ESPN Men's Basketball

The Big 12 preseason poll, as voted on by the league's coaches, featured a familiar theme: Don't bet against Kansas.

Despite losing the Morris twins to the first round of the NBA draft and adding seven newcomers, the Jayhawks tied with a veteran Texas A&M team as picks to finish first. That apparently surprised Kansas.

"I didn't actually see that, but Coach (Bill Self) mentioned it in the locker room," guard Tyshawn Taylor told reporters. "That's pretty cool. I think we were all actually surprised. I mean, it's a compliment so we’re excited about it. We're going to take that and run with it."

Said Self: "Yeah, I'm surprised. I always say that the coaches know more than the media, but I'm not sure that's the case in our league right now. Last year we had the twins and (Brady) Morningstar, Tyrel Reed and (Josh) Selby and I think the coaches picked us third. Well now, we don't have any of those guys, but that doesn't bother me. We've kind of gone into the season with tempered expectations, to be honest with you, and I've tried to do that with our fans a little bit. I think it's fine and we’re kind of used to being in the situation where people expect us to be decent and we won’t shy away from that."

To correct Self, Kansas was actually picked second last season, behind Kansas State. Of course, the Jayhawks ended up Big 12 champions anyway, so the coaches might have been shy about going against them as favorites this season.

The biggest snub would seem to be Baylor, which was picked third despite having preseason player of the year Perry Jones III. To show how far the Bears have come in terms of expectations, third was actually the highest the program has ever been picked.

Oddly, Self seemed somewhat confused about which team he picked, since coaches can't choose their own teams first.

"I know Texas A&M is going to be good and personally I picked Baylor to finish first in league and I think I picked A&M, too," Self said. "What I picked and what anyone else picked this time of year doesn’t mean anything."

Kansas has retooled its roster following the departures of the Morris twins along with Josh Selby, and coach Bill Self has said he doesn't expect the program to take a step backward. His optimism carried over to draft night, as he was in New Jersey watching more of his Jayhawks go pro.

Though Self has now lost four lottery picks over the past two offseasons, he said he was glad to see the players go, especially after Markieff Morris and Marcus Morris were drafted back-to-back last night as he was alongside them in the green room.

"It doesn't feel great knowing what our team could potentially be if these guys returned, but it was time for all four of them to go," Self said. "I'm happy for all of them.

"I'm ecstatic and to me it sends a strong message, even though they weren't the first pick in the draft, but still getting picked in the lottery. I think that does speak volumes of the program and how you do things."

Self was happy also for Selby, who slipped in the draft and wasn't selected until the second round at 49th overall by Memphis. But Self thinks the Grizzlies might have gotten a steal there after a roller coaster freshman season.

"So much of being picked in the second round is just ending up at the right place, and there's some thinking on their part that they got a first-round talent, which he is," Self said. "He's a first-round talent that fell to the second round because he was hurt and suspended and all those things were out of his control. Memphis may have been one of the winners of the draft because they got a first-round pick."

Back when Josh Selby announced his decision to enter the NBA draft after a disappointing freshman season at Kansas -- Selby's NBA leap was motivated more by his ability to create a better life for his mother, so it's tough to criticize -- I, strangely enough, got a little bit excited. For some reason, I felt like I had a slightly sneaky piece of information. Selby was bad as a freshman, yes, but he was ineligible, then injured, then spent most of his time trying to crack a cohesive group of senior guards that were clearly more comfortable running Kansas's high-low motion offense with each other.

But Selby was still hyper-athletic. He still had the size, speed, and strength that caused some recruiting services to call him the best player in the class of 2011. Had his season panned out, he might have been a lottery pick. Now, he was a possible steal in the mid-to-late first round, and I was interested to see which intelligent NBA front office would make a play.

Apparently, the answer is ... none of them.

ESPN Insider Chad Ford released his Mock Draft 6.0 Tuesday, and Selby is nowhere to be found in the first round. In fact, in Ford's projection, Selby has dropped all the way to No. 37, several picks into the second round (which, in Ford's mock, means a trip to L.A. to play for the Clippers). By my count, there are currently 12 guards ranked higher than him in the draft, including players like Iman Shumpert and Travis Leslie, guys whose upsides seem vastly lower than Selby's.

Just a few weeks ago, scouts raved about Selby's individual workouts. Now, nothing. It begs the question: What happened?

These answers are always hard to decode, and we're still 36 hours from the draft, so anything can still happen. But it appears Selby's individual workouts haven't done enough to convince scouts he's worth the risk of a first-round pick. Or, as the Lawrence Journal-World's Tom Keegan writes, some NBA team may be intentionally deflating Selby's stock in the hopes of snatching him risk-free in the second round:

What’s up? Maybe scouts are a lot like Kansas fans. The more they saw of Selby, the less they liked him. Or could it be, as one NBA insider wonders, that one team desperately wants Selby to drop to them and has spread rumors that they think he’s a bust waiting to happen?

If one NBA team is able to torpedo a player's stock among the rest of the league, well, you have to hand it to them. That is one effective front office.

