WICHITA, Kan. _ The key to pulling off the 1-over-the-16 upset in the NCAA Tournament is to believe. When you're the top seed, you cannot let the fact that top seeds are 132-0 all-time get you down. You have to believe, somehow, that you can be the 133rd.
Because the NCAA Tournament is a place for dreamers, for upsets, for plucky upstarts like Kansas to take on basketball factories like Penn and prove the world wrong.
Let the naysayers naysay. The Washington Post. The Wall Street Journal. FiveThirtyEight. They all talked about this being the best No. 16 seed in tournament history. Heck, ESPN even gave Kansas a loss to Penn on its NCAA Tournament history page. Haters gonna hate, is the point, and it's up to fringe programs like Kansas to ignore the doubts.
"I don't think I got asked a single question yesterday not about it," Kansas forward Mitch Lightfoot said.
There is nothing quite like a media narrative gone too far. Penn is good, and Kansas flawed. We get it. But KenPom projected Kansas with an 89 percent chance of winning, Vegas bookmakers made Kansas a 15{-point favorite, and if you weren't careful you'd have thought Kansas was Hickory High.
We have a lot of time on our hands, a lot of #content to produce, so every once in a while we're going take a speck of possibility and blow it into An Actual Thing, and that's exactly what happened this week.
The only surprise is that nobody talked about Penn's players (six are enrolled in the Wharton School of Business) making more money in their careers than Kansas' (none are expected to be high picks in the NBA draft).
OK, this joke has probably gone too far already so maybe it's time for two actual points from Kansas' 76-60 win over Penn in the first round of the NCAA Tournament here on Thursday:
First, they did show a certain poise over the last 25 minutes or so in erasing a 10-point deficit. Kansas teams have tightened and turned into their own opponent in those situations before.
Second, they're going to need Udoka Azubuike. Badly. And soon. As in: Saturday, against Seton Hall.
Nine days after a grade one (the most minor of three classifications) MCL sprain, Azubuike played three mostly unsure minutes. He dove on the floor (sort of), ran down the court and back (at various speeds), and gave a competitor's effort in what had to be a difficult moment (looked like he lacked confidence in changing direction).
He wears a custom brace on his left knee around the clock, even when he sleeps, and says the discomfort is tolerable and isolated on the inside part of his leg. His recovery has been generally ahead of expectations, with Self upgrading his status on Thursday from in-case-of-emergency to get-some-confidence-ahead-of-Saturday.
Kansas won three games in three days without Azubuike at the Big 12 tournament, and controlled the second half against (no joke) a pretty good team in the first round of the NCAA's. So the temptation might be to downplay the need when the Jayhawks would be a solid favorite with or without him.
But that's a lie.
"We're a 1 seed based on our personnel, but if you don't have your big guy, are we really a 1 seed?" KU coach Bill Self said.
This particular Kansas team has always relied heavily on 3-point shooting. Much has been made over the years of Self's reluctance to ride the inconsistent wave of shooting success, but this roster left him little choice.
That will and should be the base of what they do, because the skill to create and make those shots is this group's greatest collective strength. The team's two most used lineups include four shooters. Devonte Graham regularly makes 3s that would be poor attempts for most college players.
Azubuike is the team's only true balance to that. The Jayhawks can find ways to score. Graham and Svi Mykhailiuk have put an obvious priority on driving, and no coach in the country is better at finding easy looks and lobs off set plays.
But Azubuike gives them a different dimension. Like virtually every game he plays, he'll be the biggest man on the floor on Saturday. He is the only post player KU has who can score on his own, without a lob or put-back or play made by someone else.
He's also KU's most effective big man in exploiting the angles and opportunities available in Self's offense. Watch closely and you can see the difference. Anticipation passes off screens are executed with him. They're often not attempted or not successful with him on the bench.
Look, Kansas will be favored on Saturday whether Azubuike plays three minutes or 33 and, because it's Kansas, a loss would be devastating and grounds for criticism.
But unlike this exaggerated narrative about Penn, KU's chances move significantly toward 50-50 or worse depending on Azubuike's availability and ability.
