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THURSDAY,MAY 10,2007 WWW.KANSAN.COM
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THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
THE WILD
SPORTS
PAGE 1B
SOFTBALL
Kansas maintains slim hope during tourney
BY EVAN KAFARAKIS
As proud as coach Tracy Bunge was with last season's Big 12 championship, it's a thing of the past.
"Last year was last year, done and over with," Bunge said.
The Kansas softball team returns to Oklahoma City to participate in the Big 12 Championship.
A year ago, the sixth-seeded Jayhawks moved through the tournament to win their first ever Big 12 postseason championship.
The squad returns 10 letter winners from last season's team and finds themselves ranked seventh in the field of 10.
"Last year we had six seniors that did a great deal at the end of the year." Bunge said. "This team looks a lot different offensively and defensively and we have two seniors leading us."
Kansas has to get going on their own hot streak.
Bunge also said that this year's winner can be from one of eight teams and whoever is on the hot streak will come out as champions.
The squad is on a five-game losing streak with their two most recent losses to the team they will face in game one of the championship, Iowa State.
The last time the Jayhawks had a five-game losing streak, they followed with a five-game winning streak.
"We stumbled last week," Bunge said. "Mentally we didn't seem like we were ready to play, and we let Iowa State dictate the game."
The two teams have faced off against each other three times this season with the Cyclones having the overall lead 2-1 and outscoring the Jayhawks 15-7.
If the Jayhawks can get through the Cyclones in single elimination, they will face the Sooners.
Oklahoma is ranked third in the field and split with Kansas in the regular season. Taking a look inside the numbers of the regular season shows how the Jayhawks have faired on the season.
Offensively, Kansas is 26-3 when scoring the first run of the game and 23-0 when they lead after five innings of play.
Defensively the lajayhaws are 18-5 when they don't commit any errors.
On the other side, Kansas is 0-13 if they give up five or more runs and 2-19 when trailing after four innings.
The team is 4-11-1 when they commit two or more errors in a game.
Senior pitcher Kassie
SEE SOFTBALL ON PAGE 10B
top
A lot has happened in the world of Kansas athletics since last fall. We sat down and decided which events were most important Here they are.
COMPILED BY RYAN SCHNEIDER AND ERIN WILEY
4 Fourth-quarter football meltdowns
It could have been one of the best seasons in Kansas football history. Instead, the season was like a never-ending night mare. The Jayhawks blew late fourth-quarter leaks in four games — including three conference games, one being a 36-35 defeat after giving up 19 points in the fourth quarter to Baylor in Waco.
5 Golfer Amanda Costner wins Big 12 individual title
Senior women's golfer Costner was the first Jayhawk ever to win a conference individual title. In the last round, she shot a five-over par 77 and had a total of 221. Kansas placed ninth as a team.
Women's basketball defeats Kansas State and a
surprise tourney run For the time in six years, Kansas defeated K-State 82-74 in double overtime in Allen Fieldhouse. Kansas was led by freshman Danielle McCray with 25 points. Senior Shaquina Mosley sent the game into double overtime with a layup with seconds remaining. Mosely finished just shy of her first triple-double. In the Big 12 Tournament, the women defeated Oklahoma State 71-62 and then fell to Baylor 71-54 to end their season.
In front of a sell-out crowd, the men's basketball team came from behind to defeat Kevin Durant and the Texas Longhorns 90-86. Kansas trailed by 12 at halftime, but rallied quickly into the locker room to start the second half. Sophomore Mario Chalmers led the Jayhawks with 21 points. The victory gave Kansas its seventh Big 12 title, 50th conference title overall and also 1,900 victories.
7 Men win 50th conference championship and 1.900 games
Egor Agafonov wins national weight throw title
Agafonov at the 2007 indoor national championships in Fayetteville, Ark. Agafonov threw a career-best 77-05 25 feet. He defeated Cory Martin, a thrower for Auburn. Agafonov was the first Jayhawk to win an individual national championship title since the 2005 indoor season.
After successful sophomore seasons, guard Brandon Rush and forward Julian Wright declared for the NBA Draft Wright had spent most of the season promising that he would return for his junior season. Rush waited until two days before the draft's deadline to declare.
new contracts for Mangino, Self and Henrickson
Football coach Mark Mangino signed a five-year deal that more than doubled his salary to $1.5 million. Men's basketball coach Bill Self also signed a five-year deal that is worth as much as $1.6 million per season. Last month, women's basketball coach Bonnie Henickson reportedly signed a new five-year deal that includes a raise on her $750,000 salary.
