A rivalry builds: Kentucky vs Kansas, Wall vs Henry, Calipari vs Self
By Staff
Seriously…. this thing needs to be settled. Forget UK/North Carolina being the big national rivalry this year. The battle of all battles is shaping up to be Kentucky and Kansas in the NCAA Finals and basketball purists would not have it any other way.
And of course, the rivalry battlefront has spread to three different area right now: team rivals, individual rivals, and coaching rivals:
UK vs Kansas
There they sit at number #1 and #3 in the country. Kansas has been given the number one spot in the pre-season and the Cats have made a steady climb to the number 3 spot. Historically, the numbers are reversed. UK is the number one all time program in wins and are closing on the monumental 2000th win. Kansas is currently third in all time wins and may reach the 2000 mark later this year. Granted, while some may say that the number 2000 is an arbitrary number, such a view really shows a lack of history of college basketball. Both of these teams and their fans know the significance of 2000 wins.
But on to this season: the Jayhawks are 9-0, Kentucky is 10-0. While Kansas came in as a lead pipe cinch to compete for the title, there were questions about Kentucky’s youth and adjusting to a new coach. Kentucky has answered every test so far this season and owns wins over #10 North Carolina and #14 Connecticut. True, Kentucky has struggled with some “lesser” teams but that is all about a young team learning and growing together and learning how to win.
Kansas has had a very steady of cupcakes and to their credit have blown most of them out of the water. Their biggest win thus far is over Memphis 57-55 and over a toothless UCLA 73-61. They are purring like a smooth running sportscar but have yet to hit a bump in the road. It will be interesting to see how Kansas responds when they travel to Tennessee on January 10.
Joe Lunardi at ESPN has his first look at bracketology up and in it, he has UK and Kansas poised for a meeting in the NCAA Finals.
John Wall vs Xavier Henry
They could have been team mates … instead they are are rivals. John Wall, without a doubt, has been the story of college basketball this season while Henry has been a supporting (but very vital) part of number one ranked Kansas. John Wall has won four straight SEC Freshman of the week and has been on national TV several times this year. Henry has not seem the national stage Wall has and earlier this week, his coach, Bill Self, started to lobby for some attention for his star freshman. The Wall/Henry debate made it’s way to Sporting News’s Mike DeCourcy and he had three reasons why Wall deserves the early attention over Henry:
1. Kansas hasn’t played a great opponent yet. There have been pushovers on Kentucky’s schedule, but Wall’s headline-grabbing games came against North Carolina and UConn.
2. Henry is surrounded by vets. No question he makes KU a better team, quite possibly a championship team. But Wall, in a lineup with three first-year D-I players, has a tougher job.
3. Henry has been a phenomenal shooter, exactly what Self wanted, and can use his uncommon strength to attack the rim. But he’s not a next-generation improvement among star-level wing players. Wall is every bit of that at point guard.
John Calipari vs Bill Self
So far, Self has the big ring over Calipari, that being the 2007 NCAA Championship which Kansas won over Memphis. We have discussed the likelihood of Calipari making it a repeat coaching match with his Wildcats so it appears that we may not have to wait too long to see who can claim the coaching victory.
Until then, the real war will be on the recruiting front. John Calipari had the Henry brother’s at Memphis, but Self stole them away. Calipari made a late effort to steal them back, but Self convinced them to stay. It’s hard to say that Self won the recruiting war last year when Cal had the over all #1 class, so you can say Self won the battle of the Henry’s and Cal won the war. The recruiting battle continues this year as Brandon Knight and Doron Lamb are two recruits Cal and Self are butting heads over.
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