My memory (what there is of it) and opinions of these teams Tourney results:
2008 - Best team in Kansas History.
2010 - Best team in the country wire to wire. Should have won a NC.
2020 - Best team in the country. Could have won a NC.
2022 - Exciting and improbable run. Some have said (maybe even me) that the bracket opened up, but I think more accurately key injuries to opponents paved the way.
2011 - Really good team that when it was on, had a dog mentality and no team could stop. Bracket opened up and very well should have won a NC.
2012 - Overachieving team with a studly starting 5 but not much depth. Hell of an exciting run through the Tourney, should be proud to finish 2nd to that Kentucky team.
2013 - Stupid defense that should have gone to a Final Four. Scoring wasn't up to par to win it all. Gut punch of a loss in the S16.
2016 and 2017 - These teams live in my memory as 1. Should have at least made the Final Four, disappointing losses in the Elite 8 to matchup nightmares.
2018 - Played to seed which somehow seemed like an overachievement to me.
2014 - Never played up to potential consistently enough. Embiid injuries had a lot to do with that.
2007 - 1 seed shipped out west had to play an Elite 8 game very close to the 2 seed (UCLA) home. That plus UCLA was good and we were a year away.
2004 - Surprise run to the E8. A hair away from a 3rd straight Final 4. Georgia Tech was a good team.
2009 - Exciting team that oozed potential. Almost got Michigan State in the S16.
2005 - Certainly had the horses. Beginning of the 14 consecutive Conference Title Streak. I always saw this team as Self using chess pieces to play checkers.
2019 - Missing Doke hurt.
2021 - Blech. A team that you could see just didn't have it.
2015 - Disgustingly outplayed in the second round by Wichita State. Double blech.
It's interesting that 2021 and 2022 were almost exactly the same team roster-wise with the exception of Garrett being replaced with Remy. Shows what a year of development can do.
That 2010 team is one of the best teams not to win a title over the past couple of decades.
2008 team also remains the best overall team in the KenPom era (2002-2022). [Reply]
Originally Posted by Buehler445:
That's good stuff. Seems like 2021 should be higher, but looking back through those teams...I dunno, it's pretty right.
That's no shit.
I feel like you could have thrown a ton of size at 2020 and beat them. But nobody should have beat that 2010 team. They were ****ing goooooood.
And lost because they wouldn't bring energy against a ****ing shitbag UNI team :-)
I think ‘21 was definitely his weakest roster at KU. Crazy that the same team plus Remy Martin won it all. [Reply]
Originally Posted by sedated:
Strange, the top 9 on that list were some powerful teams, some of the best if not clearly the best in the country...but I just don't really recall much of anything about 2016, and that one is #4. All the others I can instantly remember the make-up of the majority of the roster and when/how the season ended, but 2016 is blank and that isn't the case again until getting to #16 on that list.
That was the team that won gold at the World University Games in the summer. I think they won 14 straight to end the year and got the overall #1. Lost a close one to the Nova team that won it all. That’s still the only time that I’ve blamed officiating for a loss. There were some horrible foul calls that all but handed the win to Villanova. [Reply]
Originally Posted by RaidersOftheCellar:
That was the team that won gold at the World University Games in the summer. I think they won 14 straight to end the year and got the overall #1. Lost a close one to the Nova team that won it all. That’s still the only time that I’ve blamed officiating for a loss. There were some horrible foul calls that all but handed the win to Villanova.
We beat Russia. They made a 3 and the announcer said “Dare I say that was nothing but Nyet?” [Reply]
Originally Posted by RaidersOftheCellar:
I think ‘21 was definitely his weakest roster at KU. Crazy that the same team plus Remy Martin won it all.
‘21 really should’ve been the year that the Big 12 streak ended.
‘19 was full of so much fluky bullshit that killed our season:
Doke injury
Grimes falling off a cliff
Transfers not named Dedric Lawson not being near as good as we thought
The debacle with KCC’s all time favorite player: Legerald Vick [Reply]
Originally Posted by KC_Connection:
It's interesting that 2021 and 2022 were almost exactly the same team roster-wise with the exception of Garrett being replaced with Remy. Shows what a year of development can do.
That 2010 team is one of the best teams not to win a title over the past couple of decades.
2008 team also remains the best overall team in the KenPom era (2002-2022).
