THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN SPORTS
Cheer squad goes to nationals
CHEERLEADING
MONDAY JANUARY 24, 2011
The 18-member University of Kansas cheerleading competition squad placed fifth at a national competition held at Disney World on January 16. The team received a paid-bid to the contest.
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PAGE 12A
THE TIES THAT BIND
Robinson's loss veils Kansas' defeat
Sophomore forward Thomas Robinson looks to the ground with disappointment after the 74-63 loss to Texas. With the loss the Jayhawks are now 18-1 for the season.
Team and family prove uniformitv.
Mike Gunnoe/KANSAN
BY TIM DWYER
tdwyer@kansan.com
All season long, this Kansas team has talked about being a family. "F.O.E." an acronym for Family Over Everything, has been something of a rallying cry.
Friday night, Thomas Robinson needed his family more than ever. His mother Lisa Robinson, just 37 years old, died of a heart attack, and was survived by Thomas and his nine-year-old sister Jayla, Jayla's the one who had to call her big brother at around 11 p.m. Friday to tell him that, after losing his grandmother and grandfather in the three weeks prior, he'd also just lost his mom.
So Friday the family of Kansas basketball rallied around its hurting brother. Players, coaches and the mothers of a few players who live in town gathered at the Jayhawker Towers to offer their support.
"As a coach, you always think your players like each other," coach Bill Self said. "That's always been a quality all teams have — good teams like each other. It sounds trite, but it's very important. And last night I saw a different level than I even knew existed. It was pretty special."
pretty special.
The emotions, of course, continued to run high for Kansas on Saturday. Robinson decided to suit up alongside his teammates, and finished with two points and five rebounds. Allen Fieldhouse had a moment of silence for his mother. Angel Morris, the mother of the Morris twins, called him out of pregame warmups to give him a bear hug of the sort that mothers give best, and talked to him for a few minutes before letting him rejoin his team.
"It says a lot that Thomas came out and played," Marcus Morris said. "It took a lot of courage to play since Thomas only has his mother and his sister. It's just a sad situation, because you don't know what to say to him."
For a while, Kansas did its talk
ing on the court. The Jayhawks roared out to an 18-3 lead, which Self attributed, in part at least, to the emotions of the previous 24 hours.
"In times like that, I think you see teams get off to an emotional good start," Self said. "We played well, too, but certainly it was emotional, and I felt like we didn't have much gas in the tank in the second half."
As Self said, emotions like those are draining, and they can only last so long. Kansas went flat after about 10 minutes of game time, but fended off Texas for the rest of the half. Then the Longhorns scored 51 points and completely controlled the second half and turned a 12-point halftime deficit into a 74-63 victory. It ended a Kansas-record home winning streak, a perfect record and gave the Longhorns a massive leg up in the conference title race. But while the game, in the scope of the season, was a setback, it was put into perspective, Self said, by the previous night's events.
"People go home sad today," Self said. "All 16,000 people that were here and supported us great like they do every game, they go home sad and disappointed, and he's one of those guys. But he goes home and he doesn't have his mother anymore. And it certainly puts everything in perspective, because he's going to wake up three or four days from now and people will be doing their own things, and the world keeps going on, and that's a reality that he's going to live with for the rest of his life."
The emotions of the losses, both personal and basketball, were visible in the Kansas players' mannerisms in the post-game press conference: heads were bowed, shoulders were hunched, voices cracked and eyes were red. All of it — the previous night, the first loss at Allen Fieldhouse in 69 games, the first loss of the season — visibly weighed on them.
"It's just one game and we can't
let it become two," Tyrel Reed said. "We know that Thomas is going through a lot of stuff right now. We all hurt and we all feel for him. He's one of our brothers and we're definitely going to be there for him, but we've got a game on Tuesday against a good Colorado team. We have to be ready to play."
Whether or not Robinson will
miss any time, including that game Tuesday against Colorado, is still unclear.
"Whatever he needs to do, he needs to do," Self said. "But we're his family."
— Edited by Emily Soetaert
WOMEN'S BASKETBALL
Jayhawks lose to Sooners at home
BY MAX ROTHMAN
mrothman@kansan.com
Freshman guard Aaryn "Vegas" Ellenberg appeared as a fresh face in Kansas' nightmares. However, the result of Sunday's tiff with Oklahoma was nothing new.
