@jayballer73 I'll eat my hat if we win the tournament. But you do know when you say "so called experts" picking Texas Tech or us it sounds like you're being sarcastic. So called genius's sounds like you think they should have picked someone else?
wissox
13106 posts
@Texas-Hawk-10 I was not really looking for that very hypothetical proposition! If I were them, I would be proposing a basketball only arrangement with the Pac12. Like, why not? Their schedule gets more challenging if they do. But as others have said, I doubt that would happen too.
As for the strength of their current conference I can't even tell you who they play in that league. I'm quite sure BYU, I know St. Mary's is too, maybe San Diego State, Nevada? I know I can look it up but that ruins the point. I know the strong conferences because right now I could name every SEC, BIG, ACC, Big12 team without barely thinking about it. The others start to get muddled in my mind like the BigEast and the AAC. I do know the Ivy league teams too!
I guess Gonzaga validated themselves a few years back when they nearly lost the NC, but I'm just tired of Gonzaga. I'm not impressed when they beat up a crap league year after year. Then everyone crows about their championship streak and what a great program. Average margin of victory this year 27 points in their undefeated league season. Whoop De Doo! Let them play a real schedule. Sure they beat Duke early on. I'm not saying they're a bad team, but they just need to get themselves into a good league so they can win conference titles against good teams. Like the Big 12!
@dylans Purdue won at Wisconsin too.
I would HAVE
Conference champs that KU beat this season: Vermont, TTech, KState, Michigan State, Villanova and Wofford. Tennessee, Marquette somehow let conference leads slip away, or we could have had more. Of course most of those wins were KU with Doke and with Happy Vick. Still, we have an impressive body of work without any terrible losses despite our sorrows.
@drgnslayr To think years ago I was touting him as the next KU coach!
Wow what a time of the year!
Moving back to the Chicago area has added HS hoops as a major attraction for me. Great talent in this area and fans pack gyms. March Madness at its best.
In an unprecedented move a sectional final Friday night between Farragut (where Kevin Garnett attended) and North Lawndale Col. Prep (Where Anthony Davis attended) ended with a double disqualification of both teams when a brawl broke out on the court and players from both teams left their benches to participate. A team called Depaul gets a bye straight to the state semifinals as a result. Sad story. Both schools are from an extremely tough neighborhood called Lawndale and these sorts of things just make a chance at something positive turn negative. I pray it doesn't lead to the type of retaliatory violence that plagues the city. Farragut was about to win the game and move on so there will be some really hurt young people there.
Aston Francis scored 62 points Friday night to lead Wheaton College of Illinois to the D3 final four. First time ever for the school. Francis leads all divisions with a 33 PPG. I've seen him play a few times as we have a lot of family connections to the school including a daughter currently attending. Aston has almost unlimited range and has a green light to shoot that would make Charlie Moore blush.
Conference tournament week is in full force. Every night there will be games on ESPN between little known teams and we get drawn to their stories. Lets hope Murray St., who qualified last night, gets a couple of games so we can see that great dunker they have. Then the week winds down when the bigger conferences get rolling with their shindigs. Usually as not much drama as infrequently bids on their tourney are on the line. A cinderella can win a game or two and get into the dance with their 10 or 11 losses and then lose quickly in the dance.
Then the brackets come out. CBS shows a bunch of young men crying or laughing, dancing or sulking. They inevitably talk to the snubbed team with 13 losses as if any of us should really feel for them. But for every illegitimate snubbed team there are the legit snubbees and we get outraged there. The poor lads go 28-4, get upset in their conference final and see ya later, even though they own wins over 4 ranked teams.
Of course some at this very space will whine about our unfair treatment, others won't whine and say it's an easy bracket. We'll argue our cases, hurt a few feelings along the way, ask for forgiveness, usually granted, and we move on.
(notice I haven't written about the NBA?)
Baseball is upon us! It's actually my favorite sport. I'll watch games from April 1 to Nov. 1. No complaints from me about season length although I guess I'm famous here for complaining about game lengths. I'm not much of a spring training watcher so those games don't distract me from the matters at hand, but looking forward to the daily rhythms of the sport is something I take pleasure in a lot.
And golf has suddenly gotten more interesting in March. A schedule switch has moved the Players Championship and its' island green madness back to March. It's great theater except it conflicts with the NCAA tournament of course. The Masters, while technically not March is a great low key drama after the NCAA madness dies down.
Have fun. It may not be our typical Jayhawk March, but it may be as well. Who knows?
@Kcmatt7 I would advise you never to bet on 20 years ability to put a basketball in a round cylinder!
I wish he'd gone to KU. He beat UW on a buzzer beater in double OT last week.
@Bosthawk Good thoughts, although I don't see the discussion above as real nasty. I've seen a lot worse even on our beloved site. I've enjoyed the back and forth. Some of it is just frustration over a season high on potential dissolving into comments about we may lose in the 1st round.
