any grudges against anyone on that team. Shit happens!
I still harbor a grudge against Self for it actually. I shouldn't because it seems like all the guys come back and get along with Self. But I still do.
I do think there’s a reason Self hasn’t gone back to that era. It was a failure, to be sure, but I can’t help but feel that the nature of the Roy transition created a divide.
Man, I loved some Langford and Miles (even named my son after him). So it pains me to say this: I think if you start stretching the guidelines for jerseys in the rafters there will be too many players that deserve to be up there. I almost appreciate the difficulty in getting your number retired at Kansas. There are so many deserving players that probably won't make it up there, but I'd rather be a little more exclusive than oversaturated with borderline players. I'm probably just a snob, though.
Hope the move went well! Let us know if you guys need anything!
Devon, I respect your take, especially since you provided that information about your son. Absolutely incredible and #11 is worthy of that kind of tribute.
I hear you... my question is, what is the threshold? If it's first team AA or MOP, then Marcus Morris, Sherron, Rush and Aldrich don't make the cut. Maybe we've retired too many—Devonte and Ochai have to go up, if First Team AA is the standard—and fan consensus is clearly a thing, bc Jayhawks that played 3-4 years clearly get a bump.
But! Based on the current precedent, there's no way Miles and Langford can be excluded! The case for guys like Embiid is more complicated.
That's where I don't have the right answer. Maybe it should be 1st, 2nd, or 3rd team AA, Big XII POY (which is probably an AA), or MOP. It just feels like there are so many guys that should be deserving over the past 15 years that it's tough to limit it, but I also don't want to retire jerseys just to retire jerseys. I think some of that is recency bias because of how good they've been the past 25 years. I think if you open it up to some other guys then Miles and Langford should be at the top of the list.
I actually don't think Embiid would have much of an argument, sadly. If it took NBA accomplishments into account then he would surely be up there, and I think it's obvious he's been the professional face of Kansas basketball for the past 3-4 years (He and Wiggins probably shared it until Embiid made his leap) which holds a tremendous amount of value.
I wish they could retire them all or keep it super restricted. It's a tough balance, but since they've opened it up I can see the argument for Miles and Langford.
I feel like Miles case is ironclad. All time assists leader, and if you check out the deeper stats like assist % it’s even more impressive, bc there’s a few people on the leaderboard that benefitted from pace/possessions (no offense Ryan Robertson). Langford requires more creativity but no Jayhawk fan would be like “What?!!!”
And yeah, I think the sheer number of retirements has devalued them. But that shouldn’t keep 11 and 5 off the wall.
I bet Embiid happens. I know a lot of people don’t agree with this, I just think the weekend they retire Embiid will be the greatest recruiting weekend of all time and legit every recruiting target in attendance will sign ASAP.
I'm a jersey retirement free spirit. I say we throw D-Mac up there (universally regarded as the Final Four MOP and hit the shot to win the title game -- basically a verbatim case as Chalmers with just worse reg season stats?) and I say we throw T-Rob, Withey, Wiggins, Embiid, Frank, Devonte and Ochai up there, too.
I think fans generally have a sense of who the "special" players in their program's history are (either through individual performance, achievement and/or vibes or a combo of all three) and that's all we really need to determine this. That would be my list at least.
The floodgates are already open. So let Keith and Aaron in!
Devonte is going up. Ditto Ochai. Withey has an excellent case but he came in as a transfer so that would appear to be a knock on him. Either establish a rigid rule or just let the jerseys fly!
Went back to this classic Bedore clip: https://www.kansascity.com/sports/college/big-12/university-of-kansas/article240374891.html
Thomas is going up, followed by Frank, Devonte and Ochai and that’s just first team AA right there.
I might feel differently if we pulled the numbers out of circulation, like the Yankees. However, we do not.
Withey gets in for me solely because of his advanced-stat god status as a shotblocker and how fun the runouts were after he stuffed one. I've never seen a post defender impact a game as much as he did. Wiggs and Embiid absolutely don't have a numbers/achievement case but I feel like from a fan excitement/national prominence case they're in -- they were the biggest national cbb story that year and any time that happens, I say they go up. I get we're KU and have some major history and bars to clear but I don't think that should exclude us from honoring our coolest one-and-dones.
I was just a kid for Miles and Langford so I can't really speak intelligently on them, but it seems like a travesty Miles isn't already in there and Langford's case is strong too!
Jordan first of all YOU GET IT
I don't think it's common knowledge just how good Withey was, particularly on defense even though we could all tell he was awesome there. 15.1% block percentage in his best year, an absolutely bananas number. Has a top 10 PER season in Kansas history, and a top 5 career PER in Big 12 history. Want normal stuff too? Led the nation in blocks in '12-'13.
Soo the 2005 class is my favorite class. I would love to pick Selfs brain about the 04-05 season. WTF happened? Coming off of 2 Final4s and an OT away from a 3rd the team should have been incredible. They were preseason number 1. Started off great. Then.....poof. that was all gone. They struggled down the stretch and lost to Bucknell. How? I really want to hear Selfs thoughts on this.
This was my first year in college, so forgive my memory which is probably riddled with inaccuracies, but I remember there being a mid-February skid that was "Uh-oh."
The high-low pumped the ball into Wayne Simien, but there wasn't enough variety on offense. Langford was hurt all year, and Giddens was not a reliable third scorer. A lot went wrong in the Bucknell game—which I blessedly missed because I was on a flight to a school program overseas, a story that ends with me becoming a Tottenham Hostpur fan, maybe that's a post for a slow month someday—but I don't harbor any grudges against anyone on that team. Shit happens!
I still harbor a grudge against Self for it actually. I shouldn't because it seems like all the guys come back and get along with Self. But I still do.
I do think there’s a reason Self hasn’t gone back to that era. It was a failure, to be sure, but I can’t help but feel that the nature of the Roy transition created a divide.