Kansas Basketball: Who's to Blame for KU's Early Exit in 2015 NCAA Tournament?

For the second consecutive year, Kansas' season came to an end far earlier than expected. And as is the case with any early exit, questions about as to what went wrong.

Most pressing of those queries: who is to blame for the Jayhawks' shortcomings?

Kansas (27-9) had one of its most adversity-filled seasons in 2014-15, having to replace a pair of NBA lottery picks yet still managing to win an 11th straight Big 12 regular-season title and then earn a No. 2 seed in the NCAA tournament. But it was another third-round elimination, just like last season, this one coming Sunday at the hands of in-state rival Wichita State.

While the Shockers deserve plenty of credit for that victory, Kansas must still be held accountable for not living up to expectations. And there are certain players (and coaches) who are more at fault than others.

Cliff Alexander

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Though his contributions to the team had been dwindling down the stretch, it's hard not to think what having freshman Cliff Alexander available for the NCAA tournament would have meant for Kansas. More than anything else, his absence provides the Jayhawks with a legitimate "what if" scenario.

Alexander, a 6'8", 240-pound power forward, was held out of Kansas' final eight games—three in the regular season, all three Big 12 tournament contests and the two NCAA tourney games—while the NCAA investigated whether family members had received impermissible benefits.

Prior to the eligibility issue, Alexander had played only 17 minutes in the previous three games and had scored just six points with 12 rebounds in a four-game span. It had been a hot-and-cold season from the outset for Alexander, who ended up averaging 7.1 points and 5.3 rebounds per game on 56.6 percent shooting.

With him unavailable, Kansas only had three frontcourt players to rotate at two positions. With Perry Ellis battling through a knee injury, he did his best but got little help from Landen Lucas or Jamari Traylor.

Brannen Greene

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Remember when Brannen Greene was one of the deadliest three-point shooters in the country, a player whose contribution off the bench was so integral that it seemed criminal he wasn't playing more? Yeah, seems like a long time ago, doesn't it?

The 6'7" sophomore guard finished the season shooting 40.4 percent from outside, but that efficiency took a nosedive over the final month of the season. He was shooting 52.3 percent after hitting two of three  three-pointers in a Feb. 10 win over Texas Tech, the end of a seven-game stretch where he made 17 of 24 from beyond the arc.

Then came a prolonged slump, which only got worse after Greene was suspended for the regular-season finale at Oklahoma. He returned for the Big 12 tournament and missed all three of his three-point attempts, part of an 0-of-14 drought over four games.

Greene hit two of four threes in the second-round NCAA tourney win over New Mexico State, his first game with multiple threes since Feb. 10, but then missed both tries against Wichita. The loss of that weapon off the bench made Kansas' reserves (beyond backup point guard Devonte Graham) almost nonexistent in the postseason.

Kelly Oubre

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Rated by 247Sports as the eighth-best player in the 2014 recruiting class, Kelly Oubre Jr. came to Kansas with a lot of hype as well as the belief that he could fill a major void left by Andrew Wiggins' one-and-done season. It took a while for this potential to come out in a Jayhawks uniform, but as the season went on it looked more and more like Oubre was going to be the player the team had to rally around in order to make a deep run.

But that never happened. Instead, Oubre seemed to regress when the postseason came around, and in the NCAA tourney he looked uninterested.

Oubre averaged 8.5 points and 4.0 rebounds in the two tournament games, slightly down from his 9.3 and 5.0 season rates, but he was just 6-of-16 from the field after shooting nearly 45 percent coming into the tourney. Even more surprising was his lack of effort on the defensive end or for going after loose balls, something that made him a fan favorite during the middle of the season.

"Kelly Oubre's effort today has been sorely lacking," tweeted Bleacher Report's C.J. Moore on Sunday, shortly after Oubre slacked going after an errant pass that Wichita State's Zach Brown beat him to for a transition basket.

As a possible one-and-done player who is projected by NBADraft.net as the No. 9 pick in June, Oubre might have already had a foot out the door to the pros.

Wayne Selden

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A year after having to play in the shadow of megastars (and fellow freshmen) Joel Embiid and Andrew Wiggins, this season was supposed to be the year of Wayne Selden. The 6'5" guard had a decent first year with Kansas, but with those standouts moving on he was expected to take a big leap forward and become one of the Jayhawks' go-to players.

Instead, Selden was pretty much the same guy he was in 2013-14, and with Kansas lacking in assertive scorers that wasn't what was needed from him.

Selden averaged 9.4 points per game this season after going scoreless on five shots in the loss to Wichita State. That's down from 9.7 as a freshman, while shooting just 38.2 percent from the field.

Bill Self

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This wasn't Bill Self's most talented team during his 12 seasons at Kansas, nor was it anywhere close to the bottom end of that spectrum. This year's Jayhawks squad fell somewhere in the middle, a group that lacked consistency from its top players but still had the capability to beat anyone if playing at a high level.

A group built on toughness and intensity played that way most of the time, but not always, and often those lapses came in critical moments. That comes down to coaching and making sure lessons are ingrained, which puts the blame on Self for not making sure everyone bought in all the time.

"Our team didn’t play very well, and it all starts with me," Self said after Sunday's loss, per Sam Mellinger of the Kansas City Star.

Self isn't one to pass the buck when it comes to things like that, and he won't this time, either. Expect him to use the disappointment of this season as motivation for his returning players, while also working harder to instill that mindset in his next crop of incoming recruits.

Follow Brian J. Pedersen on Twitter at @realBJP.

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/sports/spt-columns-blogs/sam-mellinger/article16057400.html#storylink=cpyFollow Brian J. Pedersen on Twitter at @realBJP