Sports
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The Big 12 Conference soccer title is up for grabs, and the Kansas soccer team has four crucial games remaining. PAGE 8A
The University Daily Kansan
sports commentary
12A
Tuesday, October 14, 2003
Joey Berlin
jberlin@kansan.com
Missouri coach can't win big matchups
Annual season preview magazines are a great thing if you're a serious college basketball fan. The best ones, such as the Sporting News preview issue, give you stats and analysis on every single team, giving you all kinds of ammunition to fire at your sports-freak friends to prove you're smarter than they are.
are smarter than they are.
Preview magazines also offer predictions on where teams will finish, both in their conferences and in the Top 25. Naturally, some of those predictions end up looking stupid in hindsight. But the Sporting News preview issue's pick for this season's Big 12 Conference champion looks stupid in foresight.
The Sporting News preview picks Missouri to win the Big 12.
Missouri to win the Big Ten. In terms of pure talent, Mizzou seems like a smart pick. The Tigers return center Arthur Johnson and forward Rickey Paulding, a pair of seniors who look like they'll be to Mizzou what Kirk Hinrich and Nick Collison were to Kansas last year. Missouri is also bringing in a scary recruiting class, including two top-50 freshmen in guard Thomas Gardner and forward Linas Kleiza. Forward Jason Conley, the nation's leading scorer at Virginia Military Institute two years ago, will be eligible in December.
The talent to win the conference, even the national championship, is there.
But the reason why it's silly, borderline ridiculous, to pick Missouri to win the Big 12 can be summed up in four words: Quin Snyder can't coach.
Snyder was hired from Duke in 1999 as a "new-millennium" coach, a young guy who was supposed to combine an ability to relate to recruits with the teaching ability he learned from a master, Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski. Since then, Snyder has done two things consistently well: Attract heralded recruits to Columbia and underachieve.
His last two teams, featuring players like Pauling, Johnson, Kareem Rush and Clarence Gilbert, finished sixth in the conference in 2002 and tied for fifth last year. In fact, as the Sporting News even points out, Snyder's teams have never finished higher than fifth.
never hindered big games the Tigers break down quicker than a fast break led by Moulaye Niang. Snyder is 5-21 in his career against Kansas, Texas, Oklahoma and Oklahoma State. Therein lies Missouri's biggest problem this year: There are two coaches in the Big 12 with comparable talent to work with - and both are demonstrably better than Snyder.
Kansas' own Bill Self is perfect in his career against Snyder after dusting Quin three years in a row during Mizzou's annual matchup with Self's former team, Illinois. Like Snyder, his recruiting class includes two top-50 players.
Rick Barnes might be the most under-rated coach in the nation. In five years at Texas, he's led the Longhorns to a Big 12 crown in 1999, the Sweet 16 in 2002 and a Final Four appearance last year. He lost his most important player, point guard TJ. Ford, but all four of his other starters return.
If the Tigers are going to finish ahead of Kansas or Texas, let alone both, they'll have to do it on talent alone, because Snyder has proven he isn't going to out coach Self or Barnes.
coach sea of Saratoga. This probably will be the year Missouri finishes higher than fifth in the Big 12. But until Snyder proves he's more than the stereotypical great recruiter/poor game coach, the Tigers will continue to be the nation's most over-hyped team and won't sniff the conference trophy.
Berlin is a Leawood senior in journalism.
Whittemore helps'Hawks
By Ryan Greene rgreene@kansan.com Kansan sportswriter
When Bill Whittemore emerged from the Kansas locker room after Saturday's 50-47 overtime loss to meet the media, he did not look like the guy who had been through Colorado's gauntlet all afternoon.
With nice clothes, freshly combed hair and his usual confident swagger. Whittemore did not just cover up the pain of the loss. He portrayed the image of a superstar, which is exactly what he became that afternoon.
By leaving his permanent mark in nearly every single-game passing category in the Kansas record books, Whittemore delivered a performance worthy of landing him on the Heisman ballot.
Coach Mark Mangino said a few weeks ago that when the Jayhawks were to find themselves in a shootout with any opponent. Whittemore was the triggerman he wanted. After throwing for 422 yards and three touchdowns, plus rushing for two additional scores, Mangino's confidence in his senior quarterback is as high as ever.
