Kansas' past tournament pain fuels success

Thursday, March 15, 2007

There’s no real way to capture how it feels to get upset in the NCAA Tournament. Plenty of other things almost match the pain of losing your last game to a team you should beat. Having to watch the Chevrolet “This Is Our Country” commercials every five minutes during a sporting event comes close. So does pulling into a QuikTrip and not finding an open gas pump.

Those things are definitely not pleasant, but they’re not quite the same as an early exit. Something about an upset really stings — the shock, the emptiness, the helplessness.

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Last year the team was too young to know the mistakes that the previous team made against the Bison.

“You can’t describe it,” junior Russell Robinson said. “It’s definitely a feeling that I wouldn’t want anyone to have.”

Kansas can make that feeling go away. It’s simple: Win the early round tournament games. And this year, the Jayhawks are going to do that.

OK, I know you’re probably thinking, “Boy, some prediction. First he gets that stupid Chevrolet song stuck in my head and now he’s writing that a No. 1 seed is going to beat a No. 16 seed.”

For whatever it’s worth, in 1989 two 16 seeds came within one point of upsetting a No. 1, so it’s not exactly a guarantee. But I’m not just talking about the first round. I’m saying Kansas will not be upset this year. Not in the first round, not in the second round, not in the Sweet 16. The Jayhawks are going to at least make the Elite Eight.

The reason? This team plays with anger, because they’ve felt the pain — the pain that came from losing to Bradley last year. The past two years’ disappointments hadn’t felt it.

Two years ago, Kansas was senior laden. Wayne Simien, Michael Lee, Aaron Miles and Keith Langford had made two Final Fours and one Elite Eight. They were college basketball royalty. That confidence cost them as they lost to an overmatched Bucknell team.

Last year the team was too young to know the mistakes that the previous team made against the Bison. Sasha Kaun only played three minutes that game. Robinson and Darnell Jackson never left the bench. They only hurt because they got sore from sitting for too long. And Julian Wright, Brandon Rush and Mario Chalmers weren’t even on the team. You can’t feel the pain from watching the game on TV.

Now, after losing to Bradley in the first round, they’ve felt it. They’ve spent their entire summer second-guessing and disbelieving. They’ve listened to the media ask all week if they weren’t motivated for first round games if they ever fixed a Hot Pocket before a first round game.

The players respond politely. “It’s behind us,” Robinson said. “Hopefully we can move on.” But inside, their hearts are throbbing.

That’s evident from Kansas’ last two months of play. The Jayhawks have perfectly channeled their rage into success on the court.

“We had to toughen up, because we weren’t very tough,” Kansas coach Bill Self said.

Now they are the toughest, scariest group to play in the entire nation. Just look at how they’ve won games since February. The Jayhawks can play any style and win in any fashion. They obliterated Iowa State and Nebraska, lit up a Bramlage blackout and out-gritted an always-tough Oklahoma team twice.

All of those games were accomplishments, but none of them stick out like Kansas’ two victories against Texas. The Jayhawks came back from a 15-point deficit the first time and a 22-point deficit the second time. And this was against Kevin Durant. No way would last year’s team beat Durant and the Longhorns.

That’s because they’ve felt the pain. It’s tough to describe how it makes you feel, but the Jayhawks don’t have to. Instead, they’ll show the nation what it’s like to play with pain during the next two weeks.

Dent is an Overland Park sophomore in journalism.

— Edited by Sharla Shivers

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