Thursday, March 26, 2009
No verb can accurately describe the physical domination Kansas encountered in its 75-62 defeat to Michigan State earlier in the season.
So Kansas coach Bill Self made up one his own.
Video
The Kansas men's basketball team will play Michigan State on March 27 for a chance to advantage to the Elite Eight. KUJH-TV's Kyle West reports live from Indianapolis.
“We got big-boyed,” Self said.
How exactly does a team get big-boyed? Self identified three main criteria: getting thoroughly out-rebounded, allowing a monstrous individual performance, and not dealing with a road environment effectively.
Kansas did all three in its beatdown at the Breslin Center in East Lansing, Mich., on January 10. The Spartans out-rebounded the Jayhawks 42-31. Michigan State guard Kalin Lucas, the Big 10 Player of the Year, scored 22 points and controlled the pace of the game. The Breslin Center crowd became a major factor when Michigan State went on a 19-1 run in the first half.
Junior guard Sherron Collins cringes at the mention of being big-boyed, but he knows that’s what happened.
“That doesn’t sound good,” Collins, whose nose was bloodied by a Michigan State player in the game, said. “Big-boy only works for us when we big-boy each other in practice. We don’t want to hear it with any other team.”
And the Jayhawks certainly don’t want to hear it associated with another team twice in the same season. Yet that could easily happen if Kansas repeats its performance from earlier in the year when it meets Michigan State again Friday at approximately 8:37 p.m. in the Sweet Sixteen at Indianapolis’ Lucas Oil Stadium.
But no one is expecting it. The Jayhawks say they aren’t even the same team that the Spartans pounded earlier in the season.
“Michigan State played a team in East Lansing that was not the Big 12 Champion,” Self said. “They played a pretty good college basketball team, but not one that played to the level we played at.”
Freshman guard Tyshawn Taylor agrees. That’s why he told his teammates he was rooting for Michigan State to beat Southern California in the second round of the NCAA Tournament in Minneapolis after Kansas beat Dayton to move to the Sweet Sixteen.
Taylor wanted another shot at Michigan State. He’s not hiding the revenge factor.
“People are going to notice how much we matured when we play Michigan State again,” Taylor said. “This is a totally different team.”
Some of the Jayhawks believe the defeat in East Lansing, which in reality was more lopsided than the 13-point deficit, shaped them into the team they are today.
Sophomore center Cole Aldrich hasn’t forgotten the disappointment in the Kansas locker room after that game. But he also remembers how Kansas used it to mature and won 13 of its next 14 games.
“It’s something you don’t want to go through as a team or as a player — learning through a loss,” Aldrich said. “But sometimes that’s the best way to learn, through defeat, and we definitely learned from that.”
But don’t misunderstand: No one has positive memories from what happened at the Breslin Center. Collins said he remembered being shell-shocked. Self called the experience humbling.
Can all that negativity be used as motivation to give Kansas an edge in the re-match?
“Since we lost the first matchup,” Self joked, “I’m saying we have a huge advantage.”
— — Edited by Carly Halvorson
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