So it actually happened. Despite being one of, if not the most, talented and deep team in the country, KU gout ousted in the second round of the tournament by upstart University of Northern Iowa. It was everybody's greatest fear this year and it was realized.
KU can legitimately go 10 deep if needed and they could easily field two legit top 25 teams with the talent they have. KU went 32-2 in the regular season and had the number 1 overall seed coming into the tournament. This team had the depth, had the talent and the experience to make a deep run into the tournament if not win it all. They had been consistent enough to win 32 games and they were battle tested. This team had Final Four and National Championship written all over it and it seemed like a forgone conclusion come March what the result was going to be in March. So what went wrong?
I think the true question here is what didn't go wrong. Everything that needed to happen for KU to be upset by UNI happened. They needed to come up against a team with nothing to lose, that overachieves, has legit big men to hang with our frontcourt, and the team had to shoot lights out. Check, check, check, and check...and it was check mate on KU.
UNI came out ready to play against the Jayhawks who seemed to be sleepwalking through the first half. The 'Hawks came out expecting to win and UNI came out expecting to upset. there is your difference in a nutshell. Bill Self, who in my estimation does a better job than anybody in the country at preparing his players, didn't have his team ready to play.
Everyone had been touting KU as the favorite since Xavier Henry signed last year, and it's as though all the talk went to their heads. KU was just flat. They didn't shoot well, they didn't run the offense as they should, and when they got punched in the mouth by UNI, they responded scared. They looked timid on offense and played flat footed defense. All around it was a less than impressive showing.
They gave hope they were gonna come back when the press started working. UNI's inferior athletes couldn't handle the press and Self should have gone to it earlier. However, he also shouldn't have had to resort to the press to save the game. There are too many things that went wrong here to go into too much detail but the game definitely dropped the stock of Sherron Collins, Cole Aldrich, and Xavier Henry for the NBA draft.
KU should be good again next year but it will sure take a spectacular season that stretches deeper into March than it did this year. Only such a season could relive some of the sting from this year.
If teams are defined by their moments of greatness then fans are defined by how they stick with their teams through moments of "non-greatness" and although it's a disappointing end to a great season I wear my Jayhawks gear as proud as ever.
After all, there's always next year, right?
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