A couple of days ago, I was watching Mario's three-pointer for like the 150th time, and I decided to do it JFK/Zapruder style. Click. Sherron blows by Derrick Rose. Click. Click. Click. Sherron begins to fall. Click. The ball emerges in Mario's hands, he takes a big jump-step toward the top of the key, jumps, fades. Derrick Rose leaps. Ball leaves Mario's hand. Arc-ing, arc-ing. Swish. (Rewind). Swish. (Rewind). Swish. I felt like Kevin Costner in JFK: Back, and to the left. Back, and to the left. Back, and to the left.
An obscured leaping figure
As I stepped through the swish multiple times, I saw something I hadn't seen before, a sort of puff of smoke on the grassy knoll. There's a leaping figure behind the backboard, at the very far end of the Kansas bench. Just after Mario's shot goes through, the players on the bench appear to be in disbelief, but a black clad figure at the end of the bench suddenly springs up, spinning, arms flailing. I think that this was pretty close to my reaction as well.
This is closest I could come to a shot of ...
read on »
13 Apr 08 · filed under: basketball, kansas basketball · 
(0) ·
#
Surreal. That's the word that keeps coming to mind. Kansas trailed by nine points with two minutes left, and yet somehow managed to win. Chalmers's shot. Collins's steal. Roy Williams -- "Benedict Williams" to many Jayhawk fans -- wearing a Jayhawk sticker. Is it possible that all of that *really* happened?
Watch the last few minutes of the game again, and you'll begin to see how many little things went KU's way. There were big things, of course -- Calipari's lack of faith in his bench, Joey Dorsey's fouls, CDR's clankers from the line -- but there were also those momentary mistakes that add up: a terrible transition decision by Memphis, questionable judgment when Calipari doesn't call timeout after a made free throw to ensure that his team fouls, and the simple bad luck of Derrick Rose's first free throw that hit every part of the rim and then bounced out with 10 seconds left.
Still, Kansas needed a miracle to simply pull even.
Photo: Streeter Lecka
Luke Winn of Sports Illustrated really nails the last few seconds in his Tourney Blog: "The ball took what Collins said seemed 'like five ...
read on »
08 Apr 08 · filed under: basketball, kansas basketball · (0) ·
#
If words are windows to the soul, this blog has become a massive vista onto my sports obsessions and, specifically, Kansas basketball. Soon enough it'll all be over, the fever dream will end, the sun will rise, and I'll be back to the old stuff. Until then, I want to post one more thing, to commemorate the Jayhawks' run to San Antonio.
I designed a t-shirt that expressed my feelings with regard to the Heels, which -- in a really weird coincidence -- echo Ol Roy's sentiments c. 2003.
For many Kansas fans, Roy's angry words ring true -- truer, even -- today. Sure, Roy may have claimed to have "given a shit" at that moment, but he changed his tune a week later. Jayhawk fans probably still couldn't give a shit, to say the least. Now, we can declare this to the world. [Buy it now now now from Zazzle].
A day that will live in infamy
In case anyone's wondering what the heck the ...
read on »
02 Apr 08 · filed under: basketball, kansas basketball · (0) ·
#
You probably can't tell, but I've been worrying over my picks for the last couple of days.
My patented approach = tossed out the window
I've filled out 20+ brackets in my life, and each year I take basically the same tack: At least one #1 seed goes down relatively early; every Big 12 team represents. This mostly works, but it gets complicated because I also generally want Duke to flame out early (and with the greatest possible degree of humiliation), and I expect the Pac 10 teams to eat shit as well. History has not been kind to this approach.
Did I mention that I usually send Kansas to the Final Four at least as well? So yes, I usually lose whatever pool I've entered.
Instead, I predict that history will be made in a couple of ways
Of course, I still have Duke flaming out and Kansas winning, but I've twisted a couple of the other valves in my strategy engine:
All 4 #1 seeds make the Final Four. In every case, I couldn't imagine any one of them losing. North Carolina is playing in ...
read on »
19 Mar 08 · filed under: basketball, kansas basketball · (0) ·
#
Man, this year is going to be good, not only because the teams are good, but because there are good stories out there. I tell myself that I don't care about storylines, but at some point, I absorb them. I repeat them. They become part of my conversations. All the extraneous detail from those player mini-profiles being produced by CBS will become cement itself in my memory; like Mateen Cleaves' from 2000 tournament: his storied high school career in Michigan, his drunken driving, the tough love of father-figure/coach Tom Izzo. Why do I remember this? Why do I care? Who knows?
As Dick Vitale would say: It's March Madness, baby!
Let's start at the top
Memphis is the rarely defeated team with killer athletes and a dickhead for a coach; North Carolina has player of the year Tyler Hansborough and the electrifying "Carolina break" (formerly known as the Kansas break), but it's also got some glaring inconsistencies; UCLA has good balance, a great coach, good defense, and a stone killer in freshman Kevin Love; Kansas has experience, Darnell Jackson, and a recent history of flameouts [cf. Bucknell, Bradley] to overcome.
