Kansas vs. Kentucky: who ya got?

[DeuceWallaces]

Being the highest scorer on a bad team in the worst conference doesn't really mean much.

[DwadeOverLebron]

well with cal at the helms i don't see meeks taking out of control chucking shots, and with john wall at the point, and with their front court... meeks might actually see alot of open looks... it's not chucking if it goes in the basket consistently... so we shall see what happens

[i seen hippos]

You would think Meeks would not have to work as hard to get his now. He also won't need to take as many shots. I think Cal will help him for sure.

[A.M.G.]

I would take Kansas at this point. They're more experienced, have a superior coach in Bil Self who most of them have been under for years and have won a championship with, and pretty close in talent level despite Kentucky's ridiculous recruiting class. Sherron Collins is an excellent college PG with experience, scoring ability and leadership. Cole Aldrich will probably be the top big man in the country (who else is there? Greg Monroe? Derrick Favors as a 1'n'done freshman? I just don't see anyone being better). Xavier Henry adds a third star on the wings to the mix, with many, many talented and experienced role players backing them up (the Morris brothers, Morningstar, Jeff Withey, Mario Little, etc, etc). Their recruiting class of Henry, Thomas Robinson, and Elijah Johnson (and whatever else) is a top class as well.


Kentucky will undoubtedly be stacked, but they will be relying a lot more on freshman talent. I'm just not sure how well or how quickly players like John Wall, Jodie Meeks, Liggins or Dodson presumably at SF, Patrick Patterson, and DeMarcus Cousins will gel together in a new system under a coach none of them have ever played for. Yes, Derrick Rose led Memphis to the title game as a freshman, but the rest of that Memphis roster was experienced and indoctrinated in Calipari's system. And what happens with guys like Eric Bledsoe and Daniel Orton, are these five star recruits going to be happy playing off the bench their freshman season?


When it comes down to it, there are far fewer questions to be asked with Kansas, and far less likelihood that things won't work out. There are just a whole bunch of ifs for Kentucky. Both teams undoubtedly have the talent to win a national championship, but I would pick the more experienced and cohesive Kansas team unless things work better than I expect at UK. Not that it's a huge margin though, with John Wall on board.




But what other teams are legit contenders next year? MSU, I suppose, they only really lost Goran Suton from a team that made the finals, and Tom Izzo is a great coach. Texas, Oklahoma, and UNC all have monster recruiting classes and good returning talent and will stay strong, but probably aren't legit contenders. I thought Syracuse would have a decent chance if they retained Jonny Flynn, Eric Devendorf, Andy Rautins, Paul Harris, Rick Jackson and Arinze Onuakum, but Flynn and Harris are going pro. Teams like UCLA (Collison, Holiday, Shipp, Aboya), Louisville (Clark, Terrence Williams), Arizona (Hill, Budinger), Duke (Henderson) and Villanova (Cunningham, Reynolds) are losing a lot of their best talent to the NBA and graduation, and aren't bringing in recruiting classes comparable to UK and KU (well maybe Nova is). So basically it will probably come down to UK and KU either in the Final Four or the Championship Game, based on talent alone.

[Rekindled]

you guys are crazy. john wall would single handedly put UK on top. john wall would be the no.1 or no.2 pick RIGHT NOW if he had enter this year's draft.

[i seen hippos]

^ lol

[UConnCeltics]

you guys are crazy. john wall would single handedly put UK on top. john wall would be the no.1 or no.2 pick RIGHT NOW if he had enter this year's draft.

No he wouldn't. He wouldn't even be top 3. Blake Griffin, Ricky Rubio, and Hasheem Thabeet are all better than Wall right now.

[DwadeOverLebron]

you guys are crazy. john wall would single handedly put UK on top. john wall would be the no.1 or no.2 pick RIGHT NOW if he had enter this year's draft.

im not sure if your kidding or not... but you are half correct tho... john wall most certainley would NOT put UK on top over KU NO WAY JOSE! but he would've been a top 3 pick in this years draft... i think in my personal opinion based on his no ceiling potential, he wouldn't have been picked ahead of griffen but i would take him over rubio or thabeet anyday any minute and any millisecond

[TheGame414]

Meeks was a big reason they won as many as they did and he is a top scorer

And it may be the case that if he's your best player- or at least your leading scorer- you won't be that great.

