THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2007
KU 89 - ISU 52 5B
let in the first half of the game against Iowa State Saturday. Arthur finished the game with 15 points and 11 rebounds.
Anna Faltermeier/KANSAN
RT ST. PATTY'S Y EARLY... JBS
R "MONDAY MADNESS" — ONLY AT JAYHAWK BOOKSTORE
Collins prevails as starter
RY MICHAEL PHILLIPS
Sherron Collins' teammates could tell that he was nervous.
Usually, the freshman guard is one of the most energetic players in the training room, joking with teammates and bouncing around while Lif Wayner blares from his iPod. On Saturday, he sat silently on the table while the trainers applied athletic tape.
Collins said he was feeling the butterflies in the hours before the game, which he started in place of injured guard Russell Robinson. If his nerves affected his play, it wasn't reflected in the final statistics. Kansas defeated Iowa State 89-52 as Collins tallied 12 points and 6 assists in a career-high 32 minutes.
"I knew I was going to get a lot more minutes," he said. "I just tried to come out and not do too much."
As he sat in the locker room, some of the veteran players came up to Collins and offered him advice. Robinson, a junior, told him to play like he would if he were coming off the bench. Sophomore forward Julian Wright echoed that thought.
"I just told him to move the ball
around, keep playing and be aggressive," Wright said. "Basically, just play the first few minutes and get into a flow."
Collins was helped out by the Iowa State offense, which failed to protect the ball. That allowed him to get a pair of early steals and run a fast-break offense.
Things were going so well for Collins that coach Bill Self left him in for the first 16 minutes of the game, rare for a point guard and even rarer for a freshman. Collins didn't fatigue, consistently making his signature layups and running back to position himself on defense.
Sophomore guard Mario Chalmers and junior guard Rodrick Stewart also pitched in for Robinson. Chalmers finished with a game high 18 points. The focus was on Collins, though, who knew he would also have to assume some of Robinson's demeanor. Iowa State coach Greg McDermott said that while scouting the Jayhawks, he noticed Robinson's leadership abilities.
Collins said that now that he had experience as a starter in a conference game,he'd be more comfortable with it in the future.
The nerves weren't limited to playing basketball. He got another surprise when, as the last player introduced, he found himself in the middle of the team huddle in the seconds before the game.
"I felt that he was the glue that held them together, because he did so many things that didn't show
up on the stat sheet" McDermott said. "They were very effective and unselfish without him today."
"I just let them know it was an important game and that we needed this game," he said. "The cuss words I won't say right now."
Despite his success, there's one area where he'll never be able to fill Robinson's shoes.
"When Russell comes out, the whole crowd is going to yell, 'New-YORK, New-YORK,' Collins said. "Nobody's going to yell 'Chicago, Illinois.'
Kansan senior sportswriter Michael Phillips can be contacted at mphillips@kansan.com.
- Edited by Ashley Thompson
Junior center Sasha Kaun puts a hand into Jiri Hubakel's shot during the first half of Saturday's game. The Jawhawks had 5 blocks during the game.
Cyclones flat in round two
BY RYAN SCHNEIDER
There would be no need for overtime this time.
Just a month ago, Kansas and Iowa State were tied at the end of regulation in Ames. Yet on Saturday, Kansas cruised to a 26-point halftime lead and held Iowa State to 15 points at intermission.
a combined 5-for-22 from the field and score just 13 points between them. On the season, both average at least 12 per game.
Just a month ago, Kansas and Iowa were tied at the end of regulation in Ames.
No. Iowa State looked nothing like the team that took Kansas to
So what was the difference between the two games?
"We were playing their style of basketball, which is uptempoed," Iowa State guard Dodie Dunson said. "And we should've been playing ours."
Cyclone basketball certainly isn't shooting a miserable 18 percent in the first half. It also isn't watching your top two scorers - Wesley Johnson and Mike Taylor - shoot
overtime last month thanks to hot three point shooting and six players in double-figures.
It was so bad for the Cyclones on Saturday that
Dunson, a reserve guard, was the teams leading scorer with just eight points on three field goals.
"It was a mismatch today," Iowa State coach Greg McDermott said. "Physically, mentally, from a hustle standpoint. We were defeated in every aspect of the game possible."
The scary thing for McDermott was he thought it could have been
worse than the 37-point stomping his team received.
"They've got virtually every piece of the puzzle," McDermott said, "and their starting point guard didn't play today."
It wasn't as if Kansas controlled the game from the start, though, Iowa State trailed by just two at the first media time-out with 14 minutes left in the first half. Then, the Jayhawks were able to get out in transition and run, which pretty much spelled the end of any chance Iowa State had of pulling off the upset.
"They just outplayed us" Taylor said. "They did force the tempo in transition which gave us problems. They just attacked the glass. They were just tougher than us."
Kansan senior sportswriter Ryan Schneider can be contacted at rschneider@kansan.com
Edited by Carissa Pedigo
view from press row
> The Big 12 Conference is weak this year, and the Jayhawks have been dominating opponents recently, but let's not combine the two issues, Kansas would be wiping the floor with any conference right now. Outside of maybe Ohio State, I don't think there's a hotter team in America than the Jayhawks.
> Junior guard Jeremy Case missed out on his usual clean-up time due to an injury. Case suffered a stress fracture in his foot earlier in the week. The next time he may get to play is in the first round of the Big 12 tournament, as the Jayhawks are unlikely to look to the reserves against
Oklahoma and Texas.
> Future Jayhawk Cole Aldrich was named to the McDonald's All-American team, which recognizes the best high school seniors in the country. Aldrich is a 6-foot-10 center who is playing at Jefferson High School in Bloomington, Minn. Congratus to Aldrich, who joins a long line of Jayhawks who have received the honor.
> With senior night approaching, and no seniors on the team, consider this: the Jayhawks could return the exact same lineup next season. None of the top NBA candidates — Wright, Kaun, Raun and Arthur — are likely to be chosen as a lottery pick in the draft,
which could be enough to keep them around for another year.
If that happens, the Jayhawks would be the preseason No.1 of every analyst in the country.
It was a tough day for sophomore guard Brandon Rush, who played timid in the first half and just couldn't get his shots to fall in the second half. He scored only six points. Self got it right after the game when he said Rush needed to be the team's leading scorer. His lack of offensive production isn't noticeable now, but it will be in March.
Michael Phillips