ELIMINATED-Why the Kansas Jayhawks will win the 2011 NCAA Basketball National Championship-and why they wont

I'll start out saying the same as I did for my Ohio State post. I am an ACC specialist trying to give a decent team by team analysis of some of the most probable winners. So, if I mis-state something please correct me in the comments section. I'm going to start out by saying that Kansas has one of the top records, and has high rankings in most statistics. The Morris brothers are leading the way for their team going one-two in both scoring and rebounding.

It is hard to find many major holes in Kansas' team, just like it was for the Ohio State team. As always though, I will try to bring a couple of problems to light. Just like in the blogs before this one I will start with the positives, move to the negatives and then give a summary.

One of the first, and most obvious, positives are the Morris twins. As I stated before, the twins are the top two in scoring and rebounding for Kansas. Marcus and Markieff have provided a strong boost since the departure of center Cole Aldrich and shooting guard Xavier Henry. The Morris' have amounted a total of 52 minutes, 30.9 points, 15.4 rebounds, 3.1 assists, 1.6 steals, and 1.8 blocks per game just between them. I believe it would be easy to say that the Jayhawks could be carried through the tourney on Marcus and Markieff's shoulders.

This second positive can also be found in the blog for Ohio State. The Kansas Jayhawks have the best field-goal percentage in the country, at 51.4 percent. This is mainly because a majority of their scoring comes from the interior, at the forward position. As said in the Buckeyes post, when you have a 50+ percent chance to make at least two points every time you shoot, it's easier to feel confident in your shot. That trust can take them far and the shooting percentage will take them further.

There are a lot of other positives I could ramble on about but I like to keep them down to three per team. So I'll go off the beaten path and point out that Kansas is not accustomed to selfish play. This is evident with the fact that Kansas has had eight different players tally up 5 assists in a game. This kind of play makes it harder to guard the entire team. They don't have just one player dishing out assists, they are second in the country in team assists with 17.9 per game, only trailing Duquesne who has 18 per game. The willingness to look for the open man adds big time scoring potential to a high percentage shooting team. This makes them a threat to take home the hardware.

Now I will attempt to piece together a couple negative pieces.

I believe that the only real, absolute weakness of the Jayhawks is their free throw shooting percentage. According to stats, the team is shooting 501/745 through 32 games. This comes out as a lowly 67.2 percent. With such a low percentage it is possible that if a game is close, they wont be able to sink the free throws to ice the game. This weakness could cause a hiccup in the Jayhawks trip, and a hiccup is all an opposing team needs to send them packing.

Another weakness is that they have some need for rebounding depth. After the Morris' 8.2 and 7.2 rebounds per game is Thomas Robinson's 6.5, but then it drops to Mario Little with 3 per game. There has been some missed games during the season with only 4 players playing in all 34 games. If one of the top three rebounders are to get injured or fall into foul trouble, it could spell the end of Kansas' season.

Now for a quick review, in case you just skipped to the bottom:

Reasons they win:

• Excellent play from the Morris twins.
• They have the highest shooting percentage in the country.
• The ability to find the open man.

Reasons they fall short:

• The inability to sink free throws.
• If a big man falls in to foul trouble or gets hurt, their lack of rebounder depth may be what sends them home.

This is not a prediction of any outcome. I will be posting a few other possible teams that could win it all in a similar fashion. If you have any questions, comments, or would like to suggest a team for me to do a similar evaluation message me or comment below. Thank you.

Also check out my thoughts on the North Carolina Tarheels here:

http://hubpages.com/hub/Why-the-UNC-Tarheels-will-win-the-2011-NCAA-Basketball-National-Championship-and-why-they-wont

And the Duke Blue Devils (ELIMINATED) here:

http://hubpages.com/hub/Why-the-Duke-Blue-Devils-will-win-the-2011-NCAA-Basketball-National-Championship-and-why-they-wont

And the Ohio State Buckeyes (ELIMINATED) here:

http://hubpages.com/hub/Why-the-Ohio-State-Buckeyes-will-win-the-2011-NCAA-Basketball-National-Championship-and-why-they-wont?done