Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Expectations are funny things.
Take, for instance, the hypothetical scenario that Kansas makes it to the Sweet 16 this year and no further. There was a time when that would have been considered a stellar end to the season by most Kansas fans. And why not? The reasons for diminished expectations this year have been well documented.
But that time, however recent, is long gone circumstantially. Then, Kansas was a young team with glaring flaws. The Jayhawks couldn’t seem to get a win on the road, and Sherron Collins failed to deliver when the moment most called for his particular talents. Cole Aldrich, a positive surprise regardless, found himself left out of the offensive flow far too often. The Morris twins found themselves similarly disenfranchised, albeit because of their own inability to stay out of foul trouble. Mario Little, plagued by injuries, couldn’t find his way onto the court at all. Then, a Sweet 16 sounded, well, sweet.
That Kansas team bears little resemblance to the one that sits poised atop the Big 12. Unquestionably, things are different now. Kansas is a better team. Better to the point where expectations are beginning to shift dramatically upward.
No doubt, you’ve heard the rumblings. Could this Kansas team, with the proper breaks, get a No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament? Even if that doesn’t happen, is it possible that the Jayhawks could make a run deeper than the Sweet 16? Perhaps another Final Four, or — dare I ask? — another championship? No doubt, there’s been talk. Perhaps you’ve even indulged in some of it yourself.
I know I have. In truth, it’s hard not to.
Kansas was projected to finish tied for third in the Big 12 this year. As stupid as it is for sportswriters to make assumptions — even apparently safe ones such as this — I’ll do it anyway. Kansas will defeat Texas Tech tonight, thus giving it at least a share of the Big 12 championship for a fifth consecutive season. That, by itself, would make this season a successful one.
But then there’s that not-so-little matter of the NCAA tournament. True, Bill Self has had his problems dancing in March while at Kansas. But his premature exits were with a team that had seemingly quit on him and a young team. The latter may sound like this year’s Jayhawks, but there’s an important difference: Sherron Collins. And it’s worth reiterating that this year’s field appears to lack dominant teams. In other words, Kansas could beat anyone on any given night. Of course, there’s the unfortunate other side to that coin — that Kansas could also lose to a lot of tourney teams if things were to go wrong.
Thus we have the question of where expectation levels ought to be. Should we do the “smart” thing and consider any NCAA tournament success the proverbial cherry on top of the season? Maybe, but that won’t happen. So we should opt for what we’ll probably do anyway: Be fans, and find a way to justify filling in Kansas six times on our NCAA tournament bracket. That might not be the intelligent thing to do, but great expectations aren’t reserved for London orphans.
— — Edited by Chris Horn
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