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ports THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
KANSAS
24
BASKETBALL ROUNDUP AND POWER RANKINGS
THURSDAY, JANUARY 22, 2009
WWW.KANSAN.COM
Big 12 men's basketball notes, news and opinion. BIG 12 BASKETBALL I 9A
KANSAS FALLS TO 1-3 IN CONFERENCE PLAY
Big 12 road woes still plague the Jayhawks. WOMEN'S BASKETBALL I 10A
A RISING LEADER
PAGE 12A
Junior Guard Mario Little, since returning from a leg injury, has been leading with toughness on the court. Little scored a career-high 15 points in 14 minutes of playing time in Monday's game against Texas A&M
Jon Goering/KANSAN
Mr. Optimism is all smiles
Back from injury, guard Mario Little has brought his grin and some toughness to Kansas
BY CASE KEEFER ckeefer@kansan.com
No one disputes that junior guard Sherron Collins and sophomore center Cole Aldrich are Kansas' leaders.
But ask Aldrich - or any of his teammates - who holds the
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There's a lull in between games, which means it's a perfect time to catch up on Kansan.com/exclusivemen's basketball content. Check out "Double Overtime" on "Blog" Allen and re-listen to your favorite episodes of The Jay Report.
Jayhawks together when they're slogging through practice or fighting through an error-filled stretch in a game and they'll give another name: junior guard Mario Little.
"When you're going through tough times, you often look at 'Rio and he's always smiling.' Aldrich said. "I don't quite know why it is, but he's always smiling and he has a great smile."
Despite missing the first 12 games of the season with a stress fracture in his lower left leg and a broken left hand, Little never showed his disappointment to teammates. Instead, he encouraged them with his optimism.
Little says that's simply who he is. That's how his grandmother, Hazel Little, taught him to be.
"She told me, "There's always a better side," Little said. "Everything happens for a reason."
If Aldrich is fond of Mario's smile, he should see how much Mario beams when talking about Hazel. Little uses phrases like "my favorite" and "my heart" to describe his relationship with the 84-year-old who helped raise him in Chicago.
It hasn't been as easy, however, for 'Rio - as his teammates call him - to think about Hazel later. For the last two weeks, she's been battling internal bleeding and spending time in hospital surgery rooms.
"It has been tough," Little said. "I just don't think about it a lot. I just try to think about basketball – the reason why I'm here."
Mario won't say dealing with injuries and his grandmother's illness simultaneously has been easy, but his teammates haven't seen anything that suggests otherwise.
If Mario needed it, he could
seek attention from his teammates the way they look toward him on the court. But Mario is complex.
He comforts those around him, but doesn't need to be comforted himself.
"He's always joking," Collins said. "He's still joking now so we can't tell if he's hurting or not."
Collins could probably tell Mario wasn't hurting Monday night after Kansas' 73-53 victory against Texas A&M. Little scored a career-high 15 points on 6-for-6 shooting in only 14 minutes of playing time.
Although his leg is still not 100 percent healed and he's still not as fast as he can be. Little said his performance gave Kansas fans a glimpse of what he could do the rest of the season.
One of his utmost strengths is versatility. Because Mario is 6-foot-5 and an effective rebounder, Self
can sub him in as either a guard or post player. His uniqueness as a player mirrors his personality.
"I think he has a presence about him that no one else on our team has other than Sherron," Self said. "He believes he belongs. He has a toughness and a presence that elevates our manliness as a group."
Mario had another reason to be happy the day before the game against the Aggies. It was Hazel's 8th birthday and Mario talked to her on the phone.
"We weren't talking about basketball," Mario said. "We were just talking about what she was doing. I just asked her if she was enjoying herself."
If Mario's recovery and play continues to progress, he's certainly going to be enjoying himself. So will his teammates.
-Edited by Grant Treaster
WOMEN'S BASKETBALL
Lackadaisical second half frustrates Jayhawks
BY JAYSON JENKS jjenks@kansan.com
Kansas' turnover troubles thwart Danielle McCray's career night
edly about playing a complete game, not just a good half. Last year those inconsistency cost the Jayhawks multiple victories in the Big 12.
On Wednesday night, against a Nebraska team that was 0-3 in conference play, Kansas' problems returned. After pinning
Before the season started, coach Bonnie Henrickson and her players spoke repeat-
"I thought we did some really good things in the first half. And then to just come out in the second half and not execute on either end..."
