THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN SPORTS
Jayhawks lose in double overtime
SOCCER | 6B
MONDAY, OCTOBER 18, 2010
After losing to Texas Tech on Friday, Kansas lost 1-0 in double overtime in a physical and penalty-ridden match against Baylor. Kansas is 5-12 overall.
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IT'S BACK
'Late Night' kicks off season
Fun festivities also serve as recruiting tool
BY TIM DWYER
tdwyer@kansan.com
Less than an hour after Marcus Morris donned a sweater vest, bow tie and backwards hat as he danced to Boyz II Men, he showed off a different type of footwork as he led the Late Night scrimmage with 14 points and eight rebounds.
Morris' Crimson squad lost 40-39 when his full-court shot dropped just shy of the rim, but he was the unquestioned star of the night. Considering the role he'll be expected to play this season, it should have come as no surprise. Morris, though, was still finding flaws in his game.
"I thought it was close," Morris said about his desperation heave. "Unlike my layups. I'm missing layups. I gotta get better, but I padded my stats a little bit again."
SEE MORE COVERAGE OF LATE NIGHT ON 7B
The scrimmage gave fans their first look at superfrosh Josh Selby, who finished with six points, an assist and a rebound in a performance that didn't leave any jaws on the floor.
"We had some individuals play pretty good," coach Bill Self said. "I thought Tyshawn was terrific."
No other Jayhawks finished in double figures scoring, but Tyshawn Taylor and Thomas Robinson both had nine. Markieff Morris had an efficient eight points on 4-of-5 shooting to go along with four boards.
If fans will take any negative away from the game, it would be the lack of defense, as the teams hit a combined 52.3 percent of their shots. Self cautioned against reading into it, though.
"Josh was so nervous," Self said after the scrimmage. "You've got all this hype on a kid, and you've got so much uncertainty with him with everything that's going on and everything. He told me beforehand, he said, 'I can't eat, I can't do anything.'"
The start of practice is only part of the Late Night festivities, though. The skits, the videos, the speeches — they all serve one purpose above the others: to recruit.
"We haven't even talked about defense yet," Self said, "so it doesn't bother me at all that we didn't guard. Or didn't know how to guard."
The Jayhawks, who got their first commitment from No. 91 overall Naadir Tharpe Thursday, had a full house Friday night for that purpose with five five-star recruits and six four-star recruits, according to JayhawkSlant.com's ratings, sitting front row.
Only three players — Ben McLemore, LeBryan Nash and Angelo Chol — came from the class of 2011. Kansas is considered legitimately in the running for all three players.
Other notable recruits include three of the top ten players in the class of 2013. Julius Randle, No. 3 overall, was wearing a Kansas hoodie next to Zach Peters, a 2012 Kansas commit. Twin brothers Andrew and Aaron Harrison, No. 1 and No. 10 overall, respectively, were also on hand.
"Our staff's done a good job of getting recruits in here and having it be organized to the point where they can all enjoy it," Self said.
They especially enjoyed Bill Self's classic appearance as Vanilla Ice, shimmering gold MC Hammer jumpsuit included.
"Yesterday they asked me if I would do it, and I said, 'How dumb will I look?' Self said. "They said, 'Probably ... It'll be a good laugh.'"
- Edited by Clark Goble
Ryan Waggoner/KANSAN
Junior forward Marcus Morris goes up for a dunk on a breakaway Friday night at Allen Fieldhouse. The men's and women's basketball teams opened their 2010-11 seasons at the 26th annual Late Night in the Phog on Friday.
Look at a photo gallery from Late Night at www. kansan.com/photos/galleries
Jerry Wang/KANSAN
Kansas State wide receiver Aubrey Quarles leaps over senior safety Olaitan Oguntodu during the second quarter. Oguntodu led the team with six tackles as the Jayhawks fell to the Wildcats 59-7 at Memorial Stadium Thursday night.
