The Big 12 Conference press release said: “As has been the case each of the last four years, Kansas is the preseason choice to win the Big 12 men’s basketball regular season championship. The Jayhawks were a unanimous selection and are the favorite for the 14th time in conference history overall.”
Coach Bill Self’s KU teams have won seven outright conference titles and tied for four others. He’s going for No. 12 and sitting in a good spot after beating Oklahoma for the second time this season. He’s 164-36 in conference action. Yeah, sing the praises of the Jayhawks in basketball.
Meanwhile, stroll to a dirge with Kansas State and begin to wonder about whether Coach Bruce Weber will be back next season. The Cats are one game out of the bottom with a 3-9 record (14-11 overall).
The Jayhawks are playing to an up-tempo beat, winning their last five games to run their conference mark to 9-3 (21-4 overall). They’re tied for the league lead with West Virginia after winning Saturday 76-72 at Norman.
Not much talk about the poor guard play for KU after the way Devonte’ Graham performed against the Sooners. He scored 27 points and when he defended against OU’s super talented Buddy Hield he forced four turnovers; Hield wound up with 24 points. Oh, but the screaming and hollering about KU’s lack of guard play — just simply no leadership there, huh.
Well, do you consider 12.5 points a game good or bad? That’s what he is averaging since the first of the year. Maybe you think he’s a bit inconsistent. In the 13 games in 2016, he’s been in double figures in all but three games. Two of those came early on. He apparently loves playing against OU, scoring 22 in the triple overtime win in Lawrence and then the 27 Saturday.
Last season as a freshman, he averaged 5.7 points a game. What did KU see in him during recruiting? Here are some items:
- Averaged 17.2 points and 5.0 assists per game and led Brewster Academy to the national prep championship and New England championship in 2013-14.
- Prior to Brewster, led Broughton High School in Raleigh, North Carolina, to the 4A state championship game where he averaged 15.7 points and 5.4 assists and a 26-6 record in 2012-13 under head coach Jeff Ferrell.
- Scored 20 points in the North Carolina Coaches Association All-Star Game following his senior year.
After Graham signed a letter of intent, Self said, “We got good today. He’s a late bloomer that will continue to get better. I think we have a true point guard back there.
“He wasn’t ranked coming out of high school, signed with Appalachian State and blew up. He went from not being ranked to 35. He’s better than 35 in our opinion. We felt good about him ever since he visited. He wanted to take his time and make a very good decision based on the first time when he kind of rushed into it.”
Self is smiling, Graham is smiling and KU fans are smiling.
Will the smiles continue as they head down the stretch? At home tonight, in Big Monday, they will go against Oklahoma State, a team that beat them 86-67 on January 19 in Stillwater. Keep in mind that the Cowboys are just 3-9 in the conference and 12-13 overall.
After tonight, the schedule looks like this: February 20 at Kansas State, February 23 at Baylor, February 27 Texas Tech, February 29 at Texas and March 5 Iowa State. Can K-State give ’em a game at Bramlage. You can be sure Baylor and Texas have the talent to beat the Jayhawks, but do they have the will?
Oh, K-State’s chances? Well, who knows about this team. Weber has the players so squirrely that they don’t know whether they’re on foot or horseback. Yes, some injuries. Yes, a tough conference slate. But, geez!
The Cats have lost three of their last four games, falling by 18 at KU and by 10 at home to Baylor, plus another overtime loss, this one 58-55 Saturday at Oklahoma State. The two other ot losses: 87-83 in two overtimes at home to West Virginia and 79-72 at Baylor.
The Cats have had rated opponents in a hole but haven’t been able to take care of business down the stretch.
Saturday, Weber was frenetic as ever on the sidelines; as one wag put it: “He looks like he has to go to the bathroom.” With his histrionics, how calm, cool and collected can the players be in tight situations!
He apparently has some talent based on the way they competed against some top-rated teams. But when he throws in the likes of Brian Rohleder for six minutes and Austin Budke for 13 in a game of this importance Saturday, you must wonder what is going on. Weber talks about their hustle. Fine. But Rohleder’s a senior who finally was put on scholarship this season and is averaging 0.1 points a game. Budke, from Beloit, Kansas, is a walk-on this season from Hutchinson Junior College.
Meanwhile, Ron Freeman sits on the bench with no action. Is the recruit from California not better than Rohleder and Budke? Would he not be an offensive threat? This is what Weber said when K-State signed him last July: “We are excited to add Ron to our team and complete our recruiting class. He is a young man that can give us some versatility with his athleticism and ability to score the ball. He is not only a great shooter with terrific jumping ability but also has exceptional length for both the shooting guard and small forward spots. I think his time in the prep school ranks, where he played against some of the top players in the country, will prove to be very valuable to his development.”
Doh! If Freeman isn’t better than Rohleder, then why did the coaches recruit him?
Then Weber makes these kinds of statements, as he did to reporters after the Oklahoma State game: “I don’t know where our emotion is right now, it’s disappointing, I tried to get them riled up, I was trying to get some fire in them. We’ve had a lot of bad things happen, but so have they.”
Well, pardner, you’re the coach. Get them ready to play.
Look at a couple of situations in the loss Saturday. Justin Edwards, off the bench, led the Cats in scoring with 14 points but he was only 4 of 15 from the field. Then there was Wesley Iwundu, leading the team in scoring with a 12.7 average entering the game. He shot 1 of 7 from the field and wound up with 5 points. He also missed a key 1-and-1 free throw in overtime. Okay. He did have 7 assists and 2 steals.
How did Edwards look at the situation? He told reporters after the game: “It was very frustrating. I feel like we came out slow, and if we came out with a little more aggression and effort it could have been a different scenario, but I guess it is what it is.”
It certainly is. Mind you, the Cats haven’t won a conference road game since last January 10 when they beat Oklahoma66-63. Don’t get too fired up about breaking their streak Tuesday night at last-place TCU. They lost 69-55 last season in Fort Worth.