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Goodbye Wiggs. Once a Jayhawk, always a Jayhawk!

3/31/2014

 
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Take a look back at the day Andrew Wiggins became a Jayhawk.



Here's a look at the highlights of Wiggins' winding recruitment, from his roots in Canada to his big day in West Virginia:

August 2011: Wiggins, who had been a student at Vaughan Secondary School in his native Ontario, transfers to play for Huntington Prep in Huntington, W.Va. About that time, he makes his debut as the consensus No. 1 overall prospect in the class of 2014.

Sept. 24: Wiggins makes his first unofficial visit to Kentucky, taking in the campus with Huntington Prep Coach Rob Fulford and teammate Xavier Rathan-Mayes.

Dec. 3: Wiggins takes an unofficial visit to UK to see the much-hyped matchup between the Wildcats and North Carolina. Freshman star Anthony Davis blocks a shot in the final seconds to help UK secure a victory in front of a raucous Rupp Arena crowd. "I thought it was amazing," Wiggins later told Scout.com.

July 20, 2012: Wiggins faces off against fellow top recruit Julius Randle, with Calipari and assistant coach Orlando Antigua in attendance, at the Nike Peach Jam Finals in North Augusta, S.C. Wiggins outplayed Randle down the stretch, finishing with 28 points, 13 rebounds and three blocks in an 81-80 overtime victory.

July 30: AAU coach Mike George tells the Herald-Leader that UK and Florida State are recruiting Wiggins the hardest after both Calipari and FSU Coach Leonard Hamilton attend his basketball camp in Canada. George says that will be a big factor in Wiggins' decision: "It's who's recruiting him hardest. That's what counts. That's what he wants to see. If he's playing, you better have a coach there front and center. And it better be the head coach. And if it's not — you have a problem."

Oct. 13: Xavier Rathan-Mayes — Wiggins' longtime friend and teammate — commits to Florida State. Rathan-Mayes, a four-star shooting guard, has been mentioned as one of the reasons Wiggins might choose the Seminoles.

Oct. 22: Wiggins makes it clear in an interview with Scout.com that he has opened his recruitment to schools other than perceived favorites UK and Florida State. "My options are still wide open," he says. "People think they can dictate or know where I'm going, but they might be in for a surprise." Kansas, North Carolina, Ohio State and Syracuse are among the schools that express interest.

Oct. 25: Fulford announces that Wiggins will join the class of 2013. He is immediately listed as the No. 1 overall prospect in the senior class.

Nov. 18: Wiggins leads Huntington Prep to a 61-44 victory over Christian Faith Center (N.C.) at Scott County High School in Georgetown. The crowd of more than 2,000 includes Calipari, Antigua and several current UK players. "The atmosphere was great," Wiggins said. "All of the fans loved me and supported my team. It's a great place to play basketball here. People love basketball ... the desire for the game. So I appreciate that."

Nov. 30-Dec. 1: Wiggins plays two games at the Marshall County Hoop Fest in Benton, Ky., and averages 27 points and 13 rebounds in the two victories. There were more than 5,000 fans — many of them wearing blue — for each game. Among the spectators was UK commitment Derek Willis. "He's a freak. He's probably the best player I've seen in my entire life," Willis tells the Herald-Leader.

Dec. 5: Wiggins and his parents attend the Florida State-Florida game as part of the official visit to Tallahassee. The Gators trounce the Seminoles, 72-47, but Wiggins' parents are honored with a halftime celebration of their past accomplishments as FSU athletes. "(FSU's coaches) talked about the legacy," Wiggins told Rivals.com. "It's appealing. It's something that I could look forward to (if I went there)."

Feb. 7, 2013: Sports Illustrated publishes a lengthy article with the headline, "The Canadian Jordan, Andrew Wiggins the great hope north of border." The piece questions Wiggins' work ethic, mentions several Canadian prospects who have fizzled in the past and references his father's two-year drug suspension from the NBA. Later that night, Wiggins goes off for 57 points, 13 rebounds and four blocks, while making 24 of 28 field goals in a victory over the Marietta College JV team. Wiggins and Fulford said after the game that the performance was sparked by the "negative" SI article.

Feb. 25: Wiggins is named the Naismith Player of the Year, beating out fellow finalists Jabari Parker and Aaron Gordon for the honor.

Feb. 27: Wiggins and his parents attend the UK-Mississippi State game as part of their official visit to Lexington. "That was a good visit. It was crazy. The game I went to the fans were crazy. They're always crazy. My parents liked it."

March 2: A crowd at Boyd County Middle School in Ashland looks on as Wiggins scores 40 points in the final game of his high school career.

March 4: Wiggins and his parents travel to Kansas to see the Jayhawks play Texas Tech as part of their official visit to Lawrence.

March 9: Wiggins takes his final official visit to see the Tar Heels play archrival Duke in their regular-season finale. His parents also accompanied him to Chapel Hill. "It was a crazy experience," Wiggins said. "For some people a once-in-a-lifetime experience to see Duke and UNC go at it. That rivalry is crazy. I have a lot of family in North Carolina and my dad was born there. So it was good."

March 20: Julius Randle — who some services consider the best prospect not named Andrew Wiggins — commits to Kentucky. A couple weeks later, Wiggins is asked what his reaction was when he first heard of Randle's commitment. "I don't remember," he says with a smile.

March 27: NBA great Alonzo Mourning surprises Wiggins at his school with the national Gatorade Player of the Year Award, which recognizes athletic excellence, academic achievement and exemplary character on and off the court.

March 28: The Hamburglar and Grimace stop by Wiggins' high school to acknowledge the player's selection to the McDonald's All-American Game. Standing in for Mayor McCheese was Huntington Mayor Steve Williams, who proclaims the date Andrew Wiggins Day in Huntington. Calipari also drops in on Wiggins for what Fulford later described as a "pretty informal, laid-back talk." It turns out to be the final face-to-face meeting with a college head coach during his recruitment.

April 2: Wiggins talks to reporters about his recruitment during the McDonald's Game media day. He outlines the positives of each of his finalists, specifically mentioning the appeal of playing with other top recruits at UK. "They'll all probably be superstars when they go to the next level. It's always good to surround yourselves with guys who you know are going to make it too."

April 3: Wiggins scores a team-high 19 points in the McDonald's All-American Game in Chicago, but his East team falls to the West, 110-99.

April 12: ESPN's Keith Jenkins tweets, "Source tells me Andrew Wiggins ... will commit to Florida State. Nothing official as of yet." Wiggins, who is attending the dinner banquet at the Jordan Brand Classic, responds almost immediately with a tweet of his own, "Lol if you ain't in my family you know nothing about my recruitment, lol stop with the rumors." Jenkins' tweet is later deleted.

April 13: Wiggins scores 19 points in the Jordan Brand Classic in Brooklyn. His team, which includes Randle and the Harrison twins, loses 102-98 to a squad featuring James Young, Dakari Johnson and Marcus Lee. Wiggins is asked by an ESPN sideline reporter when he thinks he'll make a college announcement. "No clue," he says with a shrug.

April 20: Wiggins scores 17 points to go with nine rebounds and four assists in the World's 112-98 victory over Team USA at the Nike Hoop Summit in Portland, Ore.

April 22: Twitter nearly breaks with the news that Wiggins has canceled in-home visits with coaches Leonard Hamilton, Roy Williams and Bill Self. The reason for the cancellations: Wiggins is exhausted from a grueling three weeks on the all-star circuit followed by travel problems getting back to Huntington from the Hoop Summit in Portland. Instead of face-to-face meetings, he talks to all three coaches on the phone before the end of the contact period April 24.

May 3: A Maryland seafood restaurateur with the Twitter handle Johnny Crabcakes posts a letter showing his connection to North Carolina Coach Roy Williams and declares that his sources tell him Wiggins will sign with the Tar Heels later that day. The tweets go viral. When the deadline passes, Crabcakes says he might be off on the timeline, but reiterates that "Wiggins to UNC is a done deal." Fulford responds to the Herald-Leader with incredulity: "I can promise you Roy Williams would tell me Andrew is committing before he did the guy that gets his crab cakes," he says.

May 12: Fulford tells several media members that Wiggins will make his college announcement May 14 during a private signing ceremony at his high school. Sticking with the theme of the highly secretive recruitment, Fulford says: "I have no clue where he's going or leaning, so I'm not much help here."

May 13: The predictions start rolling in, and the consensus seems to be Florida State. Among those who pick the Seminoles are ESPN's Dave Telep, 24/7 Sports analyst Jerry Meyer, Rivals.com's Eric Bossi and CBS Sports' Jeff Goodman and Gary Parrish.

May 14: Decision Day.
Lexington Herald-Leader


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Someone at JayhawkSlant.com had the early scoop!






Kansas University freshman basketball guard Andrew Wiggins will hold a news conference at 2 p.m. today, at which he will announce his intentions to enter the 2014 NBA Draft.

KU freshman Joel Embiid, who like Wiggins is expected to be taken in the top three of the draft, will not be part of this news conference.

Wiggins has long acknowledged he’s a one-and-done college player. Nothing has changed entering this news conference, sources said Sunday night.

The 6-foot-8 guard from Ontario, Canada, addressed his emotions after his last home game as a Jayhawk, KU’s 82-57 Senior Night victory over Texas Tech,

“I am happy, yet sad it is my last game,” Wiggins said after scoring nine points with four boards in 23 minutes. “I’m thankful for everything. I’ve been blessed with a good team, great coaches and the best fans anyone could ever ask for.”

Wiggins, who averaged 17.1 points and 5.9 rebounds for the 25-10 Jayhawks, recently rated his one-and-done season a “10” on a scale of 1-10.

“It did,” he said of his year in Lawrence exceeding his expectations. “(There’s) nothing like college, sharing moments with your brothers you’ll never experience again.”
LJW


So here we are at the end of the road. All that's left to do now is make it official, which Wiggins will do at Allen Fieldhouse on Monday next to head coach Bill Self, who likely will be sitting there with one heck of a smile on his face.

For all of the things Self does well, this is one of his more underrated areas of strength. Never does he make a young man's decision to stay or go pro about him or the program or winning. It's always about the kid. And even if Self really is sad to see a guy go, you'd never know it on announcement day.

Today's press conference is as much for Self and KU as it is for Wiggins. Sure, Wiggins has to make his intent to enter the draft official, but he could do that in a statement or even a phone interview. Having him sit in the Allen Fieldhouse media room one more time, in front of the Jayhawk backdrop, with all of the local media there is nothing but good news for Kansas and its future recruiting.

It'll probably last about 10-15 minutes and Wiggins will gush about KU, all he learned while he was here and why Kansas was absolutely the right school for him to choose. The best part about it is it will all be very genuine. Everything about Wiggins has been since the moment he first stepped on campus and I can't see him going out any other way.

Future one-and-dones will be listening and watching, and even if they're not, they'll surely read or hear his comments at some point in the near future. Whether they realize it or not, Wiggins' words will stick with them in some manner.

There was a time when these things felt a little strange at KU. People still held out hope that the announcements would favor KU and shock the world. These days, they're old hat, as common as listening to Self stress how tough winning the Big 12 yet again is going to be at the beginning of a new season.

Monday's announcement will favor KU, but not because a superstar is sticking around. It will favor KU because that superstar will say everything Self and the program need him to say on his way out the door — and he'll mean every word.
LJW




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LJW image

But in winning a ridiculous 10th consecutive regular-season conference championship with two potential one-and-dones, Self juggled both of the masters — developing pros and winning games — that guide every college coach particularly well.

Even if Embiid returns for another year (which wouldn’t make sense to anyone beyond him and the hardest core of hard-core KU fans) Self made important progress in the perceptions of many in the recruiting world. And what is more important to a college basketball program than perceptions in the recruiting world?

Wiggins and Embiid became close friends over the last year. They come from very different backgrounds but have much in common, most notably wild talent and similar world views. Self has signed AAU stars who didn’t take the “one” nearly as seriously as the “done,” but they weren’t Wiggins or Embiid. They welcomed Self’s pushing, grew from his coaching and each will leave Kansas appreciative of the experience. Privately as well as publicly, they will speak well of their year with Self.

That’s important, because Wiggins and Embiid will soon officially be former Jayhawks and ambassadors for the program. Their successes and failures will be KU’s successes and failures, both in fan pride and Self’s recruiting pitch. They are nearly as important going forward as they have been for the last year.
KC Star Mellinger


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Andrew Wiggins is the clear No. 1 draft pick
ESPN


Kobe Bryant is ready to be a mentor to Wiggins



Is Wiggins still the NBA draft's top prospect?

Chad Ford: Andrew Wiggins began the college season as the consensus No. 1 pick in the 2014 draft among NBA scouts and general managers. After an up-and-down start to his college career at Kansas, it looks like he'll end the season exactly where he began -- No. 1 on our Big Board.


Do Wiggins' numbers underrate his overall ability?

Ford: Wiggins has all of the tools NBA scouts look for in an elite prospect. He possesses extraordinary athletic abilities. Wiggins will come into the league and be a top 5 percent athlete. He's an explosive leaper, has an amazingly quick second jump, has speed and superb lateral quickness. The NBA is loaded with great athletes and few could hold up to Wiggins.

He also has terrific size for his position. He's a 6-foot-8 small forward with a 7-foot wingspan. Very few wings possess his size, and it gives him a distinct advantage on both ends of the floor.

Wiggins also is an incredibly fluid player. The game is effortless to him. Whether he's playing offense or defense, he can make unique plays without breaking a sweat.

As a defender, Wiggins is already one of the best in college basketball. He uses his length and quickness to lock down opposing players. It's rare to see a college freshman get the nod from his coach to guard the other team's most potent offensive threat. Time and time again Wiggins has completely shut them down.


What is an apt NBA comparison for Wiggins?

Ford: I think Wiggins has the most upside of any player in the draft. His physical gifts are unteachable. His defensive potential is off the charts and while his offense still needs polish, all of the weaknesses in his game are fixable.

I've been using the comp of a young Paul George all season.

ESPN Chad Ford ($)


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On May 18, four days after a certain Ontario boy signed with Kansas, coach Bill Self attended his daughter Lauren's graduation from KU's school of education. The ceremony was held in Allen Fieldhouse, and the dean, Rick Ginsberg, had asked the 2013 grads to submit, on index cards, their most embarrassing moments and greatest regrets. Among the statements he mentioned was, "Not being around to see Andrew Wiggins play for the Jayhawks."

Dang! Self thought when he heard that. Even if it might be a joke ... even though the 18-year-old from Thornhill, outside Toronto, who had played for Huntington (W.Va.) Prep, was the No. 1 prospect in the class of 2013 ... and even though he's the likely No. 1 pick in the '14 NBA draft. This is commencement! And the kid hasn't even made a basket!

On June 15 the 6'8", 200-pound Wiggins emerged from a gate at Kansas City International Airport to find 15 fans waiting for his autograph. His itinerary had been posted on a message board. One 21-year-old journalism major at Southeast Missouri State had a blue KU jersey with the number 22-even before Wiggins had received his own-because it was available to purchase in multiple stores in Lawrence. Four days later, when Wiggins made his first semipublic basket at KU, a soaring, fast-break dunk just a few seconds into a scrimmage in front of grade-school-aged campers, the play was on YouTube within hours and blogged about extensively.

The hysteria has only increased. Students have been Twitter-stalking Wiggins like tween girls obsessed with another fever-inducing Canadian teenage star. On the eve of Wiggins's return to KU for fall semester, in August, @EvanRiggs15 wrote, "Operation find Andrew Wiggins on campus is only a day away." Three people tweeted about being in his first fall class, and four tweeted about being in his second one, including @J_ST3W_K_C, who posted a photo of the back of Wiggins's head and the Raptors hat on his lap. So much for privacy laws or personal space: On Sept. 5, @Aly_Bauer tweeted about grabbing Wiggins's butt. There were other tweets about spotting him at Walmart, walking with him during a fire drill and delivering him a late-night pizza.

"I'm used to the attention by now," Wiggins says. But if you think he basks in it, consider that he tried to hold his college decision ceremony without any media present, his favorite nonbasketball activity is playing Call of Duty and his Twitter bio says he's "Just a average kid trying to make it." It's an endearing line from someone whose personality could be characterized as Unassuming Canadian, but still: C'mon!

"I used to be an average kid, when I put that up," he insists. "But that ... was a while ago."

…Wiggins has a 44-inch vertical; his one- or two-dribble moves to the rim (often with a spin) are more explosive than those of many small forwards in the NBA, and he has the tools to be a lockdown defender. Kansas video coordinator Jeff Forbes has Wiggins studying Durant's scoring possessions. He says that while Wiggins is soft-spoken, "he picks up things really fast. He immediately noticed how fluid Durant's footwork was coming off screens and how he reads defenses." But holding Wiggins to a Durant-at-Texas standard is unwise due to the kid's tendency to coast. During a recent workout Self had to yell, "Come on, Wiggs! Let's see if you're the best player on the floor!" because he spent 20 minutes blending in. Self had told Wiggins when he arrived in June that although he had yet to earn anything, "if you handle this right, you could potentially have everything you ever dreamed of and go down as one of the most loved athletes to ever come through this university."

The notion of what Andrew Wiggins could be, if he can cultivate a relentlessness to pair with his talent, is why he is being received differently-even at a school that's won nine straight regular-season Big 12 titles and has two other potential first-rounders in guard Wayne Selden and center Joel Embiid. Even in a college town that's seen this already, twice.

…The recruitment of Andrew Wiggins was defined by his silence. As a decision-maker he described himself as "independent"-determined to make up his own mind, with no need for constant interaction with reporters or even recruiters.

"I wouldn't really talk to college coaches," he says.

Even the ones on your short list?

"Not any of them. I wanted to enjoy my last high school memories."

Thus his story played out according to the social-media age equation of high-traffic topic + silent subject = much misinformation. Around the time Wiggins reclassified from a junior to a senior, in October 2012, it was widely assumed that he was going to either Florida State or Kentucky. The truth? "I was wide open," Wiggins says, "but no one else was recruiting me."

The No. 1 prospect in the world, with seven months left before his decision day, had to ask his Huntington Prep coach, Rob Fulford, to inform teams that he was open to being pursued-provided they were open to a one-sided relationship.

Kansas assistant Kurtis Townsend happened to be in Huntington on the day Wiggins officially reclassified and told him that the Jayhawks-who were likely to lose most of their lineup, including star freshman scorer Ben McLemore-wanted in on the hunt. Wiggins said he didn't know much about Kansas but would consider visiting. Townsend had to cling to this small indication of interest.
Reticence, like athleticism, runs in the Wiggins family: In a 1984 interview that discussed Mitchell's falling out at Clemson, his first college stop, he said, "Part of the problem I had was that I was so quiet, you couldn't get a whisper out of me, and I was so shy, I couldn't even look [coach] Bill Foster in the eye when he was talking to me." And in a recent Toronto Sun story about Marita, a former teammate said that despite being a fierce competitor, "she was very quiet, still is very quiet and very unassuming." Marita did not respond to interview requests for that piece or this one.

The Wigginses told KU coaches that cellphone messages would get listened to, but that didn't ease their nerves. Self left Andrew one voicemail that said, "Hey, big fella, I know you don't want to deal with this, but it's getting down to crunch time, and if we're in the game at all, throw me a bone. If we're not in the game, just tell me."

They were in the game enough to earn Wiggins's fourth and final campus visit, after Florida State (which shrewdly secured the first one, in December, by honoring Mitchell's and Marita's careers in a halftime video presentation), Kentucky and North Carolina. The Jayhawks hosted Wiggins on March 4, arranging for Marita to meet famed track coach Stanley Redwine, selling the school's own hoops history, and arguing that they had the best personnel and system to showcase Wiggins.

The Wigginses sat behind KU's bench for a 79-42 blowout of Texas Tech, and it was no coincidence that the game plan was heavy on ball screens and lobs, with point guard Elijah Johnson throwing six alley-oops in the first half. Says Self, "We did the things that gave us the best chance to win and were along the lines of what the family would like to see."

The Jayhawks looked for any sign from Wiggins. They were excited when he asked if he could wear non-Adidas gear off the court (they were the only Adidas school of his final four) and if he had to attend summer school: It meant he was mulling over the details. Self called Fulford on May 14, the day of Wiggins's announcement (and the 58th anniversary of Chamberlain's), to ask if he knew anything. Fulford was still in the dark, but said, "If what he's wearing"-Adidas shoes-"is any indication, you're in good shape." Townsend said that morning that he had a hunch they were going to get Wiggins, but Self was wary due to their lack of intel from anyone on the inside. He texted Wiggins to say, "Enjoy this, you've earned it," and was buoyed by getting "Thanks" as a response. As Townsend recalls, "Coach was all happy, like, He texted me!"

Even Wiggins's parents didn't know his decision until they arrived in Huntington the night before the announcement. His older brother Nick, a guard at Wichita State, didn't know either, but he had been hoping Andrew would choose KU, which would place him about 150 miles away.

When the big news from Wiggins's press conference was tweeted by Grant Traylor, a reporter from the Huntington Herald-Dispatch and one of just two media members allowed in the room, Jayhawks coaches' phones blew up with congratulatory messages. As they celebrated in their offices in Lawrence, Self texted Wiggins and his parents to tell them how excited everyone was, and that he couldn't wait to talk to them.

Self didn't hear from Wiggins for three days. "He was like, Coach, man, I've been busy, I've got a lot going on at high school. But I could tell he was happy."

