8B = THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
SPORTS
TUESDAY,FEBRUARY 11,2003
Courtney Kuhlen/Kansan
Baylor will look to contain junior forward Bryant Nash when they take on the Jayhawks tonight in Waco, Texas. Despite preseason hopes, Baylor currently resides in last place in the Big 12 Conference with a 1-7 record.
Hawks
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1B
"You can't just talk about something that three out of your 13 players remember anything about at all." Williams said at a teleconference yesterday. "We won't spend very much time on it, and at the same time, I'll probably mention it in passing. But if I have to go back to that stage just to get something accomplished with the team, I'm worried about this team."
ence's Player of the Week.
Lately, Williams hasn't had to worry about senior guard Kirk Hinrich. The preseason All-American added another award to his resume when Big 12 officials named him the confer-
"I'm really happy for him," Williams said. "He's had two or three games this year that have not been typical Kirk Hinrich games, and people have tended to focus on that, but he's having a great, great year for us."
Hinrich scored 24 points against Missouri and 28 against K-State last week, shooting a combined 72.4 percent from the field and 54.5 percent from three-point range in the games.
If his statistics weren't warning enough, he sent a verbal message to Baylor and the rest of the league just moments after helping Kansas win its 25th straight game against K-State.
Hinrich was named the best player in the Big 12 one week after senior forward Nick Collison accepted the award.
"We're about keeping our Big 12 streak going," Hinrich said.
Kansas has won three consecutive games and 23 of its last 24.
Along with junior forward Bryant Nash, Hinrich and Collison are the Jajhwaws returning to play in the Bears' Ferrel Center.
It would be difficult for Hinrich to improve on his performance in the teams' last meeting in Waco. He scored 26 points on 8-of-13 shooting, sharing high-scorer honors with former Jaya-hawk forward Eric Chenowith. Collison scored 15 points and grabbed 9 rebounds, while Nash recorded 2 points in 10 minutes.
Edited by Jason Elliott
UConn tops women's poll
The top 10 is becoming tough to crack in women's basketball.
The Associated Press
Connecticut remained a unanimous choice at No.1 and the teams in the first 11 spots stayed the same for the third straight week Monday in The Associated Press poll.
Two newcomers broke in further down the list, Rutgers at No. 23 and Arizona at No. 24. Oklahoma dropped out to end a string of 58 straight appearances in the poll.
to 61, the second longest in NCAA basketball history.
Connecticut (22-0) received all 44 first-place votes from a national media panel and had 1,100 points after beating St. John's and Boston College to run its winning streak
The Huskies replaced Duke as the No.1 team last week after beating the Blue Devils in Durham, N.C. Duke (21-1) bounced back from its loss to beat Clemson 61-49 and remained second with 1.041 points.
Tennessee held at No. 3 and was followed by LSU, Kansas State, Stanford, Texas Tech and North Carolina. The only change in that group was Texas Tech alone in seventh after being tied with North Carolina last week.
No. 9 Purdue and No. 10 Louisiana Tech traded places, and Texas was 11th for the third straight week.
The top 11 teams went 18-0 last
week, with only five of those games decided by fewer than 10 points. LSU defeated two ranked teams, then-No. 16 South Carolina and then-No. 12 Mississippi State.
Connecticut had a tough game before pulling out an 83-75 victory at Boston College, ranked 23rd at the time.
No.12 Penn State and No.13 Arkansas each moved up one spot, while Georgia jumped three places to 14th. South Carolina climbed one place to 15th and was followed by Mississippi State, Minnesota, Vanderbilt, Villanova and Cal Santa Barbara.
Wisconsin-Green Bay, Ohio State, Rutgers, Arizona and Boston College held the final five places.
Men's conference title race heated during mid-season
The Associated Press
DALLAS — The Big 12 men's basketball season has reached the midpoint, and the only thing settled is that it's going to be a heck of a race to sort out the top seeds in the conference tournament.
Oklahoma, Oklahoma State and Kansas all came out of the first eight games with one loss. Texas had only lost twice, yet is No.6 in the country, second-best among Big 12 teams.
"A lot of times in years past, there's been one team that has sort of separated themselves," Kansas coach Roy Williams said Monday in a weekly conference call with reporters. "Right now, no one has."
The second half tipped off in style last night with the two highest-ranked teams — No. 5 Oklahoma and No. 6 Texas — meeting in Austin.
