2013 - 2014 College Basketball Season

[aknowledgeableperson]

Although this is for next season and beyond the first two games of the Final Four in 2014 will be on TBS and I think in 2015 all 4 games will be on TBS.

[KCMax]

KU lands #1 prospect Andrew Wiggins.

[brewcrew1000]

I'm kind of shocked, i thought KU would have been his last choice. Thought he was going to FSU for sure

[KCMax]

KU to play Florida Dec 10 in Big 12/SEC challenge.

Other matchups:
Kentucky/Baylor in JerryDome
Missouri/West Virginia
Ole Miss/K-State
Auburn/Iowa State
A&M/Oklahoma in Houston
Alabama/Texas Tech
Vandy/Texas
Miss State/TCU
So Carolina/Oklahoma State

[grovester]

I think we should do a pick 'em.

[AllThingsKC]

Kansas/Florida
Kentucky/Baylor in JerryDome
Missouri/West Virginia
Ole Miss/K-State
Auburn/Iowa State
A&M/Oklahoma in Houston
Alabama/Texas Tech
Vandy/Texas
Miss State/TCU
So Carolina/Oklahoma State

[bobbyhawks]

I'm kind of shocked, i thought KU would have been his last choice. Thought he was going to FSU for sure

Every kid looking to keep folks guessing in the future should read from Wiggins' playbook. He had people all over the map with "insider" predictions.

[chaglang]

I'm kind of shocked, i thought KU would have been his last choice. Thought he was going to FSU for sure

Every kid looking to keep folks guessing in the future should read from Wiggins' playbook. He had people all over the map with "insider" predictions.

It's pretty simple: don't talk to anyone. The discipline required for a 17 year old to stay off Twitter, etc, and not talk to ESPN, etc., is impressive. In that regard he's definitely ready for the NBA.

[KCMax]

KU is a #2 seed for the NCAA Tournament already. K-State is a #9, Mizzou is a #10.

http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketb ... ration/174

[KCMax]

K-State not likely to play at SC next year

http://blogs.kansas.com/kstated/2013/05 ... xt-season/

[Highlander]

KU is a #2 seed for the NCAA Tournament already. K-State is a #9, Mizzou is a #10.

http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketb ... ration/174

Frankly, I think Mizzou could struggle to even make the tournament next year. Entire front line is being replaced. Big men look decent with respect to potential but they will be very inexperienced. And very inexperienced at the point too. They will be a bubble team from the outset. Brown is really only experience player coming back with all SEC potential. Ross needs considerable improvement. Everyone else is a big ???

[AllThingsKC]

Frankly, I think Mizzou could struggle to even make the tournament next year. Entire front line is being replaced. Big men look decent with respect to potential but they will be very inexperienced. And very inexperienced at the point too. They will be a bubble team from the outset. Brown is really only experience player coming back with all SEC potential. Ross needs considerable improvement. Everyone else is a big ???

How do you think Haith's coaching will impact the team next year? I questions his coaching sometimes and I wonder what role that will play with most people on the team bring a big question mark.

[NKC]

I think Mizzou will struggle as well. The SEC will be as good or better pretty much across the board. On paper, Mizzou will be much weaker. No reliable point guard and no reliable post presence. A lot depends on how much of an impact Wes Clark and Jonathan Williams can have as freshman.

I know this is strange to say as a Mizzou fan, but I am most intrigued to see how all of these freshman work out for Kansas. Roy an Bill have had a near 20 year run where they have had experience and talent on the roster. Given this experience they have always played very strong defense and I think a lot of their success through the years can be attributed to their defense (especially during the Self era).

The only players they have coming back who are worth a squat are Perry Ellis and Nadir Tharpe. Ellis seemed to put things together toward the end of last season, but he was largely a disappointment as a freshman. Regardless, this freshman class may be all world but KU is going to take a massive step backward defensively. I'm not saying they will be bad defensively, but freshman typically do not come right in and play the kind of lock down defense that has become a staple of Bill Self basketball.

While this Kansas team is talented like usual, it is a very different Kansas team than I am used to seeing. I am interested to see how it works out. If Self hops on the one and one wagon like Kentucky and North Carolina it is a high risk, high reward strategy that I'm not sure KU fans want to be a part of.

[KCMax]

Good points, and Bill has generally had good "teams" but never a one-man show with supporting players. Even when he had POY candidates like Ben McLemore and Thomas Robinson, those guys fit in a system and integrated well.

I'm not sure Wiggins is going to be like that. And you don't need him to be like that to be successful (people criticized McLemore for being too passive). But it will be interesting to see if Bill has to change his coaching style to incorporate more offense, and with one "go-to" guy instead of a more collaborative effort.

[bobbyhawks]

It will also be interesting to see what happens if Wiggins is the player that Self wants him to be from the get go. Not one of our one-and-done guys (and Brandon Rush as a one-and-done who stuck around) showed the aggressiveness that Self wanted them to show. Some of the passivity was due to weaknessess in the games that were exploited on the college level, but none of those guys (Selby, Xavier, Rush, McLemore) ever had that takeover mentality that someone like Burke throws back in your face (literally). So, ultimately, the closest we've seen Self coach with this type of player is Sherron Collins, and Sherron had some problems down the stretch of his senior year.

I am very interested to see how our defensive stats play out. It seems that the system has been the real reason for success, though that theory will get a great test with a lot of green players. 2012 Kentucky was #1 in FG defense and #9 overall. 2009 KU was a pretty green team (arguably about the same as this year or worse) and had a pretty solid class come in. They were #7 in defense. I'll be pretty shocked if we aren't in the top 15 again next year and predict we will be in the top 10 on defense.

