THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN SPORTS
Barkley puts Big East in its place
MORNING BREW | 9A
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 30, 2011
Charles Barkley's knowledge of college basketball has been on full display during the NCAA tournament. He proved to Louisville coach Rick Pitino that the Big East isn't as good as advertised.
WWW.KANSAN.COM
RIGHTING THE SHIP
PAGE 10A
Softball returning to form
After a record start to the season at 26-3, the Jayhawk softball team found itself 0-4 in Big 12 play after the first week of conference play. Now, the team will travel to Kansas City to face the UMKC Kangaroo's to make an attempt at getting back on track and starting another winning streak.
The team is trying to bounce back from a four-loss streak from the past week with losses to No.11 Missouri and No.9 Texas.
"We are just really looking forward to coming out and playing like layhawks, keeping within ourselves and not overlooking anything and expect to play hard and have a great game," junior indefender Marissa Ingle said.
The team had one day of practice in between its weekend game against Texas and today's match-up. In that practice the focus was on offense and adjusting to the pitching that the team will see today.
UMKC' sophomore pitcher Deanna Friese is going to be a threat for the Jayhawks with her 122 season strikeouts and 2.22 ERA.
"Offensively we know what to expect," coach Megan Smith said. "We faced the pitching last year. There is a very good pitcher for UMKC with a very good rise ball so we know what our game plan is going to be and we just need to execute it."
Last year against UMKC, the team swept the doubleheader 5-1 and 1-0. However, even with the wins, the Jayhawk bats were practically silent against Friese. In the nightcap game the team made contact three times, leaving base runners with limited opportunities.
tunities. "We did not execute that last year against them but we will this year," Smith said, "And then in terms of defense and pitching, just get back to where we were before last week. We are trying to use that as a learning experience and hope to come out tomorrow and be a little bit stronger pitching and defensively."
Smith appeared dissatisfied with the results from last season, but hopeful and confident that the team would be capable of pulling through tonight for two more tallies to its record.
The key to returning to a winning streak will be an increase in aggression by the pitchers. They could not stop the Longhorns over the weekend. As a staff, they threw only two strikeouts in the two meetings. In order to be competitive in the Big 12, the pitchers need to step up their game and allow opponents' bats.
The pitcher's plan to throw strikes and tough pitches to get ground balls for the defense. They have worked on cutting down on errors from the weekend for today's contest. On the season, the team has 33 fielding errors.
"We need to be making the routine plays and be backing our pitchers up," sophomore infielder Mariah Montgomery said. "They like to get us a lot of ground balls, so we just have to make the routine plays and get the sure outs that we know we can get."
First pitches will be thrown at 4 p.m. and 6 p.m. The Jayhawks are holding strong with a 26-7 record and the 'Roos hold a 15-10 record.
Edited by Corey Thibodeaux
COMMENTARY
Robinson's future depends on college
BY TIM DWYER
tdywer@kansan.com
Bill Self doesn't think it's best for Thomas Robinson to leave Kansas. He seemed surprised that we, the media, were presenting it as a legitimate option.
"If it's best for him and his family," Self said, "I'd say go."
Let's say Self's wrong and Robinson does leave Kansas. He is, after all, very high on draft boards. ESPN's Chad Ford has him as the highest-rated Jayhawk as far as NBA prospects are concerned.
Self also said, though, that he can't envision a scenario where it is the best thing. This baffled me at first, along with the rest of the media folk there. But let's think about it. Let's play with some hypotheticals.
There are the obvious reasons Robinson should come back. Give him a season with big man wonder coach Danny Manning and he could be a star. If the Morris twins leave, the Jayhawks will be Robinson's team. There's a familial stability at Kansas that the NBA road doesn't offer.
There's money in the NBA, though, and lots of it for a guy like Robinson. So let's say he leaves. He leaves, gets drafted in the 15-25 range, and signs a fat three-year deal.
Self, who said he's spoken with GMs and other people close to the game, said they all think a lockout is inevitable. There will be no basketball, it seems, for at least the beginning of the season, meaning that Robinson and any other Jayhawks who could potentially go pro would not make a dime, outside of endorsements, until basketball started up. It could be an entire season, it could be a month.
