Washburn senior Logan Stutz played the Kansas Jayhawks basketball team last night and is walking away impressed.
"I think they might have had more talent a couple of years ago, but this team played harder defense," Stutz said. "They ran their stuff, and they were a lot more disciplined. I’ll be honest with you, it surprised a lot of us, and they came out and they hit us in the mouth."
That's not the championship team -- it's the team after that. But still it's a good compliment considering that team was pretty good themselves. But it's very much how I feel about this KU team. We've got a few weeks until we can really tell what they're going to be like but the focus on team, I think, will pay off this year.
In the last year KU has lost a ton of talent. Guys like Cole Aldrich, Xavier Henry and Sherron Collins are in some ways irreplaceable. But, as KU seemingly always does, they reload. It might be even better for them to lose a couple of guys like Henry and Aldrich. Becoming less star-driven lends itself to more team play and maybe that's ultimately what pushes KU over the edge this season.
"They really share the ball, and they look like they can score from every position on the floor," Washburn head coach Bob Chipman said. "To me, that’s when the KU teams have been ultra-great."
Is this an ultra great team? Memphis in December should be a good test.