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FAMILY TIES
The University Daily Kansan
Texas basketball player Chris Owens is the greatnephew of Olympic track and field legend Jesse Owens.
Sports
Inside: Butch Davis announced that he is leaving Miami to become the next football coach of the Cleveland Browns.
SEE PAGE 2B
Inside: Nebraska lost to Oklahoma in one of many Big 12 men's basketball games last weekend.
SEE PAGE 3B
For comments, contact Shawn Hutchinson or Shawn Linenberger at 864-4858 or sports@kansan.com
Conference coaches react to fatal wreck
KANSAN.COM/SPORTS
By Zac Hunter
sports@kansan.com
Kansas writerwriter
Two days after a plane carrying eight passengers associated with Oklahoma State University and two pilots crashed. Big 12 Conference coaches expressed their regret about the accident.
"First of all, my heart goes out to the families," said Colorado coach Ricardo Patton. "Things like this always catch you off-guard and by surprise. It's difficult to think that people we just saw less than 10 hours ago were stricken by such tragedy."
While much of the talk surrounded sympathy for the friends and relatives of those killed in the crash, all the coaches said they had talked
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For more information about the wreck investigation,
see page 6A
to their players about safety concerns.
"We talked to our players last night about air travel, and we discussed that it is still the safest form of travel, but we also stressed that our No.1 concern is the safety of all our student-athletes," said Texas Tech coach James Dickey. "We stayed overnight on Saturday in Columbia because of that reason."
Throughout the year, every school in the Big 12 charters a plane or jet instead of taking the larger commercial airlines. The charter planes allow flexibility with schedules, and help players get back for classes as soon as possible.
Oklahoma State chartered three planes for the trip home — two corporate jets and an 11-passenger King Air 200 turboprop. Stillwater airport manager Gary Johnson said the turboprop would have been less likely to get above the bad weather the planes were flying through.
Sophomore forward Nick Collison goes for a layup against a Colorado player last Monday. Collision scored 9 points last night against Missouri, but his foul trouble early in the second half hurt the Jayhawks. The Tigers won 75-66. Photo by Christina Neff/KANSAN
When the weather turns bad, the question of safety becomes a prime concern for all involved.
"We talked to (the players) last night and had a prayer for the people at Oklahoma State," said Kansas coach Roy Williams. "We'll do some of that before we get on a plane again. I'll make sure that our kids feel extremely comfortable. We have to see how the kids feel and how the coaches feel and hope the weather is good. I can assure you if the weather is bad, we are not going to take any chances. We never have."
Edited by Megan Phelps
Last season, because of a storm front moving through northern Texas, the Oklahoma basketball team chose to take an eight-and-a-half hour bus trip back to Norman, instead of hoping the weather cleared up.
Williams and Missouri coach Quin Snyder wore the ribbons last night during the Kansas and Missouri game in Columbia, Mo.
"It kept them off the smaller aircraft," said Oklahoma coach Kelvin Sampson.
Announceers of Big 12 basketball games will wear Oklahoma State's colors — black and orange — on ribbons in honor of those who died in the crash.
However, Sampson was quick to act when one of his players recommended taking a bus to Waco, Texas for an upcoming game against Baylor. Spoons will fly to Waco.
the Sooner's crash killed Last weekend's crash Oklahoma State players Nate Fleming and Dan Lawson.
The other eight members killed in the crash were: Sports information employee and KU graduate Will Hancock, director of basketball operations Pat Noyes, trainer and KU graduate Brian Luinstra, student manager Jared Weiberg, broadcast engineer Kendall Durfey, broadcaster Bill Teegins, pilot Denver Mills and co-pilot Bjorn Fialstrom.
The Big 12 has announced memorial plans for the rest of the season. A moment of silence will be observed before both men's and women's games for the remainder of the season.
MEN'S BASKETBALL
Kansas crumbles
Tigers hand 'Hawks first conference loss
By Chris Wristen sports@kansan.com
Kansan sportwriter
COLUMBIA, Mo. — Missouri proved to be a giant-killer as No. 3 Kansas lost to the Tigers 75-66 on Norm Stewart Night at the Hearnes Center last night.
