Shane Life

It’s always fun to watch your favorite college basketball team smack your arch-nemesis in the face for 26 minutes of a game. The other 14 minutes were not nearly as fun. But I thought that what Bill Self told his team toward the tail-end of Carolina’s run was just great coaching:

“Hey, if I told you before the game we were going to be up nine with 10 minutes left, would we have taken that? If I told you we’d be up four at the under-eight timeout, would you have taken that?”

Perspective. That’s all it took for the Jayhawks to snap out of their funk and finish the job they’d started at the beginning of the game. The Roy demons are exorcised. Maybe we can lay that bad blood to rest and begin to honor a man who spent 15 years making Kansas a perennial contender in college basketball instead of booing him when he’s announced before games.

Tonight’s final is going to be a terrific game. Memphis has some terrific players, but Kansas is a better team. If Kansas can play as good as they did for 2/3 of the game on Saturday, I think we’ll see crimson and blue streamers tonight. If their defensive intensity remains high, I believe they’ll succeed. If not, Derrick Rose and Chris Douglas-Roberts will play their game. Those two players are the only ones who present significant match-up problems for the Jayhawks.

And don’t give me that Joey Dorsey stuff. KU is just too deep at the post for him to be nearly as effective as he was against the Kevin Love Show. Love isn’t tough and he refused to contest Dorsey underneath. We’ll call him “Darrell Arthur”. But KU has Darnell Jackson, Sasha Kaun and Cole Aldrich who will be more than enough to combat Dorsey underneath.

I imagine that the Jayhawk fan in me is starting to cloud my vision a little, but I think KU is the toughest match-up Memphis will have faced up to this point. Two great teams will clash tonight and I am hoping for that celebration in Lawrence.

ROCK CHALK JAYHAWK!!!

I don’t care too much for the NBA. I have friends who love it, but I could care less for the most part, and for all the standard reasons:

• The players don’t play hard enough
• The players are paid too much
• Free agency gives you no ability to root for teams because players move around
• The dunk contest is boring

Don’t deny that the last one is a reason the NBA has gone downhill. The dunk contest lost its luster after Cedric Ceballos dunked blindfolded. There haven’t been any really innovative dunks in probably 5 years. That is, until last weekend’s All-Star Weekend.

The dunk contest was between Orlando’s Dwight Howard and defending champion Gerald Green from the jump. Both of them had brilliant dunks in the first round and really it was a contest between the two of the them. When Howard pulled out the Superman cape, you knew it was over. Still, Gerald Green’s “Birthday Cake” was one of the most creative dunks I’ve ever seen.

Just before the trade deadline, the Cavaliers, Supersonics and Bulls managed to work out a blockbuster trade that sent Big Ben Wallace and Wally “Don’t try to spell it” Szczerbiak to the Cavs to help out LeBron James. A sidenote of the trade is that it sent former Jayhawk (and Cavs contributer) Drew Gooden to Chicago, where he’ll be reunited with former teammate Kirk Hinrich. Two Jayhawks on the same NBA team? I may have just found someone to root for. Now if they would have only managed to get Nick Collison from the Sonics to the Bulls, we would have really been in business.

As much as I would have liked to see the Jayhawks get it done against the Tigers on Saturday night, I have to give props to Missouri (you’ll never hear me do this about basketball)…they are a talented team and they certainly did what they needed to do to win.

Still, you can’t help but wonder what the Jayhawks will be like next year with all that youth back. Another year in the system will give Todd Reesing the confidence to not look at the sidelines 5 times before snapping the ball. It just looked like Missouri was more mature and confident going into the game and Chase Daniel really impressed me as a quarterback.

I was glad that KU fought back in the fourth quarter. It’s too bad those missed field goals came back to bite them.

I actually will be looking forward to this game next year (as I’m sure many fans will as well) and I hope this rivalry continues to be relevant long into the future.

I made this badge for bloggers who root for the only real school playing in the so-called Border War this weekend. Feel free to put it on your site if you are a Jayhawk.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been a Kansas Jayhawks basketball fan. I remember when I was 12 in 1988 and they won the National Title. I remember going to the Final Four in New Orleans to watch them in 1993 when Chris Webber called the timeout in the title game that sealed the game for North Carolina.

I’ve experienced the pains of losing to Bucknell and others, but I’ll forever be a Jayhawk, even if I went to Graceland.

Last night, I got to do something that I’ve always wanted to as a fan, but never had experienced - I got to see a game at Allen Field House, the hallowed, historic hall where the Jayhawks call home. My buddy Josh procured some General Admission tickets so we took the trek out to Lawrence with Brett and Mike D for an evening in the best college basketball venue in America.

We got there a little late (driving to Lawrence from JoCo when all of you work makes it hard to get there on time), but the game had barely started. We came in through the KU Hall of Fame, which is really cool. They have the old Midcourt up there, which is pretty neat.