[NKC]

I am very interested to see how our defensive stats play out. It seems that the system has been the real reason for success, though that theory will get a great test with a lot of green players. 2012 Kentucky was #1 in FG defense and #9 overall. 2009 KU was a pretty green team (arguably about the same as this year or worse) and had a pretty solid class come in. They were #7 in defense. I'll be pretty shocked if we aren't in the top 15 again next year and predict we will be in the top 10 on defense.

2012 Wildcats had Anthony Davis and 2009 Jayhawks had Cole Aldrich with a year experience under his belt regulating the paint. Maybe Perry Ellis can make a jump, but even he is more of a 4, not a true 5. I don't think the Embiid kid is Anthony Davis.

[Highlander]

Frankly, I think Mizzou could struggle to even make the tournament next year. Entire front line is being replaced. Big men look decent with respect to potential but they will be very inexperienced. And very inexperienced at the point too. They will be a bubble team from the outset. Brown is really only experience player coming back with all SEC potential. Ross needs considerable improvement. Everyone else is a big ???

How do you think Haith's coaching will impact the team next year? I questions his coaching sometimes and I wonder what role that will play with most people on the team bring a big question mark.

Haith will essentially have the same kind of problems as this year. A hastily assembled team that hasn't played together much but, next year, he won't have anywhere the same level of experience. This year, it took a while for Haith to settle the team down to a consistent line up where the players were playing within their abilities (Ross and Bell were out of control for the first half of the season). Not having Dixon really hurt Haith's ability to control Pressey who I kind of figured just did what he wanted depending on his mood on a per game basis. He knew he was going to play 38 minutes, there were no alternative PG's.

But the biggest issue for Haith will be getting the team to consistently play 40 minutes of defense, game after game. After watching Anderson's teams play tight defense for his tenure, watching the last two Mizzou teams allow opposing players, game after game, to have career nights against Mizzou is painful. I think Mizzou only held an opponent to under 0.40 3-4 times over the course of conference play and defense on the road was just awful. The defensive effort against CSU in the tournament was woeful.

[Highlander]

It will also be interesting to see what happens if Wiggins is the player that Self wants him to be from the get go. Not one of our one-and-done guys (and Brandon Rush as a one-and-done who stuck around) showed the aggressiveness that Self wanted them to show. Some of the passivity was due to weaknessess in the games that were exploited on the college level, but none of those guys (Selby, Xavier, Rush, McLemore) ever had that takeover mentality that someone like Burke throws back in your face (literally). So, ultimately, the closest we've seen Self coach with this type of player is Sherron Collins, and Sherron had some problems down the stretch of his senior year.

Everything I've read puts Wiggins in the caliber of a Durant or Kobe Bryant, and none of the KU's former one and done's were in that caliber. Rush and McLemore were great players but could not carry a team. Selby was maybe the most overrated players out of HS I've ever seen (huge ball handling weakness for a guard) and selfish on top of that. The fact that he was 1 and done and got drafted just shows that NBA front offices don't really pay close enough attention to who they are drafting. Anyway, when you have to rely on freshmen and a couple of decent but not great returning players, the range of outcomes is all over the place regardless of how highly touted players are and injuries/maturity level will be the wild card.

As an aside, I'd rather players who think they are ready for the NBA go ahead and go. Let some other kid go to college. It does nothing for the college game and, as a fan, while it's great to get the occasional #1 player in the country out of HS, I'd hate a steady diet of it. Kentucky is probably my least favorite program in the country and I'd hate to be stuck being a fan having a nearly 100% change in starters on an annual basis.

KU fans should really appreciate Withey. I was very impressed by his ability to change the offensive strategy of opposing teams - more so than any player at KU I can remember. Fans think KU got to the championship game against Kentucky on the back of Thomas Robinson, but they would not have even made a deep run that year without Withey. He's among the best defensive players I've seen in a long time and certainly better than Aldrich (who actually got away with a lot) and was among the primary reasons KU played great defense over the last two years.

[bobbyhawks]

Defensive Efficiency for KU under Bill Self:

2013 - 6th
2012 - 4th
2011 - 9th
2010 - 8th
2009 - 7th
2008 - 1st
2007 - 1st
2006 - 2nd
2005 - 18th
2004 - 13th

Certainly, Withey was one of the best post defenders KU will ever have, but I think Self's defenses have shown a flexibility based on the strengths of the personnel available. The Morrii were not the world's best one-on-one post defenders, but they were quick and great at help defense. They could also swing to the wing and were great at preventing cheap 3s (esp. in 2011). In each of the years where the Morrii played significant roles, our defense had a very different personality.

The year on paper that most closely matches the upcoming season for the Jayhawks is 2009. KU returned under 15% of its total team scoring from the prior season (Collins, Aldrich, and Reed). This season, we return just under 21% of our scoring (Ellis, Tharpe, Traylor, White +some deeper scrub points). Sherron and Cole were far and away the leading scorers in 2008-09, though I'm not sure if any of this year's Jayhawks would project to be top 2 scorers next season (unless Ellis has a pretty great season). It doesn't look like we will have to rely on a two man show like we did in 2009, especially considering how the Morrii looked like they would be flops that year.

[KCMax]

KU lands Memphis transfer Malik Black. Was not expecting that. Tons of depth now - I wonder if we see some of the guys at the end of the bench leave the program now.

K-State adds 6'10'' Brandon Bolden from G'town and Justin Edwards from Maine. Angel Rodriguez ended up at Miami.

Mizzou lands Baylor transfer Deuce Bellow.