Losing Big XII tourney as AP #1 a good thing?
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The other two won a national title… isn’t that an interesting factoid. I like it!
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@chriz That must be the one I thought said first round. As Dan Quail said, “A mind is a terrible thing not to have.”
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Rankings don’t mean much. I think it’s more about losing to a #9 team that you swept in the regular season. What’s more, KU didn’t beat them all that convincingly even with Josh. Now, they go into the NCAAs with something to prove.
Let’s enjoy that #13 title and let’s now focus on the grand prize. We’ll not hear the end of this sorry loss from the haters. The only way for KU to redeem itself is to play for the National Championship.
RCJHGOKU
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I am one who believes they needed the rest more than they needed B12 Tourney Success. This will be as rested as they have been since December.
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The loss sucks, no other way to spin it. This was a pride thing.
The rest sounds great and if it benefits the team going forward then I’ll change my thoughts. We have Jackson to thank for yesterday regardless of whether the team lost the game without him. This is a great humbling moment for him. If he’s the player everyone says he is, he will be pretty motivated to put this behind him.
I’m looking forward to Sunday to see who the 8/9 matchup will be
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I personally think itss silly to compare in this way, different teams, different conferences and years.
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I normally like to keep winning. However with this team I think they occasionally need their focus sharpened. They tend to fall behind and then REALLY get after it. They have gotten away with it at times and Devote even had a quote yesterday about them thinking they could kick it into high gear. Losing to a team they SHOULD beat and not being able to kick it into high gear should perk all of their ears up to Coach this week. Plus Mason could use some rest.
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I look at the loss of Josh being the sign to me that we didn’t really want to play 3 games in 3 days. We wanted to save our legs and any possible risk. Just having Devonte hobbling around yesterday was enough to convince me.
Josh has had several off-court incidents now, but previously, he was disciplined “in-house” so we didn’t have to lose him for games. Why not this time? I’m sure if this had been a March Madness game then Josh would have played.
I’m just bummed because I wanted to enjoy two more games this weekend. Perhaps a selfish view of this whole thing. I also thought it would be two more games we could add to our cumulative win column against Kentucky for overall wins.
Otherwise… I feel good that we don’t risk anything going wrong.
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Does this by implication mean that the other seven no. 1 teams WON their conference tournaments?
And how many of them won the national title?
I don’t know,.
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@HighEliteMajor said:
Does this by implication mean that the other seven no. 1 teams WON their conference tournaments?
And how many of them won the national title?
You raised an interesting question. And I think you might be shocked by the answer.
Only 4 teams ranked #1 in the final AP poll have won the championship since 1985. 9 made it to the championship game. (See the screenshot.) I checked the dates, and the final poll is the one after conference tournaments are over. Presumably, most teams who were no.1 after a tournament probably had won it.
I haven’t finished how many of the actual champions had won their tournaments. Still compiling that.
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Random thoughts.
Has anyone thought about how the suspension of Jackson has ended up costing Kansas City hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost tourney business.
To be honest I feel Self is pressured to suspend these kids. Sometimes I look at things from an NBA perspective, would something this minor get you suspend in the NBA, heck no! Self should bow to no one. There is no precedent on how one is to punish players for minor offenses. He should just tell the media and all the critics that the way he handles his program is up to him and if people don’t like it, tough. Honestly what “lesson” is Jackson going to learn; he has what a month left at Kansas.
Maybe this just my belly-acheing because i really wanted to go to the KU game today darn it.
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@RockChalkRedlock The lesson is for the other and future players, not Josh.
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I can’t believe some of the hysteria about this loss. I get pissed when KU loses. Punching the couch; walking away from the TV so I don’t have to see the loss, etc. They lost that game yesterday and I didn’t even react.
Say it with me now: “The Big 12 Tournament means nothing.” This, I would argue is a good thing. You mean to tell me you’d rather have KU get in a shootout tonight with Iowa State who is red hot, then likely play West Virginia who KU had to pull a draining miracle OT comeback in AFH to win…rather than having 8 days of rest?
