WOMEN'S BASKETBALL: Kansas prepares to take on Weber State. INDOOR TRACK AND FIELD: Team opens season today at Kansas State.
8A
SPORTS
WWW.KANSAN.COM/SPORTS
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
TALK TO US: Contact Jay Krail or Sarah Warren at (785) 864-4858 or sports@kansan.com
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 7, 2001
Undefeated Kangaroos ready to face Jayhawks
By Ali Brox
Kansan sportswriter
The University of Missouri-Kansas City Kangaroos are off to their best start in school history with a 5-0 record. UMKC brings its perfect record to Allen Fieldhouse when it faces Kansas at 7 p.m. tomorrow.
"I'm very pleased with our start," said UMKC first-year KANGAROO
coach Rich Zvosec. "We have four seniors who have come out very committed to make this their best year yet."
The Kangaroos are coming off a 70-63 win against Robert Morris on Wednesday. Sophomore guard Michael Watson led the team with 26 points against Robert Morris. Watson was also named the Mid-Continent Player-of-the-Week on Monday after scoring 52 points in two games. Watson turned in 29 points against Southwest Missouri State and added 23 points in UMKC's win against Northern Iowa.
Senior forward Michael Jackson is also a major contributor for the Kangaroos. Jackson is averaging 12.6 points and 5.4 rebounds on the season despite being held to just six points against Robert Morris, only the fifth time in his career in single digits. Jackson is a two-time All-Conference Player.
"He's very good," Zvosec said. "He's become a more complete player this year."
Jackson is joined on the UMKC roster by Marcus Golson, his high school teammate at Blue Valley Northwest. Golson, a senior forward, scored 21 points against Robert Morris and is averaging 12 points and 5.2 rebounds this season.
Zvosec said the game against Kansas would surely have special meaning for the Kansas natives on his team. Playing in a historic building such as the fieldhouse against a team like Kansas is a tremendous opportunity for his players, Zvosec said.
Zvosec said the key for UMKC in tomorrow's game would be conversion from offense to defense. He said the Kangaroos could not allow Kansas a lot of transition baskets. On offense, the key would be taking care of the ball.
Battling free-throw woes
Drew Gooden, Kansas junior forward, prepares for a cradle dunk against Pittsburg State University. Although Gooden and the rest of the Jayhawks are hitting 54 percent from the field, they are struggling at the line, making just 68 percent of their free throws.
LAURIE SISK/KANSAN
Men's basketball team hoping to improve its foul-line difficulties against UMKC
Contact Brox at 864-4858
By Ryan Malashock Kansan sportswriter
Roy Williams' first comment during his postgame press conference Tuesday night was that nobody should ask him about Kansas' pathetic free-throw shooting against Wake Forest.
The Kansas men's basketball coach left on a recruiting trip the next day and suggested that his team worked on free throws in his absence.
The results from that practice will show at 7 p.m. tomorrow at Allen Fieldhouse as the No.4 Jayhawks (5-1) take on the University of Missouri-Kansas City Kangaroos (5-0).
The Jayhawks defeated No. 23 Wake Forest by seven points Tuesday night—a margin that could have been higher if Kansas had connected on more than 20 of its 40 free throws.
"Nobody did a good job," Williams said. "Sometimes you make them, sometimes you don't. I guess I am superstitious about things like that, but that was a terrible exhibition."
Junior forward Drew Gooden was one of the only Jayhawks who successfully shot free throws against Wake Forest, going three for four.
"It was terrible," Gooden said. "We can't expect to win games if we keep shooting them like that.
"Luckily, we played good defense and
Kansas men's basketball vs.
UMKC
7 p.m. Saturday
Allen Fieldhouse
TV: Jayhawk Television Network,
Channel 13
The Jayhawks may need to improve on their free throw shooting to defeat the upset-minded Kangaroos. With a 70-63 victory against Robert Morris Tuesday night, UMKC extended its school-record opening start to 5-0.
rebounded in the second half, but we've got to do better on free throws."
Coach Rich Zvosec's Kangaroos enter the fieldhouse tomorrow night with the chance to open some eyes around the nation.
UMKC senior guard Matt Suther said the Kangaroos' first five wins against lesser opponents would give them a boost heading into the match-up with nationally-ranked Kansas.
Sophomore guard Michael Watson scored 26 points in the Robert Morris win and leads the Kangaroos with an average of 20.2 points per game.
"When you win those kinds of games it builds confidence, so when those situations come up everybody pulls together and feels like you are going to win," Suther said.
Note:
This will be the first time the two teams have met in nearly nine years. Kansas beat the Kangaroos 108-62 in Kansas City on Dec. 12, 1992.
Contact Malashock at 864-4858
Jaydreaming of a successful sports future
A couple of years from now, Kansas fans might look back at Tuesday, Dec. 4, 2001, and say, "That's when we came back. It's been great since then."
Commentary
They would be talking about the winning seasons that Kansas football had seen since Mark Mangino was introduced as Kansas' 35th head football coach on the unseasonably warm and sunny December day.
Doug Pacey
Columnist
sportsksansan.com
He assembled a coaching staff that was second to none in the Big 12 Conference, and the former Kansas State assistant and Oklahoma offensive coordinator used his recruiting ties and pieced together a team that won eight games. Kansas even beat K-State.
Mangino hit so many contract incentives that season that his yearly
The Jayhawks went to the Holiday Bowl in San Diego, Calif., that year and upset the favored Washington Huskies 38-17.
earnings kept rising like the score on a pin-ball machine, all the way past $1 million.
Don't forget about Wayne Simien, though. The Leavenworth freshman played in his first Division I-A game that night. In 15 minutes, he scored 10 points and grabbed 11 rebounds. It was the first double-double by any player in his debut under coach Roy Williams.
Supporting juniors Drew Gooden and Nick Collison that season, Simien never once complained about getting less than 20 minutes a game.
But Williams found ways to get
Simien in the game. Simien had something none of the other Jayhawks had—a mean streak. Simien didn't simply rebound basketballs. He tore them out of the air and ripped them out of opponents' hands. He was a wrecking machine.
In the regular season finale at Missouri, Collison got into foul trouble early in the second half, and Williams inserted Simien into the game.
Darned if "Big Dub" didn't change the tone of the game. All of a sudden, Tigers were getting tossed around under the hoop by Simien and what had been a see-saw game turned into lopsided KU win.
Kansas went on to dominate in the Final Four that year, and the experience of winning a national championship kept Gooden and Collison from turning pro. No one talks about Duke being the premier college basketball team in the county anymore. The Jayhawks then won their second consecutive national
championship by beating the Blue Devils for the second year in a row.
Because of Kansas' athletic success in football and basketball, more students than ever enrolled at the University. Enrollment for Fall 2004 hit 30,000. Because of the influx of students, more money than ever has been generated from tuition. Still glowing from Kansas' sudden ascension to one of Newsweek's Top 10 schools to attend, Chancellor Robert Hemenway actually lowered tuition to its 2001 rate.
Mangino's football program generated so much money for the athletics department that the men's swimming and tennis teams were reinstated, and Kansas' athletics centers received substantial upgrades.
Man, it's a good time to be a Jayhawk.
Pacey is an Issaquah, Wash., senior in journalism.