Another possible problem is the Avery Bradley factor. In 2009, Bradley was the No. 1 player in the ESPNU 100 rankings, arriving at Texas with fanfare matched only by Kentucky guard John Wall. Wall, of course, was a national player of the year candidate and went on to be the No. 1 pick in the 2010 draft. Bradley had a so-so freshman season, jumped to the NBA early anyway, was drafted No. 19 overall by the Boston Celtics, and eventually found himself playing as many minutes in the NBA Developmental League as the NBA itself.

Does that mean Bradley won't turn into a solid pro? Of course not. But if I'm an NBA team, and I want to make the most of my first-round pick, maybe I look at Bradley and Selby as similar entities. Maybe I'm hesitant to take the high-risk, huge-upside one-and-done player who failed to make an impact in his eight months on a college campus.

Maybe I'm worried Selby is just in the draft for the money. Maybe I'm fretting about his injury history. Maybe he didn't interview well. Maybe NBA scouts saw Selby's absence in yesterday's Seebpomd as a prohibitive sign. (OK, OK, not so much.)

It's hard to divine these sorts of things in the run up to the draft, because you really never know what's going to happen when David Stern takes the podium. Still, it's hard to believe that in this draft -- a weak one by all accounts, and one that features more undersized, risky combo guards with their varied share of negatives -- that Selby isn't at least worth a late-first round flier. As I wrote back in April, one man's one-and-done bust is another man's sleeper. Apparently, as of today, the NBA doesn't seem to agree.

Now watch the Spurs get Selby in the second round, and watch Selby turn in a DeJuan Blair-esque rookie season. The NBA is so weird.

Do college coaches actively try to keep one-and-done talents on campus for sophomore seasons? Sure. Do they do so by sabotaging a player's draft stock with minimal playing time and off-the-record rumor generation? If so, it's rare. Coaches want to be the guy that gets elite prospects to the NBA; if there's one reason Kentucky coach John Calipari has been so successful as a recruiter, this is it. No coach wants the opposite reputation. The short-term gain isn't worth the long-term damage.

Which is why Bill Self took to the airwaves in Kansas City this week. The Kansas coach was eager to dispute a HoopsWorld report that claimed Kansas "did everything they could to keep him for one more season," including "convincing others that Selby wasn't nearly as athletic as people thought."

Self's response? Hooey:

"You shouldn't use certain words over the airwaves, but that's absolute crap," Self said. "Josh is a very good athlete. Josh is one of the ones that we thought was one of the more athletic kids on our team. That's how rumors get started. A coach's responsibility is to promote his players, to put them in the best light they can possibly can be. If anybody were to ask me about Josh, they would hear nothing but positive things out of my mouth or anyone in our program's mouth.

"It's amazing to me when other coaches and staffs are bright enough not only to be experts on their own programs but on mine as well," Self said. "People use that against you. People use he's never had a one-and-done. Well now that Xavier and Josh have left, at least we've had the two one-and-dones."

The gulf between what's said on the radio and what is said behind closed doors can be vast, but in this instance, the Self-defense (sorry) rings true. He may have wanted Selby to stay for another season, but it appears the top recruit always had his heart set on leaving for the pros due to his family's difficult financial situation. If ineligibility, injury and minimal playing time didn't keep Selby in the college game, a slight dip in draft stock wasn't going to do the trick. Surely Self would realize as much. And, as he notes, there's little benefit in taking the opposite tact.

Meanwhile, Selby continues to impress draft scouts with his athleticism, and one college hoops writer's prediction that the Kansas guard's struggles could be a major first-round steal is looking better and better by the day. And yes, if Selby has a breakout rookie season, I'm going to bring that prediction up about five times a day. I apologize in advance.

As we bask in the excitement of North Carolina forward Harrison Barnes' decision to stay in college -- and everything it seems to mean for the college game itself -- Kansas fans are no doubt still smarting over freshman guard Josh Selby's decision to enter the NBA draft. Selby announced his decision Thursday via Twitter, and he was immediately excoriated by KU fans, former players and media folks alike. (One example, Seth Davis of CBS and SI, tweeted this.)

Why all the distaste? Because Selby -- a top-five recruit considered the best in the 2010 class by some recruiting analysts -- had a disappointing, suspension- and injury-riddled season. Many believe he's not ready for the NBA. Kansas fans want him to return and star for a new-look batch of Jayhawks. (Some Kansas fans likewise seem to believe Selby isn't yet suited to be a pro, but come on, like that's the No. 1 worry in Lawrence.) As Barnes and others have showed, the choice to jump into the NBA's lockout morass this summer isn't always necessarily the prudent one.

Despite all that, it's entirely possible Selby made the right decision for him. In fact, it's hard to read Kansas City Star reporter J. Brady McCollough's weekend feature on the freshman and think otherwise. McCollough got Selby to recall his difficult upbringing in Baltimore, where he and his mother, just 17 years his senior, struggled to keep a roof over their heads and food on their table. One time, when he was 12, Selby saw his friend brutally pistol-whipped in the street. He became, in his own telling, "a little thug."

