Junior Achievement: Juco Recruits Keep Influencing KU and Big 12

At least one juco jewel needed to shine bright if Kansas' string of seven straight regular-season Big 12 Conference championships was going to come to an end. Joining KU in the national Top 10 polls most of this season were two teams counting on junior college recruits to help knock the Jayhawks off their lofty perch--Baylor (point guard Pierre Jackson from Southern Idaho) and Missouri (center Ricardo Ratliffe from Central Florida CC and guard Matt Pressey from Navarro, TX). Jackson, not more highly-acclaimed Perry Jones III, is the Bears' go-to player at crunch time. Ratliffe has a chance to set an NCAA single-season record for field-goal percentage.

Jackson and Pressey needed to help keep Kansas' turnover-prone Tyshawn Taylor from continuing to offset his suspect ballhandling by being KU's leading scorer. Pressey's brother, Flip, triggering Mizzou's lethal fast break, has a sterling assist-to-turnover ratio (2.7), a figure significantly better than his KU counterpart.

Despite Taylor's resiliency and increased point production this season, he emerged as one of the most erratic Jayhawks point guards in 30 years since they struggled a couple of campaigns at that position after four-time All-American Darnell Valentine departed. Taylor, whose judgment has always been questionable since suffered a dislocated left thumb in a skirmish with several of the school's football players, has a mediocre career assist-to-turnover ratio of 1.5.

Taylor's ratio doesn't measure up to the competence exhibited by KU playmakers in the last several decades such as Ryan Robertson (2.4), Mark Turgeon (2.4), Aaron Miles (2.3), Jacque Vaughn (2.3), Adonis Jordan (2.2), Cedric Hunter (2.1), Kirk Hinrich (1.8), Jeff Boschee (1.7), Sherron Collins (1.7), Kevin Pritchard (1.7), Steve Woodberry (1.7), Mario Chalmers (1.6) and Rex Walters (1.6).

Oddly, UNLV is the only school to have more J.C. recruits help it reach the Final Four multiple times than Kansas (Terry Brown, Jeff Graves, Darrin Hancock, Alonzo Jamison, David Johanning, John Keller, Bob Kivisto, Archie Marshall, Lincoln Minor, Roger Morningstar and Hal Patterson). At least one former junior college player was named an NCAA All-American in 21 consecutive seasons from 1963-64 through 1983-84.