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THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 31.2002
Home field provides little solace
Mangino says home field may offer small advantage in Sunflower Showdown
By John Domoney
jdomoney@kansan.com
Kansan sportswriter
Kansas showed little defense against Kansas State in last year's 40-6 defeat. The Jayhawks look to redeem themselves at Saturday's 1 p.m. match up at Memorial Stadium.
In a conference that features homefield advantages such as Nebraska's Memorial Stadium and Texas A&M's Kyle Field, Kansas' Memorial Stadium is not considered one of the toughest places to play in the Big 12 Conference.
Through four home games this year, Kansas has averaged 36,500 fans, ranking the Jayhawks next to last in average attendance in the Big 12. The mark also represents nearly a five-percent decrease from last year.
But Kansas coach Mark Mangino said Tuesday in his weekly press conference that he was glad Kansas State was coming to Lawrence on Saturday.
"You all know that Kansas State is a tremendous program, and they have a tremendous environment on game day in Manhattan," Mangino said. "But history shows they always play much, much better in Manhattan then they usually play on the road," Mangino said.
Kansas State regularly fills 50,000-seat KSU Stadium with spirited fans, and opponents have rarely come to Manhattan and left with a win since Bill Snyder took control of the football program in
1989. The Wildcats have suffered just six home losses in the past 10 seasons.
Games on the road, not counting neutral sites, have been a different story.
Kansas State has lost a total of 16 road games in the past 10 seasons.
Each year Snyder tries to schedule as many home games as possible to collect
the benefits from a home-field advantage. The Kansas State football program
SEE MANHATTAN ON PAGE 13A
Transfers content with decision to move
Bv Levi Chronister
Ichronister@kansan.com
Kansan Sports Editor
Three Kansas athletes have had the same Point A and will have the same Point B, but it's been anything but a straight line in between.
Brooke Jones, Carmel Kaplinger and Molly Scavuzzo all graduated from high school in the metropolitan Kansas City area and are now Jayhawks, but each spent at least her freshman year at another school before returning to the Sunflower State.
Returning to the University Jones transferred to Kansas because she wasn't enjoying her time at Nebraska after graduating from
Olathe East High School in 1999.
She joined the Cornhuskers because of their success, but, after two seasons, Jones realized the team wasn't right for her.
"They also had a different style of play that I didn't fit in," Jones said, "and a lot of it was being closer to my family."
Family ties were enough to bring Jones to Kansas, but they weren't enough to make her continue playing soccer. In fact, she wasn't sure she wanted to play after her experience with the Cornhuskers.
"I think I was just really frustrated at Nebraska,"
RETURNING JAYHAWKS
SEE TRANSFERS ON PAGE 13A
Teams predict top six will make NCAAs
By Doyle Murphy
dmurphy@kansan.com
Kansan sportswriter
DALLAS — As odd as it may seem, some women's basketball teams in the Big 12 Conference would be happy with a sixth-place finish in the conference — only because of the idea that the strength of the league nearly guarantees the top six finishers a berth in the NCAA tournament.
"I'm not going to sit up here and say we're going to challenge for a Big 12 title," said Iowa State coach BILL Fennelly at yesterday's women's basketball Big 12 Media Day in Dallas. "I don't know that's realistic with the players that K-State, Texas Tech and Oklahoma have, but I do think that we can win some games against people."
If his team can make good on its sixth-place ranking in the coaches' preseason poll, Fennelly said he expected to go to the NCAA tournament for the seventh straight season.
There is a sense among coaches that, after positions one through four, the conference is wide open. That puts potential bubble teams like Fennelly's Cyclones, Missouri, Colorado, Baylor, Oklahoma State and ninth-ranked Texas A&M in direct competition.
It's not an uncommon theory.
"I think there is a window of opportunity for us, and —I think— for a lot of Big 12 teams," Texas A&M coach Peggie Gillon said.
So what happens to number seven?
If this season matches the last, seventh-place is still in. In 2002, seventh place Texas Tech advanced all the way to the NCAA regionals, and eighth-place Missouri received an invitation to the Women's National Invitational Tournament.
But six seemed to be the magic number yesterday, as players and
SEE BASKETBALL ON PAGE 12A
A columnist's goal is to make readers ponder their perceptions.
One of the easiest ways to know you've accomplished that goal is when readers reply to what you have written. Given the combined 58 e-mails Ryan Wood and I have received for each of our last columns, apparently, we've both nailed empty-netters.
Wood received 55 of those responses for his Friday "I am a Missouri fan" column. There was nearly as much chatter on www.tigerboard.com. Most comments were from irate Missouri fans who did their best, unintentionally I'm sure, to prove each and every one of Wood's
Columnists' words bring out true character of rival fans
comments correct.
Someone on tigerboard.com even went as far as to post a digitally manipulated photo of two men having sex, one of whose faces was replaced with Wood's mug shot. Looks like Wood's comment about Missouri fans not-so-cleverly calling us "Gayhawks" was dead on.
Kansas State fans were up in arms about my column of thoughts after Saturday's game against Missouri. Not because I made fun of them, but because I talked about Nebraska, bypassing this Saturday's game against K-State.
The three writers of e-mails I received asked if I knew there was a game this
SPORTS COMMENTARY
Levi Chronister lchronisterr@kansan.com
weekend between Kansas State and Kansas.
Of course I knew. I'm the sports editor, and it's my job to know. As I said in my column, though, my thoughts were from
after the Missouri game. I didn't think about Kansas State then because I was more worried about Nebraska. Yes, the Wildcats are ranked and the Cornhuskers aren't, but I expect the Jayhawks to play better at home against a rival than on the road against a team that hasn't lost to Kansas since 1968.
Besides, Nebraska's defense has a nice nickname to use. The "Black Shirts" sounds a lot better than "Kansas State's defense." Apparently, I'm uniformed, though, because someone on the Kansas State message board, www.kstatefans.com, called the Wildcats' defense the "Lynch Mob." I guess
ESPN anchors Kirk Herbstreit, Chris Fowler and Lee Corso are uninformed as well because I've never heard them call K-State's defense that on College Game day. I've actually never heard anyone call them that before while reading the K-State board.
Someone else on the board chastised me for not mentioning Wildcat quarterback Ell Roberson as a mobile signal-caller, who will eat the Jayhawks alive. He reasoned that Robertson was seventh in the Big 12 Conference in both rushing and passing. According to
SEE CHRONISTER ON PAGE 12A
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