But in this hypothetical, we'll say it's half a season, which at this point seems pretty likely in
the real world, too. Robinson doesn't play organized hoops in a game situation until roughly next February, which is almost a full year for him sitting out. If the season starts in February, the entire year is essentially a playoff run, so if a team is contending, it won't want to take the time to develop a prospect
Robinson is without question a developmental prospect. He has the NBA motor and body (his physical resemblance to Dwight Howard really is striking), but he doesn't have the offensive repertoire an NBA four needs — something, let's remember, that Danny Manning coaches very well — and he turns the ball over like he owes it to the opponents. So he doesn't play much that first year. Just gets spot minutes, maybe spends some time in the NBA Developmental League.
Hed make enough money off his first contract that, if he spent wisely, would get his sister through college and let him live comfortably for a long time. But as much of a goal as that no doubt is for Robinson, he also wants to be an NBA player.
So his first real season in the NBA comes a year-and-a-half after he's played his last game for Kansas. He's a little rusty. He takes some time getting acclimated. That next year, he's a better player, but he hasn't cracked the starting rotation, and because he sat that first year because of the lockout, he's a little behind the learning curve when his contract expires.
And to do that, he needs to come back to Kansas.
Robinson would be without that third season. He'd be gunning for his second contract without a breakout year, without a season that said for a certainty that he's a long-term NBA guy.
BASEBALL
That third year is often a breakout season. The first year a prospect gets acclimated, the second he starts to produce, and the third he becomes a legit NBA player. Then in the offseason, he gets a contract paying him like a legit NBA player.
Edited by Sarah Gregory
That's a problem.
While the Bears are not the most formidable opponent on the Jayhawks' tough Big 12 schedule, they hold a team ERA of 4.80. Their top two pitchers, Blake Barber and Nick Petree, have been phenomenal this year, with ERAs of 2.87 and 3.10 respectively.
Jayhawks focus on performance at the plate, scoring runs
"They always have very good
While the Jayhawks were swept in College Station this past weekend, they continued to pitch well. Kansas' Achilles' heel was at the plate, and while they were able to string hits together, the players were unable to capitalize and score runs off of those hits.
"We were pleased with how well we pitched, competed and played," coach Ritch Price said. "We're starting to swing the bats better, now we've just got to get clutch hits when runners are in scoring position."
BY MIKE VERNON
mvernon@kansan.com
"The guys are trying hard," Price said. "The next step is to relax, work the count, and get a pitch you can hit up in the zone.
Higherlights for the Jayhawks to win in the highly-regarded ballpark, their batters have to pick up their team average of .232. Senior outfielders Casey Lytle and Jimmy Waters have started to bust out of their slump, while senior shortstop Brandon Macias has yet to get things going at the plate. He is hitting a 205, with 19 strikeouts.
Sophomore third baseman Jake Marasco continues to lead the Jayhawks at the plate, hitting .337 with a slugging percentage of.458.
The Kansas Baseball players will try to re-establish their bats tonight in the 6:30 p.m. matchup with Missouri State.
pitching," Price said, adding that the games against Missouri State are always great series to play.
The Jayhawks will be playing at Hammons Field, the home of the Springfield Cardinals and the AA affiliate of the St. Louis Cardinals.
"Hammons Field is literally one of the finest facilities in all of college baseball." Price said. "It always makes the game one of the highlights on the road for us."
With the pitching being a steady force for the jayhawks all year, and the bats slowly coming around, Price has no choice but to be patient and hope things will continue to improve.
"We're getting better every week, and that's our goal," Price said.
Price said his concern for Wednesday didn't lie within his pitching staff. The Jayhawks have a team ERA of 3.55 and have held opposing hitters to 259 this year.
We need guys like Brandon Macias to continue to play better and swing better like he has in the past, in order for that to happen."
Sophomore pitcher Thomas Taylor will be making his third start for the Jayhawks this season. He went 2-0 in his first two starts for the Jayhawks and has an ERA of 3.66.
Edited by Tali David
Chris Bronson/KANSAN
Junior outfielder Jason Brunansky looks back as he misses a catch against Eastern Michigan Sunday, March 13, at Hoglund Ballpark. Kansas lost the game 10-4 and will take on Missouri State tonight at 6:30 p.m.
4
1