To Wiggins, who will make his debut on Nov. 8 at Allen Fieldhouse against Louisiana-Monroe, Kansas basketball did not exist before 2008, when he watched Mario Chalmers hit his miracle three against Memphis in the national title game. Growing up near Toronto, Wiggins did not follow college hoops-he was a Raptors fan-and so on the subject of KU history he is nearly starting at rock and chalk. "But I'm learning," he says.

To him, Manning is the father of a teammate: sophomore walk-on guard Evan Manning. To Wiggins's father, Manning was someone he faced in the NBA on Jan. 25, 1990, when Mitchell scored 28 points for the Rockets-and hit two game-icing free throws-in a 102-101 win over the Clippers. (It was one of Mitchell's best performances in an abbreviated comeback following a 2½-season suspension for using cocaine, a career-derailing mistake that is now a cautionary tale for his sons. "My life was my life," he says. "A parent's legacy is to share all that with your kids.")

Chamberlain, to Andrew Wiggins, is but a ghost, a number on a banner hanging in Allen Fieldhouse's south rafters. He was unaware that Wilt wasn't eligible to play as a freshman. The idea of only appearing in scrimmages sounds so preposterous to Wiggins that he says, if that were still the case, "I probably wouldn't have gone to college."

If not for the NBA's age minimum of 19, Wiggins would already be a millionaire. He watched June's draft with his teammates at Self's house, and Wiggins had the surreal experience of seeing a childhood friend, fellow Toronto-area product Anthony Bennett, go No. 1 to the Cavaliers and then, in a live interview, anoint Wiggins as next year's top choice. ESPN's talking heads soon took to discussing his future. Wiggins had kept his college-commitment ceremony off TV, but he could not control that talk of an NBA tank-a-thon for his draft rights overshadowed the lackluster draft in progress. Wiggins tries not to think about such matters, and he confided nothing to his fellow Jayhawks. "You're just not going to get a reaction out of him, with things like the draft," fellow freshman Selden says.

The weekend before, Wiggins had flown back to Kansas City after a visit to Toronto, and on a connecting flight out of Charlotte, he had the joy of being seated next to the rare Kansas fan who did not know who he was. Debbie Yarnell, a law-firm secretary from St. Joseph, Mo., had overheard someone asking the boy in the black warmup suit a Kansas question at the gate, so she asked a few questions of her own on the plane, before getting his autograph on her U.S. Airways boarding pass. Whether he went to Kansas. If he played basketball there. Where he was from. How he got on KU's radar out of Toronto. Who else recruited him. What year he was going to be. And finally, "With the whole redshirt rule, which I don't understand, and Kansas being such a good program, do you think you'll get to play?"

To serious fans, this was an absurd question. Two partners at Yarnell's firm who are KU boosters had a huge laugh when they heard about it. But for Wiggins, who participated in this whole exchange without even offering his last name, was it any more absurd than being asked, before he has even made a basket at Kansas, if he can live up to the label of Best Since LeBron? Wiggins liked Yarnell's last question because it had nothing to do with hype or draft stock or the legacies of Wilt and Manning. The No. 1-ranked freshman in college basketball broke into what Yarnell describes as a beautiful grin, and then assured her, "I'll get to play."
SI article


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SI image

“Pay Heed. The game you love began here. Respect those who came before you. Make their legacy your own. Because destiny favors the dedicated. And rings don’t replace work. In this game you don’t get what you want. You get what you earn. We are Kansas. Together we rise. Rock Chalk Jayhawk!

#NoMoJoJo?

3/27/2014

 
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Kansas star Joel Embiid – a possible No. 1 overall choice – has decided to enter the June NBA draft, sources told Yahoo Sports.

Embiid, a 20-year-old, 7-foot freshman, rapidly emerged as one of college basketball's major talents and moved into competition with Jayhawks teammate
Andrew Wiggins and Duke's Jabari Parker to be the No. 1 pick in the 2014 draft.

Wiggins has been consistent in saying he’ll only play one year of college basketball, and Parker says he still is deciding whether he'll enter the draft.

A formal announcement on Embiid's decision is expected soon. In the past week, Embiid has progressed in settling on agent representation, but no final decision has been made, sources said.

Embiid's season ended prematurely with a stress fracture in his back, costing him the final two games of the regular season, the Big 12 tournament and Kansas' two games in the NCAA tournament. Until the injury, Kansas was considered a serious national championship contender.

There's a strong expectation Embiid will make a full recovery, but NBA teams will closely examine the long-term fitness of the injury.

Embiid has shown to be a dominating presence on offense and defense, offering NBA executives evidence he could transform into a rare franchise center. A native of Cameroon, he enrolled at a Florida prep school as a 16-year-old with limited experience as a basketball player.

Embiid averaged 11.2 points, 8.1 rebounds and 2.6 blocks in 23 minutes a game for Kansas this season.
Yahoo Sports


Good luck to you big fella @jojo_embiid
@humblekid11


@humblekid11 haven't made a decision yet
@jojo_embiid


"I have Jo in my office right now.... He didn't know where that came from," Self said of the report. "No decision has been made on what he's going to do next year at all. I'm telling you, no decision at all has been made. I think he's still a little ways away from that. That information that was reported did not come from Jo."

Self was asked if any news regarding Embiid's future was imminent and said no.

"As of now, this kid has not made any decision yet. He needs some time to make a good, informed decision," Self said.

Asked specifically about the Yahoo Sports report, Self added, "That's the way this business works. There are all kinds of reports out there that are not accurate. That doesn't mean it couldn't potentially be accurate in the future."

http://m.kusports.com/news/2014/mar/27/sources-tell-yahoo-sports-joel-embiid-leaving-cent

199 days until Late Night!

3/25/2014

 
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LJW image


Didn't get a chance to see the KU game but I wanna S/O all them boys for a great yr and all the hard work -- young team will be back better
@tyshawntaylor


"Tune in tomorrow when the CBS crew gives the KU crying kid a swirly in front of his entire school!"
@LostLettermen


3/23/14, 2:54 PM
Crazy stat: Tharpe had the best plus/minus number of everyone in the #KUbball lineup today… He was +8. Traylor -17, Frankamp -7, Wiggins -6
@mctait


Andrew Wiggins on the loss: "Today I just laid an egg. I didn't bring it for my team. I let a lot of people down."
@rustindodd


Congrats to @Stanford on a fine NCAA Tournament win!
@Mizzou


But Embiid would have been the difference. KU wins with him.
@MedcalfByESPN


S/O to my Kansas boys for a great season. Hold ya heads high. #kucmb #family
@BenMcLemore


@CFrankamp_23 you played a great tournament.. Tough loss. Excited to see you next year
@jtheaps9


Jayhawks not named Tarik Black or Conner Frankamp shot 9 of 42 from the field.
@jeffborzello


3/23/14, 1:39 PM
Rcjh
@humblekid11


#Motivation
@K_Ctmd22


Ugh!!! Bunch of curse words!!!!! My March just cleared up.... However, always a proud Jayhawk! #RCJH
@RobRiggle


Only one team gets to crowned champions. That doesn't mean everyone else failed. Don't lose sight of the 10th straight league title.
@CoachWeisKansas


Thanks to all the seniors for everything. @N_Roberts20 , Justin , and my guy @TarikBlack25 who balled out today.. Love y'all!
@LandenLucas33


Thanks y'all for sticking with us.. I know we all are going to do whatever it takes this off season to make sure we don't feel this again..
@LandenLucas33


Thank you to each and every person that supported this team this year. We played hard and fought but fell short. I love you all. Thank you
@TarikBlack25


Get it together, media. "The first game, I forgot the school." pic.twitter.com/0G48tDj1qe
@rustindodd

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“Pay Heed. The game you love began here. Respect those who came before you. Make their legacy your own. Because destiny favors the dedicated. And rings don’t replace work. In this game you don’t get what you want. You get what you earn. We are Kansas. Together we rise. Rock Chalk Jayhawk!


Big 12 / College News

No Big East teams in Sweet 16 for 1st time since 1993 and no North Carolina teams for 1st time since 1979, per USA Today.
@AdamZagoria


Recruiting

3/24/14, 7:41 AM
Beyond Blessed and excited to have made it to my 18th year of living today!
Should be a good day thanks in advance to all!
@Original_Turner


Just confirmed ESPN 100 #2 overall Myles Turner will officially visit Texas March 26-28 before heading to Chicago for McD
@ESPNRNHoops


USA Basketball: USA to host 2014 FIBA Americas U18 Championships for Men and Women


Recruiting Calendar


My Late Night in the Phog videos, KU Alumni games videos, 2011-12 Border War videos, Legends of the Phog videos, KC Prep Invitational, & Jayhawk Invitational Videos and more now on YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/user/kcjcjhawk

They just can't quit us

3/23/2014

 
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Congrats @USMGoldenEagles on your NIT win in Columbia, Missouri, which came approximately 4 hours after the above tweet.

GAMEDAY! 32

3/23/2014

 
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Stanford AD pregame notes


Second-seeded Kansas used its off day to meet with the media and hold a closed practice to prepare for 10th-seeded Stanford in the third round of the 2014 NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament South Regional Saturday afternoon.
 
Kansas (25-9, 14-4 Big 12) advanced in the NCAA Tournament with an 80-69 win against No. 15 seed Eastern Kentucky March 21. The Jayhawks will face No. 10 seed Stanford (22-12, 10-8 Pac-12) on Sunday, March 23, at 11:15 a.m. on CBS. Stanford defeated No. 7 seed New Mexico, 58-53, on March 21 to advance to the Round of 32 against Kansas.
 
Head coach Bill Self along with freshmen guards Andrew Wiggins and Wayne Selden, Jr. spoke at the off-day press conference before the team headed off for practice.
KUAD Presser Transcript


If Stanford knocks off second-seeded Kansas on Sunday, it would  be Stanford’s biggest upset in its NCAA Tournament history.

And if it happens, it won’t be a magical moment, Cardinal forward Josh Huestis said Saturday.
“They’re a really good team,” he said, “but in terms of us having to have some miracle game, some NCAA Tournament magic moment, I don’t believe that.

“I believe our team is talented enough that if we come out and just play to our potential, if we come out and just play to our potential, everything’s going to work out for us.”

Until the 10th-seeded Cardinal’s victory over seventh-seeded New Mexico on Friday night, Stanford had beaten higher seeded teams just three times in its 17 tournament appearances. As a 3-seed it beat 2-seed Purdue in 1998. As a 6-seed it beat 3-seed Wake Forest in 1997. As a 9-seed it beat 8-seed Bradley in 1996.

But an upset of the Jayhawks and their sensational freshman, Andrew Wiggins, the possible No. 1 pick in the next NBA draft, would be the all-time topper.

The Cardinal will try to do what they couldn’t do in 2002. As an 8-seed they lost convincingly to top-seeded Kansas, 86-63. That game was in St. Louis too. The Jayhawks were the top seed, Stanford an 8.

Casey Jacobsen scored 24 points for the Cardinal, but guard Kirk Hinrich came off the bench with a brace on his injured left ankle to score 15 points and give the Jayhawks a huge emotional lift in the second round of the Midwest Regional.

“A player with one good leg played with more heart than anyone on both squads,” Jacobsen said.
sfgate.com


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LJW image


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LJW image

So the Stanford players are at the podium and Canadian native Stefan Nastic was asked about his relationship with Andrew Wiggins. Sure enough, they met back in the 3rd grade.

"I play with his older brother, Nick, on our club team," Nastic said. "So I know their entire family pretty well, from the same area. A great family. Definitely great players."

Stanford knows they are the underdog vs. Kansas, Sunday. They have been the "underdog" all season, or for most of it. The players enjoy it, relish it, like it, whatever adjective you want to use with embracing it. (Another one.)

The Pac-12 is a good basketball conference, they have a number one seed and sent five teams to the tournament. The conference RPI is three, behind the Big 10 and Big 12. And the overriding theme so far has been that seeds don't matter. All teams are equal and have as good of a shot as any of the blue bloods.

Stanford says they are an elite program. Their coach Johnny Dawkins said so.

"For us, Stanford has been to the Final Four before," Dawkins said. "They have been to the tournament a number of times. It would just continue to keep Stanford, you know, where we think Stanford belongs, one of the elite programs in the country."

And that will go up against a storied program like Kansas, who continues to be all over the place. No point guard, no center, three big men but who gets them the ball? KU knows their limitations but they have a high ceiling. It's just a matter of putting the pieces together. Can they get another 25+ performance from Wiggins? Can Conner Frankamp come in and stabilize things a little more? Can Perry Ellis and Jamari Traylor have solid games again?

Stanford is one of the longest teams in the country. Tarik Black said they were NBA tall. KU needs to get them moving and, basically, run around them. Score in transition and shoot. Helps when you make the shots, too.

I would bet KU will see Memphis next weekend. How long after that, who knows? Dayton will be waiting.
KWCH


Turnovers were one of the main discussion points in the Stanford and Kansas locker rooms Saturday.

Stanford's Anthony Brown said the Cardinal would look to confuse the Jayhawks on offense after they committed 13 first-half turnovers in their opening win over Eastern Kentucky. KU's Naadir Tharpe was replaced by freshman Conner Frankamp in the lineup after four early turnovers, but Tharpe returned for the second half and didn't turn it over the rest of the way.

"Anytime we can try to throw different looks at them," Brown said, "whether it's the zone or the man or the press. Just try to give them different looks and make them think about stuff and not let them just play and be free and throw lobs and dunks, which they love to do."

KU's Perry Ellis said the key to reducing turnovers was mostly internal, not a result of what the opposition is doing.

"I feel like it's something easy for us to turn around just to slow the game down," Ellis said. "Our guards just need to slow the game down and good things will happen from there. . . .
"We have to have the ability to focus on the different types of pressures that teams bring."
News Tribune


Time is short when it comes to game-planning for and scouting of opponents, especially in the tournament’s first weekend. Teams may face a foe they have little or no experience against or knowledge of in the second or third round.

Still, a curious scene played out Saturday as teams met with the media ahead of South number 10 seed Stanford’s matchup with No. 2 Kansas Sunday. KU guards Wayne Selden Jr. and Andrew Wiggins appeared not to know much if anything about Chasson Randle, the Stanford guard from Rock Island, Il who led the Cardinal in scoring Friday in the game before KU’s tilt with Eastern Kentucky. The former Mr. Basketball in the state of Illinois is coming off an All PAC 12 caliber season. When asked by FOX2 and then pressed twice more by reporters to address how they would handle Randle, Selden and Wiggins paused and giggled on the podium before giving broader answers.

“I feel like we all just have to play team defense,” said Selden. “We can’t really settle for just guarding our man.”

“Not focus on one person because when we do that we let the other guy go off and he is someone we don’t want having control of the game,” added Wiggins, who also said he wasn’t sure, when asked.

Kansas Head Coach Bill Self called it an unfair question, considering players had not yet reviewed scouting reports on specific personnel, and that unlike a Duke or a Michigan State, Kansas players haven’t been exposed as much to Stanford on television. “We made a decision not to throw too much at them yesterday (Friday) because of the fact that we thought rest was more important and gave them some things to digest, such as how they run their triangle offense,” Self said. “We know he’s good. He’s averaging 18.9 a game.”

Stanford’s availability to the news media came prior to the Kansas session. Randle said he’s seen KU “quite a bit” on TV and compared the Jayhawks to UCLA and Arizona in many respects, chief among them that they do a lot of dunking.
fox2now.com


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When Kansas beat Eastern Kentucky in the first round, the Jayhawks trotted out just two upperclassmen among the eight players that logged minutes.

That youth will be tested by a Stanford team that gets 87.2 percent of its scoring from five starters that are all juniors and seniors, and have played a combined 565 games in their careers.

The Cardinal hopes that game experience will help bridge the gap in overall talent Kansas will throw at them.

"The amount of different experiences we've had as a team, and we've been in so many different situations that it's prepared us for just about every one we can face," Stanford senior Josh Huestis said.

Kansas has played the toughest schedule in the country, which has helped to get Bill Self's young team ready for these March moments.

"I do think talent will trump experience in a lot of ways, but certainly experience can play havoc on young talent. But I think at this point in time freshmen should be able to handle it," Self said. "It's almost like you're a sophomore by the time conference play starts with all of the things that these guys have experienced before getting to school and him being thrown in the fire right when they get there."
KWCH


Wiggins hasn't disappointed. Despite the hype of being perhaps the most publicized high school prospect since LeBron James, he set a Kansas freshman scoring record. In a loss to West Virginia, he dropped 41 points, the most by a Jayhawk since 1991. He leads the team in scoring with a 17.4 average.

Stanford coach Johnny Dawkins was impressed by his unfreshman-like poise.

"And he plays at a great pace," he said. "There is not one facet of the game that is limiting him from being successful. Can he shoot it from three? Yes. Can he bounce it? Yes. Can he finish around the basket? Yes. Can he board it? Yes."

Wiggins, who grew up in the Toronto suburb of Vaughan before finishing his high school career at Huntington Prep in West Virginia, was well known to Stanford's two Canadian players, Dwight Powell and Stefan Nastic, before he burst on the national scene.

He and Powell played on the same prep-age AAU team in Ontario, when Wiggins moved up a level as an eighth-grader. "He was a freak athlete already at that age," Powell said.

Nastic played with Nick Wiggins on a club team and knew the entire family well. His description of Andrew? "High motor. A big-time motor. Definitely talented and a player with great attitude."
sfgate.com


As coach Johnny Dawkins' news conference ended Friday, Stanford athletic director Bernard Muir was asked in the rear of the room if Dawkins would be back next season.

The coach has been under fire from Stanford fans - and Muir himself - this season but in the glow of the Cardinal's opening victory over New Mexico in the NCAA Tournament, Muir said Dawkins is his man.

"He will be the coach hopefully for many years to come," Muir said.

Dawkins' contract runs through the 2015-16 season, but Muir had given Dawkins an ultimatum after a disappointing 2012-13 season: Get to the Big Dance or else.

Dawkins did, but there are still many Stanford boosters who are not sold on his recruiting or his coaching. Muir doesn't agree.

"We wanted to be on an upward trend and get to the tournament," Muir said. "We filled those goals, and we're excited about the future, especially with the guys we have coming back and the guys we have coming in. I think we have a chance to be really good."
sfgate.com


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“I had really high hopes when I came to Kansas,” Black said. “But at the same time, being an older guy, I understand we live in reality. Everything wasn’t going to go perfect and everything wasn’t going to be all great for me.”

It wasn’t just the emergence of Embiid, either.

Black said he struggled with a new system, especially the change of defensive style and philosophy.
“I really hang my hat on playing defense,” Black said. “But there were really two different defensive strategies coming from Memphis to Kansas. It has to do with the rotations, helping uphill, defending ball screens. It’s just a much different philosophy here and it was a hard transition.”

Black hasn’t been able to replace the 11.2 points and 8.1 rebounds Embiid left behind all by himself. But the hole hasn’t been as gaping as originally feared. It helped that in Black’s first game in place of Embiid, he scored 19 points and made all nine shots he took against Texas Tech.

“I don’t know if our expectations for Tarik have been met the whole season,” Self said. “But I would say they’re being met now.

“He’s been terrific. And he prepares every day the right way. It’s no surprise to me that since Joel has been out, we really haven’t missed what a lot of people thought we would because Tarik has played so well. And he was really good against Eastern Kentucky.”

Black said he’s just trying to help the team. One of the reasons he came to Kansas is to have a chance to win a national championship and the Jayhawks are still in the hunt.

“All of us, we learn from each other,” Black said. “The age doesn’t make a difference. I’ve learned from playing against Joel every day in the gym and from all of the other big men, too – Perry (Ellis), Landon (Lucas) and Jamari. I’ve stolen from things from each and every one of them.”
Wichita Eagle Lutz


The luxury in being the third or fourth scoring option for Kansas is that Wayne Selden doesn’t always have to assert himself.

Or he can. It’s pretty much always his decision.

Selden, a freshman guard, almost always makes the right choice. He shoots better when he shoots a lot, and when he’s not shooting well he dials back from a scoring standpoint to make an impact in other ways.

“I feel like we have different days when different people are on fire, and I’m not going to go out of my way to get shots up when someone else is playing good,” Selden said Saturday. “There are so many players that can put the ball in the hoop and so many other things that everybody on the team can do, like go rebound, go play defense, get assists.

“It makes no sense for me to hunt shots when we have so many great players.”

Such an awareness is rare for a freshman, but it is what makes Selden so valuable to the Jayhawks heading into Sunday’s third-round game against Stanford. More valuable, it could be argued, in some of his lowest-scoring efforts.

Selden, though, finds a completeness with games in which he carries KU offensively or at least serves as a reliable second option. He’s taken 10 or more shots in seven of 34 games, and in those games he’s averaging 16.9 points on 12.3 shots while shooting 50 percent (43 for 86).

Those seven games also account for 15 of Selden’s 42 three-pointers, as he shoots 38 percent from the behind the arc. And he’s been more aggressive, taking 27 free throws compared to 62 in the other 27 games combined, a sign he attacks the basket when he’s in a scoring groove.

“We need him to be a threat from the perimeter,” Kansas coach Bill Self said. “… He’s also a guy that can attack the basket and get to the free-throw line.

“For a young kid, he’s had a great year, but certainly him being more aggressive (Sunday), and if we’re fortunate enough to play after (Sunday), is something that’s really important to any success we have.”
Wichita Eagle


The latest shot fired at Naadir Tharpe comes from the Stanford locker room.

