The NCAA Tournament Selection Committee will reveal the current top 16 seeds in the NCAA Tournament on Saturday morning. This week, several members of the national college basketball media were in Indianapolis to go through a mock selection process for the entire bracket.
CBS Sports' Matt Norlander was on hand for the exercise and stated on CBS Sports HQ on Thursday that he believed KU's seeding for Saturday's first reveal is pretty close to locked in.
"Kansas is going to be a 3-seed in the Saturday selection reveal, I'm almost positive of that," Norlander said.
Kansas was the No. 9 overall seed in the mock selection process that media members went through. KU was placed in the Midwest Region with the first round games taking place in Oklahoma City. According to most bracketologists, KU is currently viewed as a strong 3-seed with some listing KU on the 2-seed line.
One topic that will come up during discussions around KU is the health and availability of Darryn Peterson. The freshman guard played in his 15th game of the season on Wednesday night. But, he did not finish the game and missed the final 17:22 of game time due to cramps, an issue that has plagued him for the majority of this season.
Postgame, Bill Self said he did not expect the cramps to show up again.
"Self, to take the move to publicly say, 'I thought we were past this' and they're not is a real concern," Norlander said.
Will it impact KU's NCAA Tournament seeding based on what he saw during the selection process?
"I don't think it's going to affect how Kansas is seeded," Norlander explained. "Because it has been, from a record standpoint, essentially as good without Peterson as it has been with him. So I don't think that affects where Kansas will get its seed on Selection Sunday."
KU is 5-2 in the high major games that Peterson has missed this season. The Jayhawks have wins over Tennessee and Arizona without Peterson. KU is 10-4 in the high major games that Peterson has played in this season.
The Jayhawks have notched some marquee wins during conference play. KU beat then No. 2 Iowa State and then No. 1 Arizona at home. KU also went on the road and beat a top-15 ranked Texas Tech team on a Big Monday.
KU has two marquee games left, with a home contest against Houston and a road contest at Arizona coming in the next 10 days.
"It's got the capability of winning a national title with Darryn Peterson being healthy and available for 30 plus minutes night over night over night," Norlander said. "Now we don't have that."
He continued.
"I do think [Peterson's availability] genuinely affects Kansas' chances of winning an NCAA Tournament Championship and potentially even making a Final Four. You have to be able to rely on your best player. If he's physically capable of getting on the floor to play in the game, you've got to be able to rely on him to play 25, 30, 32, 34 minutes. Peterson is not in that category and essentially has not been for the entire season."