What does it take for a college basketball team to be remembered as one of the best of its era? For Kansas, the answer is a 2007-08 squad that won the national title, piled up blowout after blowout, and still somehow came up short in a recent national ranking.
That team only picked up one vote in Gary Parrish and Matt Norlander’s final edition of their Candid Coaches series, where they asked which college basketball team was the best of this century. For a group that finished the year with a championship, that was a surprisingly small number.
Bill Self has made it clear what he wants from his teams now. On Jon Rothstein’s “ Inside College Basketball Now,” he said the goal is to be “in the game”.
“In my 24 years here, I think we've been in the game probably 18, 19 times. When I say in the game, that if things fell right, we could win it,”
That description fits the 2007-08 Jayhawks perfectly. They opened 20-0 and lost only three times all season, yet they were never ranked No. 1 in the country. Their highest spot was No. 2, and they held that position for just two weeks in late January.
Kansas didn’t just win that year - it kept hammering teams. Thirty of its 40 games were decided by 10 points or more. That included the Final Four against North Carolina, the season’s darling, when the Jayhawks rolled Roy Williams’ team by 16 points.
The roster was loaded with balance rather than one clear headliner. Four players averaged at least 10 points per game: Darrell Arthur at 12.8, Brandon Rush at 13.3, Mario Chalmers at 12.8 and Darnell Jackson at 11.2. Sherron Collins wasn’t far behind at 9.3 points per game.
As a team, Kansas finished with the 13th-best offense in the nation at 80.5 points per game and the 21st-best defense, allowing 61.5 points per game.
Maybe that lack of a single defining star is part of why this group gets tucked behind some others in these conversations. In the modern game, the biggest teams usually have one player who can rescue them when things get tight.
Kansas had that kind of expectation last season with Darryn Peterson, and it will have it this year with Tyran Stokes. The 2007-08 team, though, won with depth, balance and a whole lot of pressure from top to bottom.
Even so, Norlander thinks the respect should have been greater. He said, “That 2007-08 Kansas team is one of the 10 best of the 21st century and should have gotten at least three nods.”
For Kansas fans, that team will always sit near the top of the list. Outside that circle, it’s still fighting for the kind of recognition its season earned.
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