Kansas traveled to Las Vegas for the Players Era Festival with a 3–2 record, including two double-digit losses, no good wins and a lot of questions considering the Jayhawks were about to play three games in three days without their best player, Darrin Peterson.
None of these were ideal.
KU fans had some reason to be concerned — and I think still are, on some level. But in what could have been a really tough week, at its worst, in December, Naismith Memorial Hall of Fame coach Bill Self was sent off with a losing record for the first time since he started 0-2 at Oral Roberts in 1994, having actually performed well.
KU goes 3-0 in Players Era Festival.
So the Jayhawks won it?
No fool.
I realize this is confusing and redundant. But the Players Era Festival was an 18-team tournament in which it was possible to go undefeated but still not win the trophy. Kansas and Iowa State both did so – with the Jayhawks finishing third and the Cyclones fifth. Why the event organizers didn’t anticipate that their goofy format would overshadow the fun matchups they created is a mystery to me – but they clearly didn’t. So, hopefully, before next year, they’ll remember that no American sport is more closely associated with a bracket than college basketball, and any college basketball “tournament” without a bracket isn’t really a tournament. And, even if they claim it is, college basketball fans will never accept it the way they’ve been conditioned to accept tournaments with brackets — some as big as 68 teams, some as small as four teams.
still …
Kansas goes 3-0 in Las Vegas with wins over Notre Dame, Syracuse and Tennessee. Obviously, the last one of those three was the best. It was an 81–76 victory over a UT team that entered with a 7–0 record highlighted by a neutral-court win over Houston. So, yes, the worst-case scenario for the Jayhawks when they entered Las Vegas was that they leave with a 3-5 record. Instead, they are coming off a 6-2 record with a win over Tennessee. As a result, the Jayhawks are ranked No. 14 in the CBS Sports Top 25 and No. 1 daily college basketball rankings updated Thursday morning.
Tennessee dropped to No. 15.
And if you’re looking for an explanation for the movement between the top 25 and No. 1, here it is: I moved North Carolina from No. 19 to No. 13, even though the Tar Heels didn’t play on Wednesday, and that’s because UNC is 6-0 with a win over the previously mentioned Kansas team that beat Tennessee. So I wanted to put UNC ahead of the Kansas team it beat, but also put Kansas ahead of the Tennessee team it just beat, as well as put Tennessee ahead of the Houston team it beat the day before, and the best way to do it all was to move North Carolina ahead of them all, which led to Houston, Michigan State, Texas Tech, and Arkansas being pushed down one spot each, one of their own. It was not a mistake.
As you’ll see as you keep scrolling, Arizona remains No. 1 in the Top 25 and No. 1 for the eighth consecutive day. The Wildcats are 6–0 with three wins over teams that were ranked in the top 15 in the preseason AP Poll – specifically Florida, UConn and UCLA. This is the best resume in the game. Tommy Lloyd’s team returns to the court on Saturday when they play Norfolk State inside the McKell Center.
Top 25 and 1 ranking
<a href=