Inside Sports
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Sports
Tuesday
November 16, 1999
Nebraska moved up to No. 3 in the BCS standings after its 41-15 victory against K-Sate Saturday.
SEE PAGE 4B
Section:
Kansas Basketball
B
Jeff Boschee, Kirk Hinrich and Marlon London will be sharing time at the point-guard position this season.
SEE PAGE 3B
Baseball
Arizona Diamondback Randy Johnson won the National League Cy Young award yesterday.
SEE PAGE 2B
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Kansas takes on Latvia
Team will offer chance to hone Javhawks' edge
By Melinda Weaver sports@kansan.com Kansan writerswriter
The Kansas women's basketball team has one more chance to smooth the rough edges before the regular season in its final exhibition game against Latvia's Club
Riga at 7:05 tonight in Allen Fieldhouse.
The Jayhawks' top priority is improving their defense. Last Tuesday against Club Gija Marijampole, No. 19 Kansas allowed 67 points, including 27 from the free-throw line.
"We worked hard; we just didn't work smart," Coach Marian Washington said. "We were getting beat in the post and found ourselves reaching. We need to work help each other, so we aren't in the position to foul. We need to move our feet."
Junior guard Jennifer Jackson said that the defensive breakdowns resulted from problems with communication that could be improved with stronger chemistry.
Washington found the issue important enough to hold a preseason team meeting to discuss the Club Gija game, which normally is not done after exhibition games.
"We had things we wanted to discuss and issues we wanted to raise before they became a problem," Jackson said. "We just need to feel each other out as a team. The chemistry was not there last week. We have seen a lot better chemistry in practice than we did last week."
Washington used all of her players
See BALTIC on page 3A
The Starting Lineup
KANSAS JAYHAWKS
G Jennifer Jackson 5-10 Jr.
G SUZI RAYMANT 5-11 Sr.
F LYNN PRIDE 6-2 Sr.
F BROOKE REVES 6-0 Jr.
C JACLYN JOHNSON 6-1 Jr.
LATVIA CLUB RIGA
G ANETE JEKABONE 5-10
G ANITA MINALE 5-10
F MARITA MELDERE 6-1
F DACE BRUMERMANE 6-2
C ZANE ROZITA 6-4
ALL PRACTICE, NO GLORY Athletes who take a redshirt do their time riding the pine
Story by Jason Walker Photo illustration by Matt Daugherty
J
was ready to come off the bench in the clutch. Some seven-footer named Eric Chenowith was going to be Carev's roommate.
eff Carey came to the University of Kansas in 1997 knowing all about the basketball team he was about to join.
Raef LaFrentz, a two-time All-American, was a senior. Lester Earl had just transferred from Louisiana State. T.J. Pugh, a solid defender.
Carey was a redshirt his freshman year. Being a red shirt is common in college athletics. Athletes come in, practice with the team, hit the weights and acclimate to college life.
That left Carey fifth on the depth chart at power forward and near the end of the bench at game time.
But they can't play.
If they set foot into a formal athletic contest, even for one fraction of a second, they burn up a year of eligibility.
The funny thing is, no NCAA rules exist regarding redshirt athletics. The term started as slang. Max Falkenstien, longtime Kansas broadcaster, said he thought the term originated when freshman football players would wear red jerseys during practice to distinguish themselves from the rest of the team.
The NCAA doesn't even mention "redshirt" in its bible of guidelines. But
being a redshirt has become almost routine in football, and it is not uncommon on many college teams. Some players say it gives them an edge. Others say it edges them out.
NCAA athletes have five years to complete four years of eligibility. If athletes get hurt, they can apply for extensions to their eligibility, or what the NCAA calls a "hardship." They can sit out a year because of an injury only if it occurs when the athlete has competed in no more than two contests, or 20 percent of their team's games that year, whichever is higher.
Why is redshirting such a common practice? Why are thousands of athletes practicing with their teams, working hard to gain a spot when they still can't play? In the end is it often the coaches call?
play? In the end is it often the coaches call?
Reaping the benefits
Carey redshirted on the advice of Coach Roy Williams, so he could learn and improve. He practiced with the team, learned from LaFrentz and others, but he was a cheerleader dur-
mon in basketball.
"In basketball," he explained. "You've got a limited number of guys to work with."
This season Carey is expected to be a productive member of the team in his second year. He missed the first exhibition game because of an ankle sprain and scored four points in eight minutes during Saturday's 119-44 exhibition win against the Geelong Supercats.
Not always a happy ending
But not every redshirt experience is a positive one. Katie Hensley, former member of the Kansas soccer team, was a redshirt her sophomore year after spending her freshman year on the field.
Hensley made the decision to be a redshirt after Dan Magner, former coach of the soccer team, decided he was going to cut her.
