Volume 125 Issue 59
kansan.com
Thursday, December 6, 2012
COMMENTARY
Jayhawk fans please stop your worrying
LEADING BY EXAMPLE
I haven't talked to many Kansas basketball fans who worry about winning the Big 12 regular season championship, and rightfully so. Bill Self has made winning the conference more of a responsibility than a dream over the last eight seasons.
Players expect a trophy, fans expect a trophy, and the media (usually) does the same.
Stop.
Stop worrying. Stop the pessimism. There's plenty of reasons to question this team's merit right now. Elijah Johnson is a shooting guard playing point guard. There isn't a dependable scoreer behind Jeff Withey yet, and nearly half of the rotation is freshmen.
But to those few skeptical fans out there, this is for you:
But have you seen the Big 12 late?
Edited by Ryan McCarthy
Awful might not describe how the conference is right now. The Jayhawks and Oklahoma State are the only Big 12 teams in the top 25 right now. Baylor and Kansas State are the only teams in the "others receiving votes" category, and there's plenty of teams on that list between those two and the top 25.
Texas was supposed to challenge for the conference title, but that's not happening. The Longhorns lost to Chaminade — a Division II school — in the Maui Invitational and scored only 41 points in Tuesday's blowout loss to Georgetown. The Longhorns will get better if/when sophomore point guard Myck Kabongo returns from suspension, but they won't improve enough to cover up these performances.
It's hard to imagine any of the putrid teams in this conference topping that.
But Self isn't losing all of those games. He loses two of those, tops. Throw in another random team Kansas might slip up on or catch a hot shooter, and that's a 15-3 conference record at worst.
Then there's Kansas.
Regardless of rosters, the Jayhawks enter every season with an inherit advantage over their Big 12 counterparts: the best home court advantage in the league and the best coach. West Virginia head coach Bob Huggins recognized that during the Big 12's media day in October.
"I think there is one guy really responsible, and that's Bill," Huggins said. "He's a great coach. Of course having all those players doesn't hurt anything either, just in case you were wont-ring. That doesn't hurt at all."
Huggins is right; Self definitely has help. Withey is the best defensive player in the country, averaging 5.7 blocks per game. Freshman guard Ben McLemore is a near lock to be Self's third one-and-done player at Kansas, and three of the five starters — Withey, Elijah Johnson, Travis Releford — have the experience of playing on the Monday night in April in the national championship game.
So where are the conference losses coming from?
Oklahoma State on the road will be tough, especially if Gallagher-Iba Arena returns to its old self and makes the night uncomfortable for the Jayhawks. K-State won't be easy, either, and Baylor's band of athletes can become a tough matchup for anyone in the country.
FOLLOW THE PROPHET
Senior guard Elijah Johnson embraces leadership role on new-look Jayhawk squad
ETHAN PADWAY
epadway@kansan.com
The 2012 NCAA championship game wasn't the first time Elijah Johnson went on a deep tournament run with his school.
Four years earlier, Johnson led Cheyenne High School of North Las Vegas to the Nevada Class 4A state title game.
Despite having two players in its backcourt who would go on to play division one basketball, Johnson and Wichita State's Demitric Williams, Cheyenne was the underdog for most of the state tournament.
"His intensity that he would bring onto the floor, where he was outwardly more emotional and just involved in the game or engaged in the game from that standpoint, that would lift up the play and the level of play of those around him." Teral Pair, Johnson's high school coach, said.
Johnson scored 19 points in the final, but Cheyenne still fell short, 76-72.
"We had the lead, lost it," Johnson said. "It was kind of hard fight back, came a couple of seconds too short."
He said it was a similar situation to the national championship loss, where his team ran out of time.
--get by on his athletic ability alone.
Johnson is a different player now than he was in high school. Always one of the most talented players on the floor in high school, he could
In college that wasn't the same, and Johnson had to change his approach.
Fair said Johnson's time at Kansas has helped him play more of a 'thinking man's game' on the court.
"I think that mental thing can relieve some stress in other areas," Johnson said. "When you think things through you make it easier on the floor for yourself."
After Perry Ellis committed a turnover late in the Jayhawks' Champion's Classic game against Michigan State this season, Johnson was the first to come over and spoke calmly to the freshman.
Johnson no longer tries to get by on his talent; instead he plays a more mature game.
Senior guard Elijah Johnson drives through his opponents' defense to get to the basket during the Nov. 15 game against Chattanooga in Allen Fieldhouse where the Javhawks won 69-55.
