The Tragic Events in Dallas

Ah, to be a Jayhawk is to know suffering.

At least we probably won't be hearing about this one as long as some of the other losses -- losing to Michigan isn't like losing to Northern Iowa. And give a tip of the hat to Trey Burke for his trey-bombs. Our usual endgame miscues wouldn't have mattered had he not made some unbelievable shots.

It gives me no pleasure to report that our warnings on this blog were prescient. For whatever reasons, EJ just never put things together this year, other than a few great performances here and there. And his unsteadiness at the helm was the biggest reason (not the only one) we faltered in Dallas.

I don't know what it is, but Self seems to have some difficulty managing talented guards coming off Final Four seasons. He didn't quite get a handle on Miles and Langford; Sherron as an upperclassman was great at times but didn't seem to mature as much as you'd like a 4-year guy to do. Going back further, Self also had trouble dealing with Frank Williams at Illinois after their Elite 8 season. Maybe he's too indulgent with his accomplished upperclassmen; he certainly gave Elijah a lot of rope.

Anyway, I still love the kid, and I love this departing group of players. It's extremely hard to get to two Final Fours in a row; we were on the cusp, and I think we could have won it all with the right bounces. (I just wish we didn't have to keep saying that at the end of every season; 2008 is getting further in the rearview.)

Carolina Blue Again

Scott had it right: First Roy, now Burke.

Travis sure likes to play North Carolina. Last year he outdueled Harrison Barnes, this time he outscores everybody. He was even more impressive when I went back and watched on TV -- insanely high degree of difficulty on some of those shots.

We've spent a lot of time on EJ and Naadir and Ben and Perry, but maybe haven't talked enough about the other starters. Seth Greenberg made a good point on ESPN yesterday when he argued that the foundation of this team is the 5th-year guys -- Travis, Jeff, and Kevin. These guys have been consistent while our 1 and 2 guards, and our bench, have been up and down.

Jeff is now second for all-time tournament blocks behind Tim-may. If we can get to the Final Four, he's almost surely got that sewn up.

Text of the day from Yancy early in the 2nd: "Love that we made Roy call time."

The AP story said Roy was "booed heavily." Not true. He got about the same volume of boos as the rest of his team got in the intros. The crowd was just amped up for the game; it wasn't about Roy at all. (As for me, I never boo the opponent; I gave Roy a golf clap, but they mentioned Self immediately after Roy, so there was no time for a standing O even if the crowd had wanted to give one.)

Collapse, Die, Resuscitate, and Advance

I can't take many more nights like this one.

We haven't lost early in the tourney as much as say, Georgetown (who suffered a #2-#15 upset tonight) or Wisconsin (who busted my brackets by losing today as well). But sometimes it does feel as if there's some kind of curse that dooms Kansas to horrendously poor outside shooting in the Big Dance. This was the first time we blanked from 3-point land since Feb. 2008... which I suppose could be a good omen?

At least we won by one more point than Gonzaga did, right?

Some things to be proud of: Jeff Withey, who carried over his tournament dominance from last year with 17 points and 7 blocks, and was our only consistently good player. Also, we were great from the free throw line all game long, which is impressive given the psychological pressure we faced.

But, and it pains me to sound like a broken record, our guard play was mediocre-to-bad all night long. If we can't handle full-court pressure better than this, particularly EJ and Ben, we are going down in flames sometime in the next few rounds. (I don't know if Carolina can really pressure us, but if we do turn the ball over against them like we did tonight they will capitalize much better than the Hilltoppers did, and we will lose. And for now, let's not even discuss VCU.)

Elijah still appears to be reverting to his February tailspin. Maybe playing UNC will shake him out of it. Oh, well. One game at a time.

The Bracket Draw: Roy, then Burke

I always fill out my bracket with the hope that if my team goes down, then I'll still have a rooting interest in the tournament. But I do think that, while getting past Ol' Roy will be fun, our main weakness all year is going to kill us against the Michigan Wolverines. Trey Burke may be the best point guard in the country in terms of NBA talent level. plus they have athletic wings in the two 2nd generation NBA kids, Tim Hardaway Jr and Glenn Robinson III. Beelin (sp.?) is a pretty good coach as I recall from his days at WV.

Hopefully, the late emergency of Perry Ellis, combined with a "hot or cold"/ Hot performance from Ellijah will get us past that game, but it looks like the last 4 seed I would've wanted to match up with. I think we kill Syracuse or SLU (we already did kill SLU).

If we get past Big Blue, then I think we can beat Gtown/Florida (though Florida is the tougher out, with the better guard play). Then I think Indiana would take us out. But I never thought last year's team would make it to the finals either, so what do I know?

Bring on the Hilltoppers!

