2B
SPORTS
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Evan Hengel's
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 2006
FANTASY FOOTBALL THURSDAY
The Kansan reflects on and awards season's stars, underachievers and roster liabilities
With the fantasy football playoffs rapidly approaching, it's time to hand out the regular season awards. In true fantasy football fashion, each award will be a statue of a grown man sitting at his computer, pulling his hair out about which kicker to start in week three. There will be seven awards given out this year, which are as follows:
CHIROPRACTOR AWARD
This honor is given to the player whose back should hurt from carrying so many fantasy football squads this year. This award goes to LaDainian Tomlinson. Not much explanation is needed here, as Tomlinson is putting up numbers that were previously only attainable in Madden. Twenty-four touchdowns through 11 games, end of story.
CHRISTINA AGUILERA AWARD
Christina AGUILERA AWARD
This statue is given to the player who has repeatedly gone back and forth between looking absolutely fantastic and looking God-awful. This award has be given to Michael Vick. After throwing seven touchdowns in a two-week period, he's thrown just three touchdowns in the past four weeks. Unless Vick becomes running back eligible, his upswings and downswings will be
too much for most fantasy owners to handle. If you ever want a surefire way to start drinking bourbon by 1:30 on a Sunday afternoon, just start Michael Vick in one of your leagues. Trust me.
BO JACKSON AWARD
BO JACKSON AWARD The award given to the player who is 10 times better in video games than he is in real life. Think Bo Jackson in Tecmo Bowl. With apologies to Dante Hall, this honor is given to Reggie Bush. In Madden, Bush was rated as an 87 overall with 97 speed, 98 acceleration and 99 agility, easily the most dominant rookie in the history of Madden. In the real world, those attributes have translated into Reggie barely eclipsing three yards per carry. Houston fans can breathe a little easier about taking Mario Williams before Reggie Bush. Williams has had an impact with four-and-a-half sacks and is currently a better defensive end than Bush is a running back.
JENNIFER ANISTON CAREER ACHIEVEMENT AWARD
Given to the player who has continued to look better with age. This one goes to Tiki Barber. It took until his sixth year in the league to finally eclipse the 1,300-yard barrier. At age 31, which is like 78 in running back years, Barber is putting up the best numbers of his career. In a smart move, Barber will ride into the sunset after this year, retiring to a life of news anchoring before his knees turn into silly putty. It's a fine idea, but could you really see a guy named "Tiki" reporting on the impact of a hike in interest rates on the real estate market? BODYNER DANGEROE FIELD AWARD
RODNEY DANGERFIELD AWARD Given to the player who "can't get no respect." Drew Brees is the recipient of this award. He is on pace to come within sniffing distance of 5,000 yards and all anyone wants to talk about is Peyton Manning's audibles and Tom Brady's "intangibles." Any quarterback who can turn Marques Colston and Devery Henderson into household names is a stud in my book.
KURT WARNER AWARD Given to the random no-name quarterback who comes out of nowhere to be a star. Tony Romo gets this one. Not only did he go from being a nobody backup out of Eastern Illinois to being the starting quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys, but he's also reportedly been socializing with Jessica Simpson. Talk about one of your all-time greatest turnarounds.
Although if the Giants want to beat the Cowboys this week, all they have to do is find a way to have Simpson's version of "Take My Breath Away" piped in to Romo's helmet headset.
HOMICIDE AWARD
Given to the player who has single-handedly killed the most fantasy squads this year. Daunte Culpepper makes a strong bid to become the first-ever player to win the award in consecutive years, but this award goes to Edgerrin James. In a year when running backs have been running wild — Torlinson, Barber, Gore, etc. — James is stuck at 695 yards through 11 games. I'm going to be honest: I drafted this joke of a running back in August and I hate myself for it. You will find me attending a 98 Degrees reunion tour wearing Capri pants before you ever catch me drafting an Arizona running back again.
Congratulations to all the winners, and good luck in the playoff run.
Hengel is an Overland park senior in finance.
— Edited by Derek Korte
BASKETBALL (CONTINUED FROM 1B)
Dartmouth hasn't had such a low scoring output since February 1990.
Those are only about half of the "fewest since" occurrences.
