Gun Control!

"My heart was racing, it was a great pass…” - from a giddy Andrew Wiggins #kupostgame #kubball pic.twitter.com/X0yIMTa4tA ‏@KUGameday

2/18/14, 8:32 PM
With that free throw, Andrew #Wiggins is now Kansas’ all-time freshman free throw leader.
@KUGameday


Dang ...my boys snuck out of Lubbock with that one ... But a win is a win -
@tyshawntaylor


Finished watching the #kubball game and for those people who have ever said they haven't been impressed with @22wiggins are crazy! #Beast
@jtheaps9


W by Kansas at Texas Tech means Jayhawks will have a winning road record in league games. KU has never had a losing Big 12 road mark.
@BlairKerkhoff


Kansas escapes by 1 at Texas Tech. Jayhawks have lost their mojo. Tubby's gang very quietly playing some quality ball.
@SethDavisHoops


@SethDavisHoops didn't Duke just escape Maryland?Mich State lose at home to Neb?Creighton survived Butler? KU won on the road #mojomyass
@GottliebShow


Oklahoma State has lost their Mojo - #KU is about to win their 10th straight Big 12 title
@GottliebShow


2/19/14, 7:19 AM
Veteran NBA scout on Andrew Wiggins's game-winner: 'The kid is improving, the best athlete in the draft.'
@AdamZagoria

KUAD: Wiggins saves No. 8 Kansas at Tech Tech postgame notes


KUAD: Box Score


AUDIO: Bob Davis calls the final KU play


LJW Photos


Daily Toreador Photos

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Kansas University freshman phenom Andrew Wiggins — who has already accomplished superhuman feats in basketball, evidenced by all of his driving and dunking highlights shown on ESPN’s “SportsCenter” this year and last — added a first to his hoops résumé on Tuesday.

“It’s my first game-winner ever. It’s a great feeling, something I’ve dreamed about for a long time,” said the soon-to-turn-19-year-old Wiggins, who sank a one-footer with 1.7 seconds left, providing the margin of victory in KU’s 64-63 victory over Texas Tech before 12,667 fans in United Spirit Arena.

“I made some to tie,” Wiggins added, asked if he really, truly had never before Tuesday provided the winning points just before the buzzer.

The 6-foot-8 wing from Canada picked up a loose ball in the lane on KU’s final possession — after the ball was poked from KU center Joel Embiid. Seven-footer Embiid, who had 18 points and eight boards, had hit the baseline after accepting a pass from Perry Ellis.

“My heart was just racing. We get the ball to Jo Jo (on final possession after Tech made two free throws to take a one-point lead), one of our best scorers, and he delivered a great pass, and I delivered a great shot as the game ended,” Wiggins said.

A consummate team player, Wiggins tried to describe the ball appearing at his feet a pin-point Embiid pass.

“Give the ball to Jo, let him go to work. He found me,” Wiggins stated in explaining KU’s final play, which followed a timeout at 12.0 seconds.

Embiid, who hit six of seven shots on a day he played 32 minutes, was willing to play along.

“I was trying to spin baseline, and I think he kind of slapped me,” Embiid said of Tech defender Dejan Kravic. “I lost the ball. I think it was a pass, and he (Wiggins) got it and scored, and that was the play of the game.”

…About the possibility of Wiggins dunking there, Self wasn’t about to second-guess: “To me, he was up high enough. Whatever he did, he made the right play,” Self said. “He went up strong tonight and tried to dunk several.”

The Jayhawk players mobbed Wiggins on the court once a desperation heave by Texas Tech sailed past the backboard.

“It was a good feeling for what I did, the good play we did. It was good,” said Wiggins, whose 19th birthday is Sunday.

Self cited one other specific shot, besides Wiggins’ that fell in crunch time. Wayne Selden hit a crucial three with 2:34 left to slice a 59-55 deficit to one point. At that point, Selden had made one of seven shots and one of three from three. KU for the game hit just four of 14 treys.

