I promise.
And while the streak-ender had an added emotional value, making the loss all that much worse, this loss is not a bad one by any means.
Texas is an excellent team. A Top 10 caliber team, for sure, who can beat anyone in the country with a good shooting night. They beat the UCLA Bruins in Pauley Pavilion, for goodness sakes. And tonight, they definitely had a good shooting night, at least everyone this side of D.J. Augustin did.
Some losses are bad. Both of ours aren't. They were both on the road, against incredibly talented teams, on good shooting nights by the opposition. There are worse losses out there.
Of course, we do need to improve, and by substantial margins. These are two Sweet 16-caliber teams, potential Elite Eighters, and if we can't win these games we can't, necessarily, be all that confident going into the Round of 16 come March. However, hopefully, Billy Self can get our team up to snuff (relatively, of course) by March.
Which brings me to our next point. We are having an awesome season. But right now, we are clearly NOT the best team in the country. We might be in March, which really matters the most, but Memphis is without a doubt a better basketball team right now. And, as much as I absolutely can't stand it, Duke is playing better basketball than our Jayhawks right now. But the key words remain right now, as it is still only February 11th, and there is still a month of basketball to play before we even enter the Round of 65.
More on the game tomorrow. Oh, and fanbase, the world is not over as we know it. I promise. We only have 2 losses, combined with 23 wins, and a #1 seed is still within our grasp. In fact, both the Big 12 Championship, and a #1 seed, is completely under our control (just about). Win the rest of our games, most importantly the one against that team from Manhattan, and we are in better-than-great shape.
But seriously, I can't wait to discuss this game at length. Look for it both tomorrow and Wednesday, before we start re-focusing on football season-ending stuff and looking ahead to Saturday's game.
ROCK CHALK!