TUESDAY, MARCH 4.20 There are 52 Mondays in a year.I imagine you're you're pretty used to Monday.It comes after Sunday every week."
Texas Tech coach Bob Knight on whether Big Monday games are a big deal
2B = THEUNIVERSITYDAILYKANSAN
Inside Sports
Joey Berlin
jberlin@kansan.com
Simien pushed too hard to get back in game
"I think he was thinking about the team when he made the decision to try to play," Williams said in a press conference last week.
After Simien was first injured in a game against University of Missouri—Kansas City on Jan. 4, Williams, Simien and the Kansas staff seemed to be treating the injury with the care it deserved. Simien rested, took a few practice shots before each game and did some hard grimacing. On Feb. 3, Williams released a statement saying, "When Wayne feels comfortable and the doctors feel comfortable, Wayne will begin playing again."
Considerate of him, but the team didn't need Simien's help yet. The Jayhawks had gone 9-2 in his absence, and one of those losses was against topranked Arizona. His first two games back, wins over Iowa State and Colorado, would have been wins without him.
But in returning to action Feb. 16, Simien may have decided to feel comfortable a little earlier than he should have.
You could try to blame Roy Williams for Wayne Simien's season-ending shoulder injury. Or you could try to blame Simien by claiming he must have been disguising how much his separated shoulder was bothering him. But most likely, theae both to
But most likely, they're both to blame.
Simien followed a gritty 22-point, 13-rebound performance against Colorado by telling reporters it felt like someone had stack a fork in his shoulder. That should have been Williams' cue to shut him down again for awhile; if not permanently.
But he didn't, even though the regular season is almost over. They were getting through their Big 12 schedule just fine, without Simien, but having him back for the NCAA Tournament would have made a second-straight Final Four appearance a lot easier to achieve.
Kansas' 79-61 thrashing of Oklahoma State on Saturday should have told Williams all he needed to know about what his team can do to Big 12 competition without Simien — and it should have told Simien that he didn't do his team any favors by coming back prematurely.
With a healthy Simien, the Jayhawks are a beast to deal with, easily one of the top Five teams in the country. But there's no evidence that playing with an injured Simien made Kansas any better, and it sure made Simien a lot worse.
Berlin is a Leawood senior in journalism
Juniors Johnson, Paulding pledge to return as seniors despite NBA draft hype
The Associated Press
KANSAS CITY, Mo. Two of Missouri's top players say they plan to return to school for their senior seasons to play for the Tigers.
Arthur Johnson has drawn attention after leading the Big 12 with 15 double-doubles this season, while Rickey Paulding has been projected as a first-round NBA draft pick.
"I'm coming back," Paulding said Saturday after Missouri's 77-70 victory at
Johnson said he also would stay in college.
Kansas State.
"I promise," he said.
Paulding leads
Missouri in scoring with 16:9 points a game and has developed into a prime defender. Johnson, already Missouri's career leader in blocked shots, is averaging 16.2 points and 9.5 rebounds a game.
"They're progressed," said former Atlanta Hawks coach Lon Kruger, who attended Saturday's game. "But they're going to make that same progression next year. Even more so, because they understand more clearly how important the
work is in the offseason. They'll be better because of it. Missouri's program will be better."
In recent years, Missouri has had other players leave early for the NBA with mixed results. Albert White left after his junior year in 1999; Keyon Dooling left after his sophomore year in 2000 and Kareem Rush left after his junior year last season.
White was not drafted and is playing in the lower levels of the pro game. Dooling, the 10th pick of the 2000 draft by the Orlando Magic, is a reserve with the Los Angeles Clippers. Rush, the 20th pick of the 2002 draft by the Toronto Raptors, is a reserve with the Los Angeles Lakers.
Kansas moves to No.6 from No.7 in AP poll
The Associated Press
Kansas moved up from seventh to sixth, and Arizona and Kentucky held the first two spots in The Associated Press college basketball poll for a third straight week yesterday.