Making the 51-point victory even more impressive was that no matter who was in the game, the Jayhawks were able to score. And they prevented Dartmouth from scoring while junior center Sasha Kaun had another subpar game because of his healing knee.
"I think everybody feels more confident now," Arthur said. "We put the Oral Roberts game behind
us. We're trying to get everybody energized and everybody is pumped up now since the big win. We are going to come out every game and play tough and hard."
Of the 12 Jayhawks who entered Tuesday's game, only junior guard Jeremy Case failed to score. Seldomused players such as junior guard Rodrick Stewart, sophomore center Matt Kleinmann and freshman guard Brady Morningstar combined for 17 points.
Still, for the third straight game,
Kaun looked restricted by his knee.
He was one-for-four from the floor and missed his_only free-throw
attempt. He did have four rebounds and a steal, but fans would have liked to see better numbers against an anemic Dartmouth frontcourt during 15 minutes of action.
Kansas coach Bill Self said Kaun's knee was still bothering him.
“it's going to be a work in progress,” Self said. “The doctor said it's going to stay very sore and I think it is sore, but I don't think he hurt.”
The only other damper was that roughly 2,000 student seats were vacant for the first home game since upsetting then-No. 1-ranked Florida in Las Vegas.
But with high-profile home
match-ups like Southern California and Boston College approaching fast, Self isn't too concerned.
"How could you be disappointed in our fans the way they traveled to Vegas?" Self said of the Tuesday-night crowd. "This isn't a game that our students had circled from the beginning of the season."
Kansan sportswriter Shawn
Shroyer can be contacted at
sshroyer@kansan.com.
Edited by Natalie Johnson
THE RANT
To keep stands full, KU must bring back paper tickets
I remember the good ol' days.
takes the good of days.
The days when the Allen Fieldhouse student section was full no matter who the opponent was. It didn't matter if Kansas was playing Binghamton or Michigan State.
Now it has all changed.
A good 2,000 seats remained unfilled in the upper corner of the student section against Dartmouth on Tuesday night. Maybe it was the fact that finals were approaching, or that many students had group projects or papers to complete.
Even a Big 12 conference game saw nearly 1,000 seats unfilled last year, although it was against Baylor.
The entire section should remain full from the non-conference throughout the Big 12 schedule. Students go to school at one of the top five basketball institutions in the country. The atmosphere should reflect a top five program, night in and night out.
This problem has been going on for nearly two years.
It began with the switch prior to last season from paper tickets for students to electronic tickets on students' KU cards.
Before the switch, students would receive vouchers at the beginning of the season when they picked up their football tickets. Then they would take those vouchers during redemption periods and pick up actual paper tickets to the game.
All students needed to do to get into the game was hand the paper ticket to the ticket taker with a student ID. There was no hassle of scanning the ID 15 times before it was processed.
More importantly, students were able to give their paper tickets to
another student if they couldn't go to a game. So when a paper came up or a student had a test the next day, someone could still go in a student's place. It didn't matter whether students had the basketball season-ticket package, they could still get in with a student ID. This process contributed to a full student section for every game.
Now students can either go to the Fieldhouse and get tickets put on their cards during redemption periods or go online and pay a $1 fee per game to get them via the internet. To get the tickets transferred to another ID, the student must bring both ID cards to the Allen Fieldhouse ticket office
I know some people have advocated just giving their student IDs to another person to get them in. Let's be honest though, it's harder to get into Allen Fieldhouse for a basketball game than it is to get most in bars in Lawrence with a fake ID. I know people who are asked for a second form of ID at the Fieldhouse every time they go.
This is one of the premier college basketball institutions.
Athletics director Lew Perkins needs to change the policy on student ID cards. Go back to the paper tickets and Perkins will see an increase in student attendance for the non-conference games. This will obviously cause a better atmosphere for students and would even help the Athletics Department sell a few more hot dogs.
I understand the plan to switch to an electronic system was envisioned by former student body president Nick Sterner, but the plan has failed and needs to be changed.
Let us get back to the good of days of seeing the Fieldhouse filled with blue in all places, including the student section.
Colaianni is a McLean, Va., senior in journalism and political science.
— Edited by Travis Robinett
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