Now that we know Duke is as mortal as John Wayne losing at Florida State is the equivalent of Kansas losing at Texas A&M anybody can win the 2002 NCAA men's basketball championship.
Yes, Duke has slipped and Kansas has ascended to No. 1 in the Associated Press poll this week, but that's about as meaningful as "Lord of the Rings" leading in motion picture box office receipts last weekend. Nobody will care in March.
In fact, if KU is still No. 1 at the end of January, a lot of people will be surprised. On the horizon, Kansas has a five-game, 14-day gantlet ripe with potential pitfalls. The grind will begin a week from tonight at Oklahoma State and end on Jan. 28 against Missouri in Allen Fieldhouse.
Nestled inside that sandwich are road trips to Iowa State and Texas A&M (hey, if it can happen to Duke, it can happen to Kansas) and a home game with Oklahoma.
If Kansas goes 5-0 during that grueling stretch, the Jayhawks will be clear-cut favorites to win the NCAA championship. Unless they falter in February. Yes, it's a long, long way from early January to mid-March.
Still, win or lose, it's difficult to pinpoint a Kansas weakness. Now that Drew Gooden has evolved into a dominating player, the Jayhawks are asking no questions and taking no prisoners, particularly in Colorado.
Gooden is making a strong push for the Wooden Award and, let's face it, an early entry into the NBA. Currently, the skilled 6-foot-10 junior is leading the Big 12 in both scoring and rebounding. By a bunch, too. His 21.0 scoring average is 2.5 points better than anyone else and his 12.5 rebound average is well, nobody else in the league is in double figures.
There are, as you know, coaches in the Big 12 who will try to neutralize Gooden by slowing the tempo and by squeezing him with muscular big men. Oklahoma State's Eddie Sutton will do it. So will Oklahoma's Kelvin Sampson and Missouri's Quin Snyder. They have the burly bodies, and they'll use them. No telling what Texas Tech's Bob Knight will do, but it probably won't be pretty.
Kansas is so much more than Gooden, though. The Jayhawks aren't leading the nation is scoring strictly because of him. They're doing it with the best starting lineup in the Big 12 and, for the first time in the last couple of years, a productive bench.
No team in the Big 12 perhaps even the country counts more easy baskets than Kansas. KU leads the nation in field goal percentage at .511 mostly because no one can match the Jayhawks' three-man double post rotation of Gooden, Nick Collison and Wayne Simien inside.
Meanwhile, the Jayhawks, while unspectacular from three-point range and at the free throw line, are nevertheless above average in both categories. Add all the parts and you have a sum that leads the nation in scoring at 92.4 points a game.
Do you think Roy Williams minds that the Jayhawks are dead last in the Big 12 Conference in scoring defense? Yeah, like he worries about losing a golf ball.
Before the season started, it looked to me like Williams would have his best team in three years, or the best since the Raef LaFrentz-Paul Pierce team that went 35-4 in 1997-98.
In truth, the current edition may not have as much individual talent as that '97-98 bunch, but every team good or semi-good is vulnerable at NCAA Tournament time, thanks to the three-point goal.
Kansas washed ashore on a wave of Rhode Island treys in Oklahoma City three years ago and the Jayhawks' only loss this season can be attributed to a bevy of Ball State three-pointers.
As always, what will be will be, but right now Kansas is, without question, at the top of its game.
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