THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
THURSDAY, MARCH 29, 2012
PAGE 5B
NCAA AWARDS
Robinson and Davis face off
Despite the fact that the Naismith College Player of the Year Award finalist list has four basketball players on it, it is common knowledge that for most of the year, the race has really been between two men, University of Kansas forward Thomas Robinson and University of Kentucky forward Anthony Davis.
The race has been between the two for most of the season, as the other two finalists are listed as nothing more than a formality.
Despite the fact that Robinson averages more points and rebounds per game than Davis, the public opinion has been that Davis is the forerunner for the award. Part of this is because Davis has led Kentucky to a 36-2 record while Kansas has notched only 31 wins on the season.
Robinson's chances may have improved on Monday when Robinson was named a unanimous Associated Press's First Team All-American. He is the first player to do this since Oklahoma's Blake Griffin in 2009.
But Davis was close behind, being named First Team on 63 of a possible 65 ballots.
But Davis recently received some good news of his own when the Basketball Times announced Davis as its Player of the Year on Wednesday.
Statistically, both players are very similar, with each of them averaging a double-double on the season, but Robinson once again has had more this season. He set a school record with 26 double-doubles on the season, while Davis has 19.
Both players also stand 6 feet 10 inches tall. While Robinson has been the more prolific scorer, Davis has the advantage in blocks, with 4.6 per game. But Robinson had perhaps the biggest block of the Jayhawks season when he denied Missouri guard Phil Pressey and sent the game to overtime.
Robinson also has the advantage of playing in a stronger conference. The Big 12 sent six of its ten teams to the NCAA tournament while the SEC sent just four of its 12 members to the big dance.
And Robinson appeals more to the emotional side of the voters, with his improvement over last season where he came off the bench and more than doubled his minutes per game from 14.6 to 31.6. The voters heartstrings will also be tugged by the fact that he overcame the death of his grandfather, grandmother and mother in a matter of weeks the year before.
But many basketball mock drafts such as nbadraft.net and ESPN. com have Davis as the number one overall pick in the upcoming NBA draft.
The Naismith Award, given on April 1 at the Atlanta Tip-off Club along with the Wooden Award given on April 6, are the two premier player of the year awards.
The two awards typically are given to the same player, the last time they differed in 1995 when the Wooden was awarded to Ed O'Bannon of UCLA while the Naismith was awarded to Joe Smith of Maryland.
But no matter who wins the award, I'm sure the winner would prefer to be cutting down nets next Monday night in New Orleans than winning an individual award from a group of sportswriters.
- Edited by Amanda Gage
BASKETBALL
Currie begins to look for a new coach
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Kansas State University athletic director John Currie speaks to the media on Tuesday, March 27 in Manhattan. Currie denied that a rift with Frank Martin was the primary reason the popular basketball coach left for the same job at South Carolina.
John Currie knows he faces the biggest task of his professional career in replacing Frank Martin, the now-former basketball coach of Kansas State whose bigger-than-life aura and on-court success made the Wildcats relevant again.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
It's a task the third-year athletic director plans to tackle quietly.
"The opportunity that exists here is tremendous. We have the resources to enable our next coach to build a sustainable, winning basketball program," Currier said earlier this week. "We have everything a coach needs to win."
Much of that is thanks to Martin, who stepped in after Bob Huggins hastily departed for West Virginia after just one season. Martin managed to hold together a highly touted recruiting class that included Michael Beasley, and eventually reeled off five consecutive 20-win seasons.
"In terms of who is going to be
The Wildcats finished 22-11 this season, falling to Syracuse in the third round of the NCAA tournament, before Martin left this week to take over the rebuilding job at South Carolina.
The intensely guarded athletic director declined to discuss specific candidates, whether he has established his own wish list or even put a timetable on hiring the new coach.
Instead, Currie said he was looking for a man of "integrity" — and that was about it.
Currie said that he's not necessarily out to find the next Martin, who was a nondescript assistant coach before getting his shot to be the head coach at Kansas State.
"Coach Martin is a recognizable person, and he's brought tremendous recognition to Kansas State," Currie said. "And what a personality and person and coach does is they open the door and the window of the world to the institution, and that's really one of the reasons you have this intercollegiate scene. It's one of the reasons you have athletics."
considered, I don't have any predetermined parameters," Currie said. "This task will have my sole attention until it is completed."
Currie may be silent about his wish list, but the rumor mill is already churning out names.
"My policy has always been that I will only ever talk about the job I have and that is Illinois State," Jankovich told The Pantagraph of Bloomington, Ill.
Among the potential front-runners for the job is Illinois State coach Tim Jankovich, who played for the Wildcats under Jack Hartman from 1979-82 and has strong ties to the state.
He would also be familiar with rival Kansas, where he served as an assistant to Bill Self.
Jankovic has gone 104-64 in five seasons with the Redbirds, taking his team to the Missouri Valley Conference championship game three times but failing to reach the NCAA tournament. His team lost to Creighton in overtime earlier this month.
