THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 14.2012
PAGE 7
VOLLEYBALL
Kansas ready to face off against Oklahoma
GEOFFREY CALVERT
gcalvert@kansan.com
When Kansas takes the floor against Oklahoma tonight at 6 p.m., junior Brianne Riley will face a rare counterpart who is just as accomplished as she is.
Maria Fernanda has 458 digs this season for Oklahoma and is the Sooners' career leader in digs. Her 4.72 digs per set is third in the Big 12 conference — one spot behind Riley's 5.17 digs per set.
"You've got to stretch her, because anything in her area she's going to dig, much like Bri," coach Ray Bechard said. "But the last thing you want to do is just totally alter your game plan, too. If you're not playing your best shot that plays into what Oklahoma wants you to do."
Riley has 512 digs this season, and she bolstered that number when the two teams met Oct. 10 in Norman, Okla. Riley recorded a career-high 43 digs in the five-set victory.
makes a huge difference."
"I honestly didn't even know I had that many digs," Riley said. "I think our defense is just disciplined on our releases, which
Bechard said he'd be happy to have Riley record that many digs again in a five-set win, but he'd also be content for Kansas to win in three sets, negating the number of dig opportunities Riley has.
"That's obviously directly dependent on the number of choices your setter has," Bechard said. "When the passing breaks down a little bit and you become predictable, those are the kind of things you see."
Regardless of how many sets the Jayhawks play tonight, Riley and the Jayhawks' other defensive specialists, junior Jaime Mathieu and senior Morgan Boub, must have good first contact on the Oklahoma serve to get the Kansas offense in-system and away from the opponent's block.
Junior defensive specialist Brianne Riley returns the ball during the match against the Wyoming Cowgirls on Sept. 8. Riley has 512 digs this season.
Against Texas on Saturday, the Jayhawks were outblocked by the Longhorns in the final two sets, 9-3. The Sooners won't be any easier; they boast the conference's second-leading blocker with junior middle blocker, Sallie McLaurin, who averages 1.38 blocks per set.
When the Sooners and Jayhawks met earlier this season, McNorton did have choices on where to distribute the ball, which resulted in four Jayhawks having double-digit kills. Junior outside hitter Catherine Carmichael paced Kansas with 18 kills against the Sooners.
Beachard said junior setter Erin McNorton needs to receive clean passes from the Jayhawk defense to give her multiple options for distributing the ball to hitters. Otherwise the Sooners could have just as much success blocking the Kansas attack as Texas did.
TRAVIS YOUNG/KANSAN
She said the Texas match showed Kansas it needed to do a better job of finishing transition kills if it wants to keep Oklahoma from stealing a victory.
"That's one thing I think during Texas that we had to do better was transition kill and be sure that once we get a good dig, we get a good set and we can also put it away," Carmichael said.
The match tonight at the Horejsi Family Athletics Center will wrap up a brutal six-match slate that included a home game with Texas and road matches against Kansas State, Iowa State
"November is always the toughest part," Riley said. "It's
and Baylor. Kansas is 2-3 in its last five matches, but Riley attributes it to part of the November grind, when every team is making one last push for the NCAA Tournament. The Jayhawks are still in good position with a 21-6 overall record and a 9-4 Big 12 mark.
whoever can grind it out the longest. I think all of us are in that top half, and everyone's fighting for that top spot."
On Tuesday, Riley was one of eight Jayhawks named to the Academic All-Big 12 first team, the most from any school. Kansas State had seven players named to the first team and one to the second team.
"It's something that our team is very proud of," Riley said. "If everyone on the team has that mindset, when you're on away trips and everyone's doing homework, you can't really sit there and not do it, be the odd one out."
Edited by Lauren Shelly
WOMEN'S BASKETBALL
Baylor Bears dominated the Kentucky Wildcats on Tuesday
WACO, Texas — Brittney Griner scored 27 points with eight rebounds and No. 1 Baylor easily passed what was expected to be its first real challenge, overwhelming sixth-ranked Kentucky 85-51 Tuesdav night.
Odyssey Sims added 18 points with six assists and four steals. Destiny Williams had 14 points and 12 rebounds for the defending national champion Lady Bears, who have won 42 games in a row.
After unfurling their 2012 national championship banner high from the rafters at the Ferrell Center before the game, the Lady Bears (2-0) went on to build a 46-19 half-time lead against the defending SEC champions who returned four starters and are favored to win that league again.
Adia Mathies, the reigning SEC player of the year, had 12 points on 3-of-18 shooting for Kentucky (1-1). Bria Goss had 11 points.
Griner missed her first two shots, and put Baylor up 13-8 when she finally scored on a layup $6\frac{1}{2}$ minutes into the game. That started a 2-minute span when the 6-foot-8 All-American scored 10 points, extended the lead to 23-13.
She then made 11 consecutive field goals before missing a short hook shot with just under 10 minutes left in the game. By that time Baylor led 69-33, and Griner was out of the game for good on the next timeout.
The Lady Bears head to Hawaii next, where they play fourth-ranked Stanford on Friday in the opener of the Rainbow Wahine Classic. That
is a rematch of last season's national semifinal game Baylor won 59-47 in Denver.
