6B
SPORTS / THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2010 / THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN / KANSAN.COM
COLLINS (CONTINUED FROM 1B)
Senior guard Sherron Collins shoots a layup against Colorado Saturday.
Weston White/KANSAN FILE PHOTO
victories would be a disservice to the man who Self said was, at times, the best player in the conference not named Kevin Durant as early as his freshman season.
"There was a time in our league, when he was a freshman and other coaches told me this, when they viewed him as the second best player in our league behind Kevin Durant." Self said. "You couldn't guard him. I mean, there was a stretch when he was that good."
Even before that, Self said he knew Collins was destined for great things.
"Sherron and Ty Lawson were the two best guards coming out that year." Self said of recruiting Collins. "It was neck and neck who was the best one. I thought he would be this good. I never thought he'd be a four-year guy."
Lucky for Self, then, that when Collins landed on campus, he fell in love with the tradition surrounding Lawrence and the basketball program at Kansas. Unlike Lawson, who left North Carolina for the NBA after three years, Collins stuck around.
As early as his freshman year, Collins showed his propensity to deliver in the spotlight.
In his first career game against Missouri, Collins uncorked a then career-high 23 points, leading the Jayhawks to a three-point victory against the Tigers in Allen Fieldhouse. In his first game at Kansas State, it was a similar story as he hit 8-of-11 shots to lead Kansas with 20 points in a 71-62 victory.
His sophomore season was no different.
When the lajahwaks needed a basket to tie Memphis with the clock winding down in the national championship game. Self put the ball in Collins' hands, who brought it down the floor and had a tumbling, contested assist on Mario Chalmer's now famous three.
"Sherron could've left after his sophomore year if he was healthy," Self said. "If his body hadn't almost failed him, he probably would've been our leading scorer on that National Championship team."
But Collins has always been about team. His basketball skills benefit team first, rather than the
individual.
He isn't the greatest athlete on the floor. He's never dunked in a Kansas uniform. He's never broken individual scoring records for a game or a season, like Henry already has. What Collins does possess, though, is an inherent knowledge of the game that likely rivals any player in the conference, and perhaps the nation.
"If you study him every day in practice, the guy has unbelievable basketball savvy," Self said. "The questions that he asks are questions that make a head coach think, 'Man, he's got a point here.' He sees the game, and the game is in slow motion for him usually. He doesn't shoot it enough to put up big numbers. He's playing to win, and that's what point guards are supposed to do."
It was only fitting, then, that on the night Collins set the record
- passing Raef LaFrentz, Billy Thomas and C.B. McGrath, players on the 1995-98 team - the Jayhawks also accomplished the first team goal of the season: winning the Big 12.
"Can't describe the feeling right now. It's great," Collins said.
"There's been a lot of hard work these last four years and the years before that. There have been a lot of greats before us, so this means more. It's for the University. We did it for everybody. Words can't even explain."
When the Jayhawks were presented with the Big 12 Championship trophy once again Monday night, it was Collins who held it, kissed it, raised it high in the air and led the procession off the floor with smiles all around.
"Sherron is — he's our guy," junior center Cole Aldrich said. "He's the guy that's been there through thick and thin with all of us. He's been our leader for the last four years."
Self said there's one factor that makes the most sense in Collins' returning to Kansas for what has proven to be a historic senior year.
"He likes to win," Self said. "The kid's legacy to me is, there been a lot of great players here, and he's going to win more than any of them. That, to me, is pretty strong."
- Edited by Michael Holtz
Weston White/KANSAN FILE PHOTO
Senior guard Sherron Collins yells from the sideline Saturday. Coach Bill Self said Collins was the "best guard" he had ever coached at Kansas
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