Those difficulties began to fade when Selby started realizing his prodigious basketball talent. As McCollough writes, that talent set the young, underprivileged star on the NBA track, one he's been on "so long that he couldn’t turn back."

“In one year, I had about six people close to me get killed, all gunshots,” Selby said. “Seeing stuff like that wakes you up. You want to be dead or you want to be something? I want to be something. I want to see my mother happy. I’m tired of seeing my mom crying at night worrying about if her son is gonna live, go to jail. I had to change my life around.”

[...] “To be honest, I worry about her more than she worries about me,” Selby said. “She can sleep at night. I can’t sleep at night because I want her to have everything in the world. I just stay up all night, till about 3 or 4 in the morning, just worrying about, ‘What do I gotta do to make sure my mom has everything she wants?’ Because she deserves it.”

It's easy to criticize a kid for making an early-entry decision. Sometimes, that criticism is deserved. Sometimes, even the most talented player might be better off waiting another year -- even if it means another year of struggle at home -- to reap larger personal and professional benefits in the long run.

But sometimes, the old cliché is true: Until you walk a mile in Josh Selby's sneakers, you're probably not qualified to offer him advice. Sometimes, all you can do -- and in this case, "you" means "you, the disappointed Kansas fan" -- is swallow your basketball-related hurt, put away your wonkishly negative appraisals and wish a young man the best of luck.

Oh, and for what it's worth, I would totally draft Josh Selby. One man's disappointing freshman season is another man's chance for a late first-round steal.

Josh Selby came to Kansas as one of the nation's top recruits and ended up having a freshman year marred by a season-opening nine-game suspension and various injuries. He came off the bench in the NCAA tournament and after the season went off to Las Vegas to work out rather than attend school or the team banquet.

When Selby announced via Twitter on Thursday that he would declare for the draft and forgo his remaining eligibility, he thanked Kansas fans. But some of the reaction wasn't so positive, with more than one barb referencing how he'd end up in the NBA development league.

Selby responded directly to some those critics and summed it up by tweeting, "All this negative energy is creating a monster. Y'all light the fuel up inside me. #hatersmymotivator."

Clearly Selby's presence in his lone season didn't have the desired effect, ultimately leading to that negativity. He showed glimpses of his talent, including a memorable college debut against USC when he scored 21 points and sank the game-winning shot. But after missing three games with a foot injury, Selby wasn't the same and was left to play a bench role on a top-seeded team that didn't get to the Final Four.

Leaving for the NBA after averaging 7.9 points in only 26 games wasn't what people in Lawrence had expected when coach Bill Self managed to land the attacking guard from Baltimore. They only got to see Selby skim the surface of his potential.

In bidding Selby farewell, Self seemed to use his comments to protect the freshman one final time. Self emphasized he and his staff supported not only the NBA decision, but also Selby working out in Vegas. He noted the suspension was a setback that Selby fought through and that the kid played hurt. Self even made mention of Selby's 3.0 grade-point average in his first semester and how he "worked with his professors to complete his work second semester."

"I feel good about Josh leaving here knowing he took care of his business the way that he should have taken care of it," Self said in a statement.

But numerous Kansas supporters feel very differently about what amounted to a Selby's mere stint as a Jayhawk.

The start of the Kansas season began with top freshman Josh Selby serving a nine-game suspension for accepting impermissible benefits.

Selby averaged 7.9 points and 2.2 assists in 26 games, and he seemed to lose confidence after missing three games with a foot injury and then being relegated to a bench player.

Now at the end of a 35-3 season that ended with an Elite Eight appearance, Selby hasn't yet declared for the draft but has been training in Las Vegas. That's where he remained Monday during the Kansas team banquet, leaving coach Bill Self to answer questions on his whereabouts, according to the Lawrence Journal-World.

"Josh is getting information through workout people in Las Vegas, trying to get some good feedback. We'll have an answer the next day or two," KU coach Bill Self said, indicating he was not upset at Selby for missing the proceedings.

"I talked to Maeshon (mom) today. That decision is coming real soon," Self added. "He has done the work he needs to academically to pass his classes, but he’s been gone six days. If he's going to come back, he'll be coming back real soon. If not, he won't. Certainly he will salvage this semester academically and pass his classes, which is good."

Andy Katz doesn't think working out in Vegas for the short amount of time would change much, and his absence from the banquet leads to questions about whether Selby is a team player. Marcus and Markieff Morris, even after they hired an agent and declared for the NBA draft, attended the banquet.

At the event in Lawrence, Self said, "In my opinion, we had the best team in America."

After a year in which Self stood behind Selby, the freshman probably should have at least had the event in his datebook.

SAN ANTONIO -- The Kansas Jayhawks are not in this tournament to win the sportsmanship trophy. They’re not here to go along and get along. They’re not terribly interested in playing nice.

They made that perfectly clear before and during their Sweet 16 stomping of Richmond on Friday night, a 77-57 beating that was Kansas at its best. And cockiest. And most intimidating.

The Jayhawks shoved their way inside the Spiders’ heads more than 24 hours before the game and never left, not until the final horn sounded. When Kansas star forward Marcus Morris encountered a couple of Richmond players in the hallway between media interviews Thursday, he issued a verbal warning: “You better be ready.”