"You know he got knocked into the next universe on a couple of plays," Mangino said after the game. "He got back up, went out there and competed. Once again, he was poised, he made plays, he stood in there under pressure."
plays, he stood in there thinking.
In Whittemore's mind, just like any other great leader, statistics meant nothing to him in the loss. His career numbers were just an insignificant afterthought.
were just an insignificant part.
"I have no clue what my stats were, and that's not really important to me," Whitemore said Saturday. "I felt that if I did what I could we would come out of here with a win. Now we need to work on what we didn't do."
Considering that Whittemore's brief Kansas career consists of only 14 starts to this point, he is on pace to go down as one of the Jayhawks' all-time legends. His gritty toughness is reminiscent of former quarterback Bobby Douglass. His flash invokes memories of the "Kansas Comet," NFL Hall of Famer Gale Sayers. His reckless abandon resembles that of running back John Riggins, one of the most fearless men to strap on pads and cleats anywhere.
As Whittemore has keyed one of the most prolific college offenses this season, his weapons have benefited as well.
SEE WHITTEMORE ON PAGE 7A
sophomore receiver Mark Simmons ranks seventh in the Big 12 Conference, averaging 90 receiving yards per game, and is tied for third in the conference with
Kansas quarterback Bill Whittemore threw for 422 yards Saturday under pressure from Colorado. His statistics put himself and the Jayhawks in the top-five on offense nationally.
Wristbands to reserve seats at Late Night
By Mike Norris
By Mike Norris
mnorris@kansan.com
Kansan sportswriter
The University of Kansas changed the name of the men's basketball team's first practice from "Late Night with Roy Williams," to "Late Night in the Phog."
Williams, to Little England But that wasn't the only change this year.
Center, will receive a wristband for priority seating at the Late Night event. The priority seats will be located in sections 16 and 17.
Everyone who attends the Kansas volleyball game against Iowa State, at 7 p.m. Friday at the Horeiski Family Athletics
16 and 17.
Kansas volleyball coach Ray Bechard said he want Horejsi to be packed for the match and incorporating Late Night with volleyball would please fans of both teams.
teams.
"If it's their first volleyball match, they really enjoy it, and I think we'll gather a couple of new fans along the
way." Bechard said
way, Bechard said. Jim Marchiony, associate athletics director, said the Athletics Department spent a lot of time deciding how to accommodate both events. The volleyball match was originally scheduled to be played in Allen Fieldhouse before the Late Night skits began.
But Marchiony said the department decided the volleyball team would benefit more from playing in the familiar Horejsi Center, and the wristbands
"We wanted to make sure volleyball fans who want to go to Late Night don't think they have to choose between one or the other," Marchiony said.
Marchiony said the department wanted to accommodate volleyball fans who have shown great support this year.
year.
"We have a very,very good and entertaining volleyball team," he said. "It's
SEE LATE NIGHT ON PAGE 7A
University hockey club prepares for the future
By Steve Schmidt
sschmidt@kansan.com
Kansan staff writer
It's 3:30 p.m. On a sun-drenched October day in the high 70s, a group of University of Kansas students fly down an ice rink inside of a 1300-seat arena the temperature of a walk-in freezer.
the temperature of a walk in the student's make up the KU men's club ice hockey team, a group looking to move up the totem pole of sports at the collegiate level now that the team has found a man with a program-building plan.
Although the team members must drive more than a half-hour each way to Canlan Ice Sports Center in Shawnee for an hour of practice time, it is hard for
players to complain considering the club's state one year ago.
club's name.
"It's a pretty big inconvenience, but it's great that we have so many guys that are dedicated," said Steven Barbaro, St. Cloud, Minn., sophomore, forward and team captain.
A New Head'Hawk
A New Head Hawk Last year the club competed at the lowest level in organized collegiate hockey, Division III independent club hockey. The Jayhawks were basically vagabonds, searching for places to practice and play, without a coach or an official schedule.
"Anybody that wanted to fill a time slot would call us up," senior goaltender
SEE HOCKEY ON BACKCA
Defenseman Jordan Egerston tried to move the puck out of his end last Friday night against Southwest Missouri State. Turn to page 6A for a report on the KU club hockey team's 2003-2004 season.
TALK TO SPORTS: Contact JJ Hensley and Shane Mettlen at SPORTS@KANSAN.COM
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