Thursday, April 23, 2009

X, Man!

Hoo boy.

It just seemed too good to be true, but as with so many Bill Self recruiting stories, the best-case scenario has come to pass. Xavier Henry's a Jayhawk -- as is C.J. apparently.

If we were the 2010 pre-season #1 already, now we're ... well, put it this way -- no one else is even worthy of #2.

Depending on which list you look at, X may be the biggest Kansas recruit since Manning. (Don't hold me to that, but that's an educated guess. Julian, Nick, Paul and Raef were big recruits, but were any of them ranked as high as #3 in their class?)

But even if X doesn't turn out to be the second coming, that's OK. This team is so loaded, he doesn't need to be. He'll have his ups and downs like any freshman, but if he can just average double figures -- and believe me, if you've seen this kid's jump shot, he can -- that should be enough to put us over the top.

This gives Kansas the holy trinity of great players that most championship teams must have -- guard, wing, big man.

Kansas 2010: Collins, Henry, Aldrich
Carolina 2009: Lawson, Ellington, Hansbrough
Kansas 2008: Chalmers/Collins, Rush, Arthur
Florida 2006-7: Green, Brewer, Noah/Horford
Carolina 2005: Felton, McCants, May
Syracuse 2003: McNamara, Anthony, Warrick
Duke 2001: Williams, Dunleavy, Boozer
Duke 1991-2: Hurley, Hill, Laettner
Kansas 1988: Pritchard, Newton, Manning

Scott, we haven't heard from you in a while... Thoughts? I'm genuinely sorry that so many of KU's recent successes seem to come at Memphis's expense...

1 comment:

  1. Once Calipari left, I knew the cupboard would be emptied.

    It appears our brief period of glory is over for a while.

    At least X went to my other team though and not to Missouri or something.

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