8B THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
SPORTS
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 8. 2006
Seniors
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 18
The Jayhawks were leaning on their seniors, but Kansas State went the opposite direction.
The Wildcats' offensive attack was led mostly by freshmen: guard Shalee Lehming led the team with 20 points and center JoAnn Hamlin had 12 points.
"Trying to at least go off on a better note than these last two games is really one of those things I'm looking forward to," she said.
Women's basketball notes:
The Jayhawks will turn their focus to a potential bid into the WNIT. The team has a strong case with a 16-12 record and will likely be chosen Monday night to participate in the tournament.
The other five are Kansas, Colorado, Minnesota, Iowa and Missouri.
For Kemp, it will be about trying to reclaim a sense of the team's identity in her final games as a Jayhawk.
- Edited by Janiece Gatson
This was the first time these two teams have met in the state of Texas, making it the sixth state in which the rivalry has been played.
Crystal Kemp scored her 1,800th point as a Jayhawk and grabbed her 800th rebound in Tuesday's game.
No attendance was announced for the game, but Reunion Arena sat mostly empty except for a small pocket of Jayhawk fans and a slightly larger contingent of Wildcat fans, including WNBA player and former Wildcat Laurie Koehn.
Move along, little doggies
The Wildcats will play again tonight at 6 p.m. against defending national champion Baylor.
Al Grillo/THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Four-time Iditarod champion Doug Swingley runs his team up the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race trail near Nikolai, Alaska, on Tuesday. Swingley was the first musher to reach the checkpoint.
NCAA BASKETBALL
An Aggie miracle
BY STEVE BRISENDINE THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
It's not quite worst to first.
But in the two years since Billy Gillispie took over Texas A&M, the Aggies have gone from 10-16 in the Big 12 to the threshold of their first NCAA tournament appearance since a first-round loss to Duke in 1987.
Add in his previous two-year stint at Texas-El Paso, where his first team won six games and his second won 24 and reached the NCAA tournament, and Gillisip is starting to gain a reputation as a miracle worker.
"I've never thought of that
"I've never thought of that — 'Is he a quick turnaround guy?' But he certainly has become that," Kansas coach Bill Self said Monday, during the Big 12 coaches' weekly conference call. "I knew he would be very successful wherever he went, but I didn't know he would take UTEP from six to 24 or A&M from zero to eight in league wins — and do it overnight, which is what he has done."
Gillispie's first Aggies team went 8-8 in the Big 12. This year's team finished the regular season 10-6 in conference play.
good for a fourth-place finish, and takes a 20-7 overall record to the Big 12 tournament.
The Aggies, who have never won a Big 12 tournament game, have a first-round bye on Thursday. That hardly seemed likely when they started conference play 3-6 before closing out the regular season with a seven-game winning streak that included a 46-43 victory over No. 8 Texas last week.
"I think the key was us hanging in there when we were 3-6," Gillispie said. "We said, 'Let's just hang in there from start to finish, play each game and see where we are."
Kansas State coach Jim Wooldridge also gave Gillispie credit for leading the Aggies' resurgence, but he quickly cut off a questioner asking him to compare Texas A&M's quick turnaround with his own struggles in six seasons with the Wildcats.
"Billy Clyde Gillispie is an outstanding basketball coach," Wooldridge said. "What he has done is really incredible. He's a guy that people in our business have seen as an up-and-coming guy ... and they played awfully well down the stretch."
Wildcats
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1B
This is not the first good game Lehning has had against Kansas. Last week in Kansas State's 62-44 victory against Kansas, Lehning had nine points, seven rebounds and six assists. In the first game against Kansas on Jan. 25, she had 10 points and five assists.
Lehning wasn't the only freshman to contribute for Kansas State. Hamlin also responded well to her first post-season game, going a perfect 6-for-6 from the field, scoring 12 points and grabbing seven rebounds. She also had the assignment of guarding Kansas
senior forward and leading scorer Crystal Kemp. She held Kemp to 5-for-12 shooting and kept Kemp off-balance all game.
"For JoAnn to go in and stay really active with Crystal to bang and to deny her some touches I think was huge emotionally for her team." Patterson said. "She ran the floor so extremely well. JoAnn was that player in the post that everybody was looking to, to kind of play off of and play around when you needed to and she was there for us."
Kansas State will play in the second round of the Big 12 Tournament today at 6 p.m. against Baylor.
— Edited by Janiece Gatson
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