Of course, conference play hasn’t even begun yet, and pundits across the nation know that. However, that has not stopped some of the nation’s top analysts on already projecting who will land where by the time the Big Dance begins in March.
ESPN’s Joe Lunardi’s weekly bracketology layout was released earlier Tuesday morning, and the Kansas Jayhawks were given a fourth seed in the Eastern quadrant.
If you were to play out Kansas’ projected path, the Jayhawks would run into a lot of familiar territory.
First comes No. 13 Illinois State, then the No. 5 Tennessee Volunteers. Of course, the Jayhawks and the Vols have already met once this year in the Players Era Championship third-place match. If you want a game to epitomize the grittiness the Jayhawks have shown this season, flip that tape back on. From a double-digit deficit without Darryn Peterson to an 81-76 win, where four Jayhawks stepped up and contributed double-digit points. Self has often pointed out that being the best offensive performance of the season, in that even though their shots were not going down, they were playing the game well.
With the Volunteers out of the way, in comes the UConn Huskies. This is an infamous game this season, as even though Kansas lost by five points in a 61-56 margin, it was a highly-competitive matchup where the Huskies just narrowly edged out a few key stats like six more bench points, carving the difference with Peterson once again out.
By our assumption of the highest seed wins, then Kansas would fall out of the Sweet 16; however, in two of Kansas’ three losses this season (78-66 vs No. 5 Duke and the aforementioned UConn loss), the Jayhawks showed strong resilience throughout 35 minutes and were going punch for punch, yet a relatively week final few minutes caused Kansas to fall away in both of those matchups. Meaning if Kansas can improve in the final stretch, you can not count them out of any potential matchup this season.