FOOTBALL Three chased recruits have decided where they'll go. It's Kansas for them.PAGE 2B
SPORTS
MONDAY, DECEMBER 6, 2004
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
WOMEN'S BASKETBALL
www.kansan.com
Minnesota chills Kan
Despite halftime lead, sporadic shooting dooms Jayhawks in second half
BY PAUL BRAND
pbrand@kansan.com
KANSAN SPORTSWRIETER
Kansas held the lead for 23 minutes yesterday against No. 18 Minnesota. The team opened its first road game by making its first three attempts from beyond the three point arc.
To close out the game, though Kansas missed its last six shots to end a disappointing second period that surrendered the six-point halftime advantage on its way to a 62-45 loss to Minnesota yesterday in Minneapolis.
Kansas came out with a hot hand in the first half as they jumped out to a 19-4 lead at the 12-minute mark. The early run was ignited by long-range shooting from senior guard Aquanita Burras, junior guard Kaylee Brown and junior guard Erica Hallman, who all hit three-point shots to extend the score in
Kansas' favor.
"The start of the game we just weren't quite ready," Minnesota associate coach Barb Smith said. "They took it at us and we let them."
After the early spurt was over, Kansas did hit another threepointer for the rest of the afternoon.
Shooting cooled
KEMP
down for the Jayhawks (3-3) later in the first half and the Gophers (6-1) brought the lead from 15 points to only six at the break, 33-27.
The second half was an entirely different story from the first as the lavhawk lead quickly crumbled.
Kansas junior forward Crystal Kemp, who finished with a game-high 17 points.
put the Jayhawks up 37-30 with her second jumper of the period at the 16:52 mark. The Jayhawks then embarked on another lengthy drought of seven minutes with out a point. Two Kemp free throws broke the dry spell for Kansas, but the game had already been lost.
"We've got to sustain and develop some consistency from half to half," Kansas coach Bonnie Henrickson said. "When we made mistakes in the second half they capitalized."
Minnesota took full advantage of the offensive breakdown by Kansas to turn a seven point deficit into an eight point lead during the drought and continued to flex its muscles for the remainder of the game. Besides Kemp, only three other players, Burras, Brown and Hallman scored for the Jayhawks. Hallman tallied 11, Brown had 10 and Burras added seven points
The 17-0 second half run for the
Golden Gophers was primed by national player of the year candidate Janel McCarville. Minnesota's senior center endured a subpar first half, but came out of the break to make four steals and three blocks to spark the Gopher defense. McCarville also scored 15 points, grabbed nine rebounds and recorded six assists to lead the Gophers in all statistical categories.
"She was on fire in the locker room," Smith said of McCarville after her disappointing first period performance. "Janel did a great job of letting the first half go."
SEE CHILLS ON PAGE 6B
Henrickson was also impressed by McCarville, but proud of her team's ability to hold her down in the first half.
MEN'S BASKETBALL
"She's a big kid, she's got great size and great athleticism," Henrickson said. "We did a pretty good job to keep her at 15.
Resurgent Miles leads' Hawks
JEAN SHORT MADNESS
Senior guard returns to old form in defeat of Pacific Tigers
Senior guard Keith Langford rises above freshman forward Darnell Jackson, Pacific senior center Guillame Yango and Pacific senior guard Marko Mihailovic, to take a shot. Langford led the Jayhawks with 21 points and recorded seven assists and six rebounds in their 81-70 victory Saturday at Allen Fieldhouse.
Rylan Howe/KANSAN
BY JESSE NEWELL
jnewell@kansan.com
KANSAAN SWITSWIRTER
Senior guard Aaron Miles said he had seen one main difference between his shot now as compared to earlier in the year.
"It's going in," Miles said with a grin. "I was confident the first game and I've been confident ever since. You make some and you miss some. You've just got to keep shooting it."
The senior guard helped pace Kansas' offense, scoring 19 points and adding eight assists and six steals as No.2 Kansas defeated Pacific 81-70 in Allen Fieldhouse.
The Jayhawks are definitely glad he kept shooting it Saturday.
"I think that's as good as Aaron's played since we've had him," Kansas coach Bill Self said, "and he's had some other great games."
Miles had 10 assists and no turnovers in Monday's game against Nevada, putting two of his best performances back-to-back.
"Today was a little more magnified because he scored a lot more and people aren't used to seeing that," senior forward Wayne Simien said. "But he definitely was quarterbacking things out there today and solidified himself as being one of the top point guards in the country."
The Jayhawks also benefitted from senior guard Keith Langford breaking out of a recent scoring slump. The senior had averaged just 10 points in the first three games of this season after scoring 15.5 points last year, but sparked Kansas Saturday with 21 points on eight-of-16 shooting. He also added a career-high seven assists and six rebounds in 33 minutes of play.
Miles hit all four of his first-half field goal attempts, including a pair of three-pointers, to help Kansas to a 35-34 halftime lead as the team otherwise struggled from the field. He finished six-for-eight in the game, making all three of his three-point attempts and all four of his free throws.
"He had kind of been a dormant volcano building up," Simien said. "I could really tell this week in practice he was going to probably explode this game. I think coach was sensing it too because he's been riding him pretty hard. I think we'll have the Keith of old consistently the rest of the year now."
