PAGE 8B
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 2011
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
MEN'S BASKETBALL
Recalling memorable events from 2008
Tyrel Reed reflects on heartbreaking losses to Kansas State, Texas and Oklahoma State and an important team meeting
In today's excerpt, Tyrel talks about his freshman year, the march to the 2008 Final Four and a players-only meeting that changed a season and lifting the "Final Four Monkey" off his coach's back.
Our first big road test that year was at Southern Cal. which had
"official" about this meeting. It was just sort of like, "Hey, we're going to Henry T's," and everybody showed up.
I imagine the other people in the restaurant were pretty curious about all this. Because we all have different schedules, it's pretty rare to see the entire basketball team
16. Which put us in the Elite Eight, where we had lost the year before, against Davidson, who was everybody's Cinderella story.
As much as you try to ignore everything, there are certain facts that people just won't let you forget. We were aware that all of coach Salk's best tournament runs
NOTICE
WHAT IT'S LIKE // TO HAVE A SEIZURE WHILE DRIVING >We know you're curious.
Courtney Beck, a senior from Leauood, was in third grade when she had her first epileptic seizure. Epilepsy is a neurological disorder characterized by repeated seizures over time. The week before her spring semester of her sophomore year, Beck had a seizure while driving for the first time in three years.
| BY COURTNEY BECK AS TOLD TO NADIA IMAFIDON |
Contributed photo
I was on Louisiana Street right outside of Lawrence High School. Suddenly, I couldn't remember where I was going or what I was doing. I felt sick to my stomach. I knew what was coming next.
I started to hit my brakes and said a choice word. I can't remember which one now, but I remember yelling out something. My car tapped the car in front of me. I blacked out but somehow managed to unbuckle my seat belt, open my car door and fall onto the street, hitting the median.
I was all banged up with black eyes and scrapes all over my face and arms. My knee was swollen to the size of a softball.
The person in the car I had hit called an ambulance. When I regained consciousness after two hours, I was in the hospital and my mom was sitting by my bed, trying to hold it together. She explained to me what had happened. I cried and apologized right away, just like I've done since the first seizure, even though I know it isn't my fault.
I went through a lot of makeup afterward,
covering up the physical evidence of my seizure. My emotions were harder to hide. I would cry all the time, worrying about how often I'd start having seizures again and how it would affect everyone in my life. Until my accident, my family had thought I had grown out of the seizures.
My mom constantly checked in with me and my friends after that day. My brother, a silent worrier, was a senior in high school at the time, and he texted my friends once a week to make sure I was taking care of myself. My boyfriend was new to all of this but he assured me he would always be there for me. It was exactly what I needed to hear from him.
I had two more seizures within the following two months. I switched doctors and medication and haven't had one since.I take care of myself and hope every day that I won't have another one.
for us, especially Darren. He had been through a lot of tragedies already in his life, and his cousin had been killed earlier in the week. Sherron was hurt too, and didn't play much (11 minutes).
That loss shook us up a little bit.
We realized we weren't invincible, and one of the outcomes was the realization some things needed to be said, some things needed to be heard and we needed to sort it all out as a team. The manifestation of this was that some guys on the team — I can't remember who — decided we ought to go to Henry T's for dinner as a team, an event which I am now aware has taken on something of a legendary quality. I assume this is at least partially because nobody outside the team knows exactly what happened there, except that we never lost again that season.
Kansas got up by 24 in the second half and won 88-74.
We played Portland State in the first round. Then we had a nice game against UNLV and whipped Villanova pretty hard in the Sweet
So here's the story: Henry T's is a sports bar known for its wings and burgers. It has one extra large booth in one of the corners, which suited us fine. There was nothing
The NCAA Tournament is a totally different animal from the regular season. You get funky game times; you don't know who you're going to play. It's weird. The stands are often half full and even the half that is there is a mix of a few different teams' fans.
We had one more chance for a revenge game that year, and it came in the Big 12 championship game against Texas. The memorable thing about that game was how well both teams played. It was almost surreal to watch. If you're a basketball fan, that had to be fun to watch because of the pure skill and talent on display. That's one of the better halves of basketball that I've witnessed.
bigger target for our Tans than he already was (which was pretty big).
overtaking him at that time. I can only imagine coaching in college basketball for so long and coming so close. You're so defined by that last game in college. I think we need to be held accountable for losing in the NCAA Tournament, but we try not to let it define us as a team. Things happen. It's tough when people say we had a bad season. You wish it wouldn't be that way, that you went 35-3 but didn't have a good year. I think at a lot of places that would be a pretty good year.
The Davidson win was really a pressure release in a lot of ways. I felt like once we got to the Final Four, there was a sense of calmness.
© Reed All About It:
Driven to be a Jayhawk
1
---