"If Vegas hits one, you better look out," Oklahoma coach Sherri Coale said.
The Jayhawks fell to the Sooners 75-57 at Allen Fieldhouse, marking 14 consecutive losses to Oklahoma and eight straight under coach Bonnie Henrickson.
With a bandage wrapped around her left wrist, the Las Vegas, Nevada native scored 21 of her 28 points and sunk all five of her three-point attempts in the first half. Sophomore guard Whitney Hand tagged on 16 first-half points and finished with 21. The duo combined to convert 15 of 23 field goals from the field and scored 37 of their team's 43 points by the break.
"You've got to get through a screen and contend," Henrickson said. "There are too many that are uncontested, but even the contested ones, those two knock'em down."
Sophomore forward Carolyn Davis, Kansas' leading scorer heading into the contest, struggled to find an early rhythm in the paint. Rather than allowing her to finish easy lay-ups, Oklahoma's bevy of post defenders forced Davis to earn her points from the free throw line. She hit just eight of her 15 attempts.
Sometimes actually watching the ball fall through the hoop can help a player find a rhythm. Oklahoma prevented this possibility at any chance and Davis was flustered.
"We see an extra man, so we hesitate getting it to her," sophomore guard Angel Goodrich said. "We kinda overthrew it to her. It's either there or it ain't."
Surrendering opportunities to any foo often equates to failure. With a team that shoots as well as Oklahoma, each of Kansas' 16 turnovers spelled its fate. The Sooners scored 17 points off turnovers and converted 32 of 63 field goal attempts.
"The game is just so much easier; every pass, you trust yourself in transition more. It takes a lot of the pressure off and it just changes the way you feel." Coale said of her team's sharpshooting. "It was really good to see our players hit that next level of confidence."
"They were being really physical!" Davis said. "Every shot I took I felt a body on me from either side and that was pretty frustrating."
Jerry Wang/KANSAN
The jayhawks opened the second half with energized play, moving the ball in transition and erasing the sloppy passes that led to turnovers earlier on. Goodrich catalyzed judicious ball movement and found Davis more often.
"I got lower because it was easier to take the contact and I tried to work up the lane so I didn't have anyone around me," Davis said.
Edited by Becca Harsch
Sophomore forward Carolyn Davis fights with Nebraska forward Joanna McFarland for possession of the ball. Davis led the team with 16 points on 4-of-10 shooting in the 75-57 loss at Allen Fieldhouse.
MEN'S BASKETBALL
Kansas could still win Big 12 despite loss
BY TIM DWYER
tdwyer@kansan.com
Saturday's game against Texas was overshadowed, no doubt. With the personal tragedies rocking sophomore forward Thomas Robinson's life, a basketball game seemed like an out-of-place and untimely distraction for the family-based Kansas team.
But, as with everything, the game went on, all tragedy aside. And what happened, the Longhorns winning 74-63 in Allen Fieldhouse, was a seminal moment in the Big 12 Conference season.
Kansas no longer boasts a nearly four-year-long home winning streak. Texas has notched its first win in Allen Fieldhouse. Kansas isn't perfect anymore, in conference play or for the season. And, more importantly, Texas now owns a one-game lead over Kansas in the race for the Big 12 crown, which has been the property of the Jayhawks for the last six years running, and the sole property of the Jayhawks for the last four.
"Certainly, Texas has a big lead," coach Bill Self said, "a big lead on everybody else right now."
Kansas, Self was quick to say, has won the league from behind before, and it's certainly not out of the question. If the Jayhawks pick up just one game during the course of the Big 12 season, because a tie for the regular season is as good as a win in the conference record books, they'll be able to claim
SEE BIG 12 ON PAGE 9A
BIG XII STANDINGS
CONF. OVERALL
1. Texas 4-0 16-3
2. ATM 4-1 17-2
3. Buffalo 3-1 18-1
4. Oklahoma 3-2 14-6
5. Texas 3-2 17-3
6. Colorado 3-2 13-5
7. Nebraska 2-3 14-5
8. State 2-3 14-5
9. Oklahoma 2-3 10-9
10. Texas 1-4 13-7
11. State 1-4 14-6
12. Texas 1-4 9-17