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Tourney teams abound Women's basketball conference is stacked. STOCK REPORT | 10B
THURSDAY, MARCH 4, 2010
Rain changes schedule
WWW.KANSAN.COM
Jayhawks will now play doubleheader on Friday. BASEBALL | 3B
KANSAS 82, KANSAS STATE 65
PAGE 1B
Final shot in the Fieldhouse
Collins scores 17 ends night with emotional speech
BY COREY THIBODEAUX
cthibodeaux@kansan.com
twitter.com/c cthibodeaux
With 30 seconds to go in the game, Sherron Collins buried his head in the stomach of junior center Cole Aldrich and wrapped his arms around him. As a senior guard, Collins' time at Allen Fieldhouse was up.
"I saw the subs coming" Collins said, "so I knew it was it."
It was the perfect way to go out, defeating No. 5 Kansas State 82-65 to capture the regular season Big 12 title.
But Collins' emotions didn't translate on the court, scoring 17 points on 5-for-15 shooting.
After the game, Self addressed the crowd for senior night. He listed all the faults Collins possessed when he first arrived at Kansas; moody, hard-headed, brash.
"It's all true," Collins said. "I'm stubborn, cocky, but I think those are my best traits."
Self kept the jokes rolling in the media room after seeing all the attention directed toward Collins.
"Why do you want to interview a guy who went 1-for-9 the first half?" Self said. "I don't understand that at all."
COMMENTARY
Collins kept driving and kept shooting, but many of his shots weren't falling. He came out of the game with a purpose, splitting the Wildcats' defense, but he said he was too excited to start the game with all the pressure. Still, Self wasn't about to tell him to stop shooting.
"He can make one, and all of a sudden that can become four or five in a row, and that's the difference in the game," Self said.
Collins' 17 points actually were the difference — but not the reason — for Kansas' victory.
The Jayhawks started hot, jumping out to a 18-6 lead. Despite a couple of late first half runs by Kansas State, the Jayhawks went into halftime up 45-38.
At the 17:06 mark in the second half, K-State senior guard Denis Clemente tied the game at 45 with a three-pointer. From then on, it was run after run by both teams. Kansas made the final defining run late with a 16-2 burst.
The two other players carrying the load for Kansas were freshman guard Xavier Henry, who had 19 points, and sophomore for-
SEESHERRON ON PAGE 6B
Weston White/KANSAN
Senior guard Sherron Collins drives to the basket for his final shot in Allen Fieldhouse with 33 seconds left in the second half Wednesday night. The basket gave Kansas a 19-point lead at 82-63, finishing with 17 points in 38 minutes.
Jayhawks remember what it's all about
BY ALEX BEECHER
beecher@kansan.com
You often hear certain pseudo profundities repeated to describe a given sporting event. An arena might be described as "electric," the crowd noise "deafening," a game "huge". Usually, these are lifeless superlatives, reeking of hyperbole.
But not last night. From the moment Sherron Collins stepped onto James Naismith court — tears already beginning to leak from his eyes — a thesaurus wouldn't hold the right vocabulary to describe the greatness of the occasion.
It was the perfect stage — senior night against a top-five rival — for Collins to have a perfect send-off. He would bust out of his recent shooting slump and, in so doing, lead Kansas to an affirming victory.
Reality has a way of offering up last-second script re-writes, however. Last night, it did just that. Kansas got its victory, of course, but not on Collins' shoulders. And that makes it all the more powerful.
The first half, it was Xavier Henry, a freshman, draining the three-point baskets Collins missed. It was Henry who, despite registering two early fouls, scored 15 first-half points, leading the layhawks to a 45-38 advantage.
But the night wasn't about Henry, who, like Collins, may well have been playing his final game at Allen Fieldhouse. And it was not solely about Collins, as the pre-game narrative dictated.
Rather, it was a coming together of things — the atmosphere, the explosive
SEECOLUMN ON PAGE 7B
WOMEN'S BASKETBALL
Junior guard Rhea Codi chases the ball after it was knocked loose by Nebraska's Yonnie Turner Wednesday. Kansas lost the game 77-52.
Mike Gunnoe/KANSAN
The loss may cost Kansas a place in NCAA tournament
BY MAX ROTHMAN
mrothman@kansan.com
twitter.com/maxrothman
Nebraska trumps a sleepy Kansas
LINCOLN, Neb. — Kansas' senior leader, guard Sade Morris, trudged off the court at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln with her second foul and still 12 minutes to play in the first half. Suddenly, there was no fallback.
In an attempt to inbound the ball, the lajahawks scrambled in circles, but they were muffed by red and white jerseys. Nebraska freshman Lindsey Moore swiped
junior guard Marisha Brown's desperation pass, and the onslaught continued.
No. 3 Nebraska hammered
No. 3 Nebraska 77-52 on its senior night in front of a booming sell-out crowd at the Bob Devaney Sports Center. Twenty-two turnovers, the Jayhawks' ever-present Achilles' heel,
CONNIE YORI
Nebraska coach
"I don't think we could have scripted it any better than this."
"I don't think we could have scripted it any better than this," Nebraska coach Connie Yori said. "It just worked out perfectly."
crumbled their possessions and the game. They fell to 5-10 in the Big 12 and, barring a miraculous run in the conference tournament, likely terminated their NCAA tournament chances.
T he Cornhuskers hit their first four shots and jumped out to a 9-0 lead in the opening two and a half minutes. In the first half, they never slowed and led 49-32
at the break.
"We knew that if we threw the ball ahead, we could flatten their defense out," Nebraska junior Dominique Kelley said. "As a result, numerous people got to the
After halftime, the Jayhawks were both unproductive and uninspired. They scored just two points in the first eight minutes of the second half and displayed little to no effort in boxing out their opponents for rebounds.
As a deflated Kansas team sleep-walked through the majority of the second half, the big red celebration began. Griffin was subbed out with 6:46 remaining, greeted by high fives from her teammates and a roaring ovation from the stands.
basket."
Even before the opening tipoff, senior night at the Devaney Center seemed more like a celebration than a showdown. Kansas' passionless performance served
SEEWOMEN'S ON PAGE 5B