Gary Parrish of CBS Sportsline writes a wonderful column today about Julian Wright. It’s a great read. Here’s the link.

Turns out Wright isn’t foolish, na�ve or misleading. He’s mature, intelligent and honest. For every question he had a solid answer. For every answer he had a wonderful explanation. By the time I hung up the phone, I was convinced Wright was dead-serious, and I felt stupid for ever thinking otherwise.

Granted, he may be the exception to the rule.

But he is an exceptional exception.

“I can’t help but to play in the NBA someday,” Wright said. “But I’m not in any rush.”

Thanks to the myriad wonders of technology, I can now provide an online calendar of our beloved Jayhawks’ schedule for the upcoming year. You can always come back to this link to see it, but if you are clever, you’ll integrate it with your calendar of choice.

If you are a google calendar user, you can subscribe to the calendar using this link.

Enjoy. OH, and the 2006 KU football schedule has been added as well.

Well, I know it’s a little early, but smart fans are hawkeye-ing KU’s potential bowl locations and making hotel reservations with no cancellation penalty right now. I think it’s very likely that KU could win 8-9 games w/ a bowl win this year so you all better get on it. Without further ado, here’s that bowl schedule. Note the additional BCS National Championship game is on January 8th.

Non-BCS Games

San Diego County Credit Union Poinsettia
Dec. 19, 8 p.m.

GMAC
Dec. 20 8 p.m.

Pioneer PureVision Las Vegas
Dec. 21, 8 p.m.

Wyndham New Orleans
Dec. 22, 8 p.m.

Birmingham
Dec. 23, 1 p.m.

New Mexico
Dec. 23, 4:30 p.m.

Fort Worth
Dec. 23, 8 p.m.

Sheraton Hawaii
Dec. 24, 8 p.m.

Motor City
Dec. 26, 7:30 p.m.

Independence
Dec. 27, 4:30 p.m.

Emerald
Dec. 27, 8 p.m.

Pacific Life Holiday
Dec. 28, 8 p.m.

Gaylord Hotels Music City
Dec. 29, 1 p.m.

Vitalis Sun
Dec. 29, 2 p.m.

AutoZone Liberty
Dec. 29, 4:30 p.m.

Insight
Dec. 29, 7:30 p.m.

Champs Sports
Dec. 29, 8 p.m.

Meineke Car Care
Dec. 30, 1 p.m.

MasterCard Alamo
Dec. 30, 4:30 p.m.

Chick-fil-A
Dec. 30, 8 p.m.

MPC Computers
Dec. 31, 7:30 p.m.

Outback
Jan. 1, 11 a.m.

AT&T Cotton
Jan. 1, 11:30 a.m.

Toyota Gator
Jan. 1, 1 p.m.

Capital One
Jan. 1, 1 p.m.

International
Jan. 6, Noon

Bowl Championship Series

Rose
Jan. 1, 5 p.m.

Tostitos Fiesta
Jan. 1, 8 p.m.

FedEx Orange
Jan. 2, 8 p.m.

Allstate Sugar
Jan. 3, 8 p.m.

National Championship Game
Jan. 8, 8 p.m.

Organizers, with a little fire from ESPN, have decided to move the Las Vegas Invitational this Thanksgiving weekend from the Las Vegas Convetion Center, which seats around 3500 people, to the Orleans Arena, which holds more than double that.

That should make the street price of tickets significantly lower, so that trip to Vegas for Thanksgiving might make more sense for you now.

“It is a beautiful arena. If it was a 17,000-seat arena, I’d say it was the nicest I’ve seen,” said Larry Keating, KU senior associate athletic director. “It was moved because the demand for tickets is higher than the Convention Center would handle and ESPN had some concerns about the quality of broadcast at the Convention Center.”

More here.

Hampered by injuries, Cole Aldrich, KU’s lone 2007 commitment at this point, has been underachieving for some time now.� His poor performance in Las Vagas this past weekend caused Dave Telep, national recruiting analyst for Scout, to write:

Cole Aldrich has had trouble performing to the level of a Top 25 prospect post high school season. Injuries certainly have hampered him but athletically he’s been a step behind what goes on around the rim. He’ll be a solid college player but the expectations of an elite impact player may need to be adjusted.

Telep is not the first to make such a comment.� Jeff Goodman was reportedly told by one high level D-1 coach that “Cole Aldrich is the most overrated player in America.”

It’s possible that part of this problem might be attributed to the team he plays for.� Minnesota isn’t loaded, but they’ve been doing well this summer.� John Leuer, an Aldrich clone, has been a low-post force for them, actually receiving better press than Aldrich.� I wonder about their guard play, however.� Are the two big guys forced to put the team on their backs?

Is this underachievement on the AAU circuit cause for concern, Jayhawk fans?� How troublesome are Cole’s nagging injuries, and are they the type that will linger throughout his career?� I find it hard to believe that all the pundits and analysts were totally wrong when they all universally rated Aldrich as the number 1 center prospect in the 2007 high school class.

What do you think, PB readers?

Looks like we could see that as soon as 2007.

Big 12 vs. Pac-10 challenge in works

The Big 12 and Pac-10 are continuing to discuss a possible early-season basketball series, similar to the ACC-Big Ten Challenge, that might debut in the 2007-08 season.

Officials from the leagues are exploring playing 12 games over four days in late November or early December. Since the Big 12 has two more teams, two Pac-10 teams would play two games, one at home and one on the road.

“There is interest on both sides in moving this forward,” Burda said.

Snip and clip time folks. Here’s the link, and here’s the drink:

Kansas is definitely worthy of that No. 2 spot. In fact, if Florida center Joakim Noah would have made himself eligible for the NBA Draft the Jayhawks would probably be No. 1.

No team looked better at the start of the 2006 NCAA Tournament. The Jayhawks had won 15 of their last 16 games and their average margin of victory during the run was 16 points.

With every key player back and the addition of two five-star recruits - point guard Sherron Collins and power forward Darrell Arthur - coach Bill Self won’t have to worry about getting out of the first round of the NCAA Tournament.

Kansas is going to be a No. 1 seed, and Self’s biggest concern will be running into a team like Florida or North Carolina in the Final Four. The Gators and Tar Heels might be the only programs capable of derailing the Jayhawks’ title hopes. They are going to be that good.

Pivotal is spelled wrong though - congrats to the editor for that one (i no i no, lyke i have nahgt mis pelled theengs in the passed. mabee eym buyist, but not as mutch)