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SPORTS
SOFTBALL TEAM WINS PAGE 7B
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
WOMEN'S, MEN'S GAME DAYS
THE PARKS
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 15,2008
WWW.KANSAN.COM
PAGE 9B and 10B
RETURN OF THE CHAMPIONS
PAGE 1B
1988 team to celebrate reunion on court
Manning hints at possible 2008 NCAA title
The men's basketball team will celebrate the 110-year anniversary of Kansas basketball Saturday at Allen Fieldhouse. The 1988 NCAA championship team will be recognized at the game.
BY MARK DENT
mdent@kansan.com
Twenty years from now, Russell Robinson would love to be at Allen Fieldhouse celebrating the anniversary of a national championship.
Manning
Danny Manning, assistant coach and one of the players from the 1988 NCAA championship team who will be honored Saturday at the KU basketball 110-year reunion, thinks that Robinson's dream could come true.
Kansan File Photo
"Our championship team," he said, "is nowhere near the team we have now at Kansas."
Robinson didn't quite know how to react.
"That's a compliment," he said with a smile.
Manning could be right. In 1988, the
Jayhawks were far from a force. They started the season 12-8 and looked NIT-bound for the longest time. Their tournament run wasn't even spectacular. Kansas barely scraped by Murray State in the second round.
This Jayhawk team has been far more domi-
tion can score, Robinson, Sherron Collins, Brandon Rush, Sasha Kaun, Darrrell Arthur, Mario Chalmers and Darnell Jackson have all led the team in scoring at least once this season.
"We didn't have the same depth or talent level," Manning said. "We couldn't score points in flurries like this team can."
Manning acknowledged that a team needs more than talent to win a championship. That's obvious from looking at the 1988 team. The Jayhawks put together a run to the title game because they found
an extra gear and rose above all the adversity they faced during the season. It wasn't just talent that got them to the championship.
It was their ability to grow from defeats. "Morale goes down anytime you lose," Manning said. "Morale goes down and work ethic goes up."
It's still a mystery to whether this team can make the same type of strides. Kansas came out flat at Colorado after its first loss of the season against Kansas State.
"Our championship team is nowhere near the team we have now at Kansas."
DANNY MANNING Assistant coach and 1988 NCAA championship team member
Any player in the main seven-man rota
nant so far, starting 23-2 and beating opponents by an average of 21.1 points a game. Although recent losses to Kansas State and Texas exposed some flaws, including toughness and outside shooting, Kansas should still be capable of conference championships and a possible deep run in the NCAA Tournament.
The Jayhawks won three games after it but struggled on defense.
The defense was better against Texas on Monday, but Kansas couldn't rebound, and allowed the Longhorns to come back and win in the second half. Getting that toughness back will be a key to bouncing
back from the loss.
"It's something we have to emphasize," Kaun said of toughness. "It's all about single possessions. We need to score or get a stop and be more mentally tough so we won't break down."
up. Chalmers tried, taking several shots down the stretch, but he couldn't quite be the hero. Jackson and Arthur were unable to get the ball. There wasn't a player who could lift Kansas at the end.
The jayhawks are also lacking a go-to player. When they needed to score baskets late against Texas, no one stepped
"We don't have a Danny Manning." Robinson said.
But Robinson is still confident the team could put together a special run. He wants the same recognition the 1988 team is going to receive on Saturday.
"We have a good team," Robinson said. "Even though we have two losses, we just have to know that we are still a good team."
Notes
— Edited by Jessica Sain-Baird
Brown Sighting: Former coach Larry Brown, who was the head man on the 1988 National Championship team, watched practice yesterday.
Self's favorite: Kansas coach Bill Self said he can't wait to meet Clyde Lovellette for the first time on Saturday, but he's looking forward to the entire reunion weekend.
"The thing about this that is really cool is that I don't think we look at the reunion as what players that have had their number hung in the rafters are
coming back," Self said. "I don't think you look at it that way. It's not about one person coming back. It's about the collection of everybody being here. That is what I'm going to get out of it as much as anything."
high turnout: About 230 former players, coaches and managers are supposed to be at Allen Fieldhouse for the 110-year reunion. All the attendees will go to a brunch before the game and a banquet afterward.
MEN'S BASKETBALL
The men's basketball team didn't play as well as it expected against Texas. Rebounding made the difference.
Jayhawks remain tough despite loss
BY RUSTIN DODD
dodd@kansan.com
dodd@kansan.com
Let's be clear, Bill Self wasn't concerned about his team's toughness.
"We didn't play tough one night," Self said about his team's Monday performance against Texas. "We didn't play tough on the glass one night. That doesn't mean we have soft ewu's." Self said.
Self said not to question his team's toughness after it gave away a four-point halftime lead Monday against the 11th ranked Longhorns. Kansas, leading 42-38 at halftime, let Texas dominate the glass in the second half, and let them sneak away with a 72-69 victory. Texas out-rebounded Kansas by 11 in the second half.
