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MONDAY, APRIL 30, 2012
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
FOOTBALL
Spring game shows defensive improvement
Sophomore running back Tony Pierson's Spring Game at Memorial Stadium
COMMENTARY
Weis'inf
On a day when the University honored one of its football program's most significant figures, former coach Don Fambrough, it embarked on a new era.
ETHAN PADWAY
epadway@kansan.com
An estimated 15,000 Jayhawk fans caught a glimpse of the new Kansas football team under the leadership of new coach Charlie Weis during the spring game Saturday.
At the end of practice, coach Charlie Weis called him out for it, trying to explain to him that they are going after him because he is one of the few players on the team who can make that play.
In one of the Kansas football team's practices last week, sophomore linebacker Michael Reynolds had three different coaches talk to him about running the play full speed.
New quarterbacks Dayne Crist and Jake Heaps showed off their extraordinary passing ability that Kansas fans haven't seen since Tod
what his role will be in the fall. Because of Jackson's bigger build, he has the ability to play in the traditional halfback position as well as a bulkier fullback.
Reynolds, along with fellow linebacker senior Toben Opurum, played a hybrid linebacker/defensive end position normally seen more in a 3-4 defensive scheme than in the Jayhawks' 4-3.
"I'm very comfortable with it because it gives me the chance to stand up and rush the passer and also play in coverage," Reynolds said.
points per game in the NCAA Division I last season.
Weisweis playing more versatile players at both positions because it
"He could very easily be at 230 with a couple of cheeseburgers," Weis said. "That's what were going to have to decide, what weight we want him at, but you can see he has some natural running instincts."
The zero on the board beneath the white squad's name is an impressive feat, but it must be noted that the
NCAA TOURNAMENT: KANSAS 63, PURDUE 60
MARCH 18,2012
Jayhawks escape Purdue, advance to Sweet 16
MAX ROTHMAN
mrothman@kansan.com
OMAHA, Neb. — On March 15, the first day that coach Bill Self and his Jayhawks were in this town, Self had a philosophy.
He added it up like this: He knows that most teams don't play their best in six straight games. He knows that in 2008, the Jayhawks would have never won a championship if they didn't swipe a game from Davidson. He knows something like that Davidson game happens for most teams that make runs in March. So he shared his philosophy.
"The teams that won the national championships," he said, "stole one when they were bad."
And then on March 18 there was the Purdue Boilermakers game, one that Self at times didn't think his team would win but still did, 63-60.
This was a game that solidified the philosophy.
"This was certainly our one," Self said
With the victory, the Jayhawks advance to the Sweet 16 in St. Louis; a trip they know almost never happened because of Purdue forward Robbie Hummel.
As junior forward Thomas Robinson so eloquently put it: "He don't miss."
In the first half, it was pretty much true. Hummel hit seven of eight shots to score 22 points before the break. On one play, with the shot-clock nearing nil, pressure from junior guard Elijah Johnson and senior guard Tyshawn Taylor forced Hummel away from the perimeter. Still, about five feet from the three-point line, Hummel drained the shot.
"I felt like he was throwing a rock in the ocean," senior guard Tyshawn Taylor said.
So in the second half, the layhawks trotted out a smaller lineup and a diamond-and-two zone defense, organized to swarm Hummel with defenders and dare other Boilermakers to beat them. The scheme worked, holding Hummel to four second-half points and Purdue to 24 points total.
But the Jayhawks also nearly missed out on a trip to St. Louis because they just couldn't score. While Hummel kept throwing rocks into the ocean, the Jayhawks missed their first six shots and 15 of their first 17.
Robinson, who missed 10 of his 12 shot attempts, said that the Boilermakers succeeded by challenging him with more than just double and triple teams.
"Four, five, six, seven," he said. "They'd have threw their bench at me if they could have."
While Taylor finished with just 10 points and Robinson with only 11, Johnson relieved his points-hungry team with 18 points, a key rebound and alley-oop assist to Taylor and a go-ahead steal and layup with 23 seconds to play.
"Man, Eliiah's a big-time player," Robinson said. "One of the biggest I've seen."
"I love my big man and I love my point guard," Johnson said. "I don't want them to feel like everything is on them."
A Taylor dunk with three seconds left added cushion, especially considering that a buzzer-beating heave by Boilermakers guard Rywne Smith clanked off the backbow and nearly dropped in the hoop.
But it didn't and the layhawks, led by Johnson, followed Self's script. They may have stolen one this time around.
"Stuff like that is stuff that you got to face to win a championship," Robinson said. "Coach said that it was going to be an ugly game and that's the ugliest I've seen."
CHRIS NEAL/KANSAN
Purdue's Robbie Hummel takes a shot over the reach of Junior center Jeff Withey and junior forward Kevin Young during the first half of the NCAA Tournament
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"William Faulkner was a Sigma Alpha Epsilon (SAE) Member." What other English Literature courses and assigned novels were written by fraternity men and sorority women authors?
Which KU fraternity man was founding editor of the Book of the Month Club and ran for Kansas Governor on an Anti-Klu Kux Klan Ku Platform?
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