THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN SPORTS
BASKETBALL|9A
Big 12 rankings announced
FRIDAY, MARCH 4,2011
Kansas once again holds the top seat with Texas and Kansas State trailing closely. The Jayhawks have won seven straight conference titles.
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PAGE 10A
HANDS UP
Going on the defensive
Sophomore guard Elijah Johnson stays on the heels of Texas senior guard B.J. Holmes. Johnson's relentless defensive play earned him a spot on the starting lineup for the past two games
Impressive showing on defense one way to win Self's favor.
BY TIM DWYER
tdwyer@kansan.com
twitter.com/UDKbasketball
Well, maybe not your life. But at least your playing time.
Elijah Johnson bought into the principle and leapfrogged Tyshawn Taylor and Josh Selby for the startling point guard spot before the Oklahoma State game. He is now, even with Taylor reinstated, the prohibitive favorite to start for the Jayhawks for the rest of the year. He managed the feat by turning himself into a lockdown defender, maybe the best on the team.
There's an easy way to get on coach Bill Self's good side: Defend like your life depends on it.
maybe the best on the hill." "In the locker room before the Oklahoma State game," Johnson said, "Coach threw me a fastball, and I hit it out of the park. My mindset just changed. Actually, it didn't really change, but something happened inside me."
thing happened.
Johnson was essentially out of the rotation before Taylor's suspension. In the four games before the Oklahoma State game, he was averaging nine minutes. Since, he's averaging 21.3. Johnson won the job because Taylor was suspended and Selby missed a walkthrough, but he'll keep it because he's done everything Self has asked, Self said.
said.
"If you focus in on doing the right thing by making winning plays to help your team win that possession, you perform better."
Self said Thursday. "He didn't score yesterday, but I really thought the last 10 minutes he was terrific defensively."
defensively.
Defense wasn't, for Johnson, something he had ever had to work at, he said. Johnson is one of the most cerebral players on the team; he analyzes every part of the game, and if he has a fatal flaw, it's overthinking. It worked for him in high school, but at Kansas, it was an early struggle.
Then Self called him out before the Oklahoma State game, and Johnson has since fallen in love with the defensive side of the game.
game.
"I used to kind of dread it, but it was something I wanted to get good at," Johnson said. "When Coach threw the challenge at me, it was like a complete 180. I actually enjoy the defensive end more than I enjoy the offensive end in games."
"I've never had to play defense," Johnson said. "I always just outsmarted people and stopped the plays. When you get to college, you realize that people are just as smart as you and you have to play a lot of defense."
games.
Self said he didn't necessarily see it as a direct competition between Taylor and Johnson. He has three guard spots, he said, and would play a point guard at all three of them. Problem is, two of the three spots are full.
"I don't think it will create any negativity between those two," Self
said, "but the reality is Brady and Tyrel have been pretty good in the other two spots."
other two spies. Taylor said he still thinks he can get back into the starting line-up, but that he wasn't concerned about it. Johnson, too, said starting doesn't matter to him.
"I think it's something that is definitely possible, but I'm just focusing on winning and being better for my team."
what mattered for Johnson, he said, was that Self has been so publicly praiseful of Johnson's play. That kind of praise has done wonders for his confidence.
"You have no idea," Johnson said with a wide smile. "No idea. It makes me feel like I'm the best defensive player in the world. Coach, he knows how to get to
GAME DAY | 8A
Get Saturday's inside scoop
Check out stats and pregame analysis for Kansas vs. Missouri
me."
Johnson will have to get to the Tigers Saturday, in what unquestionably be the toughest start of his career.
"We've just got to take what
they give us and run with it," Johnson said. "If they give us that one possession, that might be the end of the game."
Edited by Sarah Gregory
WOMEN'S BASKETBALL
Brown to return for senior game after break
Senior guard Marisha Brown puts up a shot underneath the basket while pressured by Oklahoma guard Whitney Hand during the first half. Kansas fell to Oklahoma 75-57 at Allen Fieldhouse on Jan. 23.
