The Kansas basketball team has speed and skills to its advantage in most matchups. The fans stack another advantage to their side — superstition.

Many KU fans follow superstitions to give their favorite team an extra bit of luck. These superstitions range from simply wearing a Jayhawks shirt on game day to rituals following each basket.

Greg Weseloh, Liberty, Mo., sophomore, wears a sweatshirt that his dad bought him during the 1988 Final Four. He wears it for big games when he thinks the basketball team needs a boost of luck.

“I know for me it’s a heavy sweatshirt so it gets the blood flowing and gets me all sweaty,” Weseloh said. “Then I get more pumped and I feel like that energy might transfer over to the players.”

A lucky sweatshirt isn’t enough superstition for Chris Kelliher, Overland Park senior, who has multiple game day shirts. He said that he wore one shirt for home games and another for away games. He also wears “lucky pajamas” to bed the night before a big game and pounds fists with everyone around him when Kansas hits a three-point basket.

“I don’t know if they really work. I gotta do what I can to try and help us win,” Kelliher said.

Both Weseloh and Kelliher said they saved their superstitions for bigger games, like rivalry games and matchups against better teams.

“I don’t want to overuse it. I don’t want to take away its magic if it’s not necessary,” Weseloh said.

Dan Wann, professor of psychology at Murray State University and Kansas alumnus, said that superstitions helped fans deal with the fact that they have no effect on the game.

“People want to have control over their environment, and superstitions give them a belief they have a part in the outcome for the team,” Wann said.

He said that while some fans hold superstitions for fun, his studies of sports fans showed that fans thought performing their superstitions had some sort of impact on the game.

Wann said Weseloh and Kelliher’s superstitions were among the most common types. Lucky seats, food and clothing were the top superstitions his study found.

Some of the more wild superstitions his study found included a Notre Dame football fan who read three passages of the Bible and drank three beers before each quarter of a Fighting Irish game. In another case, a woman made love to her husband while wearing her favorite university’s football jersey and matching socks the night before each game.

Kansas fans will test their superstitions this month as the Jayhawks fight their way through the Big 12 Championship and NCAA tournament.

Senior guard Russell Robinson encouraged Jayhawk fans to keep using their superstitions to help the team through the postseason.

“We need you to wear your lucky socks, wear your lucky shirt; whatever you do to win the games, we need you to do that the rest of this season,” Robinson said.

—Edited by Samuel Lamb