Then, while the Spiders were huddling in the tunnel before coming out onto the court for tipoff, the Jayhawks barged through. A shoving match ensued between the teams.

“We were trying to run out,” Kansas guard Josh Selby said. “They stood right there, and we just tried to run through it.”

“It got a little chippity,” Morris said. “We had a little battle to get out the tunnel first.”

Said Richmond’s Kevin Smith: “They tried to run through there, and they ran into some walls. It’s a man thing. Would you let a man walk through you? They thought they were playing with some boys with that one.”

No offense to Mr. Smith and the Spiders, but this was a men-against-boys game. Top-seeded Kansas had its way with the No. 12 seed, bursting out to a 31-9 lead and never giving any upset hopes a chance to grow in the Kansas-dominated Alamodome.

Given the way both teams started the game, it’s fair to wonder whether the pregame fracas had a motivational effect on Kansas and an unsettling effect on Richmond. The Spiders say it did not, but the Jayhawks generally disagreed.

Richmond point guard Kevin Anderson said the altercation was not an issue after tipoff but that “I never got my team settled down.”

If Richmond was unsettled, Kansas was unbridled.

“I think it might have been a little bit [of a motivator],” Kansas guard Brady Morningstar said.

The more you mix it up with the Jayhawks, the better they seem to do. Whatever chance there was that they wouldn’t start the game dialed in probably disappeared in that tunnel exchange.

“Maybe they didn’t think we were ready to go,” Morris surmised. “But the first 11 minutes were probably the best we’ve played all year.”

Kansas was indeed brilliant early. The Jayhawks moved the ball precisely and hit their perimeter shots. They extended their defense to disrupt Richmond’s rhythm and force it away from the basket. They predictably hammered the smaller Spiders on the glass. They were good in transition, good in the half court, good everywhere and in every way.

“They are truly a great team,” Richmond coach Chris Mooney said. “They were kind of able to dictate the game, unfortunately, in every way.”

Nobody played better early than Morningstar, who had 12 first-half points and finished with a team-high 18. The senior has a reputation as something of a provocateur. Marcus and twin brother Markieff Morris have been known to keep their elbows cocked and ready, whereas Morningstar is more apt to annoy opponents with his mouth.

He got under the skin of Texas’ Jordan Hamilton in Lawrence earlier this season, prompting Hamilton to cuss at him and draw a technical foul. This time, Morningstar and Smith got into it during one dead ball, and the officials brought both together for a lecture. Not long thereafter, Morningstar buried his fourth 3-pointer of the game and woofed at Smith. He was quickly hit with a T.

“Some kind of noise,” Smith said of whatever came out of Morningstar’s mouth. “He said it running away. ... You can put that in there if you want to.”

Said Morningstar: “I got ahead of myself, and I’m not good enough to run my mouth after I make a shot.”

Morningstar said something else funny postgame. Namely, that he couldn’t understand why Richmond might have been intimidated by the Jayhawks.

Take a look at the thick bodies and unsmiling faces in your own locker room, Brady. If the Morris twins and Thomas Robinson (12 points and 14 rebounds Friday) aren’t a bit scary to look at, nobody is in college basketball.

Richmond was going to be up against it in this game no matter what. But after all the pregame posturing, the Spiders were really in trouble. It didn’t take long for Kansas to exert its dominance and make Louisville coach-turned-temporary ESPN analyst Rick Pitino’s upset pick turn on its head.

“No disrespect to Pitino,” Markieff Morris said, “but we still playing.”

And still talking.

Kansas was ripe to be beaten.

The Jayhawks were without injured and inspirational player Thomas Robinson, who is out with a knee injury. They were trying to reinsert heralded freshman point guard Josh Selby into the lineup after he had missed the previous three games with a stress reaction in his foot.

And then KU got a No. 1 ranking/No. 1 bull's-eye on Monday, giving rival Kansas State the perfect storm to finally live up to its potential against its bitter rival in a rocking Bramlage Coliseum on Monday night.

Let others use whatever adjectives they choose to describe K-State’s 84-68 victory, but this shouldn’t be considered a stunner. Now the margin of victory (16 points) is certainly a surprise, but that seemed to be more of an indication that the Jayhawks simply weren’t mentally ready for this challenge. Give complete credit to preseason Big 12 player of the year Jacob Pullen for his career-high 38 points, but the Jayhawks’ porous defensive effort left a lot to be desired.

Kansas was tabbed as the No. 1 team on Monday afternoon after Ohio State lost at Wisconsin over the weekend, despite the fact that KU had lost to Texas at home on Jan. 22. In that game against the Longhorns, Kansas was no doubt emotionally fatigued from being up the previous night with Robinson after the tragic death of his mother. Lisa. Since that loss the Jayhawks had been on a magnificent roll from escaping at Colorado, to crushing Kansas State, Texas Tech and Nebraska on the road, and then Missouri and Iowa State at home.