The Jayhawks responded with an 11-0 run, highlighted by sophomore guard J.R. Giddens' two-handed dunk on an alley-oop from Miles and Simien's tomahawk slam after Langford collected a loose ball.
After a subpar first half with two turnovers in six minutes of play, Robinson responded with strong minutes in the second half. With one hand, he swatted the ball from Mihailovic, leading to an uncontested layup on the other end.
Kansas received key contributions from its bench late in the game, especially from freshmen Russell Robinson and Darnell Jackson.
The game featured four ties and 12 lead changes, with Pacific's last lead coming at the 16:26 mark of the second half at 42-40.
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SEE MILES ON PAGE 6B
Senior guard Aaron Miles drives past Pacific senior guard David Doubley. Miles earned 19 points and had 10 assists and no turnovers during Saturday's victory against the Tigers.
Langford produces exhibits confidence
BY MIRANDA LENNING
mlienning@kansan.com
KANSAN STAFF WRITE
But for that last couple of games, the slashing senior guard hasn't played the way the jayhawks would like him to.
It's not that Keith Langford was in a slump.
He swears it was not a slump.
"It's hard to be in a slump two games into the season," Langford said. "I just need to take my performance and build off of it."
Langford's performance on Saturday afternoon at Allen Fieldhouse led the Jayhawks to their 81-70 victory over the Pacific Tigers. He scored 21 points, pulled down six rebounds and dished out seven assists — a nice change for Langford, who had been averaging nine points per game.
Langford was aggressive, penetrating to the basket and creating shots for himself and his teammates. He took advantage of the Tigers' double-teams on senior forward Wayne Simien, which created space in the defense for Langford to take his player off of the dribble for a jump shot.
"The funky way that they defended us gave gaps from time to time," Langford said.
Coach Bill Self has told Langford since the beginning of the season that he needs to be assertive in order for the Jayhawks to be successful. They have had several talks lately about how they think he should play. Self had just one request.
"I just want him to be aggressive," Self said. "When he is aggressive, he can shoot it, he can pass it, he can make two people guard him."
But Self was more than satisfied with Langford's performance on Saturday.
"That looked like Keith," Self said. "I thought Keith was great. He was aggressive. He had more confidence on his legs. I was real pleased with Keith."
SEE LANGFORD ON PAGE 6B
Langford and fellow senior guard Aaron Miles combined for 40 points and 15 assists. In a game where the Tigers focused defensively on denying sophomore J.R. Giddens the ball and
RYAN GREENE
rgreene@kansan.com
Kickin' with Beck Memories strategy
He removes the Nike tennis shoe from his right foot and slips on a sleek, thin shoe with the laces oddly placed on the side.
Johnny Beck dumps eight worn-down Nike footballs out of the mesh bag, along with a holding apparatus made of what looks like white plastic PVC-piping.
He tees one up from 30 yards out, takes one step back and one more step to the left. Without looking, he plants his left foot into the ground, and drives through the ball so hard with his right foot that the boom resonates throughout the empty Memorial Stadium stands on a sunny, chilly December afternoon. The ball sails straight, splitting the unrights perfectly.
It sounds so easv.
Doing this every day in practice for the past four years has never been a problem. Beck makes it look automatic. But to the average spectator, it looks damn-near impossible for Beck when there are people rushing him and 40,000 screaming fans in the stands.
There are some athletes who study their sports as though there is a certain philosophy to it. Whether it's timing the release on a jumpshot, getting the perfect snap of the wrist to throw a curveball or practicing a lob over and over to execute that perfect serve, it's all over the place.
But almost nowhere in sports does any athlete need to take more factors into consideration than with kicking a football. There's the wind, the turf and the condition of the football.
That's just the start of it.
No one knows this better than Beck, who has been a whipping boy during the past two years for his adventures in kicking. He's got an NFL leg, but accuracy has been a problem. It's easy to criticize Beck sitting on your couch at home, but it's a different experience when you're standing on the field.
That's what happened last week, when the graduating Kansas kicker took the time to give me an inside look at the intricacies of kicking a field goal at Memorial Stadium.
It's a wind thing
Johnny tees it up from around 45 yards. He gets a nice 'swing' on the ball, and the ball sails straight. All of a sudden, it blows to the right, then back to the left and wide of the upright. No good. It looked like a pitcher throwing a knuckleball.
At most stadiums, low-rising bleachers can be the death of place kickers and their accuracy. Once the ball rises above the top row, the wind swirls in different paths, making judging direction a task nearly too big to handle.
One kick Beck remembers was at Northwestern on Sept. 18. Beck's second missed field goal of the game was a 43-yarder that was wide right in the final seconds of the 20-17 defeat. Some who were there argue the kick was good, because it sailed high above the top of the uprights. But once it got that high, it was in the wind's control.
Beck said missing a field goal is much different in college than in the pros. At Kansas, everyone is in the same boat, and hefty player contracts are not involved, so everyone feels for everyone when things fall through, he said. Beck, who has taken tips from St. Louis Rams kicker Jeff Wilkins, said in the NFL, when a kicker misses one, his teammates are more likely to question what he's getting paid for.
It works both ways.
SEE GREENE ON PAGE 6B