Kansas Basketball: Ranking the last 29 NCAA Tournament teams

17. 2008-09 (27-8) (14-2 Big 12)

2008-09 marked the freshmen seasons for Tyshawn Taylor, the Morris twins and Tyshawn Taylor. While they waited in the wings, Sherron Collins and Cole Aldrich did their best to run the show.

Collins led the team in scoring in assists with 18.9 points and 5.0 assists per contest. Alridch led them in rebounds and blocks with 11.1 rebounds and 2.7 blocks per contest, while also putting up 14.9 points per game.

Despite their overall record, they stumbled through the regular season a bit with this group, falling out of the Top 25 AP Poll for eight weeks. They still managed to go 14-2 in Big 12 action finishing as the regular season champion for the fifth-straight year under Bill Self.

Kansas lost in the conference tournament in the quarterfinals to the Baylor Bears 71-64, which was a possible sign of things to come. On Selection Sunday, the Jayhawks earned a No. 3 seed and drew the North Dakota State Bison in the first round.

Kansas beat North Dakota State 84-74 in the opening round then did away with the Dayton Flyers 60-43 in the second round. The Jayhawks held Chris Wright to 10 points on 4-of-16 shooting in the victory.

Unfortunately, Kansas ran out of defense in the Sweet 16 against Tom Izzo and the Michigan State Spartans, another regular in the NCAA Tournament. The Jayhawks lost 67-62 to the Spartans off 20 points from Goran Suton and 18 points and seven assists from Kalin Lucas. Kansas currently owns a two-game winning streak over Michigan State and has won three of the last four meetings.