Incidentally, if you didn't catch the 30 for 30 special on Jim Valvano and NC State's 30 yr anniversary of their championship, very much worth watching if you can DVR it or catch it on netflix. Everyone knows about the championship game (though I'd forgotten what big underdogs they were), but they had a pretty amazing run of comeback games to get there too.

My Final Four: Mich. St, Wisconsin, Florida, Indiana

(I think Florida takes out Mich if we lose, Big10 heavy I know, or isthe the "B1G", whatever, that logo's stupid).

What do you guys think of our draw?

Speaking of Ellis

Damn was that a game tonight!


On to the Big 12 tourney championship!

(Sorry to jump the queue and offer no analysis. Hope you can live with putting that into the comments...)

March Madness

There will be plenty of time to parse the optimal seeding, the repercussions of the conference tourney, projections, predictions, etc.

In the last quiet patch before the Madness, let's appreciate this strange and wonderful group of kids. Fifth year seniors, role playing red shirts, and the dance happy freshman phenom. I'm sure we'll remember this team fondly. So, let's now remember to enjoy the endgame, whatever it brings.

They loved playing together and we loved watching them.

Farewell to the Seniors -- and the Freshman

I love this kid. I never tell him. I think he knows, though.  
-- Elijah Johnson, on Ben McLemore

How fitting that my favorite Elijah quote of all time would come after my two favorite Elijah performances of all time. Even though he made some mistakes early, I enjoyed watching him in this game even more than in Ames. Instead of worrying about living up to his 39-point explosion on Monday, he was completely focused on bringing BMac back. He passed up makeable shots for himself and found Ben time and time again.

Ten assists for EJ, a freshman-record 36 points for Ben, and a de facto triple-double for Jeff. Now we just need big games for Travis and Kevin on Monday night, and we'll have the perfect sendoff.

Highlights are a bit hard to find -- ESPN snubbed us on the Top Plays since the game was on CBS, but I can't find video from CBS either. The KU Athletics reel is always good, but for some reason it cuts off EJ's monumental dunk at the end. I'll keep looking for that one.

Elijah Jordan?

I did think the Hilton magic would be our toughest test of the remainder of the season, but I didn't know that Elijah Johnson was immune to the Hilton's properties. It's kind of like one of those Superman comics where when Bizzaro Superman goes to a place with a red sun and he turns stronger than Superman.

I'm going to call that 37 points, perfect from the FT line, with two big ones at the end of regulation. That's subtracting the ill-advised dunk as time expired in OT. On sportscenter, it showed where Elijah said that Bill Self gave him an earful for that, and he shouldn't have done it.

So, is this what this dude has been capable of all along? It was the most scored by any Jayhawk in 15 years. He did almost all of the damage from the 2 position. Mentally, he seems to relax and let his talent shine when he's not saddled with the responsibilities of running the team. Tharpe can't play 40 mins, but our best lineup seems to be Tharpe-Johnson-McLemore-Relaford-Withey, then rotate in Young and Ellis when needed.

Also it had to be Scott van Pelt (Mizzou grad) on Sportscenter who of course bitched about the no-call at the end of regulation.

The Save (or, survive and advance!)

Truly a "BarnBurner" of a game, in that we played in a barn and we left with it on fire. Easily the most exciting win of the year, just amazing that we survived the 2OT slugfest with these guys. Both Kevin Young and Travis Relaford seemed to come to the game with a chip on their shoulder that this was going to be different than Allen Fieldhouse.

In the "Freshman of the Year Contest", both Marcus Smart and Ben Mclemore made a strong case for "None of the Above", as Ben Mclemore had perhaps his worst game, but OK St (and especially Smart) helped by missing nearly everything they threw up (except Forte).

In the continuing saga of "Does KU have a legitimate point guard?", it appears that the answer might be no. Both EJ and Tharpe had some ups and downs in regulation, but both were truly awful in OT. I have seen enough that Tharpe isn't the answer. Hopefully someone coming in next year has a good handle on the ball and their head screwed on straight.

Withey- clutch, clutch, clutch free throws down the stretch.Self's game plan of just "attack the rim" about halfway through the second half seemed to be just the thing to keep us in it until the fouls caught up to Ellijah.

This game felt like one of those "war" games we used to have with Oklahoma when Kelvin Sampson was there, or aTm with Law and Johnson. Nice to see we can gut out a win like this in a hostile place when not everything s going our way. We still have to go to Iowa State, so this is not a done deal yet, and K State could win out, but Self has a pretty good shot at keeping the streak alive.

BTW, these guys look like complete retards.

Lots to Love

From Saturday, including EJ's line: 12 points, 4 assists, only one TO.

But mostly—and I know I'm a little shallow, but hey—mostly I loved this: