kansan.com
Wednesday, March 27, 2013
Volume 125 Issue 92
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
COMMENTARY
Jayhawks need McLemore to win
Kansas is playing its best half of the postseason. Jeff Withey is dinking and blocking. Naadir Tharpe is making step-back threes. Travis Releford is making spine-twisting layups. And Ben McLemore is on the bench, cheering them on.
This was the scene in the second half Sunday at the Sprint Center, as the Jayhawks beat North Carolina 70-58. The building was mostly full of KU fans, all of them standing and screaming for Kansas — and McLemore was one of them.
"Ben was the biggest cheerleader we had," Bill Self said after the game Sunday. "He's a great teammate."
He's a great teammate and certainly a great player. But he wasn't the latter against the Tar Heels, and he certainly wasn't Friday against Western Kentucky, either.
A couple bum games for a freshman from St. Louis? No big deal. However, when stakes are this high, and the Jayhawks could be done after any game, it can potentially become a very big deal. It's not to DEFCON 1 yet, but we'll see what happens when Kansas plays Michigan at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas.
"I've talked to a few coaches over the years that say you don't do that with your best player or leading scorer," Self said Sunday. "But we were actually better during that stretch."
Could the benching on Sunday affect him? Possibly.
It's not the end of times, either — he's got an incredibly bright future ahead of him.
It's possible that McLemore's hit a freshman wall, he's in a scoring slump or maybe neither of the above. It may all be a coincidence that the shots haven't dropped for Kansas' star. That's unlikely, though. Odds are, it's part freshman slump and part pressure-related. It's understandable, too. These are high expectations for a kid who's 20 years old.
After that North Carolina game where he scored two points, McLemore said he wasn't bothered at all by his poor shooting. But after the Western Kentucky game, he did fess up to one thing that's awfully telling about this incredibly talented player.
"The lights was bright out there."
Edited by Madison Schultz
This season, fans have noticed that McLemore fades out of the spotlight when the Jayhawks need to win most. On the road against Oklahoma State and Iowa State, McLemore scored seven points. He averaged an impressive 17.4 points per game in Big 12 play this season. However, on the road in conference play, he averaged 13 points per game.
If you include Kansas' Big 12 road games and its postseason games, he's averaged 12 points per game. And in postseason play alone, he averages 10.4 points per game.
RISE AND FIRE
THREE-DEMPTION
Outside shooting leads Kansas to victory over North Carolina
GEOFFREY CALVERT
contact@loewe.com
gcalvert@kansan.com
For the first 60 minutes of Kansas' NCAA Tournament run this season, 3-pointers were hard to come by. They were impossible to come by, in fact.
Against Western Kentucky, four players attempted six total 3-pointers, and they missed all six of those shots. Kansas actually attempted only one 3-pointer in the second half against the Hilltopers, spending the majority of the evening gathering points near the rim.
According to ESPN's stats and information department, Kansas became the first team since Arizona in 2001 to win an NCAA Tournament game without hitting a 3-pointer.
The trend continued in the first half against North Carolina in the round of 32. The Jayhawks attempted, and missed, all six of its 3-point attempts in the first half.
Winning a second consecutive game without hitting a 3-pointer, especially against a team that shoots a large volume of threes like North Carolina, would be a tall order.
But senior Travis Releford converted a 3-pointer before the second half was even two minutes old, and suddenly the floodgates opened.
"I was wide
"I was wide open, stepped up, took the shot," Releford said. "I wasn't thinking, "We need the shot, need to make it' I just focused on the time right then."
Releford
senior center Jeff Withey said Kansas' offense played well enough in the second half that Releford's 3-pointer wasn't necessarily the play of the game, but it definitely helped the Jayhawks further the offensive run they were starting.
Kansas shot 5-8 from 3-point range in the second half, finish
ing 5-14 from beyond the arc. After holding the 'Tar Heels to 2-17 3-point shooting in last season's Elite Eight victory, the Jayhawks kept them to 6-21 3-point shooting this time.
Without a reliable 3-point game, North Carolina had no answer for Kansas. Withey swapped five shots, four of them near the paint, and altered other Tar Heel attempts. North Carolina's smaller lineup was ill-suited to face Withey in the paint when the 3-pointers weren't falling, especially when Kansas' deep attempts were.
When Withey was guarding his man down low, Releford's perimeter defense, especially on Reggie Bullock, helped keep the Tar Heels from establishing any offensive rhythm.
