Section:
B
The University Daily Kansan
Kiwis rule
New Zealand defended the America's cup yesterday in breathtaking fashion sweeping Italy's Luna Ross.
Sports
Inside: Lynn Pride does it all for the 'Hawks — scores, defends and dunks?
SEE PAGE 3B
THURSDAY, MARCH 2, 2000
Inside: Braves pitcher John Rocker, whose racial tirade landed him in hot water, had his suspension cut in half yesterday.
SEE PAGE 6B
Pride: Finished her final home court game with 20 points
WWW.KANSAN.COM/SPORTS
Seniors say goodbye
Seniors Lynn Pride and Heather Fletcher hug at the end of their final Allen Fieldhouse game. Pride finished the game with 20 points, 12 of which were in the second half, and six assists. The Jayhawks won 71-60. Photo by Aaron Lindberg/KANSAN
Jayhawks overcome slow start give seniors final home victory
By Chris Fickett sports@kansan.com Kansan sportwriter
Lynn Pride wanted a second chance at a play she almost made at Nebraska.
It was in that game where Pride was expecting a lob pass from Jennifer Jackson — a pass that Pride thought she could slam home. But Jackson pulled up and took a jump shot.
Last night at Allen Fieldhouse, Pride, a candidate for the Naismith Female Collegiate Player of the Year award, played her final home game as a Jayhawk. Though she didn't get a fast-break opportunity for a dunk, Pride still put on a display of drives to the basket and assists as the Jayhawks won on senior night, 71-60 against Texas &M.
"I wanted to do something," said Pride, who finished with 20 points — 12 in the second half — and six assists.
"It was the last one, so it was a 'why not' situation — I didn't hold back anything."
And she didn't hold back when she said goodbye to the fans and fieldhouse after the game. After thanking her family and friends, Pride began to cry when she acknowledged coach Marian Washington's support and leadership.
And Coach got choked up too.
And Coach get clenched up again.
"Before the introductions I thought I could do a little bit better than I did," Washington said.
"But it's difficult to not have any emotion when you spend so much time with these players off the court and become such a part in their lives."
That energy from the pregame ceremonies carried into the game, which was not such a great thing for Kansas, which improved to 20-8 and 11-5 in the league.
Texas A&M took a 10-2 lead four minutes into the game and Kansas didn't lead until 9 minutes, 45 seconds remaining in the half. Without "the general" — junior point guard Jennifer Jackson — in the game, Kansas had trouble setting up its half-court offense.
The 'Hawks shot only 31 percent and trailed 25-24 at halftime.
Washington said that the pregame, combined with the shuffle in the starting lineup — reserve senior Heather Fletcher and Casey Pruitt, fourth year junior, got the nod with regular senior starters Pride and guard Suzi Raymant — led to the Jayhawks disorganized first-half offense.
See SENIORS on page 3B
Senior guard Suzi Raymant is congratulated by coach Marian Washington before the tipoff. Raymant scored 12 points in the home finale.
Photo by Aaron Lindberg/KANSAN
Casey Pruitt, fourth-year junior, says goodbye to fans at Senior Night. Pruitt was one of four players who will leave the Jayhawks this season.
Photo by Aaron Lindberg/KANSAN
Pruitt, fourth-year junior, and seniors Pride, Fletcher and Raymant, gather for one last picture. All four started in the game against Texas A&M. Photo by Aaron Lindberg/KANSAN
Sports Columnist
Michael Rigg
sports@kansan.com
Senior women finish careers in dream game
by the time last night's senior night festivities at Allen Fieldhouse were completed, there was only one thing Lynn Pride regretted about the game.
She didn't dunk.
Sure, she thought about it, and assistant coach Lynette Woodard mentioned it to her when the game's outcome was no longer in doubt. But she never got the perfect breakaway to show off her jumps to the small gathering of Kansas faithful.
"I was thinking about it, to tell you the truth," Pride said. "But it had to be the perfect situation."
Funny; because throwing one down with Chenowithian authority was about all Pride didn't do last night, as she turned senior night from an embarrassment into a game that won't soon be forgotten.