Mid-major blah blah blah
As usual, there are ...
read on »
18 Mar 08 · filed under: basketball, kansas basketball · (0) ·
#
The Bay Area: Where Baron happens. Photo: Jed Jacobsohn/Getty Images
Living in the Bay Area, I've watched Baron Davis and Don Nelson breathe life into the corpse of the Golden State Warriors by playing fast, loose, undisciplined, unpredictable basketball. When they're clicking, the Warriors are invigorating and life-affirming. Nellie doesn't burden the team with structure -- they don't really run an "offense" or play "defense" in the traditional senses -- instead, they rely on the players' abilities to improvise, pull their opponents out of their own structures, and wear them down with running and gunning.
Playground electicity
When the Warriors are good, they're like the best playground basketball team you could ever imagine. What makes them all the more exciting is that their roster lacks key traditional dimensions associated with successful teams. They compete without the traditional man-mountain in the low-post to take on Shaq, Yao, Duncan, or Pau; instead, Andris Biedrins, who has very little in the way of a J and doesn't ever try to play facing the basket, uses his quickness and hops to rebound, follow, and generally surprise opponents with his ability to keep Warrior possessions alive. (...
read on »
26 Feb 08 · filed under: basketball, kansas basketball · (0) ·
#
Julian Wright is taking the opportunity of a lifetime, and who can blame him? He brought enthusiasm and energy to every game, contributed hugely in many of the big wins in the last couple of years (cf. these dunks during the Florida game and this epic 33-point performance at MU), and showed enough skill and potential to be very highly regarded by NBA scouts. Who wouldn't seize a chance to be financially secure, and to play in the NBA? The future is rarely certain in these situations, as these guys can attest. Besk of luck to you, JuJu.
The KU-sports-related Internet is (predictably) thrashing around with the news, and the emotions range from hurt to happy, fatalistic to optimistic. And who can blame them, really? The last four years have been tough on Kansas basketball, so tough that the mention of certain names -- Roy, Micah, Padgett, Galindo, Giddens, CJ, etc -- can provoke pangs and spasms of hurt and guilt. I guess Julian gets added to the list now, though personally I think he's ready and ...
read on »
10 Apr 07 · filed under: basketball, kansas basketball · (0) ·
#
UPDATE 1: A couple of changed picks; UPDATE 2: Some eerie resemblances my bracket and those of SI writers; UPDATE 4: Surveying the carnage: Thoughts after the first two rounds
Here's the bracket that I made on the Monday after the seedings were announced.
UPDATE: Since Monday, I've been spending a lot of time reading up on the teams I don't know/care about -- in SI.com and its Tourney Blog, statistical analyst Ken Pomeroy's blog, the NYT Bracket blog, and the ever-unfriendly ESPN.com which must hide a lot of its useful stuff behind its subscription service, Insider. In any case, the more you read about the first round match-ups, the more confusing it all gets. I've seen many of the teams play at some point during the season, but I'm totally in the dark on pretty much any team from the Pac 10 (even though I live in California, I just really can't even force myself to care about it) and almost all of the mid-majors.
One bracket change came out ...
read on »
13 Mar 07 · filed under: basketball, kansas basketball · (0) ·
#
In a previous post, I suggested that the Kansas defense must "contain" Kevin Durant, thereby implying that Kevin Durant could, in fact, be contained. I said: "he’s going to get 10-15 points no matter what you do," and anything in excess of that was a matter of the opposing team's defense shutting him down. Against Kansas on Saturday, he rattled off 12 points in a row between the 17:41 and the 14:14 marks in the first half, and had 20 points just five minutes later. (Thanks to ESPN's play-by-play for this). And it wasn't like the Texas offense was getting him a lot of open looks: He was burying every shot, no matter who was guarding him and no matter where he was on the court. 22 feet away, Julian Wright's hand in his face: Rattled in. Pulling up from 27 feet at the tail end of a fast break: Swish. Texas didn't even need to run an offense, they just needed to get him the ball and then worry about getting back and playing defense. In the first half, this worked.
In the second half, different story. Two things changed (at least): Brandon Rush was on Durant, ...
read on »
05 Mar 07 · filed under: basketball, kansas basketball · (0) ·
#
Watching the Longhorns repeatedly (and ultimately successfully) drive a stake into the heart of Acie Law IV last night, I got to thinking about Saturday's showdown between the Longhorns and the Hawks. (I also penciled in A&M for the Final Four. Is there any team in the nation -- other than UCLA, I guess -- that has such a perfect blend of March-ready qualities -- go-to guy, great defense, grit, gumption? Totally g'ed up). Anyway, here's the big stuff that KU has to address:
Contain Kevin Durant. I know, I know. Obvious. Duh. Everyone tries to do this. But I think Kansas has a chance to succeed. Yes, he's going to get 10-15 points no matter what you do. He'll be everywhere -- around the basket, out on the perimeter, getting put-backs, rolling off picks and taking jumpers. The challenge for the Hawks is to make sure he doesn't get 30-35, to limit the number of open looks he gets on the perimeter, and to make sure that he doesn't get anywhere near a rhythm like he had against Texas Tech (37 points, 23 rebounds). Durant thrives when teams don't have someone who can get in his face ...
