Mario Can't Be a Spur

As you all know, there isn't a lot to report out of Jayhawk Nation these days – which is probably a good thing considering how Mother's Day went at USC. Even the LJW started covering the baseball team so as to dispel the common misconception that they're unaware Kansas does have an NCAA sanctioned team. Unfortunately, it wasn't a great weekend for the Hawks, going 1-2 against Methzou, bringing it to an even 2-2 split on the season (only the games this weekend counted toward the league record, though). If this upsets you, go ahead and take this link to the best championship video that I have seen. It's 16 minutes, but worth every second. On that same note, if any of you are interested in purchasing a square foot of the Final Four court, autographed by the Jayhawks, take this link. Before you buy though, take note that it is not the actual floor and in no way licensed, but does look to be a nicely autographed piece of wood with a Final Four logo.

It seems the Jayhawks-to-be all received sizeable bumps in their national ranking. As you already knew, Rivals has all five high schoolers in their top 150 (only Thomas lower than 77). But now, USA Today has moved all five into the top 79. Personally, I guess it's good to see. But honestly, it just gives more fuel to the fire of my belief that half of these rankings are based on the schools interested rather than actual ability. Hence, why Brian Zoubek, etc. get named McDonald's All Americans once they commit to Duke. Meanwhile, Stephen Curry gets rejected by Va Tech and ends up at Davidson.

Sticking with basketball, it looks like all of those salivating NBA GMs will have to wait another year. Yes, it's true. Leo "The Lion" Lyons (he had to be born in August, right?) has pulled his name out of the draft and will be returning to Methzou.

Unfortunately, I don't think Jayhawk fans will be hearing the same out of either Darrell or Mario any time soon. Call me naïve, optimistic or just plain dumb, but I really thought Mario would return. Now, Chad Ford is by no means the authority on this, but clearly he has talked with GMs/scouts and the early consensus is that all three are moving on up. Here's his latest Top 100. And here's a snippet of his reasoning for moving all three up the board: "KU forwards Darrell Arthur and Brandon Rush, along with point guard Mario Chalmers, are all still seeing a bump in their draft stock off their NCAA championship run. I've had a number of GMs and scouts tell me that I have all three ranked too low in our Top 100. GMs are now saying they have Arthur ranked anywhere from 10-15 in the draft. Rush is ranked as high as 15 on many boards and no lower than 25 on the boards of the teams I spoke with. Chalmers sneaks into the late first round on many of the boards and doesn't drop below 35 on any. It will be interesting to see if the bump continues once they get into individual workouts. We now have Arthur at No. 13, Rush at No. 20 and Chalmers at No. 31 in our Top 100."

Of course I'm happy for them and clearly it will do wonders for recruiting to have three early entrants drafted in the first round, but I would really like Mario Chalmers to have a senior night in Allen Fieldhouse. If this is not meant to be though, hopefully he at least won't go to the Spurs because it's physically impossible for me to root for them and Jacque makes it hard enough as it is.