I went and saw Adam Miller play in a fantastic game last night. Top 2 ranked teams in Illinois 3A. He scored 6 in the first half and 22 in the 2nd in a sweet 16 loss. He got many of those from the FT line. He forced a lot of threes, turned it over too much, so despite 28 points I wasn't entirely impressed except it was against a team loaded with DI prospects themselves. Illinois folks are really clamoring to get him of course which I understand
Amazing player, but he didn't spend 3 years in college and almost 2 seasons away from the league to, I guess, play baseball. I wish Lebron had gone to college, KU of course, just to see what he would've done.
The tourney is such a crapshoot. We could have the road paved for us like some cinderellas have over the years when big teams get upset as always happens. Or we could run into someone who has watched our tape and is ready to exploit our weaknesses, which could mean an earlier than expected exit.
Thanks all for clearing up my braincramp.
@Woodrow I wonder what @Jesse-Newell meant from this line?
"The 2018-19 Jayhawks just haven’t inherited the swagger of their predecessors, though. Because they were so light on players with experience — after some departures, only reserves Mitch Lightfoot and Marcus Garrett remained as returning guys from last year’s Big 12 title-winning team — they haven’t yet seemed to fully embrace the responsibility of being the keepers of The Streak that previous squads did."
Doke and Vick returned as well. I don't get why he said Mitch and Marcus were the only returnees.
We've only lost twice since Legarald officially took leave of the team. Not sure if he is enough to overcome horrible team performances against Tech and last night. But of course, we were grumbling about him starting about a month ago. He started playing hero ball around the middle of January and I'm thinking we win a game or two more with an engaged early season form Lagerald Vick. Maybe it's hard to prove too. IDK, but he shoulders some blame here, maybe a lot, at least when it comes to winning the league title.
@cragarhawk Well when we're forced to rely on guys who are not starters or even close to top ten team type players, these are the games we're going to get. I don't want to get into a peeing match with you, so you've had your say. My last word is I'm proud as heck to be a Jayhawk fan for the last 30+ years. I know you are too. RCJHKU
@cragarhawk Why are you embarrassed? I don't get it. I'm getting up tomorrow to go to work. No one's going to laugh at me. They may ask what happened. But I just don't get when people say they're embarrassed.
@dylans Pretty sure one person mentioned early in the game thread he was embarrassed. I'm not going to mention his, or her, name. They know who they are.
He said he was embarrassed earlier in the game. I'm never embarrassed being a fan of a team that has won 14 titles in a row, has been a #1 seed every season seemingly for half a decade, has defeated this years #1 team, has a HOF coach, etc. etc. and it takes a major injury, a trusted senior flaking out on us, the NCAA screwing us out of one of our best players to make us lose our streak. Not embarrassing. Bad luck? Maybe. But no one is to blame here. And oh, one other non embarrassing thing. This team will play in its 30th NCAA tournament in a row, and barring an upset, will win it's 28th out of 30 first round games during that streak. Of course, it won't be embarrassing either when once again 16,300 fans show up Saturday and give them a rousing ovation for the great accomplishment of all these years.
Trying to decide when to turn the tv to househunters.
Fire the coach, hire Les Miles. (oh sorry, thought I was watching the football team for a second)
We're the team everyone wants to face in March.
I always wanted to get fouled and fall into the laps of the cheerleaders (don't tell my wife)
@Kcmatt7 ESPN is so bad. I go to their website to see what you mean about the Purdue game. I click on NCAAM and it shows three top 20 womens games going on!
Yeah, I've missed two of the last three games, and was really excited to watch and chat with y'all and then it's this bad. The chat is good though. My wife noticed I'm barely yelling at the TV. Nothing to yell at.
stop then a 3 and go into the half down by ten?
I'm more upset with Vick than anything this season. He just totally let this team down and his coach who gave him a 2nd chance. He could have acted like a senior who helped a team to the FF.
@Crimsonorblue22 And good LG Vick
Remember back in the day when we beat Tennessee and Michigan State?
@Crimsonorblue22 Not my gma
That was a turnover waiting to happen
@Bwag They did double us up when it was 36-18
Congratulations Big12. You beat our JV team to break our streak.
I know ESPN has to know how much fans hate that split screen they go to to show the most pointless info.
@nwhawkfan True, it's not that great of an attendance conference. Too many football schools.
Baby steps
We have 1 TO left.
Of course if I'm OU I'm looking at empty sections in the stands and thinking what the heck fans, where are you? Of course, Fran runs his mouth. That was so NOT a charge.
At least we can't blame the refs.
We're going to make a game of it.
Darn, I was hoping they'd start showing gymnastics instead of this.
@BeddieKU23 True, the stakes are smaller right now however.
I remember when we did this to UNC in the Final 4 in 2008.
I don't get nervous til the last minute
@Woodrow I'm not embarrassed.
Wow, this team looks ready to give up the streak right now.
Bill Self has set a records for TO's before the first TV timeout this season.
Turnaround J in the lane. Be nice to make those.