People keep saying things like “I think they they needed to get refocused and shown that they’re not invincible.” I don’t entirely disagree. But I think what is more true than that…KU doesn’t lose that game without Josh Jackson. So, it’s not as if that game exposed KU or something. Teams are different when their most talented player doesn’t play. Self was burning timeouts because guys like Frank and Landen were sucking wind yesterday. I’ve never seen that before. Then Devonte goes back to the locker room with a turned ankle? Please, KU fans, put your pride aside, focus on the prize (which, let’s be clear is the National Championship), take off your crimson and blue glasses and look at this rationally. If KU loses Landen Lucas, our season is over. If KU loses Frank Mason, our season is over. If KU loses Josh Jackson, our season is over. If KU loses Svi, Graham, or Vick, Our starting backcourt is playing all 40 minutes with each player staving off foul trouble, and our season is over. Risking our guys in these games that are about as valuable as a preseason game at this point is just too much.
I’m sorry. I know it’s counterintuitive, but I thought this was a good thing. I positively hate the Big 12 tournament. And throwing the consolation scraps to the little brother teams of the Big 12 is perfectly fine with me.
Rest up. Focus. And get ready for the most exciting ride of the year.
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I think the fanbase will benefit from 8 days of rest, too!
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@MoonwalkMafia You make a lot of good points. The only disagreement I would have is, if you put any stock in the overall picture, any and all losses hurt. By overall picture, I mean the entire tradition and body of work by KU teams all time. I for one would love to catch and surpass Kenstucky for most wins. By early exits in the tournaments, we are hurting our chances of that happening. We need to win every game possible to maintain our rep of being one of the elite teams of all time and achieve that goal.
Just hoping all the coaches and players stay safe and healthy and injury free. And that Josh will be on a mission to make us all forget about this game. I am pretty sure Frank and Landon are, since this is their last shot. GO JAYHAWKS!!!
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@CRH107 This fan will not get much rest from bball as I am still going to be watching a lot, just not my fav team. I guess KU is not the only team to blow big leads. SMU blew a 24 point lead and just eked out a win over ECU, a team they had swept twice by a total of 71 points this season. Sure wish Semi O. would have been a Jayhawk, since he was only 20 miles or so away from Allen Fieldhouse.
In my case, I am hoping TCU and KState play in the finals. That would be some news for ESPN talking heads. Might get 2 more B12 teams in the Dance also.
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Kansas City, Misery so I don’t really care much…
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@MoonwalkMafia Excellent post ! The only disagreement that I have is hating the tournament. Guess I’m just old fashioned
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@MoonwalkMafia great post, we would’ve most likely lost to ISU today anyway with Frank playing every minute yesterday. I’ve always said in the conference tournament I want to lose first game and rest or win the darn thing and get some mo. In-between those two means little to nothing IMO. The issue is for me is the complacent play with a lead, we had done it so much, some say it’s just us resting with a short bench. TCU proved to me you can’t do that against even an average team or it could bite you. Just off the top of my head we blew leads of double digits and let the opposing team tie or take back the lead-Duke, TCU, Davidson, KSU, UNLV (didn’t come back to tie it but had a 30 point lead trimmed to 9), TT, and ISU. When you do it so many times it’s becomes a trend and has cost us some wins, which obviously can’t happen again.
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@MoonwalkMafia Great points. But I do think it is better to win and go in on a roll vs. rest. However, we have done quite well after losing in the conf. tourney…like 2008, I believe? I do think the rest, while it can be beneficial, might be overrated. But the players and Self would have to tell us that…and they won’t. Yes, we would have won without Josh. But I still think we should have beaten them without him. They are, at best, a bubble team…11 seed? And they got blown out by ISU last night. The loss in and of itself is not concerning. What concerns me is that it demonstrated what can go wrong with the way this team plays. Not enough defense, no help for LL in the middle. No margin for error. We have done very well this year at finishing games. We did not do that against TCU. A couple of bad plays, a rimmed out shot by LL, couple of missed FTs. Fatigue probably played a part down the stretch. Also, the minutes when the bench came in and did not show well contributed to TCUs run at the end of the first half. The point is we seem to play close games against any competition. The more close games early on in the tourney the greater the chance something goes wrong. Foul trouble, a missed FT, untimely mistake, a 50/50 call that doesn’t go our way. Or out of 6 games a bad 3 point shooting night. A good defensive team can overcome a poor shooting night…not sure this team can.
That’s what makes me feel uneasy going into the tournament. Seems like others share my concerns.
I love our Jayhawks, but this team makes me extremely nervous.