But in the past few days something changed with this team. Maybe it was trying to get Selby back on the court. Maybe it was the timing of getting the top ranking and the opponent. Maybe the Jayhawks were simply ready to get clocked, just like Duke had its forgettable game at St. John’s two weeks ago. Whatever the reason, the Jayhawks clearly weren’t ready to handle the top spot.

Kansas didn’t shoot well from long range (3-of-15), turned the ball over 18 times, and didn’t have composure from beginning to end, exemplified by Elijah Johnson's technical for taunting after a vicious dunk late in the game. KU was down 14 at the time. Taunting doesn’t have a place at any point and certainly makes the team look small if it occurs when it is behind big.

Kansas has given Kansas State new life in its hope to be back in the NCAA tournament after an Elite Eight run last season. The Wildcats, who have five regular-season games remaining, have played a tough schedule and won a few tough games like against Virginia Tech, at Washington State and against Gonzaga in Kansas City. But they also lost several others: to Duke and UNLV in Kansas City, to Florida in Sunrise, Fla., to a whole mess of teams in the Big 12, including a season sweep at the hands of Colorado. The Wildcats entered the KU game 0-7 against the RPI top 50.

The season had been a nightmare at times with Pullen getting suspended for three games for accepting extra benefits, Curtis Kelly being suspended multiple times and Wally Judge quitting.

But now Kansas State has new life. The Wildcats (17-9, 5-6) have three home games remaining and two on the road, including at possible new No. 1 Texas.

But more than giving Kansas State a pulse for a bid, the Jayhawks rekindled the debate as to who should be the top-ranked team, mere hours after this week’s poll was released.

Texas and Pitt are playing the best basketball right now as the Longhorns have won 10 in a row, nine by double figures. Pitt has won 13 of 14, including two in a row on the road (at WVU, at Nova) without leading scorer Ashton Gibbs. The Panthers also beat the Longhorns head-to-head back in November.

Ohio State could certainly be deserving still, losing its first game of the season by four points in an arena where few teams ever win.

Yet, for all the KU warts that were exposed on Monday night in Manhattan, the Jayhawks would still have to fall again at least once more, if not twice, to lose their grip on a No. 1 seed. Kansas will likely be fine.

But for one night, at least, Kansas played a big role in saving the season of its in-state rival.

And for Jayhawks fans, there’s nothing fine about that.

Saddle Up is our semi-daily preview of the night's best basketball action. It is already getting a ton of email from Kansas fans.

West Virginia at No. 20 Syracuse, 7 p.m. ET, ESPN: Looking for bubble intrigue? This isn't your game.

No, on a night when one of the Big 12's bubbliest will fight for its at-large life -- see Kansas State at Kansas below -- the opening act doesn't promise much in the way of seasonal intrigue. Both West Virginia and Syracuse are likely NCAA tournament inclusions; it would take massive collapses for either to end up missing March Madness.

But that doesn't mean this game doesn't have its various degrees of attraction. Each team is trying to get its eighth Big East win; each team is in some ways still figuring itself out; and each team is trying to build momentum for a late-season run. Syracuse is trying to avoid its worst home losing streak since 1962 and its seventh loss in its last nine games. West Virginia is trying to avoid its third straight loss to a ranked Big East foe. The Orange are still searching for competent guard play and trying to shore up their suddenly leaky 2-3 zone. The Mountaineers are still looking for ways to score that don't totally hinge on their ability to grab offensive rebounds.

In other words, this game may not be pretty, and it may not be Pittsburgh-Villanova, and it may not come with too much bubble intrigue attached. But it is still a very solid Big East game. If you like physical play, rebounding, shot-blocking, strategic give-and-take and -- last but not least -- watching college hoops teams trying to come together in a pressure-packed, klieg-lights-on scenario -- then you'll probably want to tune in at 7 p.m. ET tonight. At the very least, this one should be interesting.

No. 1 Kansas at Kansas State, 9 p.m. ET, ESPN: Then, after enjoying the WVU-Cuse appetizer, you can move to the main course. Because at 9 p.m. ET in Manhattan, Kan., the Kansas State Wildcats will make their final stand.

That sounds dramatic, but it's true. The Wildcats' devastating two-point loss at Colorado on Saturday -- which featured a last-second Rodney McGruder 3 that was overruled after the referees checked the courtside replay monitors -- put this team closer to the brink of the NIT than at any other point this season. Our own Joe Lunardi still has Kansas State in the tournament, but the Wildcats are a No. 11 seed with a disconcerting downward-facing red arrow next to their name, and really it's still a soft-bubble miracle Kansas State is even in the running for a bid at all. K-State's RPI is OK, but it has no wins in the RPI top 50 and a sub-.500 mark in Big 12 play. That sure doesn't look like an NCAA tournament team, does it?

Which is to say, Kansas State needs this win. Badly. The Wildcats won't get a better chance to notch a huge résumé-boosting victory the rest of the season. (a Feb. 26 home date with Missouri is looking ripe for the picking, but the Tigers aren't exactly the Jayhawks when it comes to "signature win" prestige.) They'll have the benefit of a raucous home environment in the Octagon of Doom. They'll have their hated dominant rivals on the other side. They'll have their defense -- the one non-rebounding area of this team that hasn't been a total letdown -- primed for the unique challenge presented by KU's nigh-unstoppable array of capable guards and versatile forwards.