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"He's a different guy from a leadership standpoint," Kansas coach Bill Self said at Big 12 media day. "Eliahj's ridiculously bright, and a deep thinker. He gets it. I think the next step he has to take, from a vocal leadership, being positive, I think it's just a matter of time before he gets comfortable in those shoes."
ASHLEIGH LEE/KANSAN
When Johnson stepped foot on campus in the fall of 2009, he was part of a small but heralded recruiting class, alongside future NBA lottery picks Xavier Henry and Thomas Robinson.
SEE JOHNSON PAGE 2B
VOLLEYBALL
TARA BRYANT/KANSAN
Senior middle blocker Taylor Tolefree spikes the ball over the net against Saint Louis University in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.
Kansas' historic season ends, players optimistic for future
GEOFFREY CALVERT
When the Kansas volleyball team assembled at the beginning of August practice, its goal was to make the NCAA Tournament.
But hosting the tournament?
That thought didn't cross very many minds.
gcalvert@kansan.com
"I don't think that we thought it was a possibility for us to be able to host the first and second rounds of the NCAA Tournament," senior middle blocker Tayler Toleflee said. "The 11th seed and all that kind of stuff was more than we had set for ourselves, but I think that the work that was put in is representative of that."
That work she referenced includes a 26-7 record, which is good for the highest single-season winning percentage in program history, at 788. Its third-place conference finish. No. 6 ranking in the Ratings Percentage Index, and 17-2 home record were also program bests.
"We needed this type of year to validate all the hard work that the staff, our coaches and our players have been doing," coach Ray Bechard said. "I don't think you can find a better representation of a high level program on and off the floor."
After struggling to close out matches last season, this Jayhawks team emphasized mental toughness and putting bad sets behind them. The Jayhawks had six matches this season where they lost a set by double digits. Four of those times, Kansas recovered and won the next set, and won the match three times.
Tolefree said the Jayhawks didn't develop this mental toughness in August but rather last January when it began its first workouts after the disappointing 2011 season.
"That's not something that people see in terms of the work we put in," Tolefree said. "I'm really proud of the culture change that we have brought in, and I don't think that's something that easily goes away. Once you have a taste of a season like we had, it's easier to expect hard offseason training and then get right back to it for the next season, the next round of Big 12."
Although each member put in offseason work for the good of the team, it led to individual awards as well. Junior middle blocker Caroline Jarmoc earned AVCA All-Central Region and All-Big 12 first team honors, putting her in contention for All-America honors, and Bechard earned Big 12 and AVCA Central Region Coach of the Year honors.
Sophomore outside hitter Sara McClinton joined Jarmoc on the All-Big 12 first team, while junior setter Erin McNorton and junior libero Brianne Riley earned All-Big 12 Honorable Mention. Outside hitter Tiana Dockery was named to the All-Big 12 Freshman Team.
Jarmoc set Kansas' single-season hitting efficiency record at 386, which led the Big 12. Next year she could become the only Jayhawk to record 200 blocks and 100 kills in four consecutive seasons. Riley broke the school's single season digging record with 613 digs. Later, she broke the career digs mark in only three seasons, with 1,498.
"I'm proud of the commitment the team made," Bechard said. "They worked hard in the spring, summer and during two-a-days. They allowed themselves to be uncomfortable because they knew they had to do that to reach the goals they wanted to reach."
Part of the reason the Jayhawks
Next year, the Jayhawks will need to keep that attitude without Toilefree, defensive specialist Morgan Boub and outside hitter Sylvia Bullock, who all graduate. Bechard Tolefree, a Lawrence native, embodied what the Jayhawk volleyball program is about.
"We always joke about how were each others' only friends, which we are," McNorton said. "I just think we're all extremely close. We wung out on Monday night all together. I think Jarmoc said, 'I think wed be the only team that would hang out the Monday we all get off.'
Although the season ended with a second-round loss to Wichita State in the NCAA Tournament, Toleffre said it doesn't ruin the body of work the Jayhawks accomplished this season, which included installing a winning attitude in the Kansas locker room.
were willing to work so hard is that they were a very tight-knit team. Many of the juniors live together, yet junior setter Erin McNorton said the girls never got sick of one another. The team even released its own parody of "Call Me Maybe" earlier this year.
However, nine juniors become seniors, so he is optimistic they will be able mirror Tolefree's attitude from a leadership standpoint.
"We got all this momentum, but you can't lose sight of how hard it was, how hard you worked, how hard your preparation was, because nothing's gonna come easy next year," Bechard said. "We also need to understand that we can play at a high level. We belong among the best teams in the country if we continue to commit to the behaviors necessary for that to happen."
Edited by Ryan McCarthy