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Summary The Kansas Jayhawks were knocked out of the NCAA Tournament’s Final Four tonight is a 97-88 loss to the Maryland Terrapins. Kansas, playing loose and looking strong early, rushed out to a 13-2 lead, prompting Maryland coach Gary Williams to call a timeout. It was pretty much all Terps after that as they built their lead to 7 (44-37) by halftime and ran it as high as 20 points in the second half. Juan Dixon hit 10 of 18 shots from the floor in leading the Terp charge with 33 points. Chris Wilcox tossed in 18 points and grabbed 9 rebounds as Kansas forward Drew Gooden struggled with his athleticism. Nick Collison led the Jayhawk charge with 21 points and 10 rebounds. Senior Jeff Boschee, playing his final game as a Jayhawk, added 17 points and hit 5 shots from behind the 3 point arc. Aaron Miles scored 12 points (10 from the foul line) and dished out 10 assists. Gooden chipped in 15 points and 9 boards, and Kirk Hinrich rounded out the double figure scoring with 11 points of his own. Kansas finishes the season 33-4 after going unbeaten in the Big 12 Conference and going to the school’s 11th (and Roy Williams’ 3rd) Final Four. Analysis Well, I was severely wrong about a couple of things. I thought Kansas would win in an up-tempo game. However, shooting 43% from the floor simply wasn’t good enough, and Maryland outscored Kansas by playing the Jayhawks’ game. I thought the pace favored Kansas the entire night, the Hawks simply didn’t force enough turnovers (Maryland only committed 13 in the game) to get a significant number of easy buckets in transition. Rebounding was pretty even as well, so the Jayhawk were limited in BOTH transition and 2nd chance points. They needed to be strong in one of those areas to win. It’s too bad that so many Jayhawks were saddled with 2 fouls at the end of the first half. A significant turning point in the game was the several possessions at that time when Kansas was forced to play zone to keep players from committing their 3rd foul. Dixon did a great job of finding the gaps in the zone on the perimeter and really hurt it. Maryland is not the type of team to play zone against. Ignore for a moment that Kansas is a mediocre (at best) defensive team in a zone. Throw in the Terps ability to shoot from the perimeter and Wilcox’s ability to catch it at the high post and draw a crowd, and you’ve got a Maryland team licking their chops to play offense against the zone. I said in my preview (and still believe) that Kansas would have been much better off letting Miles guard Dixon. Hinrich simply isn’t quick enough (even healthy) to guard him, and I think Miles could have caused problems with his quickness. At the very least, Miles was more capable of keeping the ball out of Dixon’s hands to begin with. Once he caught it tonight, it didn’t matter too much who was guarding him. Dixon is a great player. As a Kansas fan I’ve become accustomed to spending off-seasons thinking about all the “ifs” from the tournament losses. Losing to teams like Rhode Island provides lots of food for thought. However, I truly believe that Maryland is a better team (they absolutely were better tonight). I didn’t believe that going in, but the Collison/Baxter match-up is the only spot on the floor where Kansas had a significant advantage tonight. Collison had his way offensively, converting 9 of 14 shots. Baxter’s minutes were limited by foul trouble, but Collison did a great job of keeping him from posting up as deep as he’d like to. Before the game, if you would have told me that Kansas would score 88 points and Baxter would be held to 4, I’d have said the Jayhawks would win easily. Dixon caused serious problems for whoever guarded him. Steve Blake had 8 points and 11 assists in a typically steady performance (though he did commit 5 turnovers). Wilcox gave Gooden fits on the inside, blocking Drew’s first two attempts and playing relentlessly the entire night. Kansas didn’t play its best game, but it certainly didn’t play poorly. Maryland was the better basketball team. Hats off to them. Looking ahead to next year, the only senior that got significant minutes was Jeff Boschee. Drew Gooden is also a virtual lock to enter the NBA draft, meaning Kansas will have to replace at least two starters. Kirk Hinrich and Nick Collison are also potential draft picks, but the odds of them leaving are much lower than Gooden. I predict that Gooden is gone, but the other two will be back. So, it would appear that Keith Langford will move into a starting roll at the small forward, with Hinrich moving over to play the 2-guard. Collison will be joined on the interior by either freshman Wayne Simien (KU’s first big man off the bench this season) or junior college transfer Jeff Graves. Even with the significant talent losses, Kansas should be loaded again and compete for the Big 12 championship again. Expect them to be ranked around #10 in the first poll. It should be another great year.

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Rock Chalk.... Robert