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Just an update and a couple of thoughts.

I was very disappointed in our showing vs. the SEC. We even lucked out that Baylor or WVU weren't matched up against South Carolina. Both of those teams got all they wanted and more. I really don't think the Big XII is as good as advertised. But I guess for KU's sake I am glad. It definitely helps us with seeding in the tournament.

With that being said, I am very happy to see some of the teams finally start putting it together. OSU has hammered TTU and Arkansas in two of the last 3 games. Look to finally be getting it together just in time to take on WVU and Baylor. Hopefully they can steal at least one of those games for us.

UT is starting to get it together. They are a young team and they are missing a leader. Looks like they have started to come together though and really start challenging teams.

TCU has started to regress IMO. They came into league play confident. But a few losses really starts to question the cohesiveness of a team. The look to be on a down trend.

TTU looks like a solid 7-10 seed that I sure wouldn't want to play.

KSU has dumbstruck me. No idea who they are. Should have hired Underwood while they had the chance.

ISU had the most disappointing performance over the weekend. I know it is hard to play at Vandy. But man, that is a bad bad bad Vandy team.

OU is just young. Woodard being back helps. But not enough. They'll sneak in another big win though.

I really really hope we can find a way to get 7 teams in this year.

@Kcmatt7

Not sure we get even 5 right now. I see KU and Baylor fighting for a one spot, West Virginia a 2/3 after that I think Kansas State gets in and the rest is totally up in the air. Tech, TCU all fall short if they don't have close to 9/9 in conference play because of how poor they scheduled the non con. ISU really will have to win some games its not expected to.

@BeddieKU23

The latest Bracketology (today) has 7 conference teams in and Texas Tech. is in the "First 4 out" group...so almost 8 teams in...

As disappointing as last weekend was for the conference it is not weak as it appears. If Jarrett Allen has not a good but just an average game Texas wins going away; he only had 4 points. If Mitrou-Long has not a good but just an average game ISU wins going away; he only had 4 points.

@JayHawkFanToo You made me think with funny logic about the KY game: If Bam Adebayo could handle a #110 ranked bigman (Lucas), KY would have beat KU in Rupp Arena going away...

Or: If Coach Calipari would consider coaching FTs, KY would have beat KU in Rupp Arena going away...

@ralster

Well...no. Adebayo averages 13.9 and 6.9 and he was 10 and 8 against KU so not that far below his average. Mitrou-Long averages 15.3 ppg but had only 4 against Vanderbilt...remember he had 18 against KU and Jarrett Allen averages 12.8 and 8.4 but had only 4 and 5 against Georgia...remember he had 22 and 19 against KU. Both Mitrou-Long and Allen stats were well below their season averages.

I did post before that the biggest loser for the game was Adebayo who was supposed to dominate a game tailored for him and yet managed to play just below his season average.

@JayHawkFanToo There are some KY fans noticing that Lucas and his points/rbds > Adebayo's, thus "Adebayo got outplayed by Lucas" (quote from a KY site).

@ralster

Jay Williams is prescient or very astute about Adebayo..

@ralster

No question Lucas outplayed Adebayo. We still really don't quite appreciate how important Lucas is to this team and how quietly solid his game has been.

@JayHawkFanToo

There's also 4 teams on that proverbial bubble line and we still have 10 conference games to go..

I can't think that Tech, OSU, or TCU are tournament teams with losing conference records

K-St looks like a tourney team right now but they will have to upset KU at home or steal a road game against Baylor/WVU if they want to be comfortably in.. Now that I say that the KSU game in Manhattan game is looking similar to the WVU game. Super Bowl time

A lot of B-Ball to be played..

@JayHawkFanToo I mean isn't that some of the game planning by another team? And poor coaching to not get your best player going?

When someone has 4 points that usually has double digit points, I tend to think a team challenged someone else to beat them. And it didn't happen.

Allen was limited to 7 shots. He normally shoots about 11.

Naz also only had 7 shots and he usually shoots about 14.

That is where I think it showed both of those teams got out coached. I especially think that when I look at the UT game. They were up the majority of that game.

The ISU game I think was partially bad coaching by not freeing up Naz. But the other part was a bad matchup. Vandy had size to bother ISU on both ends of the floor.

Still, we can't be going 5-5 with the SEC. It could have easily been 3-7. Baylor pulled theirs out late and we overcame a 12 point deficit. How embarrassing would that have been?

@BeddieKU23 I don't think we will get 7. They say we will get 7 every year and I think it's only happened once.

I don't think we deserve to get 7 in. You just can't lose bad games. And we have teams that have lost some bad games.

Who in the heck is Jarred Allen? Ex-Chiefs football player?

@Kcmatt7

Agreed I'm thinking 6 at most.

But looking at the rest of the College Basketball at this point what really stuck out was that there is not 68 deserving teams this year.
I've seen almost every Power 5 team play at least once and I'm diligent about box scores and I had a tough time coming up with 60 teams I thought would make it as of today. So maybe 7 Big-12 teams is likely because there are a ton of mediocre Power 5 schools this year.

Bracketology should be taken with an absolute grain of salt at this point.

Teams like Arkansas, VCU, Michigan St, Miami, Clemson, Michigan, Wake Forest. These teams are all "in" according to Lunardi. These 7 teams have a combined 2 wins against Top 25 competition at the time of playing them. Michigan St has lost 3 of its last 4 conference games = 8 seed. Basically being rewarded for "trying". Those 7 teams currently have 50 losses or an average of 7 per team and we aren't even in February.

We are too far out to really have a good idea how many B12 teams will get in the dance.

It is easy to analyze only from within a bubble. Before throwing out B12 teams with the bath water, we have to look at what teams will replace them.

There are not many dominant teams this year. I'm talking about in the middle. So many of these teams will have a bundle of terrible losses.

@Kcmatt7

They were both shooting very poorly, perhaps this is the reason they took less shots than they usually do. Long was 0-5 from 3 and Allen was 2-7 from the floor...and missed the shot that could have sent the game to OT. Sometimes players are in the zone and can't miss and sometimes they cannot hit the broad side of a barn...Allen and Long had poor games at the wrong time.