Stewart, Missouri's legendary former coach and the seventh-winningest coach in NCAA history, had his jersey retired at halftime when the Tigers led, 37-23. As his jersey drifted into the rafters during the second half, it looked as if the Stewart Spirit would carry Missouri to an easy win.
Trailing 43-26 with 18 minutes left in the game, Kansas appeared to be down for the count, and the Missouri crowd was ready to celebrate the Tigers' fifth win against Kansas in Columbia in the last six years.
The Jayhawks were anything but done.
Kansas (17-2 overall and 6-1 in the Big 12 Conference) launched its biggest comeback of the season, unleashing an 18-0 run during the next six minutes while Missouri (14-5 and 5-2) was kept scoreless and turned the ball over five times.
"For the first 10 or 12 minutes of the second half we played really
Kansas guard Jeff Boschee drained two 3-pointers in that stretch before teammate Kirk Hinrich capped the run with a trey that gave the Jayhawks their first lead since the 18-minute mark of the first half.
well, but that was about it for the whole game," said Kansas coach Roy Williams.
Just as Kansas looked like it was taking command and was poised to finish the Tigers, Missouri guard Brian Grauer forced a change of plans. The 6-foot senior nailed a 3-pointer that gave Missouri a 54-10 lead.
Soon after, Kansas had defensive meltdowns on back-to-back plays and left Graver open for two wide-open threes. In 27 seconds he had expanded the Tigers lead to nine points and left the Javahaws shell-shocked.
"Those were huge," Hinrich said. "We were doing a great job on them overall. Kareem (Rush) had a good night, but I still thought we were doing a fairly good job, but those were a back-breaker."
The Jayhawks could have been finished early if not for the second-half run. Missouri fired the grill early and started cooking in the opening minutes while Kansas hung out in the freezer. Three minutes into the game Missouri claimed a 10-2 lead. Meanwhile, the Jayhawks missed five of their first seven shots.
Missouri wasn't much more accurate, hitting 44 percent, but the Tigers became the second team to outbound the Jayhawks this season.
"We just came out a little tight," said Kansas forward Nick Collison. "We had good looks but we just weren't making them. We were ready to
play, just offensively we weren't hitting shots."
Kansas, the nation's top shooting team coming into the game, struggled in hitting 42 percent of its shots. Kansas forward Drew Gooden led all Jayhawk scorers with
41-37, Grawer finished with 14 points for the Tigers and Clarence Gilbert added 12.
Next up for Kansas is a Saturday home game against Texas at noon.
— Edited by Erin McDaniel
'Hawks lose triangular track meet
By Michael Sudhalter
Kansan sportswriter
The Kansas track and field team challenged two of its closest rivals Friday at the KU/KSU/MU Triangular Meet in Columbia, Mo., the team's first scored meet of the season.
Senior Scott Russell practices the shot put during practice at Anschutz Sports Pavilion. Russell finished second in the weight throw this weekend at the Arkansas Invitational, in Fayetteville, Ark. Photo by Aaron Lindberg/KANSAN
The Jayhawks, who scored 168 points, finished behind Kansas State, 283 points, and Missouri, 253 points, in their campaign to win the "Jug," the trophy awarded to the triangular's champion.
Despite several strong performances, coach Stanley Redwine said the team lacked the depth of the other two squads at the triangular.
Two members of the women's team turned in first place finishes in Tiger territory, Junior Shanetta March won the 200-meter dash in 24.97 seconds and senior all-American Andrea Branson continued her string of solid performances by winning the pole vault with a 12-0 vault. The women's 4x400-meter relay team also won its event with a time of 3 minutes, 52.12 seconds.
"Some of our athletes ran very well today, and we are excited for them." Redwine said. "I think our lack of depth hurt us as far as our team score, but we are happy with the effort and progress that this team has made so far this season."