How many national champions have had a shot-needy guy like that at shooting guard that wasn't a lottery-type talent?

Anyway, I agree with those that said Kansas, for most of the same reasons cited. They return a Top 10 team essentially intact. Their best two players are a senior and a junior, and they add the one piece they were missing last year: a good-sized wing player who can score at will. Unlike Kentucky, they aren't building around blue-chip freshmen, they're just counting on a couple of them- Henry and Robinson; none of their other newcomers are likely to be in the rotation- to fill roles and fit in.

Even with Patrick Patterson back- I'm assuming Meeks stays in the draft- Kentucky is going to be relying heavily on several freshmen in their rotation. Now, granted, they're excellent freshmen, but how many title contenders in recent years have so heavily relied on that many freshmen?

Ohio State is the one that comes to mind. Kentucky's could very well match the two top-four picks that OSU had in that year's freshman class with Oden and Conley, but for now I'm going to assume they're the exception. Even though Derrick Rose and Kevin Love were the best players on their teams, for example, they were still joining stacked veteran teams that were returning all or most of 30-win teams from the previous season.

Almost every year a chunk of doofus fans get overexcited about a team adding a bunch of freshmen, and almost every year a team full of really good, if not superelite, guys that stuck around long enough to be veterans but are still bound for the NBA Draft end up winning it all. (That didn't really happen this year because the 2008 class wasn't that great.)

That's Kansas. They may not win it all, but they're unquestionably the team to beat. It shouldn't really be all that debatable unless Meeks comes back- that would at least put Kentucky on the same plane as Kansas in having a senior/junior standout duo- and even still I'm not sure it's a debate.

[DeuceWallaces]

I'm not saying UK is better, but they're not building around a freshman. There's no question they're building around Patterson who is anything but an inexperienced freshman.

[TheGame414]

Yeah, but a big chunk of their rotation will be freshmen. No matter how talented they are, they're freshmen. You look at national champions throughout history, an overwhelming number of them were teams that return most- if not all- of a veteran nucleus from a team that was very good the year before.

I mean, Kansas could not seemingly meet national championship criteria more perfectly for next year (granted, these are rough criteria that not every champion meets every single one of, but just about every champion will meet most of it and measure up to the list as a collective):

-Top 10 in offensive and defensive efficiency: check. They did it this year, I think.

- Return all or most of a veteran nucleus from a good team: big check.

- Elite point guard: check.

- Wing scorer: check.

- Top-flight big man: check.

- Have returning players who were good enough to consider the previous year's NBA draft: check.

-Similarly, at least three future pros: check.

- A coach that's been there before: check.

- Get at least 40-43% of your scoring from the power forward and center positions: not a sure thing, but Aldrich is good for 15+ a game. If Robinson and the Morris brothers can combine for at least 18 a game, they'll meet it.


Kansas could not be an easier pick for the preseason No. 1 and the national title favorite no matter how many talented freshmen Kentucky has. They should be considered nearly as big of a favorite next year as UNC was this year.

[srv_fan]

I agree with what TheGame said, and on top of that I question whether Meeks is going to buy into being just another guy rather than the team superstar. Wall will have have the ball in his hands most of the time, and if he doesn't, it should be down with Patterson and the two freshman bigs. I think Meeks will get a lot of open spotup jumpers based off Wall's penetration and defenses collapsing on Kentucky's monstrous frontcourt, but he's not going to have the Kobe-like freedom to put up shots he did last year. That is a very hard transition to make, and as already pointed out, if he's not shooting he doesn't contribute much of anything else.

Kansas by a mile, IMO.

[JellyBean]

If it is early in the college season, I will take Kentucky. If it is later in the season, I will pick the Jayhawks.

[HaNdLe ThE RoCk]

Kentucky

[Csmooove23]

UK all day kansas just can't match up