Today is the final day in this pick-up period for the men's basketball tickets. Games in this pick-up period include Texas A&M, Kansas State and Nebraska. Tickets can be picked up at the Allen Fieldhouse ticket office or online at kuathletics.com.
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 24, 2007 WWW.KANSAN.COM
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
SPORTS
PAGE 1B
KANSAS VS. BAYLOR, 7 TONIGHT, CHANNEL 15
>> SECOND ROUND OR BUST
Kansas needs to fulfill hype
EJORGENSEN@KANSAN.COM
KANSAN FILE PHOTO
Sasha Kaun leads the Big 12 Conference in shooting percentage, but he didn't shoot the ball for the first 17 minutes in Saturday's loss at Texas Tech. Coach Chishot Bill self wants to better utilize the big men against Baylor tonight.
Kansas coach Bill Self once said about his recruiting that if there were scholarships available he would offer his remaining ones to the best athletes left in the field, regardless of position.
Nick Collison wasn't the best athlete, but at least his team knew how to crush opponents when they were supposed to.
If Kansas doesn't destroy, let alone defeat, Baylor tonight, what's left of the fans lust for this talented team will stay in Waco, Texas.
Maybe Kansas fans are just spoiled.
The Jayhawks are a good team and will finish well above 20 victories this season, but when the team is billed as the most talented in Kansas history and is preseason picked to win the national championship, fans expect teams like Oral Roberts, DePaul and Texas Tech to remain in obscurity, and not become the reason I drank a little too much that night.
Starting tonight, it's time for these "big-time" players to actually play like it, and not just for one game. They need to stop just being athletes and start playing their positions.
Russell Robinson needs to feed the post and get everyone else going.
Brandon Rush needs to slash to the basket and get himself open off screens and cuts.
Julian Wright needs to use his mismatches to draw double teams and dish it off to Sasha Kaun or Darrell Arthur for easy shots around the rim.
If they continue to not play like a team on offense, then Self should just call the same play again and again.
CAUGHT SPEEDING
SEE JORGENSEN ON PAGE 4B
Kansas looks to slow down game plan against Baylor
BY MICHAEL PHILLIPS
When reviewing Saturday's loss to Texas Tech, Kansas coach Bill Self counted the number of times where the Jayhawks "wasted" a possession. He counted times when a bad shot was taken, the ball was thrown away or a turnover happened before the offense could get in place.
"Some turnovers are okay if you try to do what you're supposed to do," he said. "But we wasted 22 possessions where we did not do what we were supposed to do. That's just too high of a number."
Junior guard Russell Robinson said that the team has to slow down and run its offense, instead of everybody trying to take things into their own hands.
The Jayhawks will look to correct that problem tonight. They face the Baylor Bears at 7 p.m. in Waco, Texas.
"Everybody had good intentions," he said. "This team has no selfish people. But sometimes you can get in your mind that you have to make a play to change the game, and that hurts the chemistry."
Instead of looking immediately for a three-point shot, the guards will be asked to slow down the game, and place a greater emphasis on getting the ball inside.
Self wants the ball handlers to understand that the Jayhawk big guys — junior center Sasha Kaun, sophomore forward Julian Wright and freshman forward Darrell Arthur — have a size and skill advantage against their competition. Kaun is leading the Big 12 in shooting percentage, but didn't get his first shot opportunity until 17 minutes into Saturday's game.
"That's ridiculous." Self said. "That's us not really understanding how to take advantage of what we think should be an advantage for us."
The guards won't be the only
ones making adjustments. On Saturday, the layhawks missed 11 lay-ups, an alarming number for a shot that should come automatically to most Big 12 players.
Arthur said that at times the big men went soft and might have been worried about their lay-ups getting blocked.
"I think I just need to get up and dunk more," he said. "I was a little bit anxious trying to get them up there, so I wasn't taking my time. I just need to gather myself and go strong."
If they can get the opportunities, the layhawks should have
an easier time tonight against the Bears. Baylor's strength comes mainly at the guard position, and Robinson is prepared for a spirited effort from those defenders.
"We're going to get everybody's best punch. That's why a lot of us came here," he said. "I think it does wear on us, but that's something we kind of expected coming to Kansas."
He'll play alongside sophomore guard Mario Chalmers and freshman guard Sherron Collins tonight, attempting to slow down the game and cut down the wasted possessions that Self counted in.
Saturday's game.
"When you get in the league, everybody said to play faster, faster, faster!" Self said. "We're playing too fast. We're trying to score early when it's not there."
It may not be as fun to watch as the run-and-gun style, but the Jayhawks are betting that by keeping the game slow that they can overpower the Bears tonight.
Kansan senior sportswriter Michael Phillips can be contacted at mphillips@kansan.com.
