The incredible streak of 13 consecutive regular-season Big 12 titles that Kansas has put together has perhaps done curious things to our hoops brains. Take for example the fact that the streak is absolutely riveting theater.
I'm fascinated by whether KU can keep its streak going; you're very likely fascinated by that question too if you've read this far, and indeed this may be the essence of why we love sports. "Is this finally the year?" is a question that, in its various forms, keeps us coming back across sports and around the world.
But something as extraordinary as 13 straight titles may lead us to assume that the question of KU's depth, for instance, is similarly momentous. Naturally, depth really is important, particularly if one of KU's regulars is lost because of injury.
Nevertheless, a reminder is in order at the top of any discussion of Kansas and depth. We've seen the Jayhawks team as it's currently configured play more than a thousand possessions of basketball, and the customary trajectory of a group such as this one -- again, as is, with no further roster additions -- is likely to net the program an NCAA tournament seed of No. 3 or higher for a 12th consecutive year. That is no small thing.
True, Bill Self has spoken on occasion in somewhat more dire terms ("a flame-out," to be precise), intimating that his team can't afford to continue playing the way it did in losses at Allen Fieldhouse to Arizona State and Texas Tech. Self is clearly more comfortable playing with a deeper rotation than what we've seen from KU thus far, and that's certainly understandable.
Still, the correlation between the Jayhawks' degree of depth and the team's performance shortcomings, while very real, is not perfect. Take KU's defensive rebounding, for example.
The Jayhawks' performance on the defensive glass has been disastrous early in Big 12 play, meaning if it were to continue, it would literally be a disaster. Fortunately for Kansas fans, there's scant precedent for a team to rebound just 55 percent of opponents' misses over the course of an entire conference season. Besides, KU expects to get good news on this front soon, in the form of help from Billy Preston and/or Silvio De Sousa.
Preston has been held out of action while the NCAA reviews circumstances related to a vehicle he has been driving on campus. In theory, he could be cleared to play at any time, and Self talks as though the freshman will indeed be available soon.
De Sousa is in a similar form of limbo. He graduated early from IMG Academy and joined the team in December, but he's yet to be cleared as eligible by the NCAA. The 6-foot-10 Preston entered the season as the No. 18-ranked freshman in the country, and, at 6-foot-8, De Sousa is ranked No. 28 in his class. These are elite recruits, undoubtedly, but history cautions us against expecting the world of players who are ranked at this level in the first few games of their college careers. It's likely they can help Kansas be a better defensive rebounding team, but it's less likely that they'll be better at everything, across the board, than the players currently getting those same minutes.
Speaking of Self's players currently on hand, Mitch Lightfoot had an outstanding game at TCU, recording seven rebounds and, rather incredibly, six blocks in 26 minutes. This took place in a game where Udoka Azubuike fouled out in just 13 minutes -- the worst-case scenario, in effect, for the thin KU frontcourt. Yet the Jayhawks still won on the road against a top-25 team.
For his part, Self has made a fairly convincing case that his team's struggles on the defensive glass are related to an inability to contain dribble penetration. "When you can't guard the ball, it forces rotation," he has said, "which forces rotation rebounding."
If the coach is correct, the performance of KU's existing on-ball defenders is at least as important to the team's rebounding as the presence or absence of the two freshmen. Not to mention there are plenty of examples from the past of excellent defensive rebounding teams that were smaller than the Jayhawks are or whose benches were shorter than KU's. Actually, Dayton in 2014-15 and SMU last season come to mind as teams that were both smaller and less deep than Kansas is now.
In short, we shouldn't confuse Self's clear and wholly legitimate desire for more players with a causal explanation for why Kansas loses on occasion. The Jayhawks could well improve with more players on hand, but that difference could turn out to be smaller than we think, and, anyway, it's far from clear that disaster looms behind the door marked status quo.
Clemson is one of this season's feel-good stories, and the Tigers sport a minuscule figure for bench minutes that's virtually identical to KU's. Nevertheless, we as a hoops nation can't help but gather in a fretting mob and point at KU's depth.
We do so not because said depth is really so unheard of (throw a stick at any of Notre Dame's past three years and you'll hit a similar rotation), but because this is a team that has, incredibly, won 13 league titles in a row. Now the team looks different than it usually does. Will the streak continue anyway? It will be great theater to watch.