The only other time Baylor played back-to-back top-10 opponents during the regular season was 2004, when they did it twice against Texas and Texas Tech.
Goss made a layup for Kentucky with 7:52 left, it was 25-15. The Wildcats then went more than five minutes without scoring until Goss made a 3-pointer.
In the meantime, Baylor scored 17 points in a row. Sims had 10 of those
points, including a pair of three-point plays, the later with 3:04 left that stretched the lead to 42-15.
Kentucky's tenacious defense — a pressure, trapping, and often inyour-face attack — forced 22 turnovers. But the Wildcats managed only 12 points off those miscues.
That wasn't nearly enough to beat the Lady Bears, who have also won 42 games in a row at home. That is tied with Miami (Fla.), for the second longest active home winning streak behind Stanford's 80 in a row.
Sims, Griner and Williams were
already in double-figure scoring by halftime. Brooklyn Pope finished with 10 points.
Griner had her 82nd consecutive double-figure scoring game while playing 29 minutes, when she also had five blocked shots and three steals. Her Big 12-record 606 career blocked shots are 57 behind the NCAA mark
Kentucky plays its next four games at home before its Dec. 2 instate showdown at eighth-ranked Louisville.
WOMEN'S BASKETBALL
Jayhawks need to remain focused against Redhawks
NATHAN FORDYCE
nfordyce@kansan.com
With another game in Allen Fieldhouse, the No. 25 Jayhawks look to improve on a weak offensive showing in their last game as they face the Southeast Missouri State Redhawks tonight.
In Kansas' last game, it shot 30.8 percent, however, the Jayhawks pulled through with a win.
Coach Bonnie Henrickson said she isn't worried about the shots not falling because that will happen, but it's the defense that has to get better because Southeast Missouri State brings good shooters to the game.
"If we give them open shots and want to turn this into a game of horse, it's not going to be good for us. We have to get up and guard better." Henrickson said.
Redhawk sophomore Allyson Bradshaw is one of the players Henrickson said the team has to cover. Bradshaw is capable of shooting deep three-pointers; she shot 116 three-pointers last season, and the trend has continued. She is shooting 5-of-11 from the key, and the Jayhawks' defense will have to be in check in order to block Bradshaw's open shots.
"We have to get pressure, get up in there and not let them get rhythm threes" Henrickson said.
Henrickson said she has preached defensive pressure to the squad every day during the young season, so it's nothing new.
The Jayhawks aren't looking at what the Redhawks did — or did not do — a season ago when they finished 7-22, and they aren't looking at the fact that they are picked to finish last in the Ohio Valley Conference.
None of that matters, as they are treating this game as if it were a Big 12 game.
"Every game is the next biggest game of the year," sophomore
forward Bunny Williams said. "We should come out with the same intensity that we would if we were playing Baylor or any team in the Big 12."
"We know that now, because sometimes we've lost focus and the team has stayed with us," Goodrich said. "We just can't lose focus and take for granted on who we're playing. We have to treat it like a Big 12 game."
TRAVIS YOUNG/KANSAN
Senior point guard Angel Goodrich hasn't seen her teammates stay focused for the entire game, which is key for the Jayhawks avoiding a potential upset.
- Edited by Allison Kohn
TRAVIS YOUNG/KANSAN Sophomore forward Catherine (Bunny) Williams drives the ball against Idaho State senior forward Ashleigh Vella during the first half of the match at Allen Fieldhouse Sunday afternoon.
FOOTBALL
K-State quarterback remains a front-runner for Heisman
ASSOCIATED PRESS
MANHATTAN, Kan. — Every week, the pressure on Collin Klein becomes a little more oppressive.
The senior quarterback has No. 2 Kansas State atop the BCS standings with two games standing in the way of likely playing for a national title. Klein's the front-runner for the Heisman Trophy, the poster boy for the program and this week the cover boy for Sports Illustrated.
It's enough to make even the most ardent Bill Snyder disciple lose focus.
Whenever that focus starts to wane or the spotlight shines so brightly that Klein can hardly see, the star player turns to his closest confidant for a sympathetic ear.
And he happens to be his teammate.
It happens to be his younger brother, Kyle.
"I mean, no doubt about it, other than my wife, he's my best friend," Klein said during an interview with The Associated Press. "There's obviously a businesslike mentality for both of us when we're on the field, but it's still totally a brotherly connection as well."
The truth is that they are rarely on the field together.
The elder Klein has become one of the biggest names in college football, his face popping up everywhere. His younger brother is a backup wide receiver who redshirted last season, and who has yet to catch a pass during his
But the bond that holds them together extends far enough beyond the field. Kyle is one of the first people Collin seeks when he needs a sounding board. Their relationship takes the notion of a brotherhood in the locker room to a literal level, one that is rare in the high-stakes world of college football, where scholarships aren't handed out to the underserving.
freshman year with the Wildcats.
"It's truly been a blessing when it worked out that he was able to come and play here," Collin Klein said.
"The times we've been able to share growing up in high school, and to be able to extend that into both our college careers, has been invaluable."
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