Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Elijah Jordan?


I did think the Hilton magic would be our toughest test of the remainder of the season, but I didn't know that Elijah Johnson was immune to the Hilton's properties. It's kind of like one of those Superman comics where when Bizzaro Superman goes to a place with a red sun and he turns stronger than Superman.

I'm going to call that 37 points, perfect from the FT line, with two big ones at the end of regulation. That's subtracting the ill-advised dunk as time expired in OT. On sportscenter, it showed where Elijah said that Bill Self gave him an earful for that, and he shouldn't have done it.

So, is this what this dude has been capable of all along? It was the most scored by any Jayhawk in 15 years. He did almost all of the damage from the 2 position. Mentally, he seems to relax and let his talent shine when he's not saddled with the responsibilities of running the team. Tharpe can't play 40 mins, but our best lineup seems to be Tharpe-Johnson-McLemore-Relaford-Withey, then rotate in Young and Ellis when needed.

Also it had to be Scott van Pelt (Mizzou grad) on Sportscenter who of course bitched about the no-call at the end of regulation.

9 comments:

  1. Love the photo juxtaposition and Superman comparison, Scotty. (You need to do a find-and-replace on "Elijah," though.)

    Never mind the dunk. If we really want to create our own alternate-universe stats, we could take away EJ's foul shots at the end of regulation -- it was a charge, let's face it. And if you do that, you have to take away all his points in the OT, and K State takes sole possession of first [shudder].

    But let's not do that. We all know Kansas got screwed on numerous crucial calls in the 2nd half, esp. against Withey. Let's just celebrate one of the great performances we've seen from a Jayhawk. I didn't think anyone but BMac could surpass BMac's performance in the first ISU game this year, but, I mean, damn.

    Elijah made some absurd plays -- going behind the back at full speed in traffic on a late layup in regulation, heaving up that shot clock-beating prayer in OT. But the thing that impressed me most was nailing the tying free throws with 4 seconds left in regulation -- with the crowd screaming in his face, with the Mayor calling time out to ice him, with all the karmic power of the no-call going against him, with the weight of the world on his shoulders at the end of a roller-coaster season. Clutch.

    CBS's Parrish:

    Kansas was spiraling earlier this month and Elijiah Johnson couldn't help the Jayhawks win.

    Now Johnson is responsible for one of the best performances from any player this season, and KU is as hot as anybody.

    So remember all that next time you crown or kill somebody on Twitter.

    Things change.

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  2. Anonymous9:15 AM

    Scott Van Pelt went to Maryland, he's an ACC guy all the way. But he also attended a game at Phog a few years back on his own time and has given the building and fans more praise than any other ACC alum I've ever heard on ESPN. And you have to call something at the end of regulation. The refs were bad all game, both ways, and it made watching the game pretty frustrating at times.

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  3. Yeah, I enjoy Van Pelt. (And I've enjoyed watching his Terps this year, esp. the Turgeon body-double flash mobs -- speaking of Van Pelt.) SVP is the one who always makes oblique references to The Wheel when doing Phog highlights -- he clearly loves hanging out in Lawrence.

    As I said, I do think it was a charge -- my problem with these kinds of controversies, though, is that the national commentariat focuses on one play and ignores the rest of the game (because, in many cases, they didn't watch it). And now the Big 12 is following suit and "reviewing" that call -- never mind all the bogus whistles against Withey that had such a huge effect on us throughout the game. It's Exhibit B in my case for how SportsCenter distorts games.

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    1. Who was the Mizzou guy, I thought there was on on Sportcenter?

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    2. There probably is. Unfortunately, the journalism world is littered with former Tigers.

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  4. (Thanks for fixing that sp. error.)

    Snowed in here today watching the Worldwide Leader, every damn commentator is whining about how Iowa State wuz robbed--except Stephen A. Smith, who made the obvious point that there's never been a perfectly-called game in the history of sports. But no one even asked another obvious question: Why didn't Iowa State show up in the overtime?

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  5. Yeah, this stuff seems like weak sauce. Guess I'm glad we have no weather that forces us to stay inside...

    But what a crazy outing by Elijah! (You're welcome on the spell-check.) Man, when he hit that three (I know, right? like, which one?) I thought I was going to wake the baby I was shouting "holy f**k!" so loudly...

    And lest we get distracted by scoring: he also led the team with seven assists, against three turnovers. Great game all around.

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    1. Sorry about the spelling Yancy. I was spelling it the biblical way. I guess its hard for me to complain when my favorite player's name was "Anfernee".

      In a spirit of non-collaboration though [ :) ], I would like to emphasize that Elijah did most of his damage while Tharpe was in the game to relieve some of the ball handling and offense directing pressures. That seems like it's becoming Self's go-to lineup, particularly when B-Mac fades out during a game like he did here.

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  6. And now the conference taints our win further by announcing that "mistakes were made" at the end of regulation. DID ANYBODY BOTHER TO WATCH THE WHOLE GAME! [tears hair out]....

    Now we're not going to be able to get a fair shake from the refs for the rest of the season. I hope our guys can at least take some motivation from all this disrespect.

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