"I said, 'You man only got five points, only scored one basket on you.' Self told Releford. He said 'No he didn't. He didn't get any on me. That was during a switch or a sub."
Although Releford didn't attempt another 3-pointer in the second half, he didn't need to. Senior guard Elijah Johnson drilled a deep shot to tie the game at 35, and sophomore guard Naadir Tharpe converted all three of his second-half 3-point attempts.
"His minutes are huge." Releford said. "He stepped up and made big shots, huge shots for us."
Tharpe had two key 3-pointers during Kansas' initial second-half run that effectively decided the game in Kansas' favor. With a little less than six minutes remaining in the second half and the shot clock winding down, Tharpe feigned a drive and swished a step-back 3-pointer, displaying the confidence Jayhawk fans have grown accustomed as Tharpe established himself as a key rotation player for Kansas this season.
"I had a good feeling that they were going in." Tharpe said.
- Edited by Tyler Conover
ASHLEIGH LEE/KANSAN
Senior guard Travis Releford attempts to shoot a 3-pointer during the game against West Virginia on March 2 in Allen Fieldhouse, where the Jayhawks defeated the Mountaineers 91-65. Releford was 0-3 in 3-point attempts.
TRACK AND FIELD
Kansas opens outdoor season in Texas
COLIN WRIGHT
cwright@kansan.com
The University will send a handful of athletes down to Texas this weekend, and it's not just the men's basketball team that will compete.
After a successful indoor season in which the women finished second at the NCAA Indoor Championships, the team looks to improve on that in the outdoor portion of the season.
The men's and women's track and field teams will compete in their first outdoor meet of the season Wednesday through Saturday at the Clyde Littlefield Texas Relays on the campus of the University of Texas in Austin, Texas.
The expectations could not be higher for them. After their recent success, the United States Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA) named Kansas the No. 1 team in the nation in the outdoor preseason poll. After consecutive runner-up finishes at the NCAA Indoor Championship and a fourth place finish at last year's Outdoor Championship, the expectations are justifiably high.
The men will also have an opportunity to compete on the national scene. They are ranked No. 26 in the USTFCCCA preseason outdoor poll. Of the five athletes who picked up points at the NCAA Outdoor Championships last season, four of them return for the Jayhawks.
The women are led by senior
Anthuela Geulebah, who has been picking up hardware left and right. After winning first place in both the long jump and the triple jump at the NCAA
Geubelle
Indoor Championship, she was named the National Field Athlete of the Year by the USTFCCCA.
Joining Geubelie will be 10 other returners who were ranked in the top 10 in the nation in their events, including juniors Diamond Dixon and Natalia Bartnovskaya. Dixon holds the school record in the 400-meter with a time of 50.88 and Bartnovskaya made a quick impact as a Jayhawk, winning the
Kansas is also going to rely on seniors Heather Bergmann, Paris Daniels and Francine Simpson. Bergmann was runner-up in the javelin at the Big 12 Outdoor Championships last season, Daniels is both the 2012 Big 12 Outdoor Champion and the league Indoor Champion this year, and Simpson looks to defend her title in the long jump, winning the Big 12 Outdoor crown last year with a jump 6.67 meters.
The Kansas men are led by senior Kyle Clemons, who competed in the semifinal of the 400-meter at the NCAA Indoor Championships earlier this month. He currently is the school record holder in the 400-meter with a time of 46.44.
The men finished 23rd a' the NCAA Outdoor Championsiips in 2012 and will look to their upperclassmen to make significant contributions to the team throughout the outdoor season.
pole vault at the NCAA Indoor Championships this month with a school record vault of 4.45 meters.
—Edited by Dylan Lysen
KANSAS RELAYS
4/17—4/20
TEXAS RELAYS
3/27 — 3/30
EMPORIA SPRING OPEN 3/30
STANFORD INVITATIONAL 4/05 — 4/06
TRITON INVITATIONAL 4/27
JOHN MCDONNELL INVITATIONAL
SUN ANGEL CLASSIC
4/05 — 4/06
BIG 12 OUTDOOR CHAMPIONSHIPS
5/03--5/05
GEORGIA TECH INVITATIONAL
5/10 - 5/11
NCAA WEST PREMLIMINARY
5/24 — 5/25
NCAA OUTDOOR CHAMPIONSHIPS 6/05 — 6/08
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