Tharpe is trying to smile. He wears brand-name headphones around his neck, doing his best to play the role of unaffected athlete. He’s a junior, and by now has learned to keep his cell phone off during the NCAA Tournament.

Playing point guard at Kansas means being at the on-court controls of a multimillion-dollar industry, especially this time of year, and Tharpe has been around long enough to see these pressures eat at Elijah Johnson last season and Tyshawn Taylor the season before.

Johnson played perhaps the worst game of his life when Kansas lost in last year’s regional semifinals, and Taylor went from a Twitter meltdown to the national championship game the year before.

Tharpe was bad in Kansas’ win over Eastern Kentucky in the round of 64 on Friday, particularly in the first half, which means another round of the Tharpe-isn’t-good-enough talk. The difference this time, though, is that it starts with an opponent.

“Coach was telling us about that,” Stanford junior Anthony Brown says of KU’s first game. “They kind of struggled — (he’s) not a true point guard.”

Not a true point guard.

Tharpe’s progress has been a central storyall season for Kansas, which plays Stanford in the round of 32 here this morning. When the Jayhawks are at full strength, he is their only starter who won’t someday be an NBA Draft pick. He is a bit small, not great athletically, and the first line of defense in the worst defense Bill Self has had at KU. So Tharpe has heard the criticisms.

When he hears this one — the first one this season from an opponent, at least publicly — there is a short pause. You start to wonder if the grind of a long season and the burden of being a point guard at Kansas is starting to rub. He does not look up.

Not a true point guard.

“We just have to play,” he says. “Just play our game.”

Naadir Tharpe is not without his positives, of course. He is KU’s best three-point shooter this year, for instance, and has 21/2 assists for every turnover. More than anyone else on the roster, he is equipped and interested in being the man to keep everyone together in the chaos of a high-level basketball game.

…This is a team made up largely of good friends. They are with each other even in those hours they are not required to be.

Wiggins calls this a “brotherhood,” and it’s a big reason he followed his friend Joel Embiid to Kansas. You can see it in the way Landen Lucas and Justin Wesley make up competitions before practices and games, or the way Tarik Black talks of this one season improving his life beyond basketball, or the way Wayne Selden goes into a body-builder’s flex when one of his friends finishes strong at the rim.

There is a sense of togetherness here that doesn’t always happen with a team full of high-level talent with individual ambitions. You can hear that even from the man best positioned to benefit from Tharpe’s struggles.

“We know what we have,” Mason says. “(Against Eastern Kentucky), our starting point guard didn’t play as good as he wanted to. Thank God we had Conner to come in to play good, and we made a few good plays, and stepped up. (Tharpe) will have a chance to show we have a true point guard in the Stanford game.”
KC Star Mellinger


“Even though I had a couple mistakes going on,” Tharpe said, “I can’t think about that. That’s part of the game. Just continue to be aggressive and try to make plays for the team.”

That Self demands a lot from his point guard is no surprise.

As early as the preseason, remember, Self has touted Tharpe as Kansas’ most important player. So that Kansas turned it over 13 times in Friday’s opening 20 minutes — four going on Tharpe’s final ledger — wasn’t exactly a good look for the junior point guard.

Also consider the aforementioned benchings, like one during the final 9:42 of Kansas’ 81-69 loss at Texas, or much of the second half in a 92-86 loss at West Virginia. There was the three-game stretch too, where Self replaced Tharpe with Mason in the Jayhawks’ starting lineup.

But this is still the same guy Self continues to anoint as the integral piece. The same guy, struggles and all, who's scored more than 15 points seven times this season and proved capable of hitting huge baskets late, like he did in wins over Iowa State and Oklahoma State. He’s also capable of stabilizing Kansas offensively, tallying five or more assists on 17 different occasions — 12 of which were Jayhawk victories.

“Everybody has had good games and bad games,” Tarik Black said. “Naadir has helped us win many games this year. Without him, we wouldn’t have had the season we’ve had.”

“He wasn’t as down on himself,” said Mason, “because he knew he’d have another chance on Sunday to step up and be the point guard he knows he can be.”

“We need him,” Mason added. “To go far in this tournament, we need him.”
TCJ


Before the biggest game of his career, Jamari Traylor was just looking for someone to cheer for him.
He knew it wouldn’t be coming from his family. After traveling down to Kansas City for the Big 12 Tournament, they couldn’t afford another getaway from Chicago. Sure, his teammates were rooting for him but it didn’t feel the same.

So Traylor called his second family. The one that he’d grown close with over his last few years in Lawrence. The other figures in his life he didn’t get to see often. The family who lives about 10 miles from Scottrade Center.

He called Ben McLemore.

“I asked if his mom wanted to come to the game,” Traylor said to the former Jayhawk on Thursday. “I got his mom and his sister a ticket.”

The next night, with McLemore’s family in attendance, Traylor set a career high in points (17) and rebounds (14), recording his first collegiate double-double during the Jayhawks’ second round victory over Eastern Kentucky in the NCAA Tournament.

“That’s Jamari,” Kansas assistant coach Kurtis Townsend said. “That’s exactly who he is. It just goes to show how much Kansas ends up meaning to the kids when they leave.”

It wasn’t a last ditch effort to get rid of his tickets, either. Traylor and McLemore both came to Kansas in the same recruiting class. They were both deemed partial qualifiers by the NCAA and kept from participating in team activities until the spring semester of their freshman year. Neither could even play in a real game until they were sophomores. They developed a bond spanning trips to the Final Four and NBA Draft.

Ben became a part of Jamari’s family; Jamari was a part of Ben’s. Not that they needed basketball to bring them together.

All that took was a few beats, a microphone and a hashtag: #KUCMB.
UDK


3/22/14 8:22 PM
Part II - Really going back to school this summer. Gotta get that degree. You ready, Lawrence? #RCJH
@BenMcLemore

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Still, a No. 10 seed beating a No. 2 isn't an anomaly. Over the past 10 years, No. 10 is 5-8 against No. 2 in the tournament.

It happened in 2008 when Stephen Curry scored 30 points to lead Davidson past Georgetown 74-70, and again two years later when Omar Samhan went for 32 in Saint Mary's 75-68 win over Villanova.
"Did it really happen?" Samhan shouted after that game. "We won? For real?"

If Stanford's players hope to ask the same breathless question after Sunday's game, they will need to deal with KU's quickness and aggressiveness. And they will need to at least contain Wiggins, who averages 17.4 points but is scoring at a 28.0 clip the past four games.

Kansas coach Bill Self said Wiggins is more comfortable, more confident and more poised than he was at the start of the season. "He's become more of a complete player," Self said.

Asked if it would benefit Wiggins to return to college for his sophomore season, Self joked, "Oh, I think he should definitely come back, there's no doubt about that."

Stanford plans to rotate different defenders on Wiggins and could also play a zone. Huestis figures to get the opening assignment.

Either way, Powell said the Cardinal cannot afford to lose track of Wiggins. "Definitely be aware that he's always looking to score, always looking to attack," Powell said.

When it's over, star guard Chasson Randle believes the Cardinal will be celebrating.

"I would hope we could just win it by playing Stanford basketball and not needing a miracle," he said. "But I'll take a win any sort of way."
Mercury News


The tournament Wiggins never really cared to watch is now the most important thing in his life outside his family, and wait a minute … this tournament is now about family, too.

In another locker room inside the Scottrade Center, Nick Wiggins, a senior reserve for Wichita State, is arriving for an open practice with the undefeated Shockers, the top seed in the Midwest. Two brothers from Canada, on two highly seeded teams from Kansas, both with an opportunity to move into the Sweet 16 on Sunday.

“We never really thought about this happening when we were younger,” Andrew Wiggins says.

Nick says the same. His parents, Mitch and Marita, are here, waiting to watch Kansas face Stanford and Wichita State take on Kentucky. Pretty cool, Nick says, before stopping to send out a text.
“We have a very athletic genes,” he says. “Shoutout to my parents!”

Andrew Wiggins says he is more like his mother, the Olympic silver-medalist sprinter. Marita Payne-Wiggins is the type of mom that likes to measure her words and analyze her thoughts. That’s Andrew. Big smile, gentle demeanor.

Mitchell Wiggins was always more outspoken than his wife, and it’s no secret that Nick took some of those genes. He plays with more outward passion, more fire, more likely to let people in.

There are other, more subtle differences. Nick spent part of his college days covering his arms in new tattoos. Andrew is waiting on that.

“I like more of the clean image right now,” Andrew says.

But if there’s one thing that Andrew and Nick can agree on, it’s this: Among the six Wiggins children, neither Andrew nor Nick is the most athletic. That’s Mitch Jr., who just finished out his college career at Southeastern, an NAIA school in Lakeland, Fla.

“I probably had the best skill-set of the three,” Nick says. “But I feel like Andrew is very athletic, very young and talented. And Mitch … he’s very athletic and very bouncy. He’s probably the most athletic in our family.”

The Wiggins boys grew up walking to the Dufferin Clark Community Centre in Vaughan, a suburb of Toronto. It was blocks from their house, and they could spend hours playing two-on-two — their father as the fourth.

It was what you’d expect from a former NBA guard and his three sons. In college basketball circles, Wiggins’ “second jump” has become instant KU lore. But growing up, all the Wiggins bros could bounce right off the floor.

“That second jump,” says Gus Gymnopoulos, who coached all three brothers at Vaughan Secondary School. “His brothers had that as well.”
Wichita Eagle


KUAD: Stanford vs Kansas pregame notes


Kansas in St Louis Info


KU Alumni sponsored events in St Louis


“Pay Heed. The game you love began here. Respect those who came before you. Make their legacy your own. Because destiny favors the dedicated. And rings don’t replace work. In this game you don’t get what you want. You get what you earn. We are Kansas. Together we rise. Rock Chalk Jayhawk!

Big 12 / College News

NCAA Tournament TV Schedule (w/announcing teams)


ESPN: Big 12 with prime chance to prove itself


3/22/14, 8:28 PM
Seven weeks ago, Dayton was 1-5 in the Atlantic 10 and on a four-game losing streak. Now they're in the Sweet 16.
@jeffborzello

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H/T @scottvicker

The end result after paybacks, buyouts of existing deals, factoring out revenue that would have been received under the old TV deal, etc. left the Average "Joe Pac-12" with about $4.3 million in new television revenue, not $21 million as many thought.

The deal is sweet, long term, but the immediate impact isn't as fruitful as the casual observer thinks. Makes the ADs job harder as fans think all new departments should just break ground and build new shrines.

Oregon State, for example, has about $4.3 million in new money. And Oregon is in a less advantageous position.

Craig Pintens, Senior Associate Athletic Director, tells me that Oregon's number is even lower because previously they, along with USC, were among the conference leaders in television revenue. While Oregon State typically could count on about $6.5 million under the old deal, the Ducks and the Trojans were on television far more. That number, per Pintens, was closer to about $9 million.

Like Stanford and Oregon State with Learfield, the Ducks also had some marketing buyouts with IMG.

The bottom line for Oregon is closer to the $2 million to $3 million ballpark. In a $95 million budget, not exactly a windfall. The Ducks, and others, are fighting the perception that they have a boatload of new money under the deal, but they'd like you to know they're very happy, but not exactly ready to quit their jobs and move to Tahiti.

Further, the contract now resets all the Pac-12 Network carriage fees should the network agree to a deal with DirecTV that is below what others are currently paying. The others would get a lower negotiated rate that matches DirecTV. While I blame both sides, I'm now wondering if the conference's claim that DirecTV doesn't want to come to the table is really just the conference's way of saying they don't want to give up money already in the bank chasing wider distribution.
The Oregonian

Recruiting

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Jalen Brunson was tremendous on Friday against Young. The Stevenson junior scored 56 points, breaking the all-time state-tournament record of 55 set in 1984.

Despite the effort, Stevenson lost the Class 4A state semifinal game. Brunson was in tears after the game and could barely speak at the press conference. He had clearly left everything he had out on the court.

It was a fabulous high school basketball game between two talented teams. There were emotional outbursts from players, fans and coaches after nearly every point scored and every foul called.

More than a dozen photographers lined the court snapping photos throughout the game. One of those photos caught Brunson with his arms raised in the air and both middle fingers extended. The photo wound up on Twitter shortly after the game.

No one saw anything during the game, no one mentioned anything about the gesture at the lengthy post-game press conference. It simply wasn’t an issue until the still photograph hit Twitter.

Brunson saw the photo on Twitter and immediately apologized for the gesture. It was a natural and classy act, totally understandable when he saw such an alarming picture of himself.

On Saturday, video of the incident began circulating. It made clear that the still photograph simply caught Brunson at an awkward moment. He wasn’t thrusting the bird at Young’s crowd or any other player. Without the still photograph freezing the exact moment, the incident wasn’t even noticeable.

Jalen Brunson’s father Rick, a former Bull, told the Sun-Times at 1:30 p.m. on Saturday that the Illinois High School Association was considering suspending Jalen for the third-place game against Edwardsville. At 4:30 p.m. the IHSA had a meeting with Jalen Brunson, Rick Brunson and several Stevenson administrators, including superintendent Eric Twadell and athletic director Tricia Betthauser at Carver Arena.

At 5:50, Rick Brunson emerged from the meeting and told media members that Jalen was suspended for the third-place game, which was scheduled to start at 6:30. Stevenson did not take the Carver Arena floor with Edwardsville at 6:15 for pregame warmups. Two Carver Arena security officials told the Sun-Times that Stevenson wouldn’t leave the locker room.

At 6:26, just four minutes before game time, Rick Brunson told the Sun-Times that the IHSA had reversed its decision and Brunson would be allowed to play. Stevenson took the floor at 6:30. The Patriots defeated Edwardsville 70-63, and Brunson scored 18 points.

“[Not playing] was under consideration by our superintendent and others,” Stevenson coach Pat Ambrose said. “They were still making the decision right until the last moment.”

Ambrose said they learned that Brunson was cleared to play “about five minutes before tip-off.”

“I’ve never seen them change (into their uniforms) that fast,” Ambrose said.

During the game the IHSA released a statement that Executive Director Marty Hickman had suspended Brunson, but the IHSA Board overturned the decision after hearing an appeal.

“This was a unique situation in terms of how the gesture was brought to our attention via social media,” IHSA Board President and Wauconda High School Principal Dan Klett said in the statement. “As a Board, we wanted the opportunity to hear from the student-athlete and review additional materials. After doing so, the Board agreed that the gesture could have been inappropriate.
However, without additional supporting evidence, we could not make the determination that the gesture was intended as an unsportsmanlike action and chose to overturn the ruling.”

The entire saga was ridiculous, an embarrassing blemish on the state’s premier high school sporting event. The drama played out during the Class 3A state title game, overshadowing Morgan Park’s victory.

Brunson described his day as “up and down.”

“When I’m on the basketball court I feel at home,” Brunson said. “I’m just really thankful to be able to play.”
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#MariMonday! On Friday!

3/22/2014

 
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KUAD: Game recap, box score, photos


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UDK Photos



Jamari Traylor dribbled the ball in the open court with about 35 seconds remaining. Andrew Wiggins was nearby, with only one Eastern Kentucky defender standing in the way.

Nine times out of 10, Traylor would give the ball up to one of the best finishers in the country. But on a day where Traylor earned career-highs of 17 points and 14 rebounds—the first double-double of his career—the sophomore forward earned the right to dunk it himself.

He earned the right to put the exclamation point on a thrilling 80-69 Kansas victory over Eastern Kentucky on Friday in the second round of the NCAA Tournament. A victory that had Traylor’s fingerprints all over it.

“The ball found energy,” Traylor said of his career-highs. “That’s a saying we just found out from the San Francisco 49ers coach (Jim Harbaugh).”

Maybe that’s why the ball always seemed to find Traylor.

Every time Eastern Kentucky (24-10) gained momentum in a contest with eight lead changes, it was Traylor who made the gutsy plays for Kansas (25-9).
UDK


In an otherwise turnover-filled slog of a first half, Kansas, it seemed, was actually about to trudge into halftime with a two-point lead.

Then Jamari Traylor barreled into Eastern Kentucky’s Orlando Williams as he attempted a trey in the final seconds, and Williams tied the game from the line.

“I think that was one of the dumbest plays I ever made in my life,” Traylor said.

At the time, Kansas coach Bill Self was no doubt a mix of fury, frustration and disbelief. But later, long after No. 2-seeded Kansas ground its way to an 80-69 win over No. 15-seeded Eastern Kentucky on Friday evening at Scottrade Center, Self offered a different take.

“He’ll do that at times,” Self said. “Because he tries so hard.”

As the Colonels refused to wilt, Kansas needed every bit of that effort, the style of relentless play Traylor tends to bring off the bench.

But this was more. This was power. And size. This was laying out on the floor for loose balls and leaping through outstretched arms and shoulders for rebounds. This was selling out for every possession.
TCJ


Kansas University senior Tarik Black was the first Jayhawk to greet his big buddy, sophomore Jamari Traylor, after the final horn sounded in KU’s 80-69 victory over Eastern Kentucky on Friday in an NCAA Tournament opener in Scottrade Center.

“I just told him, ‘Thank you for the win. Thank you for extending my senior season.’ That’s what I told him, because he was a major reason I have another game to play and my season is not over, my college career is not over,” Black said…
LJW


He lives to play another day in this tournament. On Sunday, KU meets Stanford on a day Traylor’s mom, Tracey, is slated to be in attendance. She’s driving in from Chicago for the contest.
More motivation for KU’s energy man?

“She made it to the Big 12 tournament, Late Night in the Phog, maybe one more game besides that,” Traylor said. “My mom works at night (for Ford Motor Company). Any time she can get off work she likes to come see me play. I’ll be looking forward to that.”
LJW

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Jim Valvano’s “Survive and advance” has become the mantra for March Madness. It also speaks eloquently to Traylor’s tale and trail to this moment.

“I’m fortunate to (be) where I am every time I wake up,” Traylor said.

As he sat in a corner of the KU locker room, Traylor reflected briefly on his once-chaotic and seemingly hopeless plight, the circumstances that could only figure to ensnare him in an unforgiving cycle.

He synthesized it into a bite-size piece.

“I was homeless growing up,” he said, “and I faced a lot of adversity.”

…That’s an absurdly oversimplified version of the severe straits that included his father being sentenced to life in prison for drug trafficking, his mother banishing Traylor from their home in Chicago because of his habitual insolence and Traylor spending time in juvenile detention facilities and taking shelter in abandoned buildings and rusted-out cars.

He has known searing cold and deep hunger and true despondency.

But he found deliverance long before Friday, thanks in part to the tough love of his mother, who works night shifts at Ford.

And to the guidance and nurturing of a high school coach, Loren Jackson, who saw something in Traylor before he saw it in himself.

Having people around him and behind him and pushing him and “telling me I can do things,” Traylor said, “that’s pretty much all you need as a young kid.”

Because of what he called “my life situation,” Traylor didn’t play organized basketball until his senior year of high school.

…At a KU camp last summer, Self said he’d never been more proud of someone he’d coached and had Traylor speak to some 800 aspiring players.

“We have a bad day when our coach puts us on the bench; or we have a bad day when our parents get onto us, and we don’t like what they have to say, even though we know they’re right,” Self said then. “Those are bad days. Try going three or four days without eating. That’s a real bad day.”

Self also tends to use Traylor’s story when he tries to motivate the team to persevere, Traylor said Friday.

You think you might have it rough, Self will tell them, and then explain about Traylor.

“He definitely lets everybody know that he’s proud of me,” Traylor said. “And he let me know after the game. I love my coach, and I know he’s got love for me, too.”
KC Star


Neubauer marveled that KU could be so dominant inside while playing without freshman center Joel Embiid. The Jayhawks outrebounded the Colonels 43-19 and had seven blocks.

“You look at the stat sheet and Embiid has 72 blocks,” Neubauer said. “And you think, ‘Hey, he is not playing, so the basket is no longer protected.’ But what I noticed throughout the Big 12 tournament is that they still had all these athletes flying in there blocking shots.”
KC Star


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Jamari Traylor was the undisputed MVP for Kansas in its 80-69 victory against relentless Eastern Kentucky in the NCAA tournament. Frankamp won best-supporting-actor honors, pitching in with 10 points and four assists in 25 minutes, all of those numbers career-highs.

“We didn’t scout him,” Eastern Kentucky center Eric Stutz said of Frankamp. “And I think that hurt us. We didn’t know what to expect.”

…“He really showed up and surprised us, because he was careful with the ball,” Stutz said. “We went into the game knowing that we could turn their starting point guard over. That was our game plan. And that just stalled us. It was tough to know that that beat us.”

…“He didn’t get that much chance to play until today and he stepped up, made plays and didn’t look like a freshman to me tonight,” fellow reserve freshman guard Frank Mason said. “I watch him in practice every day. I knew he was capable of doing this. It was just the time and opportunity.”
LJW


Forget those longing looks to the bench. Kansas trailed 23-14 less than 12 minutes into the game, and it had almost nothing to do with the absence of the imported big man from Cameroon.

The Jayhawks committed 13 turnovers in the first half against EKU’s frenetic-paced defense. Kansas owned the inside, even without Embiid. It did not make a 3-point field goal all day, attempting only seven.

But if it can’t take care of the basketball, even Embiid can’t help.

Which is why the second half on Friday ought to provide hope.

The Jayhawks entered the tournament with a national ranking of No. 299 in turnover margin. Against the Colonels, they hit their per-game figure in the first half -- then lost the handle just once in the final 20 minutes.

