Friday, March 13, 2009
OKLAHOMA CITY — Sherron Collins would rise, swish the three-point shot and Kansas would somehow win in the final 30 seconds.
That’s what anyone who has followed Kansas this season thought when Collins, a junior guard, got an open three-point attempt with 38 seconds remaining against Baylor in the quarterfinals of the Big 12 Conference tournament. Kansas trailed 67-64 at the time. It was the kind of situation Collins had shined in all season.
Photo Gallery
Kansas Basketball vs. Baylor
A photo gallery of the men's basketball game against Baylor in the second round game during the Big 12 tournament.
There won’t be a paper during spring break, but all the coverage you have come to expect from The Kansan will still be available at Kansan.com. Follow reporters Case Keefer and Taylor Bern as they keep you up to date on the Jayhawks’ fortunes in the NCAA tournament.
Only this time, Collins elevated freely from the right wing and completely missed. Air ball.
“It just got away from me. I felt it at the end when I let it go,” Collins said. “I just lost it. I don’t know what happened to it.”
That summarizes Kansas’ feelings as a whole after it lost in its first game of the Big 12 tournament to ninth-seeded Baylor 71-64 at the Ford Center. It was only the second time in the history of the tournament that the top-seeded team lost in the quarterfinal round. For the first time in four years, Kansas won’t be the Big 12 tournament champions.
And the Jayhawks had no explanation for it. Kansas coach Bill Self, who said the Jayhawks had practiced “really well” all week, was particularly astounded.
“You’re the Big 12 champs and you’ve got a chance to come down here and validate your regular season,” Self said, “and to not play with more energy than we did is just totally inexcusable.”
But not totally unpredictable, at least not how it started. For the fourth straight game away from Allen Fieldhouse, Kansas fell behind by double digits early.
Baylor guard Curtis Jerrells gave the Bears their largest lead of 30-13 when he hit a three-pointer at the end of the shot clock with seven minutes remaining. Clearly, Baylor was playing better than its 5-11 Big 12 record. It didn’t look like the No. 9 seed.
“Then again,” sophomore guard Brady Morningstar said, “we didn’t look like the No. 1 seed.”
Morningstar blamed the defeat on himself multiple times for his defensive effort against Baylor’s LaceDarius Dunn, who scored 24 points and made six three-pointers.
Dunn made some key plays late in the game, but his most devastating stretch came when he scored 11 points in the opening nine minutes of the first half.
“I feel like I let them get off to a good start and let him get him off to a good start,” Morningstar said. “Which hurt our team and eventually led us to lose the game.”
Even when the Jayhawks were down by 17, however, there was no reason for panic. Kansas had recovered from similar double-digit deficits in road games against Kansas State and Oklahoma by cutting down the lead by halftime and taking control midway through the second half.
This one appeared to be on the same path. The Jayhawks trailed only 37-33 at halftime. They went ahead 58-53 with less than nine minutes remaining when freshman forward Marcus Morris, who had 12 points and five rebounds, made a shot under the basket.
Then, the unexplainable part of the game started. Kansas went the next five and a half minutes without scoring any points, and Baylor regained the lead at 65-58.
“We let it slip away,” Collins said. “I don’t think I led the team as well as I should have.”
He still had a number of chances for redemption in the final minutes. Collins made a three-point shot to cut the lead to 65-64 with 2:50 remaining.
But he followed it by missing layups on the next two possessions. Then came the air ball that assured Baylor victory.
“The bottom line is our team is built around Sherron and Cole,” Self said. “We need those two guys to perform.”
Collins finished with a team-high 16 points and six assists, but shot 6-for-20 from the field. Sophomore center Cole Aldrich grabbed 14 rebounds, but had only eight points.
Neither Collins nor Aldrich could make sense of the defeat. No one could.
“I don’t know what went wrong,” junior guard Mario Little said. “We just stopped playing, I guess.”
— —Edited by Sam Speer
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Comments
One and done
Wow seriously embarrassing. I really hope the team is ashamed. They started out flat and it almost seemed like neither players nor coach cared if the outcome was a "W." We need to toughen up if we're gonna salvage this season in the tourney.
Dear KU Men's Basketball Team, You're a Jawhawk. Anything less than perfection is failure. Love, Your loyal and critical fans.
I feel that as KU fans, maybe our standards are high--yet rightfully so. We're used to perfection, W's, Conference Championships, Conference Tournament Championships, All-Americans, National Championships. So when we lose because of lack of effort (example: each loss this year other than the game in columbia) we have the right to be upset. The basketball team is what we pride ourselves in here in Kansas and when the team comes up short of course we get upset. These young players need to realize what tradition rich progam they are playing for and step it up. Sherron Collins needs to man up and stop making dumb mistakes--a lot of the turnovers are caused by him and that shouldn't be happening your junior year. Cole Aldrich needs to bring back the kid who put Tyler Hansbrough to same last year, becuase that Cold Aldrich isn't the same guy we've had to put up with this.
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