Question: What happens when a young college basketball team without a proven low-post presence somehow manages to secure a high national ranking then faces a really hungry, experienced team? The Hawks found out two nights ago, getting their rear-ends tanned by an unheralded and obviously hungry Oral Roberts team.Where does this rank among the hardest-to-swallow losses in recent memory? I don't want to go overboard here; it's not as crushing as the two NCAA Tournament early exits. It also wasn't as demoralizing as losing to K‑State (at home) and Missouri (after leading by 7 with a little over a minute left) last year. It's most reminscent of the 2004 home loss to Richmond, when the entire sporting nation could turn on ESPN to see the Hawks implode on their home floor to a team that wasn't even playing that well. ESPN didn't carry the ORU game on Wednesday night, THANK GOD, but the loss rippled through the sports press in a way that always seemed to emphasize the Hawks simply failed to look, umm, good. SI said simply: "Oral Roberts outplayed No. 3 Kansas the whole way."Question: How in the world does SI rank KU above a team like Florida, the defending national champions who returned every starter from last year? Did they want to avoid jinxing Florida for some reason? (SI added KU to its list of cover jinxes). Maybe they settled on this arrangement before Sasha Kaun got hurt, and before CJ Giles pulled a Lawrence Phillips and got himself kicked off the team?[1] Even so, how does any front line arrangement compete with Gator paint-dominators Al Horford and Joakim Noah? We'll find out soon enough, I guess, since the teams will meet a week from tomorrow in Vegas. Gulp.[1] Wikipedia's abstract on Lawrence Phillips: "Lawrence Phillips (b. May 12, 1975 in Little Rock, Arkansas), is a former professional American football and Canadian football running back who has had numerous conflicts with law enforcement." Sorta says it all.
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