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Kansas named No. 1 overall seed, faces Lehigh Thursday

By Corey Thibodeaux

Sunday, March 14, 2010

As expected, Kansas is the No. 1 overall seed in the NCAA tournament with a first round matchup against Lehigh.

The Jayhawks will travel to Oklahoma City, Okla. to face the 22-10 Mountain Hawks from Bethlehem, Penn.

Spending the past 19 games against the Big 12, opponents they were familiar with, senior guard Sherron Collins is excited to play a team they haven't seen this season.

"It's a good thing because you go against a team where you don't know what they do, but they don't know what you're going to do," Collins said. "It'll be different."

The Midwest regional also features the two teams that beat Kansas earlier this season, Tennessee and Oklahoma State, and the team that took them out of the tournament last year, Michigan State. The Jayhawks could exact revenge on the Spartans in the Sweet Sixteen and can only meet one of the other two in the Elite Eight if the cards play out that way.

But head coach Bill Self is focusing on round one and two at the moment.

"If we had a chance to play any of those teams, it could mean one of two things: the other team would be confident or we could be angry," he said. "But we're not going that far, we've got to win a two-game tournament."

Of course, this is the biggest tournament of the year, so no team is going to be easy. Lehigh belongs in the Patriot League and features the top scoring freshman in the country with CJ McCollum. Another team in the Patriot League: Bucknell

The Jayhawks are going to start their research on the unfamiliar opponent Sunday night, not worrying about seeds, records or statistics.

"No. 1 seed overall or not, it all starts over again," junior center Cole Aldrich said. "It's a whole new season for us and everybody is fighting for their lives for here on out."

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