Gary Parrish of CBS Sportsline writes a wonderful column today about Julian Wright. It’s a great read. Here’s the link.

Turns out Wright isn’t foolish, naïve or misleading. He’s mature, intelligent and honest. For every question he had a solid answer. For every answer he had a wonderful explanation. By the time I hung up the phone, I was convinced Wright was dead-serious, and I felt stupid for ever thinking otherwise.

Granted, he may be the exception to the rule.

But he is an exceptional exception.

“I can’t help but to play in the NBA someday,” Wright said. “But I’m not in any rush.”

Thanks to the myriad wonders of technology, I can now provide an online calendar of our beloved Jayhawks’ schedule for the upcoming year. You can always come back to this link to see it, but if you are clever, you’ll integrate it with your calendar of choice.

If you are a google calendar user, you can subscribe to the calendar using this link.

Enjoy. OH, and the 2006 KU football schedule has been added as well.

Well, I know it’s a little early, but smart fans are hawkeye-ing KU’s potential bowl locations and making hotel reservations with no cancellation penalty right now. I think it’s very likely that KU could win 8-9 games w/ a bowl win this year so you all better get on it. Without further ado, here’s that bowl schedule. Note the additional BCS National Championship game is on January 8th.

Non-BCS Games

San Diego County Credit Union Poinsettia
Dec. 19, 8 p.m.

GMAC
Dec. 20 8 p.m.

Pioneer PureVision Las Vegas
Dec. 21, 8 p.m.

Wyndham New Orleans
Dec. 22, 8 p.m.

Birmingham
Dec. 23, 1 p.m.

New Mexico
Dec. 23, 4:30 p.m.

Fort Worth
Dec. 23, 8 p.m.

Sheraton Hawaii
Dec. 24, 8 p.m.

Motor City
Dec. 26, 7:30 p.m.

Independence
Dec. 27, 4:30 p.m.

Emerald
Dec. 27, 8 p.m.

Pacific Life Holiday
Dec. 28, 8 p.m.

Gaylord Hotels Music City
Dec. 29, 1 p.m.

Vitalis Sun
Dec. 29, 2 p.m.

AutoZone Liberty
Dec. 29, 4:30 p.m.

Insight
Dec. 29, 7:30 p.m.

Champs Sports
Dec. 29, 8 p.m.

Meineke Car Care
Dec. 30, 1 p.m.

MasterCard Alamo
Dec. 30, 4:30 p.m.

Chick-fil-A
Dec. 30, 8 p.m.

MPC Computers
Dec. 31, 7:30 p.m.

Outback
Jan. 1, 11 a.m.

AT&T Cotton
Jan. 1, 11:30 a.m.

Toyota Gator
Jan. 1, 1 p.m.

Capital One
Jan. 1, 1 p.m.

International
Jan. 6, Noon

Bowl Championship Series

Rose
Jan. 1, 5 p.m.

Tostitos Fiesta
Jan. 1, 8 p.m.

FedEx Orange
Jan. 2, 8 p.m.

Allstate Sugar
Jan. 3, 8 p.m.

National Championship Game
Jan. 8, 8 p.m.

Organizers, with a little fire from ESPN, have decided to move the Las Vegas Invitational this Thanksgiving weekend from the Las Vegas Convetion Center, which seats around 3500 people, to the Orleans Arena, which holds more than double that.

That should make the street price of tickets significantly lower, so that trip to Vegas for Thanksgiving might make more sense for you now.

“It is a beautiful arena. If it was a 17,000-seat arena, I’d say it was the nicest I’ve seen,” said Larry Keating, KU senior associate athletic director. “It was moved because the demand for tickets is higher than the Convention Center would handle and ESPN had some concerns about the quality of broadcast at the Convention Center.”

More here.

Hampered by injuries, Cole Aldrich, KU’s lone 2007 commitment at this point, has been underachieving for some time now.  His poor performance in Las Vagas this past weekend caused Dave Telep, national recruiting analyst for Scout, to write:

Cole Aldrich has had trouble performing to the level of a Top 25 prospect post high school season. Injuries certainly have hampered him but athletically he’s been a step behind what goes on around the rim. He’ll be a solid college player but the expectations of an elite impact player may need to be adjusted.

Telep is not the first to make such a comment.  Jeff Goodman was reportedly told by one high level D-1 coach that “Cole Aldrich is the most overrated player in America.”

It’s possible that part of this problem might be attributed to the team he plays for.  Minnesota isn’t loaded, but they’ve been doing well this summer.  John Leuer, an Aldrich clone, has been a low-post force for them, actually receiving better press than Aldrich.  I wonder about their guard play, however.  Are the two big guys forced to put the team on their backs?