Credit Conner Frankamp. He’s another freshman. He’s the antithesis of Embiid, 12 inches shorter and from Wichita, Kan. On Friday, Frankamp understood exactly what the Jayhawks needed.

“There’s a lot of pressure on Conner to be a calming influence on us,” Kansas coach Bill Self said. “I thought he handled everything beautifully. He ran our team.”

Frankamp started tournament play right there alongside Embiid, figuring he might sit all day. Before Friday, he played 1.8 minutes per game.

Against the Ohio Valley Conference champion, Frankamp stayed on the court for 25, a season high.

“I just try to get in there and feed the ball to whoever is open as best I can and play sound on the offensive end and defensive end,” Frankamp said.

He said he focused on taking care of the basketball. He committed no turnovers, scored 10 points and dished four assists.

Mission accomplished. Little man to the rescue.
ESPN


Conner Frankamp couldn’t even make it to the postgame radio interview without being stopped. CBS’s Greg Anthony reached out to shake his hand, telling him he’d done a great job and controlled his team.

A few minutes later, when walking off the court to cheers of “Great job, Conner!” from lingering Kansas fans, the guard gave a sheepish grin and quickly flashed a thumbs-up.

“That was about all I could think of,” he later said with a laugh.

Forgive Frankamp if he wasn't ready for all the love. The freshman, who hadn’t played more than 17 minutes in a game all season, emerged unexpectedly Friday as the Jayhawks’ rock on the biggest of stages.

The point guard's steady play in a career-high 25 minutes ended up being vital, as KU pulled away late in an 80-69 victory over 15th-seeded Eastern Kentucky in the second round of the NCAA Tournament at Scottrade Center.

“I was just real pleased he answered the bell,” KU coach Bill Self said. “He was really good.”

Back in November, before the season started, Self was asked often if he was considering redshirts for freshmen Brannen Greene and Frankamp because of a squeeze on minutes.

The coach said no, justifying it by saying this: “I think all the guys we have suited up can help us win games this year.”

…The Jayhawks (25-9) will advance to face 10th-seeded Stanford on Sunday, and Self will enter the game knowing he can rely on another guard off the bench in Frankamp.

“He’s definitely part of the rotation from this point forward,” Self said.
TCJ


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Kansas guard Andrew Wiggins rose up to receive an alley-oop pass from Frank Mason with 6:09 left in the first half, catching it before extending his arms as far as he could toward the rim for a highlight-reel dunk.

The slam left his teammates amazed afterward.

“That’s just one of Wiggins’ plays. We see that every day in practice,” KU freshman guard Brannen Greene said following KU’s 80-69 win over Eastern Kentucky on Friday at Scottrade Center. “I liked it. I thought it was pretty nice. He got up pretty high. That’s Wiggins, though.”

Added KU forward Tarik Black: “That’s the number one dunk of the game.”

Wiggins scored a team-high 19 points on 7-for-13 shooting in his first NCAA Tournament game. He also had 4 rebounds, 2 blocks and 2 turnovers in 37 minutes.

“It felt like a normal game to me,” Wiggins said. “The stakes are just a lot higher.”

Greene has been impressed with what he’s seen from Wiggins in the last few weeks.

“I’ve gained so much more respect for him as a player, just because the way I’ve seen him take over games — big-time games,” Greene said. “He’s just an incredible player. He does certain things that nobody else on this team can do.”

…Wiggins was asked what he knew about Stanford, which will be KU’s next opponent Sunday.

“I know they have two Canadians,” the freshman said.

Wiggins is originally from Thornhill, Ontario, just like Stanford's 6-foot-11 junior center Stefan Nastic. The Cardinal's 6-10 senior forward Dwight Powell, meanwhile, is from Toronto.
TCJ




While the hours passed, the Jayhawks settled in to to watch the latest upset in a wild NCAA Tournament. At that moment, it was No. 3 seed Duke, falling to a little school named Mercer, but it really could have been anyone.

All day Thursday and into Friday, Kansas’ players had kept tabs on a stomach-dropping slate of buzzer-beaters and thrillers, and here was the latest one.

Here it was, the perfect opportunity for Kansas to take in one final lesson before tipping off against No. 15 seed Eastern Kentucky in the afternoon.

“I didn’t see the ending,” Wiggins would say. “I was sleeping. It’s just something I’ll do if I feel a little tired.”

It was late on Friday afternoon, nearly 45 minutes after Kansas had survived the day, fighting off Eastern Kentucky in an 80-69 victory. If Wiggins and the Jayhawks missed any lessons in the morning, they now wore the scars and hardened skin from their own early-round scare.

“All the teams in the tournament are good,” Wiggins said. “Even to put a seed on them — a one-seed, two-seed, a 15-seed, all the teams are good. Any team is capable of beating any team at any given moment, so that’s why every team has to bring it.”

A few feet away, senior forward Tarik Black wore a few splatters of blood on his white shorts. To his right sat sophomore forward Jamari Traylor, who had carried the Jayhawks through an unanticipated battle with 17 points and 14 rebounds, both career highs.

For the second straight year, the Jayhawks had escaped a early-round dogfight with a directional school from Kentucky. Last year, it was a seven-point victory against Western Kentucky.

But even after trailing by as many as nine in the first half Friday — and by three points midway through the second half — the Jayhawks were confident they could survive.

…“We were only outscored 36-0 from behind the arc,” Self said. “So you got to make a lot of layups — you got to make at least 18 — if you’re going to make up for that.”

But if this tournament is about survival, the Jayhawks showcased two weapons that could help them surge deep into March.

The first was depth. Before the game, Self found little-used freshman guard Conner Frankamp and told him he’d be going to him early against Eastern Kentucky. Frankamp responded with a steadying influence off the bench, scoring 10 points with zero turnovers in 25 minutes.

“He is a calming influence,” Self said, “and it is probably not a coincidence when he played … our team may have had two or three turnovers total when he was actually in the game.”

The second was sheer athleticism awe. The Jayhawks finished with a season-high 11 dunks while outscoring Eastern Kentucky 54-20 in the paint. Traylor, Black and Perry Ellis owned the glass. Wiggins threw down a barrage of lob dunks, finishing with 19 points and four rebounds in his first NCAA Tournament game.

“There's jitters for everybody,” Self said. “These guys had jitters, and I thought we responded as a group and I thought he responded very well.”

In the moments after the game, Black embraced Traylor on the floor.

“Thank you for the win,” Black said.

And Wiggins, exhausted from the victory and all the cameras, sneaked behind a group of reporters and sprawled out on a training table in the middle of the locker room.

One game down. Time to rest again.
KC Star


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In today’s victory, Andrew #Wiggins became the @KUHoops all-time leading freshman scorer with 593 points on the season. #kubball
@KUGameday


“It feels great,” Wiggins said. “It’s a great accomplishment, but I hope to accomplish more this year. I never thought about that (in coming to KU). I just thought about coming to a place where I could play basketball and help our team win.”
LJW


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Cue the sound of glass breaking, rims rattling, muscles flexing and Cinderella dreams dying a quick and brutal death.

This is the other side of these giddy Cinderella stories. It’s the brutal inevitability that comes from a college hoop blue blood that knows how to take a jack boot to those dizzy dreams, stop them with the authority of a steel door slamming shut or an anvil falling from the sky, which is a perfect way of describing what Kansas did by the end of its 80-69 victory.

KU senior power forward Tarik Black is a part of that gang of Jayhawks killjoys, who ruined all the upset fantasies that Eastern Kentucky harbored Friday.

We did have a good Cinderella story going for a while here. The potential scene stealer that could have snatched at least a little bit of the attention away from 14 seed Mercer’s shocker of No. 3 seed Duke earlier in the day, seemed to be happening here.

Eastern Kentucky was going toe to toe with the bigger, badder Jayhawks until Black and all his other SUV-sized Kansas big men decided to inflict their muscle on the Colonels.

“Yeah we saw all those upsets from (Thursday),” said Black. “We heard about Mercer, too. But it never crossed my mind that that should be some wake-up call for us. I just knew we had to inflict ourselves on them and we’d be just fine.”

“Inflict” is a marvelous way of describing what KU did to Eastern Kentucky in that second half.

Flex, pound, bang and bruise would do just as well, too.

Once the Jayhawks remembered the decided height and bulk advantage they had over the Colonels, it turned into the end of any upset dream here in St. Louis.

…As Ron Burgundy might say, “Boy, that escalated quickly.”

If you ever needed an illustration of what it looks like when one of the big boys decides that it will not be a victim of March’s most delightful madness, please refer to the second-half game film of the KU-EKU game.

It was all dunks and rebound follows, alley-oop hang gliding and muscle-flexing power moves. It was strong drop steps, big butts and thick arms clearing out traffic in the lane. But before the inevitability of KU’s inside strength finally took its toll, we were once again reminded — even if only for a brief shining moment — what makes the opening days of this crazed hoop festival so special.

“I think throughout the whole game there was never a point where even when they took the lead we thought we were out of the game,” said Williams. “But then those last seconds were counting down, and we had to admit then, ‘OK, now only a miracle can help us,’” he said.
St Louis PD Burwell


"It always come down to the rebound," Cosey said in a quiet dressing room at the Scottrade Center. "We can make shots. We can put points on the board. We can play with these people. It just always comes down to rebounding. ...

"If we had another chance next week, it would come down to rebounding. That's just our team."

The difference was as plain as the beak on the Jayhawks' mascot, and the disparity was so great that the stat sheet served more as forensic accounting than a revelation. Kansas outrebounded EKU 43-19, and one of Bill Self's substitutes, Jamari Traylor, grabbed as many as Jeff Neubauer's entire starting lineup.

Twice in the second half, Traylor seized a missed free throw by teammate Wayne Selden Jr. and converted it into a dunk for himself or a teammate. This is the sort of physical dominance that a No. 2 seed normally exerts over a No. 15 during March Madness — except that Eastern was still leading with less than nine minutes to play.

"I think in the first half (Traylor) didn't realize how much bigger he was than us," EKU forward Eric Stutz said. "I think in the second half he found that out. We were throwing everything we had, but their size was just superior to us. We had to foul not to let them get the rebounds. It was really tough for us."
Louisville CJ


It looked like Kansas would pull away again Friday, scoring on its first seven trips down court and building a 45-38 lead. The turnovers suddenly came to a stop — after 13 in the first half, the Jayhawks had just one in the second — and Eastern Kentucky was suddenly on the ropes.

But rather than continue to pound away inside, where the Jayhawks were having so much success, they reverted to missing jump shots. The Colonels took advantage with a 10-0 run, and Self called a red-faced timeout rather than risk pulling out his hair.

“We knew that anything could happen,” the Jayhawks’ Conner Frankamp said. “We were down, we tried to stay poised and not get too rattled, and just tried to make the easy play, because we felt like we could score pretty good down low.”

Once they were reminded of that fact.

Kansas went back inside out of the timeout, dumping the ball to a big man or driving to the basket. The Jayhawks regained the lead at 59-56 on Wayne Selden’s free throw and Traylor’s putback dunk, and then kept turning back every 3-pointer that Eastern Kentucky managed to rattle home.

“Just our mentality (changed),” Wiggins said. “We were tougher on the ball. We knew against the defence of this team, we had to make good decisions, great plays and throw it inside.”
AP

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Yeaaaa! Connor!!! I see the POISE! #kubball
@Next718star


@Next718star CBS & ATT showing Russell some love during halftime of the WSU game! pic.twitter.com/MPnJ0kCVY6
@janaeinict


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Bill Self: improves to 8-0 in Round of 64 as No. 1 or No. 2 seed; avg margin of victory 21.8 PPG
@ESPNStatsInfo


Dunkiest 2-15 upset survival ever!
@eamonnbrennan


KUAD: Stanford vs Kansas pregame notes


With a victory Friday over Eastern Kentucky in the second round of the NCAA Tournament, the second-seeded Kansas University men's basketball team earned a date with No. 10 seed Stanford at 11:15 a.m. on Sunday.

Stanford advanced to the Round of 32 with a 58-53 over New Mexico in the first game of the day Friday at Scottrade Center and did so by limiting New Mexico guard Kendall Williams to just three points on 1-of-9 shooting in 39 minutes.

Williams, who entered the game averaging 16.4 points per game, hit Kansas for 24 during an 80-63 KU victory back in December.

Junior Anthony Brown, who earned Pac-12's most improved player of the year award, played a huge role in frustrating Williams from the start and may have his hands full again Sunday with KU freshman Andrew Wiggins, who led the Jayhawks with 19 points in KU's hard-fought 80-69 victory over Eastern Kentucky on Friday.

Junior guard Chasson Randle led the Cardinal (22-12) with 23 points on 7-of-15 shooting. Brown and Stefan Nastic added 10 points apiece for Stanford, which jumped out to a huge lead early in the game, led by five at halftime and held on for the victory.

…KU is 8-2 all-time against Stanford. The Jayhawks last faced the Cardinal in December of 2003 in Anaheim and lost, 64-58. Before that, KU played Stanford in the second round of the 2002 NCAA tourney (also in St. Louis) and won 86-63 en route to reaching the Final Four.

The Cardinal feature four players who averaged double figures in scoring this season and are led by all-Pac-12 first team selections Randle and 6-10, 240-pound forward Dwight Powell. In addition, senior forward Josh Huestis was named to the all-Pac-12 defensive team.
LJW


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According to many NBA draft “experts,” Andrew Wiggins and Joel Embiid are two of the top prospects in the 2014 NBA draft. Next year, assuming each player is indeed taken in the top five, they will earn more than $3 million to play basketball. This will be quite a pay raise for both players.
During this past season—when both players worked for the University of Kansas—each was paid considerably less. According to estimates offered by USA Today back in 2011, a student-athlete receives about $120,000 in value each year, or $125,250 in 2014 dollars. This calculation includes such factors as a scholarship, health care, coaching, and media exposure. Although economist Andrew Zimbalist called this calculation “wrongheaded” (and yes, there are some real problems with how USA Today did it), let’s treat it as a very high estimate of the upper-bound of “student-athlete” pay.

Let's accept that number. Is that what Wiggins and Embiid were worth in 2013-14? To answer this question, we need to figure out each player’s economic value. Back in 1974, economist Gerald Scully devised a simple method to measure an athlete’s economic contribution to a team. First, one determines how much revenue each win is worth to an organization. And then, one measures how many wins each player produces. Multiplying the wins a player produces by the value of those wins gives us an estimate of the player’s value to his employer.

To illustrate, prior to the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament, Embiid had produced 4.67 wins for the Kansas Jayhawks (calculated essentially according this approach used for the NBA). Using college revenue data from the U.S. Department of Education, economist Robert Brown (for research Brown, I, and a few others are working on) estimated that one win for the Kansas men’s basketball team was worth $159,601 in 2010-11 ($166,585 in 2014 dollars). Given these two numbers, Embiid was worth approximately $777,286 (again, prior to the tournament). If we take the USA Today number seriously, this means the Jayhawks have underpaid Embiid by a bit more than $650,000.
Repeating the same calculation for every player on the Jayhawks, we see, as the following table illustrates, that Andrew Wiggins (who some people think is worth the number one pick in the NBA draft) was only the fourth most productive Jayhawk this year.  Even though Wiggins has underperformed relative to expectations, he has still been underpaid by more than $450,000.  And combined, this entire team has been underpaid by about $2 million.
The Atlantic


kualumni.org: Pics from the pep rally


Kansas in St Louis Info


KU Alumni sponsored events in St Louis


Kansas digital Tournament Guide


“Pay Heed. The game you love began here. Respect those who came before you. Make their legacy your own. Because destiny favors the dedicated. And rings don’t replace work. In this game you don’t get what you want. You get what you earn. We are Kansas. Together we rise. Rock Chalk Jayhawk!

Big 12 / College News

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Oh well....live and learn! But I will say this....this type of crap didn't happen from '89-'92!!  #dukedynasty89-92
@laettnerbball


NCAA Tournament TV Schedule (w/announcing teams)


In the most overtime-abundant Day 1 in NCAA tournament history, there was a link between the fallen and the rattled.

Four 4-6 seeds that were upset (Ohio State and Cincinnati) or on the ropes (Saint Louis and San Diego State) were members of the Elite Defense/Suspect Offense Club:

If someone tells you defense alone can win a championship, tell them to wise up: The track record of No. 6-or-higher seeds with a top-15 ranking in defensive efficiency and a 75-or-lower ranking in offensive efficiency has been terrible of late in the NCAA tournament. Of the 18 schools that fit that profile since 2006 on kenpom.com, 11 have underperformed their seed’s expected wins total:
Louisville’s 2012 Final Four team is the one exception; it had the No. 1 overall defense and was helped the unexpected emergence of Russdiculous in the Elite Eight.
SI


On Thursday, the NCAA tournament went off like a box of fireworks dumped into a furnace.
On Friday, someone tried to set fire to the furnace.

It was an epic stare-down between the first and second days of Round of 64 games, and everyone was the better for it. First came the parade of upsets and overtimes on Thursday. Then Friday began with Mercer's upset of Duke and continued with Kansas and North Carolina surviving and then rolled into overtime with Stephen F. Austin's thrilling comeback against VCU.

Even the historic upset that wasn't -- No. 16 seed Coastal Carolina putting a scare into No. 1 seed Virginia, in a game that was tied with eight and a half minutes left before the Cavaliers won 70-59 -- was invigorating.

There are six rounds to this tournament, and the Round of 64 was nearly enough. The NCAA logo cup runneth over already.

Biggest Upset: Nothing could compare to Mercer ousting Duke from the tournament in Raleigh, miles down the road from Cameron Indoor Stadium, mostly thanks to the overload of schadenfreude that accompanied it. After ripping the inclusion of six teams from the Atlantic 10 in the brackets, Mike Krzyzewski's crew couldn't get past the Atlantic Sun.

…Biggest Injury News: Iowa State cruised to a 20-point win over North Carolina Central on Friday. Then afterward, it was announced that forward Georges Niang suffered a fractured foot and would be lost for the rest of the season. It was a massive loss for the Cyclones, who seemed to have momentum for an NCAA tournament run. Niang had the highest possession percentage (27.6) of anyone on the roster, even star point guard DeAndre Kane. He was the unsung fulcrum of a potent offense. His loss was immense with North Carolina looming Sunday.

Worst Warmups: Little-used Kansas State Brian Rohleder dunked in warmups before the team faced Kentucky on Thursday. That is against the rules. That incurred an "administrative technical foul." That provided the Wildcats from Lexington two free throw attempts before the jump ball against the Wildcats from Manhattan. Kentucky made one, and had the rare 1-0 head start before the clock started ticking.
SI


Eventually, the pain of losing to UCLA in the NCAA tournament will go away for Danny Manning and the Tulsa Golden Hurricane.

They want to become tournament regulars and win some games.

It just didn't happen this time.

Jordan Adams had 21 points and eight rebounds, and Norman Powell scored 15 in his hometown to lead fourth-seeded UCLA to a 76-59 victory over 13th-seeded Tulsa on Friday night, spoiling Manning's NCAA tournament head coaching debut.

"I told the guys, 'Hopefully this loss stings, hopefully it burns,'" Manning said. "Every year the expectation for us is to be playing in this tournament. We want to stay in the tournament longer than we stayed today."
AP


Brad Underwood spent the first 27 years of his professional career striving to become a head basketball coach at the Division I level.

It was a long wait, but it was worth it.

The McPherson native and former Kansas State player/assistant realized his dream last offseason when he was hired at Stephen F. Austin. Less than a year later, he is headed to the NCAA Tournament as a No. 12 seed with a team that has won 28 straight games.

“It doesn’t get much better,” Underwood said Tuesday by phone. “It’s something I will appreciate a little more once this ride is over with. All the records, all the winning streaks, that is something I haven’t put my arms around yet. That will be with a glass of red wine and sitting after it’s over with and you evaluate everything.

“Right now, you are so in the moment. All you are thinking about is the next game, the next practice. This is a special group of guys, but, for me, I know I probably wouldn’t have any of this success had I not gone through that process. I was mature enough to use my experiences and make decisions that positively impacted this team.”
KC Star


Marcus Smart: 0-2 in NCAA Tournament; Travis Ford: One tourney win in six seasons; OSU: No tourney wins west of OKC in program history.
@KellyHinesTW


His short college career is over: Oklahoma State sophomore Marcus Smart spent October as some people's preseason National Player of the Year. Now his college career is done courtesy of an 85-77 loss to Gonzaga, and, oddly, he ended up with more games missed because of a suspension (three) than he did NCAA Tournament wins (zero). Smart should be a top-10 pick in June's NBA Draft, regardless. But this season didn't even come close to going the way he (or most) envisioned it going, and that's too bad.

…They really did it: Stanford lost three of its last four regular-season games and finished just 10-8 in the Pac-12. Still, the Cardinal is on its way to the Round of 32 with a 58-53 win over New Mexico that eliminated the Lobos from the NCAA Tournament earlier than projected for the 78th consecutive season. (Note: I'm not sure if that's true. But it feels true.)
CBS


Buzz Williams won a battle at Marquette and left. Not necessarily the bloodiest, most savage battle. But it was one brutal enough that scores were settled and his athletic director was effectively kicked to the curb by an interim president while Williams remained in place. And now he has gone to Virginia Tech of the ACC, a league in which the top four spots generally will be spoken for by programs with copious advantages in resources and tradition. And the spots after that won’t be easy to come by, either.
SI


Wake Forest fired Jeff Bzdelik after four years of losing and at least three years of loud protesting from fans. The decision from athletic director Ron Wellman was a year later than it should've been. But better late than never, right?
CBS


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There's 1 perfect bracket left known to man & it belongs to @Brad_Binder_ H/T @lostlettermen


Recruiting

Had good time at the Kansas game box seats!!! pic.twitter.com/8tcVIzyn8R
@Im_that_dude22

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Missouri Gatorade Player of The Year!!  instagram.com/p/l0_v-GKqDB/
@im_that_dude22


Jalen Brunson opened with a spectacular reverse layup and went on to break the state tournament single-game record with 56 points.