FOOTBALL
Jayhawk offense lacking in game against the Wildcats
Quarterback Carson Coffman completed all but one of his 16 passes while rushing for a staggering three touchdowns. Highly-touted running back Daniel Thomas contributed 91 yards to K-State's 276 total yardage on the ground while adding a touchdown. Backup running back William Powell highlighted his night with a 56-yard third quarter run, followed by a Carson Coffman two-yard touchdown run.
After the Kansas defense forced a three-and-out on Kansas State's first drive of the night, the Wildcats caught fire on their way to six straight scoring drives, five of which ended in touchdowns.
BY KORY CARPENTER kcarpenter@kansan.com
Kansas was dominated in all facets of the game, and coach Turner Gill said his team has to return to the basics before getting better.
"We've got to look at some things on the basics of football, such as being able to execute plays," Gill
The Jayhawk offense held the ball longer than K-State and matched their 20 first downs, yet was still unable to get anything going on offense. Freshman quarterback Jordan Webb failed to connect for a touchdown pass while going com-
said. "Offensively in particular."
pleting 26 of 46 passes. Midway through the third quarter, the Kansas offense had a rare opportunity deep in Wildcat territory. Webb dropped back from the
"We've got to look at some things on the basics of football, such as being able to execute plays."
10-yard line but his fade route was intercepted by defensive back Stephen Harrison. Many of Kansas' 228 passing yards came after the game was well out of hand and Wildcat defenders were giving up short yardage plays while protecting against the deep ball.
sophomore quarterback Kale Pick's availability late in the game, Gill said he discussed it with his coaches, but ultimately wasn't comfortable with Pick's lack of practice leading up to Thursday night. Pick suffered a leg injury while relieving Webb against New Mexico State.
When asked about backup
TURNER GILL Coach
"He really had only two days of practice," said Gill. "We just didn't feel like it was advantageous to put him in at that time. We want to make sure he has another week to
COMMENTARY
make sure he's healed up pretty well"
Edited by Anna Nordling
The Jayhawks return to Memorial Stadium this week to face Texas A&M.
Kansas can learn from Bill Snyder
BY COREYTHIBODEAUX cthibodeaux@kansan.com
You can't sugarcoat games like this. The Kansas football
team had two weeks after a 55-7 loss to Baylor to regroup. study Kansas State and make Thursday night's home game a competitive matchup.
K-State was beaten down 48-13 against Nebraska only a week before. Yet running back Daniel Thomas said his team was ready for Kansas almost immediately.
As we all know by now, it was one of the most lopsided Sunflower Showdowns in recent memory, a 59-7 Wildcat romping. Not since a 64-0 victory in 2002 have the Wildcats won in Lawrence.
Now the Wildcats are one win away from being bowl eligible and Kansas is questioning almost every aspect of its team. The Javahaws are regressing.
"It was behind us as soon as we walked off the field," he said. "We wanted to get back on the field as soon as possible to show everybody we were ready to play again."
What did they do after their bye-week? Lose by four more points than they did against Baylor and still manage to score only seven points. And those were in garbage time.
Kansas is dead last in the Big 12 with an 0-2 conference record, 2-4 overall.
It would not be surprising to see the Jayhawks go winless the rest of the year, which would not bode well for anybody in the Kansas organization.
After Thursday's game, no one from the Jayhawks had answers, so I instead went to the man who has been in this position before.
K-State coach Bill Snyder has spent two decades turning a program around. He was 1-10 in his first season as head coach in 1989, so he somewhat knows what coach Turner Gill is going through.
Snyder made more sense than anybody after the game discussing how his team could win so big after a bad loss.
"I can't explain the turnaround," he said. "It's just a matter of if you prepare well, you play well."
If we apply Snyder's advice to the Jayhawks, we can see that they didn't prepare well and that's why they lost. Two weeks to prepare for this game. Against the in-state rivals. At home. And after a first quarter that yielded three points to K-State, the game was over at halftime.
K-State's Thomas wasn't gloating after the game and he wasn't intentionally bashing Kansas. But something he said has to make Jayhawk fans worried.
"Early in the first quarter, we saw they were out of it a little bit and the fans got out of it," he said. "We came back at half-time and felt like it was pretty much over."
Edited by Clark Goble