Is this underachievement on the AAU circuit cause for concern, Jayhawk fans?  How troublesome are Cole’s nagging injuries, and are they the type that will linger throughout his career?  I find it hard to believe that all the pundits and analysts were totally wrong when they all universally rated Aldrich as the number 1 center prospect in the 2007 high school class.

What do you think, PB readers?

Looks like we could see that as soon as 2007.

Big 12 vs. Pac-10 challenge in works

The Big 12 and Pac-10 are continuing to discuss a possible early-season basketball series, similar to the ACC-Big Ten Challenge, that might debut in the 2007-08 season.

Officials from the leagues are exploring playing 12 games over four days in late November or early December. Since the Big 12 has two more teams, two Pac-10 teams would play two games, one at home and one on the road.

“There is interest on both sides in moving this forward,” Burda said.

Snip and clip time folks. Here’s the link, and here’s the drink:

Kansas is definitely worthy of that No. 2 spot. In fact, if Florida center Joakim Noah would have made himself eligible for the NBA Draft the Jayhawks would probably be No. 1.

No team looked better at the start of the 2006 NCAA Tournament. The Jayhawks had won 15 of their last 16 games and their average margin of victory during the run was 16 points.

With every key player back and the addition of two five-star recruits - point guard Sherron Collins and power forward Darrell Arthur - coach Bill Self won’t have to worry about getting out of the first round of the NCAA Tournament.

Kansas is going to be a No. 1 seed, and Self’s biggest concern will be running into a team like Florida or North Carolina in the Final Four. The Gators and Tar Heels might be the only programs capable of derailing the Jayhawks’ title hopes. They are going to be that good.

Pivotal is spelled wrong though - congrats to the editor for that one (i no i no, lyke i have nahgt mis pelled theengs in the passed. mabee eym buyist, but not as mutch)

GRCOAT.

Before even one commitment, the Wildcats among us started talking about GRCOAT - the greatest recruiting class of all time. And now, like Marty McFly’s family members in the snapshot he carried around in his jean jacket in “Back to the Future,” OJ Mayo and Bill walker have faded away, and Michael (J?) Beasley is having trouble playing the guitar (go watch the movie if you don’t understand).

According to the Kansas City Star and many other sources, Bill Walker, next year’s number 2 recruit, won’t be eligible to play high school basketball. This wouldn’t really be an issue for KSU except that Walker will be 19 and one year removed from his original high school graduation date, which means that he can go pro, at least according to some. The NBA begs to differ.

OJ Mayo will go to USC, or maybe not.

Reader Ben points us to this Seth Davis update on the situation.

“The distance between Mayo and Barnes was made public in April when Mayo left Barnes’ AAU team to play for a different program at a tournament in Houston. When I asked Mayo if he definitely planned on playing with Barnes’ team this summer, he replied, “It’s definite to me. I guess I’ll have to talk it over with my mom.” The building estrangement is bad news for Kansas State coach Bob Huggins, since Barnes is the driving force behind the chatter that Mayo was destined to play at K-State. Huggins has been instrumental in lining up local support for Barnes’ summer basketball program. Multiple sources have also told me Barnes has received money from North College Hill’s games. I’m guessing the NCAA will start sniffing down that money trail at some point.”

Mark it down: neither Bill Walker nor OJ Mayo will ever play basketball for K-State.

Late last week, there was a bit of a furor brewing regarding Eric Gordon’s rumored de-commitment from Illinois. While I enjoy a good Illinois decommitment and the pandemonium that ensues all over the unpaved roads and grassy sidewalks of your average Illinois fan’s simple brain, it all sounded a bit too clean, especially since the writer that was floating the comments was about a thousand miles away from Mr. Gordon.

Well we’ve got a bit more clarity here from the Indy Star. And rather regale you with yet another boring plot summary, I’ll clip a great quote from EG’s dad:

“It’s like saying I’m committed to my girlfriend,'’ Gordon Sr. said. “But I can still look. I’m not dead.'’

I like how he ads “I’m not dead” to the end of the statement. Like a vestigial tail it’s just hanging there and we the listeners are stuck trying to understand what troubled history led to its inclusion. Because really, the whole point of the girlfriend metaphor is to suggest a soft commitment. But then he seems afraid of this girlfriend, because the whole dead thing implies…never mind.

Here’s a juicy bit of the article.

On Friday, a Web site called chicagohoops.com reported Gordon had walked away from his verbal commitment to Illinois. Later that night, the younger Gordon got on an Illinois basketball message board, said the story was untrue and assured fans he was still heading to Champaign. But in quotes published on peegs.com Saturday morning, Gordon again left the door open.