Arizona widened its lead over its fellow Wildcats from last week by one first-place vote.
Arizona (23-2) won its 10th Pac-10 regular-season title in coach Lute Olson's 20 seasons after last week's sweep of a Bay area road trip. The Wildcats are the third team to go unbeaten on the road in the conference since the league expanded to 10 teams in 1978-79. The victories at California and Stanford extended Arizona's winning streak to eight games.
Arizona received 59 first-place votes and 1,787 points from the national media panel. Kentucky had 13 first-place votes and 1,737 points.
Kentucky (24-3) ran the nation's longest winning streak to 18 games with victories over Tennessee and Georgia. The Wildcats can wrap up an undefeated Southeastern Conference season by beating Vanderbilt and Florida.
The Gators, who host Kentucky on Sunday, and Texas each moved up one place to third and fourth. Oklahoma, which lost at Missouri
last week, dropped from third to fifth.
Kansas moved from seventh to No. 6 — making it three Big 12 schools in a row in the rankings — and was followed by Pittsburgh, Marquette, Wake Forest and Duke.
The Blue Devils' 72-71 loss at St. John's on Sunday dropped them from sixth to No. 10, their lowest ranking of the season. They remained one of five teams to be in the Top 10 all season along with Arizona, Oklahoma, Texas and Pittsburgh.
Xavier, which has won 13 consecutive games, was No.11 and was followed by Syracuse, Maryland, Illinois Louisville, Notre Dame, Stanford Memphis, Creighton and Oklahoma State.
The last five ranked teams were Dayton, California, Mississippi State, Wisconsin and Georgia.
Wisconsin (21-6) moved into the poll for the first time since being ranked 23rd and 22nd for consecutive weeks in November. The Badgers have won three straight, including road victories over Michigan and Minnesota last week, and 11 of 13 overall. Wisconsin hosts Illinois on Wednesday and a victory would give the Badgers the Big Ten title.
Utah (21-5) dropped out from 22nd after beating Brigham Young 71-64 last Monday in a matchup of the top two teams in the Mountain West Conference, then losing 76-69 at New Mexico on Sunday.
APTOP25
The top 25 teams in The Associated Press' men's basketball poll, with first-place votes in parentheses, records through yesterday, total points based on 25 points for a first-place vote through one point for a 25th-place vote, and previous ranking:
| team | rec | pts | pvs |
| :--- | :--- | :--- | :--- |
| 1. Arizona (59) | 23-2 | 1,787 | 1 |
| 2. Kentucky (13) | 24-3 | 1,737 | 2 |
| 3. Florida | 24-4 | 1,633 | 4 |
| 4. Texas | 20-5 | 1,528 | 5 |
| 5. Oklahoma | 20-5 | 1,466 | 3 |
| 6. Kansas | 22-6 | 1,453 | 7 |
| 7. Pittsburgh | 21-4 | 1,382 | 8 |
| 8. Marquette | 22-4 | 1,271 | 10 |
| 9. Wake Forest | 21-4 | 1,135 | 12 |
| 10. Duke | 20-5 | 1,116 | 6 |
| 11. Xavier | 22-4 | 1,083 | 13 |
| 12. Syracuse | 21-4 | 996 | 15 |
| 13. Maryland | 19-7 | 943 | 14 |
| 14. Illinois | 20-5 | 864 | 18 |
| 15. Louisville | 20-5 | 772 | 11 |
| 16. Notre Dame | 21-7 | 689 | 9 |
| 17. Stanford | 22-7 | 537 | 19 |
| 18. Memphis | 20-5 | 461 | 24 |
| 19. Creighton | 25-4 | 438 | 23 |
| 20. Oklahoma St. | 20-7 | 344 | 16 |
| 21. Dayton | 21-5 | 297 | 25 |
| 22. California | 20-6 | 240 | 23 |
| 23. Mississippi St. | 18-7 | 206 | 20 |
| 24. Wisconsin | 21-6 | 204 | — |
| 25. Georgia | 17-8 | 198 | 21 |
Others receiving votes: Saint Joseph's 134, Udah 118,
Connecticut 113, Missouri 98, S. Illinois 58, Butter 50,
Walter St. 10, Boston College 6, Bonzage 5, Oregon 6,
Purdue 7, Troy St. 3, Pinn 2, BYU 1, Holy Cross 1, N.C.
