Kansas could be top contender next year
LAWRENCE, Kan. — Kansas men’s basketball coach Bill Self insisted all season long the team he put on the court night after night was different from those of the past, with the Jayhawks’ margin for error possibly thinner than at any other time during his 15-year tenure.
He said so even when they were busy winning the program’s 14th consecutive Big 12 regular-season title.
So Self was just as surprised as anybody when the Jayhawks, led by Devonte Graham and Malik Newman, went on a memorable March run. They rolled to another Big 12 tournament title — their eighth under Self — breezed through the first weekend of the NCAA tournament and knocked off Duke en route to the Final Four.
Were they playing over their heads all along? It sure looked like it Saturday night.
The Jayhawks were run right out of San Antonio by fellow No. 1 seed Villanova, falling behind 18-4 in the opening minutes and never getting within single digits again. Every run was answered, every dunk offset by a 3-pointer, and the result was a 95-79 loss to the Wildcats one lamentable step short of playing for the national championship. Despite five trips to the Elite Eight since winning it all in 2008, the quest for the program’s fourth crown is still unsatisfied.
That this year’s team came as close as it did might have been the bigger shock, though.
“I’m really proud of our guys,” Self said. “We did not have the perfect roster in many ways to probably win 31 games and win the league in a great league and the conference tournament and get to the Final Four. And to be honest with you, it felt like it kind of just caught up to us. The kids laid it out there, and it seemed to catch up to us.”
The problem with playing for Kansas is the sometimes otherworldly expectations. The players who took Loyola-Chicago on its own unforgettable Final Four run before falling to Michigan will go down in history on campus and in tournament lore, remembered by generations to come. But while Graham and Co. will be remembered every time someone stares at the Final Four banner that will hang in Allen Fieldhouse, only titles result in legendary status.
So call it a successful season. Just not a perfect one.
“I’m not going to think sour about this at all,” Self said. “We’ve been in enough Elite Eight games and lost them. So getting here was obviously special, and everything would have had to go (right) the way Villanova played. We would have had to play a perfect basketball game.”
The Jayhawks, who finished 31-8, now look toward their future with equal sadness and optimism.
The sadness rests in the fact that Graham and Svi Mykhailiuk, the rarest of men’s college basketball breeds these days as legitimate four-year stars, will be headed to the NBA. They could be joined by Newman, whose superb NCAA tournament no doubt sent his stock soaring, and 7-footer Udoka Azubuike, whose raw skills make him a tantalizing prospect, though he would improve by leaps with another season in Lawrence.
The optimism lies in the fact that Kansas could be far more talented next season.
Azubuike returning would provide the anchor for a lineup that would go from a fourguard nightmare to a post-powered crew. Silvio De Sousa provided a nice late-season punch after graduating high school in December, and he’ll have a full summer under his belt. They’ll also get eligible 6-9 forward Dedric Lawson and his brother, 6-8 swingman K.J. Lawson, after their transfer from Memphis.
Throw in 6-10 forward David McCormack, a five-star prospect, and the Jayhawks will have the size to tangle with anybody in the Big 12 — or the country, for that matter. They may even be the preseason No. 1, favored to take the last couple of steps in March they failed to this season.
“We should keep our heads up,” Graham said. “We had an unbelievable season. You know, it’s not the way you want it to end. But even if you lost by one point it will still hurt. And we all just — we just need to keep our heads up, and it’s going to hurt now, but we’ll be all right.”