“It was the biggest shot of the game other than Wiggs’ tip-in,” Self said. “He’s 1-for-7, and we’ve got nothing going, screw around and allow them to go up by four. The game wouldn’t be over, but we’d be close to dead if Wayne didn’t step up and make that three.”
LJW

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“We were lucky,” Kansas coach Bill Self said.

In some ways, he was right. In the final minutes, Kansas and Texas Tech kept trading baskets. Selden hit a three-pointer that cut the KU deficit to 59-58 with 2:35 left. And two minutes later, after a rare defensive stop, the Jayhawks took a 62-61 lead after Embiid picked up a loose-ball rebound and threw down a two-handed slam.

But Texas Tech’s Robert Turner hit two free throws on the other end, and Bill Self called timeout with 12 seconds left. The play was familiar, a four-up screen designed to get the ball to Perry Ellis, who had spent most of the night in foul trouble.

“They kind of hedged it real hard,” Ellis said.

The paint was walled off, so Ellis went to option two: Embiid down on the block. But as Embiid began to spin, the ball was slapped loose. Wiggins crashed in at just the right moment.

In most cases, Wiggins said, he would have dunked it. But he wanted to be sure.

“The ball slipped, it was slippery,” Wiggins said. “It slipped on the way up, so I just tried to guide it in.”

For years, United Spirit Arena has been like a Kansas house of horrors that’s a lot more frightening than it should be. Entering Tuesday, the Jayhawks were just 5-3 here in eight trips to Lubbock.
Some of those losses came when Bob Knight was putting together NCAA tourney teams and building interest in the program. But in most cases, the formula has been pretty familiar: an inferior Red Raider squad will hit some threes, Kansas will play lackluster defense and you know what happens next.

In a Big 12 circuit with deafening atmospheres and wild scenes, the rather cozy confines of this 15-year-old building have often provided some curious losses.

So it was on Tuesday night. The Red Raiders, of course, had won three of four in the Big 12. And first-year coach Tubby Smith had made basketball fun again in Lubbock.

But this was a familiar feeling for Kansas.

The tempo was DMV-waiting-room slow, much to Smith and Texas Tech’s liking. And the Jayhawks were plagued by the same old road problems. They couldn’t piece together the stops on defense. But they made enough plays to win.

“We battled; we fought hard,” Selden said. “We felt like we deserved it. There’s been so many games that have come down to that last possession and we weren’t able to come through with it.”
KC Star


Andrew Wiggins, never known to be an emotional player, was grinning as wide as he could as teammates mobbed him following Tuesday’s 64-63 victory over Texas Tech at United Spirit Arena.

Just a few seconds earlier, Wiggins had grabbed the ball after Joel Embiid lost control of it in the post, scooping it up to put in a short jumper with 1.7 seconds left and give Kansas a one-point lead.

After Jaye Crockett’s desperation half-court heave banged off the backboard, every teammate found Wiggins, and who knows how many more moments of pure joy he’ll have left like this in a college uniform?

“It’s a great feeling,” Wiggins said. “That’s my first game-winner ever.”

What followed after was more of Wiggins’ personality that is rarely seen.

In the postgame news conference he was asked about the play, and he tried to insist that Embiid had passed it to him.

When asked a second time, he couldn’t contain his laughter. He doubled over in front of the table, and Embiid, seated next to him, gave him a soft tap on the head.

“It bounced high. I was worried about it,” Wiggins said of his game-winner. “But the lucky touch came in.”
TCJ


“Their defense was pretty effective,” Smith said. “And I thought the longer we could keep ourselves in the game and get the lead, then the pressure’s on Kansas to do something. We were logging a lot of minutes, especially Rob and Jordan, so we wanted to give them a break, too. When we spread the floor like that and run the clock down, that’s what we’re trying to do.”

The Red Raiders could have easily pulled away from the Jayhawks in the second half had they not fouled so much.

After making five free throws in the first half, Kansas scored 17 points from the charity stripe, half of its 34 second half points.

“They were huge,” Wiggins said, “because we missed a lot the first half.”

Tech switched from a man defense to a zone defense throughout the game.

“We were having trouble guarding them one-on-one and getting out of position,” Smith said. “The zone was pretty effective. They went 1-of-6. We wanted to make them shoot from the outside and try to take away the inside. It was effective for a while.”

Despite the tough loss, Crockett doesn’t want anyone to count out Texas Tech.

“We fought hard, made some big plays and got rebounds when we needed to,” Crockett said. “We hit shots. Let them know that this season isn’t over. We’ve still got this tournament and a few games left.”
Lubbock AJ


What did he tell his team afterward?

“There wasn’t much to say,” Smith said after a game witnessed by 12,667 spectators, including 4,338 students. “They’re down. They’re despondent because they didn’t win. Tough loss. They felt like they played well enough to get the win. You always have to finish the game the right way to get the win.”

About the last play, Smith said, “Good teams like Kansas make plays like that. Great players make plays like that. Andrew’s a great player and great players make plays like that.“

Kansas coach Bill Self said the crowd that turned out for Tuesday’s game was something he hadn’t witnessed in Lubbock since the early years of Bob Knight’s reign.

“That’s a compliment to our fans, to our student body, our administration, especially our marketing people,” Smith said. “They’ve done a good job of getting out and spreading the word, even asked me to do some things. Our guys are playing well, playing hard. That’s what they want to see. Tonight we came close to giving a complete effort as we have.”
LJW

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Kansas University freshman guard Wayne Selden wasn’t lacking in confidence as he went up for a huge three-point shot attempt with 2:34 left and the Jayhawks down by four points to Texas Tech on Tuesday night in United Spirit Arena.

He put perfect touch on the ball, cutting the deficit to 59-58 in an eventual 64-63 victory.

Selden heading into that shot had made one basket in seven tries.

“Not at all,” Selden said of perhaps being hesitant to fire away. “Coach (Bill Self) said the other day, ‘A good shooter is not going to think about his last shot.'''

When was that advice offered?

“He said it recently,” said Selden, who finished with six points and three rebounds in 33 minutes.
LJW


Joel Embiid had one blocked shot, meaning he’s tied Eric Chenowith’s freshman block record. Chenowith had 62 blocks in 1997-98.

“I’ve been getting calls and texts lately telling me I still have the record,” former KU pivot Chenowith said before Tuesday’s KU-Tech game.

“A lot of people have been asking me if I’m upset my record is getting broken. To be honest with you, a part of me wants to keep it forever. The other part is I’m happy for the program. It means things are still progressing and doing well. Records are being broken. KU is winning. That’s the important thing,” Chenowith, a 7-footer from Villa Park, Calif., added.

…“I’ve watched him a lot. He has tremendous upside,” Chenowith said. “It sounds like he hasn’t played the game very long. He’s picking things up quickly. It helps playing for coach (Bill) Self obviously. From where he was when I first saw him on TV in November to where he is now, it’s night and day. I don’t think I’ve ever seen improvement like that so quickly.

“The sky is the limit. He has all the tools, all the ability in the world. I’m glad he came to KU and chose to be a Jayhawk.”

Chenowith will be in Allen Fieldhouse for Saturday’s game against Texas and Monday’s versus Oklahoma.
LJW


In his first game back from a one-game rest forced by back and knee woes, Embiid matched a career high with 18 points and added eight rebounds and a blocked shot in helping KU defeat Texas Tech, 64-63.

Embiid moved noticeably better than in his last game, an overtime loss to Kansas State in which he played just 18 minutes.

The Jayhawks needed every one of his 32 minutes to edge a Texas Tech squad in the early stages of basketball revival being masterfully steered by classy coach Tubby Smith.

“I think I was about 90, 90 percent,” Embiid said. And that was after nearly a full week of rest before rejoining practice.

KU coach Bill Self, closing in on his 10th consecutive Big 12 title, has seen too many amazing things from his center from Cameroon in his third year of organized basketball to express surprise at anything he does on the court. But he didn’t see one thing coming.

