According to Ken Pomeroy’s latest RPI ratings, they are.

They’re ranked #6. KU, after last night’s battering of the Wolfpack, moved up to number one.

KU is also the new number one in Jeff Sagarin’s latest ratings (11.30.2005), with a Pure Points rating of 99.09, nearly 6 points better than the second ranked PP team, which happens to be the Texas Longhorns.

Several minutes worth:

Robinson looked great again. I’ll put in in print: I think he’ll be an All-American his Junior year. He’s going to get a lot of minutes this year, even more next year and with the attention he’ll naturally get playing for Kansas, he has a great shot at the honor.

Miles was really good too. 10 assist, 0 turnovers. Wow.

This team looks so much better than they did against Vermont. Their defense is getting better and better and they’re moving the ball a lot better on offense.

They’re still missing a lot of rebounds on long shots and with the exception of Wayne “Golden Boy” Simien, free throw shooting is nothing more than excremental.

Rather unexpectedly, as of Sunday, Sagarin’s web site was claiming that
all the teams are now connected, and that his ratings and schedule
strengths are based solely on the results from the current season. Of,
course, theoretically it’s possible for all the teams to become connected
after just two games. In past seasons, however, at least as long as I’ve
been following Sagarin’s ratings, it’s taken more like seven or eight
games before the teams are connected. (By “connected”, it means it is
possible to compare any two teams by some number of games already played
between other pairs of teams. Perhaps someone with too much time on their
hands can discover how Kansas is connected to Nevada.) I’m surprised the
teams are connected already, considering the number of teams that have
played only one game so far, like VMI, Eastern Kentucky, Northern Iowa,
Mercer, and UAB. But the ratings have more meaning now, though you can
expect them to be rather volatile until teams are more connected. Right
now, we’re dealing with the statistics of small numbers, that is, in most
cases just single connections.

The Nevada game is interesting, because the reason for it no longer exists.
It was a recruiting tool that Roy Williams used, namely to schedule a road
game near the hometown of a recruit. In the case of Nevada, that recruit
was, of course, David Padgett, who fled the Jayhawk nest for a Cardinal
nest (well, at least he’s still a bird). It was pretty high price to pay
to lure Padgett to Kansas, considering that last year’s trip to Reno
resulted in a loss. It’s payback time. Big time.

Sagarin’s Monday ratings (complete through games of Sunday) give Kansas a
14-point edge in the rematch and a 90 percent chance of winning the game.
Kansas is playing 9 points above its Sagarin Pure Points rating, all on
the strength of the Saint Joseph’s blowout. Vermont has acquitted itself
nicely so far this season, and amazingly enough, the latest Sagarin ratings
actually predict a 7-point victory by Kansas over Vermont, which matches
reality perfectly. I’ll ignore the 18.6 points per game improvement that
Kansas experienced between its Vermont and Saint Joseph’s games. I’ll
also ignore the 6.5 points per game downward trend that Nevada had between
its Georgia State and Georgia games, given that both are fitting a straight
line to just two points, which yields a perfect fit. But it’s only fair to
mention that Nevada is playing 6 points above its Sagarin Pure Points rating.
The Wolfpack absolutely destroyed the Division II Colorado Springs Mountain
Lions, but Sagarin includes only Division I games. Like Saint Joseph’s,
however, Nevada lost a starter to the NBA, so it won’t be the same Nevada
team playing in Allen Field House tonight.

I’m a little perplexed at what Massey is doing. His web site is still
showing his ratings as of the end of last season. However, if you
click on the individual teams, you’ll get their schedule and results
for last season, along with a link for 2005. Click on that link, and
you can see his rankings for offense, defense, overall, and schedule
along with the results for the current season. So he’s obviously doing
the computations. Why he hasn’t displayed the ratings, I have no idea.
So I’m still in no position to compute any predictions based on Massey’s
ratings, though I can tabulate his rankings, and it’s worth noting that
Massey rates Nevada’s defense more highly than Kansas’ defense. Another
low-scoring affair?

The RPI rankings are still from last season.

