McLemore

A few links to start off your Thursday …

• Better late than never, right?

We now have 2012-13 Kansas men’s basketball desktop wallpaper schedules available, featuring some of the top photos of the year by Journal-World photographer Nick Krug.

There are also some iPhone schedule wallpapers available at the same link as well.

• The Waco Tribune’s John Werner is the latest writer to praise Allen Fieldhouse.

Here’s a snippet from his Wednesday column:

With 16,300 fans jammed into the
bleachers, the night begins with a
loud, rousing pregame introduction
video that shows Jayhawk legends like
Wilt Chamberlain and Danny Manning.
The noise hits a crescendo when the
big screen shows Mario Chalmers
hitting the game-winning 3-point shot
against Memphis to win the 2008
national championship.

Then you look down the Kansas bench
and see one of the best teams in
college basketball and one of the
premier coaches in Bill Self.

Intimidated yet?

It all got to me, and I was just there
to write about it.

• Speaking of the Fieldhouse, ESPN.com’s Jason King ranked it as the top college basketball home-court advantage in his latest “King’s Court” column.

Also, in King’s weekly straw poll (which surveys five ESPN writers), KU coach Bill Self ranked as the second-best X’s and O’s coach in the nation behind Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski. Self received one of five first-place votes.

• The Austin American-Statesman’s Kevin Lyttle says KU men’s basketball is “most successful brand name in the Big 12.”

Here’s more from Lyttle …

Sure, Oklahoma wins a lot in football.
And Texas is a marketing giant. But
nobody dominates like Bill Self’s
Jayhawks. Through the Big 12 years,
they have the most of everything,
including victories, star players and
fans.

• In case you weren’t at Monday’s game, this YouTube clip shows both the KU introduction video (1:13 mark) and pump-up video (3:49 mark) before KU’s contest against Baylor.

• KU has moved up to No. 2 in Luke Winn’s Power Rankings at SI.com.

Winn also puts together an interesting chart, showing that KU guard Ben McLemore’s freshman-year numbers compare favorably to those of Ray Allen when he was a freshman at UConn.

• KU 2013 commit Brannen Greene tied a career-high with 37 points in his high school’s 87-77 victory Tuesday night.

Greene’s effort included six three-pointers, five dunks, and eight rebounds.

Here’s what the Albany Herald’s Mike Phillips said about Greene in the game story:

Greene plays the game as if he is
ready for Division I right now.
Greene, a 6-foot-7 forward, can play
outside and is dangerous at the wing
and deadly from 3-point range. He
opened the game by hitting
back-to-back 3s and just kept coming.

Greene is averaging 26 points and five rebounds this season.

• St. Mary’s guard Matthew Dellavedova had one of the best buzzer-beaters of the year last night … and one you probably missed if you went to bed at a decent hour.

• Ben McLemore has moved up to No. 2 in Jeff Borzello’s freshman of the year rankings on CBSSports.com.

• And finally, this is not KU related, but I promise you this is the funniest video you will see today.

Just watch. I promise it’s worth it.