read on »
01 Mar 07 · filed under: basketball, kansas basketball · (1) ·
#
After the loss to A&M, I jotted down some notes that I titled "Resolved & Unresolved." In the subsequent five games, there has been a migration of some items from one list to the other, mostly in the direction of resolution, which is nice.
Resolved
Rotation. Coach Self seems like he's found the right starters, and his bench guys inject energy almost every time. This was not the case last year, and even earlier this year, when Kaun, Jackson, Wright and Hawkins (last year) were in and out of his doghouse and the starting lineup. I'm not getting too excited about this, because it's one of the more elementary requirements for any deep advancement in the tournament.
Pace. During Self's first year, it was clear that Miles, Langford, and Simien all struggled with his insistence on cohesive half-court defense, which prevented a lot of the sprinting out that characterized Roy's offense (and probably was a major part of why those guys came to KU). Langford especially seemed to struggle when he wasn't getting multiple opportunities for (relatively) easy transition baskets. This year's team seems to have fully embraced Self's approach, while also running a pretty mean fast break when they ...
read on »
23 Feb 07 · filed under: kansas basketball · (0) ·
#
Question: What happens when a young college basketball team without a proven low-post presence somehow manages to secure a high national ranking then faces a really hungry, experienced team? The Hawks found out two nights ago, getting their rear-ends tanned by an unheralded and obviously hungry Oral Roberts team.
Where does this rank among the hardest-to-swallow losses in recent memory? I don't want to go overboard here; it's not as crushing as the two NCAA Tournament early exits. It also wasn't as demoralizing as losing to K-State (at home) and Missouri (after leading by 7 with a little over a minute left) last year. It's most reminscent of the 2004 home loss to Richmond, when the entire sporting nation could turn on ESPN to see the Hawks implode on their home floor to a team that wasn't even playing that well. ESPN didn't carry the ORU game on Wednesday night, THANK GOD, but the loss rippled through the sports press in a way that always seemed to emphasize the Hawks simply failed to look, umm, good. SI said simply: "Oral Roberts outplayed No. 3 Kansas the whole way."
Question: How in the world does SI rank KU above a team ...
read on »
17 Nov 06 · filed under: kansas basketball · (0) ·
#
FOR THE LOVE OF GOD WHEN WILL THEY STOP TORTURING ME?
Once again, the Jayhawks exited the NCAA tournament in the first round; this time, it was a 77-73 loss to Bradley, marking the second year in a row in which the heavily-favored Hawks were up-ended by a lower seed.
What the hell went wrong? Bradley came out loose and snappy; the Hawks looked spooked and tight. A couple of unlucky early possessions tipped the momentum toward Bradley, and you could see the Hawks get somewhat prematurely discouraged and frustrated. Up until the very late second half, the vaunted Jayhawk defense -- which had created easy offensive opportunities all year -- struggled to keep up with Bradley's relentless inside-out attack. All year, Kansas had locked down their opponents, forcing bad shots and racing it right back up their opponents' backside. This time, they played Bradley's game for almost 40 minutes.
The most confounding part was that they seemed so out of sync. The stars from the Texas game fell victim to the fumbles and hiccups that characterized the early season. Julian Wright disappeared for minutes on end; Mario Chalmers couldn't get anything to fall in the first half; Sasha Kaun's shots ...
read on »
11 Apr 06 · filed under: kansas basketball · (0) ·
#
I have irrational feelings about Kansas basketball, and this entry is a simple effort to contextualize and provide foundation for comments I will make as the 2005-6 season unfolds.
I grew up in Kansas. My grandfather, great-grandfather, dad, uncle, and aunt all attended the University of Kansas. My family had season tickets for both football and basketball games, and I spent a sizeable chunk of my childhood running around those stadiums. At football games, we sat on the 50-yard line, about 30 rows up from the field. For basketball, we sat courtside -- second row, actually -- behind the Kansas bench, Jack Nicholson-style.
Any fan of college sports will tell you that season tickets to Kansas football have never been in high demand, at least not in my lifetime. The last glory year for Kansas football was 1969, when they were edged 15-14 by Penn State in the Orange Bowl. My dad traveled to Miami for that game, and the story of profound heartbreak still stings, even though I wasn't there. The basketball Jayhawks had hay days in the fifties, again, well before my time, winning a national championship in 1952 and coming up one point short of another in ...
read on »
20 Jan 06 · filed under: kansas basketball, the ancient past · (2) ·
#
