Kansas Jayhawks: Projecting The Starting Point Guard
By Joel Wagler
Kansas Jayhawks guard Frank Mason backflips before he dunks the ball – Credit: USA Today
The Kansas Jayhawks are one of the elite schools in the world of college basketball. They are second all time in victories with 2,101, just 10 behind number one Kentucky.
Since 1990, the Jayhawks have 699 wins, the most in the country, 13 more than the school with the next highest figure, Duke, with 686. The Jayhawks also have a record 55 conference championships. (Note – stats come from the NCAA record book, which does not seem to be updated to include last season.)
Point guard play is a huge key in the success of championship caliber teams, and the Jayhawks have had uneven point guard play in the past few seasons.
Last season, Naadir Tharpe played inconsistently, and ended up leaving the program after the season. In the wake of Tharpe’s departure, the point guard position is a very inexperienced one for Kansas.
Earlier this summer, we projected the starting big men for the Jayhawks, and the starting off guards. Predicting who the starting point guard might be is a bit more difficult.
None of the candidates will have more than one year of experience at the college level, and Head Coach Bill Self seems to be hard on his floor generals. It will be interesting to see who will emerge from the pack.