Two other takes from Tuesday night.

http://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/story/_/id/21417598/what-duke-blue-devils-kansas-jayhawks-michigan-state-spartans-kentucky-wildcats-look-come-march
Lunardi should probably stick to bracketology, but I tend to agree with him. For playing two seniors, one junior, 3 sophs and a frosh, KU looked lost. IMHO, playing against either Duke or MSU would have resulted in an L. Hopefully the Preston situation will resolve favorably very soon and he will actually come to play then.
https://www.cbssports.com/college-basketball/news/champions-classic-no-4-kansas-ekes-out-a-win-over-a-fun-but-raw-kentucky-team/

There are very few teams that can put the length on the floor that UK did. Their length on the perimeter is what made us look so poor. They contested every pass and every shot. I know of no other teams other than maybe Duke that have length like that. We make 11 out of 28 3's and we win the game going away with basically only 6 players playing. Devonte plays his game and Newman gets a little more comfortable and we will be a very difficult out come tourney time. There have been so many teams ride great perimeter play to a championship March. We have the type of team that could get hot and win it all.

great thoughts from knowledgeable posters, thx! watching in person tuesday one thing was very clear, the teams in the first game were miles ahead of the teams in the second game. having said that, i think we still wldve played either team close. two reasons: self and the character, effort and preparation of our players. this will be the theme all year i think with this team. clearly from a talent standpoint ( pre college ratings, nba mock draft, whatever measure you choose) our team is a couple standard deviations away from these other three teams. but, fortunately for us, basketball success is not the sum of the individual parts. we won every hustle play, made key plays when we had to ( svi’s back tip to racing malik was game winner), and we maintained our poise when they made runs on a neutral court. and, as usual, we scored most times after a self timeout, called play. so from a talent standpoint at least we are very much in a rebuilding year. now rebuilding for us means we are ranked number 4/5 in the country, statistically picked to win all of our games, and is everyones favorite to win the big 12 again. i think rebuilding talent does mean that we shld not have high hopes for a deep march run unless of course we do get souza and preston turns out not to be the knucklehead he appears so far to be. if for even a moment we get depressed abt that reality we shld quickly remind ourselves that next year we will get everyone back except svi and devonte, all four very good transfers can play all year, and we will have likely the best freshman class in the country arriving. anything we get this year beyond big 12 title and final 16 is a total bonus as i view it. looking forward to a very fun season to watch!

When Roy was our coach, we always looked like a national champion in November. And in March we flopped. Other teams caught up with us, and we got tight, and ...well, you know the story. This team is talented but flawed, and it may become a title contender, and it may not, but it will learn how to play together by January. And Newman will learn what not to do, and Graham will relax a bit, and we'll figure out how to get the ball to Doke 15 times a game instead of 7 or 8. And it's even possible that Preston, a young man of great talent but modest maturity and apparently nonexistent judgment, may actually end of playing for us.
One game is not a season, and it's not even a predictor of a season. The fact is we beat Kentucky, and we did it while playing less than terrific. And don't underestimate our defense, which was at least partially responsible for Kentucky's shooting numbers, which were not stellar.
Let's see what happens over the next 5 or 6 games. I expect we'll play better each game, and with the addition of the kid from Angola and the kid who transferred from Arizona State, we'll be fine.

great clip hawk (or shld i say rocco?)....i wld add that this may end up being the last year in selfs tenure where we ever put a materially less talented team on the floor vs anybody. we seem to have really turned the corner on recruiting espec for smalls because of selfs success with these players both on the floor and in the draft. it must be clear to most of these kids and their handlers that self adds 6-10 draft places to his players. it obvi doesnt hurt to have embiid and wiggins on the verge of all stardom, the three jhawks in memphis performing well, etc etc. bill now being a hall of fame coach has also helped along with the world travel the last two years. i so hope that as the recruiting gets easier that it will increase the odds of bill staying thru his contract because if he does i dont think he’ll be able to resist staying two more years to replace phog as the winningnest ku coach. it will be awesome to have lived thru these halcyon years. btw, one negative rumor i heard tonite is that prestons car was provided by a former jhawk player. sure hope thats not the case.