The Sooners, Longhorns,
Cowboys and Jayhawks are still
good bets to finish in the top four
when the season ends March 9.
Doing so means a first-round bye
in the conference tournament.
others once. The Longhorns have the two against the Sooners and Oklahoma State once.
What remains to be determined is what order they'll be in.
Looking at the head-to-head schedule for those four teams, Oklahoma has the toughest road and Kansas the easiest.
The No. 13 Cowboys play OU, UT and Kansas once, plus have a game in Boulder, where Colorado has knocked off Texas and Kansas.
Counting last night's game, the Sooners must play four of their last eight against its top challengers — Texas twice and the
The No. 9 Jayhawks play at Oklahoma and are at home against Oklahoma State.
Williams compares these final nine games to the final nine holes of the Masters.
"That's where the tournament is won and lost," he said.
For the league's second tier, the closing stretch is a chance to impress the NCAA tournament's selection committee. The Big 12 has had six teams make it the last three years.
"I think for sure six teams will and should get NCAA bids," said Colorado coach Ricardo Patton. "There's seven quality teams in this league that all could get in."
The Big 12 is third in RPI ratings, which could help the chances of a seventh team getting invited. The league's ranking was boosted by going 112-31 in non-conference play. The 78.3 winning percentage is tops in the Big 12's seven-year history, and the 112 wins tied the mark set last season.
"In this league, you can be improved and not show any gain up the ladder. As a matter of fact, you can improve and slide back one," Sooners coach Kelvin
Sampson said.
The middle section of the standings are stacked with No. 21 Missouri (5-3 in Big 12), Colorado (4-4), Texas Tech (3-5) and Texas A&M (3-5).
"There's always room for improvement. I never seen a perfect player or a perfect team." Red Raiders coach Bob Knight said, "I'd like us to average 150 points a game, and we're not quite doing that right now."
Missouri has had to juggle to replace some key players. Coach Quin Snyder said 6-foot-10 reserve Jeffrey Ferguson is expected to return Wednesday night against the Aggies. He's missed three games because of a disciplinary suspension.
The Bucks have won every home game and lost every road game. A loss to Nebraska, which hasn't beaten anyone else in the Big 12, looks even worse considering Colorado is talented enough to have beaten Texas and Kansas.
A&M is buoyed by senior Bernard King, who on Saturday became the leading scorer in conference history, and Antoine Wright, who yesterday was named the league's newcomer of the week for the fourth time.
"In past years, it seemed like our season was over at this point," Aggies coach Melvin Watkins said. "Now it feels like we're in the hunt. There's light at the end of the tunnel, and the kids see that."
Senate bill to review paying college athletes for playing
The Associated Press
LINCOLN, Neb. - It doesn't matter that the team just completed its worst season in 40 years. One state senator still believes University of Nebraska football players deserve to be paid for their efforts.
At the absolute least. NCAA rules prohibiting compensation for college football players should be less restrictive and
unreasonable, Omaha Sen. Ernie Chambers said yesterday while presenting his idea to other lawmakers in legislative session.
Chambers has introduced a bill (LB688) that would require football players to be paid a stipend if at least three other states in the Big 12 Conference pass similar laws for athlete students.
Chambers said he introduced
the proposal to lawmakers to put pressure on the NCAA to liberalize its rules governing financial assistance to college players.
"It will be a powerful message to the NCAA that legislators are looking at this issue," Chambers said at his hearing before the Business and Labor Committee.
The NCAA had not seen the bill and therefore had no immediate comment, said Monica Lunderman, an NCAA spokeswoman at the organization's Indianapolis headquarters.
Chambers said college players worked harder than professional athletes, and brought in millions of dollars to the university through the sport they played, yet they did not get a share of the money.
In the last 10 years, the Nebraska football program has gen-
"This is not a game. This is not an extracurricular activity. This is a big, cutthroat business,"
"This is not a game.
Ernie Chambers
Omaha Senators
erated $155 million while just $14 million in scholarships has
No one else testified in support of the bill, and there was no opposition.
"This is not a game. This is not an extracurricular activity. This is big, cutthroat business," he said.
University of Nebraska-Lincoln Chancellor Harvey Perlman, along with an athletic department student services director, was neutral on the proposal.
call 864-4358 or stop by Wescoe Beach or 4th floor,KS Union b.11&12 between 11am-3pm
been handed out, Chambers said.
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