Jahlil Okafor's 33 points came on 15 shots and ultimately were more satisfying.

Both stars shined brightly on high school basketball's biggest stage, but only Okafor and No. 2 Young came away pleased as the Dolphins outlasted No. 1 Stevenson 75-68 in a Class 4A semifinal for the ages Friday night at Carver Arena.
Chicago Tribune


Video highlights


Still can't believe what I saw from Jalen Brunson tonight. The best PG in the country, regardless of class. Second coming of Isaiah Thomas.
@SwagAir


Stevenson junior Jalen Brunson has been named the 2013-14 Gatorade Illinois Boys Basketball Player of the Year, it was announced Friday morning.

Brunson is the first Gatorade Illinois Boys Basketball Player of the Year to be chosen from Stevenson High School.
Link


Recruiting Calendar


My Late Night in the Phog videos, KU Alumni games videos, 2011-12 Border War videos, Legends of the Phog videos, KC Prep Invitational, & Jayhawk Invitational Videos and more now on YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/user/kcjcjhawk

GAMEDAY! 64

3/21/2014

 
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KUAD: Kansas holds St Louis practice/presser (Photos, transcript)


KC Star Photos: KU practice


LJW Photos: KU & EKU practice


KUAD: EKU vs Kansas pregame notes



LJW VIDEO: Another angle of Mason’s flip/dunk

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TCJ image

Billy Burton and Daryl Dunagan know what’s in store for the Eastern Kentucky University basketball team when it faces Kansas today in St. Louis. They also know what it’s like to play in the NCAA Tournament.

Burton and Dunagan were members of the only EKU team ever to play Kansas — on Dec. 5, 1970, in Lawrence. They were also on the 1971-72 team that almost shocked eventual national runner-up Florida State in the NCAA Tournament.

Ever since Selection Sunday, the former roommates have been reminiscing. The Colonels’ second game of the 1970-71 season was at Kansas. They led 56-52 in the second half but lost 79-65 against a Jayhawks team that went on to reach the Final Four.

“We played them pretty tough,” said Burton, a Pleasure Ridge Park High School graduate. “We lost in the last three minutes. The gym, it was packed. We gave them all they wanted.”
LCJ


Eastern Kentucky’s players said multiple times Thursday that they plan to use defense to make Kansas uncomfortable, but believing that can happen depends on which statistic is being examined.
The Colonels allow opponents to shoot 48.2 percent, 338th-best out of 345 NCAA Division I teams. EKU does, however, make it difficult for teams to shoot in the first place.

EKU is seventh nationally in steals, the product of a smaller lineup that relies more on quickness and good hands then physical play and favorable post matchups. Three Colonels average at least one steal and a fourth, Tarius Johnson, is just below that mark.

“We have to play our defense,” said Corey Walden, who leads EKU with 73 steals. “We have to steal the ball from them and just cause them to turn it over, and just be everywhere on the court and give effort everywhere.”

Kansas might be susceptible to such an approach because the Jayhawks rank 91st in turnovers per game and feature four players – three freshmen – with 64 turnovers or more.

“That’s the biggest focus when you come into any game, you don’t want to commit turnovers,” Kansas senior center Tarik Black said. “That’s been a big focus for us throughout the season, handling the ball, making smart plays with the ball.”

…EKU is in the top 50 nationally in turnovers at 10.7, and they rank fifth with 1.17 points per possession. Much of that comes from its 303 three-pointers, but the Colonels also rank in the top 20 in field-goal percentage and free-throw percentage.

“You have to take care of the basketball,” EKU coach Jeff Neubauer said. “All right, well, that’s one thing we do well also, one of the 10-best teams in the country at valuing the ball, but you cannot give them fast-break layups or dunks. We can’t afford to give them any of those.”

…The area where Eastern Kentucky’s post deficiencies show up most is rebounding, where it ranks 342nd out of 345 Division I teams at 26.2 per game. KU averages 26.3 defensive rebounds and the advantage is pronounced when factoring the Jayhawks’ 11.8 on the offensive end.

Limiting KU’s offensive rebounds could be a key to the Colonels staying close early.

“If we are playing from behind, that just takes so much energy, especially when it’s one-and-done time,” Neubauer said. “…Getting the lead, not only for us, but for all teams this time of year, is very important.”
Wichita Eagle


With Eastern Kentucky cast in the role of David to the basketball Goliath that is Kansas, enquiring minds in the media were quizzing EKU players Thursday over their favorite all-time NCAA Tournament upsets.

EKU center Eric Stutz, a Newburgh, Ind., product, mentioned Butler's back-to-back runs to the 2010 and '11 NCAA title games.

Colonels guard Corey Walden went with Lehigh's stunner over Duke in 2012.

Eastern standout Glenn Cosey did not look backward. "I'm hoping we pull off (an upset), and that would be my favorite memory," Cosey said.

…Eastern Coach Jeff Neubauer noted there are very few programs that "live in Kansas' neighborhood. They are here every year. They are a one or a two seed every year. They understand what this is all about."

Yet, with all that, there are reasons to think that — if certain things happen — EKU can give the Jayhawks a battle.

The Colonels are making their third NCAA tourney appearance since 2005 because of three-point shooting and a ball-hawking, turnovers-forcing defense.

Even without injured 7-foot freshman center Joel Embiid (back), the Jayhawks will be far larger than Eastern. The Jayhawks starters will go 6-foot-8, 6-8, 6-9 across the front line and 6-5 and 5-11 in the backcourt.

EKU essentially plays four guards and Stutz, a 6-8 center.

Led by its standout guards Cosey (18.8 points) and Walden (14.1), Eastern has shot better than 50 percent in six of its last seven games. "If we have any chance of staying in a game with Kansas, we have to shoot threes and make threes," Neubauer said.

…Kansas under Self has been a boom or bust tournament program. Besides the 2008 NCAA championship, KU also lost to Kentucky in the 2012 national title game.

Yet, in the Self era, Kansas has also lost to a No. 14 seed (Bucknell in 2005), a No. 13 (Bradley in 2006), a No. 11 (VCU in the 2011 round of eight) and a No. 9 (Northern Iowa in the 2010 round of 32).

Last year, as a No. 1 seed, Kansas trailed No. 16 Western Kentucky at halftime and led by only four inside the last 30 seconds before pulling out a tense 64-57 victory.

The longer EKU can keep it close, the more Kansas could face some negative memories.

"What we do is the right equation, the right formula for beating somebody like Kansas," Neubauer said. "... We just have to do what we do — we just need to do it incredibly well."
Lex HL


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“We said all along he would be the longest of the longshots for this weekend,” Self said, “but that hasn’t by any stretch ruled out next weekend. He’s made progress in rehab.”

The 7-foot freshman center attracts attention and sparks fascination unlike any other player in the land because of his nimble feet on offense and his outstretched paws on defense.

He was on the floor Thursday during the public practice/funfest the Jayhawks conducted. Embiid took a few post feeds, but moved deliberately and never jumped an inch.

No dunks, no blocks, no real activity. Still, it seemed appropriate to monitor Embiid’s every move.

“It’s crazy that he gets so much attention,” teammate Jamari Traylor said. “He’s such a great player and everything, but I was watching TV the other day and President Obama was even talking about him. That’s a crazy thing right there.”

…Tarik Black is as influential as any of the KU bigs at trying to overcome Embiid’s absence. He was the starting center before Embiid cracked the lineup, and as a senior who transferred from Memphis, Black has as much NCAA experience as any of the Jayhawks.

If Black stays out of foul trouble — an enormous if — he can be a load on either end.

“You’ve got to roll with the punches. You’ve got someone who is potentially a No. 1 draft pick,” Black said. “If he’s out, obviously there is going to be talk about him not playing.

“But it’s nothing personal. It’s not like we feel some other way about JoJo. We love him to death. We want him back, but it’s a situation where we have to move on because we don’t have him.”

…“We feel like we’re an underdog now,” Traylor said. “People weren’t even picking us, so that takes a lot of pressure off you.

“Usually they have us up in the top spot and everybody’s gunning for you, so this is a different feeling. We’re just going to go out there and let it all loose.”
TCJ


TUESDAY

After receiving a text from KU assistant coach Norm Roberts earlier in the week, Andrew White III knows he’ll be needed on the red scout team to help prepare the starters for an EKU squad with a lot of shooters.

Thirty minutes before practice, Roberts — the man responsible for the EKU scouting report — teaches the red team players the offense that KU is going up against.

This is also the day KU’s players receive their scouting report packet, which is a stapled booklet that lists each opponent’s stats and tendencies, along with their picture and number.

Later, the Jayhawks gather in the film room to watch the scouting report video for the first time.

WEDNESDAY

After the final 30-minute dress rehearsal before practice, the scout team is ready for its first performance.

KU’s starters are drilled against EKU’s offensive actions, with Roberts calling out a play and the Jayhawks’ scout team running it after the short training.

It’s the first time White has been placed on scout team this year, and though it takes him a little longer to learn the actions than the red team veterans, he’s still able to pick it up quickly.

The offense immediately reminds White of another team KU faced earlier this year: Georgetown, which used similar motions while also relying heavily on backcuts.

White’s job in practice is to keep Andrew Wiggins and Wayne Selden Jr. sharp. Any time White is open, he’s instructed to shoot it, simulating how EKU’s players will react in the same situation.

“I try to give them as many problems as possible,” White said, “so the games are as easy as possible for them.”

At 10 p.m., the team gathers in a ballroom at the Hyatt Regency to go over the film for a second time.

Roberts talks over the clips, which include the Colonels’ transition game, out-of-bounds plays and player highlights.

After that, KU's players are given a nighttime snack (this can range from burgers to chicken wings) before heading back to their rooms.

THURSDAY

The Jayhawks go through a light shoot-around during an open practice at Scottrade Center, but that doesn’t mean the prep work is over.

KU will go over its scouting report video at least twice more, and outside of that, players are expected to continue their studying on EKU.

Ellis often sees players glancing at the scouting report on the bus, or even trying to read it a few extra times before bed.

On Friday, right before the team leaves the tunnel to go onto the court, Self will solidify all the defensive assignments to make sure each player is clear who they’re starting out on defensively.
From there, it’s up to the player to bring the energy — and translate what they’ve learned into success on the court.

In front of his locker, Tharpe is asked if he considers preparing for an opposing team much like preparing for a test in college.

Tharpe nods before breaking into a wide smile.

“Yeah,” he says, "but it’s a test you’ve got the answers for.”
TCJ


KU coach Bill Self outlined why Eastern Kentucky was a dangerous opponent for his team during Thursday’s media session at Scottrade Center.

“Defensively they play a little different, because they play very, very high on the floor, probably higher on the floor than anybody we played in recent memory,” Self said. “And certainly they turn you over with their quickness.”

The Jayhawks’ biggest weakness offensively this year has been giveaways, as they ranked 232nd nationally in offensive turnover percentage.

EKU also should test KU’s perimeter defense, as the Colonels have made 39 percent of their 3-pointers.

“Those are two areas that we haven't been great at, defending the (3-point) line and certainly taking care of the basketball, and that's probably the two things they do the best,” Self said. “So obviously reason for us to be concerned and know those are areas we need to be good at.”

Freshman jitters? When asked if he was worried about how his freshmen might respond in their first NCAA Tournament game, Self said “a little bit,” but he quickly qualified that by saying he’s always worried about how each of his guys will respond under pressure.

“I just want our guys to be loose, carefree and go have fun,” Self said. “The hay’s in the barn, so to speak, so just go out and have fun.”

'Bruise' banter — KU forwards Jamari Traylor had some fun on the podium when asked about their similar facial hair, as both were sporting short goatees.

“We don't plan it. We don't go to the barber shop,” Traylor said. “I don't know. I think I look pretty good with this.”

“I definitely did it first,” Black said later. “I guess he saw me come in the locker room and was like, ‘Hmm, that looks, kind of spiffy,’ so (he) started doing it himself.”

“No chance,” Traylor replied.

The two have been given the nickname “The Bruise Brothers” by some fans because of their physical style of play.

“All jokes aside, we have a great bond on and off the court,” Black said. “That's why we play so well together because of our chemistry off the court. We are good friends. We relate to each other very well, and we're similar players, too.”
TCJ


He’d say it all the time. When the shots weren’t falling, when the legs looked heavy, when his little brother needed a reminder.

Tishaun Jenkins would pull Naadir Tharpe, his youngest brother, to the side and say the same six words.

Shoot the ball to the ceiling.

“Just make sure it has a chance to go,” Tharpe says, sitting in the Kansas locker room at the Scottrade Center in St. Louis. “The higher I get my arch, the better chance it has to go in.”

One day before No. 2 seed Kansas was set to open the NCAA Tournament against No. 15 seed Eastern Kentucky at 3:10 p.m. on Friday, Tharpe was thinking about his brother. This is how it always is, of course.

When Tharpe’s father, Ronald, died of lung cancer in 2006, it was Tishaun who stepped in to serve as a father figure. When Tharpe needed somebody to talk to, Tishaun listened. When Tharpe needed somebody to push him, Tishaun did the shoving.

So when Tharpe returned home for Christmas in December, he knew he needed another talk with Tishaun.

His junior season had been erratic, and he was struggling to lead a young team. For two games in early November, he lost his starting spot to freshman Frank Mason.

The two brothers bonded over basketball again.

“He said: ‘As long as I have confidence in myself, and do as much as I can for the team, the dudes are going to follow,’” Tharpe says. “And it’s going to show.”

…“Good point guard play,” sophomore forward Jamari Traylor says, “that’s what you really need to get to the championship game.”

Traylor is Tharpe’s roommate and knows him better than anyone else on the team. And despite the recent struggles, Traylor believes Tharpe can rise to the moment in March.

“That’s just basketball,” Traylor says. “You’re going to have some good games, you’re going to have some bad games.”

Two years ago, Traylor and Tharpe both watched as senior Tyshawn Taylor drove the Jayhawks all the way to the NCAA title game in New Orleans. Tharpe was a little-used freshman; Traylor was a redshirt. They both saw the same things.

Taylor had struggled that season, too. During the NCAA Tournament, he couldn’t hit the broadside of a barn from three. But he was there it meant the most. The Jayhawks kept grinding, kept advancing.
“It starts off with the point guard,” Tharpe says, “so I got to be as aggressive as I can, defensively and offensively, and just gather the troops.”
KC Star


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Tharpe has spent a lot of time this week working on the minds of KU’s freshmen.

“I’ve been talking to them, out of practice, in practice,” Tharpe said, “to make sure they are focused, ready and excited. They should be excited about this because it’s a one-time thing a lot of these players will get to play in. They shouldn’t be worried at all. We’ve all played in a lot of big games. We all play in the (Allen) fieldhouse. That’s a lot of nerves right there. This shouldn’t be anything different.”

As far as the technical aspects of today’s game ... Eastern Kentucky (24-9) likes to shoot a lot of threes on offense (303 of 776 on season; KU is 184 of 533) and pressure on defense with its smaller, scrappier lineup.

“We’ve been working on getting the ball up the floor and being aggressive,” Tharpe said. “If they are going to pressure us, coach (Bill Self) wants us to be aggressive and attack. Once the pressure occurs, we should be able to score by attacking it and getting layups.”

Center Tarik Black says the Jayhawks welcome pressure.

“To be honest, as a big man, especially a 5-man (center), we love seeing that. When our guards handle the ball, come down the floor, that’s easy backside lobs and dunks for us,” Black said. “That’s points on the board going up for us. Honestly I can’t wait.”
LJW


On a team full of shooters, Eastern Kentucy forward Eric Stutz is the one guy the Kansas University basketball team probably won’t have to worry about behind the three-point line during today’s second-round NCAA Tournament game at Scottrade Center.

It’s not that the 6-foot-8 junior from Newburgh, Ind., can’t shoot, rather that he chooses not to. Stutz was responsible for just three of the 776 three-point attempts the 15th-seeded Colonels (24-9) fired up this season, the 13th-highest number in college basketball.

He missed them all, remembers each one and says it really doesn’t bother him that he went from scorer in high school to scrapper in college.

“I like to think I’m still a pretty good shooter,” Stutz said. “In practice I can hit ’em. It’s just not something I needed to do this year.”

Stutz actually has become one of EKU’s best facilitators. His 59 assists rank third on the team and complement his 8.4 points-per-game and 4.7 rebounds-per-game averages nicely. With an offense that uses at least four shooters at all times, Stutz has found that driving and kicking to open teammates is a better use of his skills. So he does it. His teammates respond by knocking down shots. All within the offense, though.

“We just run plays and make the right passes,” said senior guard Glenn Cosey, who drained a team-best 110 of 259 three-point attempts this season. “Most of the time we’re open for threes because teams have to help in, and we just kick it out.”
LJW


Q: Eastern Kentucky’s guard play was good in the OVC Tournament. What about them concerns you?

“There are a lot of things that concerns me. Offensively they don’t turn it over. They shoot a ton of threes and shoot it very, very well. And they have — it’s not like you can key on one or two or three guys that shoot the threes. They have eight guys that can shoot threes. Their bench can all shoot it as well.

“So offensively they spread you. And then their 5-man is obviously one of the better passing big men in the country. So they’re good. They are very, very good. And defensively they play a little different, because they play very, very high on the floor, probably higher on the floor than anybody we played in recent memory. And certainly they turn you over with their quickness.

“Those are two areas that we haven’t been great at, defending the line and certainly taking care of the basketball and that’s probably the two things they do the best. So obviously reason for us to be concerned and know those are areas we need to be good at.”

•  Q. Because Eastern Kentucky does play aggressive and up high, how do you look to combat that? Is it on the back end?

“Well, you know, it has been our experience that usually when teams pressure like that, that there’s, you know, reason why they are playing to their strengths or, you know, their skill set or whatever it is.

“But we’re a team that likes to play through our bigs, so somehow we need to negate the pressure so we don’t forget about playing through our bigs. That’s easier said than done.

“Hopefully when teams pressure like that, we have some things we can do to try to make them pay for pressuring like that. Just like if teams play soft, you have things you can do to try to, you know, maybe shoot the ball behind the arc or things like that. So we’ll hopefully be prepared to combat how they play.”
KC Star Q&A with Coach Self



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There's plenty of familiarity in the Scottrade Center locker rooms this week in St. Louis. Between the Kansas and Wichita State practices, two of the Wiggins brothers, freshman Andrew of KU and senior Nick of the Shockers, met in the Shockers’ room.

(Another brother, Mitchell Jr., will be in Missouri on Saturday: He plays for Southeastern (Fla.) and is scheduled to compete in the NAIA slam-dunk contest at Municipal Auditorium in Kansas City.) Although their teams will play in the same arena Friday, the only way Andrew and Nick Wiggins could face off in the NCAA Tournament is if both advance to the national championship game. Kansas coach Bill Self said that’s probably a break for their parents, Mitchell Sr. and Marita.

“The fact that they’re not playing each other (in St. Louis) will probably be better for them,” Self said. “It would be something that everybody in our state would probably think was a dream matchup. For the family, it probably played out perfectly.” Oh, and KU and K-State were assigned the same locker room. The Jayhawks get it for the first session; the Wildcats, the second.
KC Star


“Here’s what I can tell you about those guys,” Wichita State coach Gregg Marshall said. “They really love each other. They are like best friends.”

A few other Shockers stopped to say hello to KU’s Wiggins, who has made trips to Wichita to see Nick play. Nick has been to Lawrence to watch Andrew.

When somebody asked Andrew if he thought Kansas fans in Scottrade Center would be cheering for the Shockers, he didn’t pretend to be a mind-reader.

“I’m going to root for them regardless,” he said. “I want them to go as far as possible. That’s my brother’s team. I want them to keep winning.”

Nick expressed the same sentiment and even allowed himself to look down the road, all the way to the final exit ramp. The only way the schools could meet in this tournament would be to play in the national-title game.

“That would be amazing, something the world would not want to miss,” Nick said. “It would definitely make Canada proud.”

Then and only then would the brothers put their love aside and treat each other as enemies. Might a little trash talk even flow back and forth?

“Definitely,” Nick said. “There’s always trash talk. There’s trash talk when we play video games, so I know there’ll be trash talk when we’re out on the floor. It wouldn’t be him as my little brother. I’d look at him as being a Jayhawk until the final buzzer sounded, and then we’d speak our words to each other. It would be a great atmosphere.”
LJW


Houston Chronicle: Ex-Rocket Wiggins tries to steer son clear of pitfalls along NBA path


On a scale of 1 to 10, Andrew Wiggins rates his one-and-done season at Kansas University a “10.”
“I loved it,” Wiggins said Thursday.

What has been the best part?

“The whole experience. Never a dull moment,” said Wiggins, who enters the 2014 NCAA Tournament as KU’s leading scorer (17.4) and third-leading rebounder (6.0).

“I had fun the whole year. Every time I was in Kansas, it was fun.