“I’m shocked he played that many minutes because he hadn’t practiced all week,” Self said.
LJW


LJW Keegan Ratings: Wiggins comes through on both ends of the court


LJW Keegan: Updated totals for KU dunks, hustle plays (before TT game)

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Though a 64-63 score might suggest this was a game dominated by defense, that number was skewed by a tiny number of possessions. In actuality, KU won the game like it has most others this season: by simply outscoring its opponent.

A good offensive rebounding night and an ability to get to the free-throw line helped KU get to an impressive 1.19 points per possession, and that was just enough to counter a weak defensive performance where it surrendered 1.17 PPP.

As mentioned in an earlier blog, KU continues to be a team of extremes: spectacular offensively and subpar defensively compared to other Self teams.

The Jayhawks' adjusted defensive efficiency slipped to 30th after Tuesday, and as a reminder, Self has never had a team finish worse than 25th in his 11 seasons at KU.

If I'm Self, I'm starting to consider all options. Press more to better dictate tempo? Use more Triangle-and-2? 3-2 zone? Switch defenses more?

This team's first-shot defense (72nd in eFG% defense) isn't good enough to make up for its other deficiencies, and with only a few weeks left, it might be time for Self to consider additional thinking outside the box.
TCJ Newell Post


VIDEO: Half-time at Texas Tech featured a dunk contest. By the TT football team

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With Oklahoma State’s basketball season going down in flames amid seven straight losses after being ranked No. 8 in the country less than a month ago, it’s time for uber-booster T. Boone Pickens to make Kansas head coach Bill Self an “indecent proposal” in the form of a $10 million-per-year contract.

That’s right, $10 million per year. That’s over twice what Self is currently making at KU ($4.75 million/year) and almost three million more than the highest-paid college basketball coach (Coach K at $7.2 million/year). It would also make Self the highest paid coach in American sports (the New Orleans Saints’ Sean Payton currently holds that title at over $8 million per year).

I know it sounds crazy. But Oklahoma State has to do something drastic after seeing a historically great program that most recently excelled under Eddie Sutton in the 1990s and early 2000s not make it past the first weekend of the NCAA tournament since 2005. It can’t settle for the next hot mid-major coach like it did with Travis Ford or even an above-average coach at a major program. The Cowboys need to swing for the fences, and it would be doing so by trying again to bring Self home to his alma mater after OK State failed in 2008.

What’s left to ponder if you are Pickens? Self is one of the greatest college basketball coaches in the game today, if not the greatest. Oklahoma is home for Self and his wife and Okie State is their alma mater. $10 million is an obscene amount of money to pay a college basketball coach - unless you are Boone Pickens.

…Granted, Self already turned down a reported $4 million per year deal in 2008 with a whopping $6 million signing bonus. He’s a god in Kansas who loves everything about living and coaching in Lawrence. A friend of mine that covered KU basketball for the Kansas City Star has told me that Self wouldn’t leave Kansas under any circumstance. Period.

But I’m not so sure about that. Everyone has a price and if Oklahoma State offered Self a $10 million per year contract to come home, he’d be forced to seriously consider it even if he felt like he was being treated like a million-dollar prostitute, a la Demi Moore in Indecent Proposal.
LostLetterman: Indecent Proposal: Boone Pickens should make Bill Self $10 million offer

The University of Kansas is dropping a request before the state Legislature for bonding authority to build upscale apartments that would house basketball players and other students.

University spokesman Tim Caboni said Tuesday the decision to withdraw the bonding proposal came after a House committee rejected it last week.

The university was seeking bonding authority for $17.5 million to help build apartments near Allen Fieldhouse that would house 66 students. Thirty-two of the apartments would be for men's and women's basketball players.

Some members of the House Education Budget Committee last week called the project extravagant and suggested the school's athletic boosters could help build it.

Caboni told The Lawrence Journal-World the university will explore other options to complete the apartment project, but he didn't provide any details.
KAKE


After playing the majority of three seasons on the wing with future WNBA talent Angel Goodrich at the point, Kansas senior CeCe Harper is adjusting back to point guard, her natural position.