“Yeah, I’m still solid with Illinois, but I am thinking about IU, too,'’ he was quoted as saying. “At this point, nothing has changed. I have looked at them (IU) for a long time because they’re an in-state school. They have a good tradition and Coach (Kelvin) Sampson is a good guy, so I think because he is the new coach there that I should give them a look.'’

Why is this important to you, fair Jayhawk? Because Derrick Rose and Eric Gordon have discussed playing together at Illinois. And because if Eric Gordon backs away from Illinois, we might have a better shot at Rose.

The Lawrence Journal World’s Tom Keegan notes that an interesting plot line is developing with Self’s latest recruiting target out of Illinois, #3 rated Derrick Rose.

“I want to get Derrick Rose to go to Illinois with me,” Gordon told the Indianapolis Star. “I want people to see us play on the same team and see how good we are together.”

Gordon, who has known Rose for two years, has said he would join Rose’s AAU team for a tournament July 12-15 in North Augusta, S.C.

So what this amounts to is a two-on-one trap with Illinois coach Bruce Weber and Gordon trying to take the prize from Self. If it were a basketball game, my money would be on Weber and Gordon. It’s not. It’s a personality contest. That’s why my money’s on Self, based on nothing more than a hunch.

Given Self’s Julian Wright coup, Rose is clearly within reach. The question is, how adept is Self at breaking trick defenses? And the second question is, what color do IL fans turn after they’ve reached “livid?”

It’s not what you’re thinking. Really.

Pretty good analysis, I think, except for his pegging of Russ at 2G instead of Mario. I think our most talented starting lineup is Arthur, Wright, Rush, Chalmers and Collins. They *could be the starters at some point this year for some games, but they’ll be smallish for others. Here’s what GD had to say:

Kansas shrinks: By adding power forward Darrell Arthur to a roster already loaded with wings and guards, Kansas coach Bill Self will occasionally find himself going smaller this season. If he wants to play his five most talented guys, Self would start Arthur at center, Julian Wright and Brandon Rush at forward, Russell Robinson at shooting guard and Mario Chalmers or Sherron Collins at point guard. Off the bench? Pure centers C.J. Giles and Sasha Kaun, plus power forward Darnell Robinson and USC wing transfer Rodrick Stewart. Freshman guard Brady Morningstar, a better player than advertised, could redshirt.

Here’s the rest of the piece, which includes a bit of everything.

The LJW compiled a fine list yesterday. It’s here today if you missed it. Definitely check out the whole article for the rest of the story:

Derrick Rose, 6-4, G, Simeon High, Chicago: Rivals.com’s No. 3-rated player, has a list of KU, Illinois, Arizona, Indiana, Michigan State, North Carolina and others. The country’s No. 8-rated player, Eric Gordon of Indianapolis, says his goal this summer is to convince Rose to join him at Illinois.

Jerryd Bayless, 6-3, G, St. Mary’s High, Phoenix: Bayless, who asked out of his oral commitment to Arizona, still is considering UA as well as KU, North Carolina and Texas. He’s the country’s No. 9-rated player.

Kyle Singler, 6-8, F, South Medford High, Medford, Ore.: Ranked No. 6 overall, Singler has KU, Duke, UCLA and Washington on his list. Singler played well for the U.S. Under 18 national team last month.

Anthony Randolph, 6-10, F, Woodrow Wilson High, Dallas: The country’s No. 7-rated player, who has been compared to Chris Bosh and LaMarcus Aldridge, has a list of KU, Duke, Texas, UConn, Memphis, Illinois, Baylor, Georgetown and UCLA.

James Anderson, 6-5, G/F, Junction City (Ark.) High: The country’s No. 64-rated player has a list of KU, Alabama, Arkansas, Baylor, UConn, Florida, Oklahoma and Oklahoma State.

Tyrel Reed, 6-3, G, Burlington: The No. 58-rated player out of the small Kansas town still has a lengthy list, including KU, K-State, North Carolina, Purdue, Wichita State, Illinois, Missouri State, Iowa and Baylor.

P’Allen Stinnett, 6-3, G, Brewster Academy, New Hampshire: Originally from Las Vegas, the country’s No. 77-rated player has a list of KU, Clemson, Virginia Tech, Oklahoma, Iowa State, Oregon, Tennessee and Texas.

George Goode, 6-8, Raytown (Mo.) South: The country’s No. 78-rated player has received some interest from KU, K-State, Iowa, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Marquette, Florida, Baylor and others.

Tyrone Shelley, 6-6, Crawford High, San Diego: The country’s No. 47-rated player, who scored 76 points in three quarters of a game last season, likes Washington, Arizona, KU, UConn, Illinois, Boston College, UCLA and Oklahoma State.

Isaiah Rusher, 6-8, Bellaire High, Houston: The country’s No. 147-rated player likes LSU, KU, Oklahoma, Florida and UConn.