BOWLING: Kansas finishes second in tournament this weekend. TRACK: Sprinter Kim Clark wins 600-yard run in triangular.
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THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
COMMENTARY
Ryan Malashock rmalashock@kansan.com
Which tigers will show for rivalry?
It's assumed that motivation for a collegiate athlete, especially a Div. I basketball player, is an innate quality. No goading, begging or pleading should be necessary. Coaches demand 100 percent from their athletes, and anything less is unsatisfactory.
No one doubts the capabilities of Quin Snyder's talented squad. Kareem Rush is a national player-of-the-year candidate. The future lottery pick is built like a giraffe, but has the moves of a cheetah. Clarence Gilbert has endless range. Watch for him to deposit a few threes from somewhere around Eudora tonight. Wesley Stokes, despite the shaggy mop on his head, directs the Tiger offense with lightning speed. Rickey Paulding seemingly defies the laws of gravity. Big men Arthur Johnson and Travon Bryant got quicker and slimmer this year. Well, somewhat slim, at least.
Well, as the 15-5 Missouri basketball team has exemplified this season, that assumption is about as valid these days as a freshman's fake ID.
Snyder is attempting to control a twoheaded monster with his Tigers. Some games (like the nine contests in the Tigers' unbeaten start), Missouri's motivation was never in question. Missouri played hard day in and day out. The Tigers' No. 2 ranking was deserved.
The talent is all there. That's not a worry. It's Missouri's heart that is absent at times. Missouri has appeared unstoppable this season and has seemed downright scary at times. It's those other times where Snyder's problems begin.
Other games, the hustle wasn't there. The Tigers have looked as if they'd rather be getting teeth pulled than playing basketball. Rush wasn't hustling on defense, Gilbert jacked up treys from 25 feet out with three men in his face and Johnson couldn't even run up and down the court at full speed. The Tigers got the job done against Kansas State on Saturday, but their contentedness and lackadaisical play (as Rush put it after the game) allowed the Wildcats to remain as close as seven points with three minutes to play.
Snyder is obviously confused about how to treat his unpredictable Tigers. One day he's proudly praising a team that truly has championship potential. The next day, he's openly and immaturely scolding his players, like they're 10-year-olds, for taking dumb shots or not hustling or not playing defense or not showing up for games on the road.
His collective group of Tigers is the Randy Moss of college basketball, and the first half of the season proved it. They play when they feel like it.
Which brings us to tonight. Kansas-Missouri. The border war. The hatred. The rivalry. If there was cause for motivation, Missouri needs not look further than Kansas.
Sadly, I used to believe Missouri could enter this game on a 20-game losing streak and still compete. I used to believe the rivalry outweighed any other factor, including how the team's played leading up to the game.
This year, I'm just not convinced. The Tigers could show up motivated, and prove me to be naive. Or they could prove me right by going through the motions and leaving Lawrence with a simple double-digit defeat.
It all rests upon which head of the Tiger monster shows up tonight.
Malashock is an Omaha, Neb., junior majoring in journalism.
Kansas vs. Missouri
Game Time: 8 p.m.
Place: Allen Fieldhouse
TV: ESPN (cable channel 48)
Radio: 105.9 FM KLZR; 90.7 FM JHK; 1320 AM KLWN
FILE PHOTO
MONDAY, JANUARY 28. 2002
Gooden eager to tangle with Tigers' top player
By Doug Pacey Kansan sportswriter
Preseason polls don't carry a lot of importance with Roy Williams and Drew Gooden.
To them, the predictions released in mid-October have as much use as an air conditioner does to an Eskimo in January.
"I've never put one second of emphasis on anything termed preseason because it's all predictions," Williams said. "I don't think players look at it that much either. What they do is you get really enthused in your preseason and it's just another article."
Williams might be right. No one has ever won a ring or shiny trophy for getting a preseason award. Missouri's Kareem Rush was named the Big 12 Conference preseason Player of the Year by the coaches and media, but his name probably won't top the ballots in March.
Kirk Hinrich, junior guard, wrestles for the ball in a previous game with Missouri. The Jayhawks take on the Tigers at 8 tonight in Allen Fieldhouse.
Looking at the statistics of Big 12 players, Drew Gooden's name will probably be engraved on that trophy.
Kansas' junior forward has been the Big 12 player of the week four out of eight times,has 15 double-doubles and is first in the Conference with a 20.6 points-per-game average. Rush is having a good season, too, 19.4 points per game, but it hasn't been as eye-popping as Gooden's.
"People asked me in the beginning of the year what I thought about (Rush) being preseason player of the year," Gooden said. "I said, 'What I think is if it says preseason, you still have to play the season.'"
The Big 12's two best players will get a chance to try and one-up each other tonight when No. 2 Kansas (17-2 over
SEE BASKETBALL PAGE 8B
Kansas battles to defeat Texas A&M
By Doug Pacey
Kansan sportswriter
COLLEGE STATION, Texas Drew Gooden's jersey had some noticeable alterations after Saturday's 86-74 victory against Texas A&M. The collar, which usually lies flat against his chest and shoulders, was stretched out.
Tiny spots of blood speckled his jersey. Gooden caught an elbow in his mouth that cut the inside of his cheek.
