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Kirk Hinrich remains a Jayhawk legend

By Rustin Dodd

Friday, February 27, 2009

If you listened to Kirk Hinrich on Thursday, you realized that the young kid you remember is gone.

Hinrich, Kansas’ former All-Big 12 guard, is 28 now. He’s played for the Chicago Bulls for almost six years, and on Thursday afternoon he met the President of the United States.

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Photo by Weston White

Former Jayhawk Kirk Hinrich was invited back Sunday to retire his number 10 jersey. Hinrich now plays for the Chicago Bulls after four years at Kansas.

Seems President Obama is a Bulls fan. Must be a Chicago thing.

But on Thursday, before his trip to the White House, Hinrich tried to explain how he’ll feel on Sunday, when his jersey is lifted to the rafters of Allen Fieldhouse during halftime of the Missouri game.

“I don’t know if there’s a greater honor.” Hinrich says.

And then someone asked if he specifically chose to have the jersey ceremony during the Missouri game. And, of course, he did.

“Playing in that Missouri-Kansas rivalry for four years, I definitely understood how important it is,” he said.

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Kansan File Photo

And then you realized that Kirk Hinrich hasn’t changed a bit.

* * *

This is a story about a young kid from Sioux City, Iowa, with big ears. This is a story about a coach’s son. But you must know this. It’s hard for me to write about Hinrich.

You see, sportswriters are supposed to be objective. They’re supposed to supply statistically sound, fact-based arguments. And how can you be objective, when you’ve had a poster of Kirk Hinrich tacked on your bedroom wall since 2002?

How can you be objective when, as a high schooler, you grew out your hair, pushed it all forward and wore that matted down mushroom cut? Because that’s how Kirk wore it.

And how can you be objective when, as an unathletic, 5-foot-10 high school shooting guard, you patterned your game off his? You wore your socks like he did, and you copied his mannerisms. You hurt on the inside when he walked off the floor against Syracuse as a loser.

There are so many Hinrich stories.

There was the time Hinrich sprained his ankle against Holy Cross in the first round of the NCAA tournament in 2002. There was a dark cloud hanging over that game. Kansas barely escaped and Hinrich violently rolled his ankle and spent the second half on the bench. He was on crutches the next day and nobody thought he’d play in the second round against Stanford — except Kirk, himself. Of course, he did play and he made three three-pointers and scored 15 points, and Kansas was on its way to the Final Four.

There was the Elite Eight game against No. 1 seed Arizona in 2003, when Hinrich willed Kansas to another Final Four with six threes and 28 points.

And there’s another story about a Kansas-Missouri game in 2002, when Kansas went undefeated in the Big 12. Dozens of NBA scouts flocked to that game. They came to watch Kansas’ inside tandem of Drew Gooden and Nick Collison and Missouri’s terrific scorer Kareem Rush. They left talking about Hinrich. He was the fastest player on the floor that night. And of course, he had the Jimmy Chitwood jumpshot, a beautiful combination of legs and arms and follow-through.

Hinrich was always the fastest player on the floor.

That’s the Hinrich Bill Self remembers. Self never got to coach Hinrich, but Self’s old Illinois teams played Hinrich twice, both times in the NCAA tournament.

“I just haven’t seen guys move the ball up and down the floor like he did,” Self said, before pausing. He began to think about other fast players he’s coached. He mentioned freshman Tyshawn Taylor, and then he stopped again.

“I haven’t seen anybody like Hinrich-fast.”

* * *

It was gray, mild and overcast on Thursday when Brady Morningstar, clothed in a gray sweatshirt, made the short walk from the Jayhawker Towers to Allen Fieldhouse for practice.

Morningstar entered the Fieldhouse and snuck quietly through the hallways, past the campers sleeping on their air mattresses, and back to the Kansas locker room.

Kirk Hinrich used to make this trip every day. This old cathedral of college basketball is where Hinrich transformed himself from a marginal Top 50 recruit into the seventh pick in the 2003 NBA draft. This is where Hinrich inspired a generation of young Kansas kids to play just like him.

Morningstar, a Lawrence native, was one of those kids. He was a seventh grader when Hinrich arrived on campus in 1999 from Sioux City West High School, where he had played for his father, Jim.

“He had all areas of the game, he played D, he could shoot,” Morningstar said. “He was a kid from Iowa that could really play.”

Morningstar attended plenty of Kansas games during those years. He watched plenty more on television. The more Morningstar watched, the more he saw himself. Both were from the Midwest and both would see critics question whether they could be successful at a program like Kansas.

“I figured he was the closest thing to what I could be,” Morningstar says. “Just height-wise, everything. I just tried to pattern my game off of him and watch what he did.”

* * *

Here’s my Kirk Hinrich story.

The 2003 National Championship was supposed to be the culmination ... at least, that’s how I saw it. It was supposed to be a culmination of the careers of Hinrich and his former AAU teammate Nick Collison. I’m still pretty certain that no two KU players have ever been as beloved as Nick and Kirk. They probably deserved a title.

Instead, that game turned into a nightmare of Gerry McNamara three-pointers and Kansas missed free throws.

In the final minutes, as Kansas furiously rallied, Kirk Hinrich jumped into the air and his ankle buckled underneath him. He played those final minutes on a bum ankle. It was pure guts and adrenaline. And then, with a few minutes remaining, Hinrich drove baseline and threw down one of the most ferocious dunks of his career.

On Thursday, a reporter mentioned those two Final Four runs. It’s been six years, so much time has past, and still, you got the feeling those Final Four losses still eat away at Hinrich.

“I feel like if the ball would have bounced a different way a couple times, we would have had a championship,” Hinrich says.

* * *

Bill Self was pretty clear at Thursday’s conference. He said there’s no criteria for retiring a jersey at Kansas. You simply have to be one of the best.

“He deserves it,” Self says. “He without question is one of the best to ever play here.”

Here’s one more Hinrich story. It was 2003, Hinrich was a senior and Kansas was playing at Missouri. The game was tied 74-74 with 25 seconds left.

Nick Collison’s baseline jumpshot had sailed over the rim and Michael Lee had snatched the rebound. Lee spun toward the top of the key and fired a pass to Hinrich, who stood — wait, how far was he from the basket? 25 feet? 30 feet? He didn’t dare chuck from 30 feet, did he? He didn’t dare nail a game-winner with two seconds on the shot clock and a hand in his face? Of course, the ball rattled in, and Kirk was the hero.

Now on Saturday, Hinrich will be back in Allen Fieldhouse and Kansas will be back playing Missouri.

And Hinrich admits that while he’s excited for the jersey ceremony, he’s just as excited for the game. Excited to be back in Allen Fieldhouse and excited to feel the rivalry again.

And as he says this, you realize that Kirk Hinrich might be a few years older, a few years wiser, and the old haircut might be gone. But he’s still the Kirk Hinrich you remember.

“I don’t know if there’s a greater honor,” he said, “than having your jersey hanging in the most historic basketball building in the world.”

— —Edited by Justin Leverett

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