Kansas basketball is back!
Well, no, not really, as of writing this article, we are still 69 days away from seeing the first tipoff, when Kansas is set to take on Green Bay from the Horizon League. But remember, when Kansas football was 70 days away, it probably didn’t feel like that long ago.
That conjecture is besides the point; CBS Sports took the time to recently project every top-25 team (and one more), and Kansas was slotted into the 18th spot, which feels a little bit of a slight.
Here is what Issac Trotter of CBS Sports said of the Jayhawks' expected front and backcourt.
Trotter listed his starting five as
G: Darryn Peterson
G: Melvin Council Jr.
G: Jayden Dawson
F: Tre White
F: Flory Bidunga
“Top reserves: G Elmarko Jackson, F Bryson Tiller, C Paul Mbiya, G Kohl Rosario, G Jamari McDowell”
“Biggest preseason battle: Jackson, Council and Dawson are tangling for two starting spots. Council is a good athlete who can play defense, run a team and is a total dawg. It sounds like Council will be very hard for Kansas to keep off the floor. Dawson is that high-volume sniper that KU needs to keep the floor spaced for what should be a tantalizing Peterson-Bidunga, pick-and-roll game. Jackson is the X factor after missing all of last year with a torn patellar. Has the jumper progressed? Can the athleticism return? How long until the cobwebs are gone after a missed season?”
Jackson was the one excluded from the Jayhawks' starting five, and it unfortunately does make sense, to no fault of Jackson’s. You see, suffering a season-ending injury before the season even begins is a tough pill for any athlete to swallow, and Jackson had to face that after such a stellar first season, where the Marlton, New Jersey native saw three double-digit scoring nights, showing promise of a steady scorer.
Jackson’s career is by no means over, but for now, with two solid scorers entering the program, he may be resigned to the bench