After piecing together a solid first half, the lajhwacks let another quality chance at a victory slip away, losing 67-58 to the Cornhuskers in Lincoln, Neb.
"I thought we imploded a little bit," Hendrickson said.
seconds into the second half put Kansas up three, something happened. The Jayhawks quit scoring inside. They started turning the ball over more. And, more importantly, they allowed too many easy baskets.
It sure seemed that way.
After holding a lead at halftime, and after junior guard LaChelda Jacobs' layup 17 seconds into the
The Cornhuskers began the second half on a 15-3 run.
and all but three of those paints came in or near the paint.
"I thought we did some really good things in the first half," Henrickson said. "And then to just
come out in the second half and not execute on either end."
Playing without their second leading scorer, junior guard Sade Morris, the Jayhawks made their intent on offense well known early: work the ball inside. For three games, Henrickson had stressed the importance of consistent post play, and also the need for successful entry passes from the guards.
Henrickson didn't finish her thought, but the sentiment was easily understood. This loss was disappointing, especially considering the way Kansas played in the first half.
Both happened against Nebraska in the first 20 minutes. Primarily operating through sophomore center Krysten Boogaard and junior
SEE WOMEN'S BASKETBALL ON PAGE 108
sarah Liewald/DAILY NEBRASKAN
ON PAGE 10B
Junior forward guards Nebraska guard Kala Kuhmman during Kansas' 67-58 loss in Lincoln, McCray scored a career-high 30 points but Kansas failed to pick up its second conference victory.
COMMENTARY
Book out on rising fight club
BY STEPHEN MONTEAYOP
montemayet@kansan.com
On the new release shelf at a downtown bookstore sits the year's finest sports read thus far — a seminal one at that.
See, every major sport has a library of timeless books dedicated to it. Those whod no sooner pick up a book than a Tijuana hooker read George Plimpton's "Paper Lion" in the 1960s and beyond. John Feinstein's "A Season on the Brink" was among the earliest accounts of Bob Knight's spirited coaching techniques. The Library of Congress likely couldn't hold the glut of tomes dedicated to baseball.
And so it's fitting that L. Jon Wertheim's "Blood in the Cage: Mixed Martial Arts, Pat Mletich, and the.Furious Rise of the UFC" was released last week in the heart of a decade that has seen MMA — namely the Ultimate Fighting Championship — explode into the sporting pantheon.
It belongs at Kansas City's Sprint Center and soon. Face it, Sid the Kid and the Pittsburgh Penguins led us on and not a credible word has been uttered alluding to a pro basketball franchise calling Kansas City home anytime soon. We should be sick of half-assed exhibitions and demand blood (of the UFC variety).
That said MMA finally has an incredible read that sets the record straight on a sport still misunderstood by many. Thumbing through its pages one more time, one quotation reverberates and perhaps serves as an appropriate summation of MMA's allure:
Wertheim — a Sports Illustrated senior writer — pens a colorful narrative of the UFC's rise and that of Miletich, who now runs the sport's world famous training school, Miletich Fighting Systems Elite in Bettendorf, Iowa. Wertheim details the UFC's ascent from its barbaric infancy to its current standing among the nation's biggest sports. Entwined is Miletich's story of triumph from personal toil and tragedy to tutoring the likes of MMA stars Matt Hughes and Tim Sylvia to name a few.
Equal parts curious bystander and well-versed fans, crowds at pay-per-view purveyors keep growing like the Bernard Madoff Ponzi scheme that wasn't and $50 events remain recession proof among households as well — the UFC has routinely pulled in an upwards of one million buys per card lately. MMA has effectively replaced boxing and its cesspool of corruption and disorder as the de-facto fight in town.
By now, the UFC's popularity is common knowledge. One needs only to pass by Buffalo Wild Wings on a Saturday fight night to see a scene in which eager patrons spill through the door — some huddled near a window to catch a glimpse of the main event.
"There's a part of our genetics that likes watching ultimate competition," announcer Joe Rogan tells Wertheim. "When you break it down, what are sports all about? One guy dominating another guy, within a sport. (In MMA) you shed away as much as possible: goalposts, helmets, most rules. The purest form of sport is fighting, and the purest form of fighting is mixed martial arts."
Edited by Chris Horn