And, perhaps most importantly, they'll have the benefit of knowing this is it. This is the game. If ever there was a time to wholly reverse this disappointing, distraction-prone season, this is it. If ever there was a time for Jacob Pullen to will his team to a win (not to mention avoid his nightmare NIT scenario), this is it. If ever there was a time to announce that the preseason Big 12 title pick and nationally ranked top-five team isn't dead yet, this is it.

The intelligent hoops observer still likes Kansas to win here. Even without Josh Selby and Thomas Robinson, this Jayhawks team is still very good, and Kansas State has been so comprehensively ugly on offense this season that it's hard to see them getting anything easy against Kansas' consistent D. But the pressure will be on. Frank Martin's entire reputation is suddenly on the line. His team is backed into a corner. These Wildcats are wildly desperate.

This Kansas State team has let its fans down time and again this season. The time for turnaround, if it still exists, can't come any later than tonight. This is it.

This isn't the most timely recap I've ever written; by now, if you're like me, you've probably seen the Kansas-Missouri highlights four or five times. Not to mention, you know, watching the actual game.

But I was in my underground Bubble Watch bunker (stocked with non-perishable food items, nitty-gritty sheets, and gold bullion, just in case the things I hear on cable news come true) until late last night -- hence today's late start -- and I would be remiss if we didn't take a second to appreciate what Kansas did to Missouri in Allen Fieldhouse Monday night. Because it was thoroughly insane.

It's not just that the Jayhawks scored 103 points in a 40-minute game. That's crazy enough on its own. What's remarkable is the way the Jayhawks scored those points. First there was the shooting accuracy: Kansas was 37-of-61 (60.7 percent) from the field and 11-of-19 (57.9 percent) from beyond the arc. Their effective field goal percentage was 69.7. They scored 1.45 points per trip. In other words, if you felt surprised every time KU missed a shot, your instincts were correct. They made far more than they missed last night.

Nor did Kansas get those buckets on layups and open jumpers in transition. According to the Kansas City Star's Brady McCollough, only four -- four! -- of the Jayhawks' 103 points came on the fast break. Instead, Kansas got almost all of its open looks out of its half-court offense, which moved the ball from side-to-side and from elbow-to-block as well as any team we've seen this season. It was a thing of beauty. And Missouri got a front-row seat.

Speaking of Missouri, the Tigers deserve plenty of the blame for Kansas's crazy shooting night, too. Yes, the Jayhawks had to make those shots. But Missouri was so often out of position in the second half, and so often scrambling frantically to close out on wide-open shooters, that Kansas was able to get almost any shot it wanted on the perimeter. And with all those offensive rebounds -- Kansas grabbed 48.3 percent of its available misses last night -- the Jayhawks had plenty of second and third chances, too.

This is an ongoing issue that Missouri has to solve if it plans on a) winning a few Big 12 games on the road and b) making a deep NCAA tournament run. The Tigers are essentially a one-dimensional defense. Thanks to that pressing style, Mike Anderson's team forces opponents to turn the ball over at a high rate. But if those opponents can limit their turnovers -- as Kansas did last night -- and get Missouri into the half court, the Tigers struggle to challenge shooters, lock down the glass, and free throw opportunities for other teams. This is nothing new, and it appears to just be who this team is. But some better defense in the half court would do wonders toward improving Missouri's record down the stretch.

Perhaps most impressive -- or at least most intriguing -- is that Kansas barnstormed the Tigers without touted freshman Josh Selby. Whether that's coincidence or not is up for debate. Selby is, after all, the least experienced and least efficient offensive player the Jayhawks have. Which is a lot like calling "Let It Be" the worst Beatles album. But maybe, just maybe, the Jayhawks are more cohesive on offense without their star freshman?

Whether that's true or not, it's a rather excellent problem to have. "Gee, we're awfully good, but I'm just not sure if our top-five NBA prospect recruit is holding our offense back a little bit." Life is good in Lawrence, huh?

To many, the inevitable is happening.

Kansas freshman Josh Selby, who's stepped right in following an NCAA suspension and averaged 19.5 points in two games off the bench, was destined to crack the lineup on an undefeated team.

Coach Bill Self indicated Selby's impending start in the moments after last week's win at Cal, and the decision ended up becoming a necessity when Tyshawn Taylor missed five practices due to travel issues getting out of New York.

But it's not as if Selby hasn't had to deal with the freshman learning curve, even if it's not always evident when he's busy showing off his shooting stroke and breathtaking drives to the basket.

"What I see him doing great and what you guys see him doing may not be on the same page," Self told reporters Tuesday. "I think he is picking up stuff all the time. He's really trying hard, but the trying hard shouldn’t just occur since Dec. 18th [Selby's first game eligible]. It should go back to the first day he was cleared to play."

Selby might make things look easy, but don't be fooled. It's taken maturity for him to adjust to playing on the wing, and he concedes there's work to be done on the defensive end.

His first start tonight against Texas-Arlington will simply serve to showcase all the progress he's made.

