Thursday
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY
BB = THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 2003
SPORTS
Buffaloes need to take home with them
By John Domoney
jdomoney@kansan.com
Kansan sport/switer
Ricardo Patton is aware that the Coors Event Center is gaining a reputation for being one of the more difficult arenas to win in around the Big 12 Conference.
Whether it is the altitude, or the Buffaloes' aggressive play in front of their home fans, Colorado has a 12-1 record at home this season including victories over No. 6 Kansas and No. 3 Texas.
Colorado's road trips have been another story.
"I think the only thing I can come up with is we're not mature enough to realize how hard it is to play and win on the road," said Patton, Colorado men's basketball coach, during Monday's Big
12 teleconference.
The Buffaloos have won only three games away from Boulder this season and none of those victories have come in the Big 12. Colorado is 0-5 on the road this season in the conference.
When Patton leads his team onto the floor at 6:30 tonight in Allen Fieldhouse, he expects the partisan Jayhawk contingent of fans to make for a hostile atmosphere.
"There will be 16,000 screaming fans," Patton said. "For whatever reason that environment has always been hostile towards us. I don't expect anything to be different, so it won't be anything new to us."
The only new aspect to tonight's match-up is the motivation that Kansas is sure to contain as the Jayhawks will be looking to avenge their only conference loss. Colo-
"I think the only thing I can come up with is we're not mature enough to realize how hard it is to play and win on the road."
Ricardo Patton
Colorado basketball coach
radio defeated the Jayhawks for the first time since 1991 with a 60-59 victory in Boulder on Jan. 22
Kansas was without sophomore forward Wayne Simien in the first match-up that featured a 27-point outburst by Colorado forward Stephane Pelle.
matter how many minutes he would blay.
Patton said he expected Simien to play a major role in the game no
"I think we can still get the ball inside," said Patton referring to his two post players, Harrison and Pelle. "The difference now is Simien is a better offensive player than Graves."
Despite the added concern of Patton pertaining to the return of Simien to the Jayhawk lineup, Patton said he was working the hardest to help his team make a run at the NCAA tournament.
After tonight's game, Colorado has five remaining home games, with three of the five games scheduled for the Coors Events Center.
Colorado plays its final home game against Nebraska on March 8. The game follows home contests with Missouri and Oklahoma State.
The road contests come against Iowa State and Baylor Both the Cyclones and the Bears are wallowing at the bottom of the conference standings.
With victories at home against Texas and Kansas, and possibly a couple of more home victories against Oklahoma State and Missouri. Colorado would figure to have quality victories that the NCAA selection committee likes to see.
Still, the question about Colorado's capabilities on the road remains.
"We've just got to keep playing good basketball," Patton said. "And find a way to play better on the road. We've had our chances, but we haven't gotten over the hump."
Fric Rraem/Kansan
Edited by Jason Elliott
Colorado coach Ricardo Patton said he expected Kansas sophomore forward Wayne Siemi to be a major factor in the Jayhawks' match-up with the Buffaloes at 6:30 p.m. Siemi, who had 7 points and seven rebounds in 18 minutes against Iowa State Sunday, will return to Allen Fieldhouse tonight for his second game since an 11-game absence.
Lil' Bro
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1B
measured" he proudly states, while standing over some of the shorter female Phanatics.
The differences quickly develop when one takes a closer look at Michael.
He's already got a basketball frame like his brother and the unmistakable freckles to match.
His white Kansas home jersey — the staple outfit in his game-day wardrobe proudly promotes his brother's No. 4 and their last name.
The bond between the two is not just of blood, there's of course—basketball.
But basketball didn't always mean so much to the Riverbend Middle schooler, who has a speciality for social studies but not science.
In fact, just two years ago as a fourth-grader, he didn't understand what the big deal was with his big bro.
"I think people put a lot of pressure on him," Nick said. "Here's this 9-year-old kid, and everyone's always coming up to him and asking if he's going to be as good as his older brother. I think it kind of turned him off."
But basketball and being a Collision inevitably collided.
"We never tried to put pressure on any of our kids to play the sport," said dad Dave Collison, who guided Nick through his All-American career at Iowa Falls High School and currently coaches Michael's sixth-grade team, the Cadets. "But Michael, like Nick and our daughter, Katie, has developed a love for basketball.
"Once you have that love, everything else starts from there."
And make no mistake.
Michael wants to play the game,
maybe even as a Jayhawk.
"But if North Carolina calls, I'll have to listen to them," Michael says with a grin.
He wants to be an inch taller than Nick, and he already has a
bet with a classmate that if he doesn't have a shoe contract within his fifth year of the NBA, he owes him 500 bucks.
But as childishly normal as Michael sounds one moment, he'll spit out sentences that would astonish any college grad the next.
"I'm really fortunate to be able to meet some of the players that made all the tradition here possible," he said. "Men here today like Milt Newton and Rex Walters helped build the foundation of this program for players like my brother."
Being the brother of Nick Collison has its perks.
Michael has traveled all around America with his All-American sibling.
Hawaii and New York offered him trips of a lifetime.
But he feels best when he and his brother are at home in Iowa Falls during school breaks.
They have practiced countless hours at the same gym were Nick polished his low-post maneuvers.
"He'll show me some of his moves, and then I'll go out and try them." Michael said. "He's really taught me a lot about the game."
Yet the game, their mother Judy says, has taught the two more than both might understand right now.
"Basketball has really brought them close together," she says with a smile. "Nick and Katie were always close because of their ages, but it's been different with Michael because he's younger."
"Basketball has been really special the last couple of years, in bringing both of them together."
Nick said he pondered the possibility of having had a childhood like Michael's.
"I was such a basketball junkie that I would have loved getting to go all the games like he does," Nick said, with the same sheepish grin as Michael's. "And I think he realizes how awesome it is."
Maybe, in another decade, Fieldhouse fans will watch another Collison control the
Jenen McDermott/Kansan
Michael Collison, senior forward Nick Collison's younger brother, waves the wheat during his big brother's basketball game against Iowa State on Sunday. "Everyone always says I must be the luckiest kid in the world to be able to come here and watch all of this," he said.
court at Kansas, Until then. Michael is happy just being a kid.
"It's so cool," he says with a grin, hopping to his feet as he waves the wheat with 16,299 fans who can
only wonder what a childhood as cool as his could be like.
■ Samuelson is a Wichita senior in journalism.
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