Sports THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Difficult weekend ahead Softball team hopes for improvement in tough tournament. SPORTS | 6A
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FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2010
Travel-weary tennis team
Jayhawks prepare for another weekend away from home. Kansan.com
WOMEN'S BASKETBALL
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Snap decision seals Hawks' fate
Smith passes up shot Kansas loses 57-54
BY MAX ROTHMAN
mrothman@kansan.com
twitter.com/maxrothman
Six seconds to go, down by one and a three-point shot staring junior forward Nicollette Smith in the eye.
She passed it up.
"When I first flashed over, I thought I was going to be open," Davis said. "I didn't see anyone coming from my back side."
Smiths pass to freshman forward Carolyn Davis was intercepted by Iowa State freshman Chelsea Poppens and Kansas lost to No. 13 Iowa State 57-54. The Jayhawks tied their lowest-scoring total at Allen Fieldhouse this season and dropped to 5-8 in the Big 12.
Davis managed to finish with a team-high 17 points, but Kansas was bested 30 to 16 in the paint, spelling its defeat. The Jayhawks are now 0-7 against ranked opponents this season, but have a chance to reconcile that number in their final three games, all against ranked teams.
"It's getting frustrating," freshman guard Monica Engelman said. "But the most important thing is that we don't separate from one another. We still have three games left and an opportunity to come home with some Ws."
"It hurts," coach Bonnie Henrickson said. "Especially when you go back and give four or five things that we beat ourselves with."
Kansas has lost three games at Allen Fieldhouse against ranked opponents by three points or less. The recurring theme: critical mistakes at the worst possible times.
So the scoring responsibility was on the shooters and often times, they couldn't come through.
In the first half, Iowa State Coach Bill Fennelly operated his defense in a 2-3 zone. The strategy focused primarily on the painted area and prevented Davis from getting many touches.
Excluding Davis and senior guard Sade Morris, who shot six of 12 from the field and finished with 14 points.
SEEWOMENS ON PAGE 7A
KANSAS AT BAYLOR
The Jayhawks will play the Bears 4 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 28, in Waco, Texas. The game will air on ESPN2. Read a preview of the game on PAGE 7A.
Jerry Wang/KANSAN
Freshman forward Carolyn Davis is surrounded by four Iowa State players as she attempts a shot underneath the basket. Iowa State utilized a 2-3 zone defense to contain Davis in the first half, limiting her to only three shots and forcing three turnovers.
MEN'S BASKETBALL
Kansas relishes road games
The Kansan introduces Campus Corner
BY COREY THIBODEAUX
ctibodeaux@kansan.com twitter.com/ctibodeaux
twitter.com/c_mibodeaux During the championship run in 2008, the Jayhawks failed to win at Texas, at Kansas State and at Oklahoma State.
COMMENTARY
This 2010 team has a chance to do what the champs couldn't when it travels to Stillwater, Okla. to face the Cowboys on Saturday.
This season, the lajhayes are 8-1 on the road, the only blip being the 76-68 loss to Tennessee. The 2008 team only lost three road games, but coach Bill Self sees a difference
But there's more to campus sports than basketball. Intramural games run nearly every night. Tons of students play club sports, ranging from rock climbing to wakeboarding and everything in between.
Around these parts, men's basketball is truly a religion. The thousands of students that woke up before 6 a.m. Tuesday are a testament to that.
From now on, the Kansan will have it covered. Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday on page 2B, we'll be
SEE ROAD ON PAGE 7A
Feel free to shoot us ideas or stories. Look for pictures of your friends, or read how your scholarship hall beat another in a buzzer-beater.
And don't fret — our basketball coverage isn't changing. We're just getting more content.
providing information on the campus sports you may know nothing about.
But a warning; try not to get dunked on at the Rec. That's a photo that might make the front page.
Mike Gunnoe/KANSAN
Clark Goble
Cameron Johnson, a senior from Independence, tees off in the golf simulator at the Ambler Student Recreation Fitness Center Thursday. Although this is the first time Johnson has been to use the machine in a while he says that he is definitely one of the most frequent users. There are sensors that record the speed and spin of the ball when hit and Johnson feels that the simulator is fairly accurate of the way golf is played outdoors.
Jayhawks defined by unselfish victories
BY TIM DWYER
tdwyer@kansan.com
I was watching the 2008 Final Four game against North Carolina the other day, and the announcer, Jim Nantz, made an interesting point. There wasn't a single player on that team that received first team All-Big 12 honors. Mario Chalmers, Brandon Rush, Darrell Arthur — of all the great talents on that team — not one of them came away with that particular postseason accolade.
Obviously, none of them care when compared to the ultimate postseason accolade they did come away with.
Anyway, the reason this is important is because, if you look purely at the statistics, this year's Jayhawks may have the same thing happen.
There are four major candidates for All-Conference honors on this year's team: Sherron Collins at point guard, Xavier Henry at the wing, Marcus Morris at forward and Cole Aldrich at center.
But at point guard, no one is putting up better numbers than Baylor's Tweety Carter, who's posting 16.6 points along with 6.3 assists per game, with an assist-turnover rate of well over 2-to-1.
On the wing, Henry loses out to Oklahoma State's James Anderson, who has as good a shot as any to win player of the Year in the conference by averaging 22.5 points per game on the season. He could light up Henry this weekend.
At power forward. Morris has been an efficient producer on the offensive end, but doesn't have Damion James' ability to take over any given game. James averages 17.7 points and 10.7 rebounds to Morris' 12.7 and 6.3.
Aldrich's defensive presence is unrivaled by anyone in the conference — except Baylor's Ekpe Udoh, who averages 4.3 blocks per game to Aldrich's 3.8, while narrowly edging the Kansas big in points and rebounds.
Obviously, this is unlikely. Sherron Collins will be all-conference because he's Sherron Collins and he's had, while maybe not the best statistical year, a good-bordering-on-great year for a team that is 27-1. Same goes for Aldrich.
Despite that, the point remains the same. Kansas, as it was the year it won the national championship, is a top-tier college basketball team because coach Bill Self takes supremely talented players — Collins and Aldrich this year and Chalmers and Arthur in years past
and turns them into team-first, win-at-all-costs players who think more about victories than points per game.
"We all come in here as All-Americans, highly recruited and scoring 30 a game," Collins said. "For him to get you to just buy in, you've got to sacrifice, and that's what everybody's been doing is sacrificing."
Sacrificing things like all-conference honors. Like Naismith and Wooden and Cousy awards. There won't be a wealth of individual accolades for the No. 1 Jayhawks this year, but they've as good a chance as anyone, maybe better at the moment, to walk away from the 2009-2010 season with the only accolade anyone really cares about.
A national championship.
- Edited by Kelly Gibson
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