02-25-2006, 12:20 AM
Lovely
Quote:
AUSTIN, Texas -- Did we all lose our minds?
Usually, a college hoops blueblood needs to be dragged kicking and screaming from the national polls, getting every bit of benefit of the doubt along the way. Yet Kansas, now 20-6 overall and tied for first in the Big 12 with Texas ahead of Saturday's showdown here with the Longhorns, had to wait until Feb. 13 to reappear in either national ranking.
Back in January, we in the media were speculating whether the Jayhawks would even make it into the NCAA Tournament after back-to-back losses to Kansas State and at Missouri.
How have we all let Kansas fly so far under the radar?
"I laughed about it," Kansas freshman wing Brandon Rush said of the talk last month that Kansas might not make the NCAAs. "That helped change us a bit. There were all kinds of people doubting us. So we wanted to prove people wrong."
Motivation is a funny thing. Folks find all sorts of ways to get themselves going. For Kansas, it took losing games the Jayhawks thought they should win but in reality weren't ready to. Losing to Arizona and Arkansas in the Maui Invitational wasn't egregious in November. Neither was dropping a home game to a more experienced Nevada team (by two, mind you), nor was being flat against a hot-shooting Saint Joseph's team in New York in early December. Since then, the only blemishes have been the four-point loss at home to K-State and the late-game collapse at Mizzou.
That's it. Not bad for a team whose top seven scorers are freshmen and sophomores, which led the nation in field-goal defense last week (36.1 percent), was eighth nationally in assists per game (18.1) and has had balance with nine different players leading the team in scoring and has nine players who average 14 minutes or more a game.
"(Early on) everybody didn't know their roles and what they needed to do on the court," KU freshman guard Mario Chalmers said.
Chalmers was one of them. Kansas coach Bill Self had to make a few changes to get this team to mesh. The original plan was for big men C.J. Giles and Sasha Kaun to lead them in scoring. Scrap that. Plan B was for Chalmers to run the point and Russell Robinson to play more off the ball. Scrap that, too. Once Chalmers slid over more to the wing and Robinson moved to the point, the team started to mesh.
"It was harder to get scoring [when I was at the point]," Chalmers said. "Coach said we needed another scorer."
"We did a disservice to Mario trying to make him a point guard responsible for everything," Self said. "That was an awful lot on a freshman and he had never been in that situation. It wasn't fair and he was struggling. Moving Russell to the point freed him up."
How many teams are led by two freshmen in scoring -- Rush (14.2 ppg) and Chalmers (10.7 ppg) -- and have a legit chance to reach the Final Four? How many have only two double-figure scorers and have that shot? Only one: Kansas (although in Big 12 games, Rush, Chalmers and Robinson are all in double figures).
Rush has been as good as advertised. He arrived with some perceived baggage because he came from a family that had a history of not finishing what it started (brothers JaRon at UCLA and Kareem at Missouri). Still, Rush was committed to going to Kansas after withdrawing from the NBA draft. The players talk about him as a light-hearted fun soul who keeps everyone loose. Self talks glowingly of him.
"All he cares about is Kansas," Self said. "He's an absolute joy and any rumors about him [just thinking about the NBA] are totally false. He may end up doing that but he's only played one way here -- for Kansas."
Freshman forward Julian Wright has been tantalizing, too. He's averaging 8.3 points and 4.7 rebounds to complement Kaun (8.5 ppg, 5.7 rpg), Darnell Jackson (7.1 ppg, 5.2 rpg) and Giles (6.5 ppg, 5.1 rpg).
"Making the young guys struggle early and making them earn playing time helped," said Self.
Self didn't plan on losing the early games, but in hindsight, he's not complaining.
"If they had been rewarded for not understanding and not playing to the level we needed, then that would have sent the wrong message," he said.
The reality is that Self loves this team a heckuva lot more than the past two. That's not a shot at Wayne Simien, Keith Langford and Aaron Miles, but this team has more cohesion than last season's edition that flamed out in the first-round NCAA shocker to Bucknell. These aren't our words, but theirs.
Self said he doesn't want to say last season's team lacked chemistry, but rather it was a tired lot.
"We're more of a team than last year," said Giles, a sophomore. "We're more comfortable. We didn't gel last year with the seniors."
Texas coach Rick Barnes knows Kansas comes into this game as the hottest team in the Big 12. He knows the Jayhawks can win in Austin and claim the Big 12 title. Even more than that, the Jayhawks could pull off an unlikely trick -- win the national title despite not being ranked in the preseason.
And do you know what helped Self out most? Well, it was all the negativity that some coaches can't stand from the media.
"It punched everybody in the gut," Self said. "We were a stale team early in the year. A lot of the guys didn't understand the pressure of playing at Kansas. All of a sudden everybody was talking bad about us and the questions from the media were all negative. We responded and rallied around that. It was realistic because we weren't playing good and everyone was asking, 'What's wrong with you?' The guys may not admit it but it was way more than they expected so soon. Getting off to a rocky start helped."
Self said the Jayhawks having to win 14 of 16 to get ranked was "good for us."
"Every day they would look up there (at the polls) and see that even if we're doing better, we're not where we needed to be," Self said. "I love this team. They don't care who shoots it. They all play with energy, at a high-tempo pace and put pressure on people offensively and defensively."
Kansas also has overcome the departure a few weeks back of freshman Micah Downs. Sure, it hurt losing another shooter, but the Jayhawks had grown too much to let someone who felt like he didn't fit in Lawrence slow them down. After some initial grandstanding, cooler heads prevailed and Downs was given his release. He eventually landed at Gonzaga.
You could argue that of the three coaches that moved three years ago into new premium jobs, Self had the toughest gig. Roy Williams and Bruce Weber pushed the right motivational buttons and had the experienced teams ready to make a run to the title game at North Carolina and Illinois, respectively, in year two, but Self inherited a disjointed group with a collection of juniors that were hesitant to change.
This team -- one that when it's playing loose and with composure, can beat anyone in the country -- is basically all his. It has taken three seasons and plenty of bumps along the way, but Self has found his groove in Lawrence with a crew that understands what he wants and how he wants to play. And regardless of how it turns out this season, he has enjoyed the ride to this point more than any other season at Kansas.
And even though the polls sometimes get way too much play, this is an instance where the lack of respect for a major power like Kansas actually helped a program get back on its feet.
I'll let you be in my dreams if I can be in yours