               ======================== Sagarin =======================
               Rate    SoS    Elo     PP   Perf   Inc.       Trend
               —-   —-   —-   —-   —-   —-   ————–
Kansas         # 13   # 90   # 43   #  9   +9.3   13.2   18.62 +/- 0.00
Nevada         # 23   #107   # 19   # 53   +6.1    4.6   -6.46 +/- 0.00 

               ============ Massey ============     === RPI ===     ====
               Rate    SoS    Pow    Off    Def     Rate    SOS     Rec.
               —-   —-   —-   —-   —-     —-   —-     —-
Kansas         # 11   # 28   #      # 13   # 40     # 15   # 10      2-0
Nevada         # 15   # 97   #      # 29   # 27     # 29   # 44      3-0

Here is Kansas’ season:

SITE   OPPONENT                         SCORE    PREDIC    ERROR    PROB.
—-   —————————–   ——-   ——    —–    —–
HOME   # 19 Vermont                     68  61    +7.00    +0.00
HOME   #124 Saint Joseph’s              91  51   +21.38   +18.62
HOME   # 53 Nevada                               +13.99             0.898
HOME   # 64 Pacific                              +15.05             0.914
HOME   # 18 TCU                                   +6.74             0.730
HOME   #234 Louisiana-Lafayette                  +29.29             0.996
HOME   #105 South Carolina                       +19.74             0.964
HOME   # 55 Wis.-Milwaukee                       +14.07             0.900
HOME   # 65 Georgia Tech                         +15.12             0.915
HOME   # 98 Texas A&M                            +18.60             0.955
AWAY   # 30 Kentucky                              +1.90             0.569
AWAY   #235 Iowa State                           +21.48             0.975
AWAY   #132 Colorado                             +13.96             0.898
HOME   #  4 Nebraska                              +2.75             0.599
AWAY   # 21 Villanova                             -0.36             0.487
AWAY   #180 Baylor                               +17.40             0.943
HOME   #  1 Texas                                 -0.65             0.476
HOME   #249 Missouri                             +30.31             0.997
AWAY   #  4 Nebraska                              -5.23             0.317
AWAY   #123 Kansas State                         +13.33             0.887
HOME   #132 Colorado                             +21.94             0.977
AWAY   #  2 Texas Tech                            -7.04             0.261
HOME   #235 Iowa State                           +29.46             0.996
AWAY   # 62 Oklahoma                              +6.88             0.734
HOME   # 66 Oklahoma State                       +15.12             0.915
HOME   #123 Kansas State                         +21.31             0.974
AWAY   #249 Missouri                             +22.33             0.979

The projected season record for Kansas is now 22-5.

Here is Nevada’s season to date:

SITE   OPPONENT                         SCORE    PREDIC    ERROR    PROB.
—-   —————————–   ——-   ——    —–    —–
Div2        Colorado Springs            88  33
HOME   #129 Georgia State               76  55   +11.70    +9.30
AWAY   #190 Georgia                     58  47    +8.16    +2.84
AWAY   #  9 Kansas                               -13.99             0.102

Led by Pre-season Wooden Award Candidate Wayne Simien, and a stunning performance off the bench from Jeff Hawkins, Kansas avenged last year’s loss to the Wolfpack with an 89-77 victory at Allen Fieldhouse. Simien dropped in 23 points to match the number on his jersey, and with Aaron miles on the bench nursing a sprained wrist, Hawkins rattled off 20. The game was close until a 16-2 run midway through the second half allowed Kansas to pull away.

Notable Statistics:

Simien 23pts
Giddens 15 pts
Hawkins 20 pts
Langford 5 pts

Next Simulation: vs Pacific, Saturday, Dec. 4th

email me at ryno@phogblog.com

A Phog Blog commenter wondered if Rodrick Stewart is being brought in to replace JR, and, if not, is Alex Galindo meant to wear JR’s shoes? I’m not sure its as simple as Rodrick or Alex (assuming JR becomes a professional). It seems to me that Self is recruiting multi-positional players. My post Littles and Bigs details this a little more, but Self has articulated at various times that he prefers only to distinguish between ‘littles’ and ‘bigs’, and not to require that his teams have a 1,2,3,4, and 5 in the purest sense.

His reasoning for doing so seems to be predicated on having more in-game flexibility with regard to lineups and matchups, and having multiple ball-handlers to make the transition game easier to run (having Kirk and Aaron made us the best transition team of the last several years…).

