Posts Tagged ‘Kansas State’
Goodbye OKC… (And Good Riddance!)
I’m going to break this blog up into a two-day event. With so much information to cover from the weekend in Oklahoma City I’m going to break my final blog into two parts: game-related and non-game related events. And to keep with the theme created by the University of Northern Iowa — schooling KU — I will tackle this blog with an educational approach.
What we learned this weekend:
Cole is going pro.
The combination of Sherron Collins graduating and Xavier Henry more than likely going pro, Cole Aldrich is pretty much a sure thing to jump ship as well. Adding to this is the little scare he got in the lost to Northern Iowa, where he rolled his ankle pretty severely. What if something more severe were to happen in his senior season — a la Sam Bradford — and he suffered a possible career-ending injury? I don’t think he’ll take the chance and he’ll go for the guaranteed money awaiting him at the next level — especially with already being a projected lottery pick.
Xavier is not NBA ready and will be a major work in progress at the next level.
In two postseason games, the freshman from Oklahoma City scored a combined 19 points. That’s a mere two points more than fellow freshman phenom John Wall of Kentucky scored in one game this weekend. In comparing the two, Henry was far-and-away the worse of the two talented frosh.
In the two games, Henry shot a combined 8-of-13 and was 3-for-6 from behind the arc. Wall, meanwhile, scored 31 points in his two games and went 10-for-16 from the field and a very impressive 6-for-10 from 3-point range.
While all signs point towards Henry heading for the pros, I hope that NBA teams take caution in what they are drafting in Xavier. He’s talented, but nowhere near the type of talent needed to succeed in the pros. Wall is ready, Henry is not.
K-State fans truly do believe that KU is their biggest rival.
The large group of Wildcat faithful making the trip to both games on Saturday prevented any true home court advantage for the Jayhawks. The K-State fans followed suit with the Northern Iowa fans and were salivating throughout the game with the possibility of their fellow Kansans falling in the early rounds.
As my sister said, it was kind of sad to see. On Thursday, the KU fans were hooting and hollering to see K-State pull away from North Texas. And then again on Saturday, those Kansas fans that stuck around after the loss kept pulling for their in-state neighbors. But knowing K-State fans, had the shoe been on the other foot, they would do anything to see the Jayhawks lose.
It is most definitely sad to see that only one fan base approaches this as a rivalry — Kansas State — while the other side, KU, can really care less. As I’ve written in a column, KU doesn’t approach K-State as a rival. All of KU’s anger and hatred is geared towards Missouri
Poor K-State fans!
Pullen is the better Chi-town guard.
I’m a KU grad. I love Sherron Collins — ever since he used the word “gooder” in an interview I had with him during his freshman year. He has the heart of a champion, but doesn’t have the outside shot necessary to truly be a champion.
In KU’s lost to Northern Iowa, Collins went 0-for-6 from 3-point range — for those counting, he had two fewer 3-pointers than forward Marcus Morris in the game. Against Lehigh, he was 2-for-4 and everything he put up just looked ugly.
Now, take a trip down I-70 to Manhattan and take a look at fellow Chicago guard Jacob Pullen. The Kansas State leader had a decent first game against North Texas, going 2-for-6 from 3-point range and scored 15 points. Fortunately for the Wildcats, they didn’t need Pullen as much because Denis Clemente carried the load in a the rout of the Mean Green.
But turn the clock forward two days and when a birth in the Sweet 16 was on the line, the leader of Kansas State rose to the occasion — unlike his KU counterpart. In a close game with BYU, Jacob Pullen played the game of his life — literally. He scored a career-high 34 points, going 7-for-12 from behind the arc — and was 1-for-3 from inside the arc — and was a perfect 11-for-11 from the free throw line.
Plain and simple, when KU needed its leader, he failed to deliver. When K-State needed its leader, he delivered them to the promise land. As long as Pullen stays out of foul trouble — and Clemente continues to compliment his fellow guard — the Wildcats will make a deep run into the tournament.
The MLB isn’t the only organization with officiating issues in postseason play.