“It did,” he added of his year in Lawrence exceeding his expectations. “(There’s) nothing like college, sharing moments with your brothers you’ll never experience again.”

…As reported in the Journal-World last weekend, Ellis spoke up in the locker room after KU’s loss to Iowa State in the Big 12 tournament.

“I wish I could have recorded that. I didn’t hear it,” Self said. “Somebody said Perry was getting after everybody. I’d have given anything to see that. We’ve been begging for that for two years now. I think he’s taken on more of a leadership role, not much vocally but (setting) an example standpoint. He’s still young.”
LJW


Before the game, there are rituals.

They begin with a hymn, fans at Allen Fieldhouse draping their arms around each other, and then comes an incantation, drawn out like a Gregorian chant: “Rock. Chalk. Jayhawk. K.U.”

The noise builds ahead of tipoff on a Saturday evening in February in Lawrence. In this church of U.S. college basketball, a video extols history – James Naismith, Wilt Chamberlain, national championships – and celebrates the promise of the present.

“From Ontario, Canada,” the announcer bellows, and Andrew Wiggins, 6-foot-8, with wisps of hair on chin and lip, bounds onto the court.

Wiggins is the most-hyped Canadian basketball player in history, a startlingly athletic kid who sprang from the Toronto suburb of Vaughan onto the covers of ESPN The Magazine and Sports Illustrated, the latter likening his arrival in Kansas to that of the great Chamberlain more than a half-century ago.

…But Bill Self, the broad-shouldered head coach who recruited Wiggins, made clear where the newcomer would stand at one of the most-storied basketball schools in America. “There’s not going to be any billboards about you,” Self told Wiggins. “You’re never going to be the best player who played here. Wilt Chamberlain played here. You’re going to be part of something bigger than yourself.”

Thus began the education of Andrew Wiggins, who quickly ran smack into the reality of his own unmistakable shortcomings. His shooting needed work, as did his ball-handling. His aggressiveness came and went – he seemed almost too willing to fit in, to be just one of the guys. He wasn’t shy, but he didn’t lust for attention. “He’s got zero aura about him,” an unidentified NBA voice said in an ESPN report last fall. “People are making far more of this kid than they should.”

…Jeff Forbes, the Jayhawks video co-ordinator, gets the new recruits right away. He wants them to study and learn, as if they’re in the NBA. While Wiggins has often been likened to LeBron James, Forbes had him parse film of Tracy McGrady, the now-retired NBA star who is the same height as Wiggins, was similarly talented, and played the same position, the wing – a blend of shooting guard and small forward.

Even practices were filmed and assessed. There were many adjustments: When guarding right-handed shooters, Wiggins was instructed to get his left hand up, his right arm free to make trouble. In team sessions, studying opponents, Forbes assembled 200 clips and banged them out in fractions of three or four seconds over 15 minutes, demanding the concentration of a game. Wiggins was fast to memorize all aspects.

“Andrew has learned how to be a professional,” Forbes says. “Once he was here, and the car got driving, it just took off.”

In the weight room, there was Andrea Hudy. She has been called Kansas’s secret weapon and numerous NBA players credit her tutelage for making the leap to the pros. “She made me a lot stronger,” Wiggins says. “She works miracles.”

Some of the principal work was on what’s called anterior chain strength – power through the knees, flexible calves and strong quads, the basis of lateral movement. It’s the strength to stay with an opponent driving to the hoop, or to burst past a defender. One exercise was jumping off an object, down about 75 centimetres, and up immediately as high as the athlete could manage. “Ground reaction forces,” Hudy says.

On her iPhone, she charted progress, the gauges of load, explode, drive, measured by the latest technology.

“In basketball, you never run in a straight line,” Hudy says. “Andrew is an exceptional athlete. But he wasn’t exceptionally versed in basketball movements. We emphasize basketball movements, to make him a better basketball player.”

…On the east side of Lawrence, a city of about 90,000, the rolling lawn of Memorial Park Cemetery is an expanse of dead brown and vacant yellow. There is a breeze and sun; the earth smells of promise, the coming spring. Near the back, near two tall oaks and a small obelisk, lies a modest grave marker. A small Canadian flag, fluttering, is planted in the moistened earth.

This is the final resting place of James Naismith, the Almonte, Ont.-born inventor of basketball who nailed up the famous peach basket in 1891 while working at the YMCA in Springfield, Mass.
Seven years later, a former boss pushed him for a job at Kansas. “Recommend James Naismith,” a telegram read, “inventor of basketball, medical doctor, Presbyterian minister, teetotaller, all-around athlete, non-smoker, and owner of vocabulary without cuss words.”

Naismith planted basketball in the Kansas soil. In 2010, David Booth, a Kansas grad, bought Naismith’s original 13 rules of the game for $4.3-million (U.S.) at auction; they will be housed this fall in a new addition to a large museum that bears his family’s name and is attached to Allen Fieldhouse.

“Basketball, here, is really a way of life,” says Booth, who became a billionaire in mutual funds. “You know, those of us who like basketball, there’s almost a ballet to it, when it’s done right. Watching Andrew, he’s one of the people who make you think of that.”
Globe and Mail feature: Is Wiggins too nice to be an NBA superstar?

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Gov. Sam Brownback on Thursday declared Kansas the "Cradle of Basketball" in issuing a proclamation praising the three teams from the state playing in the NCAA men's tournament.
Brownback signed the proclamation a day before Kansas, Kansas State and Wichita State all were to play their opening games in St. Louis. The document designates Friday as "Cradle of Basketball" Day.

The governor planned to travel to St. Louis to cheer for the state's teams. He wore pins for each of the three on the lapel of his jacket.

"I think most of the state of Kansas is going to be watching," Brownback said before signing the proclamation at the Statehouse.

Many Kansas residents like to think of basketball as being perfected in their state.

James Naismith invented the game in Springfield, Mass., in 1891, but arrived at the University of Kansas in 1898 to teach physical education and serve as the university's first basketball coach.

"This is really taking advantage of the situation we have and really pointing out that this is the place where the sport grew up," Brownback said after issuing the proclamation.
AP



But while Turgeon was turning the program into a more appealing destination, he butted into the same old roadblock at the Wichita city border. All that work, and he still couldn’t get KU on the Shockers’ schedule.

He remembers calling his old boss, Williams, hoping to play host to KU when Wichita State christened its overhauled arena. The discussion went nowhere. He would later have some informal talks with current coach Bill Self during Self’s first years at KU, but those never progressed, either.

“I’ll speak for Bill and say it’s probably not in Kansas’ best interest to play Wichita,” Turgeon says. “But when I was there, I certainly wanted to.”

Today, Turgeon is the head coach at Maryland, and it has been 21 seasons since KU and Wichita State last met in a college basketball game. In the past 108 years, in fact, the schools have played just 14 times. K-State, meanwhile, played Wichita State 19 times from 1986 to 2003, but even those two haven’t played since.

For many fans in this city, particularly those who align with the Shockers, this is the type of sore that can fester.

“I don’t think there’s any doubt,” says Joe Auer, the head basketball at Wichita Heights High, a school with former players on both the KU and Wichita State programs. “There’s a little bit of a chip on the shoulder in this community.”

In the mid 1980s and early 1990s, the schools played each other nine times in 10 years. The Jayhawks won eight of those games, often by double digits. The Shockers won just once, in Turgeon’s senior season of 1987.

These days, KU coach Bill Self would prefer to schedule nonconference games against high-profile opponents in places where KU can expand its brand. Wichita State coach Gregg Marshall, in turn, has said he won’t come to Allen Fieldhouse for a one-off — he’d only play KU as part of a home-and-home arrangement.

For now, the Shockers’ program is ascending, but there’s still little incentive for KU to play Wichita State.

After all, what if the Jayhawks lost?

“I think it was great for Wichita State,” Turgeon says of the old series. “I don’t think it was that good for Kansas. They played nine times; in Wichita, they just remember the one (that the Shockers won).”
KC Star


This is how you start a riot in an NBA locker room:

Break out a bracket. Sure enough, just as I slipped the blank sheet to Nuggets forward Darrell Arthur, the lobbyists infiltrated his locker space, school pride in tow.

"How far you got Baylor?" Quincy Miller wanted to know.

"North Carolina?" Ty Lawson hollered from across the room.

Aaron Brooks ducked over with his inquiry: "Where's Oregon at?"

"They're up here against BYU," Arthur said, pointing to the West Region of the NCAA Tournament. "They lost already. Sorry, they're done."

"Wowww," Brooks said, shooting a glance of disapproval. "You did that?"

He did that.

My man Darrell Arthur has the chops to do that. He actually won the bracket. Not an office pool, the Warren Buffet $1-billion shindig or a random online challenge.

Arthur won the real bracket. He's an NCAA champion, a member of the 2008 champs from Kansas. Along with Carolina's Lawson, Arthur was one of two national champs in the Nuggets locker room prior to Wednesday's game against the Pistons.

This assignment might be tougher than winning a title was: build the perfect bracket for The Gazette. The NCAA Tournament erupts today. "Let's do this," Arthur said.

Yes, let's do this. Here's how a bracket is done, according to a bracket champion.

The No. 1 seeds — Florida, Virginia, Arizona and Wichita State — will avoid the all-time upset. "I don't see a 16 seed beating a 1 seed — yet," Arthur said.

"Some day, it's going to happen. But I don't see it happening this year."

Stick with the chalk in these Thursday-Friday games, he advised. His early upsets are limited to Stanford over New Mexico ("They played a tougher schedule") and BYU over Oregon ("Just to make Aaron Brooks mad").

Take back all those mean things you say about Kansas, Buffs fans. Arthur likes Colorado to beat Pittsburgh. Alas, the road ends Saturday against Florida.

For a Kansas guy, Kentucky-Kansas State is the toughest pick. Old rivalries die hard. "I can't like either one of 'em," Arthur said. Forced to choose, he rolls with K-State.

"I won't be rooting for that game, though," he said.

On their national championship run in 2008, Arthur's Jayhawks withstood the brilliant Davidson squad led by Steph Curry in the Elite Eight.

"He was a monster," Arthur said. Yes, Nuggets fans would agree.

So how does he choose an upset special — such as Davidson — in his bracket?

"Try to see who's hot. Who shoots it well?" Arthur said. "That's a big thing, who can shoot the 3. The team that shoots well can become the Cinderella story."

With that mind, his bracket advice is to steer clear of teams that depend heavily on the 3-point shot. As the tournament moves forward, their shooting legs can wilt.

"That's happened with Duke before, a team with great shooters," Arthur said. "But you've got to have some interior guys, too."

After Arthur scraps my Zags in the third round — "Arizona's defense is crazy," he said — we're on to the Sweet 16. This is where the contenders separate from the cool stories. "The pressure goes up the further you play," he said. "Guys start to get tight."

In the Sweet 16, Arthur likes Arizona over Oklahoma, Wisconsin over Creighton, Louisville over Wichita State, Duke over Michigan, Villanova over Iowa State, Michigan State over Virginia, Florida over VCU and Kansas over Syracuse.

"When you go against that (Syracuse) zone, you just have to attack that middle," he said. "Once you attack that middle, everything else opens up."

As Arthur continued to study his bracket, the locker room continued its bracket trash talk. Lawson said his Tar Heels are a Sweet 16 team. Brooks said his Ducks are bound for the Final Four. Russia's Timofey Mozgov searched for goofy YouTube videos.

"Watch out for Baylor," Miller warned. "We're going to the Final Four."

Old allegiances die hard, too. Arthur's Final Four: Michigan State, Louisville, Arizona and, yes, Kansas. What's the secret to becoming an NCAA champion?

"You have to play defense. You have to lock up," Arthur said. "And you've got to have great possessions offensively. You can't waste possessions."

And the secret to a perfect bracket?

"It's a bunch of luck, honestly," he said with a laugh. "I had a bunch of teams last year that I felt great about. And then by the end of the first weekend, they're all at home."

Ignoring the bracket banter around his locker, Arthur settled on the 2014 national champion. He likes Kansas and Arizona in the title game. Kansas cuts the nets.

Rock, chalk it up.

The bracket champ has spoken.
Link


The Philadelphia 76ers have lost 22 straight games, and may not win another the rest of the season.
But you'll never believe this. It could be because they're trying to get a high draft pick. Just call it a hunch, I guess.

Question is, if the Sixers were to land a top one or two pick, who might they be trying to get?

According to ESPN.com, it's Kansas freshman Andrew Wiggins.

In the midst of a 20-game losing streak, the Sixers have had Wiggins atop their board all year, and believe he'd be the perfect complement to Michael Carter-Williams, Nerlens Noel, and Thaddeus Young. The athleticism on that team would be crazy.

No big surprise the 76ers would target Wiggins, because basically every other lottery team in the league is targeting him. But there are other options, like Jabari Parker, Joel Embiid and Julius Randle.

The Sixers clear line of thinking, if they are in fact targeting Wiggins, is to add to their athleticism and length. Embiid is emerging as maybe the consensus No. 1 overall pick, but the Sixers are likely in search of starpower, and that often comes with a wing player. The potential of Wiggins exploding into an NBA superstar makes him incredibly intriguing for a building team like Philly.
CBS

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2014 Naismith Award National POY Award

The 2014 Naismith Trophy Boy's HSPOY & future @KUHoops star Cliff Alexander (@humblekid11). Congratulations!
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Cliff Alexander. Jayhawk! Kansas recruits win the Naismith Award in back-to-back years!
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Merry Bracketmas! Happy March Madness!

3/20/2014

 
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They're cutting down academic nets again. For the third time in the last five years the Kansas Jayhawks have been crowned the champions of Inside Higher Ed's NCAA Academic Tournament, the publication's annual academic showdown.

KU's men's basketball team has reached the final four in each of the last five seasons and has been to the title game in four of the last five seasons, including additional crowns in 2012 and 2010.  The publication uses the actual NCAA Tournament bracket and declares winners based on the schools' Academic Progress Rates (APR).  KU's men's basketball team boasts a perfect multiyear APR of 1,000, as it has for the past seven years.

The Jayhawks beat Eastern Kentucky, New Mexico, Dayton and Florida to reach the 2014 "Final Four," then topped Memphis and Texas to win the championship.
The APR rewards teams whose players stay in good academic standing and remain enrolled from semester to semester.  Inside Higher Ed broke ties by using the NCAA's Graduation Success Rate (GSR), a variation of the graduation rate that considers transfers and does not punish teams whose athletes leave college before graduation if they leave in good academic standing.  If a further tiebreaker is needed, the publication uses the Federal Graduation Rate, which deducts points when student-athletes, for any reason, do not graduate from the school at which he originally enrolled.

The NCAA tweeted this week that KU is the only team in the NCAA Tournament field of 68 with a perfect APR and a 100 percent Graduation Success Rate.  Last year KU was one of only three schools in the tournament field (Belmont, Notre Dame) to achieve those numbers; no other tournament teams have accomplished that feat in the five years the NCAA has tracked those statistics.
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014/03/17/who-would-win-ncaa-tournament-if-games-were-decided-academic-performance

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Kansas freshman center Joel Embiid will not play in the opening weekend of the NCAA Tournament, coach Bill Self confirmed Wednesday after arriving at the team hotel.

The decision to hold Embiid out follows the same plan that Self outlined before the Big 12 tournament. Self held out a tiny bit of hope that Embiid, battling a stress fracture in his back, might return for No. 2 seed Kansas’ opening weekend, which begins against Eastern Kentucky at 3:10 p.m. Friday at the Scottrade Center. But barring some sort of unforeseen development, Embiid will remain on the sideline through the weekend.

“He’s not going to play,” Self said. “I’m not saying there couldn’t be a miraculous act occur, but we’re certainly not planning on that or expecting that.”

Self said Embiid has continued to make progress in his rehab, but he has yet to get back out on the practice floor.

“He’s doing really well,” Self said. “We’ve told him that we were not going to put him on the practice floor until he does really, really well in rehab. And that’s what the doctors told us, and that’s what we were going to do all along.

“He’s not far away from being out there in some form or fashion, but probably not contact.”
KC Star


The Jayhawks practiced in Allen Fieldhouse on Wednesday before driving to St. Louis.

“We had a pretty good week. I would say not our best week of practice for the year, (but) certainly we got better,” Self said. “I think we’ve got a lot of energy. We were able to keep guys off their feet for the most part.

“I think we’re OK,” he added of the squad’s frame of mind. “It hasn’t been one of those weeks where Monday was so intense and Tuesday was so intense. We’ve talked some. We’ve practiced short, for the most part. I’ve wanted guys to be fresh and off their feet as much as possible. We’ll get into the meetings and serious discussion tonight.

“I think they (players) are pretty amped, and they’ll be ready to go. Young teams ... sometimes when you talk about it too much, I think it can be a little overboard. But with these guys, you never know how they are going to react. I couldn’t tell you how we are going to play five minutes before tip ever because it’s a hard group to read.”

…The Jayhawks’ shootaround is scheduled for 2:15 to 2:55 p.m. today at Scottrade Center.

…Demand for tickets will be fierce.

“We travel well. K-State will travel. Wichita State will travel. Kentucky travels as well as anybody,” Self said of Wildcat fans also to congregate in St. Louis for the K-State game. “That’s not counting the other four teams that are here. I would think this will probably be as hot a ticket (demand) as we’ve had for any first-round site, with maybe the exception last year since we were playing in our home city (Kansas City’s Sprint Center) for the most part. K-State was there as well. This should be a fun weekend for everybody. I guess the weather is going to somewhat cooperate. It should make it interesting and a good time,” Self said.
LJW

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ICYMI: ESPN VIDEO Sport Science: Andrew Wiggins


The scar sweeps across the middle of his forehead, cutting a line to the tip of his right eyebrow.

The story behind the mark, Kansas freshman Andrew Wiggins said, is not as exciting as you might expect. He was in the third grade. He tripped in the hallway at school. He needed stitches, but can’t even recall the number.

“I can’t remember,” Wiggins said.

Whether or not Wiggins is downplaying the story, it’s hard to tell. But standing just a few feet away, the blemish is the first thing you notice, the true-to-life version of Harry Potter’s lightning scar.

No, Andrew Wiggins is not a wizard — although he might be playing for them next year if the NBA lottery breaks right. No, he does not possess any supernatural powers, despite what we hear about his 40-inch vertical leap and 7-foot wingspan.

But asked if there’s one thing that Wiggins might just do better than any player in college basketball — better than anyone in the NCAA Tournament field — his teammates will tell you the following secret.

You can throw the worst alley-oop pass in the world, and Wiggins will still catch it.

“Anywhere away from the rim,” freshman teammate Wayne Selden said. “He’ll go get it.”

…“As long as they can throw it up somewhere,” Wiggins says now, “I’ll throw it down.”
KC Star


One is a guaranteed lottery pick and a potential No. 1 pick in June's NBA draft.

Another is on a team that is 34-0 and pointing toward a second Final Four run.

And the other ...

What, you didn't know there was another Wiggins' brother?

Well, there is, and Mitch Wiggins, being the typical big brother pacesetter, already has set the bar for Andrew and Nick.

Mitch, a senior at Southeastern University in Florida, just finished a storybook run in the NAIA Division II tournament. The Fire, making their first tourney appearance in school history, are only the second team at the school to qualify for nationals in any sport. They rolled all the way to the Final Four, hitting a buzzer-beating 3-pointer against the No. 1 seed along the way before losing to Indiana Wesleyan in the semifinals.

Forget the lure of the $1 billion bracket challenge.

The Wiggins family already has won March.

…On Friday, Andrew and No. 2-seeded Kansas will face Eastern Kentucky in St. Louis. Three hours later, in the same building, Nick and top-seeded Wichita State play Cal Poly or Texas Southern.

The next day, Mitch, Final Four appearance in hand, will compete in the NAIA All-Star dunk contest in Kansas City, Mo., a drivable four hours away. "All of these things happening at once, I could never imagine it," Mitch said. "It's just crazy."

It is familial domination like no other -- one brother already in a Final Four, two more with decent shots to make their own Final Fours, and perhaps a national title winner among the three. Kansas and Wichita State, on opposite sides of the bracket, could meet only once -- on April 7 in the national championship game.

Mitch already has plans for such a doomsday scenario: He'll sit in a neutral place, wearing colors for each team.

Andrew said he hopes it happens, because such a game would mean the brothers have achieved all they can achieve.

Nick, the feistier, more outspoken one among the bunch, looks at it a little differently.

"I wouldn't look at it as playing my brother; I'd look at it as playing a Jayhawk," he said -- and, yes, you could hear the Shocker sneering for all things KU. But there is far more love and only a little in-state-rival loathing between these three. This wild ride through March is just the climax of texting, Snapchatting and Skyping each other through a wild ride of a season.

Andrew and Nick turn to their big brother for advice; Andrew and Mitch marvel at Nick's undefeated run; and Nick and Mitch sit back and soak in all of the attention that's come Andrew's way.

It's easy to see how it could boil over into some serious sibling rivalry. Instead there's been nothing but brotherly love. Even Mitch, tucked into the more obscure world of the NAIA, hasn't turned even the slightest bit green with envy.

"Not even close. No way," he said. "When you're in a family, you want each other to reach their goals because you love each other so much. There's no way there'd be jealousy."
ESPN


There are times when Andrew Wiggins, the versatile freshman guard for Kansas, will scowl, smile and laugh, displaying the usual emotions of a 19-year-old navigating his first collegiate postseason.
Good luck seeing any of that on the court, however.

