6B
SPORTS / TUESDAY, JANUARY 19, 2010 / THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN / KANSAN.COM
WOMEN'S BASKETBALL
Kansas defeats Missouri despite recurring problems
Mistakes during game reminiscent of loss to Kansas State
BY ANDREW TAYLOR
ataylor@kansan.com
Kansas struggled to find its identity in Sunday's 72-59 victory over Missouri.
The first half could not have gone better for the Jayhawks. They played great defense, moved the ball on offense and for a brief moment used a combination of the two to make up for the loss of injured freshman guard Angel Goodrich.
"In the first half we were like, 'Okay one of these teams is walking out of here with a win and let it be us.' Senior guard Sade Morris said. "We didn't want Missouri to get a win here on our court."
Senior guard Sade Morris makes a pass to junior center Krysten Boogaard during the first half. Boogaard scored eight points, and Morris had three assists on the day to go along with 15 points, a blocked shot and a steal.
That all changed in the second half when Kansas, slow-starting out of the locker room all season, let Missouri scratch and crawl its way back into the game.
"They're a scrappy team and that's what they do best," senior guard LaChelda Jacobs said. "They play hard and go after you hard. I think we were pretty confident and just kept going at them."
Everything may look all fine and dandy on the final stat sheet simply because the Jayhawks walked out of Allen Fieldhouse having won the Border Showdown. When everything is fully considered, it
becomes evident that the game bore disturbing similarities to the Jayhawks embarrassing 59-35 defeat at the hands of Kansas State.
Just as the Jayhawks failed to score a field goal for 10 minutes and 34 seconds in the game against Missouri, the team went 20-plus minutes without a field goal at K-State.
Numerically speaking, Sunday's field goal drought was only about half as bad as the one against the Wildcats. It's troubling because many of the same problems plagued the Jayhawks in both situations.
On Sunday Kansas only attempted eight shots, which is less than one attempted shot per minute. Half of those shots came on a single possession when Kansas fought for rebounds and put backs.
That shows a lack of aggressiveness and unwillingness to find and take open shots, another prevalent theme in the loss to the Wildcats. All of these similarities can be boiled down to one overarching statement; Kansas played ineffective offense.
Ryan Waqqoner/KANSAN
"We didn't attack," coach Bonnie Henrickson said. "Which is what we did not do at K-State."
To complement the Jayhawks' ineffective shooting, tendencies, they also pitched the ball all over the fieldhouse during that stretch, turning the ball over 10 times. That severely contrasts with the meager eight turnovers the Jayhawks gave up in the entire first half.
scoreless habits were not the story for the entire game against the Tigers. They put up 18 shots in a similar 10-minute stretch in the first half, many of which were open. That helped boost them to a 34-12 run.
Luckily for the Jayhawks, their
One resounding. difference
between the Jayhawks second half struggles against Missouri and the loss at K-State involves the mind-set of both the Kansas players and coaches.
"There was fire the whole time," Morris said. "Absolutely."
Despite the extremely worrisome
trends exposed against K-State, and at times against Missouri, the fact that Kansas never lost its fire on Sunday should give it confidence going forward and help it avoid another relapse of uninspired play.
got to be the aggressor, you've got to attack, and you have to play two halves in this league," Henrickson said.
"The moral of the story is, no matter who you're playing, you've
Edited by Kristen Liszewski
Ryan Waggoner/KANSAN
Senior guard Danielle McCray splits the Missouri defense. McCray scored a team-high 26 points in the Jayhawks 72-59 victory over the Tigers.
Edmonds asks for tryout at Cardinals charity event
ST. LOUIS — Jim Edmonds went on stage at Cardinals manager
Tony La Russa's charity event to ask for a tryout. He didn't play last season but never retired.
Game Ball
Associated Press
Carolyn Davis
MLB
In Davis' first game as a starter, she tallied 13 points on 5/8 shooting and 6 rebounds. She helped clog the middle and shut down
What to watch out for
Missouri's post players and also caught everything thrown her way resulting in high percentage layups. Let the Boogaard and Davis start competition begin!
