The Daily Mauling 12.3.25

Kansas Jayhawk Links

Missing Darryn Peterson again, the Jayhawks fell to #5 UCONN at home.

The Jayhawks, coming off three wins without Peterson at the Players Era Festival, leaned into the same formula of tough defense and aggressive rebounding, while the Huskies tried to get into the open court and run. And through the first 20 minutes, Kansas was able to set the tone, threatening a double-digit lead on a couple of occasions and leading 33-28 at the break.

Joshua Schulman has 3 takeaways from last night’s game, although I think the main takeaway is that without Peterson, this team is tough but isn’t going to score enough to be good.

Through the first 12+ minutes of the second half, Kansas converted only two field goals. It was a brutal offensive showing and further proof that Peterson’s shot-making and creation are badly missed.

With the season over, the coaching staff is already working on the recruiting and has flipped a Wisconsin commit:

Kansas football is officially on the board in the transfer portal. On Monday night, KU flipped Grand Valley State defensive tackle Jibriel Conde from Wisconsin, per his agent Kyle Logan. Logan stated that Conde will sign with KU later this week. The defensive lineman took an official visit to KU in the middle of last week. He has two seasons of eligibility remaining.

Matt Tait reminds us to remember Daniel Hishaw Jr had a pretty darn good career as a Jayhawk.

While Friday’s gut-wrenching loss to No. 13 Utah ended the Jayhawks season and brought plenty of emotion and sadness to the KU locker room, there was something kind of cool about how things ended for Hishaw, even if he, too, was gutted by KU falling short of reaching a bowl game by one win for the second season in a row.

SI has a list of players to keep an eye on as we enter portal season, starting with QB Isaiah Marshall:

My gut feeling is that if Marshall isn’t promised a real chance to compete for the starting job next year, he could be out of Lawrence pretty quickly in the transfer cycle.

On the hardwood, the Jayhawks find themselves back in the Coaches Top 25 after a fairly impressive showing at Vegas.

Kansas made its return to the latest Coaches Poll after a successful Feast Week that saw the Jayhawks go 3-0 in Players Era. Kansas landed at No. 21 after earning double-digit wins against Notre Dame and Syracuse before capping things off with a top-25 triumph over No. 13 Tennessee.

Other Links!

Wichita- Kapaun won the 4A title over Bishop Miege last weekend in Emporia giving long time coach his first state championship.

In the end, the trophy he lifted in Emporia was not the culmination of a pursuit, but a symbol of a lifetime poured into others. The banner will forever hang at Kapaun, but it no longer defines what success means to the man who coached them.

If you’re interested in the outcomes of the other classes, you can catch up on all of the action here.

This link is a week old but it’s Matt Norlander on how the “Players Era” tournament is already having a big impact on the college basketball landscape.

Nothing like it had ever been tried. In the minds of some, the vision pitched to coaches and athletic directors was too good to be true. For the doubters, the premise seemed flawed at best and potentially fraudulent at worst because, despite their sometimes-high-profile nature, nonconference multi-team events (MTEs) are not mega moneymakers. Yet here was this shiny new tournament promising gobs of NIL loot run by people with minimal experience in the college basketball space.

On the carousel, it may be BYU’s turn to get involved as their current head coach Kalani Sitake appears to be Penn State’s top target. (Update: it looks like BYU found the money to keep him and Penn State has lost all advantage of being an early mover)

Ray Ratto on Lane Kiffin and LSU? I’m reading that.

Jay Caspian King on the rise of Nick Fuentes and what it may mean…spoiler: not good for anyone.

In a shock to noone, these megaconferences are having issues with tie breakers in trying to figure out how to maximize revenue, exposure, and conference integrity.

No. 12 Miami (10-2) finished in a five-way tie for second place in the ACC at 6-2, but Duke (7-5) made it into the championship game against No. 16 Virginia (10-2) based on the fifth tiebreaker: conference opponent win percentage.

I don’t know, seems to me like conference winning percentage would be the appropriate way to evaluate who is top in the conference.

QOTD: I know I have stopped caring much at all about conference play after all of the realignment the last few years. If I tried to name all of the schools in the Big 12, I have no doubt I’d missed a couple at this point. Is that because we lost our streak in basketball or just the way of the world?