"My first coach completely destroyed my confidence," she said. "He told me I was in way over my head trying to play at the Division I level. But I knew I could work hard and get better. I wanted to prove that I was better than what he had seen."
So with considerable pressure from her coach, Hensley decided to be a redshirt. She felt it would be the best way for her to get better for the next season.
"It was hard because I knew what it was like to be more of a part of the team," she said. "I love the sport. It's my life."
Hensley said one of the hardest things she had to deal with was that her three roommates were on the team and traveled to road games, something she could not do.
See WAITING on page 6B
'Hawks, Cyclones are clones
Bv Michael Riga
Kansan sportswriter
According to Kansas coach Terry Allen, the Jayhawks can look at themselves in the mirror and see the Iowa State Cyclones.
"It's fair to say we've had very similar seasons," Allen said yesterday during his weekly teleconference. "I've seen Iowa State on tape, and I think they've made vast improvements over a year ago — and I think we've made improvements over a year ago."
both teams are struggling to stay afloat, at least record-wise, in the Big 12 Conference. Heading into Saturday's game, Kansas is 4-7 and 2-5 in the Big 12, while the Cyclones are at 4-6 and 1-6.
Despite the improvements,
According to Allen, what the Jayhawks need to do to make a giant leap in the conference standings is get more all-around talent. The Jayhawks and their opponents this weekend have enough heart and desire to compete in the Big 12. Allen said.
"Teams one through 12, the competition is very good in this league," Allen said. "It's hard to make a quantum leap in just a year or two."
"Both teams are playing hard with what they have," Allen said. "But we just need to get better athletes. We've just run out of good players. It's not an excuse."
"I think there's some close parallels between both programs," said Iowa State coach Dan McCarney, who also said that Saturday's winner will have more recruiting
And a lack of talent has led to what Allen said are very similar seasons for both the Cyclones and Jayhawks.
Kansas running back David Winbush tries to escape the grasp of an Iowa State player in last year's game. The Jayhawks will play the Cyclones on Saturday. Kansan file photo
Preseason games exhibited talent of team's freshmen
This must be how it feels to be a Kansas State football fan.
So what, if anything, have we learned about our favorite team from the 17- and 75-point blowouts against the California All-Stars and the Geelong Supercats respectively?
These games are fun and provide a wealth of highlight-reel material, but they really don't reveal much about the true nature of your team — which K-State fans found out this weekend against Nebraska.
Of course, the cupcakes our basketball team recently devoured are just exhibition appetizers as opposed to the regular-season ragamuffins the Wildcat football team habitually preys upon.
First and foremost the freshmen are good.
Gooden nearly had a triple-double against the All-Stars and is averaging 12.5 points, 8.5 rebounds and 18.5 minutes per game.
Nick Collison, Drew Gooden and Kirk Hinrich each scored in double-digits in both games and made their presence felt in other ways as well.
Derek
Prater
sports columnist
sports@kansas.com
Collison's turn-around baseline jumper is reminiscent of a recent 'Hawk who is putting up nice numbers in the NBA for the Denver Nuggets — Raef LaFrentz. Collison also looks strong on the boards, averaging 8.5 a game.
Hinrich has shown more strength and athleticism than expected, and demonstrated good discipline with the ball in some pretty ragged games. His assists-to-turnover ratio is 2.25 to 1.
The freshmen looked confident, poised and intelligent. Their play will demand that they get playing time, which brings us to another point made clear in the exhibition games — we have more quality players than minutes to go around.
Eleven 'Hawks played at least 12 minutes in Saturday's game, and Roy Williams often made wholesale lineup changes.
You can expect this to change when the regular season gets under way. There are 200 minutes available for Williams to play with in a regulation game. With 11 guys fighting for time, that's an average of just more than 18 minutes per player.
Our top performers will need closer to 30 minutes to establish rhythm and chemistry.
Who will get the big minutes still is up in the air.
Nick Bradford led all players in minutes with 26 against the California All-Stars, but he only played 17 against the Sunercats.
Where the minutes will go should become clear as we play teams good enough to bring the ball up the floor against our press forcing us into a half-court game, which is not what we saw in the exhibition games.
The California All-Stars made me wonder exactly what the definition of star is, and the Supercats just Supersucked.
Williams referred to the games as glorified practices, but they probably weren't as productive as practices. The 'Hawks rarely got to work on half-court offense or defense, and the intensity level from the competition just wasn't there.
It won't be long, however, before we get a good idea of just how good this team is. With a tough field at the Nov. 25-27 Great Alaska Shootout and three December games against teams from the best basketball conference in the country, the Big Ten, the 'Hawks will be battle-tested early on.
If they make it undefeated through the end of December, Roy's Boys will be the top-ranked team in the country.
And even if they're not, we'll know what they're made of, because Williams knows that a tough schedule builds tough teams.
Prater is a Lawrence graduate student in journalism.