Sarraf: Jayhawks peaking at right time

Wednesday, March 14, 2007

After two straight first-round disappointments for coach Bill Self, Jayhawk fans are cautious about looking past Friday’s game against play-in winner Niagara, and rightfully so.

Fans can take a deep breath and relax because those former teams had serious flaws that this year’s squad looks to have patched up.

Self’s squad two seasons ago had more turmoil than any Kansas team in recent memory. After starting the season ranked as the nation’s No. 1 team, the team entered the tournament losers of five out of the last eight regular season games and ended up a three seed. Star guard Keith Langford was nursing an injured ankle and recovering from a virus. Self inherited a squad full of Roy Williams’ recruits that seemed to struggle to buy into his system of defense and toughness. Often during games, you could see Aaron Miles or Keith Langford shout back at their head coach. The fact that Williams admitted to keeping in regular contact with his former players throughout the season probably did not help matters.

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Last year’s team had the same core as this season’s, but with two major differences: experience and depth.

Even beyond those issues, there is a clear difference in talent between the two squads. The 2004-2005 team had one future NBA player in Wayne Simien, the 29th pick of the 2005 draft. This year’s team has five potential first-round picks in Julian Wright, Brandon Rush, Darrell Arthur, Mario Chalmers and Sherron Collins. To emphasize the difference in talent, walk-on Christian Moody played 32 minutes in the Bucknell upset in 2005.

Last year’s team had the same core as this season’s, but with two major differences: experience and depth.

Like the current team, last year’s squad entered the tournament on a roll as Big 12 Tournament champions and having won 14 of its last 15 games. After defeating a powerful Texas squad in the final, the team — led by three freshmen and three sophomores — got cocky and failed to bring the intensity against Bradley that led the Jayhawks to a four seed. With all the key components returning this season, we can only hope that they learned their lesson.

While Self brought in seldom-used guard Jeff Hawkins and the absent-minded C.J. Giles off the bench last season to form his seven-man rotation, this year’s team goes a legitimate nine deep. McDonald’s All-Americans Collins and Arthur provide an offensive spark with juniors Darnell Jackson and Rodrick Stewart recognizing their roles and providing stability when necessary.

While many Jayhawk fans are still apprehensive after the past few seasons and refuse to break down a potential Villanova or Kentucky match-up with anyone, they can go ahead and start examining the bottom half of the West Region with confidence.

Sarraf is a Lawrence senior in journalism.

— Edited by Stacey Couch

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