Kansas Falters

One of the many difficulties in making selections or bids on players in fantasy is how much we should weigh what we see in person or on tv versus what the stats tell us for a player's entire season.  Take this week.  If you watched Kansas struggle Wednesday against a mediocre-at-best Horned Frogs squad, you would not only pass on any and all Jayhawks come March but not even put them on your board.  They were awful and being that Kansas was, and still is, looking at a top seed we have to view Ben McLemore, Jeff Withey, Elijah Johnson and Travis Releford, et al, as high round picks with McLemore being looked at as a top ten selection.  Now what's a fantasy player to do?
Human nature, and fantasy players are human (I think), will lead us to hammer KU if we entered this week as disbelievers--and I am in that category--or treat the game as an aberration if we like KU come March.  Obviously they have six weeks to straighten things out but you will be affected come March by watching that dreadful game compared to someone who did not.  This is especially true if you only watched Kansas looking bad but happen to only watch, let's say Duke, look good.  You did not catch the Blue Devils in their dreadful game, last month against Miami, but caught games like last night against the Wolfpack.  And so in the first round with your third pick you are debating Mason Plumlee and Ben McLemore and you remember Plumlee's 30 last night and McLemore's 0-6 from 3, you are taking Plumlee.  This is especially true in the second round when guys like Duke's Quinn Cook and Kansas's Releford are on the board.  If you do not watch many games but saw Releford score 1 point on Wednesday and Cook 21 last night, well you'll pull the trigger on Cook.
Further complicating things is how you compare stars of player from the more prestigious, and at times overrated, conferences to the leading players from schools we rarely see.  Isaiah Canaan looked great last night on the U versus Belmont and should Murray State make the tourney and not get totally screwed with their seeding, you will have to decide between him and let's say Kansas's Elijah Johnson in the third round.  Based on what we saw this week, Canaan is the pick because he has a legitimate shot to play a couple of games and score 50 or more points while KU may not go too far and Johnson struggles at times to score.  Last year I had both and Johnson was much more valuable as he helped Kansas reach the finals while Murray lost to Marquette in round two.  With these players you can win with a great performance, like Stephen Curry when Davidson went Final Eight or get frustrated pulling the trigger on a gun who struggles in a first round loss.
So remember to watch as much as you can so one or two performances do not get overblown and to balance what you see versus what you know--like Bill Self's incredible record in the NCAA tournament.