Wiggins could be one of the first picks in this year’s N.B.A. draft, but he already plays with the expressionless bearing of a 10-year professional with his fourth team. No gestures after hitting a 3-pointer. No posturing after blocking a shot. And no chest-bumping celebrations, at least not until Kansas (24-9) has something tangible to celebrate.

“I thought coming in that we need to try to change him, and change him the way where he was outwardly, visibly more energetic and passionate, because he is a stone-face on the court,” Kansas Coach Bill Self said. “That would have been the worst thing we could have done.

“His demeanor has been pretty steady in large part because he doesn’t really care about what’s going on outside. He only cares about what’s going on inside.”

In a season highlighted by dominant freshmen like Duke’s Jabari Parker, Syracuse’s Tyler Ennis and the injured Jayhawks center Joel Embiid, the 6-foot-8 Wiggins stands out not only for his skills but also for how much Kansas relies on him.

With Embiid, a lithe 7-footer from Cameroon, out indefinitely with a stress fracture in his back, Wiggins — the Big 12 freshman of the year, an all-conference first-team member and perhaps the most heralded Kansas recruit since Danny Manning in 1985 — propped the Jayhawks on his slender shoulders.

…Wiggins scored 30 points in the Big 12 tournament quarterfinals, playing all 45 minutes in a 77-70 overtime victory against Oklahoma State. In overtime, Wiggins pressured Cowboys guard Markel Brown into a turnover, leading to Perry Ellis’s putback basket. Kansas scored the final 7 points.

“Andrew is not one-dimensional,” Self said. “He’s our best defender.”

The next night, an understandably weary Wiggins shot only 7 of 21 from the field for 22 points in a 94-83 semifinal loss to Iowa State. That probably cost the Jayhawks, who are 2-2 without Embiid, a No. 1 seed in the N.C.A.A. tournament. Kansas is the No. 2 seed in the South Region.

“A lot of people said we wouldn’t be any good with Joel out,” said Wiggins, who averages 17.4 points and 6 rebounds a game. “We know we’re a good team. We don’t really mind what people are saying, that we’re not going to be as good, anything like that. That’s just more motivation for us.

“And when JoJo comes back, we’ve going to be even better. He brings so much to the table that no one in the country can bring.”

…Embiid shows such promise that the Houston Rockets Hall of Famer Hakeem Olajuwon has offered to tutor him. When Embiid started playing, a coach in Cameroon gave him a video of Olajuwon, a Nigerian, to study. After Olajuwon learned of this, he found clips of Embiid on YouTube. Last week, he called Mbah a Moute and volunteered to help.

“I was so impressed and honored,” Olajuwon said in a telephone interview from Houston.

“To see the agility, the strength, the movements and the confidence, I see a very similar athlete to me. He’s a big guy who plays like a small guy. His movement is graceful. He’s beautiful to watch — the timing, the rhythm and the footwork. His future is bright.”

…Embiid transferred to the Rock School, a Christian institution in Gainesville, Fla. Embiid averaged 13 points, 9.7 rebounds and 1.9 blocks in his senior year, and at Mbah a Moute’s urging, he chose Kansas over Texas and Florida.

…“It’s never been a one-man show,” the Kansas senior forward Tarik Black said. “Jo is a big piece to our team, but he’s a piece to our team, know what I’m saying? We can still win it, and everybody else in this locker room believes that, too.”

Credit that to the calm influence of Wiggins.

“I don’t know his secret, honestly,” Black said. “You’ll have to ask him. If he doesn’t tell you, then it’s not for us to know.”
New York Times


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Pressure was the one word used by Mason, Greene and Frankamp when describing what changed most in the transition from the regular season to the postseason, but none of them indicated that the do-or-die magnitude had a negative impact on their games.

“It being new, and me being at the college level, it was definitely good to experience that,” Greene said. “It was just a whole different type of feel, a whole different type of atmosphere. And now we go into the tournament knowing what to expect.”

Both Mason and Frankamp said they believed that having more on the line with each game would inspire the Jayhawks to sharpen their focus and play their best basketball of the season.

Wiggins, one of the top freshmen in the country, expects to be energized by the excitement of fans in a win-or-go-home-setting.

“It’s every basketball player’s dream to play in front of a big crowd like that,” Wiggins said. “National TV every game. There’s no negative in playing in front of big crowds. We’ll try to win and give our fans what they want.”

Wiggins said that he wouldn’t hesitate to shoot the ball in the NCAAs. In the conference tournament, he kept firing against Iowa State on a night he scored 22 points off 7-of-21 shooting. He made seven of 10 free throws.

“I kept shooting it. I’ll keep shooting it,” Wiggins said. “The greatest players ever to play the game have games they don’t make shots. I don’t sweat that. The games I’m not making shots, I try to drive, be aggressive. More important is our will to get stops (in NCAAs).”

Of his one and only NCAA Tournament, one-and-done Wiggins said: “I’ll be confident. I play every game like now trying to attack, to win, do whatever it takes to win.”
LJW


Conner Frankamp thinks he’s figured out why some of his previous shots weren’t falling.

After missing all four of his 3-point attempts in the regular-season finale against West Virginia, the Kansas freshman guard spoke with his dad, Marty, who noticed from watching on TV that Conner’s 3-point shots were flatter than normal.

“He just talked to me about my fundamentals and what I’ve always done, just to remind me a little bit,” Conner said. “He helped me out.”

The next day, Conner went back to the gym to work on getting his elbow under the ball while also releasing with a high follow-through. He made 300 shots total, working mostly to get more arch on his attempts.

…Frankamp, who has made 28 percent of his 3-pointerss in a small sample size (11 of 39), says his shot now is feeling “fine.”

“I had quite a few open looks (against West Virginia), so I’ve got to knock those down,” Frankamp said. “But when I get my opportunity, hopefully they’ll go next time.”
TCJ

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Don’t slip, Kansas, because Eastern Kentucky is more than capable.

Before you stop reading, hear me out.

Look for Eastern Kentucky to possibly this year’s Lehigh or Florid Gulf Coast, if there is any.

The Colonels won the Ohio Valley Conference tournament as a No. 3 seed, upsetting both Murray State and Belmont in the process of recapturing a conference title and an NCAA Tournament berth for the first time since 2007.

Eastern Kentucky coach Jeff Neubauer’s uncanny offensive game plan is one that has him put at least four shooters on the floor at a time — sometimes five.

Such a lineup has led the Colonels to make 303 shots from 3-point range this season, which is third most in the country. Their 3-point field goal percentage of 39 percent is also 23rd in the NCAA.

Nearly half of Eastern Kentucky’s field goals come from behind the arc.

A large part of Eastern Kentucky’s 3-point production comes from guard Glenn Cosey, a First Team All-OVC honoree.

His point-per-game average of 18.8 was third in the conference while his 3-point field goals made (110) and 3-point field goal percentage (42.5) rank fifth and 20th in the nation, respectively.

For what it’s worth, Cosey made 10-12 shots from behind the arc in a 100-81 wallop over Eastern Illinois for a career-high 34 points.

Now, there is a marginal difference between Eastern Illinois and Kansas, but the Jayhawks’ 3-point defense is nothing to brag about — far from it, to be exact.

While the Jayhawks have the No. 3 Rating Percentage Index and also managed to escape the nation’s the No. 1 toughest schedule with a 24-9 record, they also allowed opponents to shoot 35.9 percent from 3-point range this season, ranking 264th in the country.

For example, in the Big 12 Conference semifinal game, a game which ultimately cost Kansas its No. 1 seed, Iowa State shot 11-of-19 (57.9 percent) from 3-point range on the Jayhawks in a 94-83 Cyclone win.

Kansas coach Bill Self compared the Colonel offense to the Cyclone offense, obviously not an appealing comparison for Self’s team.

The 3-point matchup is the one to watch in this game. If Eastern Kentucky wants the upset bid over Kansas, it will need to beat the Jayhawks behind the arc. And if the Colonels’ sharpshooters show up who knows what they’ll be deemed.

Trey City? 3-point City?

Neither has much of a ring to it, but you get the picture. Eastern Kentucky 79, Kansas 75.
Daily Eastern News


How Eastern beats Kansas

The Colonels force turnovers and make 3-point shots, and those two statistics just happen to be two of Kansas’ worst. They are ranked in the lower third in all of division one in both opponents’ 3-point percentage and turnovers. Kansas being without Embiid is huge; it takes away possibly the best rim-protector in college basketball. Eastern’s guards can operate in the lane better without Embiid in front of the basket. For the Colonels to win, they will have to come out hot and make 3-pointers early to put pressure on Jayhawks. Eastern will have to force turnovers. The Colonels are sixth in the nation in steals per game, and have made the 3rd most 3-pointers in the country this year.

“Without Embiid it really hurts them,” junior forward Eric Stutz said.

How Eastern loses to Kansas

Kansas is long and can shoot the ball extremely well, and possess what might be the best player in college basketball in Andrew Wiggins. Wiggins is a matchup nightmare for the Colonels. He stands 6 feet 8 inches and has a wingspan of seven feet. Who guards him? The Colonels’ best defensive player is OVC Defensive Player of the Year junior guard Corey Walden but he is 6 feet 2 inches and Wiggins could shoot over top of him.

“It’s definitely a challenge,” Walden said. “But I’m up for it and ready to go.”

The Colonels would need to run a zone to contain Wiggins and the rest of the Kansas guards from getting in the paint but they shoot well so head coach Jeff Neubauer has a tough decision to make. Worse case scenario for the Colonels is that Kansas’ frontcourt dominates and their length on defense stops Eastern from making 3-pointers.

X-Factor

Fouls. Eastern was in serious foul trouble in the OVC tournament. Against Murray State, Eastern had four starters foul out, and against Belmont, forward Eric Stutz and senior guard Tarius Johnson both fouled out. For Eastern to stay with Kansas, they can’t get in foul trouble and keep their regular rotation in the game. It would help Eastern immensely if they got Kansas’ big players in foul trouble, and when Eastern goes to the foul line they are one of the best in the nation (T-16th in free throw percentage).
Eastern Progress


Scoring isn't an issue for EKU, which has matched or exceeded its 79-points-per-game average five times while winning seven straight. But beating the heavily-favored Jayhawks could require at least that many points along with the Colonels' best defensive effort this season in their first tournament appearance since 2007.

"Teams aren't going to have a problem with our length because we're not as long as other teams," said Cosey, EKU's top scorer at 18.8 points per contest.

"But our pressure and our style of play is different. We play fast, we have good guards. The main thing for us will be our pressure."

The Colonels' guard-laden lineup also hopes experience helps them compete against a Kansas squad averaging 79.6 points per game while allowing nearly 71, just like them.

EKU's challenge will be containing Wiggins (17.4 points per game), Perry Ellis (13.6) and Wayne Selden Jr. (10.2). Seven-foot rebounder and shot-blocker Joel Embiid is out indefinitely with a stress fracture in his back, but the Colonels certainly have their hands full with Kansas' tall and talented roster.

"Both ends will be a challenge for us," said Colonels coach Jeff Neubauer, whose team will play its first NCAA tournament game since his second season as coach.

"Even with Embiid out, these guys are attacking the rim. What's scary about them is how they rebound. I mean, they're like the 10th best (in margin, +7.3), and we're (tied for) 10th worst (-6.1). One thing I've always stressed is stealing the ball, so that has to be our approach."

…EKU earned a conference championship as a result, but its veterans know they'll have to be near-perfect to stop Kansas.

"We've just been working on our defense," Cosey added. "We knew were going to face bigger teams, so we need to pressure the ball and just defend. We know we've got to play harder."
HD News


Self remains wary of the Colonels, who enter with the same record as the Jayhawks at 24-9.
“Eastern can do a lot of things well,” Self said. “They turn you over. They play primarily man, but they’ll sprinkle in some zone and 1-3-1, and we’ve had issues with that at times. Certainly they shoot the three as well as anybody. I mean, they really shoot the three. And they’ve got eight guys that can shoot it.

“Certainly, we’ll have to really defend the line. In order to do that, you have to keep the ball out of the paint, so our ball-screen defense needs to be a lot better than it was against Iowa State.”

Self said he believed his team got better in practice this week, even if the coaches had eased off a bit. One of Self’s main goals was getting guys off their feet so they could be ready for the stretch run.

“I think they’re pretty amped,” Self said, “and ready to go.”
TCJ


It was the final 10 minutes of practice when Kansas coach Bill Self gave freshman Brannen Greene some quick instruction on “pick-and-pop” offense.

In short, it was this: Go set screens for the ball-handler, then bounce out to the 3-point line and be ready for a pass.

Self first introduced the set two days before last week’s Big 12 Tournament, starting with Greene as an undersized power forward before having Andrew Wiggins practice the same thing.

After just two days — and about 30 minutes total — going over the new wrinkle, KU utilized it in both of its games in the Big 12 Tournament last week.

“I definitely could see it as a weapon,” Greene said.

The formation — it potentially could be used against a small lineup like Eastern Kentucky in KU’s first NCAA Tournament game Friday — puts lots of pressure on defenses, especially when a driving player like Wiggins has the ball. If teams give Wiggins too much attention, he has an easy pass out to Greene for an open 3.

If there’s not enough help on the ball screen, though, Wiggins can turn the corner and get to the rim off a drive.

“I think just a little bit of being able to play me, Wayne (Selden Jr.) and Wiggs at the same time,” Greene said. “Just taking advantage of his offensive ability.”
TCJ


Richmond has an additional rooting interest during this year’s March Madness.

The Kansas Jayhawks, who are the No. 2 seeds in the West region, feature two players from the area, both of whom took a unique route to the college.

Guard Andrew White III played three years for Thomas Dale, then reclassified and attended Miller School, a boarding school near Charlottesville, for two more years before being recruited to Kansas.
Guard Frank Mason played four years at Petersburg and committed to Towson to play college basketball.

Instead of attending Towson, though, he went to Massanutten Military Academy for a year to boost his academic credentials, during which time he caught the eye of Jayhawks coach Bill Self.

Now White and Mason, who have played with and against each other since they were 10 years old, are representing Virginia in the heartland.

“I think a lot of people already knew about Kansas, because of the history,” White said. “But it’s a great thing for Virginia, and our friends and family have embraced the program.”

…Mason hit one of his biggest shots earlier this season against Iowa State on a day when he hosted a famous guest at Allen Fieldhouse — Petersburg rapper Trey Songz.

White has hosted members of his family, too. His grandfather is a well-known Baptist minister, and the White family is prominent at Virginia Union.

“When I made my college decision, nobody assumed I would go far from home, because I have a big group of family members,” White said. “But location wasn’t really a factor. I went to a boarding school, so I was used to being away from home and not with my family every day.”

White’s brother, Andrien, is a junior at Thomas Dale and was named all-conference in basketball this year.

Expectations are always high for Kansas in the NCAA tournament, and White said the level of passion in the community was one of the things that led him to choose the school.

“It’s really a basketball town,” he said of Lawrence. “It’s great, but also a lot of pressure — you know you’re going to get the opposing team’s best shot every night.”
Times Dispatch


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For the season, the latest crop of hyped Big Blue freshmen has played 74.2 percent of the minutes for coach John Calipari.

From a historical perspective, it’s a staggering number. By comparison, the famed Fab Five freshman class at Michigan accounted for 68 percent of the minutes while leading the Wolverines to the NCAA title game in 1992. Kentucky is young, and Calipari’s team has played like it.

But as Self prepares to guide his own young team into the murky waters of the NCAA Tournament, the Jayhawks face many of the same questions. The Jayhawks aren’t close to matching Kentucky’s youth brigade — at least from a minutes standpoint — but they are still among the youngest teams in the field.

Kansas’ seven freshmen have played 55.6 percent of the minutes. And as both blue-blood programs convene in St. Louis this weekend, they will provide two interesting test cases for the one-and-done era: How young is too young in the final weeks of March?

“We can’t really get complacent,” said Kansas guard Wayne Selden, one of the seven freshmen on the roster. “Because we know this is close to the end now.”

The following numbers are not necessarily predictive of what will happen during the next three weeks, of course. But the case against freshmen in March is thick.

In the last decade, only one team has won the NCAA title with freshmen playing more than 50 percent of the minutes. That was Calipari’s 2012 Kentucky squad, which defeated KU in the title game while its heralded freshmen class played 54 percent of the minutes. More evidence: Only two teams in the last decade have won a title with freshmen playing more than 40 percent. And from 2004 to 2013, freshmen played less than 21 percent for the eventual champion.

If there’s a counterweight to Kansas and Kentucky, it’s No. 1-seed Florida, which starts four seniors and could face the Jayhawks in an Elite Eight matchup in Memphis, Tenn. Kansas, meanwhile, has one scholarship senior on the roster; forward Tarik Black, who will start in place of freshman Joel Embiid until he’s ready to return from a back injury.

The reasons for the freshmen failures are complicated, coaches say. For one, freshman-dominated teams are rare in college basketball, and freshman-laden teams that can win it all are even more elusive. Talent can trump all in March, but experience can be pivotal.

The stage is bigger, distractions await and one bad night can end a season.

“It’s not exactly how it appears from the outside,” Self said this week. “Because I don’t know that anybody can really grasp that there’s so much more than just being with your team and your team being together (during the tournament). It’s agents. It’s runners. It’s family members. It’s distractions.

“(There) can be things that are legitimate, and things that people want to put things in people’s heads that aren’t so legitimate.”

For seven of Kansas’ top 11 players, this will be their first experience in the NCAA Tournament. It was just two years ago that Jayhawks advanced to the NCAA championship game, but only one scholarship player (junior guard Naadir Tharpe) remains from that team.

Now the Jayhawks must focus in for a tourney run. And when the subject of distractions comes up, perhaps it’s no surprise that Self mentions his 2008 title team.

“That was a wild crew,” Self said. “But for three weeks they just totally, totally gave up themselves to do exactly what we said, and they trusted what we told them was good.”

It was also a veteran crew. In 2008, KU’s freshmen accounted for 6.9 percent of the minutes — the fewest by a title team in the last decade.
KC Star


“Oh man, I’ve grown so much,” said Ellis, who led Heights to four Class 6A championships in high school. “I could definitely see myself taking plays off last season. Now I feel like I’m playing hard. And when I need a break, I tell Coach (Bill) Self.”

Self, who never met a television camera or reporter’s notebook he didn’t like, had admitted to having to adapt to Ellis’ reserved demeanor. The key, though, is that Ellis doesn’t play basketball quietly. He causes quite a ruckus, in fact.

With an ability to use either hand and a pair of dazzling, quick feet, Ellis is a load to contain. He can turn either way and often before a defensive player knows he has slipped away.

When Ellis gets fouled, he makes 77 percent of his free throws.

And he has made 8 of 16 three-point attempts, which makes me think he’ll be wandering out to the perimeter more next season.

First, though, there’s this season, which continues Friday in the NCAA Tournament when the Jayhawks take on Eastern Kentucky in St. Louis.

Ellis and his teammates have to find some way to be consistent enough to potentially run through six tournament games. If you’ve seen KU play this season, you know that’s a stretch. Consistency is not this team’s strongest attribute.

In that way, Ellis doesn’t fit. Because he is consistent. While Naadir Tharpe’s hair is on fire and super freshmen Andrew Wiggins, Joel Embiid and Wayne Selden continue to try to figure out those square pegs and round holes, Wichita’s own Ellis is a rock. You pretty much know what you’re getting.

Even if it doesn’t always look like the Jayhawks know what they have.

Wiggins, whose elite talent is unquestionable, has had too much of a free reign, though lately he’s been tremendous. But I think there are times when KU loses touch with Ellis. Given his hushed personality, it’s probably not hard to do.

“I definitely feel like I’m an important piece here,” Ellis said. “But I’m a real quiet player. I try to let my actions show.”

Which is nice. But there are times when I wish Ellis would go all Keyshawn Johnson with the potential one-and-done guys and scream, “Give me the damn ball.”

“I don’t really pay much attention to what people are saying,” Ellis said. “I do the best I can do to help the team.”

Ellis shoots 55.7 percent. He’s the gift that keeps on giving offensively for Kansas, but the Jayhawks too often refuse to open him.

It’s been a strange mix at KU this season. Wiggins, Embiid and maybe even Selden are potential lottery choices in the NBA Draft this summer. Meanwhile, Ellis is a throwback to the good old days of college basketball when players were players and development of an overall game was paramount.
The Ellis Project is right on schedule. I remember Self telling reporters last year, when Ellis was struggling mightily, that he would eventually get going and become a “1,500-point scorer” for the Jayhawks.

That Self guy is pretty smart.
Wichita Eagle Lutz


“Pay Heed. The game you love began here. Respect those who came before you. Make their legacy your own. Because destiny favors the dedicated. And rings don’t replace work. In this game you don’t get what you want. You get what you earn. We are Kansas. Together we rise. Rock Chalk Jayhawk!

Big 12 / College News

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NCAA Tournament TV Schedule (w/announcing teams)


Lavin extremely likable, but went to NCAA tourney first year with Norm Roberts' players
@GoodmanESPN


CBS Expert Bracket Predictions (Doyel, Norlander pick Kansas)


ICYMI: USBWA All-District Teams


Before Danny Manning sought a head coaching job, the former Kansas All-American called his college coach, Larry Brown, for a bit of advice.

Manning’s resume was strong. He had won a national title as a player for Brown in 1988, played 15 years in the NBA and had won a national title as an assistant under the Jayhawks’ Bill Self in 2008. He was getting the itch to step out on his own, but wanted Brown’s blessing before proceeding.

