Jayhawks Suffer Second Round KO
The very first day of the tournament was pretty crazy, but it was starting to look like an aberration that would soon be erased. Some low seeds had put a scare into a few teams, but nothing as shocking as the first day had happened since.
Then Saturday afternoon came, and the shenanigans started all over. The day opened with 10th-seeded St Mary's controlling the action all game versus Villanova. I can't, however, say that I was terribly surprised by that, given that the Wildcats had struggled mightily against Robert Morris and really didn't have a post player to play against the Gaels' Omar Samhan.
The real shock cam a
little bit later. The Kansas Jayhawks, the overall number one seed in the tournament, scored the first basket of the game and then never led again on the way to being ousted by 9th-seeded Northern Iowa. How did this happen? There are a few reasons.
First and foremost, the Panthers were vastly under-seeded. They weren't from quite as strong a conference as #5 seeds Temple and Butler, nor did they play as tough a non-conference schedule. However, they did go 10-1 against the RPI top 100 and 4-1 against the top 50. At the very least, they deserved the No. 7 seed that was given to Richmond.
Also, UNI was stout and aggressive on defense, and Kansas wound up getting flustered and rushing on defense rather than working to wear the Panthers down.
Lastly, the Jayhawks quit. Not in the literal, grand sense, but mainly on defense. With about eight minutes left, Kansas started a full-court press, and it looked like Northern Iowa might not cross halfcourt again, let alone score.
Unfortunately, the Jayhawks made the same mistake numerous other teams make - they used the press to get back into the game, rather than keeping it up all game to win.
Continued on the next page
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