After all, this was an act in desperate need of a leading part, especially after a first half of uninspired, ugly basketball.
Needless to say, nothing went right in the first half for Pride or her Jayhawk teammates, and Texas A&M — one of the Big 12 Conference's worst teams — actually had the audacity to carry a lead into the locker room at halftime.
This was supposed to be Pride's — along with Heather Fletcher's, Suzi Raymant's and Casey Pruitt's — final, emphatic game at Allen Fieldhouse, and some riffraff team from Texas was trying to spoil it.
But, in the opening minutes of the second half, Pride threw away the script. All of a sudden, she, along with seldom-used freshman Kristen May, started running the show. Pride nailed a 16-foot shot to give the Jayhawks their first lead of the half.
She flew down court in typical Pride fashion, slicing through the Aggie defense for a pretty layup, threw a perfect pass to a wide open Rayman for a three pointer two possessions later and went coast-to-coast off another turnover to ruin the Aggies' next possession.
May's stifling defense was responsible for many of the steals, which seldom allowed any Texas A&M guard to cross the half-court stripe with the ball. Just a little senior night magic by the reigning superstar and the up-and-coming freshman, and presto, Kansas transformed a one-point deficit into an eleven-point lead.
In the final act of her Kansas career, Pride stole the show. It was exactly what the Jayhawks needed last night, especially after a first half that nearly turned a senior night party into a serious hangover. Kansas committed 15 turnovers in the opening frame, and simple items at the fieldhouse — such as the shot clock and the Jayhawks' interior
defense — didn't seem to be working. "I was a little stressed out," coach Marian Washington said.
As if the Aggies' early lead wasn't See WOMEN on page 3B
Men's swim team hopes to make more than just a splash against Texas
By Brandon Krisztal
Kansan sportswriter
sports@kansan.com
Some people say that everything is bigger in Texas.
That's appropriate for identifying the task that the winless, 0-7, 0-4, Kansas men's swimming and diving teams face at the Big 12 Conference Championships in College Station, Texas. The three-day meet begins today and the Jayhawks will have their hands full to say the least.
Three of the Javahaws' five opponents are ranked, and the other two received votes in the Top 25 swimming poll. Iowa
Unfortunately for Kansas coach Gary Kempf and his team, the Longhorns are the No. 1 team in the nation at 10-0 and have beaten the second-, third-, fourth- and sixth-ranked teams in the country. Nonetheless, Kempf is optimistic about his team's chances.
State and Missouri, which each received votes, downed the Jayhawks, as did No. 18 Nebraska and No. 15 Texas A&M. The Jayhawks have yet to compete against the remaining ranked team, Texas.
"What I'd really like the guys to do is go out and swim with reckless abandon," he said. "We're better than everybody's seen. I just want us to go in relaxed and
confident and trust what we've been doing."
The team will rely on its seniors to lead by example. Senior Brandon Chestnut took time off for personal reasons during the year, but rejoined the team in January. Chestnut has fared well at the conference meet before in one of his best events, the 100-meter breaststroke.
He has broken his own school record in the event three times. As a freshman he finished third, and as a sophomore and junior, he was the runner-up. Last season, he missed first by 12-hundredths of a second.
"Brandon Chestnut has done a really
The seniors are key components to the team, which Kempf said had improved every week as the season went on.
good job." Kempf said. "We'd like all our seniors to stand up and help the team. Skip Reynolds and Drew Dischinger should have a good meet and so should Brian Klapper and Andy Kyser."
However, the top point scorers for the team were underclassmen. Sophomore diver Adam Hanhart led the team in dual points with 87, including eight first-place finishes. Freshman swimmer Brian Sori was the team's second leading scorer with 82 dual points and a team high of 14 topthree finishes.
4
Kyser, one of the team's two senior captains, said that they relished the role of being the underdog.
"We know we've got nothing to lose," he said. "They've got us usped for last, so we're just gonna go out, have fun, swim fast and maybe surprise some people."