The best Kansas player of the Bill Self era: Round One!

With all the fantastic basketball players who have come through Lawrence under Bill Self, it would be impossible to try and pick the "best." With that in mind, we will be attempting the impossible over the next week or so here at RCT, and using a bracket-style format to choose the single best college basketball player to play at Kansas during Bill Self's tenure.

This isn't the most scientific way of assigning this distinction, but it's a good way to get everyone on the site involved. I pulled what I felt were the best 32 players Self has coached at Kansas, and divided them into four regions with eight teams each. Each day, I'll post the round's matchups, and open the voting to the readers.

To be clear on what we're all voting on, my criteria is based solely on how "good" each player was at Kansas. Since we're comparing one-and-dones to four year players in some cases, don't take into account longevity or how much the player improved. For example, you'll see that today you have a choice between Xavier Henry and Julian Wright. For the purposes of voting, compare what Wright was by the time he was done at Kansas to what Henry was during his single year. How they or any other player has fared in the NBA is totally irrelevant, as this is a Kansas-centric exercise.

I determined the seeding by first using a crude metric that incorporates all the stats relevant to the players' position, then switched a few players around where their seeding didn't pass the eye test. Like everything else I do, the seeds are generally stat-driven to remove as many biases as possible. They are also done without regard to position played, so you may find yourself comparing a point guard to a center. Also, there was no S curve employed. The players were grouped into seeds, then randomly assigned a region. It's the tournament, so there should be some randomness and luck involved, right?

Cast your vote by putting it in the comments section. I'll leave each round's voting open for two days after the post is published.

I'll be splitting the first round into two days for brevity's sake, but each other round will be in a single post. Without, further ado, here is part one of the First Round. Let the madness begin!

Questions? Comments? Email me at penhawkrct@gmail.com, and follow me on twitter @davidpftw