Another potential candidate is Colorado coach Tad Boyle, who
was an assistant at Tennessee while Currie worked in the athletic department. Boyle has ties to Kansas through a previous job as an assistant at Wichita State, though he appears firmly ensconced as the coach of Colorado.
Many fans have already offered their support for Oklahoma assistant Steve Henson, who grew up in McPherson, Kan, and starred for the Wildcats in the late 1980s.
Henson has called Kansas State his "dream job," and although he has no experience as a head coach, he still has quite the pedigree. He bounced around the NBA before becoming an assistant coach under Lon Kruger at Illinois. He later worked for the Atlanta Hawks and South Florida before joining Kruger at UNLV, and ultimately followed him to the Sooners last year.
Other names that have been mentioned include Wichita State coach Gregg Marshall, Xavier coach Chris Mack and former Arkansas coach John Pelphrey, now an assistant at Florida.
Associate head coach Brad Underwood could also be interviewed, even though Martin has invited his former staff to follow him to South Carolina. While he has no experience as a major college head coach, Underwood grew up in Kansas and played for the Wildcats in the mid-1980s.
"I hope that he gets serious consideration for that job," Martin said. "I don't try to help people do their jobs — it's not what I do
— but he's incredible. Brad is so ready to be a head coach it's not even funny."
Ultimately, the decision will come down to Currie, even though he acknowledged that there is a group of people close to the program he plans to consult with during the search.
Will he go with a high-profile splash such as Huggins? A relative unknown such as Martin?
Only Currie seems to know, and he's keeping quiet for now.
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"We're never going to beat coach Urban Meyer," Sullinger said. "He brought the most buzz to Columbus, Ohio, in a long time."
All-America forward Jared Sullinger knows that even during March, most Ohio State fans would rather talk about TDs than 3s.
Ohio State basketball proves it's not just a football school
In the last few months, the city has been consumed by the hiring of Urban Meyer to resurrect a program that's banned from bowl eligibility for 2012.
The basketball team is usually playing in the shadow of goal posts on the Ohio State campus, where fans love to pack the football stadium and watch the band spell out "Ohio" in script at halftime. Football is the overriding talk of the town, even when it involves the program's recent scandals.
Spring football practice began Wednesday as Ohio State's basketball team prepared for its second trip to the Final Four in the last six years.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Perfect symmetry there.
Lately, the basketball team is generating a little of its own.
The Buckeyes will play Kansas in the national semifinals on Saturday night. They won their only national basketball title in 1960, part of a run of three straight trips to the title game.
For at least one week, hoops is grabbing its share of the attention around town, even though Buckeye sports websites still count down the number of days until the annual football game against Michigan.
"The buzz we brought, being known not only as a football school but as a basketball school, is great," Sullinger said. "But at the
"Maybe during our period we elevated it a little bit, but I think everybody knows the case is that football is predominant there," former Buckeye basketball star Jerry Lucas said in a phone interview on Wednesday.
The football program brought the school notoriety last season. Coach Jim Tressel was forced out in May for lying about his players breaking NCAA rules. The team went 6-7 and dropped its last four games, including a loss to Florida in the Gator Bowl. The program was banned from a bowl in 2012.
"Obviously, there's a lot more interest at Duke in basketball," Lucas said. "Football at Duke hasn't been very successful. I think it's the fact that historically Ohio State has been very successful in football. Basketball is kind of a Johnny-come-lately."
same time, we don't want the train to stop at this particular moment. Hopefully we can keep it rolling."
The Final Four timing is perfect for a school still recovering from last fall.
It was only the football teams' second losing season since 1988. Meyer was hired in November, overshadowing the start of basketball season on campus.
No surprise. Even when the Buckeyes were on top of college basketball in the early 1960s, the basketball team still took a seat in the second row.
Lucas, a member of the Ohio State teams that won the national championship in 1960 and lost to Cincinnati in the 1961 and 1962 title games, thinks football has never loosened its grip on the campus.
It's a fact that every basketball coach has to accept.
"I've always felt we could have the best of both at Ohio State," coach Thad Matta said. "I know
Reaching another Final Four should help the program get a little bit more of its own identity.
"It kind of puts a spotlight on the program because we're the last four teams playing in the NCAA tournament," Sullinger said. "I know recruits want to win. That was the biggest thing for me.
Matta has returned the basketball program to national prominence. The Buckeyes hadn't reached the Final Four since 1999 when he took over. He led them to the Final Four in 2007, when they beat Georgetown before losing the title game to Florida.
with all the trials and tribulations that have gone on with football over the past year, I'm elated for the university probably most importantly that we've got some great things happening. With coach Meyer coming in, things are really stepping up in that regard.
"For (basketball), over the course of the last few years, this program has identified itself. I've always said this: There is no greater feeling than being on the field when 105,000 people are cheering for the Buckeyes to come out and you've got a couple recruits with you.
"That is the ultimate right there."
"For fans, hopefully people don't say we're a football school
Could Ohio State be known just as much for basketball as football?
just a football school. Now they can switch that and say we're a basketball school and a football school."
"I probably doubt that will hap pen," Sullinger said.