For the men's team, senior Jabari Wamble had a remarkable showing by winning the 400-meter dash (49.51), 200-meter dash (22.03) and running a leg in the Jayhawks' first place 4x400-meter relay team (31.973). Freshman Leo Bookman, who had a strong performance at the Missouri Invitational, won the 60-mometer dash in 6.93 seconds while sophomore Anson Jackson won the 60-meter hurdles (8.30), and junior Jeremy Hull was victorious in the pole vault (15-11). Junior Brett Behrens won the 300-meter event in
8:30.62.
Behrens said he was looking forward to next week's competition in Lawrence.
"I feel like everybody did the best they could today." Behrens said. "Our home meet will be nice because we will be able to run in front of the home crowd."
The men's squad also competed in Columbia without four of its best athletes, senior all-American Charlie Gruber, senior all-American Scott Russell, junior Ryan Speers, and senior Andy Tate. Redwine sent those four competitors to the Arkansas Invitational in Fayetteville on Friday and Saturday to better prepare them for the NCAA Championships.
Although their absences may have hurt the Jayhawks' score in Columbia, the individual performances gave Gruber (mile) an automatic qualifier for NCAAs and provisional qualifiers for Speers (shot put) and Tate (3,000 meters).
70-1 3/4 toss. Gruber's 4:00:79 mile effort moved him into second place on Kansas' all-time record behind Jim Ryun's 3:57.5 standard.
Redwine said the team was continuing its improvement from previous meets.
Speers placed third in the shot put with a 58-8 throw while Russell, who
already qualified for the NCAAs, finished second in the weight throw with a
"We had several solid performances today, and I am happy with the results," Redwine said.
- Edited by Leita Schutes
Sports Columnist
Amanda Kaschube
sports@kansan.com
Betting options add temptation for college fans
Betcha I can get you betting before the end of this column — it's illegal you say?
Tell that to the thousands of office pools who thought that Kerry Collins wouldn't have five interceptions in the Giants' Super Bowl loss.
Or to those who bet that Roy wouldn't be coming back to Allen Fieldhouse (shameless Kansas tiein) or that Rocky and Bullwinkle would be a box-office success. All right, so maybe Dionne Warwick lied to me when she told me about that last one.
No matter if it's betting on football or if I'll ever get my tattoo, it's illegal to do any form of gambling unless you do so in an organized facility (boat or casino). Granted, it's not as bad as stealing pink sugar packets from restaurants — my mom would get nailed for that.
But underground gambling can't really be monitored — I just bet my editor five bucks that I'd have this column done by noon. I lost, but I don't see any men in blue coming to arrest me.
Then there's the various places to throw down your money: online, the old-fashioned trek to Vegas or driving to the casinos in Kansas City.
Everyone has his or her method to pick a winner: the Psychic Friends Network, a friend that was struck by lightning and can predict the future (think Screech on Saved by the Bell) or simply a gut feeling (just make sure it isn't the pizza from Wescoe talking).
All these forms entice people to gamble on obscure sporting events they can't control - don't they ever get a clue? Cubs fans need to catch on more quickly that they'll never win the World Series.
As if compulsive gamblers didn't have enough problems restraining themselves come March Madness, along comes a move by the Nevada Gaming Commission to expand the scope of college-based betting.
Just last week, the ban placed on betting on college games involving Nevada Schools was lifted. I don't need to read the stars to be able to predict more sanctions for UNLV basketball in the future.
It's like dangling TV time in an episode of Toughman on FX in front of William "The Fridge" Perry. He just couldn't resist.
I just don't see the compulsive thrill of betting on sports. Sure, I was in an NCAA pool, but Florida knocking off Duke doused my chances last year.
And I was going to put some money down that the Packers would get back to their old Super Bowl form next season before Mark Chumura kind of messed that one up.
Instead, maybe I should just bet on things that can be controlled, like celebrity dating — I give Angelina Jolie's marriage to Billy Bob a few more months. Anyone that tattoos their spouse's name on their respective arms is just asking for trouble.
But I can say that Roy will be around another season. And the DVD version of Rocky and Bullwinkle probably won't do that well.
And I will get my tattoo this semester.
You can bet on that.
Kaschube is a Fiosamoor, Il., senior in journalism
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