Point guard play
As Sunday's game showed, coach Bonnie Henrickson has three separate plans for the jayhawks point guard position. Senior guard LaChelda Jacobs started and played fairly well, junior guard Rhea Codio also saw some time at point guard and finally senior guard Sade
Morris got a chance to be the floor general. It's obvious when looking at the trios combined 6-to-9 assist-to-turnover ratio of six to nine, that it will take some time to even come close to matching the production that the now injured freshman guard Angel Goodrich maintained.
Quote of the day
Without such sharp shooting early on, the layhawks may have dropped their fourth straight game.
as much as she has improved"
—Coach Bonnie Henrickson on David
"I've never had a kid, from the first day of practice to now, improve
Stat of the day
That was Kansas' field goal percentage in a near perfect first half.
59. 4 percent
Reason to hope
It's a victory
After three straight losses and a 0-2 start to conference play, it's no stretch of the imagination to say that Kansas needed this victory. The Jayhawks played some of its best basketball of the season in the
first half before suffering a severe drop-off in efficiency during the second half. All things considered, though, the victory got the proverbial monkey of the Jayhawks back and puts them in position to make a run early in the conference season.
Reason to mope
A poor second half
The Jayhawks simply dominated the Tigers in the first half, outscoring their opponents 46 to 18. Everything seemed to be going the Jayhawks' way, but the Tigers found a way to get back into the game in the seond half. Missouri took advantage of a 10-minute Kansas field goal drought. While Kansas was able to make a late run and keep Missouri at bay, it will not always be able to count on having a substantial first half lead. That makes it essential for the layjawks to play two solid halves of basketball.
— Max Rothman and Andrew Taylor
NBA
Parker enables Spurs' 97-90 victory
ASSOCIATED PRESS
NEW ORLEANS — The nagging pain in Tony Parker's left foot liners, so he tries to play through it as best he can, with some days better than others.
Unfortunately for the Hornets.
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"I'm in surviving mode. It's tough," said Parker, who only recently revealed that his foot was bothering him. "I can't look at myself in the mirror and say I can't play. It's just like nagging injuries. ... It's good days and bad days. I felt pretty good today."
Parker felt pretty good on Monday, then went out and scored 25 points as the San Antonio Spurs handed New Orleans a rare home loss, 97-90.
CHRIS PAUL Hornets point guard
David Wes,
scored 18 points for New
Orleans, which lost for only the
second time in its last 15
home games.
Chris Paul,
who fouled out in the final
minute, had
Parker said his back was stiff two nights ago when he scored only four points on 2-of-8 shooting at Memphis, which was San Antonio's second straight loss during a four-game road swing that concluded in the Big Easw.
"It comes down to us starters. We have to come out with more energy and set the tone."
A g a i n s t New Orleans, he routinely drove hard to the hoop, losing defenders on screens and finding lanes to the basket.
Starting in place of Richard Jefferson, who sat out with lower back pain, Hill drew the prima-
"I was trying to be very aggressive early
and 14 rebounds for the Spurs,
while George Hill scored 16 points
and Manu Ginobili had 11.
18 points and nine assists for the Hornets, while Marcus Thornton scored 16 points.
"It comes down to us starters.
We have to come out with more
"I was trying to be very aggressive early on and I tried to redeem myself. We had to bounce back."
on and I tried to redeem myself" he said. "We had to bounce back."
TONY PARKER Hornets point guard
Tim Duncan added 21 points
ry defensive assignment on Paul and helped get him into early foul trouble.
energy and set the tone," Paul said. "They really kept us in front of them. They never really let us get to the basket. We didn't get to the (free throw) line much at all. It's been the
"George did a good job playing defense on him, but you know it takes the whole
story for us. We've got to figure out other ways to win other than just making shots."
team to contain him." Parker said. "I thought overall we paid attention and made sure we're not giving him anything easy. Then it was my job on offense to try to get him tired and attack him."
San Antonio led by double digits for most of the game, going up by as many as 21 points when Duncan hit one of two free throws to make it 76-55 late in the third quarter.
The Spurs went into the fourth quarter with a 17-point lead, which the Hornets quickly trimmed with a 7-0 run to open the period.
Thornton's fast-breaklayup made it 78-68 and the Hornets pulled to 80-72 on Darren Collison's free throws with 7:06 remaining.
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