And shorts? This could be interesting.
Kansas
Blowing the whistle on shoddy officiating
"I was told that I don't want to see the tape," Self said.
In other words, those people saw the same thing Self saw, the same thing ESPN analyst Dick Vitale mentioned during the broadcast and the same thing that still eats at Kansas fans days later.
The charging call on Robinson -- which came with 1:33 remaining -- was a bad one. The whistle should've never been blown.
"It comes with the territory," Self said. "[The game] didn't come down to one call."
Indeed it didn't.
Kansas coughed up an eight-point lead with less than three minutes remaining. Point guard Tyshawn Taylor missed a pair of free throws and Jayhawks defenders left Missouri's Marcus Denmon open for a pair of 3-pointers during the Tigers' 11-0, game-ending run. To say that one call cost Kansas the game is ridiculous, a discredit to Missouri.
But at the very least, it altered it.
Unfortunately, the situation has been commonplace in college basketball this season.
Predictions for Wednesday's big games
Kansas 78, Baylor 69: The Jayhawks are 16-2 all time versus the Bears, and they'll be full of fire after choking away Saturday's game at Missouri.
Baylor has won its last four games, but the Bears won't beat Kansas on Wednesday if they don't start making better decisions on offense. Backup guard A.J. Walton isn't the guy you want shooting pull-up jumpers from 18 feet with three minutes left in a tight game. Forward Cory Jefferson isn't a 3-point shooter and 6-foot-9 freshman Quincy Miller has no business lowering his head and trying to take people off the dribble from the perimeter. I'm not saying he's not good enough to do it, but that's not Miller's game. You can sneak by bottom-tier teams such as Texas A&M and Oklahoma State playing that way. But that won't fly against a top-10 squad such as Kansas.
Interesting quick facts
1. Indiana's victory Saturday at Purdue was its first non-Penn State Big Ten road win in four years.
2. Kentucky has defeated just one ranked team (then-No. 4 Louisville) in the last two months.
3. Missouri's Marcus Denmon had missed 31 of his previous 36 attempts from 3-point range before going 6-for-9 from beyond the arc in Saturday's win over Kansas.
Grade D: Cousy Award committee: While I agreed with most of the 12 finalists for the award, the group erred in a major way by leaving Kansas guard Tyshawn Taylor off its list. Taylor is averaging a team-high 19 points and 5.1 assists against Big 12 competition while shooting 52.2 percent from the field. He's also 3-1 in head-to-head matchups with finalists Casper Ware (Long Beach State), Phil Pressey (Missouri), Pierre Jackson (Baylor) and Aaron Craft (Ohio State). Taylor's only loss was to Pressey's Tigers. Taylor scored 21 points in that game while helping hold Pressey to two points.
ESPN Jason King
Is Davis the national player of the year? I'm hesitant to go that far yet, just because we have two other deserving candidates who dominate their team's offenses and make huge contributions on the defensive glass. Those would be Kansas' Thomas Robinson and Ohio State's Jared Sullinger. Davis dominates on D and is a catch-it-and-dunk-it dude* on offense. He's amazing at that, but T-Rob and Sullinger work like mad to create offense in the post, which has to count for something.
SI Luke Winn
Wednesday's men's basketball Top 10 matchup between No. 6 Baylor and No. 7 Kansas is sold out, the Baylor Department of Athletics announced Tuesday. The game is scheduled to tip at 6:03 p.m. CST on ESPN2; Jon Sciambi (play-by-play), Fran Fraschilla (analyst) and Holly Rowe (sideline reporter) will call the game.
The only remaining tickets are for Baylor faculty, staff and students, and those will be distributed at the door on game day, just as they are for all home games.
Since dropping back-to-back games to Kansas and Missouri last month, Baylor (21-2, 8-2) has won four straight games and is in a three-way tie atop the Big 12 Conference standings with the Jayhawks and the Tigers. Kansas leads the all-time series 17-2. Baylor will face a nationally ranked Kansas team for the 18th consecutive meeting; Wednesday will be the 11th meeting with the Jayhawks ranked in the Top 10.
It is the 10th Ferrell Center sellout in Scott Drew's nine-year tenure at Baylor and the third consecutive advance sellout this season.
Baylor AD
To avoid another crippling defeat, the Bears need to stop Robinson.
“You don’t want to give him angles, so you want to make him earn everything,” head coach Scott Drew said. “You don’t want to give him transition buckets, and then rebounding-wise, you just have to make sure that if he does get it, it’s not from a lack of effort, meaning you’re doing everything you can to block him out.”
Rebounding will be key in the upcoming game. In Baylor’s previous game against Kansas, the Bears were out-rebounded 36-21. In their only other loss, the Missouri Tigers also grabbed more rebounds than the Bears.
“Thomas Robinson is a different kind of dude. He’s super good,” freshman Quincy Miller said. “He’s exactly what you want a power forward to be.”
The Bears now know what they need to do to beat the Jayhawks.
“We can’t shoot that many jump shots this time,” Miller said. “We need to attack the basket.”
