Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Although she knew her team had no chance of being selected for the NCAA Tournament, coach Bonnie Henrickson brought her players and coaches together last Monday to watch the selection show anyway.
Henrickson instructed her players to fill out brackets as the teams were announced and to watch the show as if Kansas was going to be one of the 64 teams announced. When it was all said and done, the Jayhawks indeed were not one of the eight Big 12 teams selected to participate in the big dance.
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The Jayhawks, who were 2-10 on the road during the regular season including an 0-8 road mark in the Big 12, will surely face a tough test Thursday night at Michigan State in the Sweet 16 of the WNIT.
“It was pretty painful,” sophomore guard Kelly Kohn said, “To watch Nebraska, who we just beat twice, get into the tournament, and Iowa State, who we just beat at home…it was tough, it was painful to watch all of the other teams like Stanford and all of the big ones all excited on camera.”
The Jayhawks schedule, ranked as the 18th hardest in Division I by collegerpi.com, featured 12 teams that were selected to the NCAA Tournament. The Jayhawks won five games against teams going to the tournament including at Xavier and only three of their 15 losses came against teams not selected to the big dance.
“It sucked,” sophomore guard Sade Morris said. “Every time a team would come up like Hartford, well, we beat them; Xavier, well, we beat them. And then we saw teams that we think we could beat, and knowing they took eight Big 12 teams…I just don’t even like thinking about it.”
Henrickson organized the group watch party to instill the mind-set of postseason basketball in her player’s minds. The Jayhawks were fighting for an NCAA bid but lost their final five Big 12 conference games to end the season.
“I really felt like we needed to understand the tournament,” Henrickson said. “I wasn’t convinced throughout the year and even at the end of the year that we really understood about the conferences and the at-larges and automatics. Just watching it and filling out a bracket and talking to them about how exciting it was to make the NIT and see their name in a bracket, and just how much more exciting it is when you’re up in the other bracket and up on TV.”
In addition to the eight Big 12 teams selected to play in the NCAA Tournament, Colorado and Texas Tech joined Kansas in the WNIT. Eleven of the league’s 12 teams advanced to the postseason, what better way to get ready for postseason play than to play 16 games in the best and toughest conference in all of women’s basketball.
“I really don’t believe there’s much that we could see in this or the NCAA Tournament that we haven’t seen at some point and had to prepare for at some point in this league,” Henrickson said.
The Jayhawks, who were 2-10 on the road during the regular season including an 0-8 road mark in the Big 12, will surely face a tough test Thursday night at Michigan State in the Sweet 16 of the WNIT. The Spartans were ranked early in the season but faded down the stretch in the tough Big 10 Conference. If the Jayhawks can somehow win and reach the Elite Eight, they hope to play host to that game next Monday night at Allen Fieldhouse.
“We have nothing to lose,” Morris said. “We’re in this tournament and we want to feel good about ourselves and if we can win the tournament, it’s going to give us all the confidence in the world for next year. It could definitely happen. Anything can happen.”
Kansas State, which won the WNIT just two years ago, won the Big 12 regular season championship this year so the Jayhawks know it can be done. And according to them, it will.
“I don’t really hope, I know that by the time I leave here, they are going to be saying our names up on that NCAA bracket during the watch party,” Kohn said. “It’s going to happen next year and the year after that.”
And after the pain of missing out of the big dance this year, the Jayhawks aren’t about to let it happen again. But just for good measure, they plan on winning the little dance first.
—Edited by Sasha Roe
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