Kansas defeats No. 1 Florida in Las Vegas During Thanksgiving break. Kansas traveled to Sin City to take on
During Thanksgiving break, Kansas traveled to Sin City to take on the defending national champion Florida Gators. After a sluggish victory against Ball State on Friday night, the Jayhawks came out ready to play Florida on Saturday by defeating the Gators B2-80 in overtime. Julian Wright scored a team-high 21 points and had 10 rebounds in the victory. In the last minute of overtime, Brandon Rush scored a layup and Russell Robinson made a free throw to clinch the victory.
After finishing the 2006 season with 43 victories, a return to the NCAA tournament and a Big 12 Tournament championship, the Jayhawk's hopes were high for the 2007 campaign. But right now, the Jayhawks hold a losing record of 23-28, B-15 G12 Conference. The Jayhawks have only won one G12 series, but on the other hand have been swept only once. The way it looks right now, Kansas will be the first team in G12 history to win the tournament one season, then not return the next.
Lisa Lipovac/KANSAN
Buck Afenir, sophomore catcher, swings during Wednesday's 8-6 victory against Missouri State. The Jayhawks overall record is now 23-28.
Kansan sports editor Ryan Schneider can be contacted at rschneider@kansan.com, and associate sports editor Erin Wiley can be reached at ewiley@kansan.com.
- Edited by Catherine Odson
Jayhawks struggle for postseason
BY ALISSA BAUER
》 BASEBALL
It's not over vet
After Kansas took the two-game sweep from Kansas State last weekend, the Jayhawks (23-28, 8-15 Big 12 Conference) fell back into last place in the Big 12 standings, and their fate after the regular season looked dim.
Running out of time, the lajahaws needs victories to keep its postseason hopes alive.
They started with an 8-5 victory against Missouri State on Wednesday.
"I'm proud of how resilient this team has been," Coach Ritch Price said. "I'm not going to let them quit. We're going to play this thing out and try to sweep Chicago State on the weekend and see if we can get back to .500 and see if we can get some help in the last
SEE BASEBALL ON PAGE 10B
》 PROFILE
The enthusiastic bellowing of "right between the eyes" is instantly recognizable to basketball fans.
Over the last 25 years, that voice has told the stories of epic KU comebacks, the rebirth of the Chiefs franchise and too many memorable NBA moments to count. Kevin Harlan, the man behind the voice and his
Harlan reaches career goals
story is just as compelling as told he has asked on an NFL Sunday. It is a story of a boy who worked hard to achieve his one goal, a student whose mentor offered him unflinching
BY DANNY LUPPINO
The deep, husky voice is familiar to anybody who watches football.
Harlan
support and a family man who was able to find time for what was really important to him amid the hectic schedule that his fame brought.
"I knew what I wanted to do"
Harlan was born in 1960 in Milwaukee and grew up in Green Bay, where his father's position as assistant general manager allowed him access that most kids could only dream about and introduced him to sports broadcasting.
Harlan has known sports his entire life. His father, Bob Harlan, is president of the Green Bay Packers.
Harlan said during his childhood he would sometimes go into the broadcasting booth at Lambeau Field and make up play-by-play for imaginary Packers games. By the time he was a sophomore in high school, he was doing the real thing, broadcasting his school's sporting events on the school radio station. It was a tape of a high school hockey game that first got Harlan noticed and began the chain of events that landed him in Kansas.
"There was a brief time where I wanted to be a commercial airline pilot," Harlan said. "But for the most part I have always known this is what I wanted to do. When you know what you want to do at an early age, that just starts the whole thing."
"I was all set to go to Wisconsin," Harlan said. "Then Gary Bender was doing a Packers game for CBS. He was a KU alum, and he talked to my dad and told him I needed to go to Kansas and learn under Tom Hedrick."
A broadcaster at the University of Wisconsin, Bob Johnson, heard the tape and began recruiting Harlan to study under him. At the same time, CBS broadcaster Gary Bender heard the tape and told Kevin what he thought Kevin should do.
Hedrick, a veteran broadcaster and KU journalism professor, had known Bob Harlan for about 25 years when Bob called him to say his son wanted to be a sports broadcaster and asked Hedrick to help.
"I asked 'Is he actually good or is this just a dad talking about his son?' Heedrick recalled. "He said he would send me a tape. After about two or three minutes of the tape I just started laughing and I thought 'This kid is phenomenal.'"
Harlan nervously called Hedrick
SEE HARLAN ON PAGE 6B