Senior Quincy Acy echoed this message.
“They were more aggressive than us. We started settling for jumpers as a team, and that’s not what we do. That’s not what we should do,” Acy said. “We have a lot of different bigs that have different skill sets that we have to take advantage of and stop settling for jumpers. Myself included.”
Baylor maintains that Kansas will see a different team this time around. Last time these teams met, junior Pierre Jackson was coming off the bench. He has since been named the starter, and the chemistry has improved.
“We learned how to play off of each other way better than [we did] before,” Miller said.
Acy said Jackson brought a play style that really boosted the Bears’ offense.
“It took a little while to get used to [Jackson’s speed]. But just playing in practice and open gym and stuff, we got adjusted to it. He plays at a great pace. You like it because it gets the defense on their heels, but at the same time you almost get a wow-factor just watching him,” Acy said.
Baylor Lariat
Kansas and Baylor — two of three schools that, along with Missouri, headed into the week with a share of first place in the Big 12 basketball standings — illustrate that not all programs in the top 10 in the national rankings take the same path.
KU coach Bill Self’s way has worked better and for longer than BU coach Scott Drew’s, but it’s difficult to argue with Drew’s method at the moment since his team, which features McDonald’s All-Americans Perry Jones III, Quincy Miller and several other serious talents, is ranked sixth in the country.
Self, coaching without a McDonald’s All-American on the roster for the first time since his 1999-2000 Tulsa squad, has power forward Thomas Robinson, a national player of the year candidate, and point guard Tyshawn Taylor, a first-team All-Big 12 contender, three juniors with pretty good talent, and sixth and seventh men recruited to KU as walk-ons. The Jayhawks are ranked seventh in the nation.
In recent years, Drew has hit more recruiting grand slams than Self, who wins more than Drew.
Based on how it looks from the outside, Drew must promise starting assignments to top recruits. Self makes his players earn spots, the best means of getting them to do what he wants. It’s not what a coach wants his players to do that separates coaches. It’s getting all five players on the court to do what he wants them to do that makes a coach stand above peers.
LJW
“I think everybody talks about their athletic ability and length and rightfully so,” said KU coach Bill Self. “They are unselfish and share the ball. Their team is so hard to guard because there’s balance.
“The key to me will be rebounding. We rebounded the ball so well against them the first time,” added Self. The Jayhawks, paced by Thomas Robinson’s 14 boards and Jeff Withey’s 10, won the board battle, 39-24. “They are playing better, fast on the perimeter and of course they’ve got so much length inside. It should be another great atmosphere, one we’ve got to let Saturday (loss at Missouri) go and focus in on Wednesday. We can’t let one (loss) become two. Now it’s time to become mad and try to take it out on a very good team Wednesday.”
…“The last time we played, they really took it to us. They definitely played well, and we’d have liked to play better,” said Baylor coach Scott Drew. He is 1-9 versus KU; Self 9-1 at KU (9-2 overall) versus BU.
“That’s the great thing. The home court in the Big 12 does give you a big advantage,” Drew added “We’ve got to do a better job of trying to minimize their runs. We didn’t answer the bell in that one as we did in 17 games previous to that.”
…Robinson says he’s motivated to avoid the agony of defeat for a second straight game. KU has gone 227 games without consecutive losses, which is the longest active streak in NCAA Division I. KU’s last two straight losses were Jan. 14 vs. Kansas State (59-57 in Allen Fieldhouse) and Jan. 16 at Missouri (89-86 overtime in Mizzou Arena) during the 2005-06 season.
“It’s just a feeling of not wanting to lose again. You still have that bad taste from the last game, so going into the game after that you want to get that taste out of your mouth,” Robinson said. “You do not want to have a longer feeling of revenge.”
Noted Taylor: “I don’t think we like the feeling of losing. We always come in with a good attitude and we try to get better and learn from our mistakes that we made in the previous game.”
LJW
The biggest college basketball game in Texas this season comes tonight in Waco, where sixth-ranked Baylor plays seventh-ranked Kansas.
With neither the NCAA nor a major conference scheduling a postseason tournament in the state this year — and the Longhorns out of the Big 12 race — this will be the closest we get to a premier postseason-type game.
King Kansas has won seven consecutive conference championships. Baylor is chasing its first.
"Until somebody beats them, definitely it is their league,'' Bears coach Scott Drew said.
Baylor will get a taste in the next four days of what the Final Four might be like, facing Kansas tonight before a trip to No. 4 Missouri on Saturday. The Jayhawks pummeled the Bears 92-74 in Lawrence.
"We went in there 17-0 and didn't answer the bell,'' Drew said. "You have to defend your home court to give yourself a chance to win a conference championship, so this is one we need.''
Austin Statesman
In a men's basketball season marked by multiple milestones, Baylor has an opportunity this week to position itself to do something unseen in Waco for 62 years.
The sixth-ranked Bears (21-2, 8-2 Big 12) could win a conference championship. That has not happened since Baylor earned a share of the Southwest Conference title en route to the school's most recent Final Four appearance in 1950.
