And so begins another KU basketball season. This year, while it will be exciting and tons and tons of fun to watch, has the potential to be very excrutiatingly difficult, as evidenced already by their early season loss to Oral Fucking Roberts. Obviously I love the 12 guys that KU suits up every year, but I have fallen especially in love with this team. Julian Wright already has a jersey up on my wall of fame (joining Jacque Vaughn, Jeff Boschee, and Keith Langford...if anyone can find me a Hinrich college jersey let me know) and by the time it is all said and done, he has the potential to be unbelievable. Haven't seen a big man pass like him in years, pro or college. Darrell Arthur is stupid good. I mean ridiculous. On a team full of athletes he stands out. Mario Chalmers, Brandon Rush, Russell Robinson all matured a bunch this last off-season, making it hard for Sherron Collins to get all the PT he deserves. Darrell Jackson doesn't do much wrong anymore, a far cry from last year. It's just impossible to talk about this team and not get fired up. I have goosebumps right now, to be perfectly honest.
All that being said, I have been a KU fan far too long to be all smiles. The last 5 tourneys have been absolute torture for any Jayhawker. A final four loss, a championship game loss, an overtime loss in the elite 8, and two absolutely shocking first round losses have KU fans more heartbroken than any fan base in the country so far this century.
As hard as the loss to Bradley was last year, after I settled down for a few weeks, I thought that for a very talented, but very young team, it was the best thing that could've happened to them. This was evidenced by Rush coming back (he would've been gone if they "wouldn't have gone out like that" as he said) and the great off-season they had.
I also love Bill Self's attitude and quotes after these games, and the way he downplayed the hype all summer. After the Oral Roberts loss, he said "I saw this coming three months ago. Why are we the #3 team in the country? Because we made a little run at the end of last year and lost in the first round of the tournament? That makes us the third best team in America?" He also ripped on the players for letting the no-namer from ORU hit 7 threes on them, saying that "maybe after he hits one or two we should start guarding him..." I love that. Very Aaron Dunphy-esque, the right amount of disdain and ridicule for his players, which I feel is a great way to motivate talented players, call them out and challenge them...
...which is why this loss is so disheartening. To have a loss like this, so early, only a couple of games removed from the Bradley game, is disconcerting. I thought that this was exactly the type of loss that would be eliminated from KU's repertoire. Why hasn't the mental toughness of Self, whose teams before KU had never made unexpected early tourney exits, rubbed off on the team in his 3+ year
s at Kansas? Looking at this negatively, this is a horrible omen of things to come; the sophomores learned nothing from last year; the freshmen have a lackadaisical attitude; everyone will play scared the next time it is close. Looking at this positively, maybe it is (once again) the best thing that could have happened this early on. Maybe the players were buying into all the Sports Illustrated, espn.com, preseason all-on-paper hype, and this is just the thing to snap them out of it.As for me, I will continue to be excited about the upcoming year, but with a little bit of temperance. No one is going undefeated in college basketball these days, and it's only November. But I'll feel great if this is the only loss to a shitty team we have all year. My glass is still half full. Bring on the Gators.
