How 'bout that bracket?
Maybe unsurprisingly, the Saturday shellacking at the hands of Texas did our beloved Jayhawks no favors on Selection Sunday, as KU got bumped out of the Midwest regional (and from a potential S16/E8 round in KC) by Houston. While I don’t think our draw is “great”, per se, I think it could have been worse! Hear me out!
I acknowledge that the carryover energy from last year’s natty is a factor in my thinking: in my eyes, there’s just no scenario where we don’t repeat.
But let’s look at the numbers, I guess—both Ken Pomeroy and Bart Torvik don’t love us, ranking us 9th and 12th, respectively (behind two pod peers, no less, St. Mary’s, UConn and UCLA although we’ll only have to play two of them at most). The selection process is absolutely sus, and it’s a bummer to fall victim to the bloated bureaucracy of the panel. I don’t want to excuse how bad the committee is, but I’ve come to expect carnage.
That being said, I think it’s fine. IT COULD BE WORSE! Bill Self is coming back into the fold along with a presumably healthier Kevin McCullar. Yesufu will go back to a reserve role, and our ball-switching defense (which was atrocious on Saturday) will be better. We will be playing with non-Big 12 officials, which will be nice although there will always be some officiating damage. Jalen Wilson is back to doing Jalen Wilson stuff. We’ll be ‘dogs in Vegas to UConn, but we’ll be in that game no matter what. The relative disrespect could give the team a little chip, and everything KU is in that position, I’m LIKING it.
Don’t stress—we’re repeating. Winning this thing always requires a little bit of wild card magic—miss you, Remy!—but I think we’ll see a big and weird Udeh game, especially if a Drew Timme situation occurs. Yesufu is playing more confidently. There’s a billion TV timeouts in the tournament, so we won’t have to weather as many Harris-less patches. I think we all have a right to be annoyed at the timing ramifications of the Texas game, but at the end of the day, if a Jaylen Clark-less UCLA is what stands in between us and a return to the Final Four…………
We tip at 1PM Thursday, and our fanbase is always relieved by a relatively early tip. Let’s get it! More soon and I’ll have that chat wide open on gameday.