Baylor has finished as a league runner-up eight times since its last conference title. But it has happened just once (in 2009-10) in the last 24 seasons.
Yet a fresh banner could soon hang from the Ferrell Center rafters if "Baby Clutch," the two Quincys and PJ3 continue to carry coach Scott Drew's team to the type of nail-biting victories that have become common for a team that is 7-1 in games decided by five points or fewer.
The primary drawback to this title blueprint? None of those victories came against No. 7 Kansas (18-5, 8-2) or No. 4 Missouri (22-2, 9-2), the teams Baylor must pass in the league standings -- and will face this week -- in efforts to claim the school's first title as a Big 12 member.
…"That comes before the national championship," said Acy, a senior. "Right now, we're focused on the Big 12 championship. That's the only thing we can control now. It's something we've never done and it's something I've had my eye on since I got here."
…The next two games will tell a lot about the Bears' title chances. Drew said his players embrace the opportunity and understand the urgency.
"Any time you have a chance to win a conference title, you need to take advantage," Drew said. "Those things don't come around that often. In a conference tournament, you can get lucky.... But to play it out for two and a half months and have the best record, that says a lot."
Star-Telegram
In this remarkable run, the Jayhawks have played 227 games since the dip in 2006. According to Associated Press research, the next school on the list is Duke, at 112 games. But the Blue Devils, coming off a home loss to Miami, on Sunday, have a difficult task tonight at North Carolina.
In its run, Kansas has won so many games — 200 to be exact — there haven’t been many opportunities to lose two straight.
Of the 27 losses in the run, five ended a season, and KU won the opening game the next year, so no there were carryover consecutive losses. That leaves 22 games in which Kansas came off a loss, including tonight’s contest. Some were big victories. Earlier this year, the Jayhawks beat Georgetown in the Maul Invitational opener coming off a loss to Kentucky. In 2010, KU followed a loss at Oklahoma State with a home victory over fifth-ranked Kansas State.
In this stretch, Kansas won or shared every Big 12 championship, and it has owned winning streaks of at least 10 games a total of 10 times.
The most common post-loss opponent has been: Colorado, five times. Not all the victories over the Buffaloes were a breeze. Last season, the Jayhawks traveled to Boulder without Thomas Robinson, who had just lost his mother. Kansas outlasted Alec Burks’ Colorado team by four.
“We always come back with a good attitude, and learn from our mistakes,” Taylor said.
Against Missouri on Saturday, many of those mistakes were bundled in the final 3 minutes, when Kansas lost an eight-point lead. Two offensive fouls, a turnover, two missed free throws and a final desperation shot, along with furious play by the Tigers, sent Kansas to defeat.
KC Star
The Jayhawks also came away with confidence they can perform in a hostile environment. The atmosphere at Baylor’s Ferrell Center should be tamer than the one KU encountered Saturday, and even if it’s not, the Jayhawks know they can play through the hate.
“That homecourt crowd at Missouri didn’t keep us from having an eight-point lead with under three (minutes) left,” Self said. “It’s still possible for visiting teams to go play well in tough environments. That’s what we’re going to have to do.”
That doesn’t meaning forgetting about Missouri, at least not entirely. In the right proportion, pain isn’t an awful thing.
“It’s going to be something we think about,” Taylor said. “I’m sure it’s going to be in our heads, but we’re definitely not going to dwell on it.”
TCJ
BOTTOM LINE: It’s a second straight top-10 opponent on the road for Kansas. Bill Self liked the way his team played in a three-point loss at Missouri — for 37 minutes. Then it all came apart. In Kansas’ two league losses (the other was at Iowa State), the Jayhawks faded down the stretch and couldn’t get stops. If KU reaches that point tonight, look for improvement. But that’s the key, keeping it close to the end.
KC Star
More than 20 years before Kevin Garnett stood in the Boston Celtics locker room praising Paul Pierce for passing Larry Bird as the second-leading scorer in franchise history, the two met for the first time on the Inglewood High School basketball court. Only teenagers, they were still developing their games. But their chemistry needed little work. They clicked instantly and formed a lifelong bond that has lasted through lengthy NBA careers, an NBA Championship, numerous All-Star games, and, on Tuesday night, a legendary milestone. “The first time we were on the court, it was beautiful,” Garnett said following the Celtics 94-84 win over the Charlotte Bobcats. “First time I stepped into Inglewood High, we stepped on the floor, we dapped, said what’s up, had a small conversation, we practiced, and it was instant chemistry.”
…Looking back on the first time they met, Garnett would not have shot down the notion of their shared success. If someone had told him as a teenager that one day he and Pierce would be teammates, win a title, and experience Pierce breaking Bird’s scoring mark together, he would have bought into it. “I would totally believe them,” he said. “I’d be like, ‘You’re crazy as hell but I believe you.’ It’s good that we can sit back and joke about holes in our shoes and playing with itty-bitty shorts and all this other stuff, and then to be full circle right here, it’s great. So congratulations to The Truth.”
