Brady Morningstar Suspended

Kansas has made a lot of news over the past few weeks with the brawls between football and basketball players. I haven't posted on them because I only care about stories that affect basketball games, and nothing thus far has really affected any play on the court. Tyshawn Taylor did dislocate a finger while throwing a punch, but it's not expected to have much of an effect on his preparation for the season, and he will not miss any games because of it.

Now we have a Kansas player being suspended, although it has absolutely nothing to do with those brawls. Brady Morningstar has been suspended for fall semester games after being arrested for drunk driving.

Last year, Kansas generally played with three guards: Morningstar, Sherron Collins and Tyshawn Taylor. Morningstar had 6.5 points, 3.0 rebounds and 2.7 assists in 30.4 minutes per game, including 42% shooting from behind the arc. That said, the expectation was that Morningstar would actually lose playing time this coming season with super-duper recruit Xavier Henry coming in. At 6'6", Henry can play as a shooting guard or a swing forward. The expectation was for a starting backcourt of Collins and Taylor, with Henry starting at the 3. Morningstar would get about 20-25 minutes per game off the bench. As long as Morningstar is out this actually makes Kansas somewhat thin in the backcourt, with Xavier Henry probably going to have to play a lot of shooting guard. Also expect to see freshman Elijah Johnson - a highly rated recruit in his own right - getting a lot of time off the bench.

The loss of Morningstar for the fall games isn't too big of a deal on its own. Kansas will be the #1 team in the nation when the first polls come out, so even if a thin backcourt costs them one game in the fall, it will be long forgotten if Kansas runs away with the Big 12. But this is now yet another major problem for this program. Kansas has the most talented team in the nation - I don't think there's much doubt there - and so most likely team to keep them from winning a National Championship will be themselves. They're going to be getting a ton of hype, and everybody in the media will be telling them how great they are. It's an odd thing to say about a team that won the National Championship so recently, but Kansas is a very young team that doesn't necessarily have the senior experience that other recent teams have had to deal with this kind of hype (like North Carolina had last year).

If this is the last time this season that Kansas has a player arrested or suspended then I expect them to enter the NCAA Tournament as the #1 team overall and the favorite to take the National Championship. But right now it's not looking like this will be the last time.