I think Stewart is a possible ‘replacement’ for J.R. Giddens if he goes pro in as much as he will play, sometimes, where Giddens did (assuming he can take care of his academic business). But I think he’ll be replacing JR only part of the time. He seems to be more Keith-like in his game. His high school coach (and that of CJ Giles), had this to say:

He’s 6-4, cat-quick, possesses about a 38-inch vertical and the one thing about Rodrick is that he just plays so hard and he has a will to win…that is the thing that is going to really thrill the fans more than anything — the fact of how hard he plays. [snip] Coach Bibby down at USC…kind of categorized him as the second-coming of Jason Kidd. That’s how highly Coach Bibby thought of him. I think he’ll carve his niche out being the defensive stopper. He’ll control the game defensively as well as offensively. That’s the type of impact he’ll have on the game.

He struggled last year shooting the ball (about 30% from the three point line), but he shot 50% his senior year of high school. He seems to be a do-everything kind of player who is a worse shooter, but a better rebounder and defender than JR at this point. Of course, I’ve never seen him play, even on television, so take my word as far as you can throw it.

Anyone who’s seen him play care to chime in?

According to ESPN, he will be paying the price for the sins of those who came before him:

St. John’s imposed two years of penalties on its men’s basketball team Friday after an investigation revealed a former player was given cash by an athletic department employee. The penalties, which include a postseason ban for 2004-05 and the loss of a scholarship this season and next, were imposed after an investigation into the charges earlier this year by former player Abe Keita.

Read the rest of the article by clicking (more…)

Much heralded going into college as a top 25 recruit, Rodrick Stewart failed to put up impressive numbers during his freshman season at USC last year. It now appears that this young man is coming to Kansas, ostensibly to play basketball for the Kansas Jayhawks under Bill Self.

The decision to play at Kansas was made late Wednesday night after Stewart’s flight to Seattle, where he is spending this weekend with his family. He discussed the situation with his father, Bull, after also discussing the matter with the KU staff Wednesday morning before leaving Lawrence.

“All I can say is I’m committing,” Stewart said. “I don’t want to go anywhere else. I think that’s the place for me.”

Yet there was no official word from Kansas.

We can safely assume that young Stewart was given some sort of guarantee for a scholarship, but I would be surprised if that guarantee didn’t have strings attached to it. You see, Rodrick Stewart is not balling for USC right now because he’s academically ineligible this semester. Since he has taken the semester off, he will be eligible to play for KU, assuming he does get a scholarship, in the second semester of next year, or rather in January of next year. Next semester, he’s paying his own way though.

Having nightmares about Lester Earl?

To some Phog Blog readers, Stewart might seem like another troubled transfer. Do we really want another lauded recruit like Earl or Axtell gumming up the works? Playing, not playing, injuring a knee, injuring a back, injuring the back of his knee? After all, his stats at USC weren’t exactly spectacular, and USC wasn’t even that good last year.

My answer to these questions begins with my implicit trust of the Self administration at KU. Thus far, in just 19 months or so, Self has pulled two excellent last minute recruits, a hobbled elite-eight team, and the number one recruiting class out of his magical hat, and I suspect that there is more in there we haven’t seen yet.

Perhaps Stewart won’t be as troublesome as Earl and / or Axtell. Unlike Axtell, who had to appeal to the conference or Earl, who took out a storied LSU coach, Stewart has a clean bill of release from USC - he’s already in position to transfer without appeal. Of his academic troubles, we’ll know only what is released, but Stewart seems to be taking responsibility for whatever happened:

“Things were shaky last semester (academically), but I’ve got things together this semester,”

Furthermore, he needs to have his academic house in order if he is to successfully transfer to KU.

One can never really escape injuries, but Rodrick Stewart hasn’t been plagued by any chronic injuries thus far. His injury risk is probably the same as any other recruits, transfer or otherwise.

Regarding his stats, they weren’t that good: 4.4 points, 2.2 rebounds and 2.0 assists One can be pleased with the ratio of rebounds and assists to points, but for a highly touted recruit such as Smith, playing for a mediocre Pac-10 team, it’s natural to expect more. If you’re having a bit of a tryptophan hangover this morning, do remember that Rodrick is an incredible athlete who, in theory will be an excellent college player, especially if he keeps his head screwed on.

He’ll have to behave and do well in school if he’s going to play, and he’ll have to do so for the next 13 months, all while not playing. That, combined with the fact that he seems to have learned from whatever mishaps he had while at USC, is enough to make me feel pretty comfortable with him as an acquisition.

So Jayhawk fans, stop your worrying. Enjoy the holiday and celebrate another addition to the Jayhawk family. And, if after reading this quote, you don’t like this kid more, you need to eat more turkey:

“It was just like a different experience being at Kansas,” Rodrick said. “People there worship basketball.”