CSNNE
Throwback Thursday 2/2 Edition: Bud Stallworth
LJW: Jayhawks in the NBA
KU alumnus Daniels bequeaths $2.4 million
VOTE for the Kansas Jayhawks student section
VOTE for Coach Self's Assists Foundation
Both teams enter tonight’s game with a handful of problems. The Jayhawks (16-6 overall, 5-5 Big 12) have lost four of their last five games and turned a 4-1 conference start into a 5-5 grind that has seen more bad than good of late. The Longhorns (13-9, 3-7) also have struggled during recent weeks, dropping three straight to Iowa State, Kansas State and Texas Tech.
“I think both teams are desperate, for lack of a better word,” KU coach Bonnie Henrickson said. “We’ve both lost and are on a skid here and are both looking to try to get it right.”
While many of the Jayhawks’ recent losses have come partly because of the opponent and partly because of KU beating itself with silly mistakes and a lack of focus, the Longhorns seem to have struggled because of injuries.
LJW
"I was told that I don't want to see the tape," Self said.
In other words, those people saw the same thing Self saw, the same thing ESPN analyst Dick Vitale mentioned during the broadcast and the same thing that still eats at Kansas fans days later.
The charging call on Robinson -- which came with 1:33 remaining -- was a bad one. The whistle should've never been blown.
"It comes with the territory," Self said. "[The game] didn't come down to one call."
Indeed it didn't.
Kansas coughed up an eight-point lead with less than three minutes remaining. Point guard Tyshawn Taylor missed a pair of free throws and Jayhawks defenders left Missouri's Marcus Denmon open for a pair of 3-pointers during the Tigers' 11-0, game-ending run. To say that one call cost Kansas the game is ridiculous, a discredit to Missouri.
But at the very least, it altered it.
Unfortunately, the situation has been commonplace in college basketball this season.
Predictions for Wednesday's big games
Kansas 78, Baylor 69: The Jayhawks are 16-2 all time versus the Bears, and they'll be full of fire after choking away Saturday's game at Missouri.
Baylor has won its last four games, but the Bears won't beat Kansas on Wednesday if they don't start making better decisions on offense. Backup guard A.J. Walton isn't the guy you want shooting pull-up jumpers from 18 feet with three minutes left in a tight game. Forward Cory Jefferson isn't a 3-point shooter and 6-foot-9 freshman Quincy Miller has no business lowering his head and trying to take people off the dribble from the perimeter. I'm not saying he's not good enough to do it, but that's not Miller's game. You can sneak by bottom-tier teams such as Texas A&M and Oklahoma State playing that way. But that won't fly against a top-10 squad such as Kansas.
Interesting quick facts
1. Indiana's victory Saturday at Purdue was its first non-Penn State Big Ten road win in four years.
2. Kentucky has defeated just one ranked team (then-No. 4 Louisville) in the last two months.
3. Missouri's Marcus Denmon had missed 31 of his previous 36 attempts from 3-point range before going 6-for-9 from beyond the arc in Saturday's win over Kansas.
Grade D: Cousy Award committee: While I agreed with most of the 12 finalists for the award, the group erred in a major way by leaving Kansas guard Tyshawn Taylor off its list. Taylor is averaging a team-high 19 points and 5.1 assists against Big 12 competition while shooting 52.2 percent from the field. He's also 3-1 in head-to-head matchups with finalists Casper Ware (Long Beach State), Phil Pressey (Missouri), Pierre Jackson (Baylor) and Aaron Craft (Ohio State). Taylor's only loss was to Pressey's Tigers. Taylor scored 21 points in that game while helping hold Pressey to two points.
ESPN Jason King
Is Davis the national player of the year? I'm hesitant to go that far yet, just because we have two other deserving candidates who dominate their team's offenses and make huge contributions on the defensive glass. Those would be Kansas' Thomas Robinson and Ohio State's Jared Sullinger. Davis dominates on D and is a catch-it-and-dunk-it dude* on offense. He's amazing at that, but T-Rob and Sullinger work like mad to create offense in the post, which has to count for something.
SI Luke Winn
Wednesday's men's basketball Top 10 matchup between No. 6 Baylor and No. 7 Kansas is sold out, the Baylor Department of Athletics announced Tuesday. The game is scheduled to tip at 6:03 p.m. CST on ESPN2; Jon Sciambi (play-by-play), Fran Fraschilla (analyst) and Holly Rowe (sideline reporter) will call the game.
The only remaining tickets are for Baylor faculty, staff and students, and those will be distributed at the door on game day, just as they are for all home games.
Since dropping back-to-back games to Kansas and Missouri last month, Baylor (21-2, 8-2) has won four straight games and is in a three-way tie atop the Big 12 Conference standings with the Jayhawks and the Tigers. Kansas leads the all-time series 17-2. Baylor will face a nationally ranked Kansas team for the 18th consecutive meeting; Wednesday will be the 11th meeting with the Jayhawks ranked in the Top 10.
