WOMEN'S BASKETBALL: Nikki White wins Courageous Award. SEE PAGE 3B. BOWLING: Team rolls to high ranking. SEE PAGE 3B.
TALK TO US: Contact Sarah Warren or Levi Chonister at (785) 864-4858 or sports@kansan.com
SPORTS
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THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
WWW.KANSAN.COM/SPORTS
FRIDAY, JANUARY 18, 2002
COMMENTARY
Jeff Denton sports@kansan.com
Forget UCLA, Sooners pack surprise punch
At a school where football reigns, another sport has captured the throne in the college sports kingdom.
Basketball craziness has struck Sooner country.
Oklahoma's basketball team is for real. No joke. This team is a contender. Underappreciated coach Kelvin Sampson has his players believing in his team's system and a country believing in his team's credibility.
And the way Oklahoma has climbed 20 spots to No.5 has been by mimicking its football team.
CHRIS BURKET/KANSAN
Play well on the road. Protect your home floor. Control the game with defense. Energize the game with offense. But most importantly, sprinkle knowledge on a batch of young talent and the wins come in bunches.
Thirteen in a row, to be exact.
Oklahoma is the hottest team in the country. Its lone defeat came more than two months ago against Michigan State in East Lansing, Mich., where the Spartans have won 53 of their past 54 games.
Jeff Boschee, senior guard, shoots a free throw near the end of a game. Boschee recently made his 270th three-pointer to break the all-time record at Kansas, previously held by Billy Thomas.
And Oklahoma has not just feasted on scrubs. Oklahoma shredded No. 2 Maryland at home, pounded Arkansas by 15 and clawed for a two-point victory at Connecticut.
Sure, the athletes on the court control the outcome of the game, but no coach is more instrumental to his team than Sampson is to Oklahoma.
Sampson, who kind of resembles celebrity cook Emeril Lagasse with bronzed skin, is the chef with all the right ingredients. Sampson has won at Oklahoma before — in the past two seasons, Oklahoma won the Big 12 Conference tournament once, eclipsed the 25-win mark and its 1999 squad advanced to the Sweet 16 of the NCAA tournament. But the X's and O's sage, whose teams have succeeded with defense and fundamentals, has never been stocked with this much talent.
Ebi Ere (pronounced Ebb-ee air-Rah), a junior college transfer and 6-5 swingman, owns both one of the most colorful names and one-on-one games in the Big 12. Ere relishes playing on the road. He torched Arkansas for 29 points and poured in 24 against Connecticut.
Point guard Hollis Price, a 6-foot-1 junior, is as capable taking the ball off the dribble to the basket as he is pulling up from anywhere outside the three-point arc. He looks as effortless launching threes as he does flicking foul shots.
One of the more intriguing keys to Oklahoma's success has been sophomore center Jabahri Brown. His game is unpolished, but the 6-10 transfer, whose arms are festooned with tattoos and has legs the size of his cornrows, does not just jump to get rebounds. He explodes off the floor as if it were a trampline.
Unlike Kansas teams of the recent past, this year's squad has enough punch and athleticism to tangle with any team in the country. Forget UCLA or the upcoming Border Wars with Missouri — Oklahoma will be Kansas' toughest opponent until the March Madness field has been trimmed to just the nation's elite.
But Kansas fans need to live in the present, not the future.
The team has so much depth that 6-9 post Aaron McGhee, last year's leading scorer, is the team's third option.
Appreciate the great team you follow, but cheer with a degree of humility. Don't gloat. Don't boast. Don't expect to win every game, especially tomorrow at noon.
easy game, especially toons in it.
And don't be stunned if your team falls.
Denton is a Dallas senior majoring in journalism. Contact him at sports@kansan.com
Kansas to play red-hot Sooners
By Doug Pacey Kansan sportswriter
It has been a long time since Kansas has had a stretch of games like the one that will end tomorrow.
Ranked teams like No. 11 UCLA, No.6 Oklahoma State and No.5 Oklahoma don't even come one after another in the NCAA Tournament. Well, they might if a team made it to the Final Four, but Kansas hasn't been there since 1993.
Going to Atlanta in late March is the goal of the No. 4 Jayhawks (14-2 overall, 3-0 Big 12 Conference) and playing some of the best teams in the country is one way to try to ensure a chance to play in the Georgia Dome.
"It definitely helps us keep our intensity up, keep our focus, knowing that we have high-caliber teams coming at us consistently," said freshman forward Wayne Simien. "It helps keep our guard up, keep our focus up, and I think it has done us some good."
It sure has so far. Three days after losing 87-77 to the Bruins in Los Angeles, the Jayhawks beat the Cowboys 79-61 in Stillwater, Okla. — the worst home loss of coach Eddie Sutton's 12-year career at Oklahoma State. Williams said his team learned from the mistakes it had made against UCLA and played its best game defensively this season against the Cowboys. Kansas, which leads the nation in scoring with 90.8 points per game, also showed the ability to score against a team known for its defense — the Jayhawks totaled 53 points in the first half against a team that gives up an average of 61.4 per game.
Though impressed and pleased with the Jayhawks' play Tuesday night, Williams said his team's effort wasn't the only reason for the lop-sided win.
"I'm very pleased with our play," he said. "I think a huge part of (the win) was our play, but I think the moon was right Tuesday night also. I'd like to have it right for us several other times later in the year."
