Monday, November 10, 2008
SAN ANTONIO — As odd as it sounds, the painful scene that unfolded Friday had a strange familiarity to it, almost like a home video.
Kansas had just lost to Missouri in penalty kicks, and goalkeeper Stephanie Baugh sat in the corner of the goal, cradling her legs and facing the right post. She finally got up after a few teammates and trainers comforted her.
At midfield, a minute after she missed a penalty kick, Julie Hanley sat there helpless, head in her arms. She was the last one to walk off the field and join the postgame huddle.
“It sucks to lose like that,” Francis told his players, a few of them crying.
The grief was real. But ordinary. This routine scene of tears and disappointment happens too often for Kansas soccer. For the third time in four years, the Jayhawks sustained a crushing loss in the Big 12 Tournament and will have to wait to find out if their season will continue.
Right now, this year’s team is nearing the end of the waiting stage. They waited at their hotel in San Antonio on Friday night, on the plane ride back home on Saturday, on their day off on Sunday.
Now it’s Monday. The day they find out. Tonight the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee decides if it wants to give Kansas its first spot in the tourney since 2004 or if it wants to leave the team feeling more heartbreak than it did on Friday.
The Jayhawks deserve a bid. They beat Texas A&M twice and won at then-ranked Central Florida, and played in one of the top leagues in the country. They had an RPI of 40 as of last week, before they beat Texas A&M a second time and got their 12th victory.
Yes, the all-important 12th victory. It’s a magic number for Francis.
“I’ll be very surprised if we don’t get in the tournament, very surprised,” Francis said. “It would be a travesty if we don’t.”
He spoke Friday a few minutes after the loss to Missouri. Like the scene of tears, his words were an echo from the past.
Three years ago, he was sure his team would make the NCAA Tournament. They were 11-7-2. They tied for second place in the conference. They had Caroline Smith, a senior All-American and the greatest player in KU history. He was so sure they’d make it that the team had a watch party for the selection show.
So on a Monday evening in November, reporters and players crowded into the Memorial Stadium press box. They watched as the Selection Committee made its picks. Five teams from the Big 12 got their name called — Texas A&M, Iowa State, Nebraska, Colorado and Texas, which lost its only meeting with Kansas and finished with a worse record.
Francis would tell reporters that up until the final choice, he believed. Then reality set in. Kansas didn’t make it. The team filed out in silence.
The next year the Jayhawks went 11-7-2 and lost in penalty kicks in the first round of the conference tournament. Francis didn’t bother to schedule a watch party. He alerted the team by text message, saying they didn’t make the tournament. That was it.
Now the Jayhawks are back on the bubble, in that place where one opinion on the Selection Committee can mean the difference between tears and joy. They’re the sixth best team in the conference. No more than five Big 12 teams have made the NCAA Tournament in the last three years.
Francis is still confident. He’s already scheduled practice for Monday afternoon and told his team to expect to play this weekend.
If he’s right, an entire roster will get its first taste of the NCAA Tournament. If he’s wrong, well, we all know how that scene unfolds.
— — Edited by Ramsey Cox
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