Tuesday, April 26, 2011
This team was never going to go 33-3. After losing Sherron Collins and two lottery picks, it just wasn’t possible to replicate the previous year’s success.
Bill Self said so before the season:
“Well, this team’s not going 33-3.”
About that.
“Well, technically I was right,” Self said after the season. “We went 35-3.”
Self called it Kansas math before the season, the idea that the Jayhawks could lose so much and not have a significant drop off. And before the season started, media and coaches alike predicted that the math wouldn’t add up. Kansas State was picked as the preseason Big 12 favorite, with Self and the Jayhawks slated to finish second.
About that.
The Jayhawks didn’t lose a game in the nonconference season for the first time since winning a national title in 2008. There were scares — the Jayhawks needed late buckets against UCLA and USC and went to overtime with Michigan — but no slipups. Not until four games into the conference slate.
“Obviously we’re happy with the record,” Self said. “The first season is important but not near as important as the second season, that’s conference play.”
That first loss didn’t come until Texas came to Allen Fieldhouse on January 22 to hand the Jayhawks their first home loss since 2007. The Jayhawks, emotionally drained by the death of Thomas Robinson’s mother the night before, couldn’t hang on to an early lead. The loss was overshadowed by Robinson’s loss, though.
“It says a lot that Thomas came out and played,” Marcus Morris said. “It took a lot of courage to play since Thomas only has his mother and his sister. It is just a sad situation because you do not know what to say to him.”
Kansas steamrolled its next six opponents by nearly 20 points per game before traveling to Manhattan to face the preseason favorite Wildcats. For one game at least, they backed up that ranking, as Jacob Pullen poured in 38 points to hand Kansas its second loss and leave the Jayhawks two games back of Texas with five to play.
But in true Self fashion, the Jayhawks managed against steep odds to wrangle their seventh consecutive conference crown away from the Longhorns, who stumbled down the stretch while Kansas won its last five.
Morris earned Big 12 Player of the Year honors, and following a dominant three-game stretch in the Big 12 Tournament which the Jayhawks won in a classic final over Texas, backed it up by being named the tournament’s most outstanding player.
Six days after the final, Kansas teed off on Boston University in the first round of the NCAA Tournament, turning a four-point halftime lead in to a 19-point whupping. Two days later, they handled Illinois 73-59 to move to the Sweet 16, joined by the 10-, 11- and 12-seeds in the region. But after putting 12th-seeded Richmond away in impressive fashion to become the only one seed in the Elite Eight, the Jayhawks stumbled at the hands of Virginia Commonwealth, which became the third 11-seed ever to reach a Final Four.
“It was set up for us regardless of seeds,” Self said. “We were the better team in my opinion. We weren’t that day but we were the better team and that’s tough to stomach.”
It was the last game of six Jayhawks’ careers. Josh Selby and the Morris twins declared for the NBA draft, while Tyrel Reed, Brady Morningstar and Mario Little will graduate in May.
— Edited by Becca Harsch
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