NCAA Basketball: Winthrop, Kansas and Pittsburgh lead this week’s Mailbag

2. Is Kansas still a Final Four contender? – Busting Brackets (@bustingbrackets)

Just to level-set, the Kansas Jayhawks were never one of the teams that I considered as a legitimate contender for the final four this season.  I will get into the reasons below, but nothing has happened so far this season that is going to go to change my opinion of Kansas not being a final four team.

Kansas is always going to get the benefit of the doubt from most everyone when it comes to playing basketball.  The game was invented on their campus and they have been the premier program in the Midwest forever.  Kansas is one of the rare schools that runs their athletic department off of the revenue they make during the basketball season as opposed to the football season.  It is never a good idea to ever count Kansas out when the season starts.

This year though when looking at the current roster and seeing what the Jayhawks lost last year it was hard to figure out how good they would be and how far behind Baylor they would finish in the Big 12 standings.  Kansas is still deserving of being a top 15 team and a top 16 seed in the NCAA tournament but they don’t have anyone on their roster who presents a true matchup problem for any team and they don’t have any truly elite shooters as they have in the past.

David McCormack has been thrust into the big man role, as one of the better big men Kansas has had in a long time in Udoka Azubuike, is now in the NBA.  McCormack took a while to get going to but he is playing at a more consistent level.  Christian Braun is the best shooter on the team but he doesn’t have the ball in his hands all that often.  The lead guard is now Marcus Garrett.  Garrett plays lockdown defense and is a huge asset to Kansas on that end of the floor, but he is not going to ever light the nets on fire.

The freshman outside of star Jalen Wilson has not provided much for Kansas nor has top JUCO prospect Tyon Grant-Foster, so what once was a roster with potential looks very pedestrian this year by Kansas standards.  I have preached all year that it seems there is slowly going to be a changing of the guard of the blue blood programs as Kansas is down, and Kentucky, Duke, and North Carolina are all not very good.

Kansas is still a good team who likely makes the second weekend, they also have the ability to not show up and provide an early exit as they have done in the past under Bill Self.  The Jayhawks have way too many question marks for me to confidently say yes they will make the final four.