Kansas better not need any astronomical help against the No. 5 Sooners on Saturday at Allen Fieldhouse because the game starts at noon, long before the sun goes down and this, along with the UCLA and Oklahoma State games, is the kind of game that
SEE BASKETBALL ON PAGE 8B
Sooners seek win at KU
No.5 Okinoma squad aims to improve a promising season against Kansas
By Brent Wasko Kansan sportswriter
This year's Oklahoma team isn't the best that Kelvin Sampson has coached.
But, as its players develop, it could be.
"We have a very strong basketball program here," Sampson said. "I'm not trying to boast, but this team is going to have to be really good to be better than some of our past teams. But this team certainly has the
The No. 5 Sooners will be able to gauge their potential tomorrow in a game with major Big 12 Conference implications in Allen Fieldhouse against No.4 Kansas.
potential to be one of our best ever."
Sampson has had good reason to boast about his team this season. Oklahoma carries the nation's second-longest winning streak, claiming 13 straight, heading into its game against the Jayhawks.
Sooner guard Ebi Ere, who has been a bright spot for the squad since transferring during the offseason from Barton County Community College in Kansas, said the team's versatility has been its strength.
"We can play both styles of basketball," Ere said. "We can play inside and play outside. We can speed it up or we can slow it down."
Ere, who was named the Foxsports.com National Player of the Week last week, is one of five former
SEE SOONERS ON PAGE 8B
Nine Kansas teams earn high GPAs
By Ali Brox
Kansan sportswriter
Nine of Kansas' 16 sports teams finished the Fall 2001 semester with grade point averages better than 3.0, led by the women's cross-country team.
The runners earned a 3.57 GPA, the highest team mark in the Athletics Department's history.The previous high was a 3.41 by the women's golf team.
"What the women's crosscountry team did was outstanding, incredibly outstanding," said Paul Buskirk, associate athletics director.
Swimming and diving coach Cathy Burgess was pleased by her team's high academic performance.
Athletes' GPAs
GPAs
Nine of Kansas’ 16 sports teams completed the fall semester with GPAs better than 3.0. With the exception of men’s cross country, all of the teams were women.
■ Women’s cross country: 3.57
■ Swimming and diving: 3.24
■ Track and field: 3.21
■ Tennis: 3.20
■ Softball: 3.13
■ Men’s cross country: 3.11
■ Rowing: 3.07
■ Soccer: 3.06
■ Women’s golf: 3.05
"This is a highlight," Burgess said. "This semester was really good."
The combined GPA for all student-athletes was 2.83 and 29 athletes earned a 4.0 GPA. Forty-seven percent (207) of student-athletes were named Jayhawk Scholars for the fall semester, an honor given to students who earn a GPA of 3.0 or better.
Student-athletes who have completed their athletic eligibility and those athletes who are under medical hardship are not counted as part of the percentage because those athletes do not face the same time constraints as competing student-athletes.
"Almost 50 percent of our student-athletes achieving a 3.0 or better is very impressive."Buskirk said.
The Jayhawk Scholars and the women's cross-country team will be honored during halftime of the Feb. 18 men's basketball game.
"It's a fun opportunity for the student-athletes to be paraded out in front of the crowd," Buskirk said. "We can show there's more to the department than just rowing, basketball, football and softball. There are a lot of student-athletes who are working very hard in the classroom in addition to the practice field."
Along with the women's cross-country team, the women's golf (3.05), rowing (3.07), softball (3.13), soccer (3.06), swimming and diving (3.24), tennis (3.20), and track and field (3.21) teams had averages higher than 3.0. The lone men's team to average better than 3.0 was the men's cross-country team (3.11).
Contact Brox at 864-4858 or abrox@kansan.com. This story was edited by Brandon Stinnett.
Women to try for first Conference win
Kansas hopes to husk Nebraska at home in weekend game
By Jessica Scott Kansan sportswriter
In a league sprinkled with seven nationally-ranked teams, the Jayhawks face no easy matchup in Big 12 Conference play. Luckily for coach Marian Washington and her squad, tonight's meeting with Nebraska (11-7, 1-4 in Big 12 Conference Play) may offer a seldom-seen opportunity for success.
The Cornhuskers sit one spot above Kansas at the bottom of the Big 12
standings. Nebraska's one conference win this season came at the expense of a talented Iowa State team (14-3). The Jayhawks hope to stop the Cornhusker duo of Keasha Cannon, the Big 12 Newcomer of the Year, and preseason Freshman of the Year Katie Robinette.
"We have to look at the fact that we're underdogs, and we have nothing to lose," senior center Kristin Geoffroy said. "Really they don't expect anything out of us so it's wide open what could happen."
Currently the Jayhawks hold the only overall losing record in the league and remain the sole team in the Big 12 without a conference win. The top three teams in the league — Kansas State, Texas and Oklahoma — are all
"We have to look at the fact that we're underdogs and we have nothing to lose."
Kristin Geoffroy senior center
ranked in the top 25, and the Jayhawks have yet to face any of them.
"we're going to try to do our best out there every single game and hopefully we'll get a couple of games in here that might help them feel a lot better about
SEE WOMEN PAGE 4B
CHRISTINA NEEF/KANSAN
Senior center Kristin Geoffroy tries to get past a Colorado defender. The Jayhawks return to action tomorrow night.
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