The officiating is Oklahoma City was bad. REALLY BAD! In all six games I watched, the officiating was one-sided throughout each game. Every team had reason to complain — UNI wasn’t whistled for a foul until the 10-minute mark against KU, at which time, the Jayhawks already had six against them. In the K-State game on Thursday, North Texas was shooting one-and-one by the 11-minute mark in the first half.
Against BYU on Saturday, K-State was whistled for more early fouls in the second half than the Cougars were. But even then, they should have easily been in double-digits by the midway point of the second half. It’s sad to see such a great sporting spectacle such as the NCAA tournament constantly get tarnished by bad officiating. I guess it could be worse, they could rule a foul ball when it was inside the foul line by a foot (thank you MLB refs for being worse)!
UNI has perimeter shooters, which will help them get a long way in the tournament.
For all the complaints about the poor officiating and the horrendous shooting performance by the Jayhawks, I have to give some serious mad props to the Northern Iowa perimeter shooting. Especially Ali Farokhmanesh. The guy was hitting lights out from 3-point range throughout the KU game — and for those who didn’t get to watch the UNI vs. UNLV game, he hit the deep, deep 3-pointer in the final seconds to finish off the Rebels — so what did KU really think he would do with the ball in his hand, wide open, UNI up by one with seconds left in the game. He would shoot, and make it. Ultimately putting another dagger in another team.
Stay tuned for the conclusion…
Subscribe to the comments for this postOn The Road Again…
Traveling is nothing new for a sports reporter. But boy, its beginning to get ridiculous for me. Over the last six weeks, I have made five trips to Wichita — and in the one week I didn’t go to Wichita, I still had to drive up to Colby.
It all began Feb. 6 with the Garden City basketball games in Derby (southeast edge of Wichita), then it began to get rolling. On Feb. 19-20 I drove to Pratt and Wichita for regional wrestling, then back to Wichita the following weekend for state wrestling. Sub-state basketball kept the streak alive when I had to cover GCHS boys basketball at Wichita North on March 4. Making it three straight weeks of traveling to and from Wichita.
I kept the streak alive myself the following week by traveling to Wichita to see Jeff Dunham — Silence, I kill you! — as my Christmas present. But now, the travel begins to get a little longer.
Next stop: OKLAHOMA CITY!
“Goin’ places that I’ve never been…
Seein’ things that I may never see again”
Thanks to my wonderful girlfriend — and her well-connected uncle — the two of us are heading to Oklahoma City for the weekend to watch Kansas State and Kansas play in the opening two rounds of the NCAA Tournament at the Ford Center.
While this trip will be STRICTLY PLEASURE, I do plan on keeping up with “work” by doing a few blogs about the experience of the NCAA Tournament. This will be my first trip to any basketball postseason tournament (I didn’t even get the chance to go to the Big 12 Tournament during my five years at KU). So this is definitely shaping up to be quite an adventure. One that I will always remember, and something that I may never see again!
Big Ticket Game
At the beginning of the men’s college basketball season, the most anticipated game would have been Kansas at Texas. Then Texas lost. And lost. And lost.
But no worries, another game is upon us that has grown greater intrigue than that lackluster Big Monday game on ESPN. Wednesday brings us Kansas State and Kansas.
However, this latest game will not be nationally televised — go figure that ESPN would miss out on the best Big 12 Conference game of the season to air UConn at Notre Dame and Duke at Maryland. Only one of those four teams is currently ranked in the top five.
Meanwhile, both Kansas State and Kansas are ranked in the top five.
But if watching it on TV isn’t your cup of tea, and you would prefer watching it live you may want to think again.
A pair of tickets for Wednesday’s game, with a parking pass, on eBay went for nearly $1,000.
Or if that’s too pricey for you, stubhub.com has tickets for a little lower prices. But the cheapest you can find on there: $374.99 for a ticket that’s just about near the rafters.
No matter where you are watching the game — unless you are like me and will be working — it guarantees to be one that both fan bases will be talking about for at least a week… Until the Big 12 Conference tournament begins in Kansas City.
By the way, a strip of tickets for all sessions to the Big 12 tournament are currently running between $395 and $2,324 on stubhub.com.