It is the 10th Ferrell Center sellout in Scott Drew's nine-year tenure at Baylor and the third consecutive advance sellout this season.
Baylor AD
To avoid another crippling defeat, the Bears need to stop Robinson.
“You don’t want to give him angles, so you want to make him earn everything,” head coach Scott Drew said. “You don’t want to give him transition buckets, and then rebounding-wise, you just have to make sure that if he does get it, it’s not from a lack of effort, meaning you’re doing everything you can to block him out.”
Rebounding will be key in the upcoming game. In Baylor’s previous game against Kansas, the Bears were out-rebounded 36-21. In their only other loss, the Missouri Tigers also grabbed more rebounds than the Bears.
“Thomas Robinson is a different kind of dude. He’s super good,” freshman Quincy Miller said. “He’s exactly what you want a power forward to be.”
The Bears now know what they need to do to beat the Jayhawks.
“We can’t shoot that many jump shots this time,” Miller said. “We need to attack the basket.”
Senior Quincy Acy echoed this message.
“They were more aggressive than us. We started settling for jumpers as a team, and that’s not what we do. That’s not what we should do,” Acy said. “We have a lot of different bigs that have different skill sets that we have to take advantage of and stop settling for jumpers. Myself included.”
Baylor maintains that Kansas will see a different team this time around. Last time these teams met, junior Pierre Jackson was coming off the bench. He has since been named the starter, and the chemistry has improved.
“We learned how to play off of each other way better than [we did] before,” Miller said.
Acy said Jackson brought a play style that really boosted the Bears’ offense.
“It took a little while to get used to [Jackson’s speed]. But just playing in practice and open gym and stuff, we got adjusted to it. He plays at a great pace. You like it because it gets the defense on their heels, but at the same time you almost get a wow-factor just watching him,” Acy said.
Baylor Lariat
Kansas and Baylor — two of three schools that, along with Missouri, headed into the week with a share of first place in the Big 12 basketball standings — illustrate that not all programs in the top 10 in the national rankings take the same path.
KU coach Bill Self’s way has worked better and for longer than BU coach Scott Drew’s, but it’s difficult to argue with Drew’s method at the moment since his team, which features McDonald’s All-Americans Perry Jones III, Quincy Miller and several other serious talents, is ranked sixth in the country.
Self, coaching without a McDonald’s All-American on the roster for the first time since his 1999-2000 Tulsa squad, has power forward Thomas Robinson, a national player of the year candidate, and point guard Tyshawn Taylor, a first-team All-Big 12 contender, three juniors with pretty good talent, and sixth and seventh men recruited to KU as walk-ons. The Jayhawks are ranked seventh in the nation.
In recent years, Drew has hit more recruiting grand slams than Self, who wins more than Drew.
Based on how it looks from the outside, Drew must promise starting assignments to top recruits. Self makes his players earn spots, the best means of getting them to do what he wants. It’s not what a coach wants his players to do that separates coaches. It’s getting all five players on the court to do what he wants them to do that makes a coach stand above peers.
LJW
“I think everybody talks about their athletic ability and length and rightfully so,” said KU coach Bill Self. “They are unselfish and share the ball. Their team is so hard to guard because there’s balance.
“The key to me will be rebounding. We rebounded the ball so well against them the first time,” added Self. The Jayhawks, paced by Thomas Robinson’s 14 boards and Jeff Withey’s 10, won the board battle, 39-24. “They are playing better, fast on the perimeter and of course they’ve got so much length inside. It should be another great atmosphere, one we’ve got to let Saturday (loss at Missouri) go and focus in on Wednesday. We can’t let one (loss) become two. Now it’s time to become mad and try to take it out on a very good team Wednesday.”
…“The last time we played, they really took it to us. They definitely played well, and we’d have liked to play better,” said Baylor coach Scott Drew. He is 1-9 versus KU; Self 9-1 at KU (9-2 overall) versus BU.
“That’s the great thing. The home court in the Big 12 does give you a big advantage,” Drew added “We’ve got to do a better job of trying to minimize their runs. We didn’t answer the bell in that one as we did in 17 games previous to that.”
…Robinson says he’s motivated to avoid the agony of defeat for a second straight game. KU has gone 227 games without consecutive losses, which is the longest active streak in NCAA Division I. KU’s last two straight losses were Jan. 14 vs. Kansas State (59-57 in Allen Fieldhouse) and Jan. 16 at Missouri (89-86 overtime in Mizzou Arena) during the 2005-06 season.
“It’s just a feeling of not wanting to lose again. You still have that bad taste from the last game, so going into the game after that you want to get that taste out of your mouth,” Robinson said. “You do not want to have a longer feeling of revenge.”
Noted Taylor: “I don’t think we like the feeling of losing. We always come in with a good attitude and we try to get better and learn from our mistakes that we made in the previous game.”
LJW
The biggest college basketball game in Texas this season comes tonight in Waco, where sixth-ranked Baylor plays seventh-ranked Kansas.
With neither the NCAA nor a major conference scheduling a postseason tournament in the state this year — and the Longhorns out of the Big 12 race — this will be the closest we get to a premier postseason-type game.
