Monday, February 11, 2008

Texas Two-Step

After Saturday night's bizarre win over Baylor, we now have Big Monday at Austin on just a day's rest. This seems too early in the season for such a huge conference battle. How do you guys think we'll respond?

Chris and I regrettably missed that Baylor game. Thoughts, anyone? There seems to be controversy on the message boards over whether to be more concerned that we were blanked from 3-point range and allowed 90 points (including 30 from Jerrells), or encouraged that we won despite all that.

There seems to be a growing consensus that our guards aren't defending as well as earlier in the season, after Jerrells' 30 and Pullen's 20 in the K-State game (and Fraschilla must have said 'Kansas isn't stopping dribble-penetration' about 50 times in that Mizzou game -- didn't seem to affect the outcome one bit, though). I'm inclined to think it's just that we're facing tougher guards at this point than in the noncon -- Baylor does have one of the most heralded backcourts in the country.

Tonight we face maybe THE best PG in the country, D.J. Augustin, so maybe we'll learn a little more about where our backcourt D is at this point.

Still and all, despite the defense and 3-point misses, our guards acquitted themselves well against Baylor: 22 for Russell, 17 for Sherron; plus, everyone keeps saying Mario had an off game, yet he shot 4 for 5 and notched 7 assists, 5 boards and 4 steals. Tough crowd.

Also, thanks to Chris for finding this SI item on our DJ.

2 comments:

  1. Oh, my God... the end of that D.J. article:

    Jackson broke down again, out of the blue, outside the tunnel at halftime in Boston College's Conte Forum on Jan. 5. He had scored 15 points in the first half, and the Jayhawks were leading 47-29. As the rest of the Kansas players took the floor, fans peering over the railing could see Jackson welling up, and Chalmers embracing him, asking, "What's wrong, D-Block?" Through tears, he answered, "We're having such a great year, and my grandma's not here to see it."

    Dammit, I told myself I wasn't going to cry over KU basketball this season ...

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  2. Okay, if I ever finish my grading I'll do things like praise dgl for the nice post, thank Leeroy for the SI link, agree (tentatively) with Scott about cheering for Mizzou, and complain (possibly in all caps) about our rebounding in the 2nd half of the Texas game.


    For now, though, I just have one question: did anyone besides Emily (who sent it to me) see the story about Keith "Freeze" at kusports.com?

    He is playing for Quin! That has to be the weirdest thing I have heard all week. Wonder how they get on . . .


    Oh, and one more thing about yesterday's game: as upsetting as certain things (REBOUNDS!) were, it was a fun game, and made us look pretty good on national tv, so it's not all bad (BUT WHY CAN'T WE REBOUND?).

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