It’s just about that time of the year, when college sports fans will soon be resigned to watching nothing but professional baseball and soccer highlights every night and counting down to college football’s first kickoff.

Aside from a handful of track meets, baseball games and golf tournaments, the sports year at the University is history. But instead of immediately looking forward to next fall, it’s important to take time to reflect on the lessons that can be gleaned from the past nine months. As the saying goes, those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it, and I doubt many sports fans would like to live through the disappointments from last year again.

Lesson No. 1: It takes more than seven months to build a good football team.

This really shouldn’t be a lesson that Kansas fans needed to learn; it should have been common sense. After all, the great Mark Mangino had even fewer wins his first season, going 2-10 five years before winning a BCS championship. However, the immediate calls for Turner Gill’s firing from incensed fans suggest that this is a lesson that needs to be learned once again.

Lesson No. 2: Sometimes September football makes about as much sense as March basketball.

For all the effort that goes into breaking down matchups, stat lines and x-factors, sports makes extremely little sense sometimes. We’re used to seeing nonsensical results in March, like Kansas’ loss to VCU two days after an absolute dismantling of Richmond. But Kansas football experienced a similar week in the fall – call it September Madness – when it followed up a less-than-inspiring opening loss to North Dakota State by upsetting Georgia Tech. That result against Tech made even less sense as the disappointing season continued.

Lesson No. 3: Never trust a Bubba

You remember Bubba Cunningham, right? Last fall, almost no one at the University of Kansas had heard of him. Then, on December 14, a Tuesday, several major news outlets reported Cunningham had all but signed a contract to be Kansas’ next Athletics Director.

Or maybe he won’t, they reported the next day.

Actually, he definitely won’t, it was decided on Thursday.

Who knows why he ultimately decided to turn down Kansas and return to Tulsa, but surely Kansas learned its lesson in messing around with Bubbas and ultimately decided to go with the candidate with the second-best name they could find: Sheahon Zenger.

Lesson No. 4: If you want to be a professional basketball player, make sure you average 8.7 points per game and maintain a .382 field goal percentage.

Take note, young basketball players. If you want to make it to the NBA draft, all it takes is two-thirds of a collegiate season playing in a limited role and earning mediocre stats. You might also sit out three games in the middle of the season with a stress reaction in your foot, just so you don’t gain too much momentum throughout the season. It worked for Josh Selby, so who says it can’t work for everyone?

Well, sure, there was the whole “No. 1 high school recruit” thing, but don’t get caught up in details.

-Edited by Dave Boyd