"My teammates have made it a lot easier on me, putting me in the right positions to score, telling me where to be," Selby told reporters. "I give all the credit to my teammates and coaches [for] helping me out.

"It doesn't really matter to me who starts. It matters how we finish."

BERKELEY, Calif. -- The nasty pileup on the floor featured two players who didn't like each other, some apparent extracurricular elbowing and tempers flaring.

Cal's Jorge Gutierrez was literally dragged away by a teammate and restrained by his coach after a loose ball situation resulted in the feisty Bears guard getting tangled up with Kansas forward Thomas Robinson for a second time.

And out of the scrum, there was Josh Selby trying to calm his teammate down with a bear hug.

"To make sure he keeps his composure," explained Selby, Kansas' freshman sensation.

The Jayhawks ultimately prevailed 78-63 on Thursday at Haas Pavilion in their first true road game of the season to improve to 11-0. In a chippy game that saw KU's leading scorer Marcus Morris get ejected, three technical fouls and Robinson's intentional foul, they learned that there is plenty of room to grow.

"If you're competing, you beat 'em on the scoreboard, not by getting the last word in," Kansas coach Bill Self said. "We have to mature. We don't have a mature team, and we have known that from the beginning. They are competitive, though."

Kansas got big performances off the bench from Markieff Morris, who had a career-high 21 points and 10 rebounds, along with 18 points from Selby, who was masterful with his first-half shooting in only the second game of his career.

But the attention was soon focused on two teams that couldn't keep their hands off each other. Robinson got whistled for an intentional foul on Gutierrez in the first half, and it went from there.

Marcus Morris was ejected with 17:23 left for a flagrant foul of Harper Kamp, with Self agreeing afterward that Morris "got what he deserved." About a minute later, it was Gutierrez and Robinson going at it again and getting called for double technical fouls. Kamp and coach Mike Montgomery pulled Gutierrez out of the pile.

"You have to love Jorge," Montgomery said. "He's the greatest. But he's a stubborn son of a gun. And if you attack him, he's going to come back at you. It's just his nature. It's what makes him so good."

Said Robinson: "It's a physical game. I don't really remember what happened. I went after the ball. He went after the ball."

The incidents only served to fire up Cal, and the Bears were able to whittle a 17-point deficit down to three. But the technical on Gutierrez was also a fourth personal foul, and Kansas was able pull away behind Markieff Morris' dominance inside and Tyrel Reed's career highs of 18 points and seven rebounds.

Self said there's "a great chance" Selby would make his first career start once the Jayhawks return to action next week. The freshman has had the hot hand since coming off an NCAA suspension to sink USC with a game-winning 3-pointer. Against Cal, he finished 6-of-13 from the floor, making three from beyond the arc and also contributing four assists while playing good defense.

"He is a guy that can score when we don't really have a good offense," Self said.

So while Self used words like "disappointed" and "ridiculous" to describe some of his team's antics (Brady Morningstar was later assessed a technical for knocking the ball out of Gary Franklin's hands after a called timeout), the Jayhawks also had plenty of fun wearing their road blues and going at it in front of 11,250.

Kansas fans showered their team with chants and booed Gutierrez on his home court. They got to see Selby light it up and provide a glimpse of what's to come.

Yes, the Jayhawks still have to incorporate their star and have been shaky at times this season even with Selby in uniform.

"We got to be smarter," Reed said. " We've got to keep our cool and be mature about it."

But thus far, Kansas has come out on top in every challenge it has faced and gotten the last laugh.

Afternoon Links are exactly what they say they are. Send in your links and tips here. You can also e-mail me and hit me up on Twitter.