"We have plenty of things to work on, but I'm not ready to say the sky is falling because we lost to a Top 11 team on the road by a possession." Self said.
Still, Kansas' flaws were magnified after its second loss of the season. Kansas is 0-2 against teams in the Associated Press Top 25 poll, and the layhawks seemed to have lost their outside shooting touch. Kansas shot 4-for-26 from the three-point line during the two games.
"It it happened." Self said. "I'm not going to make a big deal out of that, certainly we need to shoot the ball better."
Self said he liked how Kansas' schedule shared up for the next two weeks.
Kansas plays host to Colorado on Saturday,
then has six days off before traveling to
"I'm not a believer in that we can just play in the games and automatically get better. Self said. "You have to work on things you need to improve on."
Senior guard Russell Robinson has played on teams that were questioned before. When Robinson was a freshman, Self brought shoulder pads and football helmets to practice. Self's point was simple: that team needed to be tougher.
Oklahoma State. That gives Self a week to practice.
"You can't be too upset about what happened in the past," Senior forward Sasha Kaun said. "We should see how it will affect us in the long run and turn a negative thing into a positive thing."
"I've never had a team, nor has anybody ever coached a team that didn't go through periods of time where some weeks they were a little better than other weeks." Self said.
However, Self said no gimmicks were needed this year.
The rest of the lajwhays said the sour taste from the Texas game was gone.
First place (in the Big 12) Kansas is looking toward March after K-State's loss to Texas Tech Wednesday.
"My goal has always been for our teams to start getting better in February, and hopefully be peaking in late February, early March," Self said.
In order to do that, Self said Kansas had to regain its toughness and swagger.
Edited by Nick Mangiaracina
WOMEN'S BASKETBALL
Courtesy of Kansas Athletics
The women's basketball team will wear pink jerseys at Sunday's game to raise awareness of and money for breast cancer. The first 500 fans in attendance will receive free pink T-shirts, and for every attending fan the Athletics Department will donate one dollar to the breast cancer center at Lawrence Memorial Hospital.
Kansas goes pink to raise awareness, funds Team to wear new jerseys as part of'Think Pink'breast cancer initiative
BY TAYLOR BERN tbern@kansan.com
There are some people who complain about Kansas fans at basketball games wearing shirts in all sorts of colors other than the traditional crimson and blue.
However, Sunday afternoon there will be a different hue to Allen Fieldhouse and it will start with the players themselves.
For its 2 p.m. game against Nebraska, the Kansas women's basketball team will don pink jerseys in support of the "Think Pink" initiative by the Women's Basketball Coaches Association to raise awareness and funds for the fight against breast cancer.
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In its second year, this initiative has the support of more than 900 schools and Jayhawk coach Bonnie Henrickson is thrilled to be a part of it.
"I'm very, very excited about our opportunity to help in the community," Henrickson said. "Obviously it's a national event but it's grassroots here. All of the money will be donated to the LMH (Lawrence Memorial Hospital) breast cancer center.
"To a person in Allen Fieldhouse, we've all been impacted somehow and it's a chance for us to create awareness and create funds towards research to find a cure for the disease."
The entire Athletics Department has worked hard to make this a truly special event for all of those involved.
"We consider it very important to participate in this," Associate athletics director Jim Marchiony said. "It's an illness that somehow affects almost everybody in someway."
Along with the jerseys, which Henrickson says look great, the first 5,000 fans in attendance will receive free pink T-shirts.
"We're asking everyone to wear them when they get them so we can pink it out in Allen Fieldhouse on Sunday," Henrickson said.
More importantly, for every fan in attendance, the department will donate one dollar to the LMH breast cancer center.
"We came up with that as a department."
The "Think Pink" theme has also bounced beyond the court and into City Hall.
Marchiony said. "It's something that we can do that will hopefully encourage others to contribute to the cause as well."
In August, the Alvamar Golfand Country Club hosted the annual Bonnie Henrickson fund-raising golf tournament, and a portion of those proceeds were designated to go to the same cause. During a time out on Sunday, a check with those funds will be presented to the hospital.
On Feb. 12, Mayor Sue Hack proclaimed Feb. 17 to be "Think Pink Day," in Lawrence.
i
"Anything that I can do or that the community can do to further that along I think is really important." Hack said. "It was amazing to note on the proclamation
that deaths from breast cancer have act ally declined. I think it'd be hard to fin any other cancers where the death rate hi declined, and that's due to early detectio nd education (about breast cancer).
"It's not the death sentence that it use to be."
The actual event may only be a basker ball game, but everything that surrounds means so much more to everyone involve and those affected by breast cancer.
"This is the perfect example of atl letics doing something good for society Marchiony said.
"It's a great pairing of the university an the city of Lawrence and the more we can do that the better it is for all of us," Hac said.
Edited by Jared Duncan