Ken Davis

In the past week, Kansas coach Bill Self was asked over and over to dissect the difference between a No. 1 and a No. 2 seed in the NCAA Tournament. After defeating Texas to win the Big 12 regular season championship, Self admitted his team was striving to reach the top line.

But Self, staring at the fork in the NCAA road, also said the importance of a No. 1 seed might be “a little overrated.” That’s when a reporter quickly reminded Self the value of a top seed essentially is one guaranteed victory because a No. 16 has never managed an upset in the history of the tournament.

“Well, yeah,” Self said with a smile. “We don’t talk like that around here.”

That type of self-deprecating humor (no pun intended) may be the only way the Kansas coach can survive the 2007 NCAA Tournament.

Self and his players would like to tell the basketball world they are sick of all this B business. Yes, that’s B, as in Bucknell and Bradley, the schools that sent the Jayhawks home after just one tournament game the past two seasons. Self says the main distinction that comes with a No. 1 seed is all the notoriety it brings to your program. In the case of the Jayhawks, much of that attention this week will be focused on those recent first-round exits that have damaged the proud tradition at this basketball school.

Just count the times you hear a question like this from the talking heads on TV this week: Could Kansas become the first No. 1 seed ever to lose an opening game?

“Yeah it will be [an annoyance],” Self said. “But they’re going to talk about it no matter what we are [seeded], so it’s no big deal. It is what it is.”

And it won’t go away until the Jayhawks make it go away.

We come here today with a message for Kansas fans everywhere: Put down the paranoia medication and come in off the ledge. The Jayhawks not only are going to win their opener against the winner of the play-in game (Florida A&M or Niagara), they are going all the way and will win their first national championship since 1988.

“They are the most talented team in the country,” Kansas State coach Bob Huggins said during the Big 12 tournament.

Huggins, who lost to KU three times this season, may be right. Name another team that can match the athleticism, the depth, and the talent of the top eight players on the Kansas roster. During their current 11-game winning streak the Jayhawks have played as well — if not better — than any team in the country. Gary Walters, chairman of the NCAA men’s basketball committee and athletic director at Princeton, said the result of Sunday’s Big 12 tournament championship game had no bearing on Kansas receiving the No. 1 seed in the West, but the Jayhawks did beat Texas and Kevin Durant 88-84 in overtime.

In our crystal ball, Kansas will join Florida (No. 1 Midwest), Georgetown (No. 2 East) and Texas A&M (No. 3 South) at the Final Four in Atlanta. We see Kansas beating the defending national champion Gators for the second time this season, and then holding off Georgetown in the title game.

The Jayhawks (30-4) last lost on Feb. 3 when they eased up in the final four minutes at home against Texas A&M, allowing Acie Law to engineer another of his patented comebacks. Texas A&M won 69-66, but Self thinks his players learned a valuable lesson.

“The A&M game, in a weird way, helped us because we got tougher,” Self said. “I’ve complained about our toughness all year. Not because I didn’t think [our guys] were tough; they just weren’t as tough as what we thought they could be. We’re gaining on that.

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“I don’t have a crystal ball, but I would say based on how we’ve performed the last several weeks, I think we’ll play well [in the postseason] We didn’t play bad against A&M. We just didn’t finish. I think we’ll step up and play. I think we have a good team.”

It’s a team built on great defense, but the Jayhawks can also score points. The Jayhawks have held every opponent this season under 50 percent shooting. That’s been a trademark of Self’s teams at Tulsa, Illinois and Kansas. That streak seemed in jeopardy on March 3 when Kevin Durant and Texas shot 57.1 percent in the first half at Allen Fieldhouse. But the Jayhawks picked up their defense in the second half, Texas shot 36.4 percent after halftime and finished the game at 47.1 percent.

The Jayhawks rank fourth in the nation in field goal percentage defense and sixth in blocked shots. Led by the defensive wingspans of Darrell Arthur, Julian Wright and Sasha Kaun, the Jayhawks block a shot once every five possessions and make it difficult for any opponent to score inside the paint.

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Brandon Rush, Mario Chalmers, Wright and Arthur average double figures in scoring but it was the offensive surge of 5-foot-11 freshman guard Sherron Collins that really ignited Kansas during conference play. Collins, who went on a strict, supervised 2,400-calorie diet in December and ultimately lost 28 pounds, averaged 11.3 points in Big 12 games.

Collins entered the Big 12 tournament in a minor scoring slump but came off the bench Sunday to lead the Jayhawks with 20 points. Collins, who has 19 double-digit scoring games this season, provides the type of offensive spark that can make a huge difference in a Final Four run.

“He had to be hungry, he had to have low energy and he had to struggle,” Andrea Hudy, associate director of strength and conditioning at Kansas, said of his dieting and conditioning program. “But he stuck with it and he did it. The way he’s been performing lately, it’s paid off for him.”

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