The game was against Washburn, so it was bound to be a blowout, but the real exciting thing was that we got to see the return of Brandon Rush to action. Rush, who hurt his knee in the off-season, returned from surgery much more quickly than expected. I imagine that they wanted to give him a test against a lesser opponent just to see how he did. I think he ended up with 7 points, 0 turnovers, and a block.

It was a fun evening and KU ended up winning by more than 30. The halftime show was all of these frisbee dogs and it was pretty funny. One of them had a red-white-and-blue cape, which was hilarious. They also kept showing scores from the Oregon-Arizona football game, which had BCS implications for the undefeated Jayhawks. When they flashed up that Oregon was losing, the place went nuts.

I’m a huge Kansas Jayhawk basketball fan. I’ve never been much of a KU football fan because, frankly, they’ve been pretty terrible for a long time. In the past couple of years, Coach Mark Mangino has managed to win some pretty big rivalry games, but overall his team has underperformed, making it to only 2 bowl games (the Mazda Tangerine and Fort Worth bowls - yikes) since he took over in 2002.

KU has started the 2007 season 6-0 and is ranked #15 in both the Associated Press and Coaches polls. They are, however, ranked #13 in the BCS rankings which could mean big dollar signs for the school that has languished near the bottom of the Big 12 football rankings ever since it went from 8 to 12 teams.

This weekend, Kansas goes out to Colorado to attempt to break a streak of 5 straight losses in Boulder. The Buffaloes are a team that is the only blemish on an otherwise pretty good season for the Sooners. Colorado lost by 27 last week to Kansas State, who we all know got beat by KU two weeks ago at home.

It is looking up for the Jayhawks, but this game at Colorado is exactly the type of game that Mangino’s teams have lost in the past. I’m cautiously optimistic, but I imagine that it will take a game like this and then beating Missouri at Arrowhead Stadium on Thanksgiving weekend for most people to actually believe that KU Football is for real.

As much as I despise Florida and its All-Ugly Forward Joakim Noah, I’m more disappointed in KU getting bounced from the tournament last weekend than in Florida’s repeat (and subsequent discussion of it being one of the best college teams ever).

I can’t figure out how a dude as ugly as Noah is being considered a first-round NBA pick…that guy is NO GOOD. He will stink in the NBA. Mark my words.

Not only that, I can’t figure out why scouts have Brandon Rush and Julian Wright both bouncing from KU to the NBA this off-season. In my opinion, Rush is the only one that could even consider it, but he stands to make a lot more money if he sticks around for a year. His stock could rise significantly (see: Corey Brewer, Florida) if he were to stay and lead the Jayhawks to their first championship in almost 20 years next year.

If both Rush and Wright return, we should be the pre-season #1. If we aren’t, I’ll be convinced that there are people voting that just don’t watch college basketball. For the first 2 rounds of the tournament, no one acted more like a #1 seed than my beloved Jayhawks. After a gritty performance against a tough Southern Illinois team, it was really a let down to see them self-destruct in a way to UCLA. And then, seeing UCLA get dominated by Florida was all the more frustrating, considering that we matched up much better against the Gators.

I think that Sherron Collins knee injury likely had a lot more to do with the loss than we thought, and I am anxious to see how he performs as a seasoned sophomore. Here’s hoping he keeps his weight down because when he lost that 20 pounds, he was KU’s X-factor.

Even if Rush and Wright both go to the NBA, Bill Self will just reload with a bunch more studs. I would just really like to see us play more together as a team than we seemed to in the Sweet 16 and Elite 8. The coming weeks will be interesting and here’s hoping that everyone sticks around to make a run at greatness.

And here’s hoping that I never have to watch Joakim Noah dance ever again. Seriously. That dude got hit by the #1 Ugly Bus when he was crossing Main Street in Uglytown.

Another basketball season, another first-round exit by the Kansas Jayhawks in the NCAA Tournament.

To be totally honest, I never felt really good about this game. In my pool, I almost picked Bradley (almost doesn’t count does it), instead of taking KU to the Elite Eight. Fortunately, I don’t have them out any further than that.

I’m still in decent shape as long as I don’t miss very many more games. Right now, I’m sitting at unlucky number 13, but if today goes well (and I need some help from Georgetown for that to happen), I shouldn’t be sitting too poorly going into the next weekend of the tournament.

I am hoping that with KU out of it, I can look at the tournament a little more rationally. Not that it matters much…I just wouldn’t mind taking home that 65%.

Figure this one out:

KU beats Oklahoma on Sunday. Oklahoma was ranked #18, I think. They beat Colorado who is ranked #25. KU is ahead of both of them in the Big 12 standings (behind only Texas), but for some reason, KU isn’t ranked.

Methinks the pollsters are not watching the Big 12 closely.

At least Andy Katz has them in Bracketology, listed as a #6 seed. That sounds about right (Oklahoma is a #6 as well and Colorado is a #10). Inconspicuously absent? Missouri. Quin is done after this year.

UPDATE: Is it any wonder why Missouri isn’t ranked? Losing by 26 to BAYLOR. Pathetic.