Monday, February 4, 2008
BOULDER, Colo. — The intensity and furor that Kansas showed in the nonconference season and early Big 12 play felt like a distant memory in the game’s first 20 minutes. A loss to, gasp, Colorado, seemed like a possibility.
Kansas Coach Bill Self didn’t want his team to lose its second straight game, especially to the dismal Buffaloes.
“No one is going to throw you a pity party because you lost a game,” Self said to his team at the half with the game tied at 30.
Photo Gallery
Kansas Basketball vs. Colorado
A photo gallery of the Kansas men's basketball game at Colorado.
And no one had to. Kansas (21-1, 6-1) won 72-59, using an 8-0 run to open the second half, and put it away with an 11-2 run late in the game on Saturday.
“I think coach changed it at halftime,” sophomore guard Sherron Collins said. “We came out with more energy and changed it from there.”
Collins and the other guards needed the talk the most.
They just weren’t pressuring the ball like they used to. Earlier this season, guards Collins, Brandon Rush, Russell Robinson and Mario Chalmers stole as easy as Danny Ocean’s crew. On Saturday, though, they had about as much success with theft as the wet bandits from “Home Alone.”
KU’s defense didn’t steal the ball once in the first half, and the defensive woes went far deeper than that. Colorado’s guards got almost any shot they wanted. Richard Roby made his first four shots, and Cory Higgins made all five of his in the first 20 minutes. They outplayed Collins, Rush and Chalmers, who scored a combined 10 points on four of 10 field goals.
Chalmers blamed the altitude. Collins talked about overall flatness. Rush said the team just wasn’t focused. Whatever it was, Self wasn’t happy. He told them Colorado scored half of its points on plays they had scouted. Then, he used the pity party line to really wake them up, and it worked.
“I think we just got used to the atmosphere,” Chalmers said, “and we wanted it more.”
Collins, Rush and Chalmers scored 22 points on eight of 13 shooting in the final 20 minutes. Roby and Higgins scored just 12, and all of them were Roby’s. Chalmers sparked the early 8-0 run with two steals.
“I think they felt like they had something to prove,” Self said.
It’s a good thing Kansas found its stride in the second half. The Jayhawks will need to be playing at a high level tonight against the Tigers.
Today’s game against Missouri could be far more challenging than it seemed a few days ago. Back then the Tigers were reeling from the suspensions of Stefhon Hannah, Leo Lyons, Darryl Butterfield, Jason Horton and Marshall Brown for staying out past their midnight curfew at a Columbia, Mo., bar, and they lost to Nebraska at home.
Missouri erased some of those bad memories on Saturday. The Tigers, who reinstated Brown and Lyons, beat Kansas State, becoming the first conference team to top the Wildcats. There’s no word on whether Butterfield or Horton will be able to play tonight. Hannah, who broke his jaw at the bar last week, will be definitely be out.
“He is what makes them go,” Robinson said. “He’s the point guard on that team, and he keeps them together. He’s a big scoring option.”
Still, the absence of Hannah won’t make it easy. K-State already found that out, and the Jayhawks struggled against Missouri two weeks ago.
Other than Kansas State and Colorado for a half, Missouri has been the only conference team to give Kansas trouble. Self said the Tigers’ guards played some of the best defense he had seen all season. They kept Missouri close the entire game before the Jayhawks finally won by six. Last year at Allen Fieldhouse, Missouri led Kansas most of the game before losing by three.
Suspensions or no suspensions, the game is going to be tough.
“You can find out a lot about teams when they’ve gone through adversity,” Self said. “And obviously, Missouri’s risen to the occasion.”
—Edited by Matt Hirschfeld
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