Sports THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
The four finalists See who's headed to Indy and who's not. BASKETBALL | 7B
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Softball suffers setback
MONDAY, MARCH 29, 2010
Both games end in run-rule losses against Aaggies. SOFTBALL| 5B
WWW.KANSAN.COM
GILL'S GAME
PAGE 1B
Coach Turner Gill sneaks with his team Sunday afternoon at the practice fields southeast of Memorial Stadium. The Jayhawks practiced together for the first time on Sunday since previous coach Mark Mangino left the program
Gill gets settled in at practice
New head coach addresses players strategies for the upcoming season
Kaian Waggers KANSAK Freshman running back Deshawn Sands completes a drill during Kansas' first spring practice Sunday afternoon. Sands could help fill the running back position left by graduating senior Jake Sharo.
Ryan Waqqoner/KANSAN
BY CLARK GOBLE cgoble@kansan.com
And it didn't take long for Gill to announce his first change. Senior Vernon Brooks was dismissed from the team permanently for violating team policy.
"Nobody's watching the basketball game?" Gill joked. "Wow. I thought you guys might still be watching basketball on TV or something."
As a cluster of cameras and reporters engulfed Kansas head coach Turner Gill before his first spring practice Sunday afternoon, Gill seemed genuinely surprised by the media attention.
Brooks, a linebacker from Missouri City, Texas, transferred from Blinn Junior College in 2009. He made five total tackles and left the team midseason. He was expected to return for spring practice before Gill announced his removal.
Gill said that every player had a chance to impress the coaches on the practice field.
"We can only evaluate on what we see," Gill said. "We're not just going to guess on what they might have done in the past, but what
they are able to do right now.
Gill won't make any huge changes in the next couple of practices, but plans to have an initial depth chart in about a week. He said he can evaluate a player's body language in the early practices, but the true evaluation will come when the players put on pads.
If the coaching staff feels the need to increase the competition at any position,it won't hesitate to do so.
"We always want competition," Gill said. "That's always going to bring the best out of each player."
Gill isn't worried about opposing coaches spying on his practices from other vantage points, including the Oread Inn.
INJURY ISSUES
"Football: Everybody knows what everybody's doing." Gill said. Other things Gill addressed Sunday included:
Senior linebacker Drew Dudley is one of several players who will be doing minimal activities as he works through an injury. Gill said he will provide a more specific update on the players dealing with injuries on Wednesday.
QUARTERBACK BATTLE
Gill said he would mostly be looking at the quarterbacks' body language in these early practices. He wants to hear each quarterback's voice in the huddle and see how the other players respond.
SHOTGUN OR UNDER CENTER
a shotgun snap and a under the center snap into the offense. Under Mark Mangino, the quarterback almost always took a deep snap.
Gill said he wants to work both
RETURN GAME
Prior to stretching, four players fielded punts from senior Alonso Rojas; junior wide receiver Daymond Patterson, freshman running back Deshaun Sands,
sophomore wide receiver D.J. Beshears and junior cornerback Isaiah Barfield. Gill said he would do a lot of work with the return teams in the coming weeks.
Edited by Becky Howlett
BASEBALL
Jayhawks battle Bears to win out series in season opener
BY BEN WARD bward@kansan.com
In the tightly competitive three-game series in Waco, Texas that was marked by high-powered offenses and continual lead changes, the Jayhawks saved their best performance for last.
"That's about as good as it gets," coach Ritch Price said.
After splitting the first two games, Kansas (15-9, 2-1) outlasted Baylor to earn a 12-6 victory in 14 innings on Sunday to take two-of-three games in its Big 12 opener.
Friday and Saturday's games were nearly identical, with the Jayhawks jumping out to early leads only to see them vanish after big innings from the Bears. Baylor exploded for five run rallies in
The victory in Sunday's finale capped off a series in which the Jayhawks continually hung tough, rallying back from deficits and wearing down the Bears to notch their first ever series victory in Waco.
"To have fought through the adversity that we did to win those two games that we did is huge," coach Price said.
Walz was able to regain his composure after Baylor's rally on Friday, lasting into the seventh inning and giving Kansas a chance to recapture the lead and win the ball game. But Selik didn't make it out of the fourth inning on Saturday, leaving the Jayhawk bullpen with a heavier than usual workload.
each contest, smacking around Kansas starters — junior T.J. Walz and senior Cameron Selik.
With another ineffective start from his pitching staff, coach Price said the only chance Kansas had at victory lay in a strong showing from his bullpen.
"The only way we were going to get back into it was to get the bleeding stopped." Price said.
Sunday's outing started in a similar fashion, when an early 4-0 Jayhawk lead was drowned out with a six-run rally in the third
inning by the Bears, who knocked out senior Brett Bollman in the process.
Freshman Tanner Poppe was first to enter and the youngster was up to task, tossing three and
SERIES FINAL SCORES
SEE BASEBALL ON PAGE 8B
**Game 1** – Kansas 9, Baylor 8
**Game 2** – Kansas 8, Baylor 9
**Game 3** – Kansas 12, Baylor 6
BY CLARK GOBLE cgoble@kansan.com
COMMENTARY
The Wildcats' first 20 three-point attempts against West Virginia missed. Kevin Pelton, an NBA analyst, tweeted during the ominous streak that the odds of this happening against an average defense, like West Virginias, was more than 1 in 5,400, which means the team would take 135 seasons to find a game where they went 0-for-20 from three again.
Superior teams don't get job done
K
kentucky couldn't hit water from a boat Saturday, let alone the bottom of the net from 20 feet away.
In that statistic, we can see the beauty, and the harsh reality, of basketball in March.
It doesn't always go like it should
The reality is that the only thing that matters is the tournament. The tournament seedings weigh the regular season results, providing the teams that succeeded in January and February the opportunity to play what is supposed to be lesser competition to reach the Final Four.
Kansas fans know this all too well. In terms of talent and depth, the Jayhawks were a lock for the Final Four. They slipped up on the second step to Indianapolis and found themselves lying flat on their backs, watching Northern Iowa skip down the road.
For Kansas and Kentucky fans, this is no time to bemoan Butler, West Virginia or Michigan State for accomplishing what the Jayhawks and Wildcats couldn't.
Butler's Brad Stevens, a coach who looks like he might have just graduated from high school, outcoached Jim Boeheim and Syracuse, knocking the Orange out on the third step. Kentucky's shooting fobiles against West Virginia cost them a trip to Indy.
But is this beauty superficial, like the forty-something facing a midlife crisis and shelling out thou sands of dollars for plastic surgery? If Butler wins the whole shebang, do we consider it the best team in the country? Even though the Bulldogs didn't take down Kansas or Kentucky themselves?
The beauty of this notion: The team that topples all comers in a three-week span did everything it needed to deserve the title. The team may not have a huge NBA prospect or look fantastic in a layup line, but it did what it needed to do to advance.
Nonetheless, Bill Self, working as a CBS studio analyst on Saturday and Sunday, probably cursed under his breath when he saw the more athletic Wildcats, both Kansas State and Kentucky, fall to teams that simply executed team basketball
So with this Final Four, one headlined by Butler's seven mile trip from campus to Lucas Oil Stadium, do we automatically assume that the national champion is the nation's best team?
That's why you don't need to look outside to know that March is the most beautiful time of the year.
If his team executed with its season on the line, like Kansas State and Kentucky couldn't, Self could have ridden his team's athleticism and talent to a national title against an otherwise surprising Final Four.
This tournament was an opportunity missed for the lahawks
Edited by Jesse Ranael