KANSAN.COM / THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN / WEDNESDAY, APRIL 14, 2010 / SPORTS
5B
DEFENSE (CONTINUED FROM 1B)
Oguntodu said.
Phillip Srozier strips the ball from fellow safety Lubbock Smith. Kansas' defense focuses on aggressive play and quickness to create more opponent turnovers. Jerry Wang ANKASN
Jerry Wang/KANSAN
Kansas' defense received its fair share of criticism last season, often playing well for stretches before buckling late Junior linebacker Justin Springer described the unit as inconsistent after starting the season 5-0.
With the departure of safety Darrell Stuckey, the defense returns again as a question mark this season.
"I'm not saying nobody believes in us, but a lot of people don't believe in us," Springer said. "We've got to prove everybody wrong."
So far, with positions and starters far from settled, the biggest emphasis appears to be taking possessions away from opponents. Perhaps no position may have as many opportunities to do so as the secondary.
The defensive backfield fell under scrutiny last season after surrendering big plays against Iowa State and Colorado in the fifth and sixth games of the season. Because of that, the Jayhawks continually rotated players, and the unit never developed a consistent group of starters.
Plus, the secondary simply struggled to force turnovers. In eight Big 12 games last season, the layhawks picked off only three passes.
This season, Kansas is attempting to build a risk-taking mentality.
"You have to free guys up to play,
and you have to free guys up to play
fast," cornerbacks coach Vic Shealy said. "Some of that is being able to take a calculated risk. If you are afraid to make a mistake because you'll be sitting on the sideline, then you play slow"
During practices, Shealy pushes Kansas' cornerbacks to cover a receiver more tightly. In that case, Shealy said, cornerbacks understand when it is appropriate to take risks and when to play it safe.
"Right now," Shealy said, "you tell them. I want to see you let that cushion shrink. If you get run by on a deep
ball, blame it on me. But I want you to see what it feels like to let a receiver begin to press you a little bit."
Those points reflect back to the same basic principle: A more aggressive defense offers more chances to create turnovers.
So far this spring, that's an area Kansas is working on.
"We want to be a defense that people know that we can run and that we're aggressive," Gill said.
Edited by Drew Anderson
JAMES (CONTINUED FROM 1B)
thusiasts. Eventually James' works expanded to a national scale and eventually swayed the perception of baseball, the childhood love that he never let slip away.
He coined the term "Sabermetrics", after the Society for American Baseball Research, to define
his array of statistics founded upon objectivity.
"My reputation is based entirely on finding the right question to ask," James said.
Another more recent assumption is that in every season, no matter the team, 100 of the 162 games in a regular season are pre-
"27-year-old players hit 68% more home runs in the Major Leagues than do 32-year-old players." James said.
He does so by breaking
"In order to advance the sphere of what is known about baseball, you have to learn to identify your own ignorance."
BILL JAMES Red Sox senior advisor
down an unknown and locating the point of potential subjectivity. Through numbers, James aims to reach as close to objectivity as mathematics allows.
James countered these claims, stating that the risk of stealing a base or bunting — a potential out— is not always worth the attempt. He also argued a player's true prime with statistical evidence.
One of his examples went like this: Which characteristics define a winning and/or successful baseball team? So called "experts" have said that player hit their prime at ages 28-32. They also say that teams gain an advantage stealing bases and bunting the runner on first base over to second base.
Some say that it is inevitable that a team will lose 50 games and win 50 games. The outcome of other 62 games decide whether the season was a success or a
failure.
James calculated that this claim is both inaccurate and misleading. He said that only about 40 games in a season result in a blowout, thus, 122 games are toss ups. Obviously, financial and talent pools skew these numbers. However, James repeatedly noted that his numbers rely on arbitrary factors and that he has no official credentials, other than credibility itself.
But despite his apparent bashing of the conventional wisdom of scouts, James does hold a certain respect for the tiring trade.
"I admire the ability of scouts to look at a young hitter and note
things about his swing that may predict what he will be able to adjust to at higher levels of competition," James said. "I also lust after those really cool radar guns."
But trusting the subjectivity of the eye often pales in comparison to the truth of the objective number.
John Henry, owner of the Boston Red Sox and Baseball Abstract enthusiast, felt the same way. In 2002, he hired James as a Senior Advisor of Baseball Operations. The move was controversial, but paid its dividends. After all, it was partly James' idea to sign David "Big Papi" Ortiz and trade for Mark Bellhorn, two once unheralded players who played key roles in Boston's 2004 World Series title, its first since 1918.
He is still writing and digging for the next great baseball metric. So long as James and his followers continue to ask questions, baseball will continue to crawl toward complete objectivity.
"You don't learn anything by focusing on stuff that you already know," James said. "In order to advance the sphere of what is known about baseball, you have to learn to identify your own ignorance."
Edited by Taylor Bern
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Sports talk
Freshman places in top 10
Tanner Grubbs/KANSAN
MEN'S GOLF
The Jayhawks placed in the top five for the third straight tournament Tuesday. This time the Jayhawks' finish took place in the form of a three-way tie for fifth place at the Missouri Intercollegiate in Columbia, Mo.
BY ANDREW WITUSZYNSKI
awituszsniki atkansan.com
Bill Lacy, director of the Dole Institute, left, interviews Kansas Athletics Director Lew Perkins Tuesday at the Robert J. Dole Institute of Politics on West campus. Perkins, who was voted world's best sports executive through a TIME magazine online poll in 2008, discussed leadership and globalization in sports.
"Overall we played OK this week," coach Kit Grove said. "We hoped to build on our good second round a little more than we did."
Top scorer for Kansas was freshman Chris Gilbert, who was even par for the event and tied for ninth place. It was Gilbert's best finish for the Jayhawks in his young career.
"This was a great experience for Gilbert to get a top 10 finish," Grove said, "There were definitely some positives."
Nebraska came in first with a score of seven under par as a team. Kansas State placed in second with Missouri coming in
Freshman Alex Gutesha shot rounds of 75, 72, and 76 and was the second-best scorer for the lavhawks.
third, Brandon Crick of Nebraska, and Curtis Yonke of Kansas State were both five under par for the three rounds and shared first-place honors for the tournament.
Fellow freshman Dan Waite finished just one stroke behind Gutesha at eight over par for the tournament.
Senior Bryan Hackenberg also shot eight over par in the three rounds and sophomore Blake Giroux finished at 11 over par.
The three rounds were a bit of an up and down for Kansas with a total score of 301 in the first round, 282 in the second and 302 in the final round.
"I got off to bad starts in every round, but I was happy with the way I improved after that," Gutesha said.
said. "The guys need to do a better job of controlling their high and low emotions."
"This seems to be the way it goes for us; we'll play a good round and then a bad one." Grove
The Jayhawks' next event is the three-day Big 12 Championship in Trinity, Texas starting April 23.
Kansas will be looking for redemption against Nebraska, Kansas State and Missouri.
"We're going to try and build on some of the positives we had in this tournament and it will be nice to get our horse Nate back," Grove said.
Junior Nate Barbee is the team's number-one player. Because of a back injury he was unable to play this week, but should be ready to go in two weeks.
"Getting Nate back will be huge for us," Gutesha said, "If we all play well at the same time, we can do well in the Big 12."
— Edited by Katie Blankenau
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