Matthew Emmons-USA TODAY Sports
The Kansas Jayhawks will have a very similar situation in the 2013-14 college basketball season as the Kentucky Wildcats had this past season.
Don’t get me wrong, these two teams play in two very different conferences and have completely different players. However, Kentucky had a great recruiting class coming in, with really no one on the team from the previous season. As a result, the Wildcats couldn’t put everything together and they did not even make the NCAA tournament, after winning the national championship the season before.
Related: Oklahoma State Cowboys Split Series With Kansas Jayhawks This Past Season
Now with the Jayhawks, they lost all five of their starters and will have to rely on a very talented recruiting class to lead the way. There are still some players that will be on the team and could make a big impact, but Kansas will still have to replace every single starter, just like Kentucky had to do a season ago.
However, as good as Nerlens Noel was, he didn’t even get as much hype as Andrew Wiggins, who was this year’s No. 1 recruit. People tried comparing Noel to Anthony Davis, which were very big shoes to fill.
Wiggins has a lot of hype coming in, but he isn’t expected to be anyone other than himself. He doesn’t have to be the next Davis, like Noel had to be. He just has to be the next Wiggins.
Who knows how Kansas will do this season, but I would expect that it would at least make the Big Dance. Still, Kansas has a very similar situation to last year’s Kentucky team. Time to see if Bill Self can manage his young guns better than Calipari did last year.
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