Harper was a three-year team captain at James Madison High School in San Antonio and set program record with 2,353 points and 524 assists in her time there. However, once she got to Kansas, she struggled to find her place on the team.

She appeared in nearly every game her sophomore and junior seasons with 21 starts, but it was not until this year that she really hit her stride.

“It was a struggle at first, but I think I’m getting back into the flow,” Harper said. “It’s just getting back and comfortable at that position.”

Harper, the Jayhawks’ lone four-year senior, is leading the team with 5.4 assists and 1.8 steals per game while adding 10 points. She also recently broke into the top 10 for single season assists at Kansas with 109 so far this season.

“I don’t know that she would have thought or I would have that she would play 40 minutes at the point for us,” Kansas head coach Bonnie Henrickson said. “She didn’t start early in the year for us, but has certainly taken over that position and has done a good job her senior year of playing a position she has played sparingly.”

She’s had to serve as an emotional leader as well for the Jayhawks who are 12-14 overall and 5-9 in conference play with five freshmen and a sophomore.
KC Star

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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

Barry Hinson, ladies and gentlemen: #TMMX pic.twitter.com/0SqLenpPVJ ‏@midmajority

After two impressive wins against conference opponents, Texas fell victim to the strength of the Big 12 on Tuesday night.

At the Hilton Coliseum in Ames, Iowa, No. 19 Texas (20-6, 9-4 Big 12) had trouble pulling past No. 17 Iowa State (20-5, 8-5 Big 12), falling to the Cyclones 85-76.

Texas failed to control the Big 12’s leading scorer, Melvin Ejim, who coming into Tuesday’s contest averaged 18.9 points per game. Ejim tallied 25 points and eight rebounds, leading Iowa State to a split in the season series with Texas. But Ejim wasn’t the only player who gave the Longhorns trouble; a total of three Cyclones passed the 20-point mark on the night.
Link


...this is the best week of the year so far in college basketball.

More precisely, the best weekend. There are fascinating and important games all over the place. Conference races, NCAA seeding and bubble drama will be hashed out from Saturday morning until Sunday night. The 10 weekend games you must be aware of if you call yourself a serious college hoops fan:

…Louisville at Cincinnati (2). When: Saturday at noon ET. Another rematch of a big-time meeting from a few weeks ago. The Bearcats got a huge lead, weathered a furious Cardinals comeback and won at the end behind the heroics of Sean Kilpatrick. Cincinnati is a game up on Louisville for first in the American Athletic Conference, and a victory in this game could almost cinch the league title for Mick Cronin’s team. But the Cardinals have been brutalizing teams since that loss and lead the nation in margin of victory at 21.3 points per game. If that holds up, it would be the highest since Duke (24.7) in 1999. Six of the last 15 national leaders in scoring margin won the national title (Kentucky 2012, North Carolina 2009, Kansas 2008, Florida 2007, UNC 2005, Duke 2001); two lost in the title game (Kansas 2003, Duke 1999); five had No. 1 or 2 seeds but were upset before reaching the Final Four (Gonzaga twice, Kentucky 2010, Duke 2002, Stanford 2000) and two were small-school outliers (Belmont 2011, Texas A&M-Corpus Christi 2006).

…Seeding lines 5-12 will be truer and fairer (23). The most significant change to the process is in seeding, where the rigid old rules of trying to avoid conference rematches earlier in the tournament have been relaxed. The reason: with conferences expanding, it’s gotten progressively harder to avoid conflicts, and the committee was skewing the seed lines too far to make its rules work. Now the goal will be to keep everyone where they were seeded to begin with.

So these are the new rules: play a team once in league play and you could meet them again in the round of 32; play a team twice and you could meet them again in the round of 16; play a team three times and you could meet them in the regional final – which used to be the old threshold for league competitors. Thus if, say, Syracuse is a No. 1 seed and Virginia is a No. 8, and the two don’t meet in the ACC tourney, they could conceivably match up in the round of 32 because they have only played once.

Bottom line: a No. 7 seed is not going to be jerked down to a No. 9 or inflated to a No. 5 anymore in order to make the bracket work. That’s a good thing.

