As you may or may not have noticed, ESPN is doing a little countdown of basketball programs over the time since the field expanded to 64 teams.
Today, they released numbers 11-20, culminating with Tom Izzo's Michigan State Spartans at #11 (with 230 points). I'm assuming tomorrow they will reveal #'s 1-10 and I'll be curious to see where the Jayhawks end up. Clearly they will be in the top 5, but how high can they go? I don't have near the knowledge or the time to look into other schools but when you look at the point system they're using, it looks like the Hawks will have a total somewhere in the neighborhood of 415 points. (Note: I'm getting this number by adding 231 from tourney finishes, 55 from season win totals, 70 from conference titles, 24 from the league tourney, 25 from All Americans, and 10 from the NBA draft) I'm sure I'm off somewhere in there as I ran through it pretty quickly, but it should be pretty close and I found it pretty telling that even without the five other categories they would have been in the top ten on tourney finishes alone.**UPDATE** Kansas finished 3rd, behind Duke (538) and UNC (454), with 450 points. Apparently points are given out for #1 seeds even though it is nowehere to be found in their key. The only real surprise in this list was UNLV coming in at #8, but then again the Shark did lead them to some great, albeit scandal infused, seasons. Even more shocking was that Methzou (#37 and falling) and KSU (#124 - OUCH, I guess Lon ended up in the better place after all) couldn't quite make the cut. **END-UPDATE**
***SECOND UPDATE** Apparently ESPN counted wrong for both KU and UNC. The amended figures are here, with KU now placing second with 455 points to UNC's 448. ***END***
In keeping with basketball, another piece of information surfaced today and that is the 2008-09 Big 12 schedule. From Kansas' perspective I think they have to be pretty happy about the overall layout. Things start out relatively easy and they really shouldn't see a tough game until February 2 down in Waco.
Then again, part of the reason for that is how awful the league is likely to be next year. Even without knowing how good the team is going to be, the only other tough games on the slate are Feb. 23 @ OU and March 7 v. Texas. Being young I'm sure they'll have some slip-ups along the way, but that's not exactly treacherous. Since that link above pretty much sucks, here is a link to the entire 2008-09 schedule in a decent format.And finally, we come to the story about Tom Kivisto. As you surely know, Tom pledged $12 mm of the $31 million necessary to build the Anderson Family Football Complex. However, at this point he has only given $4 million. It's hard to see that other $8 million making its way to KU at this point. Having not spoken with Sweet Lew or having any knowledge whatsoever on if any contingency plans were in place it's hard to know what the University plans to do. But if I were a betting man, I would go ahead and speculate that Lew will be able to do what Lew does best, and ultimately come up with that money somehow. And if he doesn't, the facility is all but built anyway, so....
Speaking of which, if you want to get a sneak peak of the place, there will be an open house next Wednesday, July 30th from 5:30-7:30.
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