Wilmington 1, Hallen Sat. 1
Memphis beat Texas Christian University and Cincinnati last week, and the Tigers' jump from No. 24 to No.18 was the week's biggest.The biggest fall was Notre Dame's drop from No.9 to No.16. The Fighting Irish lost at home to Connecticut and at Rutgers.
Kansas Athletics Calendar
Baseball at Creighton, Omaha, Neb., 2:30 p.m.
TOMMOROW
TODAY
Baseball vs. Western Michigan, Hoglund Ballpark, 3 p.m.
Women's basketball vs. Iowa State, Allen Fieldhouse, 7:05 p.m.
FRIDAY
Baseball vs. Western Michigan, Hoglund Ballpark, 3 p.m.
Baseball vs. Western Michigan, Hoglund Ballpark, 1 p.m.
SATURDAY
THURSDAY
Tennis vs Nebraska, Kansas City Racquet
Club, Mission, 4.p.m.
SUNDAY
Iowa
men's basketball at Missouri, Columbia, Mo. 1 n.m.
Track at the Iowa State Invitational, Armes.
Baseball vs. Western Michigan, Hoglund Ballpark 1 p.m.
TUESDAY, MARCH 4, 2003
LAST WEEK'S POLL RESULTS
Which Big 12 Conference player do you think is most likely to win the Wooden Award?
280 votes were cast
Andre Emmett, Texas Tech two votes for 1 percent
T. J. Ford, Texas --- 26 votes for 9 per cent
Nick Collison, Kansas — 119 votes for 42 percent
Kirk Hinrich, Kansas --- 83 votes for 30 percent
POLI
Hollis Price, Oklahoma — 50 votes for 18 percent
Where will the
kansan.com Kansas men's basketball team be seeded in the NCAA tournament bracket?
- One seed
- Two seed
- Three seed
- Four seed
- Five seed or lower
Log on to www.kansan.com to cast your vote
B
KANSAS GOLI
Women take ninth out of 20. Pryor the only 'Hawk in top 15
The women's golf team finished ninth, out of 20 teams, at the Edwin Watts - Carolinas Classic, scoring 338 in the final round and compiling a final score of 970. East Carolina won the tournament with a team total of 920.
Freshman Chelsey Pryor shot a final round 79, which gave her a total of 233. Pryor, the only Jayhawk in the top 15, tied for 13th place.
Junior Jennifer Bawanan, who won the last tournament the team entered, struggled with a final round 87 and logged a total of 246. She tied for 46th place.
The team will travel to Coto de Caza, Calif., next Monday and Tuesday for the University of California-Irvine Anteater Invitational.
Paul Kramer
Roy, I really liked the bow tie you were wearing on Saturday but was anyone else reminded of Orville Redenbacher?
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I just wanted to call and say that Ryan Wood's article on Title IX was one of the few articles I've read in the UDK in the last couple of years that was balanced, informed and fair to both men and women. Good job, Ryan.
ECUMENICAL ASH WEDNESDAY SERVICES
March 5 in the Danforth Chapel on the KU Campus
7:30 AM
12:30PM
11:30AM
4:30 PM
Imposition of ashes will be offered, but if you have never been to an Ash Wednesday service before, you are welcome to come and observe.
Sponsored by: Canterbury House (Episcopal).
Sponsored by: Canterbury House (Episcopal), Ecumenical Christian Ministries, Lutheran Campus Ministry, St. John's Catholic Apostle and United Methodist Campus Ministry.
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