King Kansas has won seven consecutive conference championships. Baylor is chasing its first.
"Until somebody beats them, definitely it is their league,'' Bears coach Scott Drew said.
Baylor will get a taste in the next four days of what the Final Four might be like, facing Kansas tonight before a trip to No. 4 Missouri on Saturday. The Jayhawks pummeled the Bears 92-74 in Lawrence.
"We went in there 17-0 and didn't answer the bell,'' Drew said. "You have to defend your home court to give yourself a chance to win a conference championship, so this is one we need.''
Austin Statesman
In a men's basketball season marked by multiple milestones, Baylor has an opportunity this week to position itself to do something unseen in Waco for 62 years.
The sixth-ranked Bears (21-2, 8-2 Big 12) could win a conference championship. That has not happened since Baylor earned a share of the Southwest Conference title en route to the school's most recent Final Four appearance in 1950.
Baylor has finished as a league runner-up eight times since its last conference title. But it has happened just once (in 2009-10) in the last 24 seasons.
Yet a fresh banner could soon hang from the Ferrell Center rafters if "Baby Clutch," the two Quincys and PJ3 continue to carry coach Scott Drew's team to the type of nail-biting victories that have become common for a team that is 7-1 in games decided by five points or fewer.
The primary drawback to this title blueprint? None of those victories came against No. 7 Kansas (18-5, 8-2) or No. 4 Missouri (22-2, 9-2), the teams Baylor must pass in the league standings -- and will face this week -- in efforts to claim the school's first title as a Big 12 member.
…"That comes before the national championship," said Acy, a senior. "Right now, we're focused on the Big 12 championship. That's the only thing we can control now. It's something we've never done and it's something I've had my eye on since I got here."
…The next two games will tell a lot about the Bears' title chances. Drew said his players embrace the opportunity and understand the urgency.
"Any time you have a chance to win a conference title, you need to take advantage," Drew said. "Those things don't come around that often. In a conference tournament, you can get lucky.... But to play it out for two and a half months and have the best record, that says a lot."
Star-Telegram
In this remarkable run, the Jayhawks have played 227 games since the dip in 2006. According to Associated Press research, the next school on the list is Duke, at 112 games. But the Blue Devils, coming off a home loss to Miami, on Sunday, have a difficult task tonight at North Carolina.
In its run, Kansas has won so many games — 200 to be exact — there haven’t been many opportunities to lose two straight.
Of the 27 losses in the run, five ended a season, and KU won the opening game the next year, so no there were carryover consecutive losses. That leaves 22 games in which Kansas came off a loss, including tonight’s contest. Some were big victories. Earlier this year, the Jayhawks beat Georgetown in the Maul Invitational opener coming off a loss to Kentucky. In 2010, KU followed a loss at Oklahoma State with a home victory over fifth-ranked Kansas State.
In this stretch, Kansas won or shared every Big 12 championship, and it has owned winning streaks of at least 10 games a total of 10 times.
The most common post-loss opponent has been: Colorado, five times. Not all the victories over the Buffaloes were a breeze. Last season, the Jayhawks traveled to Boulder without Thomas Robinson, who had just lost his mother. Kansas outlasted Alec Burks’ Colorado team by four.
“We always come back with a good attitude, and learn from our mistakes,” Taylor said.
Against Missouri on Saturday, many of those mistakes were bundled in the final 3 minutes, when Kansas lost an eight-point lead. Two offensive fouls, a turnover, two missed free throws and a final desperation shot, along with furious play by the Tigers, sent Kansas to defeat.
KC Star
The Jayhawks also came away with confidence they can perform in a hostile environment. The atmosphere at Baylor’s Ferrell Center should be tamer than the one KU encountered Saturday, and even if it’s not, the Jayhawks know they can play through the hate.
“That homecourt crowd at Missouri didn’t keep us from having an eight-point lead with under three (minutes) left,” Self said. “It’s still possible for visiting teams to go play well in tough environments. That’s what we’re going to have to do.”
That doesn’t meaning forgetting about Missouri, at least not entirely. In the right proportion, pain isn’t an awful thing.
“It’s going to be something we think about,” Taylor said. “I’m sure it’s going to be in our heads, but we’re definitely not going to dwell on it.”
TCJ
BOTTOM LINE: It’s a second straight top-10 opponent on the road for Kansas. Bill Self liked the way his team played in a three-point loss at Missouri — for 37 minutes. Then it all came apart. In Kansas’ two league losses (the other was at Iowa State), the Jayhawks faded down the stretch and couldn’t get stops. If KU reaches that point tonight, look for improvement. But that’s the key, keeping it close to the end.
