All right, my blog is only 3 days old and already I feel the need to take a pot shot. In Gary Parrish's blog, he answers an e-mail from a reader who feels Kansas is overrated. Parrish's analysis of any team can usually be condensed down to a simple formula of how many NBA players other people tell him the team likely has. To my surprise, however, he actually took it a step further this time. He added the age old preseason poll mentality addage, "based on what they did last year."
Before I go any further, I'm not arguing Kansas is overrated. At least not now that they're no longer number 1. Further, I believe Kansas is a very good team. But I'm tired of hearing about what they did last year. They had a much better than expected season, given their attrition after winning the national title. But they got bounced by Baylor in the Big XII tourney, and then went on to beat the titans of basketball that were North Dakota State and Dayton before loosing in the Sweet Sixteen. Admittedly, they lost to MSU who went on to play in the title game. But a loss is a loss. So you have a Sweet Sixteen team from last year who returned everyone. So what. You take a Sweet Sixteen team and add Xavier Henry, that does not automatically make them the elite team in college basketball this year. There is no the elite team this year. Can we please stop talking about last year already.
This Kansas team also did win the Big 12 conference (for the 5th straight season) and was the only team to go into Norman, Oklahoma last year and come out with a win.
ReplyDeleteGood points. I'm not saying their season last year didn't deserve some preseason love, just not necessarily as much as they got. Either way, we're at the point in the season where we can stop talking about last year, and Kansas's current record speaks for itself without reaching back.
ReplyDelete