Jerry Wang/KANSAN
Boogaard also ready for final home game
Senior forward Krysten Boogaard got to practice early and focused on free throw shooting. She was calm and concentrated. Across the court freshman Keena Mays laughed and practiced trick shots from the baseline and from half court. The Jayhawks are caught in this strange limbo of focus and excitement as they face the end of the season.
BY KATHLEEN GIER
kgier@kansan.com
Saturday Kansas will face Kansas State for senior night to end a tumultuous regular season. The game will tip off at 6:30 p.m.
Kansas had been on a three-game win streak before losing to No. 24 Iowa State 72-36. The Jayhawks stayed with the Cyclones, pulling the game within three points with 17 minutes left in the game. Then the Cyclones went on a 47-16 run to finish off the Jayhawks, who had unexpectedly defeated them in overtime earlier in the season.
"It means a lot, we have to work hard and play together to make this the best game of the season," Boogaard said.
Kansas' forwards got into early foul trouble, which kept sophomore Carolyn Davis and junior Aishah Sutherland on the bench.
"We just have to know that we are better than that." Boogaard said. "We have to come back with a lot of confidence and I know we will."
One positive was the return of senior guard Marisha Brown from a two game suspension.
"I didn't want to be sitting out like that." Brown said.
Regarding senior night, Brown is glad to be back after injuries and the suspension this season.
"It is going to be a bittersweet moment because I am a senior and I have accomplished a lot but it will be my last game at Allen Fieldhouse and I don't want it to end," Brown said.
Now that she is back, Brown is ready to make to make an influence on the team as it looks toward post season opportunities following this last game.
"I just want to do the best that I can to help my team and I want us to "ry to make a run," Brown said.
- Edited by Sarah Gregory
KANSAS VS.
K-STATE
Where: Allen Fieldhouse
Time: Saturday, 6:30 p.m.
TV: Fox Sports Network
SENIOR DAY | 6A
Take a look back at their journeys
Seniors remember the years they spent at Kansas. ___
COMMENTARY
Seniors' stories to come full circle soon
BY NICO ROESLER
nroesler@kansan.com
His dad told me when he came here that we'd win a
least one national championship," coach Bill Self said on Senior Night about Tyrel Reed.
That was almost four years ago. And in just a month, it will have been three years since the first National Championship for Kansas since 1988. Reed's dad was right about one thing: the team won a championship, but he has yet to be proven prophetic when it comes to the "at least" part.
Most students find a way to frame their time in college. It's only natural. That frame can be set by their time in the dorms, meeting new friends that would last much longer than four years, and concluded something like the walk down the hill on graduation day.
There is a desire in people's hearts for a beginning, middle and end. just as there is a need for most stories to have the same elements. We want to be able to tell a good story.
But truly, it was an incentive moment. Where do you go when you've already reached the top? Well, you stay there.
Aristotle — yes I'm going there in a sports column — said all good tragedies had what was called an incentive moment. If we look at Reed's story, his incentive moment was something that many would look at as a climax of a career. Winning the national championship.
The incentive is to not fall from that perch. You can be sure Tyrel Reed hasn't lost the feeling he felt that day. I don't think any Kansas fans have.
the last two seasons, although they have ended with Kansas atop the Big 12, have ended with losses too early in March for many Kansas fans to call a successful tournament run. Yes, a victory in Colombia this Saturday will add to a great story this season. On top of Kansas' dismantling of Missouri at home on Feb. 7, 103-86, winning just as big at its house would add cream to an already stuffed Oreo. But it's not the big cookie.
The middle of Reed's career goes against what Aristotle might have called a proper tragedy, however. It has added tension and a sense of emotional connection, not only to Reed but also to the rest of the seniors.
Senior Brady Morningstar knows how he wants the end of his Kansas basketball story to play out.
"Coach D. (Danny Manning). I want to thank you for all you have done and I just hope we get to go out like you did," Morningstar said in his senior speech referring to Manning's 1988 National Championship.
That is what Aristotle calls resolution. It is where everything comes full circle. It seems Morningstar and Reed have a sense of the closing of the circle. They have knotted up yet another Big 12 conference title. They have placed themselves in the best position possible in the NCAA tourney with a No.1 seed.
Now all that remains is the fulfillment of their years at Kansas. The climax.
- Edited by Sarah Gregory