KC Star
More than 20 years before Kevin Garnett stood in the Boston Celtics locker room praising Paul Pierce for passing Larry Bird as the second-leading scorer in franchise history, the two met for the first time on the Inglewood High School basketball court. Only teenagers, they were still developing their games. But their chemistry needed little work. They clicked instantly and formed a lifelong bond that has lasted through lengthy NBA careers, an NBA Championship, numerous All-Star games, and, on Tuesday night, a legendary milestone. “The first time we were on the court, it was beautiful,” Garnett said following the Celtics 94-84 win over the Charlotte Bobcats. “First time I stepped into Inglewood High, we stepped on the floor, we dapped, said what’s up, had a small conversation, we practiced, and it was instant chemistry.”
…Looking back on the first time they met, Garnett would not have shot down the notion of their shared success. If someone had told him as a teenager that one day he and Pierce would be teammates, win a title, and experience Pierce breaking Bird’s scoring mark together, he would have bought into it. “I would totally believe them,” he said. “I’d be like, ‘You’re crazy as hell but I believe you.’ It’s good that we can sit back and joke about holes in our shoes and playing with itty-bitty shorts and all this other stuff, and then to be full circle right here, it’s great. So congratulations to The Truth.”
CSNNE
Throwback Thursday 2/2 Edition: Bud Stallworth
LJW: Jayhawks in the NBA
KU alumnus Daniels bequeaths $2.4 million
VOTE for the Kansas Jayhawks student section
VOTE for Coach Self's Assists Foundation
Both teams enter tonight’s game with a handful of problems. The Jayhawks (16-6 overall, 5-5 Big 12) have lost four of their last five games and turned a 4-1 conference start into a 5-5 grind that has seen more bad than good of late. The Longhorns (13-9, 3-7) also have struggled during recent weeks, dropping three straight to Iowa State, Kansas State and Texas Tech.
“I think both teams are desperate, for lack of a better word,” KU coach Bonnie Henrickson said. “We’ve both lost and are on a skid here and are both looking to try to get it right.”
While many of the Jayhawks’ recent losses have come partly because of the opponent and partly because of KU beating itself with silly mistakes and a lack of focus, the Longhorns seem to have struggled because of injuries.
LJW
Big 12/College News
Big 12 Schedule & Results
Given Texas Tech’s status as the only team in the Big 12 without a conference victory, no one expected its basketball game with Kansas State on Tuesday night to be a thriller.
Still, few could have predicted it being as dull as it was.
At one point in the first half of K-State’s 65-46 victory, the home crowd turned to sarcasm to stay entertained. With both teams deadlocked in a five-plus minute scoring drought, fans were desperate to see the ball go through the net. So when Jordan Henriquez stepped up to the foul line and made the first of two free throws with 6:56 to go before the break, the student section erupted with applause.
It was one of the loudest cheers of the night, but K-State coach Frank Martin didn’t need to hear it to know things were going poorly. He saw the warning signs much earlier.
“The assistants came in after warm ups and they said, ‘We’re just giving you a heads up, this might not be very fun tonight. There’s just no enthusiasm out there,’ ” Martin said. “That’s how we played.”
WE
Le'Bryan Nash, for all the funkiness in this freshman season, said he's still more than comfortable taking the big shot, the game-winning shot.
“I live for those moments, the big moments,” Nash said.
But a game-winning blocked shot?
Credit Nash with two game-winners — a step-back 15-footer, then a swat at the buzzer — in the final big moments Tuesday night in Oklahoma State's 69-67 win over Iowa State inside Gallagher-Iba Arena.
In a game that featured eight ties and nine lead changes, the outcome essentially came down to the final few seconds.
The Oklahoman
The number of empty seats in Reed Arena was stark. For the finale of a 222-game rivalry, there were 9,792 tickets sold in a 12,989-seat building. It was the smallest A&M-Texas crowd in 10 years.
A&M ranks last in Big 12 home attendance this season, averaging 7,069.
Austin Statesman
One theme of conference realignment has been the end of long-standing rivalries, and often times, the hard feelings that accompany their demise.
Missouri, on their way to the SEC, wants to keep the Border War with Kansas. The Jayhawks’ response? “We’ll see.”
Texas A&M, also headed to the SEC, still wants to play Texas, even if it’s not on Thanksgiving. After losing the final Lone Star Showdown for the foreseeable future in dramatic fashion, it’s not difficult to understand why the Aggies want another crack at the Longhorns.
UT’s response? “Yeah… we’re booked.”
Now A&M looks like they’ll lose another Big 12 rival for similar reasons. Speaking to the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, Texas Tech athletic director Kirby Hocutt said his school would not schedule A&M in the future unless the two schools agreed to compete in nonconference matchups in every sport, not just football.
“We discussed it with all our head coaches,” Hocutt said, “and that’s something we as an athletic department and we as a group of coaches feel strongly about at this time.
“Our football schedule is set for the next two years. We’ll see if anything happens in the near future. But if down the road they’re interested in having that conversation, we would be willing to engage in it as well.”
Let’s start off by saying that this likely isn’t going to happen. It’s one thing if two programs were always out-of-conference rivals, but that’s not the case here. Also, A&M’s rivalry wasn’t nearly as big as the one with Texas, and the Aggies are probably more comfortable with losing a game against the Red Raiders than the Longhorns if they had to choose.