Brown, who had a long history with the family and had employed Manning’s father, Ed, as an assistant coach years ago, said the answer was easy.

“He asked me if I thought he was ready to be a (head) coach,” said Brown, now the coach at SMU. “He was ready the first day I met him, when he was five years old.”

Brown’s exaggeration brings home the point that Manning was seemingly born to coach. And, as Brown expected, Manning’s rise has happened quickly. In just his second year as Tulsa’s coach, Manning has reached the NCAA tournament with the Golden Hurricane earning an automatic bid by winning the Conference USA tournament title. Tulsa (21-12), the No. 13 seed in the South Region, will open against No. 4 seed UCLA (26-8) Friday in San Diego.

Tulsa, making its first NCAA appearance since 2003, nearly missed Sunday’s announcement of their opponent. The team still was traveling back from the league tournament in El Paso, Texas, and it got to the Reynolds Center about 15 minutes before the selection show.

“We got off the plane, we got on the bus, we drove here, we went to the locker room, we dropped our bags, we walked out to the court,” Manning said. “I said a few things to our fans that were there. Selection show comes on and, bam, we come up. They got a nice boost of energy when they popped up on the screen. All the hard work that these guys have been putting in — you can see it.”
Link


Based on tournament seeds and potential matchups in the NCAA bracket, the logical conclusion is that Iowa State - the only Big 12 team with an undefeated record against nonconference opponents this season - projects as the league's best bet to make it to Arlington.

Yet Kansas, at 10-1, received the Big 12's best odds from Bovada Sports Book to cut down the nets at AT&T Stadium. Iowa State received 33-1 odds to emerge as the national champion, the second-best odds among league teams.
FW Star Telegram


Even more regularly than he posts double-doubles, Julius Randle whips out his cellphone and punches a number from the 214 area code. Former Oklahoma star Jeff Webster is waiting to hear from Kentucky's star freshman.

"After every game, I know I'm going to get a call," Webster said. "'OK. How'd I do? 'What do I have to do?' And this and that."

As Randle is sure to call, so Webster is sure to demand more-more-more.

"'Listen, Julius, you have so much more to give,'" Webster said he will tell Randle. "I call him 'the
one-half wonder' because he normally is giving you one-half. 'When are you going to put two halves together?'

"That's just the youth in him."

With Kentucky beginning play in the NCAA Tournament on Friday, the time is right for putting together two (and many more) productive halves.

Webster, who scored 2,281 points for Oklahoma (1989-94), describes his role in Randle's life as father/mentor/big brother. "All that stuff," he said. The two became acquainted as player and assistant coach for an AAU team, the Texas Titans.
Link


Recruiting

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2014 Parade All-Americans: Cliff Alexander and Kelly Oubre

Congrats to our male #POY finalists Cliff Alexander (@humblekid11), Stanley Johnson (@StanMan_41), Tyus Jones (@Tyusjones06) Emmanuel Mudiay, Jahlil Okafor (@BigJah22) and Myles Turner (@Original_Turner) #McDAAG #POY
@McDAAG


Blue-chip recruit Myles Turner is closing in on a decision to sign with the SMU basketball program, a source close to the process tells 105.3 The Fan.

Turner, a 6-11 center from Euless Trinity High School, has also been linked to Duke, Ohio State, Kansas and Oklahoma State.

Considered a “one-and-done” candidate by scouts (meaning Turner is good enough to play college basketball for one season before declaring for the NBA), a Turner pairing with fellow DFW product Emmanuel Mudiay, a Prime Prep product rated the top point guard in the country, would continue coach Larry Brown’s notable turnaround of a Mustangs program that before this year hadn’t been ranked in the Top 25 since the 1984-85 season.
Link


Thon Maker, the consensus No. 1 prospect in the Class of 2016, met with Australian National Team coach Andrej Lemanis last week about a potential future role with the team.

The meeting took place March 9-11 in Virginia, where the 7-foot, 208-pound Maker attends the Carlisle (Va.) School.

“We had a good meeting with Andrej Lemanis,” Ed Smith, Maker’s legal guardian, told SNY.tv.

…On the recruiting front, Maker continues to be recruited at the highest levels.

“I had a good talk with Coach [Bill] Self at Kansas,” Smith said. “Coach [Jeff] Capel at Duke is trying to set up a time for us to sit down with Coach K. Jason Williford and UVA are recruiting him hard. Louisville sent Kevin Keatts. Coach [Raphael] Chillious and Lorenzo Romar have offered from UW.”
Zags Blog


JaQuan Lyle, five-star men’s basketball recruit and the No. 22 overall player in the 2014 class according to Rivals.com, committed to Oregon at about 3:10 p.m. Wednesday.

Lyle originally committed to Louisville before deciding to withdraw his commitment in September. Lyle made his commitment at the Evansville Airport Holiday Inn by announcing he would attend University of Oregon and immediately putting on an Oregon Ducks hat.
Link


Recruiting Calendar


My Late Night in the Phog videos, KU Alumni games videos, 2011-12 Border War videos, Legends of the Phog videos, KC Prep Invitational, & Jayhawk Invitational Videos and more now on YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/user/kcjcjhawk

On Vacation! See you back here for the Big Dance!

3/12/2014

 

Rock Chalk!

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Tarik Tuesday! You're up big man!

3/11/2014

 
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For a 7-foot teenager, the human back can be a fragile and delicate thing. For the moment, the same can be said about Kansas' hopes for a long March run.

Kansas announced Monday that freshman center Joel Embiid will miss this week’s Big 12 Tournament and likely the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament after a spinal specialist in Los Angeles confirmed the initial diagnosis of a stress fracture in Embiid’s back.

“Based on that, this weekend is out,” Kansas coach Bill Self said in a statement released Monday night. “Next weekend, we feel like is a long shot, but the doctors are hopeful that if Joel works hard in rehab and progresses that it is possible that he could play in the later rounds of the NCAA Tournament if our team is fortunate enough to advance.”

…Embiid has already missed two games and is halfway through the recovery process, according to KU. But the latest developments cast a long shadow on the Jayhawks’ chances in the NCAA Tournament.

“We’re all very disappointed for Joel,” Self said. “He’s worked so hard and improved so much. He’s been one of the most improved players in the country in such a short amount of time. The most important thing is for Joel to get healthy. We were hopeful, Joel was hopeful, the doctors were hopeful that his body would respond more rapidly to rehab and that has not been the case.”

…“We said before that we were going to hold him out this week, that’s what we’ve done,” Self said on Monday afternoon. “And certainly we want him healthy when we get to the NCAA Tournament. As bad as we’d like to play him this weekend, I’m not going to risk that.”

…“Our team feels bad for Joel,” said Self, who added that he won’t comment on Embiid’s day-to-day status moving forward. “But this in no way changes our original postseason goals and our team will rally around this.”
KC Star

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A spine specialist in Los Angeles determined Monday that Embiid is in the middle of the healing process. The 7-footer from Cameroon initially hurt his back on Feb. 8 against West Virginia, then after returning to action, aggravated the injury on March 1 at Oklahoma State. He has been shut down since then, missing the final two games of the regular season while being treated daily.

“Based on that (doctor’s report), this weekend is out,” Self said of the Big 12 tourney. “Next weekend, we feel like is a longshot, but the doctors are hopeful that if Joel works hard in rehab and progresses that it is possible that he could play in the later rounds of the NCAA Tournament if our team is fortunate enough to advance.”

The injury will not require surgery.

Doctors who met with Embiid on Monday morning in California explained that they feel their rehabilitation program has proven successful and assured Self and his staff that Embiid will fully recover and return to basketball within a few weeks.
LJW


KUAD Press Release on Joel Embiid


Back to Lawrence and GREAT weather>> better than LA's!!! Tired though #kubball #WeAllFromAfrica
@jojo_embiid


3/10/14, 7:15 AM
Me & JoJo on the block? #unguardable
@humblekid11


3/10/14, 7:47 PM
@jojo_embiid lets do work big fella
@humblekid11



Good luck to Coach Self, staff, and our men's BB team. Time for everyone to step up. No, the sky isn't falling! Rock Chalk!
@CoachWeisKansas


If there was no ability, there would be no pressure. Embrace the privlege of pressure
@A_Hudy

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Kansas freshman Andrew Wiggins added another piece of hardware to his already successful rookie season when Sporting News named him All-America Second Team Monday.
 
Wiggins scored a Kansas freshman record 41 points at West Virginia in KU's regular-season finale on March 8. The Vaughan, Ontario, Canada, guard leads Kansas with a 16.8 scoring average, the best among Big 12 freshmen and eighth overall in the conference. Wiggins has made 37 threes this season and is the team leader with 36 steals after his career-high five at WVU, the most by any Jayhawk this season. Wiggins' 5.9 rebound average is third on the team. A gifted shooter, Wiggins also ranks among the Big 12 leaders in field goal percentage (11th at 45.2) and free throw percentage (10th at 76.5).
 
A unanimous All-Big 12 First Team selection, who is also the conference freshman of the year, Wiggins is a three-time Big 12 Newcomer of the Week and was the Wayman Tisdale National Freshman of the Week on Jan. 28. Additionally, he is on most every national player and freshman of the year ballot.
 
Last season, Kansas' Jeff Withey was named to the Sporting News All-America Second Team and Ben McLemore the third team.
 
Wiggins Awards (2013-14)
•        Sporting News All-America Second Team
•        Big 12 Newcomer of the Week (3.9.14)
•        Big 12 Freshman of the Year (Big 12, AP)
•        All-Big 12 First Team (unanimous selection, Big 12, AP)
•        Big 12 All-Newcomer Team
•        Wooden Award Final Ballot (1 of 15)
•        Wayman Tisdale Award Finalist by USBWA (1 of 6)
•        Oscar Robertson Trophy Finalist List by USBWA (1 of 15)
•        Naismith Men's College Player of the Year Candidate (1 of 30)
•        Wayman Tisdale National Freshman of the Week (1.28.14)
•        Big 12 Newcomer of the Week (1.27.14)
•        Big 12 Newcomer of the Week (11.18.13)
KUAD


Kansas freshman Andrew Wiggins is the final Big 12 Men's Basketball Newcomer of the Week for the 2013-14 season. The honor is voted on by a media panel which covers the conference and Wiggins is recognized as top newcomer for the third time this season.
 
Wiggins averaged 25.0 points and six rebounds on 60 percent shooting as the Jayhawks recorded a 1-1 week, defeating Texas Tech before falling at West Virginia. The Vaughan, Ontario, Canada, guard had his top performance in Morgantown as he recorded a career-high 41 points on 12-of-18 (.667) shooting. It was the second-best scoring total in the Big 12 this year and also the second-highest point total in a game by a freshman in Big 12 history. Wiggins' 41 points was also a Kansas freshman record. He added five steals and four blocked shots against the Mountaineers becoming the only Division I player in the past 15 seasons with at least five steals and four rejections in a 40-point game.
 
Wiggins' three Big 12 Newcomer of the Week honors in 2013-14 tie for the second most for a Jayhawk in league history. Last season Jayhawk Ben McLemore also had three. Tyshawn Taylor's four newcomer of the week honors in 2008-09 are the most by a Jayhawk.
KUAD


KUAD: Coach Self’s weekly presser


KUAD: Top Seeded Kansas Heads to Big 12 Championship



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1. Kansas can't get to the Final Four without a healthy Joel Embiid.

The Jayhawks have the highest ceiling out of any team in college basketball, but the look of this team is extremely different without its 7-foot freshman center. Embiid (11.2 points, 8.6 rebounds, 2.6 blocks) missed Kansas' past two games with a lingering back issue, and is out for the Big 12 tournament and likely the early rounds of the NCAA Tournament. The Jayhawks still have a lottery pick in Andrew Wiggins and a gifted interior scorer in Perry Ellis, but the dynamic of this team vastly changes without a rim protector like Embiid. With a front line of Wiggins, Ellis and Embiid, Kansas can pummel teams on the interior with its length and athleticism. Without Embiid, Bill Self's squad is just another team in that will enter the field of 68 with a chance to do some damage.
CBS Rothstein


There’s a chance, however, that Embiid could return if the Jayhawks make a deep run.

But he shouldn’t. Not this week. Not next weekend. Not even if Kansas reaches Dallas.

The potential No. 1 pick should rest and rehab in preparation for the NBA draft.
…It would be ideal for all parties involved if Kansas advanced in the Big Dance and Embiid got healthy enough to play without risking additional injury.

Self, however, isn’t talking like a coach who believes that scenario is likely. He sounds like someone who is preparing to move forward without the potential All-America center.

Embiid’s back has been bothering him for months. What makes anyone think he’ll miraculously recover in a few weeks? And even if he does, why jeopardize his professional future and seven-figure salary?

Sure, college basketball is about the kids, the game, the purity of competition, the amateurism, the team and the blah, blah, blah, blah. Whatever. When you’re a possible top-three pick, draft positioning has to be considered. And what if the injury lingers? He’d be better off getting paid to rehab in the league (Jared Sullinger, Nerlens Noel) than waiting in Lawrence another season and possibly watching his draft stock take a hit. (See Mitch McGary.)
ESPN Medcalf


Tarik Black is all of a sudden a critical piece for Kansas.

Bill Self announced on Monday night that his starting center Joel Embiid won't play in the Big 12 tournament and might not return until the latter rounds of the NCAA Tournament. What does that mean for the Jayhawks? A bigger role for Tarik Black (4.8 points, 3.3 rebounds). The 6-9 big man transferred to Kansas from Memphis to be part of a deep run in the field of 68 and now he'll get a chance to have a major role on one of the more talented teams in the country. Black has been a bit of an afterthought this season because of Embiid's presence, but he's still a player that boasts NCAA Tournament experience and has regularly competed against other elite big men. Put the 6-9 veteran in bold print. He'll stay there until when and if Embiid comes back healthy.
CBS



VIDEO: Wayne Simien gives Bonnie Bernstein a tour of the University of Kansas


3/9/14, 8:22 PM
Congrats to my KU Bros @CoachBradford21 & @JeffBoschee on winning that conference title today!!! #RoysBoysCoaching #MoreRingsToOurCollection
@terrynooner


Your 2014 MIAA men's basketball champions!!!! pic.twitter.com/Giq0nuBwDz
@mososports


3/9/14, 7:28 PM
S/O to coaches frm the @KUHoops fam on championship seasons @CoachDManning @CoachBBallard @CoachBradford21 @JeffBoschee @YouncofskiHoops ...
@waynesimien




Tyshawn Taylor began the year as a teammate of Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett. This was to be his second season in the NBA, a backup point guard for the Brooklyn Nets.

Then the Nets traded Taylor to the New Orleans Pelicans on Jan. 18. The Pelican released him four days later.

Next thing Taylor knew, he was trying to crack the lineup of the Maine Red Claws.

Taylor made his first start for Maine on Sunday and had the Red Claws offense purring. Taylor almost got a triple-double, with 33 points, 15 assists and eight rebounds as Maine routed the Fort Wayne Mad Ants 131-106 at the Portland Expo.

The Red Claws improved to 17-23. Fort Wayne, which entered the game with the second best record in the NBA D-League, dropped to 24-15.
Link


University of Kansas will be spotlighted in a series of feature stories this week on Big12Sports.com. KU was established in 1866 in Lawrence, Kan., and boasts an enrollment of 28,718.

Highlighted in this week's installment are the following student-athletes:

Tuesday, March 11: Lindsay Vollmer (Track & Field)
Wednesday, March 12:  Chase Hanna (Men's Golf)
Thursday, March 13: Alex Jones (Softball)
Friday, March 14: Jordan Piche (Baseball)

The Big 12's In Focus program was established in 2008. In its sixth year, the program uses a network of student writers at each of the league's 10 campuses. Each week during the athletic season a different Big 12 institution is featured on the Conference's official website. Campus correspondents put Big 12 student-athletes "In Focus," providing a unique perspective of the various competitors who participate in Big 12 athletics.
Big 12 Sports


Vote for Wiggs for the Wooden Award


“Pay Heed. The game you love began here. Respect those who came before you. Make their legacy your own. Because destiny favors the dedicated. And rings don’t replace work. In this game you don’t get what you want. You get what you earn. We are Kansas. Together we rise. Rock Chalk Jayhawk!


Big 12 / College News

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Big 12 Tournament Live Stats, Watch Live, Live Postgame, more


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KU Alumni Big 12 Tournament Events and Info


VisitKC.com Guide to the Big 12 Tournament: Maps, parking, events, pep rallies, etc


ESPN Big 12 Tourney Preview


Donning a USS West Virginia hat handed to him by a military veteran after Saturday’s upset of Kansas, Bob Huggins suddenly looked like a confident commander and not the coach of a sinking ship.

West Virginia, which had dropped four of five games to tumble out of NCAA consideration, closed the regular season with a dose of adrenaline by knocking off the No. 8 Jayhawks 92-86.

While the victory earned Huggins a $25,000 bonus, he joked that taxes could reduce that to only $10,000. More than incentive clauses, however, Huggins was interested in the payoff that could await his team when the conference tournament opens Wednesday in Kansas City.

Currently, West Virginia projects as an NIT team. But by finishing .500 in the nation’s toughest league and matching Baylor for sixth place, the Mountaineers (17-14, 9-9) could catch the selection committee’s focus by winning games against a resume-boosting obstacle course next week.

While West Virginia earned a first-round bye, it’s quarterfinal opponent on Thursday night will be third-seeded Texas, which dominated both regular-season meetings. That game’s survivor likely would play the Oklahoma-Baylor winner in the semifinals.

“We’re going to have opportunities to really help our RPI and get quality wins,” Huggins said. “We’ve just got to go win some games.”
Link


Jason Capel's fourth year at Appalachian State: 21 losses, an RPI in the 330s and a scandal over a point guard he won't release. Yikes.
@JeffEisenberg


The Big East tournament will begin this week with only two teams -- Villanova and Creighton -- locks for the NCAA Tournament.

And that's pretty amazing. The new formation of the Big East began this season with hopes of being a five- or six-bid league, but after the regular season the entire conference is a major mystery after the Wildcats and Bluejays. Xavier, Providence, St. John's and Georgetown are all very much on the bubble and unless one of those four teams wins the Big East tournament and earns the conference's automatic bid, it's hard to see anyone in that quartet feeling safe until it hears its name on Selection Sunday. The Big East has had some bad luck this year with injuries and some off-court issues which affected the available personnel on certain teams, but after Villanova and Creighton there's no guarantees that anyone will enter Madison Square Garden on Thursday feeling that they're safely in the field of 68. The Red Storm will play the Friars in Thursday's quarterfinals in what is a virtual "do or die" game for both teams, while Xavier will take on a Marquette team coming off back-to-back double-overtime losses by a combined two points. Expect to see some desperate teams this week at the World's Most Famous Arena.
CBS Rothstein


Recruiting

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Duke and Kansas both remain viable options for uncommitted 2014 McDonald’s and Jordan Brand All-American Myles Turner despite the fact that both already have committed bigs in this class.

The 6-foot-11 Turner out of Euless (TX) Trinity has now taken officials to those two along with Ohio State and Oklahoma State, and will take his last visit to Texas, David Turner told SNY.tv. It’s possible he could also take an unofficial to Kentucky.

The Duke visit this past weekend for the North Carolina game went extremely well.

“The Duke visit was incredible, man,” David said. “Meeting Coach K, hearing his plan for Myles and knowing that he definitely has a vision for how it would work with him and [Jahlil] Okafor and Justise [Winslow] and Tyus [Jones] and all them playing together, and whoever comes back.

“We all know Jabari [Parker]‘s not coming back, he’s just too good of a player.”

Asked if Coach K told him that, David said, “No, that’s me saying that. He’s the best player in college basketball without a doubt. Hands down.”

…Asked if they were seriously considering Duke, David said:  ”Absolutely, we wouldn’t have gone on the visit if we weren’t. I mean, every visit we take we’re serious. We’re not just wasting the guys’ time.”

Turner and his father visited Kansas last Wednesday prior to the Duke visit.

“Kansas was a great visit,” David said. “Myles had a great visit there.”

Like Duke, Kansas has a pledge from a big man in Naismith High School Player of the Year Cliff Alexander.

“Coach [Bill] Self and Coach [Norm] Roberts, just watching them run their practices I could see where Myles would fit into the system,” David said. “They just had it going. If Joel Embiid goes to the NBA, I could see where Myles would plug right into where he would be. If Joel Embiid stays, I could see where they could help each other get better.

“The same thing with Duke. I could see where Jahlil and Myles in practice could help each other get better. Myles has great opportunities in front of him.”

David said the last visit would be to in-state school Texas, but no date is set.

“Exactly,” he said. “That’s going to be our last visit. We haven’t set a date yet. We did promise them. They’ve been on us for a long time. They’re the hometown school, we promised them the last visit.”

…Turner will be very busy in April with the McDonald’s and Jordan Games, as well as the Nike Hoop Summit. He will play with and against recruits from Duke, Kansas and Kentucky at those events, and will use those games to evaluate what it’s like playing with some of those players.

“Myles has a very busy April so we’re trying to get it done a soon as possible,” David said of a decision.
Zags Blog


Jordan Brand Classic Rosters announced (Alexander, Oubre, Turner)


Thank you to all the coaches that have recruited me thus far. So Thankful!! pic.twitter.com/UoT4SYj7Wt
@simon_Says_so

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Justin Simon list
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