I think there is an element of luck to it. If Remy played the whole season, his ... we'll call it "magic"...might have worn off. Let's face it, that level of energy is hard to sustain over a season, and it seems like KU had trouble summoning it when it mattered without Remy. Maybe this is an exception, but it's hard to tell. And the team most likely would have adjusted to his play and potentially (probably) developed some of the bad habits around it.
Such as it is, he came in with massive levels of fuck off and it absolutely lit a fire under the team.
We've rolled into March with tremendously talented teams before only to watch other teams catch lightning in a bottle and get super hot to beat us.
I'll admit, it's fun as fuck to have that team, even though we were a 1, it felt like an underdog story, at least comparatively. [Reply]
I'll admit, it's fun as fuck to have that team, even though we were a 1, it felt like an underdog story, at least comparatively.
Part of that is sports talking heads kept picking us as their upset of the day candidate through the whole tourney. Even against Nova, there were talking heads that said Nova's defense would stymie us and end our tourney run. Not sure I recall a #1 seed ever getting so much disrespect.
We had glimpses early of how Remy could super charge the team as the spark plug, then the injury happened and the team struggled for large chunks of the season, including two bad losses in the last week of the regular season.
Then Remy returned and the switch got flipped and we balled out to a title. About time we were the team on a hot streak to win a title. [Reply]
Originally Posted by lawrenceRaider:
Part of that is sports talking heads kept picking us as their upset of the day candidate through the whole tourney. Even against Nova, there were talking heads that said Nova's defense would stymie us and end our tourney run. Not sure I recall a #1 seed ever getting so much disrespect.
We had glimpses early of how Remy could super charge the team as the spark plug, then the injury happened and the team struggled for large chunks of the season, including two bad losses in the last week of the regular season.
Then Remy returned and the switch got flipped and we balled out to a title. About time we were the team on a hot streak to win a title.
Well, to be fair to the "analysts" I was thinking we weren't going to have much of a tourney run, because I watched them all year.
And I agree 100% that it's about time we got a hot streak. [Reply]
Originally Posted by KC_Connection:
It's interesting that 2021 and 2022 were almost exactly the same team roster-wise with the exception of Garrett being replaced with Remy. Shows what a year of development can do.
Development, yes, that was a big factor, especially Agbagi and Braun. But you mentioned Garret. I would submit that was the biggest factor. Garret was just not cut out to be a PG. Dejaun Harris starting at PG and then Remy coming on late as backup really helped this team's offense a lot. Hell, they even played much better team defense in March and April. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Buehler445:
Well, to be fair to the "analysts" I was thinking we weren't going to have much of a tourney run, because I watched them all year.
And I agree 100% that it's about time we got a hot streak.
After the B12 tourney, I felt E8 was the floor with a finals appearance as the ceiling. Before the B12 tourney, S16 was where I felt the floor lay, with a ceiling of E8. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Buehler445:
I think there is an element of luck to it. If Remy played the whole season, his ... we'll call it "magic"...might have worn off. Let's face it, that level of energy is hard to sustain over a season, and it seems like KU had trouble summoning it when it mattered without Remy. Maybe this is an exception, but it's hard to tell. And the team most likely would have adjusted to his play and potentially (probably) developed some of the bad habits around it.
Such as it is, he came in with massive levels of **** off and it absolutely lit a fire under the team.
We've rolled into March with tremendously talented teams before only to watch other teams catch lightning in a bottle and get super hot to beat us.
I'll admit, it's fun as **** to have that team, even though we were a 1, it felt like an underdog story, at least comparatively.
And to another point, people also judge last year's team way too much off of the last game. Yes, it sucks that we lost big, but it also sucks we were matched up with a future 10 time NBA All Star inside who we would have no answer for. If Drake would have beat them and we beat Drake, then the narrative is completely different this year. In some ways we were the complete opposite of UCLA, who went on a miracle run to the final four and were a trendy pick to win it all pre season and ended as a 4 seed. If UCLA loses to Michigan state in overtime in the first round, they would have never been picked that high and a 4 seed was fine. But because some things went their way, now this year is more of a disappointment.
In retrospect, the first round game last year was more indicative of this year's team. A midmajor team with a stretch 5 bombing threes, everything looks bleak, and yet we found a way to win after a career game on their end. That type of resilience was evident in the Creighton win especially, but we didn't just develop it this year, we were just too focused on the USC game to notice. [Reply]