NBC Sports
Memphis is the latest school to sign up for a spot in the new Big East.
A person familiar with the decision says Memphis is joining the Big East for all sports in 2013.. The person spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because an official announcement would be made Wednesday.
The Big East announced it would hold a teleconference with Commissioner John Marinatto, University of Memphis President Shirley C. Raines and Memphis Athletic director R.C. Johnson, though it did not give any details about what would be discussed.
Johnson said a new conference would be held in Memphis after the teleconference to discuss the university's athletic affiliation.
AP
Syracuse has the stronger resume. Ohio State and North Carolina have more experience. Murray State is the lone unbeaten.
But there can be little doubt after top-ranked Kentucky obliterated No. 8 Florida 78-58 on Tuesday night that the Wildcats have entrenched themselves as the national title favorite.
…Doron Lamb led Kentucky with 18 points and 4 of 5 three-point shooting. Michael Kidd-Gilchrist chipped in 13 points and 13 rebounds. But the biggest game-changer was Davis, who may have overtaken Kansas' Thomas Robinson in the national player of the year race by dominating with his defense while also scoring 16 points on an array of alley-oop dunks and pick-and-roll-generated layups.
Yahoo
As Duke and North Carolina prepare to meet Wednesday in their first tilt of 2012, there will be lots of talk about which team has the better program. Most of these conversations will revolve around the same basic arguments: how many total wins, how many Final Fours, how many championships.
But what if you tried to measure the success of every college basketball team by another, more coldly practical measure: how much money its alumni have earned by playing the sport professionally?
The Wall Street Journal collected the names of every college player who entered the NBA in or after 1985, the year the NCAA tournament expanded to 64 teams (now 68). For all the players on that list, we looked up their total NBA compensation and assigned those dollars to the college teams they played for.
WSJ Basketball's Alumni Loot Index
Recruiting
Conner Frankamp continued his torrid run with 48 points against Bishop Carroll on Tuesday. Frankamp outscored Carroll by himself as the Redskins won 61-42.
…Heights shellacked West 78-51 for its 58th win in a row. The Falcons are now one game away from tying the state’s all-time record for consecutive wins. Perry Ellis went for 32 points in the win.
Video highlights at the link.
KWCH
Greg Dreiling keeps track of Perry Ellis.
“There’s a new thing called the Internet,’’ Dreiling wisecracked when asked his source of information.
But it wasn’t until recently that Dreiling, a scout for the Dallas Mavericks who has a daughter nearly as old as his now former City League basketball scoring record, knew Heights’ Ellis had broken his 31-year-old mark.
“I want a re-count,’’ he said.
If you know Dreiling at all, you know he’s far too laid back to stew over a scoring record. He enjoyed being the City League’s career scoring leader while it lasted, but he also knew it wouldn’t last. He’s surprised it made it this long.
Now Dreiling, who scored 1,888 career points during four years at Kapaun Mount Carmel from 1977-81, is No. 2. It doesn’t have quite the same ring.
…Dreiling is aware, too, of North junior guard Conner Frankamp, who last season broke Ricky Ross’ single-game scoring record of 47 points by scoring 52 against Northwest. Frankamp has had a 48-point game and two 47-point games this season and looks like a good bet to pass Dreiling on the career leaderboard next season.
“Obviously, that kid can really shoot,’’ Dreiling said. “And I know Perry’s teams have done very well. I also know both of those guys are going to KU.’’
That’s where Dreiling played his final three seasons of college basketball after transferring from Wichita State. He played in the 1986 Final Four with the Jayhawks.
“People have asked me throughout my life about what was my greatest basketball moment,’’ Dreiling said. “And they expect me to mention the Final Four or the NBA. But when I look back, for me it’s winning those three state championships at Kapaun in high school. You’re the guy on those teams that everybody was expecting to carry the big load.’’
Ellis, like Dreiling, has won three state high school championships. He might have a chance to make it four in March. Makes you wonder what he’ll say about them in 30 years.
Wichita Eagle
MARY PERSONS 73, WEST LAURENS 43
West Laurens 16-6-12-9--43
Mary Persons 21-21-20-11--73
West Laurens: Thomas 14, Quinton 2, Hinton 7, Turner 5, Stanley 7, Rozier 2, Smith 6.
Mary Persons: Rico Lyons 11, Jacoby Mitchell 4, Reno Lyons 4, Brannen Greene 25, Charles Sealey 16, Harry Williams 3, Parris Moore 10.
3-pointers: West Laurens 1 (Kitchens); Mary Persons 5 (Ri. Lions 2, Greene 3).
Records: Mary Persons 15-9, 10-7.
Next: Mary Persons at Rutland, 7:30 p.m., Friday.
Macon Telegraph
MaxPreps projects the McDonald's All-American team
Nike EYBL Schedule
Check here for the NCAA Recruiting Calendar
ESPN HS TV schedule
My 2011 Legends of the Phog, KC Prep Invitational, KU Alumni games, & Jayhawk Invitational Videos now on Youtube
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