Freshman forward Thomas Robinson takes off for a dunk Tuesday night against Pittsburg State. Jayhawks will take on the Hofstra Pride for the first time today.
Friday, November 13, 2009
The Jayhawks look to win their 37 consecutive home opener tonight when they play host to Hofstra at 7 p.m.
In their first game of meaningful play, Kansas will try to improve off their 27-8 team from a year ago and prove their No. 1 ranking is not a fluke.
“I think those two exhibition games kind of got us a little bit more prepared for Hofstra and we’re looking forward to it,” junior guard Tyrel Reed said.
Kansas comes off a two-game exhibition stint where it out-scored its opponents with a 48.5 scoring margin of victory.
Hofstra went 21-11 last year, but did not play any exhibition games to prepare for this season. The Pride has never played the Jayhawks nor has it ever played against a top ranked opponent.
Kansas coach Bill Self said Hofstra’s Charles Jenkins, Colonial Athletics Association Preseason Co-Player of the Year, will give them a good test with his versatility and strength. Overall, Hofstra had a lot of turnover from last year’s team, but they have experience, returning five letter winners and two starters.
“They have a ton of newcomers,” Self said. “But they do return five players who played an awful lot of minutes.”
The players think the preseason was a good way to get into the flow of the season. Markieff Morris said he does not know much about his opponent yet, but the team is good enough to beat any opponent.
“I feel like if we play like we’ve been playing,” he said. “Then I think we can do good against anybody. Not to take anything away from the last two teams we played, but they were warm-up games for us and the real show starts Friday.”
Starting the season against an experienced Hofstra team tonight and Memphis on Tuesday will help the Jayhawks quickly gauge their talent, senior guard Sherron Collins said.
“The next couple games coming up are going to be people who test us,” Collins said. “We have to find out where we’re at and find our identity.”
The preseason did however expose a lot of strengths as well. Three freshmen — Xavier Henry, Thomas Robinson and Elijah Johnson — proved themselves worthy to be part of the rotation, taking the slack off of Collins and junior center Cole Aldrich.
Collins said it was a breath of fresh air to see their performance, but when the big games are on the line, look for him or Aldrich to have the ball.
“It was more of a freedom thing in the first two games,” he said. “Coach gave everybody the same amount of freedom. I think me and Cole will have the ball in our hands a little bit more as these games come in.”
Self said if he were to grade his freshmen on defense, he would give them a “C,” He said Henry and Johnson have the potential to be lock down defenders and for Robinson to be a disrupter in the post.
Another area of concern for Self’s team is the guarding of the ball, he said. The preseason competition was nowhere near the level the next couple of weeks will be.
“The exhibitions are fine and certainly should show you from different competition what some weaknesses are,” he said. “Although we played good against Pittsburg State I think we have been exposed a little bit and certainly against Fort Hays we were exposed.”
“The competition is definitely going to be elevated a tremendous amount.”
— Edited by Megan Morriss
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