Santa Self has delivered us another great gift this
year. Despite losing two top players
from a National Champion finalist team last year in Thomas Robinson and Tyshawn
Taylor, Santa Self has wrapped up a team heavy with seniors and freshmen that
continues to get stronger. A big win on
road in Columbus, Ohio
last Saturday was a holiday treat for us all.
This 2012-2013 college basketball season is proving to be a
weak one, not only nationally, but in the Big XII as well. Mike DeCourcy of the Sporting News has the
Big XII ranked 8th among conferences, behind such power leagues as
the Mountain West, Atlantic 10, Pac-12, and the round ball challenged SEC. It wasn’t too long ago that the Big XII had
moved up into the top two or three basketball conferences. Missouri
jumping to the SEC certainly didn’t help.
Even though the Tigers have the 146th ranked strength of
schedule (Rivals.com’s RPI Ratings), they are 10-1 and would probably be Kansas’
biggest challengers this season if they had stayed put. Missouri
and Texas A&M were replaced by a horrible basketball school in TCU (only
scored 31 in a game this season and have scored less than 50 in several others)
and a very disappointing West Virginia,
6-5, 111 RPI). The conference only has
three teams in the RPI top 40 – Kansas
(2), Oklahoma St. (20), and
Oklahoma (25). Only three teams have played a schedule
ranked in the top 60 – Kansas
(3), OU (13), and Baylor (26). Three
teams have schedules ranked lower than 200 – Kansas
St. (215), TCU (283), and Texas Tech (298). I have long believed that many of the Big XII
schools historically don’t schedule a tough enough slate. KU and Texas
usually are the only teams that play stronger teams on a regular basis.
Be that as it may, Kansas
is ranked 7th in the AP and 2nd in the RPI with the 3rd
toughest schedule in the country. I
think Santa Self has done a great job of picking some of the strongest
mid-major teams year in and year out to play.
I think that is why his strength of schedule is so high. Throw in teams like Colorado
and Temple, on top of the likes of Michigan
State and Ohio
State, and he has a competitive
schedule against several good to decent teams Kansas
should beat.
Santa Self also does a terrific job being patient with his
teams. He lets them grow as players throughout
the pre-conference schedule. His teams
generally make a leap forward about this time of year as he has much more
practice time between semesters to put in more plays. Kansas
usually hits their stride come the conference part of the schedule. Barring something disastrous, Kansas
should stroll away through the Big XII this season and win their 9th
straight conference title. That would be
an amazing accomplishment.
One of the things Santa Self does best is to reload each
year. Year after year, KU loses a big
chunk of their points, rebounds, assists, and minutes to graduation (it should also be noted that Santa Self's players graduate at a very high rate) or the
NBA. Several higher echelon schools go
through this. It also seems that Santa
Self has something left in his stocking for the next season, even when it
doesn’t always appear that he does. This
year, he was left with four seniors, three of whom started in the National
Championship game last April.
After KU beat Richmond
a couple of weeks ago, Chris Mooney, the Spiders’ coach, said he was surprised
when he started watching film on the Jayhawks.
He couldn’t believe a school on the level of Kansas
would have four senior starters. In this
day and age of one and done players, the top tier teams are often hit the worst
by this. One of the CBS announcers on
Saturday, I think it was Greg Anthony, also mentioned the anomaly of a school
like Kansas having four seniors
during the Ohio State
telecast. Santa Self does a terrific job
of getting a lot of his players that are not one and done talent to stay the
course and convinces them that they can be major contributors down the
road. He does it year after year. Players who don’t play much as freshmen or
sophomores end up playing huge roles on very good teams by the time they are
juniors and seniors. Santa Self and his
staff are obviously coaching these kids up, even when they are not playing a
lot of minutes in games. It always seems
to pay off.
This team has the four seniors, one sophomore with
significant playing time in Nadir Tharpe, and the other five guys who get to
play in varying degrees are freshmen (not counting the walk-ons or junior
Justin Wesley). The four seniors are not
the most talented or athletic players in the country but they all do many
things very well. They all bring
something important to the table. They
have all been role players in the past but are now the leaders. They all know what Santa Self requires of
them and they work together to win games.
Talking heads always go on about how important senior leadership is come
NCAA tournament time. That theory will
be tested in March as Kansas
tries for back to back Final Fours.
Kansas can
look very good (Colorado, Belmont,
Richmond) but they are happy to win
ugly too (Chattanooga, Ohio
State). The ugly wins don’t count less than the
pretty ones. Kansas
has a very good chance, because of their strong non-conference schedule and an
apparently weaker than usual Big XII, to mount a pretty big win total by
tournament time. Unless something
unforeseen happens (never want to count chickens before they hatch), Kansas
should be in a prime position to garner a #1 seed, and no lower than a #2
seed. With senior leadership, it would a
great gift to the fans for the Jayhawks to return to the Final Four and maybe
even the Finals. Santa Self has
delivered before; he can do it again.
Check your list Santa Self; we have been very good this year!
I hope everyone has a safe and happy holiday season!
Get TV and movie reviews at jawsrecliner.blogspot.com and follow me on twitter @jawrecliner. Thanks for reading.