The age-old question: "Did [insert team name here] get treated unfairly in the NCAA Tournament seeding process?"
Every college basketball fan wants to complain about their seeding and the matchups that they have been given in their bracket. Usually those complaints have just a little bit of truth to them, even if they are tinged with a lot of bias.
But if you hear anyone complain about the draw for the Kansas Jayhawks (or any other of the top 4 teams in the Midwest bracket), then you can safely ignore them, as I don't think I've seen a more favorable matchup for a team yet.
So let's break down the bracket with potential matchups and some overall thoughts:
First Round: Samford Bulldogs
The first look on the Bulldogs hints at something for Jayhawk fans to be worried about. They run a fast-paced offense that is heavy on threes and a defense that presses all the time to speed up their opponents. But dig a little deeper, and you have a team that relies on first shot success and an up-tempo pace to take opponents by surprise. It is true that they might be able to wear down the Jayhawks with their large number of players in the rotation, but the pressure that they use leads to a large number of fouls.
Second Round: Gonzaga Bulldogs or McNeese State Cowboys
McNeese grades out similarly to Samford, so the worries there are fairly similar. As for Gonzaga, they once again look like an advanced analytics juggernaut. But they have struggled against some suspect teams this season, don't have the dominant stars that we are used to seeing from them, and don't typically take advantage of the things that really hurt the Jayhawks. I would still rather see McNeese, but a healthy Kansas team will have enough firepower to match Gonzaga, and a strong enough defense to slow them down.
Sweet 16: Purdue Boilermakers (or TCU/Utah State)
First, I don't see any way that this Purdue team loses to another 16 seed, so I'm not going to entertain the thought. And while TCU and Utah State will have a chance, if the bracket falls apart to that degree, then we don't need to worry about draws. Purdue is a team that relies on Zach Edey more than any other team relies on a single player in the country. When you compare them to the other #1 seeds, they have a profile that matches up with Kansas the best of any in that group.
Elite Eight: Tennessee Volunteers or Creighton Bluejays
Waiting on the other side of the bracket is the theoretical winner of the Vols and Bluejays. Kansas has already beaten Tennessee, and the main difference I see in these teams since then are the injuries to the Jayhawks. Kansas is absolutely talented enough to beat Tennessee again with a trip to Phoenix on the line.
Creighton is an ultimate boom or bust team, with some really great highs and some baffling lows. They defend well, but don't turn opponents over. They take a lot of shots from the perimeter, but let opponents get a ton of shots up close. And again, they don't force a lot of fouls and don't get a lot of offensive rebounds. Add it all up, and it is actually a really good matchup for a healthy Kansas team.
Only time will tell if this ends up being a great draw for the Jayhawks, but it is absolutely clear that things could not have lined up much better on paper.
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