Ruminations about my Jayhawks

Charlie Klein

My favourite college basketball team lost today. These things happen. Anyone who knows me at all, or is friends with me on facebook, knows exactly which teams I like. And everyone remembers come March how much I love my Kansas Jayhawks. I let everyone know.

This season I really felt it was going to be their year. Everything was going according to plan. Sherron and Cole came back to win the Championship this time around. They were ranked number one in the nation for most of the season. Everyone rushed to anoint them as the best team in the nation. And for whatever reason, I believed them.

Today was the perfect expression of Murphy's Law. Right down to the final product. Everything that can go wrong, will go wrong. All of the pundits and most of America picked Kansas to win the National Championship. I thought it was in the bag. Ali Farokmanesh and Northern Iowa had other plans.

I honestly think that my boys thought they could win by just walking on the court and going through the motions, that the clouds would part and the light of the Gods of basketball would smile upon them and grant them their every wish. They took far too long to get involved in the game. And they got burned.

Unfortunately, by the divine providence of the NCAA selection committee they put my beloved Jayhawks in the toughest region in the field of 64. What a way to reward the number one overall seed. Instead of playing the winner of the play-in game, we played arguably the best 16 seed. And then we played the best nine seed in the field in Northern Iowa.

I had a bad feeling about this game going in, but if you asked me if I thought Kansas had a chance in hell of ultimately losing this game, I would have said something to the effect of "get outta heah!" I did not prioritize this game at all. I figured, "Hey, I can afford to miss one of the six games we are going to play this month and next."

This tournament has been so crazy that many, particularly the fans of Kansas, Villanova, and Georgetown, might prefer the BCS to the tournament. Nine times out of ten Kansas beats a team like Northern Iowa by a double digit margin. The beauty (and the bane) of the NCAA tournament is that the one time out of ten can happen, and often does, in March.

I don't want to sit here and make excuses for my team. Honestly we should have crushed Northern Iowa. We ought to have played defense with greater energy, get out to the three point line and put a hand in Farokmanesh's face. Play that Jayhawk D we played all season. But, we played a terrible game and deserved our fate.

I am sure this is not the way that senior guard Sherron Collins imagined his Kansas basketball career would end. I'm sure he thought it would end with him cutting down the nets in Indianapolis. I thought it would finish that way too. Luther Vandross would come on and I could smile with the rest of Jayhawk nation as our boy finished his Kansas career in style. Instead we had to watch another group of cornfed midwestern boys pump their fists and pull on their jerseys in celebration. It was not our day.

I just hope to the NCAA College Basketball Gods that the Morris twins, Xavier Henry, and Cole Aldrich are back next season to take back what ought to have been ours. Maybe as Kansas fans we are not allowed to fall into the rut of arrogance that comes with winning national title after national title like North Carolina and Duke. Once every twenty or so years just makes it that much more special, and maybe, just maybe, allows the rest of the nation to forget that we always win and ralk chalk and wave that wheat right along with us.

So for you, Sherron, I just want to say thank you for a wonderful career and for leading our team to 125 wins. You truly are a legend and will never be forgotten in Jayhawk nation.

p.s. I really hope that all of the number one seeds are out by the Elite 8. Then we'll have a real tournament on our hands.

p.p.s. Now I must focus all of my energy on cheering BYU to an improbable win over K-State. Hey, stranger things have happened. And I know that better than most people.