— Edited by James Pinick
Baylor garners respect
>> BIG 12 BASKETBALL
BY MARK DENT
No Kansas basketball player would be foolish enough to give Baylor bulletin board material again.
Six years ago, former Jayhawk, Kenny Gregory was quoted as saying these words after two losses against Iowa State and Missouri: "It's not like we lost to Baylor."
A week later, Kansas went to Waco, Texas, and promptly fell behind by 25 points at halftime before losing 85-77 in what was one of the most surprising losses of the Roy Williams era.
Oh how times have changed. No longer is Baylor the Big 12 Conference bottom feeder and an embarrassment to lose to, and no longer do Kansas players even dare take the Bears as lightly as Gregory once did.
"They are just a good, solid team," junior center Sasha Kaun said.
Junior guard Russell Robinson expressed similar respect.
" Their guards are real good," he said.
It's been a long and tragic process, but in its 11th year in the Big 12, Baylor is becoming a respectable program with the help of coach Scott Drew.
Anything resembling respectability seemed unattainable for the Bears since they joined the Big 12 in 1996. After finishing 500 in conference play in 1998, Baylor has finished 6-10 or worse every year since, including an 0-16 mark in 1999.
None of those poor statistics hurt the Bears as much as the scandal that embroiled the team in 2003.
Former player Carlton Dotson was convicted of killing teammate Patrick Dennehy, and in the aftermath, it was revealed that then-coach Dave Bliss committed several rules infractions. The NCAA put the program on probation. Bliss resigned and Baylor needed a miracle worker to resurrect its basketball team.
Enter Drew.
Drew, who worked as assistant and head coach at Valparaiso from 1993 to 2003, came to Waco, Texas, with a reputation as a great recruiter
WOMEN'S BASKETBALL
SEE BAYLOR ON PAGE 4B
Freshman improves in Big 12 play
BY CASE KEEFER
It was just a routine game of horse after a morning meeting for a handful of Jayhawk basketball players. That was until Porscha Weddingdid something unprecedented.
Temple, Texas,
saw a finger roll from
senior guard Shaquina Mosley
slowly off the rim. She
leaped from the floor and threw
down a dunk that the five team
The freshman forward from
mates who were fortunate enough to see will not soon forget.
Weddington
"We all just stood there and thought, 'Wow, she just dunked the ball.'" Mosley said.
Though coach Bonnie Henrickson didn't witness Weddington's dunk, she didn't seem quite as surprised as the rest of the crowd.
"She's athletic and plays around
The dunk isn't the only thing exciting that's Weddington has done within the last month. In a late December game against Xavier, she made her first collegiate start and has continued to be in the starting lineup for six of the last seven games.
the rim, we've known that," she said,
"I wasn't down there to see it but of
the five people that told me, I believe
two of them."
The Jayhawks will need her best game yet to slow the production Kansas State forward Claire Coggins, who averages 13 points a game.
Weddington is expected to make her eighth start of the season at Kansas State tonight.
When Weddington didn't come off the bench at the beginning of the season, Henrickson said the freshman simply wasn't ready yet and didn't know when her time would come. Not only has her time come in the middle of Big 12 Conference play, but Weddington could be the best post option the lawhaves have.
"She's been a great presence inside,"
Mosley said. "Especially with Marja
out right now."
Sophomore forward Marjia Zinic has missed the last two games with a stress fracture in her tibia and when, or if, she returns has not been determined.
In conference play, Weddington leads all Big 12 freshmen, averaging more than five rebounds per game. She also has been getting better at going up strong with offensive rebounds in an attempt to turn them into fouls or points.
Kansas has not missed a beat with
Weldington in her place.
"We're trying to build her confidence up," Mosley said. "She can elevate really well because she's so strong."
Although Weddington is averaging just four points a game in Big 12 play, it's the consistency the Jayhawks need in the post.
That's something Zinc struggled with earlier in the year. She would often score double digits in one game, but follow that with lackluster stats
tics in both points and rebounds in the next game. Weddington has no doubt that her consistency will yield more impressive numbers later in the season.
"There's a lot of room for improvement," she said, "I feel like I can be more effective on offense."
Weddington was one of seven highly touted recruits Kansas landed last year. The daughter of former Green Bay Packer's linebacker Michael Weddington was named all-district four years in high school and all-state in her junior and senior seasons.
Edited by Ryan Schneider
Kansan sportswriter Case Keefer can be contacted at ckeefer@kansan.com.
"Overall, I'm doing a decent job," she said, "I can do better on defense and get more rebounds."
She said she was excited with how her success was translating into the college game and ready to further develop her skills.
KANSAN FILE PHOTO
Freshman forward Porsha Weddington has seen her playing time increase as Big 12 play has begun. Weddington and the Jayhawks travel to Manhattan to play Kansas State tonight at 7 p.m.
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