• After the Connecticut women pulled off the rather incredible feat of tying the John Wooden-era UCLA 88-game win streak Sunday, UConn coach Geno Auriemma went rather far afield in discussing why people care about his team's accomplishment: "I know there would not be this many people in this [press] room if we were chasing a women's record," Auriemma said after the game. "The reason why everyone is having a heart attack the last four or five days is a bunch of women are threatening to break a men's record, and everyone is up in arms about it. All the women are happy as hell and can't wait to come in and ask questions. All the men who love women's basketball are excited, and all the miserable bastards who follow men's basketball and don't want us to break the record are all here because they are pissed. So that's the way it is. "If we were breaking a women's record, everybody would go: 'Aren't those girls nice.' Just give them two paragraphs in USA Today or give them one line on the bottom of ESPN, and let's send them back where they belong in the kitchen. But because we are breaking a men's record, we have a lot of people paying attention." Yes, Auriemma actually said all that. Naturally, this riled some people up. Newly minted CBS blogger Matt Norlander -- of The Dagger and College Hoops Journal fame, and a great hire for the new CBS college hoops blog -- writes that Auriemma, a master of the soundbite, knew he had to ruffle a few feathers to maximize exposure for his team's accomplishment. It certainly seems to have worked.
• The Big Ten Geeks revisit their preseason predictions and check up on the Big Ten in this weekend's two-part discussion.
• Auburn's home loss to Presbyterian Saturday night wasn't just a barometer of how far the Tigers have to go under first-year coach Tony Barbee. It was also the first time the Blue Hose had beaten a team from a BCS-affiliated conference.
• Basketball Prospectus' Asher Fusco has a warning: Beware the Iona Gaels: "If ever a team were built to pull an upset, this year's Iona squad might be that team. All the pieces are present. Guards Jermel Jenkins and Kyle Smyth are each shooting better than 40 percent from three-point range. Point guard Scott Machado is a get-up-and-go assist machine with a penchant for forcing turnovers. Forward Alejo Rodriguez is an outstanding shot-blocker and a 62 percent FG shooter. And post Michael Glover is a junior college transfer who originally committed to Seton Hall and still looks and plays more like he belongs in the Big East than the MAAC."
• Tom Izzo is officially done talking about his IAP-related suspension, which he served Saturday: "Unfortunately, I'm making my last statement about it, because it was one of the worst and most embarrassing things of my coaching career," said Izzo, who watched MSU's 90-51 win over Prairie View A&M at home. "And I served my sentence and I'm moving on. That's it."
• Rush The Court's Zach Hayes argues that Kansas will incorporate Josh Selby just fine, thanks.
• Memphis fans are apparently a little worried about their Tigers. The Commercial-Appeal's Dan Wolken has some advice for them: stop.
• Star-Telegram reporter Mac Engel got to spend some time behind the scenes with TCU, and it didn't take long for him to witness a heated locker-room scuffle: "The TCU men's basketball team's 14-point loss at Nebraska is less than three minutes old when the fight breaks out in the locker room. Head basketball coach Jim Christian's face looks more annoyed than worried as he hears the sounds of a scuffle between his players. Christian walks down the short hall from the coaches' dressing room to the visiting players' locker room as a pair of Lincoln, Neb., police officers run to break up the fight between the TCU players. The police leave. The door shuts. The candor flies. 'He's got the worst attitude on the team, and no one can say nothin' to him!' 'You guys gotta man up!' 'That was so easy, and you made it hard for no reason.' 'Would you stop worrying about the messenger and play better!' The 'conversation' lasts for 20 minutes before the players pack their gear and head into the bitter Nebraska air."
• Bruins Nation asks the age-old sports question: Where are they now?
• And, as always, some of the stuff we've been doing around these parts: Mechelle Voepel writes about the female Huskies' intimidating "presence"; Diamond profiles the unlikely rise of Nicholls State forward Anatoly Bose; Mark Adams provides his weekly glance at the mid-major scene; we do our Weekly Watch thang; and Andy discusses the challenges and benefits of Rick Pitino's decision to coach the Puerto Rican national team.

Five observations from this past week:

1. This freshman class continues to get better and will have a say on the national title. Duke’s Kyrie Irving was the star of the crew before he got hurt. If and when he returns he’ll shoot in the top tier again. Ohio State’s Jared Sullinger has been a man inside for the Buckeyes. Kansas’ Josh Selby proved his worth with his winning shot against USC. Texas’ tandem of Cory Joseph and Tristan Thompson will be a reason the Longhorns are in the race for the Big 12 title. Kentucky’s Terrence Jones has been highly productive and one of the many reasons to take the Wildcats seriously throughout the season.

2. The Diamond Head Classic in Honolulu might be one of the most anticipated events in December. The outcome will have major implications for a number of teams. Butler can change this team’s current perception with a title. Baylor now comes in hungry to prove it belongs in the elite conversation. Washington State has a home win over Gonzaga but nothing else to shout about yet. Mississippi State desperately needs quality wins. Florida State hasn’t been able to win elite games so far (losses to Florida and Ohio State).

3. Cincinnati coach Mick Cronin didn’t schedule like Gonzaga’s Mark Few, nor should he. So you can’t compare Gonzaga’s 6-5 record to the Bearcats’ 8-0 mark. But the Bearcats needed something positive to occur in the pre-conference schedule to give them some momentum going into the Big East. While the wins aren’t going to excite the selection committee yet, it’s better than losing at Fordham or at home to St. Bonaventure as St. John’s has already done.

4. Tennessee will be one of toughest teams to figure this season. The wins over Villanova in New York and Pitt in Pittsburgh were real. Tennessee was the better team on both days and it showed. The Vols weren’t against Oakland at home or at Charlotte. Shooting 2-of-17 from 3 like they did against the 49ers is going to lose them a lot of games. But the Vols can’t be dismissed as an SEC East title contender. They are simply as unpredictable as most and it just makes this part of the chaos of a surreal season that will see an eight-game suspension for head coach Bruce Pearl to start out the SEC.

5. Howard Moore’s composure was something to behold as UIC beat Illinois at the United Center in easily the Flames’ most significant win in 20 years. UIC has been to the NCAA tournament three times since it last beat Illinois (1990). But the program desperately needed credibility in the city and when it hired one of its own in Moore the first step was taken toward creating awareness. Now the win over the Illini will do even more for his profile in the city, the school’s recruiting and overall interest in a town that craves a college basketball team to call its own. Moore wasn’t being frantic during the last few hectic possessions. He was calm, cool and collected and his players displayed the same attitude in winning the game.