Thirty-two minutes of pushing and shoving with the Aggies left him with a jersey that may have earned a spot in the far reaches of Kansas' equipment closet.
The Jayhawks started the second half with a 23-12 streak. Sophomore swinger Bryant Nash made back-to-back baskets, including his first career three-pointer, which gave Kansas its biggest lead of the game, 66-43.
No. 2 Kansas (17-2 overall, 6-0 Big 12 Conference) was pestered early by the Aggies (8-12 overall, 2-4 Big 12), but went on a 10-1 run over the last 3:30 in the first half on its way to a 43-31 halftime lead.
But jerseys can be replaced — that contract with Nike has got to be worth something — and a victory is a victory, especially when it comes on the road.
"（Texas A&M）just beat Texas at Texas and they made a bunch of shots against them and they make a bunch of shots against us in the second half." Williams said. "I wasn't as pleased as I'd like to be by any means with the turnovers."
Texas A&M didn't go away. It
forged an 11-2 run over a two-minute time span and closed the deficit to 76-62 before Jeff Boschee stopped the Aggies' run with his only threepointer of the game.
Contact Pacey at dpacey@kansan.com.
This story was edited by Jenna
Goepfert.
Border war extends to teams' fans
By Brent Wasko Kansan sportswriter
For some fans, the Kansas-Missouri basketball game is more than a just a rivalry — negative feelings about the opposition run deep.
"I don't like them much at all," former Jayhawk play-by-play announcer Tom Hedrick said of Missouri. "Let me just put it this way. If Missouri was playing the Russians, I'd be chanting 'Come on big red.'"
Hedrick thought it was more important to Missouri fans for their school to beat Kansas than vice versa. He said that led some Tiger fans to act inappropriately.
"I remember after a Kansas-Missouri game, my wife, who was pregnant at the time, was wearing a KU corsage," he said. "A Tiger fan that was mad about the game and had been drinking took a whisky bottle and started running after her."
Former Missouri student body president Mark Bresnahan disagreed with Hedrick. He said he rarely witnessed a Tiger fan treat a Jayhawk fan with disrespect, but Kansas fans could sometimes be vicious.
Last winter, Bresnahan sat in the Kansas student section during the contest between the two schools at Allen Fieldhouse.
"I have never been treated so bad in my life," he said. "I feared I'd receive bodily harm. People threw ice cubes at me, spit on me and ripped my shirt. The usher claimed not to see it. It was a very hostile environment."
Hutchinson junior Frank Shipley said he didn't support hostility toward Tiger fans in Allen Fieldhouse, but he understood why Bresnahan might have been harassed.
Kansas senior center Jeff Carey's father, Ray, played at Missouri from 1960-1964. He said the Kansas-Missouri rivalry had grown since he competed as a Tiger.
"We don't like them and we don't want them here," Shipley said while camping in Allen Fieldhouse for the game. "We want the Fieldhouse filled with blue shirts."
"Both schools have had more success, which has let the fans get more into it," Rav Carey said.
Kansas alumnus Tracy Taylor, a basketball season ticket holder for 17 years, said fans had more intense feelings about the rivalry the closer they lived to the Kansas City metro area.
"I didn't understand the Missouri thing when I lived in Western Kansas," Taylor said. "I grew up thinking Kansas State was our rival, but when I moved to Kansas City, I learned to dislike Missouri."
Kansas renews its rivalry with Missouri at 8 tonight at Allen Fieldhouse.
Contact Wasko at bwasko@kansan.com. This story was edited by Justin Guenley.
Senior swimmer overcomes injuries
By Ali Brox
Kansan sportswriter
Carolyn Horwitz, one of four seniors on the swimming and diving team, has had more than her share of injuries in her four-year swimming career at Kansas. But she has overcome them all and is looking to have her best season yet—as a healthy senior.
"She's had several surgeries done on her elbows," coach Cathy Burgess said. "And this is the first season where she's been able to train at full capacity."
Horwitz, from Auburn, Ind., started swimming when she was 5 years old and was swimming competitively by age 10. The mother of another swimmer on her club team had heard Kansas had a good swimming program, so Horwitz eventually made a visit to the Lawrence campus.
"I took a trip out here, and I really liked the campus" Horwitz said. "I felt they offered more than the other four
With the Kansas swimming and diving team's final home meet this Saturday at Robinson Natatorium, sportswriter Ali Brox will be profiling one of the four senior team members each day this week.
schools I visited."
Horwitz's first setback came her freshman year when she had elbow surgery. She would have elbow surgery again her junior year. Then she broke her hand.
"It's just been hard to keep in the groove of things when you're injured one month, and then you try to get back into it," Horwitz said. "I guess the thing I've had to get most used to is going from ground zero to trying to just work up."
Now Horwitz, who will graduate in May with a degree in political science, just wants to finish her swimming career at Kansas with a good senior season.
"I'm trying to swim my best times and
SEE SWIMMING ON PAGE 8B
AARON SHOWALTER/KANSAN
Carolyn Horwitz is one of four seniors on this year's swim team. Although she has been plagued by injuries throughout her career, Horwitz is ready for her senior season.
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