Fact Checking Kansas' NCAA Tournament Performances

Winning the NCAA Tournament is not easy. Four of the five guys on that list have done that at least once. Two have won it more than once.
It’s frustrating when our “rivals” throw Bucknell, Bradley and Northern Iowa (and before that, UTEP, Arizona and Rhode Island) in your face, but I always respond with this: Talk to me when you’ve won an NCAA Tournament. We’ve got three titles. How many does your school have?
Because as Scot Pollard blogged about in today’s list of links, it’s not easy.

Most of this stuff was covered in grad’s post but I wasn’t going to put it all in a comment, so it’s here. As to hiphop’s question above, no way would I trade Self for Izzo.

also had the highest average seed. PASE rewards playing better than your seed. If you are usually 1 or two seed this almost impossible. Izzo is a really good tournament coach but his teams under perform in regular season. This makes it seem as though he has the ability to play over his seed in the tournament.

In my opinion PASE is seriously flawed and therefore irrelevant. The measure of a good coach is tournament wins or at least tournament win %. End of story. High seeds are not a gift, they are earned between Nov and Feb. PASE is measure of fan base disappointment, nothing more. Do we really want to lose more, and lower our expectations?

Do Roy and Calipari’s PASE chart take into account those two missed seasons and calculate them as a 0 wins for those years? If not, I’d think on the second graph that you would need to change their average seed to be just the average seed per the years they participated rather than giving them a 17 and thus distorting their data to a lower average seed.

But I’m starting to feel… not nervous, but anxious. Let’s get it on and play some ball!

1) Self almost gets punished with the "choke in the tournament" label due to our regular season and league success. I think that is unfair. You aren’t going to crash the final 4 every season, one seed, 4 seed, etc. BUT, if someone wanted to throw out a "maybe Self has just figured out this league and the tournament is a whole ‘nother ballgame" argument, I’d at least listen.
2) THIS year could go a looooooooooong, and I mean looooooooooooooooooooooong way in determining how Self is viewed. I almost feel like after what happened last year, this is kind of a tiebreaker of sorts. An early loss, and the questioning and Indianapolis Colts comparisons are going to get thrown around like popcorn microwaving. Its gonna get bad. However, a deep run to at least the Final 4, and Self helps erase the early exit memories and we can 100% play the "he is probably the best coach in America, he can lead a team deep, and everyone loses early sometimes" card.
3) To kind of go along with point two, don’t forget that before last year, Coach K’s Doook teams were bowing out early and often. Really often. He was starting to get a label from fans and the media as a tournament choker. One more big run and bam, he is the greatest coach in basketball again. A lot on the line this year, IMHO. Especially if (when) the Morri head out of town. It could be another 2-3 years before our team is in position for another deep run.

Self won an NCAA title in his fifth season at KU (and 15th overall as head coach), Izzo in his fifth at Michigan State, Roy in his second at UNC (17th overall) and K in his 11th at Duke (16th overall).
Dean Smith didn’t win a title until his 21st season at UNC. John Wooden at UCLA? Won in his 16th season there and 18th as a head coach.
At the risk of sounding old, perhaps the expectation is too high. Granted, Smith and Wooden coached in an era when just one team from their league made the tournament, but still, their fans were patient.
KU holds the current streak for consecutive tourney appearances, and has consistently been a high seed under Self. Lots of schools (including Indiana, Kentucky, UCLA and UNC) would like to have the run KU has experienced under Self – including the disappointing exits.

is the fact that 2 of the 3 upsets we’ve had had some circumstances around them.

1. Bucknell – Out of the two, easily the least excusable, but still I’ve heard many people say that by the end of that season, that KU team had totally lost unity. The locker room was a mess. Many blame the hangover of Roy and with the first year of Self’s guys being there, it’s not impossible.

2. Bradley – This is the one that really bothers me people commenting so much about. This was a KU team that overachieved in every way. Lots and lots of talent as evident by a lot of them winning a national title in ‘08 but very young and inexperienced. They ran up against a wildly under-seeded, senior-laden Bradley squad out of a then, very tough MVC conference. To me, it’s no surprise we got beat that year.

Norther Iowa, no excuse.