The technology has advanced radically (24). Just a decade ago, NCAA staffers were using Velcro nametags to stick teams on a board. More recently than that, the floor of the selection committee war room was covered in so much paper it looked like a ticker tape parade went through. Gary Johnson, keeper of the NCAA’s RPI numbers for the past 30 years, said the RPI used to “eat my house,” due to the reams of printouts.

Now the process is virtually all electronic, and set up for maximum efficiency. In-house computer programmer Colin Chappell has developed software that makes every potential bracketing roadblock and conflict obvious, saving plenty of trial-and-error time. For an institution that doesn’t change easily, the NCAA has caught up with the technological times when it comes to filling out the 68-team field.
Yahoo Forde Minutes

Took a road trip thru frozen Midwest. Shockers made the cover. @KWCHCindy @WichitaState pic.twitter.com/BVniVzUiDv ‏@thomaslake

Duke head coach Mike Krzyzewski says his team’s success has been built around one player, freshman Jabari Parker. 

“Well he's not normal ... You know, he's special,” Krzyzewski told CBS This Morning. “And, over the years, USA Basketball, at Duke ... I've dealt with some of the greatest players in the world as they've developed. They look at things differently. That's why they're different. It's not just talent. Their emotional makeup, their mental makeup, and Jabari is a treasure. He's a treasure to the game. And he's also a treasure to human beings, but to our game, he's pure ...  And that treasure and that purity needs to be developed along the way. And we're part of that process right now, and we need to do the very best job possible in developing that.”

WRAL

VIDEO: Indiana’s roof falling


Big XII composite schedule (includes results, highlights, stats)


ESPN College GameDay Schedule


2013-14 TV Schedule

Recruiting

2/18/14, 11:59 AM
F Kelly Oubre Jr. (@K_Ctmd22): 15 PTS, 3 AST, 3 STL for Findlay Prep in a win over Planet Athlete. #ROCKCHALK #EYBL d1circuit.com/game/show/6271…
@D1Circuit


2/18/14, 9:06 PM
Coppell vs Duncanville Friday as Myles Turner's Trinity career is over. Coppell pulls off upset.
@ihss_dfw


2/18/14, 9:18 PM
Final: Coppell's run continues. Upsets Euless Trinity, 47-43, in 5A 1st round. #txhshoops Myles Turner's final HS game: 13 pt. 9 reb. 6 blk.
@corbettsmithDMN


For a moment, it looked as though the game would get away from Coppell (22-12). Two thunderous dunks late in the third quarter by center Myles Turner gave Trinity (24-7) a 31-25 lead.

“From that point there, we rallied together and finished strong, which is what we’ve done the past two games,” Coppell guard Landon Goesling said.

Pehl echoed that sentiment, using the word “resilient” three times in a five-second span to describe his team.

“All year long, our defense will manage to keep us in games,” Pehl said. “They went on a couple of runs where they looked really good but then we stuffed them.”

With Trinity trailing by three with 5.8 seconds left, Turner made the first free throw in a one-and-one situation. But he never attempted his second shot. Trinity’s Jalen Jackson was called for a lane violation, falling into the lane after jockeying for position with Coppell’s Simi Socks.

The made free throw was the only point for Turner in the fourth quarter, as he finished with 13 points, nine rebounds and six blocks.
Dallas MN


Myles Turner
Biancardi - Texas
Finkelstein - Texas
Francisco - Kansas
Stovall - Kansas
Rankin - Texas

JaQuan Lyle
Biancardi - Kansas
Finkelstein - Kansas
Francisco - Kansas
Stovall - Kansas
ESPN ($) Predicting the uncommitted ESPN 100s

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Jayson Tatum stuffed the stat sheet and No. 3 large school Chaminade (20-2) rolled over Hazelwood East (13-8) Tuesday night at home.

Tatum scored 25 points, grabbed 13 rebounds, handed out eight assists, blocked five shots and had three steals as the Red Devils dominated the Spartans.
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