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NYC Duke Fan
02-19-2009, 04:53 AM
Obviously this has nothing to do with Duke basketball , but as a college basketball fan I was impressed.

The 2 teams that faced off in last year's championship game and who both lost star players are having excellent years to date...Memphis is 23-3 and Kansas is 21-5. Both Calipari and Self are doing terrific work at their respective schools.

I have not seen either team play . Does either team have the components to win the tournament or be a Final 4 team ?

CDu
02-19-2009, 07:53 AM
Obviously this has nothing to do with Duke basketball , but as a college basketball fan I was impressed.

The 2 teams that faced off in last year's championship game and who both lost star players are having excellent years to date...Memphis is 23-3 and Kansas is 21-5. Both Calipari and Self are doing terrific work at their respective schools.

I have not seen either team play . Does either team have the components to win the tournament or be a Final 4 team ?

This year? I'd say probably not.

Kansas has an explosive, stocky PG (think a poor man's Ty Lawson) in Collins, and a very productive big man in Aldrich. Those components make a big difference. But Collins is very up-and-down, and aside from those two guys they are pretty inexperienced and lack impact players.

Memphis has good size and athleticism, and they did replace Douglas-Roberts with a star in Tyreke Evans. But they just don't have the "take over the game PG" or the dominant defensive post presence that they had last year in Rose and Dorsey.

I mean, I guess ANY team that gets an upper-tier seed COULD be a final four team, but I don't see it with those two squads. Both are benefiting from playing in very thin/weak conferences this year and beefing up their record against relatively weak comp. Neither has looked overly impressive out of conference, with Memphis losing to all but one of the sure-fire tourney teams that they've faced and Kansas having only a win against a mediocre Tennessee team on their resume.

crimsonandblue
02-19-2009, 11:13 AM
Self has done a great job with this bunch. We choked away a game against Syracuse early in the season (let them hit a big 3 to tie and force OT, where we then lost). We lost to UMass when we just didn't show up. Otherwise, the season has been as good as could be expected. We choked away a game a week and a half ago to Mizzou on the road, where we had a big halftime lead. But much better Kansas teams than this one have lost to much worse Mizzou teams in Columbia.

Someone on the Kansas boards posted that Self's got the longest running streak of 23-win no double digit loss seasons going right now, dating back to a 23-10 Tulsa team in 98-99. He's pretty much won and won big wherever he's gone. So, this probably isn't surprising.

As for big wins, Kansas's out of conference resume is mediocre, but in addition to Tennessee at home, we handled Pac10 leading Washington fairly easily in KC.

And the Big XII is bad, but not ridiculously bad, like Conference USA (in which Memphis may never have lost a game).

As for possibilities of a run in the tournament, well, we're sitting in a year when Mizzou is ranked 10th and 11th in the polls and is a solid but unspectacular team. It's a team that would finish maybe fifth or sixth in the Big XII of 2003, let alone in the nation. Duke loses two games in a week and stays, rightfully, in the top ten. There just aren't that many good teams out there. So, anything's possible.

Assuming that Kansas holds it together Saturday at home to Nebraska, we'll see on Monday in Norman whether this group has turned the corner to sweet sixteen type expectations. We've got some freshmen who've regressed and some who are really coming on. The impressive thing has been the steadiness of our sophomores. Win in Norman (maybe a 15-20% chance at best) and we hold the conference championship fate in our own hands after losing 7 of our top 8 scorers from last year... I'll take it.

Memphis Devil
02-19-2009, 12:26 PM
While I may be jaded by the constant chattering of Memphis fans in my ear, I find it hard to take this years team too seriously. Obviously they still have a majority of the players back from last years team, however, they are missing the ones that took them over the top (Dorsey, CDR, Rose). Yes, they are 20-3, but the 3 losses are against the only good teams that they have played to date (Xavier, G-town, 'Cuse). I must admit, though, they have not lost a game since adjusting their line up and moving Tyreke Evans to PG. Is that a result of a more cohesive unit or just the quality of the opponents? And, for what it's worth, outside of C-USA, their only quality wins are against Gonzaga and Tennessee.

As I have said for the past two weeks to all of my Memphis friends, if Tusla or Houston had the exact same wins and losses, they would not be a top 6 team. I think their current ranking is based as much on respect for what they have accomplished over the last 4 years as it is the quality of this years team.